Last week I had to review the ways in which NGO’s and charity organisations are using web 2.0 approach and tools for their marketing communications*. I’ve used all the usual search tools but didn’t find anything interesting really. So while advancing my search, I dropped a quick email to my blog buddies Faris, Jon, David, Karl, Mack, Dino, and in less than half an hour I got everything I needed (thanks guys!).
It made me think about the 2 completely different approaches to search that Yahoo! and Google are leading. Whereas Google believe that everything can be found with a better algorithm, Yahoo! are leading a completely different philosophy: Better Search through People.
Searching for relevant data is increasingly like finding a needle in a haystack. You google something and get 30 zillion results, 99.99% are completely irrelevant. Perhaps this will be solved in the future (web 3.0) with the advancement of folksonomies and the semantic web, but for now, neither google nor Yahoo! is providing a good product that gives you a relevant, contextual results.
I’m totally with Yahoo! on this one. Yahoo! answers is still rudimentary and is full of junk. However, I strongly believe that this is the way forward. For every question I have there is someone somewhere that has the
answer. The (huge) challenge is to connect between us quickly and efficientlly and the one to crack this challenge holds the keys to the kingdom. To go back to my example, what Yahoo! answer needs is to establish or facilitate the development of niche communities where people will register according to their field of interest (and not just category-based as it is now) and a system of incentives for participation should evolve as well. Currently I have no time and motivation to take part in Yahoo! answers - its too big, genaral and full of clutter and crap. But if I’d known that there is a community for ‘marketing communications’ or alike I’d happily join that and contribute as much as I can.
*charity 2.0 review in the next post.
Comments 4
Hey Asi
Posted 03 Oct 2006 at 2:03 pm ¶This approach is huge in Korea - naver is bigger than google over there. And Microsoft are about to launch a similar service;
http://simonandrews.typepad.com/big_picture/2006/05/microsoft_searc.html
( btw I like the EST site)
Thanks for dropping by, Simon.
I’ve read about the Koreans in the Economist recently and it seems like they are 3 steps ahead in social media, citizen journalism and collective intelligence.
A.
Posted 03 Oct 2006 at 6:22 pm ¶Hi! what’s 2.0 standing for… web 2.0, charity 2.0…
Posted 04 Oct 2006 at 3:21 pm ¶cheers!
Rafa,
I will need something between an hour to a month to answer this question.
Start from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
and we’ll have a good chat next time I see you.
cheers.
Posted 05 Oct 2006 at 9:29 am ¶A.
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