Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on search-engines http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic search-engines Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Kartoo - a strange search engine Wed, 21 Aug 2002 14:41:06 +0100 KartOO is a new meta search engine with a graphical interface. It's based on a technology developed for 3 years by Laurent Baleydier and his team. KartOO is programmed in Flash although you have an optional traditional HTML interface. What makes KartOO interesting is that it elaborates the so called semantic links between results. Those links are represented by sinuous lines that link the balls. Amidst said lines you find a word that is the one the algorithm considers that links both results semantically. By hovering on top of it you can highlight the related balls. When hovering over the ball you can see all its related semantic links highlighted. <A href="http://www.kartoo.com/"><A href="http://www.kartoo.com/">http://www.kartoo.com/</A></A> [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0112016/">Jon Alsbury's Radio Weblog</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Good find by Jon, this looks interesting. I can't quite work out what it's doing as the results appear on a number of "maps" which don't appear to be connected.  Is it arbitrary as to what appears on each individual map?  Do the size of the result "balls" indicate relevance?  And what do the colours signify. It looks pretty amazing, and I get the feeling there is something powerful going on.  But I need help with this one...</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000412.html The expert web comes alive Thu, 17 Apr 2003 10:21:34 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://doc.weblogs.com/2003/04/17#yesThereAreMoreOfUs">Yes, there are more of us</A>. I'm a lot more careful than I may seem, at least when it comes to other family members. So I've been slow to blog about the good work my older son, <A href="http://globealive.blogspot.com/">Allen</A> (who is, like, 24 years older than the younger one), has quietly been doing on a project he only told me about a month ago, long after it was well underway. The project is <A href="http://globealive.com/">GlobeAlive</A>, the slogan of which is The World Live Web. It's basically a 'live' search engine: one that finds human beings who might be available to answer questions in real time. There's a lot of synergy with what <A href="http://globealive.com/">Britt</A> is doing with <A href="http://xpertweb.com">Xpertweb</A>, and what Mitch has been saying about the <A href="http://www.ratcliffe.com/bizblog/2003/03/23.html#a952">Strip Mall Infomediary</A>, both of which also, like GlobeAlive, could stand to benefit from the kind of identity infrastructure I wrote about in <A href="http://linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6741">Making Mydentity</A>, and expect to see coming out of <A href="http://www.sourceid.org">SourceID</A> and <A href="http://www.ascio.com/">similar</A> efforts. There are also natural synergies with <A href="http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html">smart mobbery</A>, <A href="http://www.socialtext.com/">social software</A>, <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0114939/outlines/moblog.html">moblogging</A>, and most of the stuff in <A href="http://blogs.it/0100198/">Marc's blogrolling column</A>. And, of course, instant messaging with presence detection, which is why Allen and friends are currently developing a new client that uses <A href="http://www.jabber.org">Jabber</A>. What prompts me to start talking about Allen's work with GlobeAlive is <A href="http://www.blaserco.com/blogs/">Britt Blaser</A>'s post yesterday, <A href="http://www.blaserco.com/blogs/2003/04/16.html#a124">What's That In Your Genes?</A> Britt does a nice (and flattering) job of explaining the fertile ground where the Xpertweb and GlobeAlive circles overlap. Some interesting context: Allen isn't your typical Web entrepreneur. He isn't even a techie. He's a writer and a philosopher whose research tends to want answers he found Google and other Web search engines didn't quite provide. What he wanted were the kind of answers you can only get from live human beings real experts on, say, relativity theory or Ludwig Wittgenstein (two subjects he mentioned in recent conversations). Not finding what he wanted with Web search engines, he decided to invent an engine that searched for live people. Here's how he explained it to me on the phone a few minutes ago: <BLOCKQUOTE> GlobeAlive is for when you want a person and not a site. If you want a site, Google's your engine. If you want a person, GlobeAlive is there for the job. Or will be. We're still in beta, although we have a very devoted group of people involved already. Is it for when you're looking for experts? It can be for any form of interaction; not just an expert answer, even though that's the most common use at this early stage. But I don't want this to be thought of as just another expert site. It's not just that. It's a live search engine. Later we may want to make a distinction between an expert, a conversationalist, or a somebody with something to sell. But for now the primary use will be to find experts, and get expert answers to questions. Where does it stand technically? We've been working and reworking it for going on two years now, but basically it's still in beta. Right now we're working with GlobeAlive desktop, which is a crappy instant messenger. That's why we're working on a Jabber client right now. What we're want next is to scale up on both the supply and the demand side. More experts, more participants, and more users doing searches. Right now it's like Google with a handful of Web sites to search. But we've been at this long enough to know that the idea does work, and it does scale. And it will grow organically, and in value. The bigger it gets, the better it gets. How does an expert keep from getting bothered by the wrong questions? You only come up in searches when you want to be found. Your keywords and nothing else. (It's a bit more complicated than that, I think; but that's what I wrote down.) What about your business model? Revenues come from paid placements. We've played with the word "chatvertising." In any case, appropriate advertising. Positive-value stuff. Nothing insulting or intrusive. And we want to put in financial incentives for participants in the form of tiered revenue sharing. </BLOCKQUOTE> I'm intrigued by the idea that the Web, or the Net, is missing a live element, in spite of all the efforts going on with VoIP, instant messaging and other stuff. And I'm impressed that Allen has already taken this thing as far as he has, entirely on its own bootstaps. He's funded it himself, out of his own pockets, and with the help of many friends who believe in the idea. He's also <A href="http://globealive.blogspot.com/">started a blog</A>. That's in beta too, but coming along nicely for a rookie effort. So check it out. Sign up, if it intrigues you. Since Allen's now out here in the blog world as well, I'm sure he'd be interested in all kinds of connections and constructive feedback. [<A href="http://doc.weblogs.com/">The Doc Searls Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> GlobeAlive does look interesting so I signed up.  This is fairly simple although choosing the keywords to be associated with takes some time and is pretty much unassisted. In order to be available to help people you need to run one of their desktop clients.  I'm doing that now but I will be glad when I don't have to because it's awful.  The proferred Jabber is no more convenient for me than their own client.  I want something that lets me continue to use my existing IM client Trillian. Since nobody else seemed to be about to ask me a question I decided to try and chat with myself.  This experience has left me a little skeptical.  The client just connects, automatically.  There is no page-request, no introduction, the guest is unidentified and all I would get as a clue is their last search term (if any). As a protocol I think that this leaves a lot to be desired of.  It would only take a few false and/or malicious connections before I might wonder if this is going to be a bother. I think that the person wanting to chat should at least be asked their name, and a precis question.  Since I am, presumably, helping them for free I don't think it's too much to ask that I shouldn't have to do it blind! Anyway, that said, I am ready to help anyone on my choosen topics.  Ask away! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001404.html Another desktop search dud Tue, 16 Mar 2004 08:34:23 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://www.onfolio.com/">OnFolio</a>. Jeremy Allaire <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0113297/2004/03/14.html#a287">just blogged</A> a new product - called OnFolio. It helps you keep track of on-line blah blah blah.  I have a few questions first: <UL> <LI>If it's about on-line blah blah blah - then why do I have to download anything?</LI> <LI>Whatever happened to RIAs?  </LI> <LI>Whatever happened to the new generation of apps and servcies that reside in the browser?</LI> <LI>Have these folks ever heard of Laszlo?  Has Jeremy (who's firm - General Catalyst have an investment in Laszlo) ever told OnFolio about Laszlo?</LI></UL> I'm just not into trial versions of downlaoded software anymore.  That's oh so 90's. Today there's no excuse why folks can't provide basic functionality, with limited capacity or features (for instance) for FREE - and then AFTER you've provided me with some value - I'd consider giving you some money. But get the order straight: <OL> <LI>- no downloads - get Laszlo</LI> <LI>- deliver value</LI> <LI>- then I consider paying.....</LI></OL> [<a href="http://blogs.it/0100198/">Marc's Voice</a>]</blockquote> I'm a little more forgiving than Marc about the choice of building a desktop application. But I would pickup and echo his point 2 because we've seen this tool before. I've played with it for a few minutes and 2 questions leap out at me: <ul> <li>What on earth possessed them to integrated so closely with IE? I hate IE and never use it. Straight away this product alienates me. Don't you care about other browser users?</li> <li>Is it anything more than a fancy bookmarks application? How does it add value to my research? How do I make links between items? How do I track what has changed? Where are the clever value-adds? The reports feature is nice, but only if I'm prepared to invest time in building the collections. I see nothing to compel me to make that investment.</li> </ul> In short this appears to be YAICDSP (Yet Another Ill Conceived Desktop Search Product). Frankly, despite the neglect it has been shown, <a href="http://www.thebrain.com/">Personal Brain</a> remains a vastly superior organiser. And some dedicated users have created an XML export option which could be used to duplicate OnFolio's meagre publishing abilities. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002007.html DelphiGroup: Making the case for taxonomy Mon, 16 Aug 2004 11:56:57 +0100 I'm reading an excellent report from <a href="http://www.delphigroup.com/">Delphi Group</a> called Information Intelligence: Content Classification and the Enterprise Taxonomy Practice (see <a href="http://www.delphigroup.com/coverage/taxonomy.htm">here</a> for a download link). The gist of the report is that, for enterprises, search is not enough. The report makes the case that whilst search technology has improved a lot in recent years, and continues to improve, the majority of professionals still find it an unsatisfactory way to work and often spend in the region of 20% of their time searching for information. Often cited problems were constantly changing information and a lack of precision about what they were looking for. The report then makes a case that introducing taxonomy based services can significantly improve performance and save money by eating into that 20%. Whilst the report is funded by a number of companies with a vested interest in taxonomy (for example Autonomy or Verity) the case seems to be well made off the back of a credible piece of research (which is a follow-up to similar research done last year). My summary: <ul> <li>82% of users do not have access to a centralized point of search & information across information systems</li> <li>The provision of a singular navigational front end (e.g. taxonomy) and omnipresent search tool that collectively aggregate disparate content resources, can, from an end-user perspective, deliver the simple single point of access that many users strive for.</li> <li>Lack of organisation of information is the number one problem in information management & retrieval.</li> <li>If professionals are spending 20% of their time (or more) looking for information then this results in an opportunity cost & represents a runaway expense item in many organisations.</li> <li>Keyword search assumes you know what you are looking for & that it an often erroneous assumption.</li> <li>75% of people surveyed during a Yahoo market research project preferred browsing to searching.</li> <li>In some instances it is easier to discover information about a particular subject if you see it in the context of related thought. Browsing encourages associative thought.</li> <li>The availablity of taxonomy eliminates the need for the researcher to completely understand the subject before issuing a query.</li> <li>Browsing via a taxonomy in essence provides an education on the subject and lends insight into the issues or facets of the subject.</li> <li>The number one source of frustration with search of on-line content is the fact that the content they search for is constantly changing, which both frustrates the user and reduces the effectiveness of simple search.</li> <li>Use of a taxonomy can provide a dynamic bookmark so to speak, a one-stop-shopping guide to all relevant content on a subject. Return to a subject node exposes the latest and complete collection of content about that subject area. This addresses the number one cause of frustration, the dynamic, volatile nature of information sources.</li> <li>Navigation of a well-designed interface to information on a web site/portal automatically directs the researcher to other relevant topics.</li> <li>The tagging effort represents another process that a business must undertake in order to obtain the benefits of a taxonomy. In some cases this could be done manually. But this approach is not easily scalable.</li> <li>Will authors be willing or available to perform this classification manually?</li><li>68% concur that the process of locating & retrieving the information needed to effectively execute their jobs is difficult and time consuming.  Not a single respondent strongly disagreed with this statement.</li> <li>Whilst users see some improvement in information retrieval over the last 2 years, their attitude towards its level of difficulty remained virtually the same.</li> <li>Respondents overwhelmingly pointed to the fact that business content is constantly changing and has to be continually relocated.</li> <li>Findings pointed more towards the speed and ease of use of retrieval environments and less to effectiveness, as the primary point of pain amongst todays business people. </li> </ul> I think this report is very well worth reading to anyone interested in search, taxonomy, or knowledge organisation. Of course I too am baised because I think <a href="http://www.evectors.com/itkcollector/">K-Collector's</a> integrated approach addresses a number of the concerns raised by this report. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002448.html