Something is going on with Vivisimo. First there was the Murdoch rumour, then I hear them interviewed on NPR (in a story relating to immigration), now I see this paper by Raul (via Battelle). The paper makes a good argument for why personalized search won't happen for underlying technological reasons. I have to say, I find myself agreeing with Raul's point to some extent. I would add that personalization is another example of making the computer smarter (while preserving the sacred simplistic interface) rather than empowering the user. Vivisimo's clustering engine is a great example of extending the interface: giving the user more control and more information.
I put the question: why haven't other search engines gone for this? on the same stack as: why can't we browse news by maps?
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