Search technology has been around for a long time, and the "core" of search is remarkably the same across the suppliers of these solutions. Some people might think that not much innovation has happened in the search world, except for that bastion of innovation, Google.
For better or worse, Google has become synonymous with search, particularly web-based search, which has greatly increased the perception of the value of search. As to whether it has truly increased FIND, that is a bit debatable, but at least raising the awareness of users to even THINK about using search has done great things for any in the information management world.
For readers of this blog, or others who have been involved in any of the education or consulting I've done in search, taxonomy, information architecture, etc. - I will praise Google for many things, and use them all day long in various guises, but...
In the hundreds of companies I've dealt with who have needed enterprise search, I can count on one hand the number of companies who should think Google as THE only answer for their Enterprise Search solution.
I can count on multiple hands the number of companies I have personally dealt with, who have bought the Google appliances and then thrown them out (not due to my prodding either - came to that decision on their own), quickly or after a year or so. Hey, Google is the new (old) Verity! (the OEM edition of Verity was fairly low capability and inevitably fell behind in any ECM installation, as other components were upgraded, but the core OEM search piece stayed in place)
Google will get there eventually, but for now, Enterprise Search isn't even getting 1% of the attention of money, time, or effort of Google at large (clearly not a scientific measurement, but you get my point) - or it would be a far more useful and disruptive solution in this space.
So, why am I bringing this up today?
This week, I happened to stumble onto a nice blog, discussing some great and important aspects of enterprise search - the blog is entitled Search 2.0. I don't know the author (yet), but he makes some great points in his postings. An entry that I got caught up on was the "Search 2.0: Enterprise Search Done Right" entry, which by it's name clearly indicated Vivisimo would be discussed (that's a tagline of theirs), and there is a nice romp through some of their strengths and weaknesses.
I would've moved on, but caught an anonymous commenter at the end of the post who made two statements that just tweaked my brain and got my type-typing away. Head on over, and take a look... I would love your feedback on the entry itself, or any of the commentary.
(The Quick summary: Three sure ways to push my buttons are to: discuss usability, and not back up statements about usability studies; claim that any one vendor is a sure solution to your ills; or claim that ALL users want to find content in only ONE way [the commenter discusses dynamic clustering as a known usability issue, and a "true" enterprise search solution like Google is the way to go] - bottom line, search is a system, involving many moving parts, and it's not as easy as it looks to do this well in the enterprise)
What's your take? Feel free to comment on the Search 2.0 blog if you like, or here - I'm not trying to siphon traffic, but just make sure that the reality of concerns behind the scenes in Enterprise Search are being heard, discussed, and understood.
BTW - stay tuned for our (AIIM) upcoming talk radio show, where no doubt we will be discussing topics just like this, and I certainly want to hear from you live when we roll the show out and on the air.
Thanks Dan
I appreciate that you went to my blog 'Search 2.0' and posted feedback on my thoughts. Most of my writing is coming from my experience and what customers needs. There is so much of hype being created by various search engines, but the ground reality is they solve some of customer's problems not all. I do not blame the just the vendors but also customers for not identifying their problems in right perspective. The purpose of my forum on search is just to assess, analysis and recommend various options to the readers beyond hype, bias and lobby. Make reader understand Enterprise Search in right perspective.
Thanks again for your comments.
Posted by: Ravi Govil | August 15, 2007 at 01:49 PM