Comment by joebadmo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joebadmo | Hacker News Reader

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Using focus group testing in the way you're describing is like the French revolutionary who says "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them."

Google is notoriously one of the most (if not the most) data-driven companies in the history of the world. That doesn't mean they never make bad decisions, but I'm sure they've taken user behavior into account.

The duplication you mention isn't a bug. Just because I've seen something before, doesn't mean I never want to see it again, especially if it's relevant. Searches are often re-searches for information you've seen before. The most important thing is relevance, and your social interactions are relevant.

I think what many here are missing is that the exposure of social in search results is only the first-order effect. But the social signals themselves probably affect your personal relevancy algorithm, too. I imagine that's a valuable addition, and it will only get better with more social data.

Yes, they took user behavior into account and realized that it didn't matter because they have to get into the social space. Remember, social media success is tied into all Google employee bonuses. They are willing to make search worse in order to make G+ better.

Yes, relevance is everything. When I search for something in a search engine 95 times out of 100 I am searching for something new. Occasionally I am searching for something that I already found when searching before. I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please.

This is corporate spin and you are eating it up! :)

Yes, they took user behavior into account and realized that it didn't matter because they have to get into the social space.

I think you have the causality wrong. They realized they had to get into the social space and integrate it into their product because of user data.

They are willing to make search worse in order to make G+ better.

I think the point of this announcement is that they make no such distinction. Search and Plus are the same product.

When I search for something in a search engine 95 times out of 100 I am searching for something new.

Thank you for your data point. I'm sure Google has many others. Not only that, but how much of that is because you haven't even thought of using search for information retrieval purposes yet? How often do you access your photos? How often do you access your friends' photos? What's your primary way to access them? What percentage of that access would be made better using search?

I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please.

I bet you're the exception.

"""I think you have the causality wrong. They realized they had to get into the social space and integrate it into their product because of user data."""

They did it because of "user data" alright, but not in the way he means it. User's haven't told them: "wow, it would be great if you had Plus integrated into search".

Their data was more like: "hey, this social thing is lucrative, numbers show we can milk our users more if we get a stronghold in this area".

"""I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please.

I bet you're the exception."""

And I bet you that he is not.

At least non in Google searches --people weren't looking for photos of themselves there.

> I am never looking for photos of myself. I mean please

What if your friend 'Fred' e-mailed you and asked "Can you send me that picture of us from the rafting trip last year?"

Which would you rather do - dig through your photo albums until you find it, or type in a search for it and have it show up in the results?

"""What if your friend 'Fred' e-mailed you and asked "Can you send me that picture of us from the rafting trip last year?" Which would you rather do - dig through your photo albums until you find it, or type in a search for it and have it show up in the results?"""

You do realize that this edge case (and tons of similar) are not representative of 99% of the queries we do, right?

(Percentage pulled out of my ass, but still more accurate than the edge case mentioned).

And even if it did, how about doing a special: "Search Social", box instead of polluting the main search results?

Well sure - the exact example I used is an edge case :-)

But I think the general case of searching for something that I either own or that was shared with me is not really that uncommon. I think it's only uncommon on Google today, because - until now at least - Google could only search the public web for you.

The way I think of it is this: When the web started out, the amount of stuff was small and it was possible to keep track of the site you needed to know about. Then the web grew and people tried to manually organize it (ala early Yahoo). Then the web grew more and search became the best way to find something.

The same kind of thing happened with personal computers. In the early days there was limited storage and a single folder worked fine. Then storage got cheaper and hierarchical directories were added and that worked for a while. Now there tends to be so much stuff on your computer that it is often easier and faster to just search for it.

I think the same thing is happening on the web. As the amount of stuff we have on the web grows - especially stuff that is private or shared with a select group of people - the need to effectively search it will grow.

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