Microsoft To Make Search "Extremely Personal"

[rich_ord]

Microsoft's Bill Gates is quoted by wire services as saying yesterday, "We're going to make search extremely personal".

Apparently, Gates was responding to a question dealing with privacy issues and noted that users would have to provide private information to get personalized search results.

I'm curious as to what our WebProWorld crowd thinks about this.

Thanks,
Rich Ord
--
CEO, iEntry, Inc.

[sudhani]

Microsoft might succeed in making the search truly personal ... just because of its OS and IE. But this might restrict the personalization to the "Computer" than the individual ... MSN messenger might be helpful for them to understant who actually are using the computer. But issues of privacy might come into play. How much "persoanl information" a person is willing to give away to SE's for personalization?

A thought came across by the time I finished the post?

Do searchers need personalization at the cost of privacy? or do they learn to make better searches?

[robinev]

Microsoft might succeed in making the search truly personal ... just because of its OS and IE. But this might restrict the personalization to the "Computer" than the individual

But Microsoft makes it simple for even novice users to create multiple accounts on a multi-user machine. So it's really personalization to the account.

I look forward to personalization. I'd probably let an SE that gives good results access to a wealth of information.

Example: Let's say I do a search for "data access techniques". A desktop search tool that had indexed my program files would notice that I have both the Java SDK and .net framework on my machine. But I also have Visual Studio.net and don't have any Java programming tools. That could lead it to feed me results referring to .net before results dealing with Java. In my case, that would be a good thing.

Someone else with a Program Files filled with Java tools would get Java results first and that would be a good thing for them.

[sudhani]

But Microsoft makes it simple for even novice users to create multiple accounts on a multi-user machine. So it's really personalization to the account.

But how many of the users (eave the technical persons out) log off from an account and log abck in their new account?

Sudha

[Lee Deeming]

Regarding the User Account switching, this assumes they have the latest version of Windows, yet alone Windows at all. Many versions of Microsoft's operating system barely support User Accounts, if at all. Agreed, WinXP sets the standard, but previous efforts fail to come close to thier lastest offering.

[cryptblade]

But Microsoft makes it simple for even novice users to create multiple accounts on a multi-user machine. So it's really personalization to the account.

This is if someone has XP - which not everyone does. I have a computer with XP - my roommates use my computer on my account. They dont log into any other account. And really, with one home computer, what is the point in doing that? I want control over my own computer and the content downloaded into my computer, so I can unload unnecessary files or what not when i want.

I dont like the idea of personalized search, and I definitely dont like the idea of volunteering information for search engines. Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, since we dont even have a prototype of what the personalized search engine is like. But if it is anything like Amazon.com's personalized search, I dont like it already. If I go to Yahoo and log into my email account, the last thing I want to see is (if do any search before I log out)some "personalized" search "results" which will be nothing more than advertising. I mean, let's be honest here - what good is a personalized search except for highly targeted ads? If I was searching for "the Nash Equilibrium" what value is there for a personalized search? And the last thing I want to see if I do this search is any listing advertising "A Beautiful Mind" or even any books - because I would want just basic but free information.

[robinev]

I dont like the idea of personalized search, and I definitely dont like the idea of volunteering information for search engines. Maybe I'm jumping the gun here, since we dont even have a prototype of what the personalized search engine is like. But if it is anything like Amazon.com's personalized search, I dont like it already.

We do actually have one early and simple example of personalized search at www.search.com's new metasearch site.

And there seem to be many users who feel the same way. But there are others like me who would gladly volunteer information to a search engine for the sake of more relevant searches. I like Amazon's personalized searches and return to the site again and again because of the personalization.

So the SEs will have to be careful to supply options to users. Should personalization be opt-in or opt-out? Each engine is going to have to figure out the answer that works best for their users.

While it's true that there are many users still clinging to MS-DOS-based OSs, any version of NT from 3.5 on up to the current 5.1 (XP) allows for individual user accounts. It's an option. If you don't care about sharing account information, you don't need to use it. I don't share my machine very often, but I still have a (generally disabled) guest account setup on it just in case someone comes to visit. Oddly enough, although I'm willing to share anonymous information with a search engine, I'm less willing to share all the information on my hard drive with any friend or family member.