This paper tackled a problem that almost everyone has engaged in at one time or anything. That problem being using an instant messenger client or email to share links with others. This could be problematic because there is no organization to the process. SearchTogether is a remedy to that problem. SearchTogether integrates instant messaging and email functionality into with the sole purpose of sharing search results with others. For instance, if Grandma was recently diagnosed with diabetes you could use SearchTogether to share some interesting search results with Grandma. When starting the client, you would choose Grandma as a recipient. All pertinent information will be sent to Grandma when she logs on. Or, if Grandma happens to be on the computer at the same time, search results can be passed in realtime.
When I first started reading the paper my first reaction was "This is so bizarre. Who wants to search with multiple people?" but after reading more about the details it became more clear that this type of technology could fill a need that current technologies cannot satisfy.
As said in class, I think this would present some privacy issues for some people. Of course, there might be some beneficial applications in education environments.
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced there ought to be a way to trim the session information before porting it to other/multiple users.
ReplyDeleteIn a study of algorithmically mediated collaboration (rather than UI-only as in SearchTogether), we found that teams of two people collaborating recognized more relevant documents than two people working independently, and that they found more relevant documents that no other groups found. Thus collaborative search seems to result in more efficient and effective exploratory search. We have a whole big discussion of this on our blog. See Communicating about Collaboration and related posts.
ReplyDeleteGene