Federated search: nice to have or must have?

That is the question:  Is federated search a “nice-to-have” or is it a “must-have?”

When I first joined Deep Web Technologies in September 2008, I first thought the former:  That federated search is a nice-to-have, reflecting on my general ignorance of the power of federated search.  I thought it amusing, given my 20+ years in information technology, that I had never heard of the term federated search, although (of course), I had heard of meta search and unified indexes.

What a difference six months make.  Yes, I work for Deep Web Technologies, so am probably somewhat biased.  However, I now firmly believe federated search is a “must-have.”  Why the change?  Consider the following generally accepted facts:

• Google contains quite a bit of noise, despite its attempts to the contrary.  Therefore, it’s difficult to find social-networking comments about your company, hobbies or interests; and it’s difficult to find outstanding journals or publications that specifically address the needle-in-the-haystack that concern you.
• Fee based information sources (like Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw, Dialog, etc) are really great for the outstanding journals and publications, but they are expensive and somehow managed to include the one source of information you need in the expensive package (sort of reminding me of the cable company).  Of course, you don’t find much social-networking information, nor in-depth information that may pertain to particular hobbies or interests you have.
• In the end, search is contextual based:  no one source of information can truly, effectively cater to your specific interests.  Consider the search term “breast cancer.”  This search term will mean very different things, depending on the researcher.  A medical researcher, versus a medical practitioner, versus a patient, could all use that search term, yet want and expect very different results.

Therefore, in the end, a federated search platform that inexpensively enables individuals and organizations to mix-and-match the important sources for their specific needs — together — is mission critical.

In an upcoming blog article, I’ll explain one very practical area we started using federated search on, affording us a significant advantage in our sales and marketing efforts.

I suspect, most of us can find uses for federated search, to greatly simplify and improve our access to information.  The question becomes, can federated search become as easy and efficient to use as Google?  And more importantly, can we come up with a better term than “federated search?”

Stay tuned for more …