There was a time when innovation in organization and file search meant a library of folders where we could store documents, videos, images, and more. We could name these files and visually search within folders by filename to find what was needed. It worked quite well when we housed files on a single self-organized internal drive.
A day doesn’t go by without employees mentally asking themselves;
• Where did I store that file?
• Who sent me that file?
• Which file has the information I need?
• Is this the latest version of the file?
• Who has a copy of the file?
Files are a part of the fabric of the workplace but not without challenges. According to Gartner, it takes 18 minutes to find the right file. The modern workplace needs an advanced solution to help employees find files.
It turns out that file search challenges aren’t unique to the business world.
The Quest for Open Search
Today, when content is stored within a silo and only accessible through that specific platform, it becomes something of great annoyance. People want to have access to their content in a centralized location. They want content and file search to evolve and generate results across all of their business or personal platforms.
Until recently, this issue persisted in platforms housing content such as movies, files, images, games, and medical records. In fact, for a time, the only platform that had figured out how to search across disparate systems was Google. They were one of the original innovators of search at scale because we could simply type in something we wanted to see, and their algorithm would pull thousands of results across the web to put that information in front of us.
Google started in 1998, and for over a decade federated search only existed among leading search engines. Open search was at the heart of the company’s genius, and now companies are seeing the writing on the wall and have created technologies to respond to consumers’ need for centralizing search.
For marketing teams, social media analytics tools like HASHATIT and Brand24 allow you to view hashtag engagement across multiple platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and more. This is very useful for monitoring campaigns with specific hashtags in one unified location.
For movie buffs, streaming systems Roku and Apple TV have created cross-platform search functionality that will search for shows and movies across all of your favorite apps like Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, and more. While apps like Yahoo Video Guide provide similar cross-platform search functionality to your mobile device.
For medical records and diagnoses, iShareMedical lets consumers manage medical records from multiple doctors and healthcare facilities in one place. While IBM Watson Health searches at scale across hundreds of thousands of servers to accelerate discovery to solve health challenges.
In gaming, many developers are allowing for cross-platform play so that gamers can access the games they want to play from their PC, console, and even mobile devices. This allows you to play your favorite game from just about anywhere, as well as to play with friends who don’t share the same gaming systems. Fortnite and Sea of Thieves are great examples of games that are offering cross-platform functionality to their audiences.
As the world’s appetite increases for more content in any form, it’s inevitable the proliferation of technology opens an inconceivable black hole of opportunities and consequences.
We need startups and mature businesses to forge new paths to simplify the complex. Companies like Digitile are breaking barriers to tackle new problems like file search.
The more content available, the more barriers there are to accessing it. Looking ahead, innovators must find a way to appeal to consumers and provide a centralized location for content and file search.
