Is the future of search Digg like feedback?
There have been a few different Google trials on user feedback - including up and down buttons on the toolbar, but this latest looks the more similar to Digg than previous attempts.
You can vote up listings you like and leave comments, and vote up or down other peoples comments. All your edits can be tied to an account profile, which provides some level of protection against the Bot-people.
I think the biggest flaw in this type of system is the need for the user to stop what they are doing and then do something else. So most people will not be providing feedback. Google really need to collect that data as people are going about their business, and with personalisation that is happening.
Having said that, like Digg, there will be certain community experts who will take it upon themselves to police their areas of expertise, and you don’t need many of these to provide another valuable signal.
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I’ve been loving the comments and ‘like’ function on Friendfeed and am really pleased to see Google pick up on this.
It’ll be really interesting to see how this impacts on pure play search agencies with such persoanlisation of results. Like you say Nils - it’s an early adopters play thing that will take time to be worth analysing.