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When I introduce Boomer411 to other people, I am usually asked to explain how a discovery engine is different from a typical search engine. Most importantly, people want to know how it can benefit them. So I decided to post about it with the hope that it may benefit others.

At a fundamental level, a search engine helps you find information on the internet and a discovery engine also helps you find/discover information on the internet. So in that sense they are similar. But the similarity stops right there. Before we go into the differences, let’s first take a few minutes to understand what discovery engines are. To make this description more meaningful, we will use the implementation adopted by the RawSugar family of channels as the example in our descriptions here. (Note: Boomer411 is a channel of RawSugar)

Let’s say you wanted to learn more about insurance/ medicare options, may be for yourself or may be for someone you know.  

First, let’s visit any generic search engine of your choice and search for the keyword ‘insurance’. You will get a lot of results very quickly. Let’s say you got around 9 million search results. Now the onus is on you to find the results that match your needs. Even if you search for the word ‘medicare’ you will still get about a million results. In the interest of time, we usually look at the results in the first page or two and then give up. But a result on page 30 or something might very well be matching what I am looking for, but I would never get there. 

Now let’s visit http://www.boomer411.com/ using the browser. Notice that below the search box, you have a bunch of entries in the mid-section of the screen titled latest entries. These are the various links. Also notice that on the left side of the screen, there are a set of keywords organized under some headings. These are the broad categories/topics or tags that help you narrow your search further.

Now let’s see how this works…
1.       In the search box, type ‘Insurance’ and click on the search button.
2.       Now you see the results of your search in the mid-section of the screen (i.e., various links related to insurance). Also, notice that tags or keywords on the left changed dynamically and now list options for you to narrow your search within the current set of results.
3.       Scanning down the tags on the left, you find ’organizations’ as a sub-heading.  Under the sub-heading organizations, you see more keywords such as ‘aarp’, ’ship’, etc.
4.       Not knowing what ’ship’ is, you become curious and click on the word ’ship’ on the left.
5.       Now you see the screen refresh and show the results for ship under medicare. Your search results for the word ‘insurance’ are now further narrowed down to include the word ’ship’. The first link/result listed is ‘SHIPtalk’. Upon clicking you learn that SHIP stands for State Health Insurance  Program, that is actually a government funded program that people can use to get advice and counseling regarding their medicare, Medicaid and long-term care insurance needs. May be it would be useful to someone you know.  Thus you discovered a new option or resource for  insurance advice.

The Benefits:
Instead of the insurance related articles running through 100s of pages of search results, through successive narrowing down, you make those articles or links to bubble up to the top of your search results.  Thus bringing the results you are looking for on to the first page, rather than you scanning through 50 or 100 pages.

What does it do?

It could save you the time and frustration involved in clicking through many uninteresting links before you find the ones that interest you.

What is the discovery part here?

You may not have known that there is a free counseling service that is reliable. Of course this is just an example and so is simplified. But hope you get the point. You may not have known and discover information related to ‘Stand-alone Rx plans’ or ‘medicare advantage plans’. Thus in the process of finding answer to your questions, you end up discovering a new option or possibility that better meets your present needs, but you weren’t aware of it. All of this with less effort than scanning through 50-100 pages of results.

So going back to the original question regarding the difference between a traditional search engine and a discovery engine, while the purpose of visit to either one is the same, the process, the experience and the quality of the outcome would be drastically better with a discovery engine. Having gone through this example, I will let you answer the specifics of these differences and how they are better for yourself. May be we can cover them in another post…

Also, coming soon in a future posting, why Boomer411 links are more reliable or better?

With all the spam and noise on the internet, it is no secret that finding good, reliable information on the internet through use of generic search is becoming increasingly difficult, if not time consuming and frustrating at times. It is hard to differentiate between the sites that are dishing out information in an effort to sell us something and the sites that are an authority on the subject. It seems like everyone is claiming to be an authority. Just read the article listed below from CNN.com to find out how one has to sort through to get reliable medical information. It is a shame that we have to go through such lengthy search techniques to find good information, but on the other hand, one has to put in an effort to good results, in spite of the fact that the marketers would like us to believe otherwise. 

Tips for Savvy Medical Web Surfing

If you are looking for alternate sources of reliable medical information for a health condition you or your loved one is suffering from, please do take the time to read the tips in this article and it may help you find that doctor or medicine that can make a difference.

In a more general sense, you can see in this article, how there is a general lack of trust for the information on the internet and for a good reason. But the downside is that even the good, trustyworthy information cannot be trusted anymore on the internet. There is an urgent need to be able to sort the ‘diamonds’ from the other stones. And this is precisely the problem that Boomer411.com attempts to address. Boomer411 takes the help of experts in the field that have inside knowledge of issues and solutions and only indexes content, information that is approved by such experts. These experts are called Trustees on Boomer411. So instead of throwing every single article at the user, it only shows articles from reliable, authoritative sources and passed through a level of expert review, in a new, innovative user interface (screen) that allows you to narrow your search smartly.

In their midlife stage, if someone had a life altering event and are forced to start-over, it can be heart-wrenching, not to mention the emotional baggage it comes with. In this MSN Money column, titled ‘Uncommon Sense’, Dunleavey and her friends narrate the travails of a woman in her midlife going through her divorce and left with the responsibility of being a single parent with no job. Dunleavey elaborates on this 5 step process that is helping this woman keep her focus on important aspects and straighten out the mess she is in. Some of the steps are easy to understand and makes sense, but very rarely do people follow them. Some of it is facing the problem head on and addressing it courageously. Though this story is about a woman trying to recover from her divorce and short on income, this process can be equally helpful to other people that want to get their finances in order. All the best.

Ever wonder, how various regions in your state fare in terms of the number of Seniors, their health and wellbeing? Well, if you live in the state of Missouri, wonder no more. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services publishes an annual report on this very same subject. You can find their latest report here. Use the quick links on the left of the report to access various sections of the report. Be sure to check the box titled ‘Data and Maps’ and use the ‘interactive data reports’ option to create your own custom reports and analysis of this information. 

Based on the data, the senior population is increasing in the southwest part of Missouri. You can also see how each county fares in taking care of its seniors, using the county profile tables.

The report, first of its kind in the nation, as per this article can be a planning tool for seniors, Boomers as well as service organizations and businesses. Projections are available for years 2010, 2020 as well.

According to Charisse Pappas, a spokeswoman for the Missouri department of health and senior services, “The surge in the senior population is the biggest public policy issue of our time. Seniors will outnumber youth and children for the first time in history by 2050.

I guess it’s time for other states to follow suit and compile similar reports. A quick search did not indicate the existence of such report in other states.

It is our pleasure to announce that the new search portal, www.Boomer411.com is now live in its Beta release. The purpose of this new web site is to bring you a unique search experience, that will hopefully enable you to find information on the web more easily. This search engine is focused on the concerns and interests of anyone that is older than 45 years and only indexes articles/content on the web that is relevant to this demographic group.

I would like to call out the following features of this web site…

• A new way of drilling down within your search results to find the information you are looking for
• Ability to discover new, related information pertaining to your search keyword
• Articles and content selected by experts in the field for indexing on the web site
• Ability to vote on links that you found to be useful 
• Ability to create watchlists and keep an eye on what others in the community are finding useful
• and much much more…

We would love to hear your feedback, thoughts and suggestions. Please check it out and see it for yourself and be sure to tell your friends about it. So here is Boomer411 beta for your surfing pleasure.

Also, if you are a practitioner in a field of interest to Baby Boomers and if you would like to help select content on the web to be indexed on site, please click here to discuss this further with us.