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Authorit8: web page authority metric
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The Idea
When you set out on a Google search you generally have a specific problem to solve or a goal fulfill (ie. buy plane tickets, learn a specific bit of info, troubleshoot an error). Google employs various implicit tactics like pagerank and toolbar data to refine their search results and deliver the most promising results to the user - it boosts the value of their engine and keeps people coming back if they are able to quickly find what they were looking for. Authorit8 is a browser extension that allows a user to explicitly assign a level of <authoritativeness< to a paticular web page. Provided that the unique keywords on the page describe the problem the user was trying to solve, the level of authoritativeness would indicate the degree to which that information actually solved that problem. Revenue would make this service succeptible to abuse. The data would be very valuable to search engines - acquisition would be the play. Del.icio.us still does not have reveue and look at it.
I thought of this idea when I was...
Every time I conduct a lengthy search for a piece of info and finally come to it, I wish there was a way to flag that final <pot of treasure< as being the authoritative source for my problem. Pagerank does this to some extent indirectly by boosting the rank of pages that have more inbound links making the assumption that people will link to pages that solved their problem. A browser-extension mechanism for assigning crediblity at the time of consumption of the info would provide this data more accurately and more immediately. The motivation of the people assigining the <authoritativeness< level would be to demonstrate their own credibility. If you>ve accurately ranked enough pages on a given topic (as concurred by others> ratings) you can display an authorit8 badge on your site as a credential of your knowledge on the subjects you>ve rated. Slashdot and Digg have already validated that people care a great deal about their <karma points< and public credibility.
Comments Posted
Isn't this what personalized search tries to solve ? ( authoritativeness can be subjective inmany cases as well )
To be usefull, the data must be coupled/useable with a search engine.
http://www.gravee.com/ is an example of a community powered search engine. Not necessarily using a toolbar but users can also rate sites. Eurekster does something similar with tag clouds.
Search engines like google/Yahoo are also busy with personalized search engines
I think the authority/credibility/trust issue addressed by this idea makes it unique. I also agree that revenue/ads/sponsorship could be percieved as distorting the results - Trust & Credibility are hard things to establish on the internet.
If you look at the biggest successes of the internet - most were great solutions to real problems without real revenue models to start. Google, YouTube, Digg, MySpace - even the ones that have revenue models now grew superfast because they were free (as in beer and free of ads)
For a simple idea like this with potential to change the way we access information, spread like wildfire over the internet, and fit nicely with the needs of Yahoo, Google, MSN Live etc. acquisition would definately be the play.
I'm voting up.
Just came accross this article: http://www.techcrunc...ds-blog-suggestions/
Have a look at www.Yoono.com it looks to be very close to your idea.
@digeratta- interesting but that seems like a different service more oriented towards discovery like stumbleupon. Yoono seems to target the curious surfers who are in exploratory mode and don't know what they're looking for - the discovery element. I'm proposing a service aimed at the person who knows exactly what he/she needs (answer to xyz problem) but doesn't want to wade through piles of search results. If there's a way to prioritize the results for a search by authoritativeness that would bubble the most useful ones to the top. It's a different motive for searching.
@Imhotep- authoritativeness is definitely "in the eye of the beholder" but it's also different than personalized search. the latter uses collaborative filtering to display results similar to others that share your tastes- an implicit metric. Authorit8 would use an explicit metric designed to gauge not the similarity of results but to identify the ones that held definitive solutions to the problem that brought the surfer to the webpage.
thanks for the input you guys.
sean
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