October 2006 - Karl Fogel to others

This is a rather narrowly-focused email about how Google can help a
project like the Encyclopedia of Life through existing Google
services, in particular "Google Co-op".Ê (You may already know a bit
about this, but I'll explain it from the very beginning, so you can
forward this email to others.)

Okay, from the top:

The basic idea is to provide customized Google searching so biologists
can get specialized results.Ê For example, when someone searches at
google.com for "cnidaria" (sorry, I just love that word), Google would
present them with the Encyclopedia of Life entry on that phylum, as
well as with regular search results.

(I've set up an example using that word, so you can try it yourself.
Instructions for that are later in this mail.)

This kind of customized searching uses a service named Google Co-op,
see http://www.google.com/coop/.Ê Note that Co-op is still in beta;
the user interface may change somewhat in the near future, although
the basic functionality will remain the same.

"Customized searching" is based on a combination of what the user
enters into the search box and what customizations they've signed up
to receive.

For example, a biologist goes to www.google.com to do a search.Ê She
has a Google account and is logged in (Google has to know who you are,
in order to provide the search customizations you've signed up for).
She types in her search terms, which include the word "cnidaria".

Now, she'll get the normal search results that anyone would get by
doing that search on google.com.Ê But because she's also signed up to
receive the EoL's customized links, her search results will have
something special at the top, a shaded box with linked text and links
like this:

Ê ________________________________________________________________________
Ê| Encyclopedia of Life Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê |
Ê|Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê |
Ê| The exclusively aquatic phylum Cnidaria is represented by polyps suchÊ |
Ê| as sea anemones and corals, and by medusae such as jellyfish.Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê |
Ê| (Learn more at the Encyclopedia of Life web project.)Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê Ê |
Ê'------------------------------------------------------------------------' Ê

This is known in Google-jargon as a "onebox".Ê You may have noticed
oneboxes before, for example when you search for "weather" or a store
location.Ê Google has set up certain oneboxes for all users by
default.Ê What Google Co-op does is allow a third party (e.g., the
EoL) to set up custom oneboxes for people (e.g., biologists) who
choose to subscribe to them.Ê Such custom oneboxes are known as
"Subscribed Links", because the user must subscribe to them to get
them.

You can try this out yourself:

First, get a Google account.Ê That's pretty easy: if you have an
@gmail.com email address, then that is your Google account.Ê If you
don't, just go to google.com/accounts and follow the instructions
there.Ê (You can set up an account associated with any email address,
it doesn't have to be Gmail.)

Once you have an account, click "sign in" at the top of the main
www.google.com page to log in.Ê After logging in, you'll need to
subscribe to a Google Co-op provider (a "provider" is just someone
else with a Google account, who has set up some oneboxes for others to
subscribe to).Ê In real life, the EoL would have its own Google
account and be the provider.Ê For now, I'll be the provider, so go to
my Google Co-op profile page here:

ÊÊ http://google.com/coop/profile?user=013439079446381685956

and click the "Subscribe" button.Ê Then go to google.com and search
for just the word "cnidaria" (remember you should still be logged in).
Above your results, you should see the custom onebox.Ê Because there
is no EoL yet, I've used the Tree of Life Web instead, but it's the
same idea.

This is an *extremely* simple example of customizing Google searches.
Google Co-op can do a whole lot more, I just set up the quickest
example I could (I'm not a Co-op expert either).Ê At the end of this
mail is the XML file that I uploaded to Co-op as a provider, in case
anyone else wants to play around with this.Ê The technical details are
at http://google.com/coop/docs/guide_subscribed_links.html.Ê That's
one of several pages of documentation for providers -- in addition to
Subscribed Links, there are other search customizations the EoL could
provide.

So, this is one obvious thing Google can do to support the
Encyclopedia of Life.Ê While it doesn't solve the hard problem of how
to organize the information, it might help a lot in making the
information accessible to searchers.Ê In fact, the EoL could set up
different sets of subscribed links, some aimed at students, some at
professional biologists, some at conservationists, etc.

Try it out, see what you think.Ê And feel free to forward this to
anyone who might be interested, of course.

Best,
-Karl

ÊÊ <Results>
ÊÊ <AuthorInfo description="Examples of Subscribed Links." author="Karl Fogel"/>
ÊÊ <ResultSpec id="cnidaria-direct">
ÊÊ Ê <Query>cnidaria</Query>
ÊÊ Ê <Response format="answer_right">
ÊÊ Ê Ê <Output name="title">Cnidaria resources</Output>
ÊÊ Ê Ê <Output name="more_url">http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Cnidaria&amp;contgroup=Animals</Output>
ÊÊ Ê Ê <Output name="text1">The exclusively aquatic phylum Cnidaria is represented by</Output>
ÊÊ Ê Ê <Output name="text2">polyps such as sea anemones and corals, and by medusae such as jellyfish.</Output>
ÊÊ Ê Ê <Output name="text3">(Learn more at the Tree of Life web project.)</Output>
ÊÊ Ê </Response>
ÊÊ </ResultSpec>
ÊÊ </Results>