Taxonomy or Search? Dow Jones Discusses the Synergy
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September 4, 2007: IDM talks with Dave Clarke, Global Taxonomy Director at Dow Jones to find out why corporate taxonomy is important and what it can do for business.
While it’s common for businesses to have a broad understanding of online and enterprise search, what is often overlooked is the importance of taxonomy and what it can do for you. Taxonomy is the process of classification, in business terms this relates to the mapping and retrieval of unstructured data. “Every business is a library of kinds and taxonomy gives you the ability to get right to the information you need” Clarke told IDM.
Sounds like search right? In a sense it is, but taxonomy is much more then that, it’s the ability to map the myriad of documents and digital assets within the business in a way that’s more intuitive then an algorithm searching for a keyword. According to Clarke, creating taxonomy for your business lets you give machines understanding.
This isn’t to say taxonomies are the perfect solution for every business, having one setup for your business can often be expensive, however it is a “very necessary addition to search, they need to compliment each other” Clake said.
Taxonomies are also closely linked to the semantic web, the emerging extension to the World Wide Web which allows certain software agents to communicate with each other to improve information sharing. The semantic web is an evolving concept which hopes to see the classification and exchange of information surpass the limitations of the current incarnation of the internet.
“The most exciting discoveries will come from the serendipitous combination and integration of data drawn from diverse sources” said Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web consortium.
The semantic web is one of the two big evolutions of the internet which is occurring right now. The other direction of web evolution is the much hyped ‘Web 2.0’ evolution which is seeing unparalleled levels of collaboration and social networking occurring. Clake admits to being “an evangelist for taxonomy and the semantic web” though the potential for the semantic web to become a quiet achieving underdog are definitely present.
While Web 2.0 aims to give a more interactive and networked experience to users, the semantic web aims to “revolutionise the way people access all levels of information” Clake explained.