Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Google Maps and Personalization

An example of personalized search gone unintended: I was visiting Google Maps Germany and searched for “Tokio”, hoping to be taken to the city in Japan (it’s spelled “Tokio” in German, not “Tokyo”). The result? A “Tom Tokio Hotel” here in Stuttgart, Germany. My search was ambiguous – I added neither “... Stuttgart” nor “... Japan” when searching for Tokio – but subjectively, I found that the ambuiguity was resolved with lowered usefulness. (There was, however, a link offered by Google asking if I meant “Tokio Japan.”)

Google Maps and Personali ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (11)

>> More posts

Advertisement