Don’t take it personally, Google
The hot buzz on the online street these days is about Google’s personalized search, announced last month by Sep Kamvar, Google’s Engineering Lead for Personalization:
… over time, as the search engine learns your preferences, you’ll see it. For example, I (Sep) am an avid Miami Dolphins fan (no joke). Searching for [dolphins] gives me info about my favorite football team, while a marine biologist colleague gets more information about her salt-water friends.
Google’s announcement served as a catalyst for unleashing some deep-rooted emotions about personalization. Gord Hotchkiss wrote a terrifically well-balanced article weighing the pros and cons, which provoked some serious comments from his readers:
I already hate it when Google pushes me to German Google due to IP geolocation. I prefer to see English Google.com, as I chose to enter “google.com” in the browser… I don’t want Google to be stuck in my town, in my country, in my past, or in my belief system. Because when I use a search engine, then I want to precisely expand my horizon, not be limited to it. I precisely *want* to learn about when a word is amiguous in other cultures, to better understand other cultures. I *want* to *accidentally* stumble upon new communities or unknown zones of the web.
We’re a funny bunch, we humans. If I return to a previously visited hotel, and the person behind the desk says, “Welcome back, Ms Colbin,” I feel like royalty. Never mind that an invisible computer screen is flashing, “SHE HAS BEEN HERE BEFORE - SAY ‘WELCOME BACK, MS COLBIN.’” But, like Gord’s reader, I get touchy about ‘automated’ personalization. At the heart of my concern is something that holds true for people as much as machines:
I don’t like assumptions made about me.
I also don’t like to be told what I don’t like. Or like. Particularly if the statement is incorrect, or based on faulty logic. “Oh, you’re from New York, so you must be into fashion.” What?
People also tend to get touchy about the lack of transparency of the personalization, with lots of blog posts pointing out the difficulty of seeing whether you’re signed in to Google. As much as we like to be recognized and understood, we don’t like to be out of control when it comes to our decisions.
In Gord’s post, he describes the three ways search is being personalized: history, context, or demographic. The issue with these three tactics is that they all run a serious risk of faulty logic, the type that shows up all the time if you’ve ever bought a gift on Amazon. That one purchase will haunt your ‘personalized’ recommendations for the rest of your days.
VortexDNA’s approach can be considered a fourth tactic: attempt to understand, without making assumptions, the true factors that drive your behavior. Distill your core purpose and values into a mathematical algorithm that has been proven to translate to more relevant search results.
Gord’s reader will be happier, because the algorithm understands his deep desire to explore new worlds, and doesn’t limit search results based on his geographic location.
MyWebDNA demonstrates the technology by circling the two results on a Google search page most aligned with who you really are. It doesn’t change what shows up on the page—it merely points out the results you’re more likely to care about. So here’s my challenge to Google:
Set up a beta search page that produces two columns of results. On the left side, show results from regular Google search. On the right, show the results from Google search enhanced by VortexDNA. Then let the people decide. If, as Sep says, Google’s goal is to give you exactly the information you want when you want it, this is a great way to get there.
Personally speaking, I think it will be a big step in the right direction.
