The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
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Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#2You could list the contact info on a different page and just link to it "to contact this author, click here"
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#3Last year I had the opportunity to work with some Xooglers. According to their CVs an Linkedin they were with Google for a year or two. All with job titles that trim down to project managers. All very junior.
Still, considering that Google only hires the best of the best I expected to work with ambitious, clever people.
They were the worst. The showed me graphs, fancy presentations and project plans in some saas tools (lots of them).
I soon realized that they did not have a clue what they were doing. Neither could they answer ”who does what when" nor even show defined measurable goals for the projects they were managing. And they were not able to make any decisions at all.
If they are an example of Googles middle (project) management it's quite clear why Google does not progress anymore in 2020 and lots of their products rot away on an at best mediocre level.
In my point of view Google needs a major crisis (like Microsoft under the late Balmer) before it becomes the innovationleader again - which it once has been.
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#4You could list the contact info on a different page and just link to it "to contact this author, click here"
Yeah, sounds like that would work. Wired definitely should do that for her.
The implementation of this google search feature also seems to be astonishingly stupid.
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#5> “In situations where people are searching for something like a phone number that is not readily available online, our systems are understanding these pages (that include those exact keywords plus a phone number) to be the best matches available, even if the phone number is not the correct number for that entity,” Lara Levin, a spokesperson for Google, said in an email.
This is completely depressing. I would really like to know what thought process led to something like this being implemented. Why would anyone even think that attaching a wrong phone number and email to anyone and broadcasting that on the top of Google Search is a wise idea?
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#6Last year I had the opportunity to work with some Xooglers. According to their CVs an Linkedin they were with Google for a year or two. All with job titles that trim down to project managers. All very junior. Still, considering that Google only hires the best of the best I expected to work with ambitious, clever people. They were the worst. The showed me graphs, fancy presentations and project plans in some saas tool…
I'm not entirely certain that your anecdata about ex-Google project managers (who only lasted a year there) has much bearing on this article.
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#7The snippets feature has always seemed somewhat shady to me -- in essence, it steals pageviews from the websites that did the hard work of sourcing the information.
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#8You could list the contact info on a different page and just link to it "to contact this author, click here"
That's one way. Each writer seems to have a dedicated profile page anyway at wired.com/author/first-last.
I understand that the search term “mackenzie bezos phone number” is an example of a semantic search, but the search result pictured clearly states that the contact info belongs to the journalist in question. The issue is not solely in Google’s hands, then, and they seem to actually be at a juncture where the problem they would have to solve might be a wicked one. Why is it not the fault of the people who mindlessly reach out to the journalist? Why is it not Wired’s fault? Why don’t professionals have some tools in place to screen incoming comms? The article is interesting and it could have added more depth to the problem by further exploring some of those contributing factors.
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#9Last year I had the opportunity to work with some Xooglers. According to their CVs an Linkedin they were with Google for a year or two. All with job titles that trim down to project managers. All very junior. Still, considering that Google only hires the best of the best I expected to work with ambitious, clever people. They were the worst. The showed me graphs, fancy presentations and project plans in some saas tool…
Saying “the late Balmer” suggests he died. He is still alive.
Re: The Year the Internet Thought I Was MacKenzie Bezos
#10Last year I had the opportunity to work with some Xooglers. According to their CVs an Linkedin they were with Google for a year or two. All with job titles that trim down to project managers. All very junior. Still, considering that Google only hires the best of the best I expected to work with ambitious, clever people. They were the worst. The showed me graphs, fancy presentations and project plans in some saas tool…
I'm not entirely certain that your anecdata about ex-Google project managers (who only lasted a year there) has much bearing on this article.
It's anecdotal. The question behind it is: "How does such obvious broken features like ’featured snippets for phone number searches' make it into production?"
Obviously there are working lots of very clever people at Google, so why is Google putting out so much subpar products and features?
Weak middle management is my explanation, there might be others.