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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: RE: RE: Great piece on RSS
 This isn't new news. Both are done. One gathers opinions and contracts. Remember, contracting is a formal process because of protests. If one does things promiscuously, the bid results are protested. Protests are expensive for the contracting parties and can result in rebids. Now all of that money spent on process is lost and one has to start over in some cases. In any case, the only benefits go to the lawyers. Most contract-based processes do have a provision for customer references. What one wants to do is get a more complete list than the cheery cherries that the vendor will suggest (so called "reference accounts"). If I want to hunt down a reliable vendor, I will check their references, but when it comes down to the procurement, it has to be based on the assertions of the contracting parties. In many cases, discovery doesn't work like either of these cases. One goes to conferences, shows, etc, inspects product, interviews, etc. Then an RFP is published. What Google is good for is finding published RFPs and RFIs. Yes, ranking should be based on multiple criteria, in other words, question the sources. I think that what Google does is useful if worked alongside other sources and multiple means to rank. All opinions and all searches are not equal. For example, all opinions are not "small". To sell a system in the business we are in here, one has to prove that one has sold systems where the customer is of a given size, has a given rate of incidents, and so on. So to Google that and it be contract worthy, Google would have to keep a lot of metadata about the business and customer types. This starts being more like UDDI. len From: Elliotte Rusty Harold [mailto:elharo@m...] At 10:21 AM -0500 10/10/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: >Thanks for making the point. Worse is worse, >but better needs requirements to insure it is better. >Better than what is an operative question. >Do we want Google to "evolve" into a business >registry where the opinions of the competitors >determine the ranking instead of the registered >assertions of the vendor so registered? > I give much more weight to what a business registry where the opinions of the *customers* determine the ranking of a vendor than one that depends on the registered assertions of the vendor so registered. That, in effect, is what Google does today for the Web. The more happy customers a site has, the higher it ranks. Google's algorithm for determining customer happiness is heavily based on linking, not perfect, but the best we've got so far. I trust this much more than search engines that sell placement, contract or no. No, this isn't exactly what UDDI does, but I still think there's a lesson to be learned here about the emergent behavior of gathering many small opinions vs. trying to rely on a few centralized systems, experts, and contracts. 
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