Giving up Personal Information for A Better Rental Search Experience
April 12, 2008 – 4:26 pmWhile I was at Google, Larry and Sergey used to always say that out of 10, Google search is a 1. Even though Google is the #1 search engine on earth, there is still so much it can do to improve.
From the FT:
Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.
“We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.”….“We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”
“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ “
I can only imagine that one day, a rental site, or perhaps just Google, will be able to have enough personal information about me, that I will be able to simply enter “What House Should I Rent?”. The engine would then give me the best possible answer based on my personal data of which my wants, needs, demographic, financial status, preferences, etc are mined and a result or results are sent to my screen.
Are we ready for this? Would you give up your personal information to have a better search experience?


