Google Ups its Stakes in the Search 2.0 Race

A fortnight ago, I commented that ‘Google deserves to enjoy a brief whiff of schadenfreud’ before Stephen Wolfram launches his computational knowledge engine in May. Well, Google appear to have pipped him to the post in the first round of Search 2.0, although the actual finishing line in the web search race is still nowhere in sight. Of course, it might not exist at all.

Google have unveiled this week, a smarter search which, according to the BBC News item ‘uses semantic web technology’. Smarter search uses any embedded metadata in a web page – metadata in RDF mark-up as well as conventional META tags – to seek and gather information related to the search query, and to display it with each hit in what they call a ‘rich snippet’. Not a Wolfram-blaster on its own. But there’s more.

Google also unveiled Google Squared, which collates information – text-based, numerical, graphical – and displays it in summary form, e.g. a table. Showing a command of smoke-and-mirrors communication rivalling that of politicians, Google spokesperson Marissa Mayer explained:

“What they are basically doing is looking for structures on the web that seem to imply facts. Like something ‘is’ something.”

“Different tables, different structures, and then corroborating the evidence around whether or not something is a fact by looking at whether that fact occurs across pages.”

That’s clear then.

Before you think the balance of schadenfreud might just have tipped back in favour of Stephen Wolfram, Google also announced Google Search Options, a feature which allows users to manipulate search results to refine them, filter them and view them in different ways until they make sense (presumably).

I’m sure these Google enhancements will prove hugely popular, and I sincerely hope Google will continue with its highly innovative approach to squeezing ever more value out of web search. But when the phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ keeps flashing up in my mind’s eye, I need to remind myself that my benchmark is enterprise search – or deep search – a different animal altogether.

But let’s look on the bright side. At least Google is at last acknowledging the value of metadata.

Making Metadata Matter

Metadata

Many knowledge and information workers are involved in maintaining systems to aid the findability and discoverability of resources by users. Almost without exception, such people extol the virtues of attaching metadata at source and bemoan the fact that resource creators seem totally immune to persuasion that this is not only of benefit to them, but also an altruistic act of benefit to those who come to seek after them.

Although the issue of metadata generation at source is quite complex, one is bound to wonder whether it might help to advance the argument if its advocates were to actually practise what they preach. I have been collecting papers and articles on knowledge organization, knowledge management and information management for ten years now, many of which are written by knowledge and information management professionals or academics, and are in formats (Word, Powerpoint, PDF) which afford the easy attachment of metadata.

What proportion do I find to have basic metadata – title, author, date – entered at source? Barely 10%, I’d say. And that includes academic papers from the likes of Emerald, Sage and other IS/IM/KM publishing houses. It’s not a matter of Grand Designs, more one of a straightforward makeover. Until we can show that we’re prepared to put our metadata where our mouth is, we’re not likely to get anywhere near winning the argument.

Indexing Music

CILIP Update, December 2008 contains an interesting article by Charlie Inskip who describes his research at City University into ways of describing music – not in musical terms such as form, key, tempo, but in terms of its spatiotemporal context or emotional associations.  In the article, he describes how music gets matched to different sequences in films and commercials, by either the music licensee, or by one of the film directorial or editing crew on the basis of a very subjective and often imprecise description of what is required. Sometimes, when a description of what is required is beyond words, a copy of the relevant scene will simply be supplied to the music owner, in a sort of lucky dip approach. Based on a number of interviews with people involved with selecting music for use with moving images, Charlie’s research is focused on ways of improving how the context of music can be described. He says that:

“…there is a need to extract cultural and musical meaning automatically from the content and context of large numbers of digital music files. I plan now to analyse the interviews further, spread them wider within the industry, – to include games designers, DJs and radio programmers – and evaluate existing systems. By the end of this project I hope to be in a position to develop a reflexive communications model and use my findings to recommend ways to build effective search services for industry purposes.”

Well, if that’s not a fascinating area of research in KO, I don’t know what is. It relates both to the Indexing Video thread in this blog, and to the Semantic Analysis Technology event ISKO UK held on 3 November 2008. From January 2009, Charlie will be writing a regular column on music retrieval in Update. And if Charlie’s research has whet your appetite, then you can read more in a paper he has just had published, together with co-authors Andy MacFarlane and Pauline Rafferty, in the Journal of Documentation, Vol. 64 No. 5, 2008 entitled: “Meaning, communication, music: towards a revised communication model.”

The Essentials of Metadata and Taxonomy

This event is chaired by ISKO UK member Madi Solomon, and involves ISKO UK members Bob Bater and Silver Oliver. While the topic may seem unremarkable to us, it is the target audience which marks this out as an important event.

There are so many out there who have heard of ‘metadata’ and ‘taxonomy’ as vital KO concepts, but have no idea of the disciplines and techniques involved or the business benefit to be gained. Anything we can do to encourage conference organisers such as Henry Stewart to run events such as this must be to our benefit.

So, while you may think you already know the ‘essentials of metadata and taxonomy’, many of your colleagues may not. If you think they might benefit from such a conference, then please tell them about it and encourage them to attend.

NOTE that the Early Bird Conference Pass (available until 18 Feb. 2008) costs GBP349 but there is 10% discount for ISKO UK members. Further details are available at the conference web site.

I hope to see you there!