All hail the information triumvirate!

By Vegard Sandvold on February 15, 2009 | 1 Response

Wikipedia has come to dominate Google web search results. It often ranks #1 for searches on common topics like Internet and Evolution. Is it true that Wikipedia articles are the very best source of information for all of these topics? Or are we witnessing the effects of a popularity feedback loop, fueled by the principles of least effort, and our tendency to stick with the first and obvious answers? The web link graph is fundamentally a product of socialization, and Google is fundamentally a social search engine. A popularity bias in inherent in all social information systems, leading us all down the same well-trod path. Could it be that, counter to our expectations, the natural dynamic of the web will lead to less diversity in information sources rather than more?

FASTforward'09 - Day 3: Which Path to The Future Will You Take?

FASTforward’09 – Day 3: Which Path to The Future Will You Take?

By Thomas Kjelsrud on February 13, 2009 | Leave a response

“Engage your users” was indeed an important message being sent by Microsoft/FAST at this years conference, examples being drawn from sites like Twitter and Facebook. However, Microsoft’s software and road-map did not entirely reflect this message in the online space, leaving customers working out the path for their products or sites themselves. Improvements were... Read More »

Microsoft Surface Enterprise Search Demo at FASTforward’09

By Vegard Sandvold on February 11, 2009 | Leave a response

A Microsoft Surface Enterprise Search demo is being presented by Conchango on FASTforward’09. Richard Wand writes about their efforts to create a playful search experience, using Microsoft’s new multi-touch screen-table-surface technology. Words like engaging, social and entertaining are not often used to describe enterprise search solutions. So what is different about this demo?
Update: A... Read More »

FASTforward’09 – Day 2: Vertical Business Strategies

By Thomas Kjelsrud on February 11, 2009 | Leave a response

The day kicks off with announcements from Microsoft regarding the search product lineup. The products and licensing models will be simplified and separated into 3 flavors: stand-alone FAST Search for Internet, the heavily emphasized FAST Search for Sharepoint version, and the free version of Search Server Express which has over 100,000 downloads to this... Read More »

FASTforward’09: Pre-session Impressions

By Ted Elvhage on February 10, 2009 | Leave a response

Microsoft FASTforward’09 started with a pre-session for the company’s European partners, gathering more than a 100 people a couple of hours before the official start of FAST’s yearly conference. It was a good opportunity for an interactive session with the FAST management team, and for listening to the stories of some of the European... Read More »

FASTforward'09 - Day 1: Get Social

FASTforward’09 – Day 1: Get Social

By Thomas Kjelsrud on February 10, 2009 | Leave a response

FASTfoward’09 (on Twitter & official blog) kicked off in Las Vegas yesterday with a bang.  Over 1000 bright heads were gathered in a football size like room within the never ending halls of the Mirage. This years flavour is “Engage your users” as we are looking at the big picture on search moving forward. ... Read More »

Watch Out – Intelligent Information Retrieval is Coming to a Business Near You!

Watch Out – Intelligent Information Retrieval is Coming to a Business Near You!

By Truls Berg on February 9, 2009 | 3 Responses

The Norwegian National Collection Agency (NCA) chose to use a search engine as a central component of their information infrastructure. Per Waage (CEO) is expecting to collect more money through monthly down payments, having more information about people’s financial assets at his hands. Moving from an old mainframe architecture to the FAST Enterprise... Read More »

On-demand Cloud-based Enterprise Search

On-demand Cloud-based Enterprise Search

By Vegard Sandvold on February 2, 2009 | 6 Responses

An interesting discussion is taking place in the Enterprise Search Engine Professionals group on LinkedIn. The question asked is this: Is on-demand cloud based enterprise search a good value proposition for the future (with the recession and companies aggressively cutting cost)?
I have played around in my head with the idea of cloud-based enterprise search... Read More »

Search Design Patterns for Ideas and Inspiration

Search Design Patterns for Ideas and Inspiration

By Vegard Sandvold on January 26, 2009 | 5 Responses

If your work involves user experience in any way, you should be familiar with design patterns. Bringing patterns into your design will help you define and solve common problems related to user interaction and information architecture. Sharing patterns with your team help you establish a common vocabulary, in turn making it easier to convert... Read More »

Search Inside Obama’s Inaugural Speech

By Vegard Sandvold on January 22, 2009 | Leave a response

Delve Networks has applied its audio search technology to Obama’s inagural speech. When you enter keywords into the search field below the video, those words are highlighted on the timeline, guiding you to the most relevant parts of the video. Audio search is difficult to execute properly, since human speech is imprecise and varies wildly from person to person. Delve Networks have done a good job, however. I’ll take a close look at various audio search engines in a future blog post.

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