Graphical Search Engines: Kartoo
Stumble It!KartOO is a meta search engine which presents its results nicely grouped into a graphical map showing the different clusters of search results so you can easily select and continue searching within the relevant clusters.
So, for example, the picture above shows the map of my KartOO search for my local soccer team "Linfield". KartOO shows me that there are about a dozen overlapping different "Linfield" clusters only some of which are relevant to my search. These clusters are all listed on the left hand side of the screen and I can select one "Linfield football club" to drill down into.
According to KARTOO's own FAQ section:
Is KartOO technology more pertinent than other search engines ?
It often is but not always... In fact, KartOO technology analyses the words you are asking for and then decides to question the most accurate search engines.
For example, if your request is a question ending with a question-mark, KartOO will query the search engines that are specialized in natural language.
As to the notion of relevance: when you ask for the word "ray" for example, you may mean the sea animal or the light device. The results you obtain may therefore be accurate or totally irrelevant to what you are looking for.
What is significant about KartOO in such a situation is that this technology provides a map that summarizes all the various and possible topics so that retrieved sites are in fact grouped into a form of topical "family". A list, i. e., a linear classification of search results, could not represent all the applications connected to a word like "nuclear" for example, and above all, a list could not display the links existing between the applications.
About Ken Thompson
Ken Thompson is an expert practitioner in the area of bioteaming, swarming, virtual enterprise networks, virtual professional communities and virtual teams and has published two landmark books:
Bioteams: High Performance Teams Based on Nature's Best Designs
The Networked Enterprise: Competing for the future through Virtual Enterprise Networks
Ken writes the highly popular bioteams blog which has over 500 articles on all aspects of bioteams (aka organizational biomimicry) - in other words how human groups can learn from nature's best teams.
Ken is also founder of an exciting European technology company Swarmteams which provides unique patent-pending bioteaming technologies for all shapes and sizes of groups, social networks, business clusters, virtual/mobile communities and enterprises. Swarmteams enables groups to be more responsive and agile by fully integrating their mobile phones and the web with bioteam working techniques. The latest Swarmteams implementation is SwarmTribes which helps musicians and bands form a unique collaboration with their fans for mutual benefit.
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Bioteams Books Reviews
The Internet and social engagement
Authentic social experience is beyond the web.In On the Internet by Hubert Dreyfus, a UC-Berkeley philosophy professor, provides a truely unique philosophical perspective on the internet. Dreyfus seriously challenges a number of widely held assumptions such as the usefulness of search engines, the effectiveness of distance learning and the possibility of meaningful virtual relationships.
Buy it now from:
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