In the Search world, there is a standard definition of Federated Search.*

“Federated Search is an emerging feature of automated, web-based information retrieval systems. It is also often referred to as a “web-portal”, as opposed to simply a web-based search engine.

“Federated searching consists of (1) transforming a query and broadcasting it to a group of disparate databases with the appropriate syntax, (2) merging the results collected from the databases, (3) presenting them in a succinct and unified format with minimal duplication, and (4) providing a means, performed either automatically or by the portal user, to sort the merged result set.

In traditional search engines, such as Google, only sources that have been indexed by the search engine’s crawler can be searched, retrieved and accessed. The large volume of documents housed in databases is not open to traditional Internet search engines because of limitations in crawler technology. Federated searching resolves this issue by the technique described above and makes these Deep Web documents searchable without having to visit each database individually.”

And now for something completely different.

In this post, I would like to propose an alternative definition of Federated Search, based upon the standard definition of “federation;” that is, several entities united under a central government, with the emphasis on “united;” i.e., characterized by unity; being or joined into a single entity.

So the colloquial phrase would be “United we Stand; Divided we Fall.” How does this apply to the alternative search engines? Well, first let’s look at a few instances of successful federations in history.

1) The United (or Federated) States of America. The USA has been referred to as the world’s only remaining Superpower; but did you ever notice that Rhode Island has never been labeled a Superpower, or even Vermont for that matter. In fact, no one of the fifty states could have weathered World Wars I and II and the Cold War. But the 50 United States (and its Allies) did pretty well, didn’t they?

2) The Soviet Union. After World War II, the Cold War was a contest between, at the time, two Superpowers. And the U.S.S.R. consisted mainly of 15 constituent republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

With profound apologies to its citizens, did not Borat imply that, on its own, Kazakhstan might not have been able to challenge the United States for decades?

3) The European Union. This economic experiment consists today of Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands. Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Greece, Spain,Portugal, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. I just got back from Italy where I had to convert all of my -unwanted- American money into Euros. But believe me, I was not grumbling at Luxembourg!

So, the lessons of recent history, not to mention Ancient history, seem to shout, “Federate!” If you really want to have some Geopolitical or Economic clout (or both), form a federation. And by all means, don’t leave out Vermont, Kazakhstan, or Luxembourg!

And your point would be…what?

The lesson for the alternative search engines is clear. Forget Federated Search - as a Google “replacement.” Even though we need Federated Search, and excellently done.

The same applies to Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Semantic Search, Social Search, Human-powered Search, Discovery, Visualization, Personalization, and yes, even Vertical Search. None of them have come along in time to knock Google off its perch. For all of them, it’s “too little, too late.”

But in the words of, well, somebody famous; “I want to make this perfectly clear.”

Each and every one of these areas of Search Innovation must continue to advance and improve to its fullest potential.

So why push ahead if, in my opinion, they cannot win? Because they can win if they go the way of a new Federation, that’s why.

It’s not Meaning-Based search or Vertical Search; Artificial Intelligence or Human-Powered Search.

And it certainly isn’t Powerset or Hakia, Wikia or Mahalo, Lexxe or CognitionSearch.

It’s Powerset and Hakia, and Accoona, Zuula, Quintura, Exalead and Icerocket…

To tell you the truth, this endless parade of articles about this or that technology being the Future of Search or the Next Big Thing (no reference to Don Dodge’s site) is starting to irritate me.

The aforementioned search engines, plus the other 90+ in an idealized “Top 100,” need to resolve that 2008 will be the year that the United Federation of Search Engines is established. It’s first task? The creation of the UI of course; the missing piece, the Unifying Interface.

Here at ASE, we are hard at work on a proposed UI, set to debut in late 2007. There will likely be several others to choose from, probably a competition of sorts. No matter; if there is one thing that the Alts have plenty of, its creativity and innovation. Bring it on!

But please, hurry up!

*(All definitions compliments of Answers.com )

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Guest Authors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Sphere: Related Content