Monthly Archives: September 2009

Loopy Results and Continuous Deployment

I have more questions than I have answers.  One of the topics that I know very little about, and on which I often seek clarification and wisdom, is A/B testing in the context of rapid iteration, rapid deployment online systems.  … Continue reading

Posted in Information Retrieval Foundations | 10 Comments

Exploration, Collaboration, and Open Government

What sort of information retrieval system would you build if you knew that all the users of your system would be expert or highly-motivated amateur searchers?  What sort of system would you build when you have a very large collection … Continue reading

Posted in Collaborative Information Seeking, Exploratory Search, Information Retrieval Foundations, Social Implications | Leave a comment

Google Music China: Unprecedented?

There is an interesting recent post about the history of Google Music in China from an article by Michael Zhang in Global Entrepreneur Magazine.  Some excerpts: “It will play the right music without you having to give it any thought.” … Continue reading

Posted in Music IR | 1 Comment

Data Liberation and Ownership

I split my blogging between this and the FXPAL blog.  This morning I have a post on the latter site that asks an (imho) important question about data ownership and data liberation with respect to one’s web search history.. not … Continue reading

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There is No Crowd

Via Xavier Amatriain: The Dirty Little Secret About the “Wisdom of the Crowds” – There is No Crowd: This is hardly the first time that the so-called “wisdom of the crowds” has been called into question. The term, which implies … Continue reading

Posted in Collaborative Information Seeking, Information Retrieval Foundations | 2 Comments

Fast Flip: Is Bing Affecting Google?

…via Ask and SearchMe, that is?  Let me explain.  Google announced a new bit of interface design into its News search results today: Fast Flip: Google Fast Flip is a web application that lets users…”flip” through pages online as quickly … Continue reading

Posted in General, Information Retrieval Foundations | 1 Comment

Time to Eat My Words: The Search Box Grows

Half a year ago I wrote a blogpost about an easy change that Google could make to its interface, one that would both sacrifice only the least bit of simplicity as well as entice and encourage the user to enter … Continue reading

Posted in Information Retrieval Foundations | 4 Comments

Apple 2009 = ISMIR 2000

If you haven’t heard (probably not likely), Apple announced a number of upgrades to its iPod/iTunes product line today.  It is interesting to me because I see more and more Music Information Retrieval making it into consumer products. Genius added … Continue reading

Posted in Music IR | 5 Comments

Google’s Long Term Goals: More of the Same

A few days ago there was a Techcrunch interview of Google’s Eric Schmidt. Here’s the bit that struck me: [TC] The long term goal of Google search, he says, is to give the user one exactly right answer to a … Continue reading

Posted in General | 4 Comments