Friday, February 16, 2007
Social Search Gets Smarter
I like the idea of social search, and the advantages of "collective" intelligence could someday be incorporated into mainstream search.Social search site Eurekster has added new features to its swicki building engine, which uses community input to rank search results and answer common questions. Swicki users can add thumbs up or thumbs down ratings to that search results can be moved based on reader approval.
One of the weaknesses in search engine ranking is the emphasis on quantity over quality. While including how many sites link to a page is somewhat an indication of the value of the content, the number of times a result is clicked on is not. Ratings systems like this (ala Digg) instantly improve the quality of the results.
The ability to post comments to results on a Eurekster swicki is also intriguing way to engage participants if websites don't allow commenting on their own. Eurekster also allows swicki authors to create instant polls and to allow users to post questions for members to answer.
I would like to see answers from wikis such as Wikipedia alongside standard search results. While user may not think that Wikipedia has an answer for every topic, I bet providing its relevant results for each query would generate considerable traffic.
If I were Google I'd be paying close attention to social search services like Eurekster.
Posted By John Gartner at 10:35 AM
Permanent Link: Social Search Gets Smarter
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