Print
Send to friend
RSS feedsAn experimental search engine is allowing users to search the del.icio.us social bookmarking service, using any del.icio.us links page, or the domains those bookmarks come from, to limit a search.
DeliSearch developer Tony Hirst said: “DeliSearch is a side project arising from a secondment from my day job as an Open University lecturer to the OU Library, where I am exploring the potential application of Web 2.0 thinking and technologies to library service integration.”
Because DeliSearch uses the Yahoo search application programming interface (API), it cannot search more than about 15 sites.
DeliSearch users supply the username and any required tags for a particular del.icio.us page. The engine then uses the JSON API to pull in the links. JSON feeds at del.icio.us can be used to manipulate a variety of data for use in custom applications and browser-based presentations.
Users can then search over just the bookmarked pages or the domains they reside on.
The results are pulled back into the page by making a call to the Yahoo search web service.
A range of experimental tools allows DeliSearch to be used directly from del.icio.us. For example, a bookmarklet extension will add a DeliSearch box to a del.icio.us personal page.
Hirst believes DeliSearch shows the possibilities of Web 2.0 development to information professionals.
“There are still a few issues regarding the stability of the tools and the way they handle complex URLs,” Hirst said.
“However, it does demonstrate how relatively straightforward it is to start wiring different web services together to get interesting new behaviours. It also shows a novel way of creating personalised search engines.”
