Future of Search: Google Has a Problem

"Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has a problem, and it's not a technical problem," said serial entrepreneur Keith Teare on Tuesday while speaking in New York on a panel about the future of search engines at Betaday, an annual event hosted by innovative incubator Betaworks for its portfolio companies.

Google is the undisputed champion of search in the page-driven world of the traditional Web, "but search in the world of messaging is still wide open," continued Teare, who is currently the CEO of Speedi.ly, a Betaworks-backed stealth-mode startup focused on "making sense of the real-time data stream."

Google's recent deal with Twitter Inc. goes some way toward helping the search giant "index real-time data, but indexing doesn't really help Google if they can't rank it," said Teare.

"The Web has become this stream," echoed Gerry Campbell, the CEO of Collecta.com, a real-time search engine developer. "It's all about the messages."

"With Google, I don't have to remember anything because I know I can find it," added Andrew Weissman, the co-founder of Betaworks. "But in the future of search, if something is interesting, it will find me."

Weissman and Betaworks co-founder John Borthwick know a thing or two about search. Betaworks incubated the Summize real-time search engine, which was sold to Twitter in July of 2008 and now powers search on the popular microblogging service.

Betaworks, which Weissman and Borthwick describe as a "next-generation media company," is becoming an increasingly important presence in the New York tech startup community. Over the last two years, the firm has developed social-media tools, such as the popular Web address shortener bit.ly, while also investing in about two dozen Web 2.0 companies, including gdgt.com, Hot Potato, OMGPOP, Outside.in, Someecards, StockTwits Inc., Superfeedr, Tumblr Inc. and TweetDeck Inc.

Betaworks, which is set up as an operating company with shareholders rather than as a VC firm with limited partners, has itself attracted some impressive investors, including RRE Ventures, a venerable venture capital firm co-founded by Jim Robinson IV and Stuart Ellman.

Ellman was one of many A-list investors who attended Betaday, Betaworks' third-annual gathering of portfolio entrepreneurs, partners, investors and colleagues, held this year at the Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel.

Other early-stage venture capitalists who came included Brad Burnham, co-founder of Union Square Ventures; Josh Kopelman, Howard Morgan and Charlie O'Donnell of First Round Capital; Alan Patricof, founder of Greycroft Partners; Bryce Roberts of O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures; Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital; and Eric Wiesen of RRE.

Angel investors Roger Ehrenberg and Howard Lindzon -- both entrepreneurs in their own right -- were also there, as was NYCSeed's Owen Davis.

Betaworks-backed entrepreneurs were also in abundance, including Iain Dodsworth (TweetDeck), Charles Forman and Dan Porter (OMGPOP) and Steven Johnson and Mark Josephson (Outside.in). There were also some entrepreneurs whose companies Betaworks doesn't invest in, such as Campbell and also Mike Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media, whose backers include Greycroft, Ehrenberg and Lindzon.

There were also executives from Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) AOL LLC (where Borthwick and Weissman were previously executives), IAC/InterActiveCorp (NYSE:IACI), Hearst Corp., Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), MTV and Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA.B).

The day began with a colorful keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk, founder and host of Wine Library TV, a daily online video show about wine, as well as the author of the best-selling book, "Crush It!: Why NOW is the Time to Cash In On Your Passion."

"Story telling is the game," said Vaynerchuk. "That's why we all like Walt Disney. Social media changed the landscape. You can tell a story now for virtually nothing, and that is a very game-changing play because you can build a brand." - Mary Kathleen Flynn