I’m moderating a session next week at the Silicon Valley WebGuild’s big event, Searchnomics 2007.

My panel is covers a hot new category for web publishers - site search, specifically sit-side search that leverage the “wisdom of crowds.”

There are two kinds of site search - Content and Product. Some call it Retail and Media. We have a good group of companies who are breaking open this space. I’m on the advisory board of Collarity (how I got the speak op) and I’m pleased to see since they launched that this has become an actual “category.”

Here’s the session description. Let me know if you’ll be there.

Increased Revenue through People-Powered Site Search and Recommendations

A publisher’s main concern is connecting their audience to the content they need. The publisher’s best resource for accomplishing that goal is the audience themselves. But what is the best way to tap into the wisdom of that crowd? There is an emerging set of companies now focused at helping websites and Web publishers harness the collective intelligence of their website audience to generate better site search, helpful content recommendations, and important business intelligence about their most important customer segments. When Web visitors can find what they need more often, almost all website success metrics improve. Harnessing community behavior also allows publishers to match more relevant advertisements to users. Search marketing is then optimized as a major revenue driver using the knowledge of any site’s communities. Come hear how these companies are moving search and content discovery relevance beyond semantics and links, toward a new world of anonymous user-actions and behavior.
Moderator: Susan Bratton, CEO, Personal Life Media, Inc.
Levy Cohen, CEO/Founder, Collarity
David Marks, Co-Founder/CEO/President, Loomia
Jack Jia, CEO, Baynote