Jeff Woelker : Chicago SEO, SEM, and Social Media Consultant

So I was watching this video today about Google’s new search feature SearchWiki, which they launched yesterday, and had some thoughts. If you haven’t seen the video, it’s posted below:

I’ve watched the video a few times, and here are my initial thoughts.
[full disclosure: I do search engine marketing, among other things, for a living.]

Pros:

• It’s nice that you can modify search results to your own liking. I often see results, which I know are wrong or not applicable to me which I’d like to remove. Now I can do that.
• I like the annotation feature to provide the user a place to markup their results. It allows me to add metadata to the results I like or don’t like.
• I like the Digg-like comment function whereby users can vote comments up or down. (see image below).

Cons:

• The remove results feature. I understand why Google provided this feature, but there are two things inherently flawed with this:
  • It’s Google’s job to filter out non-applicable results, not the users.
  • What happens when that site adds new content? Will the user be notified about this? Isn’t the nature of the web inherently fluid?
• Google is supposed to have a minimalistic interface. By allowing users to annotate, modify, and remove listings within the interface, isn’t Google allowing users to destroy an otherwise minimalistic and functional interface, even if it is by their own doing and to Google’s detriment?
• Before you rearrange results or add notes, you see this message:
  “Please remember that your SearchWiki notes will be visible to other users, identified with your Google Account nickname.” Why does Google have to share personally identifiable information? If this is personal search, shouldn’t it be personal (i.e. for my eyes only)?

Judging by the “trackback” links on the Google blog, it sounds like a mix of both positive and negative reviews so far. I’ll give it to you, my readers, what do you think? Are you all warm and fuzzy about personalized search or is it just another feature Google offers which you may or may not try out?