The Shifting Landscape of Web Search and Mining: Past, Present, and Future

The Web's content has been going through major changes, triggered by multiple factors including changes in user demographic and authoring behaviour, a shift in device types that access the Web, and changes in common use cases of the Web. More specifically, the number of mobile internet users has surpassed the desktop users according to different statistics; a considerable portion of web use cases are in the form of social interactions rather than information seeking; and the authoring behaviour has transformed from compiling a page and linking resources to sharing content with like-minded followers and leaving likes and comments on posts. Those changes have influenced and are expected to shape the way the content is organized, searched, ranked and analyzed. This panel brings together researchers who have been working in different established areas related to web search and mining, web content and social network analysis, and semantics and knowledge management. The panel will draw from the experience of the panellists, dealing with changes in their respective fields. In the first (role-playing) round, each panellist will strongly take a side on where the changes are heading, arguing that one form of content will dominate in the near future. In the second round, the panellists will counter each other and will share their vision on what future holds in terms of research problems and directions. The members of the audience will participate, in a QA session with the panellists, bringing their own perspectives to the discussion.