Joe’s Reflection Blog has this fun embedded YouTube video. It’s a great introduction to Boolean searching for kids. See if you agree!

Abe (founder of Deep Web Technologies and sponsor of this blog) and I have been talking about the contest Deep Web Technologies is sponsoring. We want it to appeal to more people, not just to people who are good at writing essays, although we appreciate good essays. So, we’re going to encourage submissions in a variety of media. If you’re video-oriented or you’re a graphic designer, or you make awesome collages, or you’re another kind of artist, we want you to submit an entry for the contest.

The sky’s the limit on the form of your submission but you do need to address the contest theme:

Tell us about the most impressive federated search application you’ve ever seen, or about one you’ve dreamed up. How innovative can federated search be? What unique problems can it solve?

Contest entries will be judged on creativity, originality, vision and relevance to the theme.

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Last year we had six industry experts judge entries for our first writing contest. The volunteer judges all did an excellent job reading essays and scoring them across various dimensions. This year, we’d like to give six other people the opportunity to judge.

Who would you nominate to serve as a judge? That person, maybe you, needs to be an expert in federated search. Send contact information for the people you would like to be considered to sol dot lederman at gmail dot com, and I’ll take over from there. All nominations must be received by October 31. Judging will take place in early January. Each judge’s commitment will be six to eight hours. Judges will get some free press on this blog.

The contest topic was introduced here.

Tell us about the most impressive federated search application you’ve ever seen, or about one you’ve dreamed up. How innovative can federated search be? What unique problems can it solve?

Please spread the word and, if you’re thinking of submitting a contest entry, you should know that the prizes will be bigger this year.