Point Communications Survey
Since buying out PointCom, Lycos now maintains several Internet services. They
still provide an excellent search
interface, but now they offer the A2Z Subject Catalog with nearly 20,000 document abstracts, and also
maintain the Point Survey, a
collection of reviews for the "Top 5% of the Web".
Key Links
URLs for Front Pages:
URL for Top-Level
Page: http://www.pointcom.com/text/survey/
URL for Search Page:
http://www.pointcom.com/
URL for Legal
Page: http://www.lycos.com/reference/legal.html
URL for FAQ Page:
http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/welcome/
URL for Help Page:
http://www.lycos.com/info/index.html
URL for Subscription
Page: http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/subscribe
URL for Staff
Page: http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/welcome/#people
Home Organization: Lycos recently
purchased Point Communications.
Organization
- After purchasing Point Communications, Lycos has integrated the
Point Survey into the Lycos family of services.
- Reviews are also organized by subject into 16 major categories. I
have found 3 entry points into these categories: a
simple list
a descriptive list,
and an exploded outline.
- A page of reviews for a specific subject can be sorted by review date,
by evaluation score, or (by default) alphabetically.
- A review consists of collection title, 3 evaluations scores and
possibly a short 5-word descriptor in the review list. A hyperlink
leads to a full paragraph of descriptive or summary text that
describes the value of the collection.
- Evaluation
scores are assigned in 3 categories: content, presentation, and
overall experience. Values range from 50 (the singing of angels)
to 0 (the singing of Marcel Marceau).
- Point claims to have reviewed the "Top 5% of the Web". I don't know
about that figure, but I place the number of reviews at around 7,000.
- Search services are provided by
Lycos.
- Because of the critical nature of the Survey Point selects documents
based on the quality of their content.
Administration
- Point Survey is maintained by its own staff, who continue to discover
and review new Web sites for inclusion. Users are encouraged to
submit sites or
collections for review.
- Lycos uses automated gathering software (a Web Spider) to find and
catalog new documents. Users are also able to suggest new URLs for
inclusion in the Lycos database.
- Although the graphics are a bit large, most of the pages and search
interfaces are reasonably easy to use or navigate. There are several
help, information, and sample search pages to help novices get started.
- Currently, the PointCom homepage does not provide easy access to the
Point Survey index pages for users with text-only browsers, since the
links are currently made through image-maps. I believe this will be
fixed soon.
- In addition to the introductory and support documents, each of the
services maintains special value-added services such as Web highlights,
current news information, and editorial content.
This collection is Copyright © 1995-6 by Matt Slot, but has been designed
for public use. Permission is hereby granted for unlimited print and electronic
redistribution. Your feedback is
appreciated.
Matt Slot *
fprefect@ambrosiasw.com *
3/24/96