SearchResearch (10/24/25): The shifting of SearchResearch

 I've noticed a subtle shift.  

The longer I write this blog, SearchResearch, the more changes I see.  Content on the web changes, the tools we use change--the whole ecology of writer, reader, producer, and consumer has dramatically shifted since I began writing back in January, 2010.  That was 15 years ago.  In Internet years, that's about 1500 years.  (I figure Internet years are about 100-to-1 with Human years.)  I've written 1478 posts and we've had 6.23 million reads. You have written around 10 comments / post, for which I thank you.  

In my first blog post I wrote: 

I have to warn you before you start reading: In the back of my head, I want something tangible to emerge from this. Ideally, a book, or a series of books, about how people search... how they research... and how they get good at doing this.

Congrats. We've done that.  The Joy of Search came out in 2019 to reasonable success.  I'm happy about how well it worked as a book.  

And I see that this blog is shifting a bit too.  

As you've seen, our typical pattern is that one week I'll pose a Challenge--usually a question about some interesting aspect of the world that requires using a particular research skill that you, dear reader, need to figure out.  Good news here, you figured out some deep skills.  

Some of my favorites have been skills like knowing Control-F (the skill of finding text),  using site: restriction (to search just within a particular website), or using deep resources like Google Books or the Newspaper archive.  

But with the rise of AI tools to help out with doing deep online research, it seems that our skills need to shift as well.  You still need Control-F, but I find myself using tools like site: less-and-less these days.  

So... I think we need to shift the way the SRS blog will operate.  As I wrote in 2010:  

When you think about it, search is not something you're born with--there's no inherent, latent skills for research (the way there is, say, for walking or spitting). Some people are really good at it, others just never quite get the basics. 

That's still really true--but more people know Control-F these days, and AI is doing a lot of the search-specific skill. 

HOWEVER... I still find myself using somewhat more subtle online research skills. The technical problem for this blog is that it's hard to frame the skills in terms of motivating Challenges.  So the blog is shifting a bit as well to try and communicate those sensemaking and deep research skills.  

I WILL pose interesting Challenges from time-to-time when I just can't resist their siren call, just not every other week as we've been doing.  

Instead, I want to point out some of the deep research skills we need to cultivate.  And that will require me telling stories, rather than posing a research Challenge.  

Bear with me as we try to figure out the new format.  I'm confident that we'll find something that's deeply interesting and fun.  Stay tuned as SRS starts a few experiments.  

In my next post I'm going to point you to some people who are writing about this new, AI-linked research methods.  That will be entitled, Key skills you need to have to be an effective online researcher and will be a collection of some posts by other folks who have good things to teach us as well.  

Stay tuned.  Keep reading, keep leaving comments.... 

And keep searching.