Abstract: Instant messaging with search is described. One or more techniques of the described techniques may be employed to provide a search during an instant messaging session, the results of which may then be shared between participants in the instant messaging session.

Abstract: A blog map for searching and/or navigating the blogosphere is provided. In accordance with one method for generating a blog map, a number of blog posts within the blogosphere are accessed. Each of the blog posts is converted to a feature vector, which represents the position of the blog post in a high-dimensional space. The dimensionality of the feature vectors is reduced from the high-dimensional space to a low-dimensions space, such that each blog post is represented in the low-dimensional space. A map is then generated based on the position of the blog posts in the low-dimensional space.

Abstract: A database collects questions and answers to the questions, each question having a plurality of answers. A question interface provides the questions to the database from various sources. An answer interface provides the answers to the database from various sources. A rating system assigns an accuracy rating to each of the plurality of answers for each question.

Abstract: A computer-implemented system and method provides authoritative answers, developed within a community-based question answering service to users of a general network information search. This community-based question answering service receives a question from a first user, and receives answers from community members regarding this question. The authority of the answer is then determined by members of the community and if the authority is of an acceptable level, the question together with its authoritative answer is added to a database which includes all authoritatively answered questions. The answering service has an interface that exposes the contents of this database to queries from users of the network who are not necessarily members of the answering service. In one embodiment, results from queries of the community-based database are integrated with queries of a second database of general network information.