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Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#231

Post by lsc »

groby_b wrote: post #227
lsc wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want the product that is considered the best value, the product that is the most popular? or do you want the product that the retailers are willing to pay the most to get you to buy? Google (well, I shouldn't pick on google. All brokers of advertising) optimize to push you towards the product that their customers are willing to pay the highest ad rates for. Of course, In a company concerned with it's long-term…

Then you'd search for "sofa with best value" and "most popular sofa". And lo and behold, the results look quite different.

Are you disagreeing with my assertion that there is a conflict of interest between the consumer and the advertiser?

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#232

Post by grogenaut »

nmridul wrote: post #224
md224 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why not show the best shopping websites, rather than ads for shopping websites?

The first result is Amazon.com. Its not an ad. The next ones are local listings. And don't think they are also ads. Those are search results. And I think Google did a good job here as most purchases for heavy items like Sofas will be made locally.

currently their local listings are pretty shit. Theyre worse than what I can find in the yellow pages actually. Search for honda motorcyle repair in bellevue, wa for example. none of the top results are for that. but car dealers eat right into the results.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#233

Post by grogenaut »

rtkwe wrote: post #211
plywoodtrees wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The organic results are a list of sofa vendors, each with pretty boring text descriptions like "we offer great sofas at great prices and with up to 4 years interest free credit available, there has never been a better time to buy! ‎Fabric Sofas - ‎Famous Brands - ‎Leather Sofas - ‎Carpets". Similarly on Bing and DDG. There is not much to choose between them. A page full of blah blah sofas is not very helpful if I'm l…

That's the thing I've never gotten about many of the examples of 'zomg-too-many-ads' they're mostly searches that you'd normally be looking to buy an item off of. On a side note I don't actually get the map results most of the time anymore. Guess I'm in a separate test group.

the point is google should be showing me good results, not just what I can find in the yellow pages.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#234

Post by iamhungry »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #198
grey-area wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Google and Apple have reached this stage at around the same time in my opinion - both are now milking existing users rather than looking for innovative new markets or products. Once companies grow to a certain size it seems almost inevitable.

I'm not sure of the 'milking users' (which seems more pejorative than I feel about the situation). It's more of a 'business rules' than 'loose rules.' I was at Google from 2006 to 2010, I arrived just after they decided "mini kitchens" (which were amazing collections of snacks and drinks near every bunch of engineers) needed to be reigned in, and left just after the first of the big purges of non-project projects. I…

choosing instead to keep that additional value for themselves.

Google's claim to fame was that they were unbiased, unlike other search engines. Almost all users want to see unbiased results, not ads and roughly half can't tell the difference between ads and non-paid results. What does that do to Google brand once words spreads and reaches most users? Very short sighted strategy, very negligent.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#235

Post by ilyanep »

Hermel wrote: post #192
fersho311 wrote: post #147

Fun fact: If you had bought a call yesterday for $300, it would now be worth $3100. 1000% return on investment. Yesterday I bought a chipotle call (because of earnings release) for $600 and now its worth $3600 Now that the political budget debate is over, I think we will see a spectacularly volatile movement upwards and strong earnings will push stocks to absurd prices way over any reason. The best thing to do is to…

Google has a tradition of jumping up to 10% in either direction after quarterly releases. It might be worthwhile to buy both, put and call options before a release and then profit from the one that goes into the money.

I believe that's called a butterfly. I don't know how common they are but I've certainly heard of people doing this on stocks they believe will be volatile.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#236

Post by plywoodtrees »

grogenaut wrote: post #233
rtkwe wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing I've never gotten about many of the examples of 'zomg-too-many-ads' they're mostly searches that you'd normally be looking to buy an item off of. On a side note I don't actually get the map results most of the time anymore. Guess I'm in a separate test group.

the point is google should be showing me good results, not just what I can find in the yellow pages.

You have a yellow pages?

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#237

Post by MarkMc »

wtvanhest wrote: post #17
turing wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in my experience Google products have gotten significantly better and more polished in the last few years. Goes to show that their products aren't getting worse , just shifting in focus and priority.

Which products specifically have gotten better?

Search. Seriously.

For many queries Google search is now better than Wikipedia. For example, Google 'Tom Cruise' and the right-hand side of the results page has an almost perfect summary of the actor: A great selection of photos, a concise biography, a clickable list of his popular movies and other actors related to him. This is the sort of thing that makes Google search far better than the competition for most people.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#238

Post by MarkMc »

fersho311 wrote: post #147

Fun fact: If you had bought a call yesterday for $300, it would now be worth $3100. 1000% return on investment. Yesterday I bought a chipotle call (because of earnings release) for $600 and now its worth $3600 Now that the political budget debate is over, I think we will see a spectacularly volatile movement upwards and strong earnings will push stocks to absurd prices way over any reason. The best thing to do is to…

Let's say you play blackjack and are dealt a 20. If you then hit and get an Ace, does that mean it was the right decision?

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#239

Post by epynonymous »

JonSkeptic wrote: post #3

I think this is interesting because it matches my user experience with Google products in a very inverted way. Google search has gotten worse and worse lately, forcing me on to other search engines with worse UIs just so that I can get useful results. Youtube UI gets worse every time they update it. They cancelled the RSS reader. The email UI keeps getting worse and featuring more ads. But the stock value hit $1000.…

for the record, it's the 90 per cent use case.

Re: Google shares hit $1,000 after strong earnings

#240

Post by vdaniuk »

dspeyer wrote: post #208
grey-area wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there just one normal result there on that entire screen? Ouch.

Only one normal, but the maps and shopping that take up most of the space are still organic results, and probably more useful than the 'normal' ones.

There is no inherent conflict of interest between consumer and advertiser. There are conflicts of interest a between some consumers and advertisers. That is the point -- web search monetization is more complex than "ZOMG too many ads"
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