FreePint Newsletter 226 - European Union + Vertical Search
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FreePint
"Helping 79,000 people find, use, manage
and share work-related information"
ISSN 1460-7239 22nd March 2007 No.226
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ONLINE FORMATTED HTML VERSION
IN THIS ISSUE
-------------
EDITORIAL
By Monique Cuvelier, Editor, FreePint
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Anne Jordan
FREEPINT BAR
In Association with Factiva, from Dow Jones
JINFO :: JOBS IN INFORMATION
Junior Analyst
Assistant Records Manager
Senior Client Services Executive
Documentation Assistant
Investment Banking Senior Researchers (2)
Global Web Strategy Coordinator
TIPS ARTICLE
"Finding Facts: The European Union after 50 Years"
By Adrian Janes
REVIEW
"Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe"
Written by Jean-Noel Jeanneney
Reviewed by Matt Chapuran
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Moving Up: Vertical Search Proliferates"
By Tim Houghton
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
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Reliable, relevant information for hard-to-research countries and
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Also in this issue: Web 2.0 opportunities for business; Global Reports
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*** ABOUT FREEPINT ***
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Joining FreePint is free at and connects
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EDITORIAL
By Monique Cuvelier, Editor, FreePint
'Don't be evil' is one of those slogans that's bound to come back and
bite you. It's right up there with insisting that the iceberg isn't
anywhere near the boat. Google is feeling the pinch now that it's
grown too big for such a rosy little-guy-that-could attitude.
That partly started when it started indexing such enormous swaths of
the Web that many found it unwieldy. The response is alternative
search engines. Vertical search is the way of the future, says Tim
Houghton, who talks about targeted tools in his feature.
And with ambitious projects such as digitising all the books in
several major libraries, Google is rubbing some people up exactly the
wrong way. One is certainly Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the president of
France's Bibliotheque nationale and author of "Google and the Myth of
Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe". His main concern is that
Google could be obliterating cultural heritage. Matt Chapuran reviews.
Europeans, at least French ones who run national libraries, may be
angry, but FreePint toasts them this month as the European Union turns
50. Super researcher Adrian Janes knows that age doesn't necessarily
beget clarity. He knows finding information on the EU can be
complicated, so he contributes a handy guide.
If you're interested in deeper research into Europe and consumer
spending habits, dip into FreePint's sister publication VIP
, which this month looks at products with a
European or global range.
Keep reading FreePint for more information on the English-speaking
world and beyond. We've got some excellent articles planned for this
spring.
Sincerely,
Monique Cuvelier
Editor, FreePint
e: monique.cuvelier@freepint.com
w:
FreePint is a Registered Trademark of Free Pint Limited (R) 1997-2007
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Library + information Show, 18-19 April 2007, NEC, Birmingham
LiS is the only national event designed specifically for the library
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
By Anne Jordan
As a freelance researcher I've found the first two sites below to be
great starting points when looking for details of the UK and US
financial services sectors. The other sites are more oriented to
personal interests, but have all been used quirkily within a
professional context.
* International Financial Services, London
provides analysis and statistics on UK financial services. Free
reports on sectors such as private equity, commodities trading,
securitisation etc.
* The Financial Services Fact Book
is a great for
statistics and rankings on the US financial services sector.
Annuities, cards, mortgages, savings - and much more.
* Lee Jackson's Victorian London is
useful for historical researchers and fascinating for anyone who
knows or loves London.
* RhymeZone helps me find words that rhyme
to write bad poetry for friends' birthdays. It once helped add
humour to a consultant's speech!
* There are several 'today-in-history' sites, useful for historical
research and unusual consultant requests. The BBC, Library of
Congress and History Channel are good, but Scope Systems
has proved most useful.
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Anne Jordan is a freelance business
information professional, researcher and writer, mainly within
financial services and management consultancy, and has an interest in
the Victorian period.
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FREEPINT BAR
By Monique Cuvelier, Editor, FreePint
In Association with Factiva, from Dow Jones
Finding answers to tricky research questions is ordinarily a challenge
- just try finding a directory of German national standards translated
into English on your own. But the job is made easier with the FreePint
Bar . Highlights from current
conversations below.
* A martini in New York might be the barfly equivalent of a negroni in
Rome, but that doesn't mean it's the same out-of-pocket expense.
When one Bar member asked about how international prices stack up
against cost of living , several
people chipped in with useful yardsticks, ranging from mixed drinks
to Big Macs.
* Sainsbury's is so ubiquitous it's hard to remember it's a
family-owned business. You can find one of those on any high street,
but how do you locate smaller family-run companies with a few
employees? Dun and Bradstreet is no help, because it only catalogues
those with 77+ employees. A tricky question, but the Bar has some
creative ideas. Lend your own .
For more help on learning about customers and businesses, check with
the March issue of VIP for product reviews
and ResourceShelf for full-text free
resources.
* Aside from retired pirates, people rarely express nostalgia for the
skull and crossbones. The exception being one Barfly who is
searching for those little stickers used to label horror novels. If
you have ideas on where to locate these relics, please share
.
* Finding a reliable virtual data room provider can be challenging,
one Bar member is discovering. The discussion is open for those with
experience in this area .
We know you love FreePint. Keep the warm feelings flowing by telling
your friends to subscribe - it's free!
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Monique Cuvelier is Editor of the FreePint Newsletter. She has served
as editor of several publications and her writing has appeared in
Publish, USA Today, Bankrate and many others. Learn more about her at
.
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The FreePint Bar is where you can get free help with your tricky
research and information questions .
Help with study for information-related courses is available at the
FreePint Student Bar .
Subscribe to the twice-weekly email digests at
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Keep up-to-date on your professional reading and serve the FreePint
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Send your suggestions and queries to
For guidelines on writing book reviews click here:
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JINFO :: JOBS IN INFORMATION
The Jinfo service enables you to search and advertise information-
related job vacancies.
The Jinfo Newsletter now features a CV Makeover, in which a job
seeker's CV is critiqued and revised by specialists in the field as
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TIPS ARTICLE
"Finding Facts: The European Union after 50 Years"
By Adrian Janes
Introduction
------------
The European Union (EU) marks its 50th anniversary in March 2007
. In this time it has grown from six
to 27 Member States, gradually expanded the range of its activities
and become a highly complex organisation. This article attempts to
sketch some of the background to the EU's development, point out the
functions of some of the key institutions and above all indicate
useful sources of information.
As an English speaker, I have usually given Web addresses for English
versions of official EU sites. The EU in fact has 23 official
languages, but this does not mean that every online document or
website is available in them. It is hard to see what the rationale is
for the varying range of translations, but as a minimum, English,
French and German versions usually exist. It may be worth applying to
the EU Bookshop (see below) or the national representation of the
European Commission in your country for a hard copy version of a
document if it is not downloadable in your preferred language.
History
-------
The present European Union dates its birth from The Treaty of Rome
, which founded the European
Economic Community (EEC) on 25 March 1957. The original members were
Belgium, France, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Italy.
Subsequent to this, there have been several other major treaties
, these being the
Single European Act (1986); the Treaty on European Union, also known
as Maastricht (1992); the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997); and the Treaty
of Nice (2001). These have served both to increase the organisation's
legal powers and the fields in which it tries to exert influence,
notably foreign policy. Other agreements, called accession treaties,
have produced several enlargements to the membership. (The 50th
anniversary site has an animation vividly illustrating its gradual
expansion.)
However, the degree to which the EU should be a political actor rather
than an economic one remains controversial, as this has profound
implications for national sovereignty. (An analogy might be made with
the US, with the inherent tension between the federal government's
powers and the rights of the individual states.) Proponents of the
economic view hold that the EEC was intended essentially as a free
trade area, or Common Market, as it was once known. On the other hand
there are those who say that its evolution into a more political
organisation was implicit from the beginning, and that it is a logical
working out of the process of removing barriers to the movement of
capital, goods, labour and citizens. The change of name to European
Union and the expansion of functions as a result of the Treaty of
Maastricht reflect this evolution.
The most recent expression of the controversy has been the attempt to
create an EU constitution . Supporters of the
constitution argue that the EU's institutions and decision-making
procedures need to be overhauled to cope with its now far greater
size. They also see it as an opportunity to confirm the rights of all
citizens (the concept of European citizenship was introduced by
Maastricht).
However, many of those citizens remain unconvinced. France and the
Netherlands held referenda in 2005 that rejected the proposed
constitution (although a number of other member states have accepted
it). As it had to achieve unanimous acceptance, this led to the
process being put on hold while a 'period of reflection' was
undertaken. Germany began a 6-month term as EU President in January
2007, and the German leader Angela Merkel announced that this period
was now at an end , signalling the intention
to press ahead towards some form of constitution.
Organisation of the European Union
----------------------------------
There are four key elements to the organisation and coordination of
the European Union:
* European Parliament
* European Commission
* European Council
* Council of the European Union
The interrelation of these bodies is somewhat confusing, but an
important element has been the growing power of Parliament. Each
major treaty since 1986 has recognised and confirmed further areas of
competence.
Nowadays its approval is necessary for most legislation proposed by
the Commission (Parliament does not put forward legislation itself),
as well as for the EU's budget. Usually this approval must also be
given by the Council of the European Union, in what is known as a
'co-decision' procedure. If they are not in agreement on a piece of
legislation a ‘conciliation committee', made up of both Members of the
European Parliament (MEPs) and Council members, will try to achieve a
compromise, but Parliament can still veto the resulting text even if
the Council has approved it.
MEPs have only been directly elected since 1979, an example of how the
EU has evolved into a more clearly political and democratic body from
its early years. They serve for 5-year terms: the current Parliament
will be in office until 2009. The numbers elected from each member
state are based on population: for example, the UK has 78 MEPs, Spain
54 and Latvia 9.
Two main sites lead to information on Parliament and MEPs:
Europarl.org links to national offices of
the Parliament, and is the better route to learn about the activities,
committee membership and contact details of individual countries'
MEPs; The European Parliament site
has debates (including video coverage), documents, reports and news
for Parliament as a whole.
The European Commission is made up
of nominated members from each of the Member States. It drafts the
legislative proposals that are debated and agreed to or rejected by
Parliament and the Council. It is expected to take decisions in the
overall interests of the EU, rather than be subject to the national
pressures felt by MEPs.
The areas of the Commission's activity are each supported by a
Directorate-General, or DG. Thus, there is a DG Agriculture and Rural
Development, DG Information Society and Media, DG Regional
Development, etc. All of these have informative webpages for their
area of expertise. The simplest way to get to these (and also
information on many specific topics) is to use the Commission's A-Z
Index .
The European Council consists of
meetings of state or governmental heads plus the President of the
European Commission. It is the main source of policy-making, which the
Commission then turns into legislative proposals. It is also the key
body for the EU's relations with the rest of the world.
The Council of the European Union (previously known as the Council of
Ministers) consists of meetings of
ministers who have responsibility in their own countries for
particular briefs, such as Environment or Economic and Financial
Affairs, in order to discuss these areas on a European or even wider
basis. It also partners the Parliament in the legislative process.
To find contacts in a specific part of the EU's organisation, the EU
Whoiswho is very comprehensive,
and it can be searched by individual name, by entity (e.g. the
Council) or by hierarchy (e.g. the audit groups which answer to the
Court of Auditors).
Finally, it is important to note that EU enlargement is not yet
complete. The European Commission Enlargement website
provides information about the
candidate countries, which at the moment are largely members of what
was Yugoslavia, along with Turkey.
General Sources of Information
------------------------------
The quantity of information obtainable from and about the EU matches
its geographic vastness. There has been a conscious movement in recent
years to place much more online, as well as developing information
networks to deal with enquiries from citizens and businesses. For
pamphlets and books, including online versions, the EU Bookshop
and the EU Publications Office
are the best places to start. The
Publications Office homepage also serves as an immediate gateway to
important publications like the Official Journal and EU Whoiswho.
Europa is the pre-eminent official gateway. All
the main areas of activity are covered, from agriculture to transport,
with links rapidly leading from the broad to the very specific.
If you bookmark nothing else, bookmark the European Union Delegation
of the European Commission to the USA
. This wonderfully thorough
site provides links to the majority of EU sites you are likely to
need, organised as Essential EU Sites, Essential Sites in Business,
Education and Law, and sites for EU institutions and agencies. Since
the workings of the EU are probably as mysterious to many Europeans as
they are to Americans, it's also worth knowing about the PDF of "The
European Union: a guide for Americans" (included under Publications),
which is a good introduction.
Euroguide is a
collection of sites under a broader set of headings than Europa, many
with brief descriptions. It is aimed at the general public and
includes many non-EU sources, even including an Anti-European Union
category.
Europe Direct has a
clickable map to indicate centres for EU information in each of the
member states. They are intended to be able to answer enquiries on all
aspects of the EU, whether it is a question of policy or the practical
exercise of rights.
In Britain, the European Information Network
not only provides links to Europe
Direct centres, but also includes networks aimed at specific
audiences: European Documentation Centres (academic), European
Information Centres (business), and European Public Information
Centres (based in public libraries).
Law
---
As noted, the EU's areas of activity have greatly expanded over the
past five decades, and a body of law has grown up that reflects this.
The treaties, also known as the 'primary' legislation, are the
foundation for all other 'secondary' legislation, such as directives
(which apply to all member states and must be incorporated into
national law) and decisions (which are more limited, applying to a
particular state or an entity such as a company).
A gateway site that can give access to the texts of all of this legal
material is Eur-Lex . Bear in mind that a
'new' law (ie, one that has come into effect in a member state) will
often have been agreed at the EU level years before, so this will
affect a search limited by date. The Directory of Community
Legislation in Force is
a key feature of the site. However it is liable to produce a large
number of results from a keyword search, so it is preferable to start
with a precise reference such as the number of a directive, for
example 93/104/EC (the Working Time Directive), where '93' indicates
1993, the year in which that measure was agreed.
The Court of Justice of the European Communities
, contrary to what some think, is concerned
not with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms (which was adopted in 1950 by the Council of
Europe), but with the application of EU law. Cases related to the
Convention are heard by the European Court of Human Rights, which,
like the Council of Europe, is a non-EU body.
To keep up to date with legal measures that have been passed or are
under discussion the key source is the Official Journal Series L <
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOIndex.do?ihmlang=en>. This is archived from
1998 in 11 official languages, and additionally from 2004 in the
languages of the countries which joined in that year. It can be
supplemented by the websites of Parliament and the Commission.
For non-specialists, Your Europe
offers information both for citizens and businesses on their legal
rights in more straightforward language. It is complemented by Solvit
, a network of advisors backed by the
European Commission. This tries to settle actual problems that have
arisen from EU law in practice without having to go through legal
proceedings.
Business and Economy
--------------------
Economically, the EU is currently working to a 10-year strategy agreed
in Lisbon in 2000, aiming to become 'the most competitive and dynamic
knowledge-based economy in the world'. From a business point of view,
the EU has opened up new opportunities. Indeed, one of the selling
points to counteract fears about enlargement has been the added
millions of potential consumers and workers.
The area in which businesses can tender for public works contracts has
also increased. By law, all such contracts above a certain threshold
must be offered across the EU. These can be monitored via TED (Tenders
Electronic Daily) , also known as Official
Journal S. The site can be searched by location or business sector.
The latter are classified by the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV).
To check the appropriate CPV a keyword search can be used.
Alternatively, SIMAP , a gateway
site for public procurement, has a PDF of the current numerical codes
.
One of the most contentious developments of recent years has been the
introduction of the Euro. For some, a national currency is a potent
symbol of control of national affairs, so giving it up obviously
implies lack of control. This remains a live issue in the UK, one of
the countries that so far have not joined the Eurozone (member states
that have adopted the Euro). The official UK site for the Euro is run
by the Treasury .
On a more pragmatic level, while it permits much more direct cost
comparisons for business and consumers, some argue that it has lead to
higher prices. To keep up to date with the exchange rate for the Euro,
the European Central Bank
is a good source, as well as for Eurozone interest rates and general
economic news. EU Business is a more
general entry point for business news, with a clear structure that
leads easily to a currency converter, a large collection of useful
guides to countries and specific business-related issues (e.g. the
Copyright Directive), and links to official pages.
Statistics
----------
The EU's statistical agency is Eurostat . All
of its publications are downloadable, and cover themes for every facet
of the EU: economic, population and social conditions, trade, etc.
A more specialist statistical source is the European Employment
Observatory . A notable
feature is its "Sourcebook of key data sources on employment and
labour market issues", , which highlights
many websites and journals, firstly across the EU and then by country.
Conclusion
----------
The European Union has been an ongoing project which, if anything, has
only grown more ambitious over the past 50 years. But just as its
geographical extent is likely to grow, so too is its economic and
political influence. Hopefully this article has shown that information
professionals and the public have resources that can help them find
out what they need to know, either directly or through referral to
specialists.
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Adrian Janes is an Information librarian with the London Borough of
Havering, where his responsibilities include the library's EPIC
collection. His influences include Albert Camus, Jaki Liebezeit and
Nikos Kazantzakis.
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Related FreePint links:
* "Sources on EU Enlargement" By Kay Renfrew
* Searching for EU-information from the FreePint Bar
* "Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge"
Written by Cass R. Sunstein. Reviewed by Adrian Janes
* "The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide" Written by Irene E.
McDermott Reviewed by Adrian Janes
* "The Library and Information Professional's Internet Companion"
Written by Alan Poulter, Debra Hion and David McMenemy Reviewed by
Adrian Janes
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ResourceShelf Resource of the Week: March Madness
Explore the latest posts in mobile search, search engine news,
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capture the DocuTicker RSS feed, or visit daily.
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REVIEW
"Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe"
Written by Jean-Noel Jeanneney
Reviewed by Matt Chapuran
In 2004, California-based Google announced plans to digitise and make
available as many as 30 million books as part of the so-called Google
Library Project . In the slim volume 'Google
and the Myth of Universal Knowledge', Jean-Noel Jeanneney - himself
the president of the Bibliotheque nationale de France - frames a
cogent, if oftentimes overtly and overly political, argument that
entrusting the literary treasures of the world to an American for-
profit corporation has a number of pitfalls and could be considered a
dereliction of duty by the world's libraries charged with the
preservation of books.
Jeanneney explores Google's famously opaque algorithms designed to
bring the web pages with the most overall hits to the top of a search
result, 'a system in which success breeds success, at the expense of
newcomers, minorities, marginals'. (p.45) The financing of the Google
Library would only exacerbate these inherent imbalances. 'Books will
necessarily be hierarchised in favour of those best suited to satisfy
the demands of advertisers,' Jeanneney frets. 'Chosen according to the
principle of the highest bidder.' (p. 31)
Just as disconcerting to Jeanneney is the prospect that allowing an
American company to take - or maintain - the lead in digitising a
World Library would naturally skew literary resources in an
Anglocentric direction. Jeanneney cites the lack of availability on
the Google site of the works of Victor Hugo or Cervantes in their
native languages as well as justifiable concern that American
perspectives on American and world history would be far too limiting a
lens.
Of course, someone has to choose the hierarchies of a library
collection or literary canon, and to some, Google and its advertisers
may seem no more of an arbitrary arbiter than the college faculties
who have dictated curricula for centuries. Google may also seem no
more arbitrary than state-controlled institutions. Intriguingly, the
solution that Jeanneney proposes is the formation of a government-
sponsored European library that would rival - if not displace -
Google's supremacy. Jeanneney tours a number of digital library
projects undertaken by different nations, including France's own
Gallica and imagines a confederation that
would provide a more multinational and thoughtful version of a Digital
World Library. Although Jeanneney mentions similar projects being
undertaken by India or China, they do not seem to be an aspect of his
envisioned Google-rival. It's almost as if a centuries-old struggle
for world supremacy is being shifted on to a literary and digital
stage. (The original title of the book for its French publication was
"When Google Challenges Europe: A Wake Up Call".)
While it's tempting to dismiss Jeanneney for his own very obvious
French bias (he is apparently still smarting from Bob Hope's jokes
about the counter-revolution, p.41), he adroitly argues that the
growing dependence upon a centralised corporate repository of
information could have significant negative long-term consequences.
Jeanneney cites a Pew Internet and American Life Project study which
concluded in 2005 that, '92 percent of users of search engines have
full confidence in the results of their search.' (p.32).
For Jeanneney, it explains why he's comfortable dismissing Wikipedia
and the wiki-influenced Project Gutenberg <
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page> as incapable of protecting
the Internet consumer due to its lack of central oversight and central
standards. However, as studies like this make clear, the true wake-up
call should be directed not at Europe but to all of us. As scanning
technology becomes more affordable, perhaps the best World Library
should reside not in the hands of governments or corporations but in
the hands of the Internet community that they claim to serve.
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Matt Chapuran is a writer, actor and affordable-housing analyst living
in Boston. His work regularly appears in Lowe's For Pros, an online
journal with technical and business advice for plumbers, electricians
and property management professionals. He can be seen selling wrap
sandwiches (and rapping) in a commercial for the Maine Lottery. He can
be reached at .
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Related FreePint links:
* Find out more about this book online at the FreePint Bookshelf
* "Beyond Music: Integrating Podcasting into Your Business"
By Matt Chapuran
* "Do you Google?" By Richard Eskins
* "An Insider's View of Google Answers" By David Sarokin
Related links:
* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
* or Amazon.com
To propose an information-related book or resource for review, send
details to Monique Cuvelier, Editor of FreePint .
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filing images and company data for Austria, Belgium, France, Germany,
Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
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report delivery .
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our DNS serivice can easily handle. Thanks to DigBig, it's not a
problem! DigBig, you're my hero!" Customer Service Consulting, San
Francisco, CA, USA (March 2007)
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FEATURE ARTICLE
"Moving Up: Vertical Search Proliferates"
By Tim Houghton
Vertical Search is one of the 'hot' areas of the last couple of years.
Not that it has dominated Google's overall most popular queries.
Britney and Paris see to that. But quietly amongst thoughtful
commentators like Om Malik , Danny Sullivan of
Search Engine Watch and the financiers of Silicon Valley, the area has
attracted expert attention.
But what exactly constitutes vertical search, and how has it been
executed on a consumer and professional level? Below are a few
thoughts on what is driving the growth of vertical search and whether
it is with this rather than general search that the future lies,
especially as far as those who use the Web for work are concerned.
These are primarily sources that utilise online content and present
this via websites. There are obviously many other potential types of
vertical search.
Defining vertical
-----------------
You'll be relieved to know that defining vertical search is
considerably more straightforward than defining other hot topics of
the moment such as Web 2.0. As Wikipedia puts it, 'Myriad specialized
search engines are emerging to address the particular information
needs of niche audiences and professions.' Om Malik defines it
slightly differently: 'It is a specialized search engine that mines
data for one narrow niche of the market place.'
Another aid to understanding vertical search is to understand what it
is not. Google's stated mission 'is to organize the world's
information and make it universally accessible and useful'. And
clearly rivals like Yahoo!, MSN, Google and maybe even open-source
competitors like Nutch have the same universalist aim. Clearly no
search engine gets even close to achieving this objective today; they
don't even index the entire Web, and, as Google discovered when it
started scanning books still within copyright, there are formidable
legal as well as technical obstacles to doing so.
So a vertical search engine is trying to solve a different, more
specific problem than a generalist one, focusing on the needs of a
specific market segment, user group or alternatively a highly specific
dataset. Is this a viable strategy or will these minnows be crushed by
the larger players? Is search tending to atomise, to become complex
and fragmented, or is it set to be dominated by a few giants?
Consumer offerings
------------------
To help understand this, here are a few examples from the consumer
space, before examining the professional sphere. Technorati <
http://www.technorati.com/> is now almost too big to be considered a
'vertical' search engine at all. But it certainly started as a niche
offering; it went from being a somewhat clunky blog search engine to a
highly polished offering that specialises in the indexing of user-
generated content. In the process it showed that even in quite a broad
content area Google can be challenged.
Technorati is 'vertical' in the sense of being focused on one data
type - blogs - but its target audience is broad. Likewise job search
engines like Indeed and SimplyHired focus on a smaller, though still
vast dataset, job postings. But their audience is also restricted,
though not by demographic or geography, but by intent. Try a search in
either of these engines versus, say, Yahoo!, and it is hard to argue
that they're not yielding a higher quality set of results. And one can
drill down further. If you're looking for a job in the information
industry then one can argue that Jinfo is a high-quality vertical
search engine. This also raises the issue of where a focused portal
ends and a vertical search engine begins.
Take a quick glance at other successful consumer vertical search
engines and a clear pattern starts to emerge. Areas like travel (Kayak
and Farechase, now owned by Yahoo!) and property (FindaProperty,
PropertyFinder) are well-established players, and automotive looks
like the next area for growth. In the US one of the leading online car
sales sites recently announced plans to open an automotive search
site, MyRide.com.
Clearly, in the consumer vertical search area, searches that involve
complex informational requirements, high levels of engagement and
large amounts of data work well for vertical search providers. It is
worthwhile for the consumer to go to the trouble to seek out such a
service. And notice too that these sectors are among the most buoyant
for online advertising and not coincidentally are characterised by
high levels of classified advertising in the traditional print world.
Site creators realise they can deliver a more focused and hence
higher-value audience to advertisers than general search engines.
Professional use
----------------
But what about the professionals? As 'super searcher' Mary Ellen Bates
has long argued, it is well worth looking beyond Google. In the
professional sphere one hopes and expects that those using the Web for
work will be willing to invest the time both in identifying and
learning how to use more specialised services.
Of course vertical search for professionals did not arrive in the mid
1990s with the Internet. Databases of carefully filtered, validated
and trusted content have been around for far longer - LexisNexis and
Factiva being just two obvious examples. But vertical search that
specifically utilises Web-based data is a newer concept.
SearchMedica, a newly launched search service focused on the general
practitioner sector, illustrates the demand for sector specific
information for professionals. It's interesting to note that the
service is not built from scratch using its own technology but instead
combines an indexing partner, Convera, with domain specific
experience. And there are many others, eg High Beam for market
research or Alacra, a meta-searcher to over 100 structured databases.
One of the most intriguing new services if you're a buyer of
information for investment professionals is Monitor110. Its aim is to
be a complement to a Reuters or Bloomberg terminal for traders. How?
By providing actionable investment insights from user-generated
content. Roger Ehrenburg explains on his blog Information Arbitrage
that by focusing on one sector and using experts in that sector you
can predict with a high degree of certainty what users are looking for
and how they would like information presented.
But take that one step further. Why stop at a sector when you can
focus a search on an individual business? That's what David Seuss at
Northern Light has done over the last few years as the firm has moved
from providing a fairly general search engine to focusing on providing
what I would call ‘enterprise specific vertical search’. When I spoke
to him he enthusiastically explained how the firm provides a bespoke
research portal to clients, covering both internal and external
sources with user-level access permissions and so forth. As he puts
it, 'The future is bright for complexity.'
Upward growth
-------------
In some ways the growth of vertical search alongside horizontal or
generalist search is utterly unsurprising. As the number of Web users
grows to 1 billion plus, their experience and sophistication grows, as
does the amount of time they spend online. It is hardly surprising
that tools proliferate. As Clay Shirky points out in a recent Wired
News article
a 0.1% market share of Web users is 1 million unique users. And if
these are high-value professionals, that is potentially a highly
profitable market.
In general I think any analysis that boils down to a simple
'either/or' dialectic is likely to be wrong. In the case of vertical
search I think this is undoubtedly the case. As the vast scale and
complexity of Web information grows the big players like Google,
Yahoo!, MSN and Ask will continue to have tremendous scale economies
when it comes to indexing and serving general queries from the Web.
But for exactly the same reason I think those demanding intelligence
rather than simple information will use other tools.
So will the major search engines be reduced to mere fact checkers? Not
at all. I think they will develop vertical offerings in the larger
consumer niches, as indeed they are already doing. But skills like the
ability to support complex structured searching, taxonomies, access to
databases and complex data visualisation tools all have a healthy
future for those services targeted at information professionals.
Interesting that Silicon Valley is backing ideas that information
professionals have argued in favour of for years.
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Tim Houghton is the founder and MD of New Media Intelligence, a Web
clipping firm. New Media Intelligence monitors thousands of Websites
for news, allowing clients to keep up with the latest media
developments online. The firm prides itself on its tailored approach
and develops bespoke solutions for clients including their own branded
portals. Read more at: .
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Related FreePint links:
* "Web Site Usability Resources" By Tim Houghton
* Jinfo
Related links:
* GigaOM
* Search Engine Watch
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
It is free to search and advertise information-related gatherings
in FreePint Events .
Premium listings
----------------
These events are hosted by our partner organisations and/or
advertisers:
* "SIIA Content Forum" - Gain the tools, tactics, and best
practices necessary to build, enable and sell content at the 4th
annual Software & Information Industry Summit (SIIA) Content Forum
& Codie Awards Gala in San Francisco on 15 - 17 April
* "Library + information Show" - LiS is the only national event
designed specifically for the library community. Taking place at the
NEC in Birmingham on the 18 - 19 April.
* "PI Conference 2007 - Staying Relevant in a Constantly Evolving
Environment - What's Next for the Information Professional?
Organised by Perfect Information. Taking place at the MacDonald
Bath Spa Hotel, Bath on 1 - 3 May
Free listings
-------------
Australia and Territories:
* "Data Quality: Capturing and Maintaining Accurate Information"
2-4 April
Spain:
* "7th ONLINE EDUCA MADRID" 7 - 9 May
United Kingdom:
* "STN Patent Forum" 28 March
* "Property Information managers Society Conference" 3 April
* "The Flag and Bell Pub Crawl for Techies" 3 April
* "Legal Briefing" 4 April
* "UKSG Conference 2007 and Exhibition" 16 - 18 April
Sweden:
* "The 13th Nordic Conference on Information and Documentation 2007"
18 - 19 June
United States:
* "AIIP 21st Annual conference" 18 - 22 April
NB: This is just a selection of information-related event listings
in the FreePint Events database .
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FREEPINT GOLD
A look back at what FreePint covered at this time in previous years:
* FreePint No.202 16th March 2006. "Save yourself! Free resources for
organising, maintaining and sharing the fruits of your web searches"
and "Characterising the dragon - undertaking research in China"
* FreePint No.179 24th March 2005. "New Librarians and Open Positions:
Bringing the Two Together" and "Key issues in complying with Freedom
of Information legislation"
* FreePint No.156 18th March 2004. "Information Sources For Childcare
On The Web" and "Curious about Clio? History and Historians on the
Web"
* FreePint No.133 20th March 2003. "Military History on the Internet"
and "Librarians & Comics"
* FreePint No.108, 21st March 2002. "An introduction to the
Netherlands on the web" and "Evolution or revolution: the future of
scholarly publishing"
* FreePint No.83, 15th March 2001. "XML - the DNA of the Internet" and
"Freedom of Information"
* FreePint No.58, 16th March 2000. "Portals" and "WWW.OED.COM - A New
Home for the Dictionary"
* FreePint No.34, 18th March 1999. "Pharmaceutical/ health information
on the Web" and "Who goes there...? - Access Control Issues for
Internet-based information services"
* FreePint No.10, 19th March 1998. "Working the Net" and "Business and
Accounting Resources on the Web"
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FREEPINT FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
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If you have a suggestion for an article topic, or would like to write
for FreePint, then please contact FreePint's Editor Monique Cuvelier,
or read the notes for authors at
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Contributors to this issue:
Monique Cuvelier (Editor, FreePint), Anne Jordan, Adrian Janes, Matt
Chapuran, Tim Houghton, Robin Neidorf (General Manager, FreePint),
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