April 1, 2009 at 10:47Popular Search and its Prospects
In a review article by Arthur Welf on 07.07.2008, devoted to search engines, there is also a “popular search”. Judging by the few materials that search engines (including Habré) issue for queries such as "social search", "popular search", "user search", something radical has not happened in this area since ( udt : now I saw fresh habrastatyu with a review of this topic). But you can evaluate the dynamics of the most famous project in Runet - Flexumin which users are used to improve the quality of the thematic search: at the time of writing the Welf article on Flexum.ru, 6190 authors were registered, who created 3729 thematic search engines. Now there are 8096 and 5707, respectively. There is still a note on Seonews dated 05.24.2007, which speaks of the beginning of Flexum's work, at that time there were already more than 2000 authors and more than 600 searches. In total, over the first 13 months, the number of users increased by about 4200, searches by 3100, and over the next 8 months, the increase was 2000 and 2000. That is, both absolute numbers and growth cannot be called impressive, and growth rates, if they change, are not significant. A motivation is curious, prompting, according to Ashmanov, to use Flexum:“If a person is an expert in a certain topic, then, as a rule, he seeks to confirm his expert status. Our users do thematic search engines in those areas in which they are experts, not for themselves - they already know where to look for information, but for other users, and the fact that a person created a thematic search engine looking for all relevant sources of information on this topic on the Internet confirms the expert status of its creator. ”
As a rule, a person seeks to obtain or confirm expert status not among all people in general, but only among a community of experts who alone can fully evaluate in a specific subject area. Therefore, yes - if someone creates a search engine, then most likely not for themselves and not for other specialists, but from some other motives. For example, it should be a competitive niche in the market for mass-sought information, such as automotive searches. Or an area not covered by official science, such as esotericism. But specialists from a huge variety of subject areas will not be sufficiently motivated. The project helps that authors can embed a search engine on their sites, i.e. in a suitable environment for them. But not all users of Runet have such sites, and moreover, not all experts in various fields are advanced Internet users. I would even say that the majority is not; the main medium of their self-realization is traditional society, they do not blog, do not participate in forums, etc., and use the Internet in the simplest formats such as email. In this regard, the policy is logical to provide authors with more opportunities inside the Flexum service itself, for example, there appeared the opportunity to create and configure their own online portals. But this is also focused primarily on advanced Internet users.
Is it necessary to conclude that popular search is not a promising business? Perhaps Ashmanov and Co. have enough resources to develop this direction, despite the difficulties, and to succeed someday in the future. Unless, of course, their cake on the Russian market is eaten by Google, the model of which is Google Custom Searchmade by Flexum. By the way, it’s interesting to analyze the development of this Google service, but there is no statistics at hand and it’s more difficult for me to analyze the situation in the West. However, I think that the main considerations are the same. The only difference is in Google’s financial and other capabilities, as well as in the size of its user audience - taking into account these factors, he can allow himself to experiment and feel for the next steps in the darkness of unpopulated roads. Then should it be concluded that this is not a matter for “startup” startups and only large players can do it? And here I come back to my sheep - to the “objects + communications” model and factors of social realization of users .
I want to show that, at least in terms of creating a content and meta-content base for search engines, such startups can be successful. I will single out two basic conditions, in my opinion. 1) The service should be widespread, and for this, user activity should be expressed in formats that are familiar to them, have goals and motivation that are familiar to them, primarily self-presentation and communication. In this regard, for example, creating your own search engine or portal is an unusual, unusual thing and is outside the context of the activity of most users. However, mass blogging was also unusual and unusual not so long ago, but it either came down to familiar things - communication, or actualized a hidden and not finding a sufficient way out need to declare oneself in all possible ways that a network diary allows. On the other hand, the need to systematize the material, to move from a certain number of copyright considerations in discussions to articles and books is natural, it is present in “ordinary life”, but does not, in my opinion, have a suitable format on the Internet. The “objects + connections” model provides this format - users create content objects that, for example, can be linked by a sequential causal connection of replicas in a conversation (that is, it is easy to implement normal communication), but each of these objects can also be to connect various types of connections with other objects, classification hierarchies, sets, themes, people, organizations and so on. 2) The service should provide an opportunity for "serious activity". To this can be attributed the meaningful aspect of diverse professional fields. Experts Ashmanov talks about, are in these areas and they should see a convenient working tool in the service for discussion, reflection and systematization. The usual social Internet network is not enough for this - to turn into a working tool, it is necessary to combine various resources (read content objects) into one network and the ability to structure (link) them according to various criteria and signs. Which, incidentally, is also usually the case for a traditional society, where a person is accustomed to being in the context of many relationships at the same time, and, for example, the format of various organizations performing "serious activities" combines human, information, financial, technical and other resources at the same time. Within these organizations, confirmation of expert status and career growth is possible.
The result will be, in particular, high-quality content-metacontent database. And here we come to another consideration. I do not have statistics, but personally from my own experience I will assume that a significant part of queries to search engines on any topic is “fact-finding,” that is, actually express a desire to get the best review material on this topic. And this is actually the format of the encyclopedic article (I think this is one of the reasons for the success of Wikipedia - it fell into the popular format). And what is the best material? - this means that he is actually in the singular, i.e. it is the embodied ideal of the work of any search engine. As a result, users do not so much increase the efficiency of the search engine by indicating the relationships between units of content, how many get into the popular search format by creating the best thematic materials. What is important for “garage” - the created environment does not have to be initially large. In the beginning, it can even be considered simply as a convenient individual means of organizing materials, which is done in a non-network projectTheBrain , then as a convenient environment for the existence of a small community, such as a forum. Then several thematic communities and so on, until it grows into a competitor to Wikipedia, LiveJournal, Prozy.ru and Habr at once :)
In conclusion, I note that if you look at the relatively distant future evolution of search engines, you can see their transformation in the future into a kind of certain types of modern expert systems: specifically ordered content (a knowledge base based on the “objects + connections” model) + logical inference machine = expert system (artificial intelligence). This is the main potential of the network “objects + communications” from the point of view of actual machine technologies - they provide the logical inference machine with the necessary base. In this sense, Ashmanov’s interest in the Internet implementation of expert systems is logical, which is quite possible right now at the level of individual narrowly thematic areas. But now such bases are created by specialists manually,
As a rule, a person seeks to obtain or confirm expert status not among all people in general, but only among a community of experts who alone can fully evaluate in a specific subject area. Therefore, yes - if someone creates a search engine, then most likely not for themselves and not for other specialists, but from some other motives. For example, it should be a competitive niche in the market for mass-sought information, such as automotive searches. Or an area not covered by official science, such as esotericism. But specialists from a huge variety of subject areas will not be sufficiently motivated. The project helps that authors can embed a search engine on their sites, i.e. in a suitable environment for them. But not all users of Runet have such sites, and moreover, not all experts in various fields are advanced Internet users. I would even say that the majority is not; the main medium of their self-realization is traditional society, they do not blog, do not participate in forums, etc., and use the Internet in the simplest formats such as email. In this regard, the policy is logical to provide authors with more opportunities inside the Flexum service itself, for example, there appeared the opportunity to create and configure their own online portals. But this is also focused primarily on advanced Internet users.
Is it necessary to conclude that popular search is not a promising business? Perhaps Ashmanov and Co. have enough resources to develop this direction, despite the difficulties, and to succeed someday in the future. Unless, of course, their cake on the Russian market is eaten by Google, the model of which is Google Custom Searchmade by Flexum. By the way, it’s interesting to analyze the development of this Google service, but there is no statistics at hand and it’s more difficult for me to analyze the situation in the West. However, I think that the main considerations are the same. The only difference is in Google’s financial and other capabilities, as well as in the size of its user audience - taking into account these factors, he can allow himself to experiment and feel for the next steps in the darkness of unpopulated roads. Then should it be concluded that this is not a matter for “startup” startups and only large players can do it? And here I come back to my sheep - to the “objects + communications” model and factors of social realization of users .
I want to show that, at least in terms of creating a content and meta-content base for search engines, such startups can be successful. I will single out two basic conditions, in my opinion. 1) The service should be widespread, and for this, user activity should be expressed in formats that are familiar to them, have goals and motivation that are familiar to them, primarily self-presentation and communication. In this regard, for example, creating your own search engine or portal is an unusual, unusual thing and is outside the context of the activity of most users. However, mass blogging was also unusual and unusual not so long ago, but it either came down to familiar things - communication, or actualized a hidden and not finding a sufficient way out need to declare oneself in all possible ways that a network diary allows. On the other hand, the need to systematize the material, to move from a certain number of copyright considerations in discussions to articles and books is natural, it is present in “ordinary life”, but does not, in my opinion, have a suitable format on the Internet. The “objects + connections” model provides this format - users create content objects that, for example, can be linked by a sequential causal connection of replicas in a conversation (that is, it is easy to implement normal communication), but each of these objects can also be to connect various types of connections with other objects, classification hierarchies, sets, themes, people, organizations and so on. 2) The service should provide an opportunity for "serious activity". To this can be attributed the meaningful aspect of diverse professional fields. Experts Ashmanov talks about, are in these areas and they should see a convenient working tool in the service for discussion, reflection and systematization. The usual social Internet network is not enough for this - to turn into a working tool, it is necessary to combine various resources (read content objects) into one network and the ability to structure (link) them according to various criteria and signs. Which, incidentally, is also usually the case for a traditional society, where a person is accustomed to being in the context of many relationships at the same time, and, for example, the format of various organizations performing "serious activities" combines human, information, financial, technical and other resources at the same time. Within these organizations, confirmation of expert status and career growth is possible.
The result will be, in particular, high-quality content-metacontent database. And here we come to another consideration. I do not have statistics, but personally from my own experience I will assume that a significant part of queries to search engines on any topic is “fact-finding,” that is, actually express a desire to get the best review material on this topic. And this is actually the format of the encyclopedic article (I think this is one of the reasons for the success of Wikipedia - it fell into the popular format). And what is the best material? - this means that he is actually in the singular, i.e. it is the embodied ideal of the work of any search engine. As a result, users do not so much increase the efficiency of the search engine by indicating the relationships between units of content, how many get into the popular search format by creating the best thematic materials. What is important for “garage” - the created environment does not have to be initially large. In the beginning, it can even be considered simply as a convenient individual means of organizing materials, which is done in a non-network projectTheBrain , then as a convenient environment for the existence of a small community, such as a forum. Then several thematic communities and so on, until it grows into a competitor to Wikipedia, LiveJournal, Prozy.ru and Habr at once :)
In conclusion, I note that if you look at the relatively distant future evolution of search engines, you can see their transformation in the future into a kind of certain types of modern expert systems: specifically ordered content (a knowledge base based on the “objects + connections” model) + logical inference machine = expert system (artificial intelligence). This is the main potential of the network “objects + communications” from the point of view of actual machine technologies - they provide the logical inference machine with the necessary base. In this sense, Ashmanov’s interest in the Internet implementation of expert systems is logical, which is quite possible right now at the level of individual narrowly thematic areas. But now such bases are created by specialists manually,