Google Tea Leaves
Randomly, I have found myself digging down deeper into the new raft of web-based bookmark managers and tagging. I find the area fascinating in a nostalgic kind of way. The BookmarkBox, a company I co-founded seven years ago attempted to solve similar problems that deli.cio.us, Furl, Simpy and Filangy are trying to solve today.
The way people share information is fascinating but I still struggle to see the advertising model that will help these firms become sustainable. The problem is that you are helping people search what they know, rather than helping them discover something they don’t. That is not very valuable to an advertiser.
If one of the firms gains widespread acceptance outside of the blogosphere eco-chamber though, they could be a very interesting input for a relevancy algorithm. I used to think that Google should have a browser and report back in some way around the success or failure of its SERPs for various keywords, but I am becoming more of the opinion that it is too freaky in a privacy sense. Instead bookmarks are an expressly disclosed action by the user that a page is useful. Further, the online bookmarking tools are asking if the bookmark can be public, negating any privacy fear.
The usefulness of this information is underscored by a recent patent filing by Google that describes a method to draw a relevancy input from the number of times a page has been bookmarked. The search engine watch forums have a good discussion underway about it.
Clearly the information is extremely valuable, the search engines just have to find a polite way for users to give it to them.
p.s. Even more nostagically, I came across the blog of Ari Paparo of Blink.com, the firm that ended up acquiring the BookmarkBox. After the investment bubble burst, Ari ended up buying the technology of the firm himself and still maintains Blinkpro.com. I’ve added his feed to my reading list.
