Steady Search Improvements

I'm not sure when it started happening, but both Google and Live now display a simple "table of contents" (link) for the first entry (Yahoo doesn't currently, and Ask has its own variant)....

Its really quite handy.

Back when, I had proposed a similar feature for AOL Explorer, based on the idea that an auto-discoverable RSS feed (a simple feature all browsers now have) is more than just an "update feed" - its really also an alternative editorially managed table of contents for the site. The idea was that you'd visit the site (like ESPN or CNN), and perhaps a small toaster would appear in the lower right presenting the feed as a mini TOC for quick navigation.

In any case, no idea if that's how the search guys are doing it - but the idea that the RSS feeds are actively programmed means they present an alternative, intelligent view into the site clearly must feed relevancy (which is really another word for "recommended" if you think about it...).

And little features like this showing are going to be increasingly important - more content means more specialization (witness: search engine fatigue)- so nicely done.

Data problems

Not a new observation, or anything, but there's been an explosion in storage capacity, with revolutions of change still coming.... but our ability to organize and manage that data has only incrementally improved over the last two decades. For example, at the high end, although every medium to large business drowns in an excess of data they have trouble managing, core rDB tech has only evolved incrementally, at least commercially - yet remains the tool of choice.

Cutting edge is considered selecting MySQL instead of Oracle - yeah, that's bold :P

Companies like Google, whose mission statement is about data organization, of course, don't just fall back on tried and true patterns - they created tools (genuine internal infrastructure) like BigTable to help address these issues.

In a similiar vein (courtesy of Slashdot), you should check out the Database Column - a "multi-author blog on database technology and innovation" ("Column", get it? :D). Clearly, there's some interesting thinking going in the space that will change how data management happens - column-based dB tech vs. row-based is really only the tip of the iceberg, but provides a nice visual metaphor for how sideways things will get.

Interestingly enough, the "middeware" thing I referred to previously was in this space. If I manage to get out off my keister with that project some weekend, I'll post a sample application... but don't hold your breath :)

SEO and the real world

The impact of the internet (and search applications specifically) on editorial and programming (not programmer programming :P) in the real world seems to bubble up every few months (case in point, courtesy of slashdot). I've been sucked into discussing it before (and again now, I guess :)).

Ultimately, I guess its appropriate that headlines adjust, even if it seems arbitrarily driven by our new content navigation overlords.

So I think we're left with either news content as a business, in which case this is simply adapting to new influx channels, or that its a service, in which case clarity over wit doesn't seem like a bad thing (even if it happens to be today's search tech view of "clarity").

But it still bugs me. Go figure.