hypersearching, as discovered in class, is a powerful tool in attaining a fast and accurate result when searching for a query term. Although it is not implemented globally yet, it would prove to be a very powerful searching mechanism. While surfing the web for my own entertainment sakes, I have found several aspects of Korean web blogs that could be utilized as a tool for hypersearching.

 In America, the primary form of online communication between a social group is instant messaging and forums. In Korea, a collection of forum boards and picture BBS’s called “Cafe” is the norm. The cafe exists for a certain motive (such as fan clubs, campaign for a certain action, etc) and the members communicate inside the collective chamber. Web blogs in Korea is like the individual replica of the cafe. There are numerous blog interfaces: blogin (http://www.blogin.com/), Egloos (http://www.egloos.com/), Tistory (http://www.tistory.com/), Cyworld (http://www.cyworld.nate.com/), and et cetera. Individuals join one of these services and create their own little Cafe filled with their interests. Although two blogs may be provided by the same provider, it could be very different according to the user’s style.

 Since the majority of the “netizens” in Korea use a blog, search engines naturally search blogs automatically. The most used search engine, Naver (http://www.naver.com/), searches Web pages, Knowledge search database (a trademarked Q&A service), Cafe&blog, dictionary, image, movie clips, music, and news when instructed to search a term. most unprofessional information or personal opinions cannot be found on web pages (since the majority of the people don’t have knowledge of web design), but they could be found on blogs where it is relatively easy to post information.

 But why blogs relate to hypersearching is because of the function “trackback”. Let’s suppose that I was reading Jack’s blog and I found very good information about what I’m interested in. Let’s say… pizza. Then, I could refer to Jack’s blog in my post and leave a hyperlink. I’d say in the post “Yeah so I was reading Jack’s blog (link) …” blah blah. This isn’t just a one-direction link; in Jack’s blog, it will show that I have linked to his blog. Therefore if many people link to Jack’s blog (Jack is a good authority), there is no special mechanism required to calculate the scores. And since my blog shows the pages that I’ve linked to, the visitors can see my hub score too. And blogs in korea are categorized very specifically, so there is less chance of a high authority score with a vast array of topics.

 It is interesting to see that in Google, the primary function is to search web pages. In Naver, searching web pages is the least used function. Implementing these web blog strategies in hypersearching mechanisms would bring more light into the information searching studies.