Google: Search, plus Your World • Hacker News Board

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#21

Post by SquareWheel » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 3:54 PM UTC

tonfa wrote: post #8

ximeng wrote: post #3

Looks like DDG has led the way on some of this: Don't bubble: "We’re also introducing a prominent new toggle on the upper right of the results page where you can see what your search results look like without personal content. With a single click, you can see an unpersonalized view of search results." Default SSL: "That's part of why we were the first major search engine to turn on search via SSL by default for signe…

Contrary to DDG, it is really personal content (not ranking) here (i.e. content that might be accessible only to you). I think the ranking is still personalized when you disable Search+.

You can turn off personalization by appending &pws=0 to the URL.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-disable-goog...

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#22

Post by jonknee » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:00 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #2

I have to admit, reading the article I went back and forth between being impressed and being slightly freaked out. Best quote from the article that evokes both of those feelings for me: "This is search that truly knows me." Do I really want my Internet search engine to "know me"?

No, but I imagine you want to find what you're looking for. Google knowing about you is part of what makes this possible.

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#23

Post by icebraining » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:09 PM UTC

nodata wrote: post #9

Taking personalised search to creepy levels: bye bye Google! I'll use your gmail, but I'm moving to DDG for search.

So you give them your data (by using Gmail), but are opposed to them showing to you what you already gave them?

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#24

Post by bambax » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:09 PM UTC

> Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web.

No, they are not. What's meaningful to me are the experiences of people (anyone) who have been to where I'm thinking of going, and their average rating.

Imagine this on Amazon: when considering buying a book, would you want to see the reviews of "your friends", of which maybe one or two have read the book you're looking at and taken the time to comment on it, or would you rather have access to the collective knowledge of millions of Amazon customers...?

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#25

Post by icebraining » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:12 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #24

> Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. No, they are not. What's meaningful to me are the experiences of people (anyone) who have been to where I'm thinking of…

It depends; my friends may not have so many reviews, but on the other hand, I know they aren't shills or idiots. Preferably, I want both, which is what Google seems to offer from now on.

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#26

Post by joebadmo » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #24

> Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. No, they are not. What's meaningful to me are the experiences of people (anyone) who have been to where I'm thinking of…

I disagree. Because the things I value are different from the things everyone else values in a vacation. Same reason I can look at the bestseller list in Amazon and be completely uninterested in most of the titles.

That's not to say that I have the same taste as all my friends, either. But it's true that their experiences are often much more meaningful, if only because I know them well and understand how they would come to the conclusions they came to regarding a specific review, and I can extract a lot of information from that.

More than that, though, I want Google to be able to learn from my preferences and my friends' preferences in order to point me to the most relevant content.

The collective knowledge of the internet as an aggregate, averaged out, is not useful to me. It doesn't become useful until it's filtered to suit my needs. Which has always been Google's value proposition.

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#27

Post by icebraining » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:21 PM UTC

This kind of personalized integration is not new, though: Google has had Reader integration for quite some time now, so often searches bring up results from blogs I subscribe to (or at least they did - it doesn't seem to be working now).

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#28

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:31 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #24

> Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. No, they are not. What's meaningful to me are the experiences of people (anyone) who have been to where I'm thinking of…

Imagine this on Amazon: when considering buying a book, would you want to see the reviews of "your friends", of which maybe one or two have read the book you're looking at and taken the time to comment on it, or would you rather have access to the collective knowledge of millions of Amazon customers...?

Ideally you would have both. There is no reason to choose only one.

In the Amazon case, it might make sense to put your friends reviews atop all the others, so that you can see them in a sea of hundreds of reviews.

But with search engine results, I'm not so sure if personal should automatically mean placement at the top - since so often we've conditioned ourselves to never need to look a few places beyond the top link.

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#29

Post by notatoad » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:33 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #24

> Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. No, they are not. What's meaningful to me are the experiences of people (anyone) who have been to where I'm thinking of…

its not an either/or situation. when I'm looking for reviews of a book, or travel recommendation, I'd like to see my friends reviews as well as the top rated public reviews. content from people I know gives me a reference point on how to judge their opinions.

Re: Google: Search, plus Your World

#30

Post by stfu » Tue, Jan 10, 2012, 4:33 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #24

> Say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations? Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web. No, they are not. What's meaningful to me are the experiences of people (anyone) who have been to where I'm thinking of…

I have to agree with that statement. Moreover this increasing please-dont-confront-me-with-views-outside-of-my-peer-group is problematic. While we embrace tolerance and open-mindedness in society, services like Facebook and now Google Search are increasingly reducing the open character and often randomness of the web by creating separated friend-islands.