Sunday, November 10, 2002

Some numbers about the perception of information overload This interesting quote appears in an article about knowledge management. "Gartner ... estimates that 90% of businesses surveyed suffer from 'information overload.' Of the companies surveyed, Gartner found that the perception of information overload was 20% higher overall among companies that had knowledge management systems in place, compared to those which didn't." [TVC Alert] Very interesting - especially the bit about companies with KM systems being more likely to perceive information overload. I can think of 2 reasons for this: 1, The employees of companies with KM systems in place are more likely to be aware of the information overload problem; 2, the funder of this research is SupportSoft, who is trying to show that "traditional knowledge management systems" are "ineffective" - unlike their system, of course. 4:52:30 PM     Law,com on blogs - Law.com has a special series going on weblogs. .... - Law.com has a special series going on weblogs. I am glad that blogs are finally being discussed at length in the legal community. The titles include How I learned to love the blog, A Discreet Bullhorn (about one of my favorite blawgers, Denise Howell), and To Blog or Not. All of these articles are worth reading, especially the one on Denise. [Library Stuff - Updated daily by Steven M. Cohen] 4:37:04 PM     AltaVista - "In the current world of search engines, less is .... - "In the current world of search engines, less is more--and AltaVista is angling for both." "The struggling company is trying to recapture its former glory as a search engine heavyweight with a newly redesigned Web site, featuring a sleek, spare look that takes a cue from current search champ Google. The new site is scheduled to launch Tuesday." "Among other tweaks, AltaVista said, the new site will feature an ad-free home page; "fresher" search results, updated navigation for news publications and new tools for pinpointing relevant pages." "Google has the concept of 'feeling lucky,' and we're introducing the concept of feeling confident," said AltaVista CEO Jim Barnett, referring to the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google's home page, which automatically takes searchers to the first Web page turned up by their query and skips showing them the usual list of results" (from Cnet via Pandia) LS Thoughts - It looks like the new interface is up already. I hope that Altavista can get back into the search game. I haven't even thought about this engine in awhile, let alone use it. [Library Stuff - Updated daily by Steven M. Cohen] Something that I've always liked about AltaVista, even since Google, is that it has a NEAR proximity operator. Sometimes I'll use it because of that. 4:34:14 PM

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