Today we published a detailed analysis of search innovation techniques by Nitin Karandikar. The post is long, but well worth reading if you are interested in where search is headed. To complement the post, we're running a poll asking which of the 4 categories of search innovation that Nitin identified, do you think is key to the next generation of search? The 4 categories are:

• Query pre-processing, to try to divine the user's intent (e.g. Hakia, Collarity, Powerset)
• Enhancements to the underlying data sources (e.g. Retrevo, Rollyo, SearchMash)
• Improving the underlying search algorithms (e.g. Indeed, Spock, Riya)
• Results visualization and post-processing (e.g. Zilloa, Quintura, Trulia)

Here is the poll: