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Indexing with Related Terms
A Taxonomy is an organization system. It is a controlled vocabulary, containing a parent-child or hierarchical relationship, the specificity happens at the lower levels, at the branches, at the leaflets – or at the end of the list. They are very common on websites. They are also commonly supported as pick lists — a drop down menu of ten or twelve items. Sometimes they are browsable directories. There are many different ways to put them in play. There are not many standards as yet for taxonomies but there are many standards for thesauri.
Read MoreTo Really Help a Searcher, Show the Taxonomy
A recent post on a popular taxonomy community website asked for examples of websites that use a thesaurus. The writer was seeking sites that show the user that a thesaurus is being used to direct them from a query word to a taxonomy term. She was looking for a way to support searchers on a company by translating search queries that may be synonyms to terms in their large product taxonomy to deliver content indexed with the preferred term. She also questioned whether the redirection from a query word to a taxonomy term would be clear and intuitive for the searcher.
Read MoreTaxonomies in Book Store Organizations
There are many approaches to the building of a thesaurus and taxonomy. No absolutely right or absolutely wrong methods exist but there are some that are not as efficient as others. Some which lead to bias in the resulting work. Some which will not work with the data the client actually wants to surface on a website or data mine or tag. There are some very expensive approaches and some very practical approaches to doing the work.
Read MoreHow Secure is Your Geodata?
There has been lots of talk lately about stalkers locating you based on the photos you post online using your smart phone or GPS enabled mobile phone. I have received numerous emails from concerned friends and family warning me of the dire straits and danger lurking around the next photo I post of my dogs at the park. Truthfully, I deleted them all. “It’s just another urban myth,” I thought to myself.
Read MoreTaxonomies and Social Media
Any discussion of online media today cannot ignore the elephant in the room that is social media. Facebook will reach 700 Million Users by the end of 2011, according to Ted Shelton of Open-First. If anyone had any doubts about the revolutionary power of social media in general and Facebook in particular, those doubts have certainly been swept away by recent events in the Middle East. Not least among the many disruptions caused by social media is the way it has changed how people search, discover, and use content. Significantly, this impact is not limited to people’s personal lives, because social media is increasingly being used by businesses and institutions. Agencies and corporate marketers are scrambling to come up with ways to control messaging across the over 900 million “Tweets” generated by Twitter users every month, but these one-to-many and many-to-many communications (via “re-tweets”) have revolutionized the way business is conducted. Content professionals, and especially those in Knowledge Management and Enterprise Content Management, are beginning to ask what role we should be playing in this unfolding trend.
Read MoreTaxonomy Information Sources
I am often asked where can I find out more about software and taxonomies to reuse? There are a number of attempts to organize taxonomy resources on the web. Some are more up to date than others.
Read MoreWhy Use A Taxonomy Management Tool?
This question was recently asked and addressed in a community online forum that my colleagues and I participate in quite frequently. It occurred to me that though it seems like a simple question with an even simpler answer to those of us who live, breathe and eat this stuff every day – it certainly bears revisiting.
Read MoreA New Page in Warfare
When tanks first rolled onto the field of battle, the soldiers watched and knew that war would never be the same. When planes and submarines began to fly far above or lurk deep in the sea, people knew that the old ways were about to change. These paradigm shifts on the landscape of war trumpeted their arrival and everyone knew that another dog of war had entered the fight. But then, a new front appeared out of the blue.
Read MoreUsing Subject Matter Experts
There are many approaches to the building of a thesaurus and taxonomy. No absolutely right or absolutely wrong methods exist but there are some that are not as efficient as others. Some which lead to bias in the resulting work. Some which will not work with the data the client actually wants to surface on a website or data mine or tag. There are some very expensive approaches and some very practical approaches to doing the work.
Read MoreAre we ready for semantic integration?
As a user, wouldn’t it be fabulous to start typing in a search box and have the topic you’re looking for appear in a list of suggestions? Actually, we’ve already seen that enhancement and it’s pretty great – well at least when what you’re looking for is there. Avoids the dreaded typo or misspelling. What if those suggestions not only returned a comprehensive and relevant set of articles, but also offered other tools to assist in your research?
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