28 October 2005

The Man Called Tefko

Yesterday in my Principles of Searching class Dr. Tefko Saracevic gave a presentation on the Invisible Web. For you unedumucated folk out there the Invisible Web is the vast amount of material not accesible via typical search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc.).

Especially interesting were three search engines which give graphical results:

Vivisimo: This only gives results in a cluster tree, but fun for finding related materials that you might not be aware of.

Webbrain: This displays results in a graphic concept web on the top of the screen. Again like above it is good identifying various satelite concepts related to a search. Requires Java.

KartOO: Less precise but more interesting, KartOO, displays icons via flash that link to possibly related concepts. There is a standard topic tree on the left. This is fun from an experimental point of view but seems less useful than either of the other two. Requires Flash.

All in all it was an interesting pesentation that dumped a crapload of new and interesting web based sources right into my lap. If you're interested in seing the powerpoint or a list of sources let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Fear the Blog!

*Sigh* It is a sad day indeed when I enter the "blogosphere". And, without any further ado, I present my blog.