Getting Fierce about Search

November 9, 2011

Well, semi-fierce may be a better way to approach this write up, Search Is the Key to Everything. We agree that considerable effort has been applied to finding information. Maybe we could get an NSF grant to quantify how big search is. McKinsey & Co. came up with a big number, but a government funded study would be much more satisfying than free information from a blue chip consulting company whose executives wear orange jump suits on occasion.

According to Fierce Content Management editor, Ron Miller, the world’s problems lead back to search. Well, okay, maybe not every problem, but definitely quite a few. Mr. Miller likens the problem of search to his Internet TV. When he wants to find a movie he must negotiate several different programs’ (Hulu, Netflix, and Crackle) search functions instead of being able to search all the applications from one central search. Enterprise search is basically the same thing. According to Miller,

In the case of the enterprise, we may know that the content is out there somewhere across the vast stores of information, but finding that one document you need may be not be that easy. Sometimes this is a known document and sometimes it’s one that you are hoping is there.

While the article does admit individual search engines can be quite efficient, the lack of organization within enterprises is the chief gripe. We cannot disagree with the premise that search would be much easier if all the information were available in one simple search. But we do disagree that search is the key to everything.

At Fierce does the firm’s search engine search employee employment and compensation data, employee health information, contracts between Fierce and its suppliers and customers, the confidential notes made by a reporter, and similar juicy information?

We don’t think so. We think that search is a complicated beastie, a work in progress, and not understood particularly well by licensees, pundits, former webmasters, home economics majors, and unemployed oboe players. That is why it is so darned satisfying to redefine “search” as XML, facets, metatags, semantic analyses, and other buzz words like content management that make the uninformed person’s adrenaline gush like a Pennsylvania brine well in 1815.

Catherine Lamsfuss, November 3, 2011

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.