Compiling Internet expert resources: a case study towards a meta-index of subject experts in business information

Abstract

Describes the construction and coverage of the Cybrarian’s Guide to Cyber-Marketing, an annotated and structured subject guide to Internet resources in the field of interactive marketing, online advertising and electronic commerce. The Guide monitors new Internet resources, especially Web sites and review articles, in terms of Internet marketing (pre-sales), electronic commerce (sales) and related information resources and enabling technologies. The Guide exists as a Web site (URL: http://www.iocom.be/pilot/cybermarketing/) and highlights only those resources judged to be significant in terms of emerging business. Focuses on the use of secondary services as the means of generating input to the Guide, including: electronic mail-based formal newsletters and alerting services; offline browsers; notifiers; and ‘Push’ services. Usenet newsgroups are not used due to their low signal-to-noise ratio. Notes briefly the techniques used to process the data and special attention paid to output information presentation and search interface. Users can search the database in six ways, using: a hierarchical subject tree specially adapted to the emerging field of Internet business developments; an ‘interactive outliner’; the Hot-Sauce interface; a relative site map; a ‘what’s new’ section; and the PERSonal Update Notification Agent (PERSUNA).