hutcheson - 2:20 pm on Jul 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

Oh, there's no doubt Google is "good enough" for the "casual user". The question is, when YOU want to get serious about information, where do YOU go?

For instance, the only place on the web to buy used books is alibris.com. Amazon lists a smaller selection of used books, but they make up for it by having bigger prices. Ebay offers a MUCH smaller selection. Barnes and Noble is fine ... for the tiny fraction of books that are still in print. And even Google offers a much smaller and quite out-of-date selection. So the borderline-literate who's looking for a bestselling potboiler -- will get along fine with Google. Someone who knows what he's looking for, will have been exploring other options.

And, of course, what kind of queries you tend to get, will depend on whether you focus on offering a unique niche service to knowledgeable, informed consumers, or on flogging entertainment to impulse-spending couch potatoes.

So where to the KIC's go, and how do you teach an inexperienced but sentient creature to be a KIC?