The Importance of “relevance”
Although Google has many fingers in many pies, it’s dominant position comes from it’s search service, and it’s astronomical growth over the last few years has been based on its increasing ability to be relevant to users. The system finds the information it thinks you would like to see and shows it to you in a ranked list. When you confirm googles hypothesis (by clicking on a link), the system learns a little more about you, and google gets a little better the next time you search. Mammoth advertising revenues are an indication that both consumers and vendors (marketers) receive value from this matching service. And the system clearly works. But it is not clear how much longer this model can continue on for. Read more…
