March 16, 2009 at 01:11Social search. Theory. Practice. Aardvark.
A bit of theory about what social search is (NOT people’s search engines), which actually turns out to be a review of the new Aardvark service.
So, in what ways can we filter information on the Internet using the users themselves?
* Based on materials from http://blog.delver.com
Naturally, any method of collecting information has its drawbacks, for example:
• browsing: spam links;
• indexing: wrong tags;
• request: the operator may not understand you;
• rank: hacking ranking system, etc.
In any case, the question of trust arises: how much can you trust the search results? As you know, we trust the opinions of our relatives and friends. Algorithm-based searches may be unbiased, but there are ways to outwit any machine (as long as they exist). Social search in the form in which it exists now leaves much to be desired, is not very effective and has its drawbacks.
Many of us ask questions through IM or Twitter to our friends. Messengers cannot reach a wide audience, and Twitter is not a panacea, because not always knowledgeable people online and will see your question.
This week I received an invitation to the Aardvark service, which means African anteater ( http://vark.com ).
In short, this is a symbiosis of a social network like Twitter, focused on finding the right information .
After you have completed the profile and noted areas of knowledge that you are good at, you add the Aardvark bot to your IM, through which your communication with the service will go.
Several times a day, the bot will contact you, so that you help network users with their questions. Questions are relevant to the categories that you specified in your profile. You can answer the question, say that you are busy or advise a person who could help.
The service also has an email interface that repeats the functionality of the IM bot. If you weren’t online and you missed the question, you will receive a notification by mail, by answering which you can send an answer.
Trying to ask questions, I was surprised at the speed of reaction of the project participants and the quality of answers. When searching with Google, you would undoubtedly find the information you are interested in, but Aardvark allows you to communicate with the user after the answer, so you can ask additional questions.
The interface of the site itself is concise and contains only the necessary functionality.
Aardvark with the help of Facebook application is integrated into the most popular social network and allows you to add friends from Facebook'a directly. Also, automatically, Aardvark adds information about you with LinkedIn.
Thus, we get a solution to many of the shortcomings of social search. The spam problem is almost completely resolved (users are added only by invite); there is no mechanism for filtering information that could be hacked; questions are received only by a user who is knowledgeable in the relevant field.
The project is really interesting and new. We will wait for what it will develop.
A bit of theory.
Social search is a search method that determines the relevance of search results based on interaction and user assistance, contrary to common search methods that are based on algorithms.* Wikipedia
So, in what ways can we filter information on the Internet using the users themselves?
* Based on materials from http://blog.delver.com
Naturally, any method of collecting information has its drawbacks, for example:
• browsing: spam links;
• indexing: wrong tags;
• request: the operator may not understand you;
• rank: hacking ranking system, etc.
A bit of practice.
In any case, the question of trust arises: how much can you trust the search results? As you know, we trust the opinions of our relatives and friends. Algorithm-based searches may be unbiased, but there are ways to outwit any machine (as long as they exist). Social search in the form in which it exists now leaves much to be desired, is not very effective and has its drawbacks.
Many of us ask questions through IM or Twitter to our friends. Messengers cannot reach a wide audience, and Twitter is not a panacea, because not always knowledgeable people online and will see your question.
Aardvark.
This week I received an invitation to the Aardvark service, which means African anteater ( http://vark.com ).
In short, this is a symbiosis of a social network like Twitter, focused on finding the right information .
After you have completed the profile and noted areas of knowledge that you are good at, you add the Aardvark bot to your IM, through which your communication with the service will go.
Several times a day, the bot will contact you, so that you help network users with their questions. Questions are relevant to the categories that you specified in your profile. You can answer the question, say that you are busy or advise a person who could help.
The service also has an email interface that repeats the functionality of the IM bot. If you weren’t online and you missed the question, you will receive a notification by mail, by answering which you can send an answer.
Trying to ask questions, I was surprised at the speed of reaction of the project participants and the quality of answers. When searching with Google, you would undoubtedly find the information you are interested in, but Aardvark allows you to communicate with the user after the answer, so you can ask additional questions.
The interface of the site itself is concise and contains only the necessary functionality.
Aardvark with the help of Facebook application is integrated into the most popular social network and allows you to add friends from Facebook'a directly. Also, automatically, Aardvark adds information about you with LinkedIn.
Thus, we get a solution to many of the shortcomings of social search. The spam problem is almost completely resolved (users are added only by invite); there is no mechanism for filtering information that could be hacked; questions are received only by a user who is knowledgeable in the relevant field.
The project is really interesting and new. We will wait for what it will develop.