Search remains one of the most widely used applications on the Internet. According to a recent study, Internet Trends 2008, 84% of Internet users engage in geneeral web searches. Although other applications such as social networking and reference are growing at a faster rate, search will continue to be a key function in these applications. Search as a core technology has encouraged the development of new approaches – faceted search, related content or products, and categorized results. However, the basic model of indexed content and paginated results based on some forumula seems unlikely to change. Thus, I was interested to see a new approach to this core technology. The Collaborative Intelligence Platform (CIP) from Baynote enables a site to take advantage of its user community to improve search results and deliver related content.

The CIP is a software-as-a-service (SAAS) for ecommerce, social network, and other web sites. The service collects information about searches and results, infers value to users from the results, and generates related content for delivery. This approach is similar to a user leaving a trail of bread crumbs to useful content. As the CIP collects inforamtion over time, the community of users can therefore determine what infomration is the most useful, The service uses this perspective to re-rank search results and to suggest related content.

The CIP consists of functions for input, inference about the community and user value, and output. A site has to implement Javascript-based code for the "Baynote Observer", which uses behavioral heuristics to measure the usefulness of various pages. The heuristics include page actions, context for the search, navigation patterns, and conversions. For example, the service examines scrolling, printing, search terms, pages visited pre and post search, and traditional click-throughs. The CIP will use this information to determine the usage pattern and community of users with similar interests. Baynote refers to this as measuring affinity. Finally, the service generates related content on the site, which includes media, products, or other content. The CIP enables a site to deliver the content via web, email, or mobile delivery channels.