A more intelligent search engine for health and medical information

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TECH CHRONICLES A daily dose of postings from The Chronicle's technology blog (sfgate.com/blogs/tech) - Al Saracevic, GuynnWednesday, July 19, 2006 A more intelligent search? A cool search product hits the Web this morning, promising to make results more relevant. And while new products and sites launch every day in the valley, I think this one stands a chance to move forward a search scene that's been fairly stagnant

since Mr. Page and Mr. Brin invented their better mousetrap nearly 10 years ago. The site's called Medstory (www.medstory.com), and it's a consumer search product that helps you find your way around health and medicine. It's the baby of valley veteran Alain Rappaport, a French-born scientist and technologist who's been working for years to refine the information search process. In practice, the premise is fairly simple. As Rappaport puts it, "Most search engines return links, after which you have to read and decide what's important. It's left up to you to do the hard work. "The difference with Medstory is that it will do this work for you ... extracting the information that is most relevant to your query." I know, I know. Every search engine on the planet says its results return the most relevant, important results, etc. Well, it just so happens that I blew out my knee a couple of weeks ago, so when I heard

about this upcoming launch I took advantage of the beta and tried to figure out what ails me. I searched terms like "knee" and "injury" and "excruciating" and "pain." Compared with what I found on Google, Yahoo and the rest, the results were a bit deeper, more useful and sorted more logically. By mixing traditional algorithm search technology with a computerized editing function that links documents with similar concepts, rather than simply linking familiar terms, Rappaport and Co. could be onto a significant advance in the search terrain. You see, I've long held that our present world of information is limited because most everyone I know sees the world through Google's glasses. And while Google's algorithms were revolutionary to search, its results are primarily based on popularity and links. As a result, many science journals and academic papers are obscured. Our field of intellectual vision is restricted. While it's still real early in the

game, Medstory could be the start of integrating concepts used in the specialized world of "vertical search" and applying them to consumer products. Rappaport himself says he expects to apply Medstory's technology to other fields of study, through partnerships, creating what he calls "an intelligent Web" experience. With financial support from heavy hitters like tech futurist Esther Dyson and NetSuite Chief Executive Officer Zach , City's Medstory might end up quite relevant, indeed. You heard it here first. -- Al Saracevic