1 nlresearch.com the first research engine: northern light® susan m. stearns director of enterprise...
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The First ReSearch Engine: Northern Light®
Susan M. Stearns
Director of Enterprise Marketing
March, 1999
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Northern Light is the premier online research engine, providing unified access in a single integrated search to information from the Web and a broad collection of premium sources previously available only on traditional high-end services.
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Introducing Northern Light
Web search engine
Premium content database
Best-in-class technology for creating, searching, and transacting document databases of highly diverse content and enormous scale
A desktop solution for all information needs - from professional research librarians to individual users
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Background
Started in late 1995 with two primary goals:
– combine Web data with quality information not on the Web
– use classification to cluster document results and improve search precision
Content acquisition and engineering underway by Winter 1996
Search service released in August 1997
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Database composition
Web + Special Collection documents in one db
– 130+ million unique web documents
– 7+ million premium documents from 5,400+ sources in the Special Collection
Web data aims to be exhaustive
– all sites, all pages, all words
– continuous crawl for new pages, updates, deletes
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Database composition (continued)
Special collection aims to be exhaustive (!)
– All non-web data of value, mostly starting 1/95
– All full text, mostly fee-based ($1-$4)
– Free abstracts, free real-time news
– Automated on-line refund if not satisfied for up to 30 days after purchase
– Constantly adding new documents from publishers and aggregators, plus new sources
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The precision problem
Huge Web database of heterogeneous items -- product brochures, research articles, news, course catalogs, personal pages, FAQ's, …
Users do not know beforehand what is available or what search parameters will be useful
Queries are usually ambiguous and under-specified - even among professional searchers
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Our Solution - Intelligent Classification and the Custom Search Folders™
Folders on left group document results while still showing most relevant documents overall on right
Opening a folder shows the documents in that folder and often produces a new, more detailed list of folders
Folders are data-driven: as specific or general as the query -- contain only documents on result list
Folders tend to emphasize best documents
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What’s New at Northern Light?
New URL for enterprise customers - nlresearch.com
Major new premium information sources - Investext analyst reports and MarkIntel market research reports
Special Editions - online pathfinders on hot topics
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What’s Coming Up at Northern Light?
Shopping Cart - to facilitate multiple document purchases in a single transaction
In-line clustering for Web and Special Collection
Search Alert Service - to provide e-mail alerts for any search topic for both Web and Special Collection content
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In-line Clustering
Creates a single result list entry for clusters of articles and/or Web documents - like an embedded folder in the search results
Whenever a source document [Web site or Special Collection title] includes more than 1 result which would normally appear on the same page, a cluster is created
Includes link option to browse either the home page or the latest issues of the title
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Search Alert Service
Basic alerting service is free to all users
Includes ability to set up alert for ANY search
Results are de-duplicated and delivered to the user via e-mail with click-through to site
Enhanced product for enterprise customers likely to offer integration with intranets and other value added capabilities with price tag attached
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Northern Light: The First ReSearch Engine
Integrates access to the largest Web index with a high-quality online library of business and scholarly publications
Uses intelligent classification during indexing
Uses intelligent classification at query time to provide organized results to the searcher
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Northern Light: The First ReSearch Engine
Incorporates electronic commerce capabilities for both individual users and large enterprise accounts
Stay tuned - there is lots more to come
…………try us out at nlresearch.com or visit us at Stand 113