

What’s wrong with the Linked Data world - Keyword Search - bensummers
http://blog.georgikobilarov.com/2009/10/whats-wrong-with-the-linked-data-world-part-1-keyword-search/

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andrewljohnson
I don't understand what's he's trying to say, though I get the feeling that
the author misses the point of why search is good. Good search has very little
to do with the words - most search engines got that part mostly right, all
independently.

What makes search great, the real underlying principle, is the link graph, the
authority measurement. What Google was able to do was not just make a vast
catalog, but to sort it by goodness.

You can wrap up that measure in a search box or whatever UI you want.

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bensummers
I think what he's saying is that classic Semantic Web linked data systems are
great at handling the link graph, but only implement simple text searching.

It's complex, but possible, to do both at the same time, but the standard
libraries for handling semweb graphs don't do it.

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riffer
A big part of how Google won was that they made everything on Yahoo obsolete
except for the search box. Now somebody just needs to make the search box
obsolete.

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bensummers
What are you imagining will replace it?

Typing in a short query and getting results is a pretty minimal UI. Google has
been steadily getting better at making it even more useful, for example, their
calculator feature, weather, sports results for major sporting events, and so
on.

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riffer
The UI is minimal, and that is a very significant advantage. I don't have
clarity around something that is superior. In terms of properties, though, the
UI would be minimal and getting results would be as powerful as writing
arbitrary SQL against a backend. If somebody comes up with something that
meets both of those conditions, I think it'll be a game-changer.

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bensummers
You can do that in a search box by allowing advanced syntax. For example,
Google allows 'keyword site:news.ycombinator.com', and there's no reason you
can't extend this with full boolean logic and nested bracketed clauses.

We do this in my product, which is sort of a semantic web inspired wiki with
very precise metadata. You can enter a simple query, and it uses everything at
its disposal to get you good results ranked appropriately. But in the same
box, you can write arbitrarily complex queries, even doing graph traversal
across the linked objects in the store.

However, simple one or two word queries still work. The only slight concession
to complexity that we've made is that when you start entering a complex query,
the app draws a picture which explains how the query is interpreted, as a
little aid to the user.

But it's still a simple text box with a button next to it.

