What does one do with an archive of the entire public content of the Web? A new navigation service debuted today that aims to answer that question by giving users a free toolbar with which to explore a more comprehensive yet focused rendering of the Internet.
The Alexa Internet navigation service is a searching and reference tool that helps users find relevant Web sites and research-related information via the Britannica encyclopedia and Webster's dictionary and thesaurus. The Alexa tool recommends sites based on previous usage patterns, hyperlink information, and data collections from other sources. This metadata is analyzed by Alexa's data mining and collaborative filtering engines, but rather than returning hundreds, or even thousands, of URLs - à la AltaVista - the tool distills 10 sites it deems most relevant.
"We're not competing with directory sites like Yahoo. We try to keep you on track by giving more precise recommendations based on what other people say. It's more precise than other search engines, and has a much higher coverage of the Web," said Brewster Kahle, co-founder of Alexa.
Once downloaded, the Alexa navigation bar launches in sync with a browser, and consists of a handful of icons encapsulated in a slim, rectangular box. The toolbar supplies information about a site - who it's registered to, how many pages it contains, how frequently it's updated - and recommends other sites that include similar information. The tool also delivers ratings - XXX, for instance - that reflect the content of the site, and includes TRUSTe ratings that rate the privacy and data-collection policies of a site.
Kahle has in the past few years been involved with the nonprofit Internet Archive project, which aims to archive as many files as possible - from the Web and FTP sites, Usenet, and other sources. With about 640,000 sites, and 100 million pages, Kahle said the system has 7 terabytes of information stored. But with the number of sites on the Net doubling every six months - and existing sites adding new depths and layers all the time - keeping pace becomes a daunting task.
One advantage of having a full archive of the Web is that if a user gets the dreaded "404 - document not found" message, the Alexa server can still deliver an archived version of the page (outdated as it may be). The tool also includes an "instant messaging service," allowing users to find out which of their friends are online and then message them in real-time.
Currently, the software plug-in toolbar is only available for Windows 95 and NT users, but versions for Windows 3.1, Mac, and Unix are in the works.
