...he said that a black person searching for "whitney," for instance, probably wouldn't be looking for the Whitney Museum of Art, which comes up first on Google, or Whitney Bank, which comes up second. Instead, Taylor said, the searcher would likely be looking for Whitney Houston...

What a racist assumption!

I've seen a number of different groups, including Microsoft and Yahoo, put forward the idea that they want to study more about the classification of the individual users to cater results to their individual type.  I see two problems with this: first, it means gathering more specific information about each individual user, which I don't think should be encouraged, and second, I almost always find exactly what I'm looking for in the first page of results on Google (I don't use MSN or Yahoo anymore, so I can't comment there), so it sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

It's not like search relevance is just a done deal and everything is solved, but I don't think that not having more detailed information about what groups to lump me in with is a problem as far as relevance for the most part.  That sounds more like something someone would want in order to sell advertising.

Still, it's an idea that keeps coming up, and we'll probably see more of this sort of thing.  Yahoo BOSS allows people to come up with some interesting search products, like BOSSY, which gives us an interesting clue to Wilber's whereabouts.

tojo2000 wrote:

I almost always find exactly what I'm looking for in the first page of results on Google (I don't use MSN or Yahoo anymore, so I can't comment there), so it sounds like a solution in search of a problem.

you cracker

ah297900 wrote:

Maybe I'm just white, but it seems to me that a major art museum and bank are, as institutions, in fact more important than a washed-up crackhead chanteuse.

And they call ME a cracker.

ah297900 wrote:

tojo2000 wrote:

ah297900 wrote:

Maybe I'm just white, but it seems to me that a major art museum and bank are, as institutions, in fact more important than a washed-up crackhead chanteuse.

And they call ME a cracker.

Hey--I said "chanteuse." This is highly uncrackerish.

That just shows you’re an uppity cracker putting on airs.

Alana Semuels wrote:

Is it a black version of popular site Stuff White People Like? Well, no, there already is one, Stuff Black People Love.

A web-site devoted entirely to big asses and crack cocaine?  Awe-Some!

Johnny C. Taylor wrote:

By way of example, he said that a black person searching for "whitney," for instance, probably wouldn't be looking for the Whitney Museum of Art . . .

Wait a minute . . .  Was this search engine designed specifically for blacks, or simply for those with limited intellect who are too fucking lazy to type out more than one word in their search string?

You know, I try so hard to hate every-body equally; But, I fore-see this "PC" bull-shit eventually leading me to a rather Fnordian "out-look" in my old age.