LexBlog Q & A: Greg Linden of Findory

Today we return with another LexBlog Q & A (formerly Five Questions), this time featuring web personalization guru Greg Linden. Greg developed the engine that drives Amazon.com’s recommendation system and, more recently (in 2004) founded Findory.com. After Kevin recently wrote about Findory’s impending closure, I got in touch with Greg for a brief e-mail interview regarding his experience with web personalization.

1. Rob La Gatta: By reading your blog, it is clear that web personalization is your passion. What was it that drew you to the idea of personalization in the first place, and when did this happen?

Greg Linden: What I love about personalization is that it can help you find things you would not have found on your own. If you do not know what you want, if you do not know something might exist, you cannot easily search for it.

Back in the early days of Amazon, they only sold books. Even then, there were millions of books in its catalog and new ones coming out every day, so many that it was impossible to know about all of them or even most of them. The appeal of personalization for me back then was that it would help people find books – find knowledge – that they otherwise may have never seen.

2. Rob La Gatta: In your post on the Findory site detailing its closure, you end by saying that you “continue to believe that the future will be personalized.” Where do you see personalized web content five years from now?

Greg Linden: We are all subject to a deluge of information in our daily lives. We are saturated in it and overwhelmed by it. We need filters that focus our attention. We need help to process the information flooding [toward] us.

In a world of personalized information, search engines would learn from your behavior, determine what you think is relevant and interesting, and reorder search results to focus in on what you need. Communication including e-mails, instant messages and text messages would be prioritized by importance of the contact and the cost of an interruption. News would be customized to your needs and interests, a stream of knowledge about current events built just for you. Advertising would be helpful, useful and relevant, only showing products and services you want to know about.

I think personalized information is inevitable. The need is great. The benefits are obvious. The rewards are large. It is inescapable: the future will be personalized.

3. Rob La Gatta: Being based out of a technology hub like Seattle, have you found that people here are more accepting (and trusting) of web personalization – everything from Netflix recommendations to the engine that drove Findory – than in other parts of the country/world where the Internet may not play as important a role in day-to-day life?

Greg Linden: No, I do not think Seattle is different in that respect. Personalization needs to be useful to be accepted. If it is useful, people want it and trust it. If it is not useful, people find it annoying and intrusive. The key is to focus on helping people find what they need. When personalization does that, people like it.

4. Rob La Gatta: When it comes to advertising, personalization is valuable because nobody wants to see ads for things that don’t interest them. Do you believe traditional mediums (such as newspapers and magazines) will be able to adapt to this? Or will everything – content and ads alike – move to online, where it is tailored exclusively to the interests of the consumer?

Greg Linden: I do not think everything will move online, no, but online is the primary area of growth for newspapers and magazines.

Online offers an interesting opportunity for newspapers. No longer is it necessary to print a single front page that everyone sees. Online, the constraints of the printing process are gone. Everyone can see different content.

This opens [opportunities] that only have begun to be explored where newspapers can show different content and different ads to each reader based on the needs and interests of that person. Online, we can build a newspaper just for you.

5. Rob La Gatta: In your initial announcement detailing Findory’s demise [“Findory rides into the sunset,” 1/14/07] you said that you plan to spend your free time not with another venture, but with family and friends. Are you still on that track, or can we expect to see something new from you in the coming months?

Greg Linden: I have no firm plans yet. I am exploring several opportunities, but cannot say anything specific.

Greg has volunteered to answer any other questions, but rather than ask those myself, I’d like to see what readers are wondering. Do you have a question for Greg Linden? Post them in the comments. I’ll select three or four of the best and send them to Greg, so we can post a follow-up.