Searches and Summaries

The Web is constantly growing and changing. The key issue for users of the Web is to know what is there that might help them, or inform them, or entertain them, and to find out in a timely fashion without spending all their time looking. There are two main ways to do this, searches and summaries.

The most common way that users today find the information they want on the Web is by doing a search using one of the many search engines such a Google (www.google.com). You enter keywords and the search engine sorts through all the pages that it has indexed and tries to give you the most relevant results. Even with this a search often returns thousands of hits. Also, since new pages are being added every day and many pages are constantly changing to reflect the current news or information, the search results may change over time. And slight changes in the keywords can also result in very different search results. Even with these limitations though, searches often provide the quickest and easiest way to find what you want.

If you think of the Web as one huge, constantly changing book, search is like looking up words in an index and then going to the pages indicated to see if they contain what you are looking for. Another way we find what we want in books is the table of contents. This provides a summary outline of what is in the book. It is hard to imagine a table of contents for the whole Web though. For one thing, the Web is different than a book in that the pages are not intended to be read in sequence. You enter and leave pages on the Web following links.

But there is something like a table of contents for the Web in that it organizes the Web's contents into a high level summary view, and that is a Web directory. Yahoo provides one of the oldest of these (http://dir.yahoo.com) and there is a public domain Web directory that is available many places including the Google Directory (http://www.google.com/dirhp). A directory is a hierarchy of knowledge categories or subjects with links and descriptions provided under the categories. The general directories are huge themselves, so in turn it is useful to search them.

A variation on this is a personal Web directory or knowledge base. This has the same structure as these large public directories but is more focused on the particular interests of a person or group. Whole subtrees of the personal Web directory can be shared with others. A rather limited version of this is the bookmarks or favorites that we keep in our Web browsers, but the personal Web directory allows for better visualization of the information and adding more related information.

Another type of summary that is becoming very widely used is RSS feeds. These are a list of headlines with summary descriptions. The user can then click on a link to see the details. This is especially useful for sites such as news sites or Web logs where information is changing frequently. But they are by no means limited to that. Individual users can read just the feeds they are interested in using an RSS reader (http://blogspace.com/rss/readers). Web site owners provide these useful summaries in hopes that people will want to see the details and click through to their site.

Another variation on this theme of providing useful summary content in hope that users will click through is the proliferation of free content that can be added to Web sites. For example, a weather site might provide a weather sticker that shows a summary of the weather in a town. This is useful in itself. The users then may be more likely to click through to see details. Much of this is intended for Web site developers (for example, see http://freesticky.com), but it could also be used by individual users with the appropriate tool.

Another useful form of summary is a personal portal such as My Yahoo (http://my.yahoo.com) or My Way (http://my.myway.com). These allow the user to select from a collection of information modules and arrange them in different ways on a page that they can view to get a summary view. These portals are typically restricted to the specific content modules that they provide and are oriented toward a generic audience.

One more form of summary is an alert or vital sign. These provide timely notifications, perhaps using an icon that changes colors, of an important event. This approach has been used for years for network and operations management and is now starting to come into use for individuals.

These examples of summaries all fall within a category of tools called information aggregators. Information aggregators provide a summary view of what information is available and allow the user to go to the information source for the details. At this point these different types of summary tools are not usually well integrated.

The next generation of information aggregators will support much greater integration, a wider variety of information modules, and narrowcasting to more specific information communities. For example, see Personal Watchkeeper (http://www.sugarloafsw.com).

So the two most important tools for getting the most out of the Web are search engines and information aggregators. These provide searches and summaries, which are really the way we have always tried to make the best use of large collections of information. Search engines are well developed and widely used. Information aggregators are coming on fast.

About The Author

Ron Tower is the President of Sugarloaf Software and is the developer of Personal Watchkeeper, an information aggregator supporting a variety of ways to summarize the Web.

http://www.sugarloafsw.com

---

Generating Traffic to Your Web Site

When promoting any product or service every hit to your... Read More

Website Promotion ? Need Inspiration to Write Articles? Check Your Stats!

One of the best ways to promote a Website inexpensively... Read More

6 Ways to Keep Them Coming Back

It is estimated that it can take the average consumer... Read More

Easy Content Building for the Lazy Webmaster

Free content builder. Articles are the best way to add... Read More

Internet Directory Submission, Sure Way To Link Popularity

Most website owners fail to differentiate between a directory and... Read More

Why You Should Learn HTML

Do you have a website or are you planning on... Read More

Give Me Quality Over Quantity Every Time

In the early days of developing my home business, I... Read More

How to Increase Traffic When Your Promotion Budget is Tiny

Writing articles for your site and for the use of... Read More

Web Site Promotion: 10 Reasons Why Your Web Site Is Not Making Money

Do you know why your website is not making money... Read More

Freebie Promotions - How Giving Away Free Stuff Can Boost Your Business

Everybody Loves A Freebie!It's true! Who doesn't like to get... Read More

Benefits of Website Localization

Benefits of Website Localization Maximising profit today... Read More

Web Advertising: Hold An Online Contest Or Sweepstakes And Make Your Website Magnetic To Visitors

Contests and Sweepstakes.They are web advertising magnets that draw huge... Read More

How To Gain Web Traffic Through 9 Simple Tips

Driving traffic to your website can be a time consuming... Read More

How To Get Your Visitors To Tell A Friend

Does your website offer visitors a quick and easy way... Read More

How to Set Up Your Own Free Ad-Tracking Links and 7 Reasons Why You Want To!

Any time you use a URL in an Article, Web... Read More

Is Reciprocal Linking Dead?

There was a time when reciprocal linking was a number... Read More

Learn How To Use These Six Explosive Marketing Techniques To Explode Your Website With Traffic

Learn How To Use These Six Explosive Marketing Techniques To... Read More

Increase Your Web Traffic without Breaking the Bank

If you are like most webmasters, your goal is to... Read More

Make Your Web Site Work More So You Can Work Less

Do you know how your web site fits into the... Read More

Free Traffic From Articles ? Plus A Big Hidden Bonus

Writing articles for submission and distribution on the internet is... Read More

Seecrets on Website Promotion: Marketing Plan for Joe Nogood Gift Store

Joe Nogood owns a small but thriving gift store. He... Read More

How To Improve Your Conversion Rate

Hardly a day goes by that I don't get an... Read More

Online Website Promotion: Five Fantastic Breakthrough Marketing Ideas To Enrich You

Good Ideas.They are the stuff that form the foundation of... Read More

Types of Keywords

Keyword can be classified into three categories :-Single word Keyword-Multiple... Read More

You?ve Created a Business Website: So Now What?

Congratulations! You and your designer have just finished creating your... Read More

Website Promotion: 10 Ingenious Ways To Defeat Your Competition

Business is war.To get to the top, you must fight... Read More

Why The One-Pronged Website Promotion Method Doesnt Really Work

Would you attempt to use a cell phone with a... Read More

5 Cheap Ways to Promote Your Website Offline

We get so caught up with internet marketing and "web... Read More

Capturing Leads on Traffic Exchanges

There are 3 basic components to capturing leads on free... Read More

Website Promotion - The Stakes Are Rising ? And So Is The Cost

Over the past couple of months it has been quite... Read More

Why You Should Market Your Website

One of the great advantages of advertising and marketing on... Read More

Why You MUST Have A My Yahoo! Page

Yahoo! allows you to set up your own front page... Read More

Using Free For All Links Pages as an Effective Marketing Tool

Free For All Links Pages have been given a bad... Read More