[WEB4LIB] RE: The Net, Self-Organization, & Search

[Richard Wiggins]

Probably you ARE missing something there.  NEC has done some pretty serious
research on Web linkages, and it wouldn't surprise me if Larry Page had seen
some of it as Google was developed.  There's also IBM research in the same
area, which concluded that the Web is like a bunch of 3D bow ties.  A
headline of "the Web is like a bow tie" makes that research sound
superficial, too, but it was good enough for the journal Nature.

Yes, Google does link analysis, but there's a lot of deeper work in hubs and
authorities out there, both research and in the field (e.g. Teoma).

It's easy to trivialize research that's summarized in a press release, or,
worse, oversimplified or misrepresented in a news article.  The recent Pew
research that shows people are spending less time online and doing more
purposeful stuff at familiar sites could also elicit a "duh!" but it isn't
obvious until it gets revealed by a good survey.

/rich



"Drew, Bill" wrote

> 
> DUH!!!  Sites that have similar interests tend to link to each other.  Now
> that is a significant finding.  How much money was wasted on this?  Am I
> missing something here?
> 
> Bill Drew

Richard Wiggins
Writing, Speaking, and Consulting on Internet Topics
rich at richardwiggins.com       www.richardwiggins.com