Viewing profile — ajkohn

My problem is that the filter bubble is increasingly used as a retort of fear, uncertainty and doubt when discussing personalization, marketing and privacy. It’s become a proxy to …

It's interesting. Sometimes the argument is that people are more savvy than we give them credit for and then it's that they don't really understand. I'm not saying you're doing thi…

Well, using both the links above (though I botched the first link to ad preferences) you can opt-out of the the remarketing/display cookie and the search cookie. For those that get…

Point taken. But you don't get to speak to those who think Google is evil without getting them to read it first. For me the ends justified the means. Of course you may disagree and…

FWIW - the evil debate we're having here has once again sort of derailed us all from the main thesis which is ... Google wins when people use the Internet more. So while some laugh…

Oddly, I agree. That's one of the reasons I wrote this piece. Though clearly I've used the evil word to tease people into reading it.

I agree. If there really is this desire, then Google needs to honor it. The Ads Preference manager is fairly straight-forward (www.google.com/ads/preferences) and more people who g…

When you ask someone whether they want their search results or ads to reflect their browse and search history they say no but when presented with the two options, users nearly alwa…

I covered Google+ in the piece. It's definitely a bit of an outlier. I see Google+ as two things: 1) A way for Google to get primary and active signals about user preferences to be…

Yes, the 'Don't be Evil' motto sets Google up for being a target for every little thing that someone thinks is wrong, whether or not it really is or not. What I think is meant by t…

While I didn't expand upon it in the piece I believe many apply the 'evil' brush to a host of normal, though sometimes ruthless, business activities. People seem consumed with thos…

Yes, Facebook is still the leader here. It's taken a good 6 years for Twitter to decide it wanted to be a real business and there was a lot of drama at the executive level. But in …

I too am eager to see Google experiment with AuthorRank. Not only should it be much harder to scam, break and abuse, I believe Google is thinking about those things in the creation…

I'd be interested to hear if others agree with my assessment or not.

Thanks for putting this up on HN. Let me know if anyone has suggestions on how to improve the guide.

The definition of 'low-quality' sites can be rather subjective, can't it? I personally get no value out of Mahalo or Squidoo but I know others actually do. While I might not love e…

Here's some preliminary data that shows that Google Instant may have changed the distribution of clicks by rank, with more emphasis being put on results above the fold. http://bit.…

Well, the impact on search query length may be negligible but there are other ways in which Instant may be changing search behavior. I have a small slice of data I hope to post in …