[Sigia-l] On Evangelism, and How it Affects Enterprise

[Eric Scheid]

From: Andrew McNaughton <andrew at scoop.co.nz> (27/9/02 1:05 PM)

>> > It seems clear to me that this is an important story in light of the 
>current
>> > discussion of weapons of mass destruction, but something like what google 
>have
>> > built is not going to identify this as important.
>>
>> No, it will if human editors (as you claim) would do so.
>
>It will if human editors uniformly do so.  Some proportion of human
>editors will pick this up as a central issue.  Google never will.


Not entirely true. I cannot speak for what google current algorithms are, 
but I can easily imagine them using an algorithm that develops a memory 
of past recommendations, identifies sources that lead with a story before 
other sites do, and adds weight to any stories found there ... 
particularly if that story also appears on another 'breaking news' site. 
It's just another pattern to be detected, albeit a more sophisticated one.

The fear of homogenisation is entirely valid though. I trust Google to do 
more than a simple search engine, and I trust them to develop interesting 
algorithms in detecting emerging news.

knock on wood.

e.

______________________________________________________________________
eric at ironclad.net.au                 i r o n c l a d   n e t w o r k s
information architect                      http://www.ironclad.net.au/