Customizable entities on the way

A significant upgrade of the Blossom search system is in development. One new feature is a facility for defining custom entities. The search engine has several entity types built in, such as phone number, email addresses, and time of day. An entity consists of two parts: a trigger and a pattern. When a trigger is detected in a query, it can be replaced by text that matches the pattern. For example, a search for "office phone number" would match not only the words "office phone number" but also the word "office" near a phone number, like "office: 888-123-4567". The custom entity facility will allow site designers to define their own triggers and patterns. More details will be provided when the facility is available for testing. In the meantime, to help us design the facility, we are interested in hearing about how you might use custom entities. If you think you have a use for them, please send a note support@blossoft.com.