Re: Push-Technology and Technology News

Hara Ra (harara@shamanics.com)
Sat, 15 Mar 1997 22:19:33 -0800


Chris Hind wrote:
> Profiles will be infinately important as
> well as brainwaves. Get ready for profile-based dating systems, book
> recommendations, music recommendations, etc. The future is SMART.

Well, I see some limitations to this, some of which are a bit subtle. I
have thousands of interests, and a profiler is limited to what I tell
it. It may do well with the interests which I express a lot, but I
cannot hope for it to detect my lesser interests. Another limitation is
that there are *always* implicit assumptions in such systems, based on
its design and the bias of its programmers. Would I really trust
Microsoft to build a profile which truly represents my values? I think
not. Since it seems that push technology is a blatantly commercial
aspect of the Net, I expect there will be many hidden biases in the PTs
which I use. And there's always the privacy issue. Finally, if I am
inundated with PT selections I will likely spend less of my time
browsing at random, effectively reducing my scope in the direction of
the PT content.

After Push Technology - Shove Technology :-)
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| Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> |
| Box 8334 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 |
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