>an algorithm of the same strength as the youtube algorithm, applied to written content, would create a compelling system for discovering interesting stuff.
We have very different assessments. My guess is that the reason the youtube recommendations algorithm used to be better than any of the engines for searching text is because the engines cannot distinguish the high-quality textual pages from the low-quality pages (plus the sheer number of low-quality pages). Although there is certainly a lot of bad information and temptations to waste your time on Youtube, it is easier for an engine to avoid it and surface the informative content (but Youtube is not even trying to do that anymore) basically because the vast majority of the temptations to waste your time on Youtube aren’t even trying to deceive anybody that they’re informative.
Also the average youtube video that is sincerely trying to be informative rather than just entertaining is of distinctly higher quality IMHO than the average textual web page trying for the same thing.
>an algorithm of the same strength as the youtube algorithm, applied to written content, would create a compelling system for discovering interesting stuff.
We have very different assessments. My guess is that the reason the youtube recommendations algorithm used to be better than any of the engines for searching text is because the engines cannot distinguish the high-quality textual pages from the low-quality pages (plus the sheer number of low-quality pages). Although there is certainly a lot of bad information and temptations to waste your time on Youtube, it is easier for an engine to avoid it and surface the informative content (but Youtube is not even trying to do that anymore) basically because the vast majority of the temptations to waste your time on Youtube aren’t even trying to deceive anybody that they’re informative.
Also the average youtube video that is sincerely trying to be informative rather than just entertaining is of distinctly higher quality IMHO than the average textual web page trying for the same thing.