Finding a company or a product on the Internet is often a difficult exercise. For this reason the IBSI Team are currently investigating the possibility of using XML technology and standardisation to enhance business information retrieval over the Internet. The project is attempting to outline the main standards and specifications required to implement XML in companies' web pages, especially within small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The overall goal is to refine Internet search for a specific company or product by tagging the required piece of information and then identifying it with proper XML-enabled search engines.Angelo Strano introduces the IBSI Project which is part of the the Project Programme KITE - Knowledge and Information Transfer on Electronic Commerce.
Today's globalised marketplace requires companies to provide reliable, targeted and up-to-date information through their Websites. Nonetheless, finding a company or a product on the Internet is often very frustrating. Traditional search engines sometimes end up returning dozens of useless pages. This happens because they are mostly based on full-text search techniques, which are not capable of identifying the context where required information is to be found.
For this reason, there is currently great interest on the possibility of using eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) technology to improve business information retrieval over the Internet. InfoConsult(Europe) is outlining the main standards and specifications required to implement XML in companies' Web pages, particularly those of SMEs. The basic concept is to search for a specific company or product by tagging the required piece of information and then by retrieving it with XML-enabled search engines. The project, called Improving Business Search on Internet (IBSI), is part of the Project Programme KITE - Knowledge and Information Transfer on Electronic Commerce, funded by the European Commission [1].
Typically, company data to be retrieved on the Internet may concern the following aspects:
XML, as opposed to HTML, allows semantic tagging of this type of data. XML-based documents define what such data represent and the way they should be displayed or processed. Thus one can address a specific search on a specific set of data, as long as they have been properly identified within a document (i.e. a Web page).
On the other hand, XML technology is still in its infancy. XML-compatible browsers are not enough widespread and universal standards have not been adequately defined. The Internet community is slowly gaining awareness about the potentiality of XML, and there is some very promising research going on.
The IBSI project has important exploitation effects, since such innovative tools can be used not only by European SMEs seeking commercial partners but also by individual consumers when looking for in-depth product or company information. The deployment of the project's results will greatly affect the SME environment by promoting existing SME Websites, E-commerce best practices and the spread of information technologies among businesses.
Moreover, InfoConsult(Europe) has already undertaken some activities in order to identify potential partners for a full RTD project under the 5th Framework Programme - IST. The reaction has been very encouraging as far as technology providers are concerned. SMEs and other possible testers have not showed enough involvement, except for some SME support organisations and trade associations.
A small demonstrative tool is presently being developed within the IBSI project in order to assess the feasibility of the concept. It will also help raise awareness on the potentiality of XML-based search engines, particularly in terms of accuracy and rapidity. More information on the IBSI project, together with the final report, is available on the KITE Website at URL: <http://kite.tsa.de/>.
 Figure 1: Kite Website |
If you have any comments on this article, please contact the editors (exploit-editor@ukoln.ac.uk).
Angelo Strano
European Affairs Consultant
InfoConsult(Europe) Ltd.
117, rue Franz Merjay
B-1050 Brussels
Telephone: +32 2 3490190
Fax: +32 2 3490199
Email: astrano@decade.be
Angelo Strano is European Affairs Consultant at InfoConsult(Europe) Ltd. and is based in Brussels. |
For citation purposes:
Angelo Strano,
"Improving Business Search on Internet (IBSI): Defining an innovative
XML–based Internet search engine to improve E-commerce and Business
Directories," Exploit Interactive, issue 2, 20 July 1999
URL: <http://www.exploit-lib.org/issue2/ibsi/>
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