Reuters is reporting that Google has purchased Kaltix, a small Stanford startup building personalized search tools. It'll be interesting to see if and how Google integrates this.
Personalized search is an obvious next step, but Google has some interesting concerns. First, personalized search will make it harder to share Google results with others. If I search for widgets, see some good stuff and email the link to you, you might get some totally different results. Second, personalized search will probably provide less accurate results when you search for something outside of your normal area of interest. If you're a big basketball fan, but you need to research actual bulls, it'll be difficult because Google will keep giving you results about the basketball team. Finally, it's really hard to do personalized search for each of the zillions of people who use Google.
Posted by Aaron Swartz on September 30, 2003 02:26 PM