Future of Filght and Personalized Search
Boeing sponsored a reception dinner at the Flight of Future Aviation center in Everett, which is about 35 miles north from the University of Washington district. The event was comprised of a nice size crown and we were surrounded by Boeing planes – next generation of course. I am not sure if you knew that Boeing also makes roller coasters. I was hoping to see something about the future of thrill..
In any event, personalization became a discussion of a small group during reception when someone walked up to me and pointed to a colleague from Carnegie Mellon University and appraised the work he’s done with personalization of search. So I started inquiring about the work and the here is what I found: researchers are focused on personalizing search and trying to find a way to provide relevant search results to each user in an automated fashion and without having to maintain user profiles! So the current ideas are focused on automated desktop indexing. I mean indexing of email, docs, pictures, visited online sites ...etc. Google desktop does this today and this free product has been out for a at least couple of years. But how would this local index be used is where most of the debate is. You can simply imagine that we need to create a pretty complex multi-dimensional search algorithm that makes good use of local or “client” index. Some believe that the search results need to be similar or relevant to what you find in the user’s index while others believe that in some cases we need to do the opposite. I say you can take a guess but there is no way to tell right from wrong so you simple do not know what to do with that index. For example if someone is in the process of building a custom home and has been searching for tile, cabinets, wood …etc. The user have probably visited the builder sites and online forums as well as have emails about stuff related to this new home. Let’s say the user one day types “Windows” in the search box. Would we provide house windows, provides, prices …etc. Or would we provide Windows the OS? It depends you can make an assumption that the user wants windows for the new house or having a windows problem. We really do not know what the user wants. We need to be careful of holding the user captive to their own index. To solve this problem, researchers are thinking of providing cluster of topics in this case – more like navigational items that will allow the user to decide what he/she wants to go.
This yet does not address problems like size of index, machines with multiple users, or users with multiple machines. A good usage of user’s local index would be to eliminate duplicated and ensure continuity of search results. Think about it and let me know how you can utilize this index – most importantly is this the best way to achieve personalized search?
In any event, personalization became a discussion of a small group during reception when someone walked up to me and pointed to a colleague from Carnegie Mellon University and appraised the work he’s done with personalization of search. So I started inquiring about the work and the here is what I found: researchers are focused on personalizing search and trying to find a way to provide relevant search results to each user in an automated fashion and without having to maintain user profiles! So the current ideas are focused on automated desktop indexing. I mean indexing of email, docs, pictures, visited online sites ...etc. Google desktop does this today and this free product has been out for a at least couple of years. But how would this local index be used is where most of the debate is. You can simply imagine that we need to create a pretty complex multi-dimensional search algorithm that makes good use of local or “client” index. Some believe that the search results need to be similar or relevant to what you find in the user’s index while others believe that in some cases we need to do the opposite. I say you can take a guess but there is no way to tell right from wrong so you simple do not know what to do with that index. For example if someone is in the process of building a custom home and has been searching for tile, cabinets, wood …etc. The user have probably visited the builder sites and online forums as well as have emails about stuff related to this new home. Let’s say the user one day types “Windows” in the search box. Would we provide house windows, provides, prices …etc. Or would we provide Windows the OS? It depends you can make an assumption that the user wants windows for the new house or having a windows problem. We really do not know what the user wants. We need to be careful of holding the user captive to their own index. To solve this problem, researchers are thinking of providing cluster of topics in this case – more like navigational items that will allow the user to decide what he/she wants to go.
This yet does not address problems like size of index, machines with multiple users, or users with multiple machines. A good usage of user’s local index would be to eliminate duplicated and ensure continuity of search results. Think about it and let me know how you can utilize this index – most importantly is this the best way to achieve personalized search?
posted by Deima Elnatour at
8:57 AM
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