SearchTogether - An Interface For Collaborative Web Search

SearchTogether: An interface for collaborative web search

Collaborative searching is a technique that allows multiple people to work together on one computer. This can be a useful approach when members of a group are geographically separate or if they have different security permissions.

Historically, information retrieval has been primarily a solo activity. However, with the development of Internet technologies, it has become possible for teams of users to search together using a browser and a search engine.

A new class of tools is being developed that let people at different computers search as a team, pooling results and recommendations in a shared display on the browser screen. They also allow experts to guide less experienced searchers through the process of finding information.

This is often referred to as collaborative search engines (CSE). It supports situations when the task of seeking common information is an important part of a project or a business operation, and when multiple users have a common information need.

For example, when searching for a vacation destination, a family of five might use a tool that lets them communicate through chat rooms as they jointly annotate specific search results and rate the findings. They could also divide the search session into separate tabs, so that each person could take a look at a different portion of the Web.

To try out SearchTogether, all the members of a group must install a plug-in to their Windows Live Messenger account. They then need to add each other as contacts so that they can search together. The search sessions are stored and can be viewed later.