Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is dead. Where do we go now?

circusscientist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 873 posts

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#121

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #87
AznHisoka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI SEO is where the attention is going, with ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini/Google AI Overviews replacing the need for people to visit websites

It's unnatural to search an LLM for a product. It's why Alexa never became a shopping portal. Best way to get the word out about a product now is through an influencer in the space. -- Edit: Show of hands for anyone using ChatGPT to shop. Be honest. People don't even use Google to shop. They try to find something either (1) by brand name, eg. "iphone" or (2) generically by category, eg. "best cold weather tent". In t…

[deleted]

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#123

Post by rickcarlino »

The way people get information online is changing rapidly.

I run a local makerspace. It is not quite the same thing as a local entertainment business, but there are certainly some similarities. We are local, and we are very event-based.

For the last 10 years, the way we would get new members was to host Meetups. Meetups are slowly bringing in fewer members. When I ask tour guests how they found out about us, they recently started saying that they found us on ChatGPT. They did not know what a makerspace was but they explained their problem and ChatGPT presented our space as a local solution. This has been good for us because we offer something useful to the community but struggle to explain it. In the old days of search, this was a problem because many people were not using the correct phrase to describe what we are. That doesn’t matter anymore.

How does a local business optimize for this though? I am not sure.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#124

Post by btbuildem »

observationist wrote: post #72

Oh no, adtech is dying. I guess we'll all have to compete through quality of products and services and not gaming a rigged system designed to reward anything that maximizes the profit of the global surveillance adtech machine. This gives me warm fuzzy feelings. It's nowhere near good, but this is better than it was.

I wish that were true, but I don't think it's dying, I think it's metastasizing.

Ads will ingress deeper into what were trusted layers -- embedded in text and video in a seemingly organic way. GenAI tools make this possible -- to splice a 20 second mention of something into a stream, or rewrite a paragraph injecting a subtle product placement.

We will develop new mental antibodies for this, we always do. Silver lining of sorts -- while short-form video content is making people illiterate, perhaps literacy will become a calm refuge once again.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#125

Post by fairity »

Surprised to see this upvoted because the takeaway is completely incorrect, and based on the anecdotal evidence of one advertiser.

As someone who spends seven figures every month on Google ads, what’s much more likely to be happening here is that the individual advertiser is either getting outcompeted or they’re executing ads poorly.

Google ads revenue in the US continues to grow every quarter. And, since advertisers will generally invest in ads until the last dollar is break even, it’s likely that the total value advertisers unlock through Google ads is growing as well. Whether that’s true or not, the notion that value generated for advertisers is “dead” is absurd.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#126

Post by delichon »

Push advertising sucks, but we can make pull much better by giving the user more control.

Imagine a protocol to publish commercial offers for any given fragment of content addressable by URI. It would describe the details of some product or service and a set of proposed terms. We could surf the web looking for relevant content and publishing related offers. Various repositories would subscribe or not.

A browser (extension or native) would optionally pull offers from selected repositories and have UI for the user to solicit/pull offers for any given piece of content styled to signal their existence, and to filter and sort them. To make it sustainable there needs to be revenue sharing with the content source(s).

Are there existing projects like this?

The same protocol could be used for independent commentary and other annotation.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#128

Post by tomjuggler »

mattmaroon wrote: post #90

I work in private events and the answer is definitely Facebook. Facebook ads have been better for quite some time. Targeting is a harder but also the CPCs are a lot lower so you can spray and pray a bit more.

Thanks, we tried them before but many years have passed and things have changed. Our new Instagram campaign just bore fruit in the first hour (4 WhatsApp enquiries with $1.50 spent!), will be looking at FB also

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#129

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

An instant drop in 50% means something else is off. The shift to llm's has been happening already for the last years.

Its more likely their your ranking dropped. Or a competitor got ahead of you. Google is still main source of leads for service businesses.

If you are old & previously ranked well the LLM's will also mention you similar to how Google did.

Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?

#130

Post by tshaddox »

bluedino wrote: post #103
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #61

I recently took someone to go and watch a hockey game. Been a little while but I personally played as a goalie myself. The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch. As a goalie, not being able to see the puck is pretty normal (especially with big bodies trying to screen you). What I told her was that what matters a lot more than where the puck is, is where…

> The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch. Lifelong hockey fan, I never understood this complaint. I believe it was FOX that did the 'highlight the puck' thing for a few years in the 1990's. You can't see the ball in American football, either. But you don't need to. The guy that's running and everyone is trying to tackle? He has the ball. Just like th…

> You can't see the ball in American football, either.

The average play must be what, like 5 seconds? So if you lose where the ball is you're not going to be confused for long.

Post reply on HN