Believe it or not, the "plain old flu" is a big deal; it shares a category with pneumonia -- the two combined are amongst the top 10 causes of death [usually closer to 6th] in the U.S. Organizations like the American Lung Association go to great lengths to get the word out on the importance of flu shots, early symptom detection, likely complications, etc.
While our primary (beta) functionality focus at Healthline is on providing medically guided search results, our meta-mission is connecting people with the health information they need, when they need it.
To that end, we've built Flu Central (officially launching tomorrow AM), a one-stop resource for information on the 2005-2006 flu season, including:
My thanks to Stephen Baker of BusinessWeek's Blogspotting for helping to get the word out (early). Please consider passing this along if you know of others that need to know.
Steve Lee, a sharp UC Berkeley Haas student I met a ways back, dropped me a note about their upcoming Play Digital Media Conference, to be held at Cal on Saturday, Nov 5, 2005.
Some of the usual suspect, some new. Won't make the event, but am going to try to swing by the after-party in SF. Drop a note if you'll be there!
Drove down with Kevin Burton, late of Rojo, now bootstrapping TailRank, a blog recommendation engine. In a true act of kindness, Dave Winer gave Kevin a $20 for a "golden ticket" (i.e., beta invite) to TailRank; yes, Dave has millions, but it was a totally spontaneous act of kindness (caught on camera -- scroll to the bottom) that was great to see (I'm the red eye peeping out from behind Kevin's left shoulder, lol). Nice!
Speaking of Dave and cameras, here I am (striped button down shirt) chatting with him, Matt and Eleanor. This is moments after standing around with Dave and Marc talking about structured blogging (Marc's digging in deep) and OPML (Dave's charging forward), watching those two catch up and banter; it's nice to know someone can bust Marc's chops. ;-)
I got to meet Tara Hunt of riya (fka Ojos). riya is building one of several pieces I evangalized heavily while I was leading product at Ofoto (now "Kodak EasyShare Gallery", blech); namely, auto face recognition and meta-data tagging of consumer images. Finger's crossed for a alpha/beta invite (cough, wink).
Last but not least, I had the pleasure of having a great conversation with Matt Marshall of SiliconBeat fame. His writing doesn't do him full justice (and that's saying a ton); make an effort to hunt him down and talk with him in person.
Oh yeah, I also demoed the health search engine that could... and learned that Google might be working on a PHR/EMR app (interesting...).
First, let me say, that there's no coverage like splog coverage; it's simply amazing how popular press releases are with splogs. Having now sorted through most of them, here are some more reactions I've found...
1. Valentin, a PhD student working on AI and Semantics, says:
I had a look at it and I'm happy to report that it is the first really cool semantic search engine in the wild. Granted, building such a system is not rocket science - but still, I'm not aware of any public website that has a comparable semantic search engine.
Hey now, your "not rocket science" is our "we're just getting warmed up"! ;-) Considering Valentin wasn't briefed, he's got a good perspective on what we're doing, though I'll drop one hint... we're doing more than just full text index/retrieval.
2. Chad Williams encourages us to grow our index (of, no, not MedlinePlus information, but "non-traditional sources"!) so that he can get better results when searching for "fishbone caught in throat"; earlier he notes that Google disappointed him on this front too. Chad, a small army of crawler boxes are already on order; it'll take time, but it will get done.
3. Mark Allen would prefer we not use the oh-so-trendy "beta" moniker, but commends us for a strong set of results for scoliosis. Mark, we're too hip to worry about being hip! ;) In all seriousness, we're Beta because we know we can do better with everyone's help (it's hard to build a top-notch search engine until you're live and have searches coming in... more on that another day).
4. Finally, Alf Eaton of HubLog dings us for a search listing that wasn't to a health web site, but seems to really dig our taxonomy-driven query refinement (hey, what about the HealthMaps? [grin]):
I got a result that pointed to a page that wasn't really health-related but happened to have the right words on it (Scirus suffers from this too) - but the taxonomised directory is excellent and I found some useful information straight away. Broadening and narrowing of searches based on a hierarchical taxonomy is something biomedical searches have needed for a long time)
Like everyone else, we're fighting the splog/content-thievery issue (sploggers appearantly love the CPCs of health ads) and duplicate medical content is everywhere (i.e., if you think your blog/RSS content is popular with sploggers, you don't know the half of it).
Looking forward to more feedback (but I promise I won't post everything... I know that's not why you're reading my ramblings).
Rita Vine, of SiteLines, did a write-up on Healthline, and found us lacking. Some of her comments have merit; unfortunately, many appear to be unfortunate misinterpretations. Rita doesn't appear to allow comments on her blog, so I'm addressing her issues/comments here, in the open, in an attempt to start a dialog (that with any luck, will last for many years). (As I said at launch, the only way we'll get better is by getting your feedback, and while I don't know Rita, she certainly appears to have a credible background.)
Rita says:
Healthline relies principally on content from popular pre-existing 3rd party .com sources that could be obtained from any commercial search engine.
That is correct. While we have paid (handsomely) to license content from ADAM and Multum to help ensure that our first result is always doctor authored and/or doctor reviewed content (for the topics ADAM and Multum cover), we are a web search engine. Think Google, but just Health. Or think WebMD, but the web instead of only their walled garden.
Rita says:
The first link, Lung cancer - small cell (Doctor-Reviewed information) led to a brief definition of the term, reviewed by Allen J. Blaivas, D.O., Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ, and updated in early 2005.
Actually, if you return to the page via the above link, you'll see that there is an entire article. You'll also see that, using our taxonomy concepts, we've put it into the context of lung cancer, and return HealthMaps, and related articles and news.
Rita says:
A small unlinked logo on the right side of the page suggested that the content was derived from A.D.A.M., a popular consumer health encyclopedia which is also used in Medline Plus and many others. A close comparison revealed exact duplication of content, and attribution to Blaivas, in both the Healthline entry and the A.D.A.M. entry.
Exactly; all of our licensed, hosted ADAM content includes their branding. Based on your feedback, we'll make that logo clickable, to include information about ADAM, their URAC accreditation, etc., in our next build/push tentatively scheduled for next weekend (10/27++).
Rita says:
Returning to the list of top results in Healthline.com for lung cancer, I wondered about the inclusion of lung cancer links from the site Worldhistory.com. What's the link between lung cancer and history? Answer: nothing. The site is simply a domain name that repurposes the content of the Wikipedia, word for word.
Interestingly, Wikipedia content can be hosted (for free) by anyone and monetized (with no revenue share) by anyone. While the current debate on wikipedia (citizen encyclopedia vs. "professional" encyclopedia) is outside of our discussion's scope, we will eliminate worldhistory.com from our index and crawl Wikipedia directly to avoid confusion around the source of the content. Thanks for pointing this out.
Rita says:
Most of the remaining links on the Healthline search results page represented commercial sites such as Medicinenet.com, Healthwise (in this case repurposed through the Everett Medical Clinic, a chain of private medical clinics in Washington State), and Emedicine.com -- three popular commercial information sites whose content is repurposed in many other information sites, all well-linked in major search engines.
As mentioned above, we're a health web search engine. This includes both for profit and not-for-profit organizations. No special effort has been made to crawl one type of site to the exclusion of the other, etc. Furthermore, our search results do not include paid inclusion, affiliate codes, or any other source of monetization. My thoughts on undisclosed advertising/paid inclusion have not changed since last December; if we ever do them (and there is no consideration for such a thing on the table), we will provide transparency. Not because we have to (as others have successfully shown), but because I believe it's the right thing to do.
Rita says:
The news links are derived from general news sources repurposed from Topix.net, a well-known commercial provider of news services.
Correct. In addition to licensing ADAM and Multum, we're also working with Topix (which is indicated everywhere on our site where Topix provided news headlines appear).
I'm not sure I understand the issue you have with advertising. Is your fundamental believe that only ad-free content can be trusted? If so, unfortunately, that would put many companies out of business; unlike MedlinePlus, not all of us have the benefit of having our efforts funded by U.S. taxpayers!
Rita says:
I don't mind companies like Healthline trying to market themselves with a little puffery during launch (like asserting that the site was "created in collaboration with 1,100 physician specialists") but it's important for reviewers not to believe everything in the press kit. Clearly the vast majority of those "physician specialists" in Healthline come from somewhere else, likely the 3rd party content providers who supply much of the Healthline-branded content.
This is probably the most upsetting piece of the review. First, we don't claim anyone else's content as our own. ADAM is labeled ADAM; Multum as Multum; Topix as Topix (and the content publisher, be it the WSJ, NYTimes or whoever). There is no content anywhere on our site that's "branded Healthline".
More importantly, Rita (who to the best of my knowledge never contacted our company nor our PR agency), appears to have misunderstood who those 1,100 physicians are and how they've been involved with the company.
To wit, going back to our yourdoctor.com days in 1999, the company contracted with 1,100 doctors to help:
- Build our 3000 HealthMaps - Build our 40,000 node taxonomy - Build out 800,000 word synonymy - Build out a ton of proprietary content that we haven't yet put on line (which will be Healthline-branded [grin])
Said another way, we're not counting doctors that may have written content on sites that are in our index or content that we've licensed, in our count of 1,100 doctors, as Rita's write-up implies.
Interestingly, all of these assets, the very things that make our search different (and based on most reactions I've read thus far, better in the minds of early site visitors) are completely ignored by Rita. It's possible that she did not see them, but the HealthMaps and Broad/Narrow/Related search options are right there at the top of the lung cancer SERP, and I'm hardpressed to believe that Rita doesn't believe they add at least some value. (For others who might be interested, the HealthMaps will be larger and more readable in the build we'll launch this weekend.)
Rita, if you're reading, I hope the above was useful in understanding what we're doing and saying, vs. what may have been written about us, and what you may have understood.
Again, the point of this post isn't to "prove Rita wrong", but to acknowledge a couple of Rita's good suggestions, and point out where I believe she may have misinterpreted what we're trying to do and what assets we're using to do it with. I hope we can continue this exchange, blog-to-blog, by phone, or in-person; whatever makes sense.
Still behind on giving props to folks I know, who, despite all the Web 2.0 hype and Bubble 2.0 anti-hype, are busy doing what matters; inventing a better future for all of us, in both small and grand ways.
Memeorandum, or more specifically, Tech.Memeorandum, brain child of Gabe Rivera is first up. Simply put, Memeorandum is Google News for blogs. With 2.0 (which Gabe was kind enough to let me test, despite providing him with nearly no useful feedback), Gabe made a number of significant improvements, including the automatic discovery of posts NOT from sites in his seed list. Put another way, Gabe's developed an algorithm that can instantly surface whatever's hot, whether or not he knew the source before its, uh, hotness developed. Very cool.
I snuck into the Wordpress.com (i.e., the ASP version of the very, very popular hosted blog software available from Wordpress.org) beta (yet another smart project by Matthew Mullenweg) way back on August 17th (yes, I'm two months behind...). I haven't spent as much time with Wordpress.com, despite a slick interface and great feature set, for only one reason: right now, you can only host on a subdomain of wordpress (i.e., somedomain.wordpress.com). I will switch to WordPress.com the minute (plus or minus two months, lol) Matt enables remote FTP publishing to my own domain (and provides a clear set of instructions on how to move all my Blogger posts over w/o breaking shit). How 'bout it Matt??
Conceptually sitting somewhere between the above two offerings is a new intelligence offering by TechDirt front man Mike Masnick: TechDirt InfoAdvisor aimed at corporate environments. Think of it as a personalized, analyst vetted (and equally importantly, culled) stream of market and competitive intelligence delivered in blog format. Good stuff!
Finally, PR maven Renee Blodgett is excited about KnowNow, an emerging player in the enterprise RSS space. I haven't spent time with the service yet, but I do know that uber braniac Adam Rifkin was involved with its development, so it's probably worth a closer look.
Obviously, there's a world beyond Healthline, which I haven't been giving as much coverage to for fairly obvious reasons. Some penance herein:
Sphere, a new blog search engine, is launching soon (and will be demo'ed at the TechCrunch party this Friday). I wish them the best of luck; like us, they're competing in a land of giants... and I have to say, hands down, Google Blog Search has provided by far the fastest and most comprehensive coverage of posts related to our launch.
AOL bought Weblogs, Inc., at the same time everyone appears to be in talks to buy AOL. On the former, an interesting dynamic occurs; now that everyone sees how much money traded hands for a network of ~100 blogs, will anyone be willing to write 5 posts a day for $500/month? In other words, has Calacanis shrewdly (or luckily) closed the door behind him by selling at a multiple that incents others to write for themselves (or for more cash + equity) instead of for others. Six months ago I had thought about writing a piece on how blogging would turn all journalists into freelancers, but never made it happen. Perhaps a smarter cookie like Susan Mernit has thoughts there?
Speaking of Weblogs, Inc., Barb Dybwad covers a great analysis by Rashmi Sinha on the cognitive load associated with tags and tagging. A great read for anyone, but especially if tags are or may become part of your offering. (Which reminds me... I'll be at TagCamp next Friday; hope to see you there!)
Pamela Parker notes the launch of contextual headlines by Topix. This is cool, but as I wrote when the Topix acquisition was first announced, I'm looking forward to the day when Topix's tech is used to do the same thing, but with classified listings. (Disclosure: Topix powers the health news search on Healthline, though you may see us do some cool stuff with it down the road a bit...)
As above with regard to Topix, I think that search economics for classifieds will become a necessary (and painful) evil for newspapers (though all these things take time). Proof points? The portals continue their assault on classifieds, with Google asking for classified feeds and Yahoo continuing to snap up companies involved with all things Local.
I'm very honored to have been asked to do a panel on Vertical Search and Aggregators on Day 2 of Kelsey Group's upcoming ILM:05 (Interactive Local Media 2005) conference in Reston, VA, Nov 30 to Dec 2. (Without undue hype, if you have any interest in Local search, this is the event to hit.)
I don't make it back to the East coast nearly as often as I'd like, so drop a note if you'll be around and want to catch up.
If you're in the SF Bay area later this week don't miss TechCrunch's third event (I missed the first two and felt like a total tool -- don't be like me!):
Michael Arrington has graciously given me one of the eight 30 minute demo slots (at 6:30) to show off Healthline. I'll be demoing alongside emerging hotness like Flock, Wink (where my friend Michele Turner, former VP Product Mgmt at Netflix is now hanging out) and Sphere.
One of the coolest features is called a "health map," a visual display of all of the concepts related to your query. Health maps resemble flow-charts, showing phases of diagnosis, treatment, alternatives and so on. Want to explore one of those areas in depth? Just click the relevant box on the flowchart and a new search is run. It's a very slick way to display lots of information about complex subjects, at the same time making it easy to find relevant content without advanced searching.
Chris closes with the magic words that warm any Product Mgr's heart: "easy to use":
Healthline is one of the best, easiest to use health information sources I've yet found on the web. The "patient friendly" interface combined with first-rate, vetted content make it an excellent resource for anyone researching health related information.
Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 Blog, Health Search (hey, I recognize that UI)
Michael Bazeley, SiliconBeat, Healthline Search Engine Launches (I love that SB's AdSense ads target "short courses on medical terminology" next to Michael's write-up, when one of the big value-adds of Healthline is our built in synonymy! [grin])
I'll keep this updated for a day or two. And, while I love the media stuff (and really enjoyed getting some time with Chris Sherman, who seems like a great guy), I'm really looking forward to the uh, color, of the blogosphere. ;-)
Update: After recovering my blog after my hosting provider crashed, I see that blogger reaction has started on a high note (it can only end badly from here, lol), with a great write-up by Michael Arrington (of TechCrunch fame) in Healthline - Reliable Medical Information. My two favorite quotes:
The HealthMaps feature is incredibly useful.
And...
This is an excellent resource.
More coverage in the blogosphere:
Greg Sterling, Kelsey Group, Healthline: Vertical Health Search (which reminds me that I'll have to post something around our opportunities in Local search at some point)
telendro.com.es, Buscador médico (my Spanish hasn't improved since the 9th grade, but I'm pretty sure he says he likes the HealthMaps very much and that the site is useful. Cool!)
Shahid Shah, The Healthcare IT Guy, Healthline Medically Guided Search Unveiled (positive feedback from someone in the health tech biz, and, formerly at the American Red Cross -- thanks Shahid)
Judi Sohn, A View from Home, Healthline search - definitely beta (Judi has a solid experience searching for colon cancer, but dings us [rightly] for a gallbladder miss. We're definitely not perfect, but Judi's post gets us one step closer.)
Dr. Kent Bottles, SoundPractice.net, New Ways to Search for Healthcare Information (we have a lot of constituents to please, doctors key amongst them... looks like a passing grade; hat tip to the amazing Dr. Enoch Choi for pointing this out to me)
And, podcast lovers are getting some coverage too:
And, a couple of weeks ago, I told you more about our medically guided search (query refinement), visualization, semantic capabilities and more.
Today, you can play with Healthline and judge how we've done for yourself!
To be sure, we're launching as a beta. There are little bugs to squash, usability improvements that can be made, and of course, an overflowing roadmap of possibilities. But I think we're doing something unique, and, important.
I hope you'll take a few minutes to check it out, and tell me everything about it that you love and hate. The only way we'll get it right is with your help.
Here's the press release with all the details; more importantly, the Healthline Quick Tour is here.
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – October 17, 2005 – Addressing the growing demand for better health information resources, Healthline™ today announced the first Internet search engine dedicated to consumer healthcare, www.healthline.com.
The aging baby boomer population and steady shift toward consumer-driven healthcare are turning more and more people to the Internet to better educate themselves and manage their own health resources. But today’s general search engines and online health destinations are insufficient – either providing too much unfiltered information, or offering limited content that does not provide a complete picture – and neither option presents related health topics and resources in context to help consumers quickly find, understand and manage the information that matters to them.
Healthline’s unique Medically Guided Search capabilities make it easier for users to find comprehensive healthcare information and interact with the search results in a manner that offers a direct path from search to discovery. A centerpiece of Healthline’s search experience is the company’s proprietary HealthMaps®. Developed in conjunction with more than 1,100 leading physicians and medical informatics professionals, HealthMaps enable users to visually explore all of the information related to a disease, drug or condition without the need to repeatedly type new queries into the search box.
“Healthline answers a critical consumer need that general-purpose search engines simply can’t meet,” said Dr. James Dougherty, former Deputy Physician-in-Chief at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “With the rise in healthcare costs, an aging global population, increasingly complex treatment options and less face-time with doctors, consumers must take responsibility for making more discerning healthcare decisions. Healthline’s unique technology platform and singular focus on providing trusted healthcare information will play a vital role in the evolution of healthcare.”
Conventional search engines don’t distinguish how a search term appears in the listings provided. They are designed to find all mentions of the topic at hand, regardless of whether the keyword is the main topic or is simply mentioned. This lack of sensitivity forces consumers to wade through listings that often fail to provide relevant information.
Healthline’s Medically Guided Search platform addresses general search engine shortcomings by using a combination of semantic search technology and a comprehensive consumer health taxonomy comprised of more than 800,000 medical terms and synonyms. These resources uniquely enable the site to translate everyday language and precisely match it to medical terminology so consumers can quickly filter results to the exact information needed. For example, when a consumer enters “arthritis” into the search box, the results include medically related categories – such as “rheumatoid arthritis,” “fibromyalgia” and “osteoarthritis” – that help guide the user to a more precise search. Selecting “fibromyalgia” results in additional categories – such as “pain management,” “fibromyalgia risk factors,” and “chronic fatigue syndrome” – that further refine the search. A more uncommon search query such as “GERD,” one of many synonyms for heartburn, returns information on “acid reflux,” “peptic disorders,” “indigestion,” and more.
The Healthline site also features more than 200 topically-focused health channels that provide users with contextually relevant information on topics ranging from Alzheimer’s and Diabetes to Nutrition and Pregnancy. In a separate announcement today (see related release, “Healthline’s Flu Central Gives Consumers a Healthy Dose of Vital Information This Flu Season”) Healthline unveiled its Flu Central, a one-stop shop for information about influenza this season. The flu – a perennial epidemic in the U.S. that kills more than 36,000 people annually – is one of many healthcare issues that Healthline is addressing with its new approach to health search.
“Searching for health information is more difficult than any other category – it’s like searching in a foreign language – as medical terms and consumer terms don’t match,” said West Shell, CEO of Healthline. “General search engines are good enough when you need directions to your doctor’s office, but when it comes to navigating the complex, inter-related world of healthcare, ‘good enough’ is not acceptable. Consumers are tired of being overwhelmed by the amount of unfiltered information on the Web; they’re desperate for an open, objective and medically comprehensive source to help them better manage their health. We’re giving them exactly what they need.”
Founded in 1999, Healthline is already used by leading healthcare providers such as Merck, PacifiCare, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to deliver critical resources and tools to both consumers and members. Today’s announcement marks the first time that Healthline’s advanced search capabilities and navigation tools are freely available to the public.
Based in San Francisco, California, Healthline is backed by VantagePoint Venture Partners, one of the largest venture capital funds in the country with more than $2.8 billion under management, and JHK Investments, LLC.
About Healthline Healthline Networks, Inc. provides the fastest, easiest way for consumers to find, understand and manage healthcare information, empowering them to make more informed decisions that lead to better health. Healthline’s unique Medically Guided Search capabilities translate everyday language and precisely match it to medical information and terms so that consumers can easily discover information they may not have otherwise known existed. Created in collaboration with 1,100 physician specialists, Healthline’s medical taxonomy encompasses nearly one million medical terms and synonyms – the largest consumer health taxonomy of its kind. This data, combined with Healthline’s visual HealthMaps® and the web site’s personalization tools, connect users with the information,people and resources that would not be found using general search engines or today’s online health destinations.
Jim Lanzone, SVP Search Properties at Ask Jeeves, gave an interesting presentation at Web 2.0, including some rather surprising numbers around blogs that matter. (Appearantly, it only takes about 50 subscribers to a given 50 to be in the top decile.)
Unfortunately, the version of the presentation that he shared had a few interesting slides removed, including one on searches by category/topic. I left a comment on the Ask blog requesting a full copy, but who knows if he'll see it and respond. If you happened to take photos of the slides, I'd greatly appreciate a copy of the full deck. moreinfo at buzzhit dot com. Thanks!
Sitting in a chair at Web 2.0... no table for the notebook (officially making it a "laptop" for the day) and no power cords, despite 85% of attendees with a portable...
Mercifully, there is WiFi, and it seems to be handling the load thus far.
SiliconBeat notes that Yahoo! has acquired Upcoming.org, a not totally surprising move. What is a bit surprising is that the portals have moved first, and that the newspapers are on the sidelines watching. IMHO, events are second only to maps in the local space in terms of the oh-so-coveted demographics newspapers say they are trying to attract...
Scoble's done it again; he's gone and started a conversation, and this one is a pretty important and timely one for me... enough to rouse me from my blogging coma (or better said, obsessive work focus) to comment... Robert, in reviewing John Battelle'sThe Search, makes the case for intelligent query refinement, giving a search for hotels in New York as an example:
So, what COULD search engines do? Well, first, give me some choices at the top of the page. Why couldn't search engines ask you these questions:
1) "are you looking for hotels in New York or named New York?" 2) Are you looking for hotels with free Wifi? 3) Are you looking for hotels with great views? 4) Are you looking for hotels nearby major tourist destinations? 5) Are you looking for hotels with above average ammenities like super large bathtubs, well stocked minibars, etc.?
Danny Sullivan responds to Scoble with an emphatic YES!, stating in part (in a lengthy post worth a read if you're "into" search):
"A search engine, unlike a librarian, can't interrogate you. It can't ask further questions to help you narrow in on what you are looking for... That's why the regular trend of someone trotting out a super-magical "natural language" search engine is always laughable. The pitch generally goes something like, "This search engine is smart enough to know when you typed in a sentence about AIDS that you meant AIDS the disease rather than aids as in something that helps you."
Danny mentions the past path of human editorial approaches (largely a bygone era as we humans are so expensive to employ...) and the currently in-vogue clustering approach.
Healthline doesn't do hotels, it just does health. And it doesn't do automated statistical clustering (though that's not a religious stance, just a current state). Rather, it uses a well vetted medical taxonomy (overlayed by a lay-person synonymy) to do its query refinement.
Our query refinment will come in three buckets -- broad, narrow and related -- and in two flavors -- visual and text taxonomy traversal.
So, for example, if you're like David Hornik, and think you're suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (aka Venture Capitalitis), you can type it into Healthline and get refinements that not only help you get to the results themselves, but actually put your search in context by showing you medically (vs. statistically) where NPD fits in the world of all things "health".
Of course, this is the tip of the iceberg (i.e., we're closing quickly on v1.0 Beta); as we continue to build out our technology and UI, we'll continue to expose additional value to the user through our semantic understanding of the incoming query.
We should have a build that's sufficiently stable (and representative) to show off privately at Web 2.0; drop me a note if you'd like a 5 minute private demo.
P.S. Don't think we're so old-school as to think it's all about our generated content (i.e., our taxonomy); tagging has a place in our world too.
Analysis of online business and technology trends, including: Search and Directory, Digital Media, Social Networking, RSS, and E-commerce. Written by buzzhit!'sTony Gentile.
