From E-Relevance to W-Relevance

We discuss how the wireless-mobile revolution will change the notion of relevance in information retrieval. We distinguish between classical relevance (e-relevance) and relevance for wireless/mobile information retrieval (w-relevance). Starting from a fourdimensional model of e-relevance previously developed by one of us, we discuss how, in an ubiquitous computing environment, much more information will be available, and how it is therefore likely that w-relevance will be more important than e-relevance to survive information overload. The similarities and differences between e-relevance and wrelevance are described, and we show that there are more differences than one might think at first. We specifically analyze the role that beyond-topical criteria have in the w-relevance case, and we show some examples to clarify and support our position.