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Forwarded from John Petit... >Cheers, John Petit > >Title "Re:Automating Search Interfaces"" >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------- > > Don Park writes: > >>>Standardized schemas will not be there for some time. Effects of XML >will >>>be felt by all major industries in the near future, and while there >will be >>>sincere efforts to standardize DTDs in most of the markets, fiercely >>>competitive markets like the search service market will be slow in >>>standardizing schemas. I expect another round of tag wars waged this >time >>>by Yahoo, Excite, AltaVista, MS, etc. The result will be different >this >>>time in that everyone will agree to disagree in the end and move on to > >>>building tools to bridge the differences in structures of contents >which >>>would have accumulated beyond the point of standardizing. > >I agree that this disheartening scenario is quite possible. But what a >shame! It seems that one of XML's major strength's is its ability to >search heterogeneous databases. Independent sellers large and small >would benefit from heterogeneous searches for it would allow super >accurate marketing. Mom and pop producers should be able to sell their >boutique goods to the special set of consumers that would be interested. >A real estate agent in Backwater USA with a unique property should be >able to sell that product in an industry standard search engine. >Without accurate, industry specific search interfaces, consumers will >not easily find these sites. Otherwise we are no better off search wise >than we are today ó wallowing in inaccurate searches. It would be a real >shame if the ultimate promises of XML were hindered by lack of >planning. Laissez-faire is not always the best way. > >Perhaps what would help is to create a central repository for major >industry DTDs. Such a repository may reduce the effects of splintering, >and accelerate development. DTD authors could see what has come before >them and either borrow from it or at least learn from it. I have always >felt that such a site would be useful in DTD development. There are >probably dozens of nascent DTD efforts going on in various industries. >Each one inventing the wheel. In many cases these authors are describing >the same element with different names when they could just as easily use >the same name. > >Taking biological evolution as an analogy, putting the DTDs in one small >pool will encourage faster and more sympathetic development. Otherwise, >isolated cyber ecosystems will encourage divergent DTD evolution and >this will lead to a long and vicious "survival of the fittest" scenario >that will not benefit anyone. > >I cannot speak for Robin Cover but the SGML/XML Web Page seems like a >good candidate for such a DTD repository. > >>>Schema-based universal search interface will be dead upon arrival. >While it >>>is possible to build such clients, search services that use them will >lose >>>everytime to services offering hand-crafted search interfaces designed >to be >>>easy to use, relevantly flexible, and visually appealing. > >It is true that hand crafted search interfaces would be more polished, >but who should be responsible for their creation. Is there some >designated Java developer in the hotel industry that will make a search >engine selflessly for the entire industry. No. If such work is relegated >to the private companies then such search engines will not represent the >entire industry in a unbiased way. This leaves nice, but proprietary >search engines, and we are right back to where we started from; searches >of privately selected database rather than searches of heterogeneous, >industry representative databases. > >>>Improved accuracy of search results, brought on by wide availability >of >>>XML-based contents, will be lost to most users. Consumers simply do >not >>>care as long as they can find what they want among first 100 items >returned >>>by a search. Search services are free after all and therefore do not >place >>>high expectations. > >I do not feel that consumers will not care about search accuracy. When a >customer is looking for variations of Ginkgo Biloba (an over-the-counter >drug) they want to see all the sites that sell it and for what price. >The same is true for travelers looking for room availability at their >travel destinations. No one wants to wade though a hundred tangentially >related sites. Without accurate search interfaces, consumers will not >get this sort of accurate response. The RDF is an important part of >describing the web, but I have not seen how it would right way to >address automating search interfaces. > > Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic net connection VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary http://www.venus.co.uk/vhg xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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