FUSE and Search

John Battelle has an interesting posting regarding the vision statement for the Yahoo Search group.  Apparently, it is "to enable people to find, use, share, and expand all human knowledge" known, in short, as FUSE.

This vision statement captures two key elements that are often missing from discussions of search: the social dimension of sharing and the notion that search is often a prelude to the act of creation – we search for resources in order to create something new with them.  I also like the focus on human knowledge, rather than information, because it expands the scope of search from finding codified information to helping people to connect with other people that have relevant knowledge (at least, that’s what I would infer from the choice of words).

The vision statement is still too narrow, though, in the sense that it focuses exclusively on human knowledge, thereby revealing one of the major shortcomings of search as it has been implemented to date.  What if I want to find a hammer or a special widget of some type?  That’s still a real pain.  Search will realize its full potential when the tool can be used to enable people to find, use, share, and expand resources of all types – physical resources as well as human knowledge.