visualizing search context

exalead.de allows users to add context to searches (only in german so far). A search result also shows you associated terms, and you can select some of them to include in your search and exclude others in order to refine it. From a user interface perspective, it is an HTML version of the skillMap's graph-based exploration of a tag's surrounding. However, in the skillMap, the context of a tag is set by the community, whereas in exalead, the context is relies on automated text mining. This approach is also called "moderated search". Kartoo.com would thus be somewhere in between the skillMap and exalead, because it also displays context based on automated text mining, but does it in a graphical way. One cool thing about Kartoo is its text extraction algorithm which tries to give a brief summary of the page you MouseOver on the left. For the skillMap homepage, this works a little better than the topicalizer (read my previous post on the topicalizer here).

Again, thanks to Andreas.