One of the primary drivers for my creating InfoCenter was to provide a tool that made discoverability easier. Earlier in the year, I came to the conclusion that even in the best case scenario - where a robust, populated guide is provided - the web is fluid, and there was still a need for search.
That being said, search covered a number of areas - the traditional (web), but also blogs, wikis and newsgroups. Sometimes I'll go to search site #1, then to a wiki site, and then to a blog search engine, etc. Rather than going to 4 or 5 different sites, I wanted a single interface where I could enter my query once and then be able to readily navigate amongst the different type of search stores.
In addition, sometimes even within a category - some search engines algorithms are a bit different, and if unsatisfied with the results from the favorite engine, people will check a secondary, and sometimes even a third search engine.
As my customers are primarily in the Enterprise, I also added an area called 'Vendors' - this taps into the search engines of major software vendors (Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, SAP, etc.)
Information Center provides the ability to determine the category of search at the top of the screen, allowing you to change context very easily. If search criteria have been established, the search will kick off automatically in the new context (i.e. from Web to Blogs).
In addition, at the bottom of the screen are a number of tabs that represent different search engines within a category. Clicking on any of these will send a query to those search engines automatically.
Under the covers, what I've done is written a .NET assembly that knows how to structure a search for these various web, newsgroup, blog, wiki, and third-party vendors. As a result, you don't need to navigate amongst multiple sites in a browser, nor do you need to re-key your search criteria.
I've attached screenshots below of the various tabs and their functionality. If you have any questions or feedback, I'm very much interestedin hearing it.
Regards,
Marc
