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Mozilla Is Building Context Graph, a 'Recommender System For the Web' (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the moving-forward dept.

Mozilla is looking into ways to build a "better forward button" that helps you understand a topic, and find alternative solutions to a problem. On Wednesday, Firefox-maker announced Context Graph, which in addition also allows browsers to offer useful information without demanding input. From a VentureBeat report: Context Graph is a "recommender system for the web" that is supposed to help the company develop an understanding of browser activity at scale. By tapping into what and how people are browsing, Mozilla hopes to unlock "the next generation of web discovery on the internet." Another example is learning how to do something new, like bike repair. Context Graph should be able to help you learn bike repair based on the links others have navigated to when they attempted to learn the same thing. "This should work regardless of whom you're connected to, because your social network shouldn't be a prerequisite for getting the most from the web," Nick Nguyen, Firefox's vice president of product, said.

6 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Best to learn to walk again, by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    before they try to run. At one time Mozilla ran like the wind, then they just ran, then they walked, now they're crawling. Trying to run from where they are now, directly to "develop an understanding of browser activity at scale", (whatever the hell that means), would seem to be WAY beyond their current capabilities. Especially when their share of the market is dropping to the point where whatever data they might collect may not be enough to be statistically meaningful...

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  2. FTFY by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By tapping into what and how people are browsing, Mozilla hopes to unlock "the next generation of data harvesting on the internet."

    1. Re:FTFY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Privacy issues aside the main problem I have with tracking this information to "improve" your experience is that it gets in the way.

      Google starts to think it knows you and serves up certain results because "it's you", when you run the same query on a totally different engine (like Duck Duck Go) you get a much better result set because it makes no preconceptions about what you were looking for based on past searches / browsing habits / etc

  3. Go to hell, Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another useless feature and, most importantly, a privacy nightmare by Mozilla, probably the 100th in the last 2 years.There's no "value added" that will ever persuade me sharing my browsing history with you to let you do your unrequested "suggestions".

    GO TO HELL, Mozilla.

    Time to look for firefox forks.

  4. I guess I'm old-fashioned by willoughby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate -*HATE*- having a machine try to read my mind. And a web browser? No, thanks. Just get out of the way & let me do what I want, the way I want.

    1. Re:I guess I'm old-fashioned by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hi Asa!

      What *I* want is for you guys to stop breaking my UI, my extensions, and my workflow.

      I am totally uninterested in how you guys think I should experience the Web. I am interested in getting stuff done.

      Start listening to your users again, and stop using us as your friggerty UX guinea pigs already.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.