Marshall K. at ReadWriteWeb had a post (http://twurl.cc/2u4) that hit on the fact that very few users actually make use of the address bar. As became apparent in the comments on that post, it turns out a lot of us skip the address bar and instead enter URLs, site names or even name fragments into Google search. One, we trust that Google will decipher our misspellings or compensate for our poor recall of domains (“hmm, was that a .com or .org?”). But since bandwidth isn’t an issue for many of us, it’s no big deal — and actually a welcome form of protection from accidentally going to the wrong site — to view a list of search results before clicking through to the intended site. A second more, in exchange for accuracy and peace of mind.

So, all that to say that perhaps the address bar is like the appendix of the browser. It once served a function, but evolution has made it obsolete.

I would expect that the social referrals would be one way, but it’s going to take a hell of a long time for them to overcome the Mainstream Search Engines. Along the same lines, research/news story/blog reference hyperlinks (egads – what hyperlinks were originally intended for!) do have some traction today since people usually go to a source that they trust or agree with.