Search engine designers trying to provide better information

• A panel of industry executives gathered to speak at the Harvard Business School's ongoing Cyberposium conference here Saturday roundly endorsed the idea that making search tools more relevant in customers' lives will be the most important factor in driving their companies' success.
• Other companies represented at the conference included search heavyweights Google, Yahoo and MSN.
• Initiatives focused on the push to create a more personalized search engine are already under way at all of the companies represented at the conference.
• The experts said that garnering more involvement from people doing searches, and persuading those people to trust the companies with greater amounts of personal data, will be crucial to future search technology.
• Bradley Horowitz, director of media search at Yahoo, said that his company's portal approach, in which it offers an array of personal services such as Web-based e-mail and shopping, in addition to search capabilities, is helping to convince customers that they can help shape new offerings.
• "The user is expanding the amount of personal data they share with us in the form of their address books, e-mail accounts, or their shopping habits," Horowitz said.
• "By gathering this information we already have and studying that behavior, we can see a significant opportunity to apply the existing user relationship into new tools."
• And the personalization trend won't apply just to creating new search engines, according to the experts.
• By allowing people's online habits and preferences to influence advertising, a key source of revenue for search companies, the speakers said, everyone involved will benefit.
• To many eyes, Google has led the way in tailoring its strategy to meet the needs of both users and advertisers, with the success of its AdWords and AdSense programs.