Taking XML's measure |CNET.com

Taking XML's measure |CNET.com Tim Bray: "The basic algorithms by which search is done have not improved much since about 1975. The only way to improve the situation is by enhancing search engines with more deterministic metadata, essentially adding knowledge management techniques that give you more information from which to draw connections. If you look at the victory of Google in the search engine business, it wasn't because they had better search techniques. It's because they deployed one key metadata value--how many pages are linked to this one--to enhance the relevancy of their results. The same concepts need to be applied to the enterprise.
There are really two ways to get information: search and browse. And browse has a lot of potential. But to work, the drill down has to be intuitive. It cannot be stupid. You have to be really aggressive about bringing the relevant stuff to the top. You can't force the person to go through multiple levels to get to what they want."