I happened to read an editorial in Febrauray issue of Digit magazine the crux of which was "how can the web be intelligent". And more importantly, the article started of with a familiar example - "Customers who bought this also bought" section in Amazon.com. When I first chanced upon Amazon a couple of years ago, I was drawn to this feature like how . It was a great place for book recommendations, and in many cases it worked out fine for me.
Back then the web wasn't run by people, like it's today. There weren't any web-apps developer or a personal database which is, well, more personal than a website like Amazon. Then slowly blogs and tagging evolved. And to the relief of a lot of people, web-apps can be created in no time. It seems almost true that the internet contains information about anything under the stars.
Which presents the most important problem of Information Overload. A couple of months back, I entered a search query concerning something and got a zilch response. But a few days back, I accidentally stumbled upon what I was looking for. My joy knew no bounds on hitting the jackpot accidentally. But it also made me crib for it had been there all along and I'd wasted a good three months in searching. Not that my search skills are that bad, (even if I enter the same query now, I get no results). They are not what they have to be.
Let's assume this hypothetical case. I'm looking for information on a particular group who will be performing at the local theatre. I enter their name, I get no results. Not even "are you looking for" suggestion. I tend to feel that their company isn't adjusting too well to the internet boom. Later on, I almost accidentally stumble upon the group's blog, and going through their archives, I come to know that they've indeed been existing in the virtual world for a long time, that my search query should have landed me here by all means. What happened to me was nearly similar to this situation.
This calls for a need to orgainze content better. The article from "Digit" calls for a "People who visited this website also visited the following other website(s)" method. This is okay as a next step to better search. Like Del.ico.us. But given the number of websites and tag clouds, it is testing the limits of exhaustion on the readers part. Whether an algorithm can handle this or human intervention is required at all stages, only the researches can answer. As a person who searches the web for information almost everyday I'll get a sense of absolute satisfaction only when I enter a search query like, "Is tomorrow a Friday", and get a reply, "Yes, TGIF".
Edited to Add:
(1) In fact I was thinking of Thandora when I wrote this.
(2) TGIF means "Thank Goodness it's Friday", which, for most people, is a relief.
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