nfais - social search

Darrell W. Gunter

EVP / CMO

Collexis Holdings, Inc.

May 14, 2010

Improving The User Experience - Part ISocial Search

Our Agenda for the next 20 minutes!

• What is Social Search and is it significant?

• Who are some of the key players?

• What are they doing that is so unique?

• Best practices to consider for your Social Search tool.

• Summation

Social Search DefinitionWikipedia• Social search or a social search engine is a type of web search method that determines the

relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users. When

applied to web search this user-based approach to relevance is in contrast to established

algorithmic or machine-based approaches where relevance is determined by analyzing the text

of each document or the link structure of the documents.[1]

• Social search takes many forms, ranging from simple shared bookmarks or tagging of content

with descriptive labels to more sophisticated approaches that combine human intelligence with

computer algorithms[2] [3].

• The search experience takes into account varying sources of metadata, such as collaborative

discovery of web pages, tags, social ranking, commenting on bookmarks, news, images,

videos, knowledge sharing, podcasts and other web pages. Example forms of user input

include social bookmarking or direct interaction with the search results such as promoting or

demoting results the user feels are more or less relevant to their query. [4]

In Other Words

• Social Search allows the aggregation of various types

of content from a defined or undefined community

• Your community can be defined as very closed (your

trusted circle of friends) or very open (the opinions of

web community)

• Finding answers to your key questions, your specific

information needs in context in real time.

A Sample of Social Search Sites

VOTES

RATINGS

OPINIONS

Key Site for Social Search Sites

• http://mashable.com/2007/08/27/social-search/

• Site contains the URL’s of 40 different social search

sites.

Key Elements of Social Search

You and Your

Friends

Voting

Products/ Services

Websites

Entertainment

Search Results

Tagging

People

Opinions

For example… you are interested the 2011 Ford Mustang• So you go to

• Gravee is a “social” search and recommendation

engine that personalizes results based on your

interests, and those of your friends and other people

like you.o The more friends you have, the better your results!

• You are able to access news, video, images, blogs &

bookmarks

• You can link to your Facebook & Twitter account

Web Info

Images

Video

News

Blogs

Bookmarks

• Passenger’s social software powers private online

communities for the world’s leading brands.

• Create private social communities

• Aggregate their feedback

• Provide real time market research

• Capture other relevant data

• Establishing a relationship with their customers

• What is Innocentive? InnoCentive harnesses collective brainpower around the

world to solve problems that really matter.

• The Innovation Marketplace. Harness the collective brainpower of the world’s most

creative minds to supplement your internal R&D staff

• InnoCentive@Work. Transform the way you approach and practice R&D, so you can

make the most of your internal resources with an internal web-based community of

motivated problem solvers.

• ONRAMP. (Open iNnovation Rapid Adoption Methods and Practices). ONRAMP

delivers the tools, expertise and best practices you need to inspire open innovation,

shape your plan and accelerate your success with InnoCentive

• InnoCentive Consulting. Build a foundation for creating a repeatable and

predictable innovation mindset

InnoCentiveOperations

Seeker CompaniesSolvers

How InnoCentive Works Today

Proprietary and Confidential

InnoCentiveOperations

Seeker CompaniesSolvers

Our Platform:How InnoCentiveWorks Today

Proprietary and Confidential

Imagine The Benefits of Visualization of the Data

Best Practices for Establishing a great Social Search Application• Determine your key objective

o Provide tools and information to your audience

• Lots of Data, analysis and visualization tools

• Dedicated Community

• Permanent URL for specific search queries

• Alerting mechanisms

• Ranking / Scoring mechanisms

• 360 feedback

Some Thoughts for the Information Industry• What is the value chain of your user community?

• What role does your company play in their value chain?

• How can you enhance your value to user community?

• What aspects of Social Search are most relevant to your user

community?

• Have you engaged your user community to understand what

aspects of Social Search are important to them?

• Build, test, gain feedback and make adjustments/Repeat

• Establish a performance metric dashboard

www.collexis.com

Be Social, Act SocialThank You

Darrell W. Gunter

EVP / CMO

+1.973.454.3475

gunter@collexis.com