YWAM Information Technology

The announcement today by Google of a new search site seems to indicate that someone at Google is awake and reading ywamit.com. Here's why.

Last December 1st, I wrote a post here on ywamit.com about Open Enterprise Search. The essense of that post was that Open Enterprise Search is

Search over internet reachable, widely diverse, enterprise resources with the resulting search service intentionally open to the public.

I wrote that YWAMers could benefit greatly from being able to search all of YWAM's sites.

Just today, six months later, Google announced its first Open Enterprise Search service! As reported by the Kim Hart at the Washington Post,

Today the company plans to announce a new online product aimed at being a one-stop shop for searching federal government Web sites. The launch of Google U.S. Government Search, http://usgov.google.com , targets federal employees who often need to search across several government agencies.

Apparently, Open Enterprise Search is an idea whose time has come. Directory website's days are numbered:

"People are moving away from directory access to enter these sites," said Kevin Gough, product manager for Google U.S. Government Search. "They just want to type in a few words to pinpoint the information they need."

I have been saying for the last 6 months that the highest possible Return on Online Investment for YWAM would be a robust implementation of Open Enterprise Search of its hundreds of websites and newsfeeds. I am still of that opinion!