yes, kaltix

kwc notes that Google labs has launched a new personalized search feature and asks if it is the result of Google's acquisition of Kaltix. Indeed, it looks eerily familiar to a very cool demo I saw not long ago.

While manually setting up your own profile through a bunch of check boxes is a bit cumbersome, I have to give props to the Google/Kaltix folks for not requiring any login, or transfer of name, e-mail, etc, to use the service. I believe that Outride (another personalization firm acquired by Google) used user's web bookmarks and observed surfing behavior to seed personalization rankings, but Google has (wisely) decided to sidestep those privacy/trust issues for now. Not that determined corporations can't infer all sorts of things using cookies, but it's still a nice touch.

We'll see how long this stays a labs project, and what Google does if and when it decides to give these features official status. Regardless, it's great to see this stuff out in use and find out how people react to it. It should be also interesting to see if any good stories regarding unexpected 'personalized' search results start surfacing. (Will ad words eventually be personalized, too? I can imagine the Google version of the famous "Will you marry me?" stunt)

Elsewhere, the Mercury News is running a story about Google's new offering, and a VC that helped fund Outride brings another perspective.