Web 2.0 and database technology
posted in Database technology, Web2.0 |I’ve been beginning to think a lot about databases, and where they are going. I’ve been using databases now since grad school, and relational databases for the past 10 years or so. There have been two specific advances in Web 2.0 that might, in the end, change how we think about databases.
This is described well in a post on O’Reilly Radar, which describes what Google did when it was creating a new bug tracking system. They, of course, have the worlds most kick-ass full-text searching system (I’m not sure whether that’s Web 1.5 or 2.0.) So they combined that system, with specific kinds of tagging and metadata, to decrease the structure of the database of the bug tracking system - they were encouraging people to just put in lots of text in a free-form field.
It made me think - how many kinds of databases that we create and use could be simplified by adding tagging, and really good full-text searching? I already can imagine something like an event management system, or some kinds of content-rich applications that depended upon highly structured relational schema, that could use this kind of new idea. Come up with one good full-text and metadata search functionality (or use someone else’s) and trim down the time and energy both creating the schema, and entering in the data, at the same time as you enrich the content.
I kinda like it.
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