Soon, perhaps sooner than some in the digital industry care to realize, search engines like Google will become outdated. No matter how advanced a search engine is, as long as it is a machine system, it will eventually become a commodity, just like telephones and washing machines. There was a time when consumers raved about the new technology of the automobile. It was amazing, life changing, trans-formative technology. For a while. This is the limitation of all technology: the more useful an instrument, the quicker it will be copied and the quicker there will be movement to usurp its position in the market. That is already happening in the search industry. As search is copied, as consumers get used to it and are less dazzled by its newness, they want something more. Stepping into that void are organic services able to attract people on a human level – curated merchandise, shops that offer expertise and personal service, elements once reserved for the brick-and-mortar world are now going virtual. This is the organic side of the Internet. In this phase, if you cannot touch the hearts and minds of the people, success will be fleeting.
