All:
I have been discussing the “semantic web” with a lot of people lately who have vastly differing ideas of what it might be. I have my own ideas and wanted to run them by this group.
Scenario 1:
I do a search for “foo”. Rather than a list of pages that contain “foo”, I am presented a list of contexts (for lack of a better word) that “foo” is found within. This would be something like “your search for foo yielded results that include foo which has a plurality of meanings. Please narrow your search down based on the following contexts: 1. <meaning_a> 2. <meaning_b> ... An example might be a search for “nut” which then presents the searcher with the meanings “seed of a tree”, “slang for a males reproductive organs”, “slang for a person who
works on semantic web ideas”, etc.... I would then select a context which would then present me with a narrow set of results.
Pros: Doable, would be a dynamic target based on the fact all of us (including spamdexers) would be able to influence the system.
Cons: This was patented over a decade ago (I filed one patent).
To make this work, when a resource is added to the index, I would see that the person tagging a resource with a label might be prompted to disambiguate the label if the plurality of meanings is detected.
Scenario 2:
I search for “foo” and the search mechanism miraculously deducts the exact top result I am seeking. This could work with simplistic cases (like a history student searching for “berlin” getting historical results based on an IP address being detected from the history lab of a school). This would obviously not cater to 100% of the searchers but maybe the semantic
web (whatever that means) might be only meant to be useful for 75% of the users. This is something worthy of consideration.
Pros: Doable
Cons: Does not work for all users. I have no idea how this would be implemented.
Scenario 3:
I search for “foo” and I get the perfect result set. Everyone else also gets the perfect result set.
Pros: It is nirvana
Cons: I know of no way to implement this short of reading people’s minds.
Scenario 4:
<insert something I missed here>
here it is:
I search for "foo" and I get it autocompleted with "foo meaning..." as long as I keep typing "foo used in software books...".