Is Personalization The Next Big Thing In Search?

from the everybody's-searching... dept

Yet another "search" related story to add to the pile of related stories today. Back in May we wrote about some Stanford researchers who were trying to improve on Google's PageRank technology to make it much faster. They've now taken that research from Stanford (just like the founders of both Yahoo and Google) and formed their own startup to try to build out a more personalized search engine. The article points out that personalization may be "the next big thing" in search technology. Instead of just returning basic search results, the idea is to take some information they have about you, and return search results that are more relevant to you specifically. Of course, previous attempts at personalization on the web have had very mixed results - and some people don't like the fact that a company is collecting so much information about them. Still, with so many people focused on the technology, it should be an interesting space to watch. In the meantime, let's see how long it takes this startup, Kaltix, to get bought out by one of the other search players.

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  1. identicon
    Torsten Jacobi, 11 Aug 2003 @ 3:19pm

    dont believe in it really

    An interesting approach. However I do not think that personalization will be such an advantage in the broad index.
    To get bought it will need a safe IP (incl. patents), real roll-out of the idea and good luck.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Aug 2003 @ 6:20pm

    Mass depersonalization

    and the search for meaning.

    It could be that we are programmed since birth to obey a culture that tells us we should like listening to music because it "enlightens the mind", that we should like movies, that we should like travelling because it "broadens your horizons". It could be that in reality, music deadens the mind with its repetitive noises, movies brainwash us into predictable behavior, and travelling narrows our horizons into a world of tourist traps and sophistry. We chase an illusion of choice, of pretending to believe we are individuals because we favor certain kinds of movies, music, or places.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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