June 2, 2010 – We learned about Spindex at a conference months ago. The story “Microsoft Launches Its Impossible Project: Spindex” provides more information about what is trending within an individual’s “personal index.” As professionals in the indexing field, we found the notion of a personal index and a topic that warrants some consideration. For us, one passage in the write-up caught our attention:

Spindex is a way of surfacing the most shared or popular items that come through your personal news feeds on social networks like Twitter. Microsoft’s project is part of a wave of similar projects like The Cadmus, Feedera and Knowmore that try and synthesize trends and news streams from personal social networks.

The “index”, therefore, emerges from analysis of data points within social networks. Useful perhaps. Worth considering with rigor? Absolutely.

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