People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
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Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#2Erm, if ever, here is a real candidate for the correlation != causation lesson.
I think it would be doing a massive disservice to Google to say that the only reason people use their service is because of personalized search results. Google do have good search results (in my subjective opinion, at least) - but that is not why I used them (I now use DDG).
Google had the cleanest and simplest UI, non-intrusive adverts, and generally didn't "get in the way".
I'm now using DDG because Google has lost these qualities - I reached a point where I found myself fighting with Google's UI "improvements" more and more. Now I'm thankfully back to the point where search is just search again, and I don't mind some adverts on the side - there's no such thing as a free service.
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#3People don't hate personalized search, they hate not knowing what's going to happen with the information.
Personally, I love how convenient it is for Google to know as much as it does about me. But I then have to begrudgingly trust that they "won't be evil" with that information. It's a tradeoff, and I like to think that most people understand it as such.
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#4This is an attempt to rationalize away people's concerns without having to address them. People really do have concerns, and if they are not precisely what is being articulated and the words don't precisely match the actions, that is not proof they don't exist. It merely means that people are not successfully articulating them. It would be better to try to figure out what they actually are than to take the psychologically appealing route of explaining them away in your own Google-centric worldview, then thinking you've actually addressed anything.
Edit: For posterity I'll leave up "Google-centric", but thanks mdwrigh2; please consider it struck. I still think there's an attempt to dodge around what the concerns actually are.
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#5This is an attempt to rationalize away people's concerns without having to address them. People really do have concerns, and if they are not precisely what is being articulated and the words don't precisely match the actions, that is not proof they don't exist. It merely means that people are not successfully articulating them. It would be better to try to figure out what they actually are than to take the psychologi…
Just to make sure its clear, the author of this runs a media company and is not a Googler. I'm not sure he benefits at all by rationalizing away "people's concerns without having to address them".
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#6This is an attempt to rationalize away people's concerns without having to address them. People really do have concerns, and if they are not precisely what is being articulated and the words don't precisely match the actions, that is not proof they don't exist. It merely means that people are not successfully articulating them. It would be better to try to figure out what they actually are than to take the psychologi…
Just to make sure its clear, the author of this runs a media company and is not a Googler. I'm not sure he benefits at all by rationalizing away "people's concerns without having to address them".
It’s possible to write rationalizations and duck relevant arguments without necessarily being a paid shill.
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#7People don't hate personalized search, they hate not knowing what's going to happen with the information. Personally, I love how convenient it is for Google to know as much as it does about me. But I then have to begrudgingly trust that they "won't be evil" with that information. It's a tradeoff, and I like to think that most people understand it as such.
That's one concern. Another is that "how do I know that you hid stuff I would really have preferred to see?"
The idea behind seamless personalized search requires some information hiding or re-arrangement, and I think people aren't so happy with that idea.
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#8> First of all, that last sentence is in error. Google has been personalizing search since the summer of 2005.
But isn't this article only referencing "personalizing search" in relation to Google Search+ Your World?
What sorts of personalization existed in Google Search results before GSPYW?
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#9I actually like personalized search, except when I'm searching for anything remotely non-technical. Ubuntu Forums are the top result when I search for flu symptoms.
Re: People think they hate personalized search, but they actually love it.
#10One of these days I hope and pray Google's personalized search will be smart enough to stop 'correcting' my spelling to something I wasn't actually looking for.
If I actually do spell something wrong, I'll realize it and happily fix it.