When using the Internet, one of the most challenging tasks is to select the right search engine to assist you in getting the valuable information that you need.  Search engines have become far more complex over the past several years and the public appears to be relying on few search engines these days.  A quick survey of my office, suggests that when looking for something on the Internet, most of my colleagues use Google.  I suggested they name another search engine, and everyone here said Yahoo!  Check out a list of 100 alternatives from Charles Knight, a Search Engine Optimizer (SEO), from 2007:

 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alternative_search_engines.php 

As Rohit Bahargava points out in his piece about Human Search Engines, people are relying on word-of-mouth and association to filter content to their needs. 

http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/trendspot_the_r.html

A problem with this sort of behavior is that the most popular may not necessarily serve the needs of the searcher.  What is more of a problem, however, is the suggestion that celebrities and popular preference seem to be making content selection more difficult, but they limit the ability of a researcher to perform logical search.  Is it possible that with enough resources a developer could manipulate popular culture streams to market his information (no matter how accurate) using highly charismatic spokesmen?  I suppose in someway I simply described marketing.  With more people relying on the internet for their information using limited search engines, the ability to manipulate content searches seems more likely if the searcher is relying on a trusted source.  Traditionally these sources were academia, editorial boards, etc.  If the trusted sources are now the marketing managers in New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles, we appear to be in trouble.