"But in the Ask Your Target Market’s (AYTM) latest survey, only 16% were fully on board with the idea of personalized search results. 39% said it seems like a good idea, but they still have some concerns about privacy issues. And 45% of respondents disliked the idea, and said they think everyone should see the same results when searching the same word or phrase." (MediaPost Blogs, Research Brief, Center for Media Research, Jack Loechner,
Google Plus Gets Mixed Reviews, February 23, 2012)
A quote attributed to Mark Zuckerberg points to parochial aspect of local on a Web that supports McLuhan's vision of the global village: "A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now that people dying in Africa."
For a cosmopolitan perspective, give a listen to
Kwame Appiah's interview, part of the documentary entitled "Examined Life" which draws on a broad range of disciplines, including history, literature, and philosophy—as well as his own experience of life on three continents.
Local search moves us backwards to the days of Yellow Pages and reinforces the over-
commercialization of the Web with the supposed vision that the primary purpose of it is to sell us more stuff and, ideally, to sell us the same stuff that our friends and neighbors buy. Along with paid search it is sending sustainability ideas and leaders to the bottom of page results at a time when innovation and transformation are key to our survival.
It's local AND global as we are all interconnected.
Ruth Ann Barrett, Portland, Oregon for now.
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