This is a follow up post on Part II of “How We Think” series.
The question in Part II was: Why do we, as individuals, have different ideas for the same search query?
The answer to it as Kamal noted, we’re all individuals. We all have different associations, different life experiences. As an individual, when you use a certain query, your life experiences come with it. “Real Estate” for example, to me, means Real Estate in South Florida, as that’s where I live. For you it likely means something completely different.
Why is it important to understand we all mean different things by using the same search query? Because the “holy grail” for traditional search engines, for advertisers and users, is relevancy. However, relevancy as we just saw,comes on an individual basis.
So can Google, Yahoo, MSN, or even Wikia with their transparency concept, solve the relevancy problem? The answer is No. No because their model is flawed from the very top.
Traditional search engines provide AVERAGE results and what I mean by that, they provide the sum of all rather than addressing the individual needs of the user.
There are two ways I know of to solve this issue:
1. Personalization. I spoke about it many times before (just search my blog for keyword “personalization”)
2. Breaking the generic into specifics. I also talked about it before here.
How does it all relate to ASSISTA? For an advertiser, ASSISTA is a dream come true. It breaks the volume of generics into the value of specifics. A search query for “Real Estate” becomes ” What is a Real Estate Investment Trust?” or ” How is leasing on real estate taxed?”. Much more information, much more targeted.
Is ASSISTA a replacement for traditional search engines? Of course not. I think many can co-exist, each do what they do best. In terms of relevancy though, I simply don’t get it when traditional search engines discuss relevancy in search results without addressing individual needs. That to me makes no sense at all.
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