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Personal Search Threads

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==> TOPIC: ChaCha Search Guides
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Originally posted in SearchReturn #088
New Discussion

From: SearchReturn <digest@searchreturn.com>

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060904-044533

Essentials: In an approach to real-time social search, a new search engine called ChaCha has roughly 3,000 paid guides to assist in the search process. Guides basically open a chat conversation with you while helping you through the search process earning anywhere from $5 up to $20 per hour. The pay is based on a sliding scale according to user feedback rating each guide with a scoring system.

The approach with ChaCha is interesting because it can help new users that either go without answers to their query, or spend in inordinate amount of time with the learning curve. According to Inventor Scott Jones, users take an average of 11 minutes to find information using traditional algorithmic-based Web search engines. The real-time chat nature of ChaCha shortens the cycle of search and response for new users.

Questions of scale and competition from the major search engines remain. Although Yahoo! and Google answer services already exist, ChaCha was started by Indiana inventor Scott Jones who pioneered voice mail technology and created Gracenote, a technology used in iTunes. There is plenty of room for ChaCha to succeed and prosper in the marketplace.

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==> TOPIC: Yahoo! Upgrades MyWeb
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Originally posted in SearchReturn #069
New Discussion

From: SearchReturn <digest@searchreturn.com>

http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000310.html

Also:

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3611306

Essentials: Several new features to Yahoo!'s MyWeb that appear to be significantly influenced by the strong direction the company took towards personalized search and social bookmarking, especially considering the purchase of Del.icio.us. Note the compelling commentary about the strength of tagging and search results within community bookmarks of saved pages, even with interests that are not as popular as CSS or XML.

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==> TOPIC: Personal Search Dead End?
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Originally posted in SearchReturn #019
New Discussion

From: SearchReturn <digest@searchreturn.com>

http://vivisimo.com/docs/personalization.pdf

Essentials: Due to pitfalls regarding how tracking search behavior for personal search intelligence is flawed, Raul Valdes-Perez makes a case for clustered results a la Vivisimo. A sobering read for those who've drunk the personalized search potion. When users want an Amazon effect for search though, it is no doubt starting to get offered by major engines.

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==> TOPIC: GOOGLE PERSONAL SEARCH
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Originally posted in SearchReturn #014
"I find it hard to believe that the search engines will go to these lengths for personalization but use it only on paid search. If they think they can improve the organic results through personalization, I think they will. Now what will *that* mean to"

From: SearchReturn <digest@searchreturn.com>

With Yahoo!'s MyWeb personalized search results, and Google search personalization coming out of beta today, this is exactly how things are transpiring. Nick from Threadwatch noticed this message from a Google search today:

http://www.threadwatch.org/images/googlepersonalizationui.jpg

Stay tuned.
-SR

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==> TOPIC: PERSONALIZED SEARCH
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Originally posted in SearchReturn #013
"Pushing the privacy line with post search behavior-targeting heating up."

From: Mike Moran <mikmoran@us.ibm.com>

One area to watch in personalized search (which I guess they are now calling behavioral targeting) is on the organic side. Everyone is focused on how much advertisers will pay for clicks that are demographically or behaviorally chosen, and that is an important topic, but what about the organic results?

I find it hard to believe that the search engines will go to these lengths for personalization but use it only on paid search. If they think they can improve the organic results through personalization, I think they will. Now what will *that* mean to search marketing? Goodbye rank checkers--there is no such thing as the #1 result anymore. Maybe now you want to know for what percentage of searches for that keyword you were #1, or what your average rank was across all searches for that keyword in a period, or your average within a demographic group, or... the mind boggles.

But even more interesting to me, is who will have that data. It won't be public information, the way rank checking is today. Only the search engines will know that information and I doubt they will give it away. So be prepared to have to pay the search engines for organic search--not to rank well, but to find out where you did rank. I don't know that this revenue stream will be anywhere near what the paid search money is, but right now (except for Yahoo! Paid Inclusion), the revenue from organic search is zero.

Mike Moran

IBM Distinguished Engineer & Manager ibm.com of Site Architecture
Co-author of IBM Press book, "Search Engine Marketing, Inc."
http://www.mikemoran.com

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