Debates archive at Conceptualist.com, By Sahar Sarid

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How We Think (Part III)

Published on January 7, 2008 in ASSISTA, Debates and Search Technology. 0 Comments

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.

How We Think (Part II)

Published on January 6, 2008 in ASSISTA, Debates and Search Technology. 9 Comments

Following Part I, The following are some of the thoughts you left in the comments area:

1. I want to know more about it
2. Quick fix to get some relief for my back
3. What types there are and which one may I be experiencing
4. How to Cure
5. Who can help me

Even with a very small pool of participants we can see individuals may mean different ideas for the same query. If we had more participants you would likely see thousands of other ideas individuals have in mind when searching for that same query.

My next question is:

Why do we, as individuals, have different ideas for the same search query?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts here. Part III coming up tomorrow.

Sahar

How We Think (Part I)

Published on January 5, 2008 in ASSISTA, Debates and Search Technology. 10 Comments

I have a question to you: When an individual online uses a traditional search engine such as Yahoo, google, MSN, typing a search phrase such as “Back Pain” into the search box, what is he looking for?

I plan to follow the discussion in a Part II at a later point so please comment in comments area. The more feedback the more interesting this will be.

Reason I’m asking is because I believe in terms of technologists, content providers, advertisers, and a community, we can do so much better. In order to do better must understand the issues and problems we currently are having. Your answers to the above question will help us all find better ways to tackle the biggest problem in technology these days, Search.

Thanks in advance for participating, looking forward to reading your thoughts!

Sahar

Is It OK For Auction Houses To Participate In Their Own Offerings?

Published on December 18, 2007 in Debates. 12 Comments

This post goes into the new “debates” category. I was debating myself for a long time whether to post it or not as it is likely to upset some people, some of which are friends of mine. Let me first state that my intention is to create a healthy discussion about the issue. I’m really interested in knowing what you folks think about this as I have never felt comfortable knowing that at times, when bidding, I’m competing with the auction houses themselves, which not only have an unfair advantage on me and all other bidders because of extra knowledge (reserve prices, sellers/buyers dynamics, no need to pay commission to themselves), but also have an inherent interest to get their auction prices to the highest levels possible.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this issue,

Cheers

Sahar

Why do others do better (or worse) than you?

Published on December 9, 2007 in Debates. 13 Comments

Over the years on Rick’s board I posted many questions to members, some to help others, some to learn myself. In all events, I always learned something from these discussions. I was thinking why not try and create this sort of learning experience here on the blog, in comments area? That concept is the birth of this new category called “Debates”, where I will post some questions or some arguments and others can jump in and contribute their opinions, discuss with others, as well I will jump in from time to time and discuss as well. So not knowing how this new category or idea will do, let’s just try it out and see, shall we?

So, here we go..

Many domainers have started at same time but over the years, achieved different results. Few even started after you however did much better (and some much worse) than you. My question is why? and how do we change the pattern to do better, much better?