Cooperative online searching
Searching the Internet is mostly a solitary job but as the Web becomes more oriented to social activities so perhaps will searching become a cooperative activity. The New York Times reports:
OPPORTUNITIES for social networking abound on the Internet, but not when it comes to one standard job: using a browser and search engine to comb the Web for information. That task is still typically done solo, because browser displays and search procedures have traditionally been designed for a single user.
Now tools are being developed by Microsoft and other companies that let people at different computers search as a team, dividing responsibilities and pooling results and recommendations in a shared Web space on the browser display as they plan a family vacation, for instance, or research a medical problem.
The article mostly describes a Microsoft project and naturally, as in all things Microsoft, the company wants to make you use its browser and sign up for a Windows Live ID account. However, I would think that other, less proprietary methods would come along soon.
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