Internet in India – the role of search

Search is here, search is big!
I moderated a panel discussion yesterday on ‘Internet in India – the role of search’ hosted by exchange4media.com on occasion of the launch of their first book – Gold Sift – Leveraging Online and Search Engine Marketing, authored by Vikas Malhotra.
Even though I generally played a good boy, my formidable panel didn’t disappoint. On the panel were 3 brand owners/CEOs from the Internet space (Niti Batra,Dinesh Wadhawan and Sanjiv Bikhchandani; 2 successful Internet entrepreneurs – Alok Mittal, now with a leading early stage venture fund and Sidharth, who leads a prominent interactive agency, and the author of the book Vikas.
For me the conversation was a learning. I am not summarizing what was said as you can read it here and here.
I wish someone from the media planning and advertising fraternity had shared their perspective on my audience question ” How do planners and advertisers (particularly the offline brands) see search marketing and how are they planning to use it”.
My key take-away – there is an opportunity in vertical search – like that thought.
Vikas shared an interesting statistic – only 8% of the Internet is presently searchable – opportunity? Challenge?