[Building Sakai] Help wanted!

[N. Matthijs]

(First of all I want to apologize for abusing this list, but I wasn't sure
what the appropriate list is and I promise it's the last time I send out
an e-mail about this :)  ...)

Hi,

As most of you know, I'm currently close to finishing up my Masters
degree and associated research project.

My research project is about Personalized Web Search. Back in March, I have
sent out an e-mail asking people to install a FireFox add-on I wrote.
First of all I would like to thank everyone who has installed this!

The FireFox add-on has tried to learn your interests using your browsing
history and previous search queries. These interests can be used to
re-rank the results coming out of a search engine and make the displayed
results more relevant and interesting to you.

All of this is working now, but I need people to try it out. I would like
to ask all of the people that have installed the original add-on to
install the
updated version from http://alterego.caret.cam.ac.uk. The add-on will use
your interest profile to change the ranking of Google's results. This will
provide me
with usage data which will allow me to assess whether my method is
successful or not.

The add-on will not change your browsing experience. Google will still
look and work like Google. This evaluation will be run until the 15th of
June.
After this, the add-on can be uninstalled.

All of the people participating will receive their extracted interest
profile on the 15th of June, and will also enter in the draw for a price
worth 50£.

Please let me know if you've got any additional question.

Thanks for your help!
Nicolaas Matthijs