5 ms·

Google, It Wasn’t Broke

11 points by soundsop 18y ago

koraybalci 18y ago
Huh, I think it's a brilliant idea. Every site (including here) using a voting system nowadays. And from data collection point of view it will possibly help google enhance its results. And unlike techcrunch author, I didn't find it annoying or complicated at all.. It's funny how people's perceptions are..
jreposa 18y ago
As a startup founder, I see this as a bit worrisome. What if you got a digg bury brigade to start clicking on the 'Remove' button or posting nasty comments about your brand. We'll be keeping a close eye on this.
- justindz 18y ago
  "Re-ranked search results, however, are only seen by the signed-in user and do not affect other people's results." http://www.pcworld.com/article/154310/google_adds_customization_feature_to_internet_search.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/154310/google_adds_customizat... Nasty comments, well, that one does share.
- Dilpil 18y ago
  If only this had happened before Ron Paul lost the nomination, imagine what Google search would look like.
robg 18y ago
Feels like New Coke to me. They're already using click-based metrics to tweak PageRank. I don't see how one additional data point will radically improve anything. Worse, in stealing features it shows they're out of ideas for their core product even while it doesn't need them. New Coke.
ram1024 18y ago
are they saying google is a perfect product such that innovation and progress are no longer necessary? google obviously doesn't want to get leapfrogged in "technology" in the one area that is its proven moneymaker. it's going to continue to roll out "new" features to stay ahead (and stay relevant). did techcrunch cry this much when google rolled out the autocomplete searchsuggest thing?
maurycy 18y ago
Before clicking I thought they mean Gmail.
- Shamiq 18y ago
  You're not liking the new looks either? When I signed in, I thought: Where did my email go? I have become quite accustomed to glancing at the UI to figure out what's going on with my email. I was supremely confused for a minute.
  - iamwil 18y ago
    You can always revert back to the old theme, though I have to admit, their default theme was a bit caustic to the eyes. On second thought, maybe it's like that to encourage people to look for where they can change the themes.
    - timcederman 18y ago
      The whitespace is still different. I'm amazed at how used to the UI I got -- I'm finding it quite disconcerting.
redorb 18y ago
This whole system relies on something that hasn't been demonstrated on the internet; human honesty - I see every web page owner leaving the comments of greatness for their sites; and every competitor doing the opposite.
kirubakaran 18y ago
Soon there will be another post on TC saying "this is teh awesomest thing evar!!!11!!".
blasdel 18y ago
Google already has the terrible burden of moderating YOUTUBE COMMENTS. What made them think it would be a good idea to set up a peanut gallery for every unique URL?
- iigs 18y ago
  This was my immediate thought. Going half way from search to youtube comments is a drastic step down/back. Even in his screenshot you can see he gave the up arrow to everybody who gave him a compliment, without regard to merit, and he down-arrowed the only comment that was more than "uh yay blog!".
iamwil 18y ago
As I understood it, the search results that you change are only local to you. Other people don't really see them. Because of that, I think Google can encourage the behavior where people are sending links relevant to themselves up to the their front page in an honest way. If they click things up that have no relevance to themselves, they only screw up their own searches. So if you have millions of people sending things relevant to themselves up the list, Google is basically gathering data about what the human 'gold standard' for a particular search query is (augmented by machine sorting first). In information retrieval, one of the hard things is to know whether you've done a better job of returning search results or not, since a gold standard dataset is hard to come by and time consuming to produce. Here, I think Google is simply using a mechanism where they're aligning people's self-interest to create accurate data they can use to compare their search algorithm tweaks. All in all, a good thing. Even better if you can 'merge' search results from others that you trust..say your friends. I wouldn't mind merging my search results with _why's. More complexity that way, though.
timcederman 18y ago
So is everyone seeing this now?

11 points by soundsop 18y ago

Huh, I think it's a brilliant idea. Every site (including here) using a voting system nowadays. And from data collection point of view it will possibly help google enhance its results. And unlike techcrunch author, I didn't find it annoying or complicated at all.. It's funny how people's perceptions are..

jreposa 18y ago

As a startup founder, I see this as a bit worrisome. What if you got a digg bury brigade to start clicking on the 'Remove' button or posting nasty comments about your brand. We'll be keeping a close eye on this.

justindz 18y ago
"Re-ranked search results, however, are only seen by the signed-in user and do not affect other people's results." http://www.pcworld.com/article/154310/google_adds_customization_feature_to_internet_search.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/154310/google_adds_customizat... Nasty comments, well, that one does share.
Dilpil 18y ago
If only this had happened before Ron Paul lost the nomination, imagine what Google search would look like.

robg 18y ago

Feels like New Coke to me. They're already using click-based metrics to tweak PageRank. I don't see how one additional data point will radically improve anything. Worse, in stealing features it shows they're out of ideas for their core product even while it doesn't need them. New Coke.

ram1024 18y ago

are they saying google is a perfect product such that innovation and progress are no longer necessary? google obviously doesn't want to get leapfrogged in "technology" in the one area that is its proven moneymaker. it's going to continue to roll out "new" features to stay ahead (and stay relevant). did techcrunch cry this much when google rolled out the autocomplete searchsuggest thing?

maurycy 18y ago

Before clicking I thought they mean Gmail.

Shamiq 18y ago
You're not liking the new looks either? When I signed in, I thought: Where did my email go? I have become quite accustomed to glancing at the UI to figure out what's going on with my email. I was supremely confused for a minute.
- iamwil 18y ago
  You can always revert back to the old theme, though I have to admit, their default theme was a bit caustic to the eyes. On second thought, maybe it's like that to encourage people to look for where they can change the themes.
  - timcederman 18y ago
    The whitespace is still different. I'm amazed at how used to the UI I got -- I'm finding it quite disconcerting.

redorb 18y ago

This whole system relies on something that hasn't been demonstrated on the internet; human honesty - I see every web page owner leaving the comments of greatness for their sites; and every competitor doing the opposite.

kirubakaran 18y ago

Soon there will be another post on TC saying "this is teh awesomest thing evar!!!11!!".

blasdel 18y ago

Google already has the terrible burden of moderating YOUTUBE COMMENTS. What made them think it would be a good idea to set up a peanut gallery for every unique URL?

iigs 18y ago
This was my immediate thought. Going half way from search to youtube comments is a drastic step down/back. Even in his screenshot you can see he gave the up arrow to everybody who gave him a compliment, without regard to merit, and he down-arrowed the only comment that was more than "uh yay blog!".

iamwil 18y ago

As I understood it, the search results that you change are only local to you. Other people don't really see them. Because of that, I think Google can encourage the behavior where people are sending links relevant to themselves up to the their front page in an honest way. If they click things up that have no relevance to themselves, they only screw up their own searches. So if you have millions of people sending things relevant to themselves up the list, Google is basically gathering data about what the human 'gold standard' for a particular search query is (augmented by machine sorting first). In information retrieval, one of the hard things is to know whether you've done a better job of returning search results or not, since a gold standard dataset is hard to come by and time consuming to produce. Here, I think Google is simply using a mechanism where they're aligning people's self-interest to create accurate data they can use to compare their search algorithm tweaks. All in all, a good thing. Even better if you can 'merge' search results from others that you trust..say your friends. I wouldn't mind merging my search results with _why's. More complexity that way, though.

timcederman 18y ago

So is everyone seeing this now?