'Gluing' searches with Yahoo!: part three in the search engine trilogy

There is plenty to comment on in the world of search engines at the moment. This post signifies the last in a series of discussions regarding search engines developments (or lack of!). (Part I; Part II)

As Google SearchWiki was unveiled, Yahoo! announced the wider release of Yahoo! Glue. Originally developed and tested at Yahoo! India, Yahoo! Glue now has a wider release – although it remains (perpetually?) in 'beta'. Glue is an attempt to aggregate disparate forms of information on a single results page in response to a single query. I suppose Glue is a functional demonstration of the ultimate mashup information retrieval tool. Glue assembles heterogeneous information from all over the Web, including text, news feeds, images, video, audio, etc. Search for the Beatles and you will get a results page listing Wikipedia definitions, LastFM tracks for your listening pleasure, news feeds, YouTube videos, etc.

In an ironic twist, Glue appears to be defying the dynamic ethos of Web 2.0. Glue searches are not created on the fly and only a limited number Glue searches are available at the moment (for example, no Liverpool!). Glue has the 'beta forever' mantra as the 'Get out of jail free card', of course. Still, Yahoo! informs us that:

"These pages are built using an algorithm that automatically places the most relevant modules on a page, giving you a visually rich, diverse page all about the topic in which you're interested."

Glue is also an example of Yahoo! exploring the social web in retrieval, harnessing as it does users' opinions on the accuracy of this algorithm (e.g. irrelevant or poorly ranked results can be 'flagged' as inappropriate or irrelevant).

Glue is - and will be - for the leisure user; the person falling into the 'popular search' category in search engines. These are the users submitting the simplest queries. The teenagers searching for 'Britney Spears', and the adults searching for 'Barack Obama' or 'Strictly Come Dancing'. The serious user (e.g. student, academic, knowledge worker, etc.) need not apply. I also have reservations over whether the summarisation of results is appropriate, and whether Glue can actually assemble disparate resources that are all relevant to a query. Check out these canned searches for Stephen Stills and Glasgow. In what way is Amsterdam a relation to Glasgow? And why the spurious news stories for Stephen Stills? Examining the text it is clear how it has been retrieved; but why when similar issues do not affect Yahoo! Search?

Like Google with SearchWiki, Yahoo! emphasise that Glue is not a replacements for Yahoo! Search; rather it's a "standalone experience":

"… Yahoo! Glue(TM) beta is not to replace the Yahoo! Search experience [...] We're always challenging ourselves to explore innovative new ways to deliver great experiences. Glue is one of those experiments, with a goal of giving users one more visual way to browse and discover new things from across the Web. We'll be working to expand the number of Glue pages, improve the experience and incorporate your feedback into future versions."

Very good. But making this dynamic and scalable should be atop the Glue 'to do' list. No Liverpool!