Vertical Search is one of those confusing terms that means many different things, depending on where you are coming from. To most RWW readers, Vertical Search tends to mean “the search space that Google has not yet grabbed and that does not require a major technology breakthrough such as natural language search”. That’s a good enough definition from a start-up perspective. For traditional media, Vertical Search is also about creating a space that Google cannot simply steamroll over. Traditional media may call it Rich Data or Information Services or Data Products, but the end goal is the same.

For the sake of consistency I will continue to call this Vertical Search, although the opportunity is deeper than simply search. In fact, in order to build sustainable advantage against the Google steamroller, it has to be deeper than just search.