Supernova Panel: Search Far from Mature

With regard to mobile search, Ask.coms Lanzone said Americans want to get the Internet on their devices "the way they get it on the computer. Here [in the United States] it is about rendering and speed," he said.

While his company is aggressively looking at this space, U.S. customers see SMS (Short Message Service) as complex and slow and want a more robust experience, he said.

Technoratis Sifry said people want devices to be more aware of factors such as location, so if they were in San Francisco searching for, say, a store, they would not have to specify their location.

Google GM David Girouard outlines the companys strategy for enterprise search. Click here to read more.

There is also a lot of opportunity around notification-based services in the mobile search space, he said.

With regard to privacy and the possibility of more information available on the Web moving behind a firewall, Sifry said there will always be "people out there who want to be found. I am not concerned about the entire Internet going behind a firewall," he said.

"But it puts an enormous amount of responsibility on us as service providers as to what we turn on by default. We also only index publicly available information and will not make information available that the owner does not want to be public," he said.

Jooksters Thomas said his company empowers users by giving them options as to what information they want public and what they want to remain private.

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, views and analysis on enterprise search technology.