Yesterday, Google launched Social Search, where search is blended with social to provide more personalized results, effectively changing how the Web works. This has sparked a firestorm of controversy across the Web as people take sides on the “to personalize or not to personalize” debate.
Personally, the things I post don’t necessarily reflect preferences on my part. In fact, I’ll often post things that are contrary to my preferences to start conversations. I question how algorithms will interpret this behavior in terms of providing relevancy to my social graph, or conversely, how my social graph provides relevancy to me. The search for relevancy could become an arduous thing going forward.
I think back to the TED talk by Eli Pariser on “filter bubbles” last year. I kept telling myself I should be aware, but not worried. I’m not big on worry, and I tend to take a moderate stance on things. Maybe a little personalization is a good thing, as long as I get non-personalized results too. Now I wonder if I should be worried. What important nugget will I miss in my search results because it didn’t pass the relevancy test?
What are your thoughts?
