Many tech startups fail, not because of a product that wasn’t well thought out or executed, but because it didn’t fit well into a persons life. Tablets have been around for years but the first ones that came out were not user friendly. The user would need to be trained on how to use it. Only recently, with the iPad, it seemed someone figured out how to make it user friendly.

Similarities can be drawn to the use of search engines. The early search engines would understand key terms when searching. For instance, when searching for an antique lamp stores in the Toronto area. One would type into Google “antique lamp store Toronto”. The sentence is not something someone would guess to type in to find what they’re looking for. The user would have to be trained on this before hand.

You may be asking, why didn’t the first search engines fail like the first tablet? The reason is because there was no viable alternative to search engines back then. The only way to find websites was to either clicking on an endless number of links to find the information you’re looking for, or use a search engine. With the tablet, the alternative was the desktop or laptop computer.

Now that there are alternatives to search engines like social media, search engines will need to become more user friendly. The next step for search engines are to understand natural language. If one were to look for antique stores, they could type in “Where are there antique lamp stores in the Toronto area?” and the search engine would find it. The search engine would understand the context of the sentence (a question) and find possible results to answer the question.

You’ll notice natural language technology already being used in smartphones to understand voice commands. The Siri feature on the iPhone (and similar features on other smartphones) is a good example of this.