Blog: David Loshin

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Search for Knowledge

According to a news item I read the other day, according to a study done by the Pew Internet and American Life organization, the top 3 web activities are:

3) Reading news,
2) Using a search engine, and
1) E-mail

The interesting note is that searching has moved up into the number 2 spot, meaning that aside from sending and reading emails (which is standard operating procedure for most people these days), the thing that people do most on the web is using some kind of search engine to look for something. Of course, one might assume that the search is a prelude to some other action, but this fact establishes that the key to web activity is the search engine.

The ability to provide search capability really epitomizes master data management - it means being able to:
- identify entities
- maintain entity metadata in a browsable repository
- provide fast access to the seek through the metadata

The fact that search engines now provide some kind of spelling suggestions when your searches don't have significant results demonstrates how fundamental data quality, metadata, and record linkage techniques are being integrated into the "search business."

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