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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.

14 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Whatever by sunking2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Other than tabs, I'm pretty sure I use my web browser almost exactly like I did with Mosaic.

  2. 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.
    1. Re:Best to learn to walk again, by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      Their development efforts seen to have turned into 90s microsoft, with just too many developers to actually get anything that works out the door. Most of what they ship now consists of new features that are full of security holes, removal of old features, and constant thrashing of the code that reduces quality and causes things like, "now your configurable toolbars are no longer all configurable; some are, some are not."

    2. Re:Best to learn to walk again, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Count as what? More newly minted CS grads reinventing the wheel?

    3. Re:Best to learn to walk again, by the_Bionic_lemming · · Score: 2

      Yeah. I stopped allowing updates a while back.

      So sad, it's like watching a good friend douse himself with gas and set himself on fire. I used to cheerlead Firefox, but I am now a bit embarrassed to admit to using it now. And no, I won't use chrome or IE or edge.

      --
      _ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
  3. 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

  4. Oh no! by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Funny

    Clippy is back!

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Oh no! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      It looks like you're writing a joke referencing Clippy, the notorious Microsoft Office feature. Would you like help?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
  5. 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.

  6. 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.
  7. More tracking/data mining by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Yet more tracking/data mininig.

    Fuck off.

  8. Sort of an automated ShiftSpace, no? by Qbertino · · Score: 2

    This sound something like a pimped out ShiftSpace. BTW, what happend to that?
    I thought that was a pretty neat idea - now it appears all traces of ShiftSpace seem to be lost.

    Can I still get ShiftSpace somewhere? Is it a distributed thing or does it rely on servers for it's content?
    And how is that with this new Mozilla thing?

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca