Alexa et al.

[Dan Lester]

The following is the lead of the following article, courtesy of:

http://www.techweb.com/voices/harrow/harrow.html

The entire piece at the URL provides some interesting
material for all of us, and particularly those interested in
developing alternative methods of browsing//finding things on
the web.  It also tells more about http://www.archive.com/ , a
definite must-see site, where the inimitable Brewster Kahle is
now trying to archive the whole net.  And librarians thought
they had a difficult job.....

dan



The Search Continues
By Jeffrey R. Harrow

We're comfortable with the Web. We know from our users'
perspective how it works. When we want to know about
something, we just guess at its company's URL and we
usually find it. If we don't, we type in those ol' standby
addresses for AltaVista, Yahoo or one of the other major
search engines, and it's truly amazing what we can find. 

But there are reasons why we might want to extend this
model. Suppose I'm looking at a page that isn't quite what I
want, yet I'm not sure which way to turn. Now, suppose I
could somehow pull on your experiences in a similar
situation. Suppose I could find out what choices many other
people have made, and how well they liked the results. Could
this streamline my info-hunting/gathering? Suppose the Web
became less of a rigid, one-person experience, and became
more, well, collaborative.

You may recall some early examples of "collaborative
filtering" we've explored in the past, including Digital
Equipment's EachMovie and EachToy sites and Firefly.
These are pioneering examples of using the Web to expand
our knowledge reach beyond straight searching or links. And
for several weeks, I've been hearing tantalizing teasers about
an innovative new service in this space. Turns out that a new
company, Alexa, has released a limited public beta of a free
service that will attempt to extend this type of collaboration to
the Web at large.

In the company's words, Alexa is a free service that works in
conjunction with your Web browser to provide
where-to-go-next suggestions, behind-the-scenes facts about
the site you are visiting,