Google holds the current and future of search in the palm of its hands. So when it decides to provide a sneak peek into its vision for the future of Search, it’s hard not to listen with bated breath.

Google’s VP of Search Products and User Experience, Marissa Mayer, recently revealed her vision for Search in a post on the Official Google Blog, and it raised some interesting directions for the world’s fastest growing online pastime.

Inspired by a self dissection of her search needs on a particular Saturday, Marissa reviews what she perceives to be the current deficiencies of search, which she suggests as “opportunity for innovation, change, and progress. There are lots of ways that search will need to evolve in order to easily meet user needs.”

I’ve captured some quotes that give you the gist of each area, but I highly recommend visiting Marissa’s post for an entertaining insight into her prediction for search evolution.

Modes
“search still isn’t accessible enough or easy enough. Search needs to be more mobile - it should be available and easy to use in cell phones and in cars and on handheld, wearable devices that we don’t even have yet…”

Media
“The 10 blue links offered as results for Internet search can be amazing and even life-changing, but when you are trying to remember the steps to the Charleston, a textual web page isn’t going to be nearly as helpful as a video. The media of the results matters…

What if results pages pulled the best media together and laid it out such that the most useful content was not only first but largest? What if we laid out content in columns to use more of the width available on newer, wider screens?”

Personalization
“search engines of the future will be better in part because they will understand more about you, the individual user… Maybe the search engines of the future will know where you are located, maybe they will know what you know already or what you learned earlier today, or maybe they will fully understand your preferences because you have chosen to share that information with us.

Language
“The basic concept is - if the answer exists online anywhere in any language, we’ll go get it for you, translate it and bring it back in your native tongue. This is an incredibly empowering idea that could really change the way that users experience the web and communicate with each other”

When you consider how far search has come (in large part thanks to Google) in past 10 years, the ideas that Marissa raises could be closer than we think.

Whether you’re an internet or search engine marketer, a business owner leveraging search to reach new customers, or simply a user with a keen interest in Search - pop over to Marissa’s post and indulge in a little crystal ball action.