Commenting on Google’s Universal Search press release last Thursday, Gord Hotchkiss tied in Google’s personalization efforts to their ability to connect different silos of information:

The key to universal search results is an on-the-fly algorithm that looks across all of Google’s information sources and prioritizes and ranks all the items coming from these disparate sources based on the user intent. Now, it’s in those last five words, “based on the user intent” that the really important piece of this comes out. Just a few weeks ago, I interviewed Marissa Mayer about the inclusion of Web history in the dataset to calculate personalized search results. This just gives Sep Kamvar and his personalization algorithm a lot more to chew on as they determine user intent.

Gord’s a wise guy. He realizes that if you’re trying to prioritize images and video in addition to text results, and base their ranking on what you think the user is looking for, you’ll have to have a pretty powerful mechanism for ‘disambiguating user intent.’

What a beautiful phrase, ‘disambiguating user intent’. If you love language as I do, you have to appreciate it, which is why I’ve repeated it three times so far. In addition to its beauty, though, it underlies the core premise of Google’s personalization technology: in order to be effective, you have to figure out what the user is trying to find.

This may sound like an obvious mandate for a search technology. But what if you could take the clues provided by search history and demographics, and overlay a deep understanding of the users themselves? MyWebDNA’s validated results came back showing a 14% increase in relevance of search results based on a user’s core purpose and values. Those results indicate that understanding the users could prove to be a powerful means of disambiguating their intent (couldn’t resist).

In other words, you can predict as much or more about someone’s behavior from understanding who they are as you can from understanding what they want.

This is pretty interesting from an algorithm approach, because what you want can change moment to moment, while who you are tends to shift over far longer periods of time. The two combined can result in relevance on a much deeper level.

If Google’s serious about users seeing more accurate results, more often, don’t you think this is something they should explore?

Andy Beal reported on Google’s latest Universal Search news this week. Here’s me quoting him quoting Google:

“Google has continued to concentrate on improving the quality of search,” said Udi Manber, vice president of engineering at Google. “The level and speed of search innovation at Google has increased. Most of this innovation addresses basic ranking algorithms and is often not obvious to users. Users just see more accurate results, more often, in more languages, which is our primary goal.”

Andy himself goes on to say:

This is huge!… Users will benefit, as they’ll likely find Google’s search results to be much more relevant…

So Google’s primary goal is to be more accurate, i.e., relevant. Users recognize that technology that makes Google more relevant is huge.

But what is relevance? What comprises ‘accuracy’?

The answer to those questions is entirely subjective, and decided exclusively by the user. A search result is only ‘accurate’ if you decide it is. An answer is only relevant if it is the one you want.

Google’s Universal Search technology is taking the approach of bringing in different types of content—images, video—into the results list. Google’s iGoogle with personalized search is focusing on using history and demography-based algorithms to determine what it thinks is likely to be relevant to the user. And VortexDNA’s MyWebDNA is using purpose- and values-based algorithms to identify relevant results.

And, of course, it’s up to you to decide if any of these work. Or if they all work together. As Udi said, Google’s primary goal is more accurate results for the user. Without the user, there is no relevance.

What do you think predicts a relevant search result for you? Is it where you’ve been in the past, your core purpose and values, or some combination thereof? Or can it not be measured?

If relevance doesn’t exist without you, only you hold the answers.

Check this out, you guys! This is really cool:

How long ago was it that you played Breakout? 20, 25 years ago? And here’s a crowd of people having the best time ever playing one of the oldest video games around.

What’s the difference? Well, there are some obvious physical ones—you are the joystick, for one, you and hundreds of people around you. And that simple thing can breathe life into a game that came out when 40Kb was still a lot of RAM.

But why would that make such a big difference? What is it about being the joystick instead of manipulating the joystick, being one of hundreds of controllers that collectively determine the fate of the game?

I propose that the answer is this: the more immersed we are in something, the more enjoyable it can be. The more engaged we are, the more we are the process, as opposed to observing the process. And when we reach that state of total immersion… well, there’s no greater feeling.

On a different level, that same concept could be why MyWebDNA is proving effective. It’s essentially total search immersion: you are the filter.

What do you think? Show of hands, please: who’s up for a game of Breakout?

Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land cited an intriguing quote the other day from Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products & User Experience at Google:

Mayer characterized Google personalization as “one of the biggest relevance advances in the past few years.” She added that “personalization doesn’t affect all results, but when it does it makes results dramatically better.”

Google’s personalization, of course, is based primarily on search history and location. If you visited something in the past, you’re likely to visit it again. And, as Mayer says, this approach can be effective.

Now imagine that the type of reactive personalization being employed by Google were combined with proactive personalization such as that offered by MyWebDNA. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know already that we just announced the validated results of MyWebDNA’s ability to predict the relevance of Google search results, but I’ll recap the important bit for those of you just tuning in:

Users are 14% more likely to click on a Google search link with a high VortexDNA relevance score than on one with a low score.

Because this type of relevance is based on who the user really is, rather than the way the user behaved in the past, it can be predictive rather than reactive. It doesn’t rely on the user having visited a particular site before. And that’s where its power lies: in its ability to map unchanging values onto a changing webscape.

Mayer and everyone else at Google understand the importance of relevance. What I’m suggesting here is that there are different qualities of relevance. Geographic relevance says my location is what’s important. Historic relevance says what I did yesterday is what’s important. Values-based relevance says who I am is the driving force.

The results show that it works. They also show that if who I am is aligned with who you are at the deepest level, we will be more likely to click on the same links than not. Our demographics don’t matter to this technology. Our history doesn’t matter to this technology.

In the same piece, Sterling describes an interesting aspect of Google Gadgets:

Google also uses collaborative filtering to present Gadgets: people who liked Gadget X, liked these other Gadgets.

MyWebDNA follows a similar logic, but takes it to a far more profound level: people who share your values liked Gadget X. People who share your values liked Widget Y.

I’m interested what you have to say on this. Do you believe your values can impact which sites you choose? I’d love to hear from you.

Oh, and if you’d like a copy of the validated results, just shoot me an email: kaila at vortexdna.com.

VortexDNA has just announced that the effectiveness of the MyWebDNA plug-in has been tested, proven, and independently validated. The key line from the findings is this:

VortexDNA technology has proven its ability to increase click rates by up to 14%–an increase that, for a company like Google, could translate to additional revenue of more than $300 million per year.

This news is huge.

VortexDNA is a company that started with a hypothesis: if you can find a way to mathematically represent purpose and values, you can map that onto virtually anything.

The hypothesis grew into a technology: the MyWebDNA plug-in for the Firefox browser that circles the two most relevant Google search results for you, based on your unique purpose and values.

Eight months and 15,000 searches later, the hypothesis has proven to be true:

…users are 14% more likely to click on a Google SearchTM link with a high VortexDNA relevance score than on one with a low score.

Think about the implications of this—not just for Google or VortexDNA, but for what it means about how we live our lives and the decisions we make. This research shows that two people with the same purpose and values are likely to find the same things relevant, even if the things themselves don’t seem to relate to values.

If I share the same values as you, I am likely to choose the same pizza parlor.

Would you have expected that to be the result? I know I had my share of questions along the way. What, exactly, does a pizza parlor have to do with my purpose in life? And, of course, the reverse is not true: just because two people like the same pizza parlor doesn’t mean they share the same values.

These findings show us how powerfully purpose and values affect our lives without us even being aware of it. They show us that our most mundane decisions are colored by who we really are and that which we hold most dear.

To me, they reinforce the vital importance of understanding what truly matters to us. So frequently, we think that this sort of deep introspection is something that we’ll do when we have time, that first we have to do the laundry or finish our homework or pay the bills. Worrying about purpose and values is for hippies.

But if everything in your world is filtered by who you are, wouldn’t it make sense to try to understand that first? Who I am affects how I do the laundry. Who I am affects how I do my homework. Who I am affects how I pay the bills. If it’s inescapable and omnipresent, wouldn’t it be to your benefit to be as aware of it as possible?

The MyWebDNA findings have tremendous business implications, of course. But, to me, their most powerful message is about people. Do you think your purpose affects your everyday choices? I do, but I’m only one opinion, and I’m deeply interested in knowing: what do you think?

In a move they’re comparing to Bell Labs, Yahoo has just added researchers in economics and sociology to their team. Elinor Mills got this interesting quote for her ZDNet piece from Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Research:

Having researchers who aren’t focused on computer science will not only help Yahoo improve its product and service development, but could lead to advances in the development of technologies underlying the Internet. The viewpoint and way of thinking (of researchers) is different from people like myself who come from a computer science background.

Brav-o, Yahoo! I thoroughly applaud that move. Essentially, what they’re saying is this:

If you want to be able to serve people, first you must seek to understand them.

Not only must you seek to understand them, but you must seek to understand them for who they really are, genuinely, independent of their direct connection to your product or service. That’s how you ensure that your decisions are driven by what people want and need, rather than trying to tailor people’s wants and needs to your decisions. That’s why it’s so smart for Yahoo to set up the researchers as a distinct department, not as a subset of the marketing department.

All of our previous discussion about Web 3.0 notwithstanding, I believe this is also an opportunity to reflect on the different stages of a maturing marketplace. You could say this: In Web 1.0, we were surprised that we could even post text, and everything seemed impressive. In Web 2.0, we started to test the boundaries of the technology for technology’s sake, and marveled at our newfound power. I propose that Web 3.0 will be the merger of rapidly evolving technology and continuous adaptation to the wants and needs of the audience that technology is meant to serve: us.

Tell me how you feel—would you prefer Yahoo and others spend time to understand what makes you tick, or do you think they’re straying into territory that shouldn’t concern them?