Is it possible to be hooked on your search engine? What if you were challenged to give up your regular search engine for a week, and try something new. Could you do it? What would motivate you to make the change? If you were promised better results, an easier to use format, compensation to use the search engine, the opportunity to share results with friends and connect with the rest of the search community, would that inspire you? Even if you felt that your new engine was better, what do you suppose the odds are that you would return to your Googling ways after the week was up?

In a really interesting series on online habits, “Search Insider” Gord Hotchkiss examines the attachment online searchers have to Google, and how the addiction could (possibly?) be broken.

I think this is a fascinating topic, because the quality is not necessarily the motivating factor behind change. So many other factors (convenience, placement, appeal, ease of use, visual presentation) play into the choice we’ve made for our searching, and we take the choice very seriously, even becoming irritated with those who don’t search the way we do. Check out the article… and feel free to comment… do you think Google will continue to dominate, or can another kind of search sneak in to steal the show?

-Daniel Yomtobian, CEO