Site Map 2.0

Just some casual thoughts about the new site map features for better information organization, search, and share:

1. Structured and separated from its presentation: this makes it searchable. The search based on the structure is much more effective and efficient than search the whole page. Google site map is on the right track.
2. Multi-perspectives (path): the structure of the site map should reflect multiple perspectives or dimensions of information. Current site map or menus are always fixed and the same in every session. Many types of information have the characteristics of multi-categorization, which means they can be categorized in different schemes by different dimensions.This will lead to a resource with multiple path.
3. Rich navigation information embedded: it is not just in a hierarchical structure, but also with rich navigation information, such as tags, links to related resource, etc.
4. Dynamic and client oriented: it can be customized in presentation on the client side, supporting common information seeking features like filtering, marking (favorites), tracking (most visited, history), etc. The customization can be saved and synchronized from the server when the site map is changed.