Is Google trying to steal a bit of Digg’s thunder? Or is this yet
another move towards user personalization of Google’s results?
The web community is trying to guess what Google could be up to, after Googlified revealed that “Google Experimental is currently running an experiment that allows some selected users to “influence [the] search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results.”
To me, this is just yet another indication of the move towards a
trend of personalization of the web. The idea would be that Google’s
smart algorithms work together with mass user behavior, but that the
final search results are run through the “context of ME”. With this new
development from Google, the “context of ME” would no longer have to be
based on user history alone (what sites I’ve visited, stuff I’ve
bought, etc), but also what the user explicitly says that they are
interested in or not, what is valuable and what isn’t. I think this is
a great development towards a more complete and thus valuable idea of
personalization, one that shows a balance between the user’s conscious
and unconscious behavior.
Marta Strickland
Comments
Connections
“The idea would be that Google’s smart algorithms work together with mass user behavior”
And at the same time we rate we are identifying ourselves telling Google what we like and what not, therefore helping Google to dig deeper in our profiles and peeling off one more layer of our privacy, that’s what’s Google up to now… And tomorrow.
Google (and Yahoo, and probably Ask, etc.) has on staff a large number of editors, whose job is essentially to add, move, and remove search results, so for them to open this process up a little is not such a revolutionary concept.
It’s actually stranger to me that we haven’t seen this before, although I would imagine Google – as the de facto ranking authority for the entire web – is extremely sensitive to the risk of being gamed.
wow that is scary, and sure it is nothing new but it’s still scary.
It’s a stupid idea. Google doesn’t work well as it is. This is all about invading my privacy; finding another way to cram stuff I don’t want into my face. The worst part, however, is that the opportunity for chance discovery is lessened. The ‘net becomes increasingly monetized and people move away from it.