Smart search, Yahoo, iTunes and... Topic Maps


I was thinking who can provide this kind of subject proxy service which I described in previous posting

First company which came to my mind was Yahoo. They already manage huge directory of subject proxies. So, for example, if I am interested in philosophy there is already subject proxy for this topic and subject proxy for class Philosophers Web page which represents this subject proxy has a list of philosophers with some comments. Very subject centric! (almost, there are some links to resources there) Let's click on Martin Heidegger link, for example. Hmmm... I see links to several resources related to Martin Heidegger with some comments. In subject centric environment I expect more. I would like to see summary of facts about this philosopher with links to other subject proxies. These facts can be aggregated from several different sources. This set of facts is the first thing I would like to know and see. After that I should have links to different resources: original publications, comments, reviews, related works, news, pictures, blogs, RSS feeds etc. And with Yahoo personalization I should have ability to specify that Martin Heidegger is a topic of my interests so I can easily get access to facts and resources about this topic.

What about Google (directory)? From perspective of subject centric computing it is very close to Yahoo directory. For example, there is page for Philosophers and a page for Martin Heidegger. Unfortunately, again, mixture of "subject" and resource links, no "facts".

My second thought was about Apple's iTunes music store. True, it has limited "ontology". But it is very subject centric. We can find "subject pages" for artists, albums, genres. We can get biography, links to influencers and contemporaries. Search provides results grouped by subject classes: albums, artists, songs.

I do not mind to have iTunes-like subject centric service as part of extended .Mac. .Mac also can provide some interesting ideas about subject proxy synchronization. Think about iDisk extended to idea of subject proxies. I can use my "subject proxies" in disconnected scenario. I can add new proxies, facts, links to resources. It can be synchronized with "subject proxy server" and with local copies on my different computers. And with Apple's seamless network connectivity I even can share some of my subject proxies, comments and resources with my friends sitting somewhere in Starbucks.

Posted: Fri - October 1, 2004 at 08:46 PM      

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