Towards the Visible Web

Gerry McKiernan, the blogging, theoretical, visual librarian sent this to the digital library list:

John Markoff, Your Internet Search Results, in the Round, The New York Times, May 9, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO, May 8 - For decades, computer researchers have experimented with the idea of displaying textual information in visual maps, but the concept has been slow to find practical applications. Now, one of the pioneering companies in the field is hoping that by making its software available as part of a standard Web browser it will be able to wean surfers away from the simple ranked lists of search results offered by Google and Yahoo. Groxis, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2001, has converted its desktop Grokker software program, which displays a Web search as a series of categories set in a circular map, to run as a Java plug-in for browsers. On Monday, the company will begin allowing computer users to view Yahoo search results with its visualization technology at http://www.groxis.com . [MORE at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/technology/09yahoo.html

Gerry McKiernan's post includes links to good historical papers: [1] Gerry McKiernan, New Age Navigation, Innovative Information for Electronic Journals, The Serials Librarian, Vol. 45(2) 2003. p. 87. http://www.public.iastate.edu/~gerrymck/NewAge.pdf [2] Gerry McKiernan, The Big Picture(sm): Visual Browsing in Web and non-Web Databases, Cyberstacks, March 21, 1999. http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/BigPic.htm