Search is more than search

Bjørn Olstad, CTO of FAST, presented at Ticer on search [pdf]. A couple of things caught my eye. It would have been nice to hear the presentation – I have only the .ppt to go on.
He talks about a move from content management to consumption management. And taking the example of Yellow Pages talks about a move from a provider view (a few details in a listing, shallow understanding) to a consumer view (recommendations, maps, directions, comparisons: a broader experience leading to a deeper understanding). This is achieved through data mining and looking across a range of resources produced by divers hands.
He then goes on to talk about a variety of techniques for exploiting available data to create richer user experiences. And touches on some 2.0 themes.
I like the focus on ‘consumption management’ because it makes sense in an environment where resources are abundant and user attention is scarce and is consistent with our stated purposes. I also liked the emphasis on making our data work harder to create more of a ‘rich texture of suggestion‘, whether that data is structured metadata, is mined from resources themselves, or is harvested from behaviors and use.
Related entries:

• Circulating intentional data
• The simple search box and the rich texture of suggestion