Google Custom Search
Google's custom search also dubbed CO-OP makes it easy to create a search engine which will only return results within a certain topic. You control which pages are included in the result-set and how they are being included. I will not bore you with details for, Goole manages to explain their service quite well. Simply follow the link posted above. The reason why Google Co-OP is mentioned in this post, is because Tim Haughton created XPoogle and DotNoodle within a few hours. While XPoogle focuses on topics related to Xtreme Programming and DotNoodle focuses on topics around .Net.
Watching that development, I could not help myself but to create a custom search engine which focuses on Scrum and staying with the naming theme so well established by Tim I have dubbed it Scrumoogle.
The motivation behind creating Scrumoogle is easily explained. Our community is good at collaboration, it is one of the core values. Scrumoogle is as good as the community chooses to make it. Everyone is invited to contribute their private collection of links which are Scrum related. Scrumoogle is also about trust. Obviously I would like to ensure that this is a search engine with a narrow focus on Scrum, not on Agile, not on XP, not on DSDM...I think you get the picture. I cannot possibly verify every submission made, so I would hope that those who do submit will actually ensure that they are staying on topic. Improving Scrumoogle
There are a few ideas starting to develop in the back of my head and I would like to share them early on in my thought process.
· Ranked inclusion - You submit an URL, which then gets ranked by the community. Much like Digg. Once a certain threshold is reached, it gets included.
· Pingback Inclusion - You have finished you latest post on Scrum. You ping Scrumooge to include your URL. You have an API key that you use and your web-site has been verified up-front to be Scrum related.
I would be more than happy to learn about your ideas, I would love to understand how a community driven search engine can make searching for complicated topics about Scrum easier for everyone. I also like to exporer this technology, including Googles Custom Search AJAX API, which seems a very good way of including context sensitive information on someone's web-site.
...and Conchango
What has this to do with Conchango? We emply bright people and we have an ever growing community of Agile and Scrum experts. I would hope that those can set an example and ensure, together with me, that we are staying on topic. Naturally I would expect Conchango generated content, which is meant fo public consumption with a topic of Scrum to be included very quickly in this search engine. I know I will do my best to grow Scrumoogle and make it an interesting service for the community.