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SOME MATCHES ARE NOT EXACTLY MADE IN HEAVENOur reporter finds customizable Web sites are fun, but also a pain in the neckI admit it. I'm a bit of a privacy freak. I memorize a fake phone number for nosy video-rental clerks. And I don't participate in supermarket rewards programs for fear of revealing my personal data (say, my weakness for Cheez-Its). So even if Web sites promise me personalized news or product recommendations, I often hesitate, or at least fudge data on the registration forms--O.K., so I lie. But to keep our readers informed (and to keep my job), I have sacrificed my privacy to check out customizable sites. I began my search for My Web where just about everybody else does--at the Internet portals. Since last year, Yahoo!, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, and others have offered ways to customize their sites in hopes of making you forget they were just supposed to be doorways to everywhere else. I tried MyYahoo first and, to my relief, it didn't ask for much personal info. But I got a cramp from spending a couple of hours scrolling through screen after screen, picking which news, sports scores, stock prices, and other features I want to see on my personal start page. FIRST-NAME BASIS. An easier way comes from Excite. Instead of forcing you to fill out a form, it asks that you type in your zip code for local weather, your birth date for your horoscope, and so on. Before you know it (that's the idea), you build up a profile that allows Excite to tailor material for you. You still have to make some choices to personalize areas such as news and stocks. But at least MyExcite has manners: It greets me by my name--not ''robh56,'' like MyYahoo. But I really came here to buy stuff on the company dime. Uh, I mean, I want to find out how well the so-called recommendation services work. Merchants like online bookseller Amazon.com use software that logs my interests and purchases and, using complex mathematical formulas to match them to other customers' habits, spits out suggestions for products people with similar tastes have bought. I've ordered only a few books from Amazon, on cooking, the Internet, and Jack Kerouac. So when I ask it for recommendations, I can't blame it for suggesting more books on the Net and cooking (but nothing, oddly, on Beat Generation writers). To refine my profile, I dive into Amazon's ratings section and, on countless pages of book lists, click either ''I own it'' or ''Not for me'' under each book. There's seemingly no end, so after 20 pages of this, I stop, rub my eyes, and ask for recommendations. In the literature and fiction category, the first six suggestions are by John Steinbeck, many of whose books I told Amazon I own. Not exactly rocket science. The nonfiction category brings up more Net and cooking fare, plus Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club. Whoa! Where did that come from? Several intriguing choices do pop up, one of which I buy (Silicon Snake Oil, by Clifford Stoll). But I bet the service would be more accurate if I could just type in some favorite books. Still, Amazon does better than the competition. At barnesandnoble.com, the personal recommendation area is nowhere to be found on the site's first page. No wonder. Once I find it, I work through a dozen screens but find mostly contemporary fiction and only a few books I've read. Sure, make me feel like a philistine. Finally, a blank screen appears. What now? I go back and try the ''Get recommendations'' button--and it asks me again to rate all those books. Think again. JOHN DENVER? I hope to have better luck with compact disks. My CDnow almost blows it by recommending a John Denver CD immediately after I register my music preferences. I suppose it couldn't know I hate John Denver, but it does know I chose neither country nor folk as a preference. However, after energetically clicking ''not for me'' on that one and clicking on others I did like--I also could type in my favorite artists and rate records I already own--the suggestions quickly improved. Otis Redding? Bingo. Emboldened, I move on to movies. Video merchants such as cinemax.com and bigstar.com offer a few good suggestions but also some head-scratchers: C'mon, does anyone actually like the golf farce Happy Gilmore? That's why Reel.com Inc. is so refreshing. Instead of hoping that buyers will rate enough movies to build up an adequate database, a staff of 40 real people rates and matches movies before plugging them into a recommendation program. I ask for movies similar to Pulp Fiction, and ''close'' matches spit out Get Shorty and Reservoir Dogs. Nice. But the ''creative'' matches were even better: Fargo, Trainspotting, and Blue Velvet (though after watching all those in succession, I might welcome Happy Gilmore). Now, I'm ready for the big kahuna--buying a house. Coldwell Banker's Personal Retriever makes a decent attempt. Clicking through a series of choices on the type of house I want, the price range, the location, and the like, I create my personal portfolio of house listings in the locales I'm interested in. Hmmm--only four in my price range? (How about a raise, boss?) Once I find a listing I like, I click on a calculator to figure what my mortgage would be (ouch!) and get some information on local schools. I can save the listings and get updates via E-mail. It's handy, but limited to Coldwell Banker listings, and it's not all that tailored to my financial situation. I'll have better luck once I have the house and can get started on a garden. Garden Escape's garden.com offers a raft of appealing personalized features, starting with a home page tailored to my climate (which it knows from the zip code obtained during a short registration). I also can store orders for plants and tools in a ''wheelbarrow'' for later purchase, jot notes about plants in an online notebook, and launch a Garden Planner program that lets me plug in plants on a grid representing my garden. A Garden Doctor even answers questions personally. CHATTERBOTS. For pure fun, though, my favorite customizable site is Imagine Radio. It lets me create my own online radio station on the site, which can be heard by anyone through a PC using Real Networks Inc.'s latest player. Clicking away on a long, though limited, list of artists (no classical, for example), I create my own personal station with just the music I like. No Yanni or Michael Bolton for me. Curious? Check out ''Radio Rob'': Click on the site's ''personal'' music button, and it's in the ''Carnival'' section. Although these services are supposed to make the Web feel more personal, almost none of it feels as if there's someone at the other end of the wire. For that, I try a prototype service from Big Science Co.--a so-called chatterbot, or artificial intelligence character. One named Andrette is being tested as a possible cyberconcierge at Access Atlanta, a Cox Interactive Media city guide. Here's a sample (typed) conversation:
Andrette: ''Tell me what you are looking for.'' What I initially feared most from all these personalization efforts was a deluge of junk E-mail. So far, that hasn't been a problem. I get more spam from two posts to a single Usenet group a year ago than from all my personalized Web adventures. On the other hand, the E-mail pitches I have received don't seem to make use of the personal information I've divulged. American Airlines Inc., whose frequent-flier program I signed up for online, has sent me several E-mails on last-minute Net SAAver Fares and hotel deals--none targeted to my home airport, let alone routes I specified. Clearly, Web personalization has a long way to go. Navigating the Web's vast resources still requires a steady mouse hand, a big browser bookmark file, and a lot of patience. Oh, and I almost forgot, a good memory. I've created so many sign-on names and passwords for security on various sites that I can't remember them all. So I have to write them down--the worst security breach of all. Even so, my personal Web already is useful. I do get things done faster and sometimes discover things I didn't know I wanted--to the detriment of my credit-card balance. I tend to stick around some sites more consistently and even feel a little warm and fuzzy toward a few. Your results may vary. But then, that's the whole idea.
By Robert D. Hof in San Mateo, Calif. RELATED ITEMS
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Updated Sept. 24, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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