tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-269699722012-01-24T08:15:53.896-08:00This blog is dedicated to the in-depth review, analysis and discussion of technologies related to the search and discovery of information. This blog represents my views only and does not reflect those of my employer, IBM.Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.comBlogger201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-27828624404966965772007-03-23T07:09:00.000-07:002007-04-09T12:22:40.244-07:00

Often times I have been asked to explain the difference between search and discovery. Many feel they mean the same thing or are at least interrelated in some way as in "I have discovered the answer to my query". But actually they are quite different. One way to contrast the two is to classify them by what you know and don't know. That is you search for what you know and discover what you don't

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-57983383149653674632007-02-13T14:39:00.000-08:002007-02-13T14:47:54.506-08:00

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before. That surprised, kind of gee-wiz feeling you get when you start typing just a few characters and the program you are using attempts to read your mind and guess what you are trying to type. You’ve seen it used in your browser when previously entered URLs with the same starting characters appear in a drop down list as you type. Or you’ve experienced it in

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1169751843408000032007-01-25T10:53:00.000-08:002007-02-06T17:36:02.493-08:00

Lotusphere in Orlando, Florida is Lotus' annual event to thank their customers and to show off their new features and products for the coming year. I've been presenting at Lotusphere for nine years now and must say that this year was exceptional. With over 7000 customers in attendance and a keynote speech by Neil Armstrong, you could feel the excitement in the air (besides the warm Florida

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1168987249259685962007-01-16T14:28:00.000-08:002007-01-20T07:52:28.226-08:00

Wow! What a response to IBM and Yahoo's search announcement last month. There have been over 10,000 downloads of the free enterprise search offering, all within two weeks - and that was over the holidays to boot. You may have already downloaded the IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition and discovered how easy it is to setup an index and start searching. But perhaps you are beyond that point and are now

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1166023274927867592006-12-13T07:07:00.000-08:002007-01-15T07:01:21.860-08:00

I’ve been itching to talk about this for a while now and the day has finally come. Today, IBM® and Yahoo! have just announced their partnership to offer a free downloadable enterprise search engine. One that is extremely easy to set up and use. IBM’s OmniFind™ Yahoo! Edition can crawl and index up to half a million Web pages and/or file system documents and make them available for search through

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1164903142553215382006-11-30T07:44:00.000-08:002006-11-30T13:26:43.580-08:00

No, I don't mean searching for people, a topic I addressed in my last post. I'm referring to the wonderfully intuitive approach John Wiley & Sons, Inc. take to presenting complex ideas and topics. My question is: Why can't search be made as easy in a similar way?I also don't mean search as experienced by the end user. Even my mom has now mastered search, knowing what to expect when she types a

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1163620865868828992006-11-15T11:46:00.000-08:002006-11-16T08:23:14.350-08:00

Have you ever "Googled" yourself or someone you know? It's a fun exercise and can sometimes produce surprising results. Like finding an old year book picture of yourself posted on the web that you weren't aware of. Social networks such as myspace.com, facebook.com, and linkedin.com have aided in the search for people and go further by providing a way for the people to connect once they're found.

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1162935577103633342006-11-07T13:14:00.000-08:002007-02-05T04:01:47.036-08:00

Three weeks ago I spoke at IBM's first annual Information On Demand (IOD) conference held in Anaheim California and I'm just now getting a chance to comment on the trip. By most standards it was a very large conference with over 5000 attendees. IBM combined six previous conferences into this one mega-conference and upped the fun factor with top notch entertainment to include Gladys Knight (

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1160757405613693492006-10-13T09:35:00.000-07:002006-10-15T05:13:38.923-07:00

When most people think of open source they think of software that can be download and used for free. But open source is more than that. Open source is challenging the traditional methodologies of software development and distribution and is having a profound impact on the software market as a whole. To learn more about this growing movement I attended the Apache conference held in Austin, Texas.

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1159022741152672272006-09-23T07:41:00.000-07:002007-02-10T03:40:02.206-08:00

So you issue a search and the search engine tells you that there are 24,832,271 results of which it displays the top ten on the first page. You scan the first page, maybe click through the next couple of pages. But have you ever wondered what those other 24 million results are? It’s a bit overwhelming – kind of like drinking from a fire hose. I for one think the number is meaningless and shouldn’

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1158268102134189082006-09-14T13:50:00.000-07:002006-09-16T07:43:42.803-07:00

Have you ever noticed how conferences seem to bunch up in the spring and fall? This fall is no different. My last post two weeks ago was on the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose. This week I just returned from speaking at two WebSphere Portal conferences - one held in Baltimore Maryland the other in Stuggart Germany. Both conferences had the same agendas so I'll give my perceptions

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1156172582976316992006-08-21T07:34:00.000-07:002007-02-03T02:07:34.600-08:00

I just returned from attending the Search Engine Strategies conference held in San Jose CA.(August 7th - 10th) and thought I'd share with you my observations and experiences at the conference. The conference was primarily about search engine marketing and how to effectively increase the visibility of your product advertising through the major public search engines. I found this to be an

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1154535073222234952006-08-02T08:38:00.000-07:002006-08-02T14:44:37.796-07:00

There are those who applaud Google’s spartan look and feel to presenting search saying that it’s clean, uncluttered, and easy to use. The Google home page with its single search box placed in the middle purposely leaves 90% of the screen blank white. The Google search results have all the excitement of a bibliography found at the back of a text book. However there is something to be said for its

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1153927332004623262006-07-26T08:16:00.000-07:002006-12-26T17:12:49.646-08:00

They say you must crawl before you can walk so it must follow that you crawl before you can search. That certainly has been the case up until now.Crawling refers to the process of extracting content from the web. Given an initial URL a crawler (program) will fetch the web page, scan it and extract all of its text for indexing. As the crawler is doing this it keeps track of any other URLs (links)

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1151439407122836142006-06-27T13:11:00.000-07:002007-02-11T04:19:43.340-08:00

I just returned from attending the 2nd annual Text Analytics Summit held in Boston, June 22nd -23rd and thought I'd share with you my observations, views, and experiences at the conference. There were roughly 350 attendees, which is not bad for a new and emerging market. Text Analytics (TA) is experiencing a 35% growth rate and is the fourth fastest growing market in the IT industry as quoted by

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1150299604315653292006-06-14T08:38:00.000-07:002006-08-01T14:37:54.883-07:00

I’ve been working with search engines and related technology for so long that I have forgotten that it’s the content being indexed that is King, not the search engine itself. That’s the message I got from reading Mike Moran’s excellent book on Search Engine Marketing, Inc. Mike reminds us that the search engine is a “means to an end” and if used effectively can help achieve the overall goals of

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1149091926938191752006-05-31T08:29:00.000-07:002006-08-02T08:01:37.950-07:00

I just returned from attending the 2006 Enterprise Search Summit in NYC and must say that it was encouraging to see the tremendous amount of interest and growth in the enterprise search market. There were about 1000 attendees, which was a three fold increase from last year. All of the search vendors were there as well as good attendance by enterprise customers seeking search solutions. What

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1147881259937267562006-05-17T08:47:00.000-07:002006-08-02T08:19:00.953-07:00

Text analytics promises to more efficiently find information, extending your search beyond providing just keywords but rather expressing yourself in more natural ways. It allows the search engine to understand the meaning behind your query and correctly match that with the meaning conveyed by the documents being searched. But what is text analytics exactly and how is it used to improve your

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1146682037326144012006-05-03T11:30:00.000-07:002007-02-06T17:33:15.526-08:00

If I had to choose I would definitely pick search security as one of the most challenging requirements to fulfill when building an enterprise search product. By search security I mean that you as an end user will only be able to search and view those documents that you have been granted access to. I’d like to use this first post to present some of the problems you might encounter and possible

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26969972.post-1145999712050972512006-04-25T14:13:00.000-07:002006-06-28T06:06:51.980-07:00

Welcome to my first issue of "Perspectives on Search & Discovery". I have just started this blog so please bear with me as I become familiar with Blogger and its publishing tools. Stay tuned...

Todd Leybanoreply@blogger.com0