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Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

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Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#181

Post by rapind »

taligent wrote: post #152
rapind wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care if advertisers know more about until they can actually identify who I am (name and contact info) and start calling me, sending me emails, and mailing me directly. Since it's not in Google's or Facebook's best interest to allow a direct connection between their advertiser's and users (if they no longer act as the proxy, where's the money?) I'm not terribly worried about it. I would like there to be more t…

Which they potentially can right ? If you see a random ad for a company on Google, click on it and then supply your email. Then they would know a lot more about than just your email. They would know every demographic filter they used to create that ad. That could be quite specific.

True, if the company only created one campaign and it was pretty specific, then yes, they could tie my signup to the campaign information. I'm not terribly concerned about this yet.

Browser fingerprinting is far more alarming: http://panopticlick.eff.org/

Let's say there's a SASS service you can tie into that has a massive database of browser fingerprint activity. Potentially you could get quite a significant amount of browsing history once enough websites are using the service. You can tie this to an email address etc. when a site requests a signup.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#182

Post by 18pfsmt »

jonnathanson wrote: post #119
waterlesscloud wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a convincing argument that Google needs social. I know they believe it, I just haven't seen anything that made a compelling case that it's actually true.

Advertising is the vast majority of Google's revenue. How vast? AdWords alone accounts for 97% of Google's earnings. The strategic vulnerability of that position cannot possibly be overstated. Along comes Facebook, which could (in theory, at least) roll out a perfectly competitive product to threaten AdWords. If social really does provide better context for advertising, and advertising within the world's prevailing s…

You don't seem to be differentiating between search ads and display ads, and it is search ads that comprise the majority of their revenue (where FB is more of a threat to their display ads).

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#183

Post by rapind »

jonnathanson wrote: post #130
waterlesscloud wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that helps explain why Google's social efforts are weak, it doesn't make the case that social is something Google needs. What Google needs, in this case, is more information on its users, which is not a particularly social thing to need. Say Google is approaching social as an information gathering problem, and Facebook is approaching social as a users-interacting problem, then who will always win social under t…

"While that helps explain why Google's social efforts are weak, it doesn't make the case that social is something Google needs." Actually, my intent was just the opposite: to explain why Google "needs" social (but not so much to explain why its efforts have been weak). That said, I think it does offer explanation for their weakness in social to date: they didn't really see it as a threat until it became one. It's ver…

Pretty sure Google did see the threat. Didn't they put in an offer very early on, and try to invest / partner later on?

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#184

Post by rapind »

wickedchicken wrote: post #138
waterlesscloud wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a convincing argument that Google needs social. I know they believe it, I just haven't seen anything that made a compelling case that it's actually true.

> I haven't seen a convincing argument that Google needs social. "pictures of Dan's wedding" "those backpacks John keeps talking about" and "where the fuck are my car keys" are all queries that require people-data in order to dereference whom you're talking about

When Google can answer "where the fuck are my car keys" is when I unplug.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#185

Post by [deleted] »

jmsduran wrote: post #148
nostromo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook isn't so dumb that they haven't seen YouTube as Google's trojan horse for a long time. Facebook has had a video platform since 2007 -- it just hasn't taken off. > I miss the days when Google, Apple, and Facebook cooperated rather than squabbled. I don't; competition is good.

If by competition you mean the walled data silos each company builds in order to prevent users from leaving their platform, I would much rather prefer cooperation.

[deleted]

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#186

Post by [deleted] »

jmsduran wrote: post #148
nostromo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook isn't so dumb that they haven't seen YouTube as Google's trojan horse for a long time. Facebook has had a video platform since 2007 -- it just hasn't taken off. > I miss the days when Google, Apple, and Facebook cooperated rather than squabbled. I don't; competition is good.

If by competition you mean the walled data silos each company builds in order to prevent users from leaving their platform, I would much rather prefer cooperation.

[deleted]

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#187

Post by jonnathanson »

18pfsmt wrote: post #182
jonnathanson wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising is the vast majority of Google's revenue. How vast? AdWords alone accounts for 97% of Google's earnings. The strategic vulnerability of that position cannot possibly be overstated. Along comes Facebook, which could (in theory, at least) roll out a perfectly competitive product to threaten AdWords. If social really does provide better context for advertising, and advertising within the world's prevailing s…

You don't seem to be differentiating between search ads and display ads, and it is search ads that comprise the majority of their revenue (where FB is more of a threat to their display ads).

I would argue that FB is a threat to their search ads, too, in the long run. And it's not too difficult to foresee some scenarios in which that's true.

At least Google seems to think so. (If they just thought FB was a threat to display ads, they probably wouldn't be making social such a huge, life-or-death deal).

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#188

Post by VikingCoder »

lubujackson wrote: post #150
VikingCoder wrote: post #123

> It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers. First, a question: any random person on the internet, without being logged in, used to be able to Thumb Up a YouTube video? If that's true, then I bet it was very easy to spam. Giving it a Thumb Up, without being logged in, would also mean that none of your friends had any idea that you had…

Big difference between upvoting a video on YouTube for other people on YouTube and giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists), influence your search results in ways you don't want, or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail. The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific…

> giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists)

It does not exist. You can specifically Share a video with Circles.

> influence your search results in ways you don't want,

In the upper right on your Search page, you can click "Hide personal results."

> or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail

[citation needed]

> The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific social purpose.

What if you want to share with your circles, what if you want things you've +1'd to influence your search results, what if you want to see better ads rather than crappy ads?

> my boss reading that I "liked" a LOLcats video while at work

Don't Share that with your boss. That's what Circles are for.

> my wife seeing that I "plussed" a review of Avengers by a woman in lingerie or something

+1's are inherently public.

I can appreciate that you like to give feedback to content creators saying, "Hey, I liked this!" Google is tying the "I" in that sentence to your Google+ account.

I think the days of "Anonymous Likes" are somewhat over... They were always susceptible to spamming, anyway. And they were never really as anonymous as we liked to think they were.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#189

Post by dredmorbius »

javajosh wrote: post #53

Google thinks it will die in the long run without social. They realize that all the tech-savvy software product in the world can be reproduced eventually, but secondary, human-savvy products, can never be reproduced. Furthermore, they see the power in adding ever more context to search - see Bret Victor's talk about how 'interaction' is bad, and inferring context is everything. There's no better context than social.…

My read is that Google is far more likely to die with social.

Social networks have been part of the Internet since before it was an Internet: mailing lists, Usenet, BBS systems, AOL chat rooms, Geocities, Friendster, Grokster, Orkut, MySpace, Bebo, Facebook.... Each has ahd its time in the sun. And then faded.

Of course, single-focus tech and consumer sites have come and gone as well. But sites which serve a clear and persistent service seem to have done better than those which stuck strictly to a flash-in-the-pan concept.

Re: Google is making a huge and annoying mistake

#190

Post by acqq »

VikingCoder wrote: post #188
lubujackson wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big difference between upvoting a video on YouTube for other people on YouTube and giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists), influence your search results in ways you don't want, or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail. The real problem is the effects are unknown and upvoting is no longer a contained action with a specific…

> giving a +1 to a video that could possibly go on your Google+ wall (if that even exists) It does not exist. You can specifically Share a video with Circles. > influence your search results in ways you don't want, In the upper right on your Search page, you can click "Hide personal results." > or show up awkwardly in other strange ways while using other Google products like Gmail [citation needed] > The real problem…

Technically, "Anonymous Likes" aren't really susceptible to spamming, as through the years Google developed enormous infrastructure to avoid spamming in ad-clicks. The same technology can be easily used for "Anonymous Likes." The decision to eliminate "Anonymous Likes" is not a result of technical needs, it's a decision "from the above" to force a "more social" Google.
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