Push It My Way

Search is the most common activity when we browse the Internet. The most potent business models are build around search. What will this landscape look like in a couple of years? Will we have even better and more accurate search services? Of course yes... But will they rule the world as they do now? Probably not...

Wherever we go on the Net, we leave traces. And we do more and more on line. Shopping, news, friends, vacation planning... All these activities together define what we like and what we do not like. So when we search... usually chances are we search for something similar to what we already like. And even more. Somebody with a taste similar to ours has probably already searched before for what we want to find now... So? If there are patterns likely matching our future Web activities... Shouldn't the information find us? Instead of us finding it? There are some good services employing this business model now. Take the Pandora, a perfect example. I tell it what I like and there is a very high chance the next song it pushes my way will be the song I like (even if I hear it for the first time...). Take Google Adsense. It picks sponsored links to be presented on a Web page I am reading based on the content of the page and based on my statistical Google profile.

For a long time I have been wondering why Google Reader does not embrace the Pandora model. Why not allow me to rate the posts I keep on reading. And then the next stream of news would be based on my interests and taste. And I really would not mind a tailored "newspaper" landing in my inbox every morning. It would be based on what I like and would contain full articles without the need to click... I would love to have it in paper form to take with me in the morning... And of course it would contain some gentle sponsored links...

And why not match that with the rsstroom reader - the "personal news delivery system"?