Tuesday, July 20, 2004

An article on MSN in yesterday's New York Times concludes with a quote from MSN's VP: "Search is not done until you can give users the answer they want instead of a list of 1,000 Web sites," Mr. Mehdi said. "That's a big, tough software problem. And we said, thank goodness we're software guys." This quote suggests that "software guys," at least in the Microsoft mold, may be a bit disconnected from what search is about. As a frequent user of search, most often I start with a general idea of what I am looking for, but it will take several iterations to discover a useful answer. What's most useful for me may not be that useful for you, given out different interests, backgrounds, and values. The suggestion that there is a magic software solution for this harks to the most naïve notions of artificial intelligence. There are many improvements one would like in current search engines, for example automatic recognition, syntax-sensitive matching, and disambiguation of complex search terms and phrases for better ranking. Grandiose visions confuse everybody about what is possible and create expectations that will be impossible to fulfill. 2:15:17 PM