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If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

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Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#91

Post by illumen »

ce4 wrote: post #88
haberman wrote: post #79

So you write a public review of a business, and then you're upset because Google shows people that review? I really don't get it. What if your review was the first search result instead? Isn't that the same thing? If I search for a product on Amazon, it shows me the number of stars for each product, and if I click on that it shows me excerpts of different people's reviews. How is that any different? http://imgur.com/…

I like Amazon's best rated 5 and 1 star review comparison. I don't mind when one of my ratings comes up at the top either. The most truth lies always in the honest "bad rating" reviews (well, almost always) that others found useful. I really hope that Google does not just please their advertising customers and only show praising reviews but also the critical ones too. Let's wait and see if it's awesome.

When you can only +1 or like something, then the bad reviews do not exist. Advertisers win.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#92

Post by threeseed »

nilkn wrote: post #48

People are slowly leaving Facebook as they seek out more privacy control. Obviously Facebook still dominates the world of social networks, but there's a lot of friction involved in this aspect of it. So what does Google decide to do? They decide to follow in the footsteps of Facebook and replicate all the same privacy problems, so not only are people going to leave G+ due to changes like this, but people aren't even…

> People are slowly leaving Facebook as they seek out more privacy control.

No they aren't. This is just baseless nonsense.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#93

Post by threeseed »

riquito wrote: post #69
minikites wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you publish a negative review of a restaurant? Now it's super easy for them to find you and possibly harass you. What if you're in a marginalized group? Now online harassment can move into real world harassment if you've reviewed local places you enjoy. Lots of people are harmed by a "real names" policy: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...

So you publish a PUBLIC negative review, with your name and photo, and then you're surprised it this same review appears somewhere else (in ads, this time)?

I would be very surprised if my name, photo and review appeared in advertising.

Who wouldn't ?

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#94

Post by akurilin »

Can someone tell me if it's possible to nuke a Google+ account and still keep all of the data in the other services, such as Picasa (now named Google Photos), Docs, Gmail etc? I really want to delete my G+ account, but I'm concerned it will inadvertently nuke something else I'm counting on.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#95

Post by notatoad »

davexunit wrote: post #43
Alterlife wrote: post #10

This actually doesn't seem terrible to me: If I published a public review on a product, why should Google not auto-match this up to a search result? That's the logical next step. It's what I'd expect from Google. I don't see anything privacy breaking about it of it's own... As long as the review was public, ofcourse -- or only being shown to those it was published to. That said, I just went ahead and opted-out of it…

Why there are so many Google apologists?

i prefer to think of myself as reasonable, rather than an apologist. if i publish a public review of something, i do it specifically so that other people can see that review. I'm not going to get mad because google has done with my review exactly what i wanted to happen with it.

if you don't want people to see what you write, maybe you should consider using a diary rather than a publishing service.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#96

Post by lsc »

spankalee wrote: post #89
lsc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Actually, I would really hope they do. One of the principles behind Google's ad systems is that they're useful for users and advertisers, that a good ad can benefit everyone involved. ... >Disclaimer: Googler I actually think this is both a strength and a weakness of google. They've gotten their (often very smart) employees to believe the company line. I mean, don't get me wrong; I think that google ads (at least, b…

> that it's /better/ to find a product through paid advertising than through 'organic' search results, as if an advertiser has an interest in giving the customer the lowest possible price, or the best possible service for a given price. Nope, I said no such thing. Of course some strawman statement, that you hypothesize that I support, would be seen as laughable by a hypothetical population outside the advertising ind…

>Again, no where did I ever say that an ad is better than an organic result. Please don't claim that I did. It's simply not true.

Hm. I'm sorry. That is the impression I've gotten from multiple google employees... that is the impression I got from your post, too. However, you are correct. that's not what you said, that's my interpretation of what you said, which yeah. Is a very different thing. (I mean, I could say I was using "saying" to mean 'meaning' but... yeah, I was incorrect, and rudely so. I'm sorry.)

>So if you optimize for the long term you want users to be glad that they clicked on an ad, so that they'll continue to do that over the the long term, and that means making them good for the user. This means that a "good ad" has some usefulness to the user: if highlights a product or service they were looking for, it educates, it offers a good price, etc.

I agree that making ads "less bad" is a good long-term goal for an advertising company (and I think google has actually done a pretty good job of that) I think my disagreement comes when you start calling ads 'good' rather than 'less bad' (outside of the content or services those ads pay for.)

The essential point of disagreement, I think, is that all other things being equal, both the merchant and the customer are better off if they make the exchange without paying a middleman. Sort of how many people feel that groupon is bad. Thus, when you say "a good ad can benefit everyone involved." I hear, perhaps incorrectly, "an ad can be better than an organic search result"

>Yes, it's idealistic, but not overly so. The premise is just that built right, an ad system can produce good results for everyone. Good free content; relatively useful ads; revenue for content producers, ad marketplace, and advertisers; etc. I think this ends up being the case at least some of the time, and it's important to realize that it's not just by accident, it's by design. And it's not strictly capitalistic or benevolent, but a case where the two can coexist if done right.

You still have the long-term problem that your organic search results are competing with your ads, creating a long-term conflict of interest within google. Nobody is going to click on your ads if your organic results are better than your ads.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#97

Post by dools »

magicalist wrote: post #62
oscargrouch wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue here is not much about privacy, but about your image being associated with a product without your prior consent(for each product), and for free.. when they do this, you become the product together with the thing you are endorsing.. To make this more clear, imagine you signup for a new cable television channel, and you watching it, suddenly your image shows up with a product in your hands, smiling, a…

As I said below, I've opted out (I was already opted out, actually, but I also don't write reviews with my name in the first place), but my only real problem with this is the +1s part of it. I have no problem with quoting a review that you wrote with your name and face associated and putting your name and face next to it for your friends to see. For context, see the ads that appear at the top of yelp search results.…

Yeah this is the issue. If you click to "endorse" one thing and then all of a sudden that's generalised to a whole range of other stuff from the same brand, vendor, organisation etc. it can be very misleading. Also there are often incentives given for "likes" (eg. a competition) or you might "like" something as a favour to someone and then all of a sudden ads show up saying how much you like the ANZ bank which makes you look like a bit of a spazz.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#98

Post by md224 »

spankalee wrote: post #90
md224 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question: how do you rationalize the influence of bid amount on AdWords ad positioning? In other words, if two companies buy ad space, and one of the ads has a slightly lower quality score but a much higher bid price, it will be placed above the higher quality ad. How does this benefit users? Isn't this detrimental to the quality of the information being presented? If a recommendation service prioritizes a rec…

I don't know a ton about how it works (but there are articles out there), but as far as I do know, the quality, CTR and bid amount are all considered in the ranking so that an ad with a lower bid amount, but higher quality can easily show above the lower quality ad.

That's fair. I realize that bid amount is just one factor among a few, but I suppose my concern stems from the fact that there is a positive correlation between bid price and ad ranking at all.

To put it another way: increasing bid price, all other things being equal, will increase ad ranking. I would posit that this relationship has zero benefit for the ad consumer, and may even serve as a detrimental force, essentially degrading the relationship between ad ranking and ad quality by introducing a completely arbitrary factor.

(I believe some economists have postulated that the amount a company spends on advertising actually serves as an informational signal about the quality of the underlying product. I'm doubtful, but I'll admit it's a potential weakness in my argument.)

As far as I can tell, the only reason AdWords uses a bid auction system is to make more money; I would be interested to hear how factoring money into ad ranking could possibly add value to AdWords for the end-user.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#99

Post by notatoad »

cloudwalking wrote: post #60
spankalee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I would really hope they do. One of the principles behind Google's ad systems is that they're useful for users and advertisers, that a good ad can benefit everyone involved. If they show me an ad for something that my friends have negatively reviewed, I damn well want to see those negative reviews right along-side the ad. Disclaimer: Googler

Better yet, Google should not show ads for products that my friends rate poorly...

that sounds like a really good idea, both from a consumer perspective and an advertiser perspective. i don't want to see ads for things that my friends don't think i'd be interested in, and i don't want to pay to have my ads shown to people whose friends are just going to warn them away from me.

Re: If you use Google+, you could become an ad next month

#100

Post by makomk »

riquito wrote: post #69
minikites wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you publish a negative review of a restaurant? Now it's super easy for them to find you and possibly harass you. What if you're in a marginalized group? Now online harassment can move into real world harassment if you've reviewed local places you enjoy. Lots of people are harmed by a "real names" policy: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...

So you publish a PUBLIC negative review, with your name and photo, and then you're surprised it this same review appears somewhere else (in ads, this time)?

No, you'd publish a public review with your Google account, which has a Google+ profile attached (otherwise Google won't let you leave reviews for Android applications on their app store anymore), and that account will have your name and photo.
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