I was sorry to read Greg Linden’s post on Geeking with Greg that he’s decided to shut down Findory. In case you don’t know, Findory is an engine that personalizes itself for you based on what you click on. There’s no customization, so you don’t have to choose preferences or categories or anything, it works quietly in the back-end while you go about your normal reading.
Two years ago - January 7, 2005 - I published an interview with him about Findory. This question and answer stands out to me:
Do you see a way for regular search engines to integrate your technology?
Absolutely. Our technology is designed to be highly scalable. Despite our complicated personalization, the online portion of our processing only takes a tens of milliseconds. We want Findory’s personalization to be helping millions of readers find the information they need.
My outsider’s take is that Findory had trouble building enough traffic as a destination site, but as his answer suggests it would have fit nicely into the repertoire of one of the major search engines. I use Findory now and then, but admit that I am not a zealous user. Maybe because I don’t use it enough, the links that pop to the top aren’t always relevant to me. If I click on an article just to see what it is, the engine thinks I am interested in that and then shows me similar things. But half the time the article isn’t interesting once I get to it.
But anyhow, the idea is the right idea, I think, and it’ll live on elsewhere if not with Findory.