DMeurope has a very interesting article describing how Google might look like in the near future.

Google calls its vision Universal Search. And no, it doesn't mean they are going to index all those weird Martian porn sites. Frankly, that would be impossible, even for Google.

The US in bits and pieces

Google wants you to have all the data at the distance of a click. So, if you do a search, Google wants to search not just within text, but also images, video, news, maps, books, and so on...  rank the data and present it to you in real-time.

Wow. That sounds great! But wait a minute. Do I want to see all that stuff at the same time? I don't want to be flooded with info when I'm just trying to find a nice restaurant or my celeb gossip.

Take it easy.

People at Google think things through. And they know they must present the info in gradual stages. Right now there is no way the human-machine interface could manage that much info at the same time.

Wait a minute, don't. Just blow me away!

But there is an interface that could: multi touch screens! Just now, when I was writing this article I remembered seeing a video of Jeff Han doing his incredible Multi Touch presentation in TE.

Just do a search for "multi touch interface" and you'll actually see a bit of US (Universal Search) in action. The SERPs now include YouTube results, and that's exactly what I was looking for. Good one Goog!

You might recognize the technology from Steven Jobs' keynote address from Macworld 07. Yeah, that's right, iPhone.

This is a kind of human-machine interface that could process all the info Google wants to push our way at the same time. So hold your collective breaths and start saving some money for a serious hardware upgrade.

So, is the US just out to frustrates us all?

Note: all these US innuendos are not in any way a criticism of the Bush Jr.  Or are they...?

US sounds great, and done the right way could blow our minds. I mean, it will be great to mesh different information in the search results. The only big problem that I see is data overdose. And for that we need to develop a new human-machine interface. Multi-touch seems very cool and the way to go, at least in my opinion.

For the Search Marketing market, the implications of US might be that we need to start thinking in terms of global optimization strategies. SEM, SMO, SEO, PPC + video optimization, map optimization, etc... more and more the SEO will have to stretch his/her abilities and learn to deal with different kind of media. 

My prediction is, deep down everyone will love the US.