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Wednesday, February 13, 2002 |
Personalized Results: Exploring The Future Of Google
"Google is now in the position to take their search engine to another level that can make them soar even higher than their competitors. A lot of speculation has arisen in regards to what lies ahead in Google's future. A few of the speculations are how and when Google will display personalized results."
"The basis of this paper is to examine a few of the methods that Google might employ in their system of providing personalized results. The reason why these methods are examined in great detail is because last year Google acquired a company, Outride,Inc., who researched heavily into personalizing data."
Some fascinating ideas, including the idea of personalized recommendations displayed while a user is surfing. How about the ability to choose between recommendations from everyone or authoritative recommendations from librarians? Or how about librarian recommendations integrated into our online catalogs?
9:06:35 PM 
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Washington Plans Unprecedented Camera Network "Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said Wednesday. The system would eventually include hundreds of cameras, linking existing devices in Metro mass transit stations, public schools and traffic intersections to new digital cameras mounted to watch over neighborhoods and shopping districts, the Journal said." [at The Washington Post]
This is pretty scary. How long do you suppose it will be before they want to put the cameras in library branches? And then subpoena circulation records?
6:19:03 PM
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Information Specialists at the Intersection of IA and Usability [via ia/]
This is an interesting article in its own right, but I just had to share this section:
"In a speech last year, GraceAnne DeCandido described the lure of librarianship by saying:
For most of us, what brought us to librarianship was the power of the word, the power of stories. Whether we called it reading, or scholarship, or research or study, what brought us to libriarianship was the power inherent in bringing together people and ideas.
She went on to say:
If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas, it doesn’t matter where the ideas reside. That means, if the ideas are on video, or on audiotape, or on CD- ROM, we adapted our collection policies to handle these materials. Format is no longer the controversial issue it once was. Or is it?"
6:07:31 PM
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Mobile Messaging Spec Released "An initiative by industry leaders to standardize mobile instant messaging and presence services came to fruition Wednesday with the release of the Wireless Village 1.0 specification.... The goal of the specification is to promote interoperability between mobile and fixed-network instant messaging systems so that, for instance, PC users can exchange messages with mobile phone users.... The specification also is forward-looking and will embrace Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) when it becomes available, according to the group. MMS will add various multimedia elements, such as music and video, to messaging." [allNetDevices Wireless News]
Great! Now I will be able to send people pictures of Rosie, the cutest puppy in the whole wide world, on their phones! And Bruce will be able to send me pictures of Beans no matter where I am. :-)
Back in the real world, this means you might be able to answer more complex reference questions over IM.
6:02:42 PM
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Entertainment Industry's Copyright Right Puts Consumers in Cross Hairs "The studios and TV networks are also whining about the feature that lets users fast-forward through commercials or skip them entirely. The entertainment companies are understandably worried about this trend, but so what? My employer would like you to read the paper all the way through and at least glance at every advertisement, but the fact that you don't have to is one of the reader-friendly pieces of the transaction." [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
Hear, hear! More from Dan about the latest lawsuits against Tivo and SonicBlue (the folks that make ReplayTVs). It's a great summation of how ludicrous these lawsuits are, so it's a good printout for the uninitiated. Here's why it will matter to them (and you and me):
"Why should you care if you can't make a copy of a CD to play in your car? Because the industry's attack is much wider. Your rights are intertwined with scholarship, with the public commons of knowledge that the owners of information want to close off. The damage will be far-reaching if they succeed."
Besides the fair use, First Amendment, and criminal prosecution issues surrounding all of this, there is one other thing libraries can take away from this whole debacle, and that is the lesson of not placing barriers in the way of what your users want. Work with them, not against them. It will only alienate your users, and they won't come back.
1:35:07 PM
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Quova upgrade pins down AOL users. "The Redwood City, Calif.-based company is releasing GeoPoint 4.0, software that identifies the geographic location of Web site visitors down to the country, state and city level. The technology maps IP (Internet protocol) addresses--which are used to route signals over the Web to an individual's computer--with new depth, according to the company. 'Clearly, in terms of digital content distribution, the technology becomes very important to assigning and getting the right kinds of information to the proper and authenticated users. For example, music distribution,' Mike McGuire, research director at GartnerG2." [at News.com]
Interesting. I don't think they'll ever fully get the mapping down, but I wonder if this type of technology can be integrated into library vendors' software for automatic authentication to our databases and online catalogs.
8:23:41 AM
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Comments by: YACCS
© Copyright 2002 Jenny Levine.
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