These are exciting times for people who love this whole Search & Discovery Space. People are (finally) moving from using search/discovery technology to only facilitate end user searching and expanding into exciting territory.
The interesting aspect of this trend is the ability to dynamically hook together different resources – but this time based on search technologies. (Sidebar: I really ought to say search and discovery technologies. For the moment, I’ll use the two interchangeably.)
Let me give you an example so you can see what I mean…
A practice that I’m seeing more of uses search to drive non-search functions on eRetail websites. On those websites search is transparently driving navigation. This has HUGE implications for retail website designers – especially those who seek to personalize their website experience for individual customers.
Now you wouldn’t necessarily want to muck up your site’s main navigation. After all site-wide navigation needs to be consistent to keep from driving users crazy.
Just imagine what you could do with a special area on a page that provides guided navigation based on user actions (i.e., clicks) on your website!
If you want to see an example of this, read my blog on AutoZone and then visit their site. On their site, once you select a vehicle, it “remembers” it and when you click on different products categories afterwards it only returns products that actually designed for your vehicle. It’s a shade-tree mechanic’s nirvana! If only Lowe’s or Home Depot would do something similar.
My point is this: There is so much more that search can do. The problem is that most people don’t realize its potential for both the end-user and for driving revenue and ROI.
What we need is a group that explores and pushes the boundaries of how search and discovery technologies are applied to solve various business problems – a Search & Discovery Skunk Works.
So, when looking at WebSphere Portal’s Web Content Management (WCM) feature you might want to look more closely at the ‘menu’ widget. This poorly named but very powerful feature can be search driven in that as a page is loaded the menu is constructed by parameters submitted to a search engine and returned in a wide variety of formats such as navigational tabs, links, summaries with links, drop down lists, etc.
David, That is a great example of how search technology is being used to drive applications in non-traditional ways. I could see how something like this could free navigation from the “physical” architecture of a website and create “virtual” architectures based on the intersection of metadata (as defined by the ‘menu’ widget). Cool! I’ll have to go play with it. Thanks!