
Google shouldn’t be the only source of interest-based recommendations - weinzierl
https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/web-discovery.html
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Yuval_Halevi
I wish.

It's not because they are Google, it's because their algorithm is so good,
that when there will be another alternative to google search, it will need to
act the same.

I'm dealing with content on a daily basis. Most of the challenge when it comes
to writing content is to make it suitable to more than 200 factors Google is
using in their algorithm to determine the quality of this content.

You can think about it as a massive supermarket checklist, Only when all the
200 boxes checked, your wife will tell you good job.

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Nasrudith
The article undermines the title and itself by mentioning the other non-Google
sources of interest based recommendations like reddit and other people then
acting like there are no alternatives. It is befuddling to say the least like
complaining that McDonalds is your only lunch option after listing your
kitchen, a work fridge, and several other restaurants in the area.

~~~
mc32
Well people do complain that in some areas the only food available is
Macdonalds and gas stations -they call these places food deserts, even though
there are alternatives, there is friction making them non alternatives.

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guybedo
To be fair, Google is doing a great job, although it's true we shouldn't rely
on only a few big companies to provide recommendations.

Fwiw, i've built a RSS reader and i'm currently adding a recommendation
feature to it. That's a feature i've always wanted to have in a RSS reader. If
you want to check it out, it should available in the next few weeks
([https://aktu.io](https://aktu.io))

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kmod
A bit late to the party, but I've recently started a personalized
recommendation service, currently focusing on news. So far it's good at
identifying which subreddits you are interested in, and soon it will be able
to give you recommendations across the web. Check it out!

[https://www.onlyvetted.com/](https://www.onlyvetted.com/)

~~~
d2wa
Is there any way to use the service _without_ a Google account?

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RandomInteger4
Well, it kinda helps that they were the first good search engine. Their name
is synonymous with performing a search, much in the way people say "let me
grab a kleenex" with regard to tissues,or "I used a q-tip to clean my ear,
doctors and their advice be damned" with regard to whatever the hell q-tips
are called without referencing a brand name.

Granted, as a result of that in Google's case, their market dominance is kind
of self-perpetuating, because that higher usage leads to better results, since
our brains think very similarly, so that thing you were thinking of has
already been searched for, and thus their algorithm has already filtered the
results down to what you likely want before you even know that you need to
search for something.

Take a new video game for instance where you want to search for the map or
walkthrough for a particular level.

You'll get better results using Google, because most other people are already
using Google to search for that exact same thing, whereas when I do the same
with duckduckgo, it's hit or miss on the results.

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ec109685
I still miss Zite. It provided a great selection of algorithmically ranked
content that matched my interests. Despite Flipboard buying them, the
experience never was the same once Zite shutdown (and flipping is dumb phone
paradigm).

