There’s a SWICKI to help the Microsoft Software Factories Community search for information.
What is a swicki? A swicki is new kind of search engine that allows anyone to create deep, focused searches on topics you care about. Unlike other search engines, you and your community have total control over the results and it uses the wisdom of crowds to improve search results. The swicki can be published on your site. Your swicki presents search results that you’re interested in, pulls in new relevant information as it is indexed, and organizes everything for you in a neat little customizable widget you can put on your web site or blog, complete with its very own buzz cloud that constantly updates to show you what are hot search terms in your community.Why does swicki sound like wiki? Swickis are like wikis in that they are collaborative. Not only does your swicki use Eurekster technology to weight searches based on the behavior of those who come to your site, in the future, your community – if you allow them – can actively collaborate to modify and focus the results of the search engine.What is a buzzcloud? Buzzclouds are a list of search tags that are popular or recently typed into the swicki. Its a bit like overhearing your community’s conversation at a water cooler – the buzzcloud shows what is going on in their searches. This is useful as it drives more traffic by surfacing what is already at the top of your users’ minds, and suggesting interesting things to look at.
Hey, even Forbes is adopting Swicki technology!
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