Asynchronous Social Search

Abstract

A fundamentally different approach to internet and enterprise search is described in this thesis. The approach is based on asynchronous Social Search, a search method in which people collaborate to find the information they are looking for. A Structured Literature Review was performed to get an overview of the most relevant literature related to asynchronous Social Search. Different competitors and implementations of search methods in practice were evaluated and compared in a competitor analysis. Critical Success Factors of asynchronous Social Search were identified and a prototype was built. The prototype was tested using a global experiment for its feasibility for web search. Also, a case study was performed to test the feasibility in a business environment. We conclude that asynchronous Social Search has huge potential, mainly for Enterprise Search as a Single Point of Access to organisational information. Both because the implementation requires no integration with the existing Information Technology infrastructure of organisations and participants were very satisfied with the results provided by the prototype.