Outbrain: In or Out?

I know. It's not Thursday, again, but darn it... I just get excited, sometimes!

I've added a new feature to the blog that I hope everyone will enjoy: a post 5-star rating widget. It's a familiar concept with a few tweaks and upgrades for the specific needs of the blogosphere, brought to us by the far-smarter-than-I-am techie people at Outbrain. What's really unique about these five little yellow stars (and the reason I've given them a home here) is that they don't only give you the overall rating for my post from all the lovely people who've come here. These ratings are personalized to your own rating history!

I'm going to let the authors explain it, cuz they do a far better job than I can:

... whenever we serve the ratings widget to a reader, we look at his/her rating history, find like-minded people automatically, and adjust the rating scores accordingly. This is what the widget looks like with personalization:

In other words – two people might be looking at the same blog post, but each will see vastly different scores based on each one’s personal rating history. The more each person rates, the better our recommendations will be specifically for him/her.

So for those of you who follow a number of blogs and really want to get an at-a-glance idea of whether or not the post topic is going to be worth your read, I recommend that you spread your ratings around and seed Mr. Friendly Personalization Algorithm. In the end, it'll help you the most.

At least, that's the idea. :) Please leave me feedback (ratings on this post or comments) to register your opinions on this feature. I'm not above baleeting them if I'm overestimating their starry-goodness.