In this recent chart published by Einstein Research, user behavior is show in a variety of ways that links back to a search usage case.  Besides the 42% that are looking to learn about new products and services, users are also creating content that in fact makes the search so relevant with over 40%( 41%) contributing to the overall stream.

It was released today that Microsoft will add a search feature to widgets. I find this particularly interesting as it shows the strong possibilities toward the next generation application strategy around run-time widgets as a key part of a user experience to link browsers between online and mobile.  Even though iPhone Apps will hit 1B downloads shortly, there with are approx. 30K applications in the iPhone index compared to approx 100M+ Websites online and approx 1M mobile websites ( about 100K sites that can be considered media properties according to AdMob). With the new growth shown in the Android Camp,  the excellent track record of the Blackberry App store,  the coming Palm device,  Nokia’s comeback and all the other device and carrier platforms re-tooling for this next wave, I really feel the strong web anchor will show its face and offline run-time widgets showing an interesting growth opportunity in the next wave.

Here is the PCworld Article on Microsoft’s new announcement