[Sigia-l] " The importance of interaction data"

[Listera]

>From the always insightful Jon Udell:

Rather than consulting a dictionary to propose alternatives to misspelled
words, Google instead mines its own database for patterns of use. If
statistics show that a query for "Boswerth" is likely to be followed by a
query for "Bosworth," the search engine will make that connection for you.

Discussions of software as a service tend to focus on its obvious benefits:
zero-footprint deployment and seamless incremental upgrades. Less noticed,
but equally valuable, is the constant flow of interaction data. The
back-and-forth chatter between an application and its host environment can
be a drag when connectivity is marginal and it precludes offline use. But
when this communication flows freely, it paints a moving picture that shows
how individuals and groups are using the software. As they watch that movie,
developers become intimate observers of their users. They can't help but
think of ways to optimize the patterns they discover, and, as a result, the
software improves gradually and continuously.

<http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/10/12/42OPstrategic_1.html>

This is an exceedingly important point often missed in the professional
categorization vs. user tagging debates.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.