How convenient. The future of search requires giving up libraries of congress worth of personal info, to advertising companies with a sideline in search.
Let's be honest, this is a direction search had to go eventually anyway.
What I want and what you want in search results may be very different, in terms of sources we like, in terms of what we consider valid. So either you and I can both separately buy millions of dollars worth of computer hardware and spend thousands of hours of our time writing the code to make it do what Google does, but with tweaks for our specific preferences... Or Google can do that for everyone simultaneously based on decisions made w
This is misguided. I have experience with programs trying to guess what I want to do ("It looks like you're writing a cover letter. Let me help you with that.") They are notoriously bad at that. If Google concentrates on reliable results for a generic search, we'll be better off than having them try to get personalized search right. We can already clarify our search in the search line, so this will adds no value.
Maybe they meant personalized ads, and they're just looking for ways to trick us into surrenderi
What's happening here is not "It looks like you're writing a cover letter. Let me help you with that." Google is starting on top of a functioning search engine, and then it's tweaking results.
If you're a frothing at the mouth "Wikipedia isn't reliable" hater, downmod wikipedia enough, and google should take the hint and stop making Wikipedia rank #2 or #3 in mostly any search where they have an article. If you're a rabid "I want Jimbo Wales's children" wiki-lover, upmod it, and it'll go to #1 on most searches rather than the #2 or #3 I mentioned. If you lean right, upmod fox news. If you lean left, upmod cnn (or something, other than the stereotypical Fox, I don't really know the US media political leanings all that well).
I consult Wikipedia a lot, but I'd never up-mod it. What I want to see are the actual rankings, based on popularity and relevancy, in order to make my choice. I don't need Google to remind me what my own preference is. That's not helpful. Moreover, I know when to apply exceptions to my usual preferences, a computer does not.
It would be nice to be able to blacklist domains from my search results, however. That's a feature I could use.
If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
-- William Baumol
How convenient (Score:5, Insightful)
How convenient. The future of search requires giving up libraries of congress worth of personal info, to advertising companies with a sideline in search.
Re: (Score:1)
Let's be honest, this is a direction search had to go eventually anyway.
What I want and what you want in search results may be very different, in terms of sources we like, in terms of what we consider valid. So either you and I can both separately buy millions of dollars worth of computer hardware and spend thousands of hours of our time writing the code to make it do what Google does, but with tweaks for our specific preferences... Or Google can do that for everyone simultaneously based on decisions made w
Re: (Score:2)
This is misguided. I have experience with programs trying to guess what I want to do ("It looks like you're writing a cover letter. Let me help you with that.") They are notoriously bad at that. If Google concentrates on reliable results for a generic search, we'll be better off than having them try to get personalized search right. We can already clarify our search in the search line, so this will adds no value.
Maybe they meant personalized ads, and they're just looking for ways to trick us into surrenderi
Re:How convenient (Score:2)
What's happening here is not "It looks like you're writing a cover letter. Let me help you with that." Google is starting on top of a functioning search engine, and then it's tweaking results.
If you're a frothing at the mouth "Wikipedia isn't reliable" hater, downmod wikipedia enough, and google should take the hint and stop making Wikipedia rank #2 or #3 in mostly any search where they have an article. If you're a rabid "I want Jimbo Wales's children" wiki-lover, upmod it, and it'll go to #1 on most searches rather than the #2 or #3 I mentioned. If you lean right, upmod fox news. If you lean left, upmod cnn (or something, other than the stereotypical Fox, I don't really know the US media political leanings all that well).
Re: (Score:2)
I consult Wikipedia a lot, but I'd never up-mod it. What I want to see are the actual rankings, based on popularity and relevancy, in order to make my choice. I don't need Google to remind me what my own preference is. That's not helpful. Moreover, I know when to apply exceptions to my usual preferences, a computer does not.
It would be nice to be able to blacklist domains from my search results, however. That's a feature I could use.