Re: topical search tool -- help?!

Paul Francis (francis@cactus.slab.ntt.jp)
Thu, 2 May 96 12:47:29 JST



>That's pretty much a description of what Quarterdeck's WebCompass does (as
>well as automatically summarize and produce a list of keywords). Please
>excuse the plug.
>

Looks offhand like a great product, and I imagine we
should be seeing more and more such agent-type products.

Especially speaking from an internet-wide systems
perspective, but also from a product user's perspective,
I'm concerned about its dependence on the existing
mega-search engines. First, presumably a lot of
agents querying the mega-search engines as a backgroud
task will increase the load on those engines, yes?

Also, I assume that you don't copy the advertisement
of the search-engine page over to your WebCompass GUI.
This is great for the user, but I wonder if it might
cause the mega-search engines to somehow identify
agent queries (say by patterns or volume of usage?)
and cut them off or otherwise degrade their service.

If nothing else, I assume that their advertisers would
want to know what percentage of their business is from
"eyeballs", and what percentage is from (advertisement-
oblivious) agents.

PF