Can my computer browse for me?
Does browsing require very deep intelligence?
- Random walk: “universal law of surfing” (Huberman & al, Xerox PARC) - determines the probability distribution of the number of pages user visits within a web site
What are the chances of hitting anything interesting?
- Link topology: “19 clicks of separation” (Albert & al) - using local connectivity measurements they measure the diameter of the web
Isn’t it a selfish waste of network bandwidth?
- Search engines use a lot of bandwidth without being informed by user queries - exhaustively!