Yahoo Disses Search for “Personalization”

While I admire Yahoo for admitting defeat to Google and defining their true mission, I must call bullshit on their claim that “personalization”, not search, is “the future of the Web”. They’re putting the horse before the carriage.

Humans don’t know what they want. They need to search for it. Only then should personalization kick in. Without search powering discovery down the Long Tail, you end up with the mere illusion of choice in your personalizations, a virtual return to mass marketing. If that’s what Yahoo wants, then I’m happy to tell them they won’t get it.

If Yahoo wants to focus on personalization, then they should do so. What they shouldn’t do is badmouth search, because search provides the infinite choice required for real personalization.