Darwin Uncovers Oscar Winner Connections: A Case of Discovery, Beyond Search

  

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Search engines are great for finding things you know you are looking for. While it was recently passed by social networking as the most popular Web activity, search remains a strong second. Many people use it as their gateway to the Web. But there is a new opportunity, discover what is happening around an event, person, or place you are interested in. In this case you may not know in advance the connections you are looking for. You just whant to know what relates to your topic of interest. This discovery function is one of the goals of the Darwin Awareness Engine.  I now use both search and discovery every day to make better use of the content on the Web. Here is an illustration of discovery and how it differs form search. It happened one day after the Oscar ceremony.

I was in front of my computer, wandering among my emails, my music and my chats. Then I opened my Darwin page, to see what was going-on out there.  At that time, I did not have a deep interest in mind. So I was in a full discovery and alert mode, very similar to your state of mind when you go for a trekking, and you want to seep-in beautiful scenery or picture, capture any smell or any sound that will fulfill your outdoor experience.

So I looked at the last 24 hours news attractor. It showed me a scan cloud. From this point, the experience with Darwin Awareness Engine takes a different path than the one we use with search engines. My attention was brought in by the Tag - Oscar (which reminded me of the ceremony that I watched the day before). When I moused over this tag, I discovered it was related to the term - war. At this time, my personal interest shifted to the context of movies, oscars and war. By the way, nobody, not even myself, could have guessed that I would be interested in that particular context at any time.  So I clicked on Oscars, to elevate the relevant links, then I also clicked on War, to refine further the relevant links (see portion of the Darwin Scan Cloud (TM) below with War and Oscars higlighted).

At this point, Darwin had filtered the most relevant feed links to my context of interest. Here were the articles displayed in the upper right of the screen for the terms - oscars and war - within the Scan Cloud shown above. 

I then chose a formal news feed from those above, which I read with great pleasure. Among other stuff, It helped me to discover that Kathryn Bigelow, was the Director of another movie that I liked a lot and remembered was directed by a woman. However, shame on me, I could never remember her name. This movie was “Point Break, “ an amazing story with breath taking shooting.  My experience had been exciting.

Then I went to Google in order to compare the experience. First major difference, in front of the empty box of Google, I had no inspiration. But enriched by my Darwin experience, I knew that I was in the mood of Oscars. So I searched for Oscars. And I got the screen shown below.

How disappointing! The first link gave me the results that I already knew from yesterday. There were many other links that brought me nothing nor inspiration (like oscar.com, oscar night winners╔) In conclusion, search is here only when I want to find what I am looking for or I know it exists somewhere.

In contrast, Darwin helps me relate with the world out-there via the digital media content by allowing me to both focus and broaden the filter and discover the unexpected, the enlightening and the enriching information that makes me happier, smarter or more up-to date.