11/30/2004

Topic Maps: The Next Big Thing in Search?

Will topic maps be the next big thing in information search:
Databases and search engines provide instantaneous access to endless information about anyone or anything, but the search results often include as many misses as hits. To generate more-relevant answers, organizations including the federal government are using topic maps to index their data.

Topic maps are smart indices that improve search capabilities by categorizing terms based on their relationships with other things. For example, William Shakespeare is a topic that would be mapped to essays about him, his plays and his famous quotes.

This sounds like a variation on semantic (meaning) based clustering. Sure sounds handy!

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