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Google is dead. Where do we go now?

circusscientist.com

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

#151

Post by nonameiguess »

I'm glad as hell not to run a business and never plan to, but it's interesting to think as a consumer where I would try to get information like this. Guy's running a service that provides in-person entertainment for events and parties, seemingly things like clowns and magicians, maybe small-time bands or what-not.

Seemingly you don't want to target children directly. If they ask their parents for specific entertainment at a party, they're going to ask for entertainers they know, not companies acting as brokers and middlemen. They might want a particular clown (but probably not) but will never want a particular local vendor of clowns. You need to target the parents for that. If it were me doing the buying, I'd probably prioritize word of mouth recommendations if anyone had such, and otherwise for a large enough event like a wedding or graduation party, I'd look to professional planners. Assuming that's any kind of widespread pattern, you'd want to target strong relationships with planners rather than trying to advertise directly to consumers.

Did people really ever search Google to find party entertainment, and then ignore the search results and use the ads instead? Let alone Tik Tok videos? I guess I'm out of touch enough that the answer can be yes and I'm just that clueless about how small businesses work, but all the comments talking about LLM chatbot services are tripping me out. Y'all would ask ChatGPT who to hire for your kid's party?

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

#152

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

beloch wrote: post #140
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…

Bang on. It's advertising, so literally looking at where people are getting their info from is the way to go. Google searches don't produce good results these days. The enshittification has become too extreme. Google openly admits as much (and further intensifies the enshittification) by placing a huge AI summary above those results. The answer is self evident. If, before, you were relying on clicks resulting from go…

> Google searches don't produce good results these days. The enshittification has become too extreme. Google openly admits as much (and further intensifies the enshittification) by placing a huge AI summary above those results.

I haven't asked Google a question it has failed to provide a more than adequate answer to in ... months? years?

And on all my devices, I run google search with &udm=14, so I am not talking about AI summaries. I also have search personalization disabled.

I see a lot of people complaining about this on HN. It simply doesn't match my experience at all, in any way.

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

#153

Post by piskov »

tensor wrote: post #76
piskov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi will be dead if google and alike are dead. Buying access to web search indices is not the same as having one. (I love them but this is the hard truth)

Kagi is building their own index. There are also other open indexes. Over time these can replace the big corporate indexes. The hard truth is that the big players in search are dead. They are now the yahoo of search, with landing pages full of ads and results that are primarily ads.

See their revenue (number of paid users is not a secret): something around $7M annually? It was half of that not so long ago (glad, that the userbase is growing).

With their current pricing they are out of their league of having any full-blown index, crawlers, people, what have you.

I would say year ago I was amazed how they are alive at all (unless I am missing something in their funding).

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

#154

Post by deadbabe »

Here's the business model in a nutshell: If you want AI to recommend your business for some purpose, you must pay to have it included in the training corpus. And you will pay fees every time those vectors get used for outputs. And if you don't pay, you don't get mentioned.

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

#155

Post by elorant »

Contextual ads is the answer. You sell shoes, go and advertise on fashion related sites. I don't want to see a shoe ad while I'm browsing a gaming site just because I did some relative search a week ago. It's so fucking annoying and I never understood why Google never bothered to try some alternative too. I don't mean completely replace behavioral targeting but at the very least try some contextual one too.

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

#156

Post by elbci »

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 love your vibe but unfortunately I don't share your optimism. The interregnum between monopolies gets exponentially shorter as the money printing gets exponentially faster. What was maybe 20 years of "OK-ish" after say WW2 got down to a few years in the 90s when internet was worth browsing, from Google to AI could be just months..

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

#157

Post by JKCalhoun »

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…

I might be unusual, I only use LLMs to shop these days.

"What is still considered a highly regarded 35mm film camera for under $400 (used)?"

Of course then I go to eBay…

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

#158

Post by mingus88 »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #43

I think the author intended the title to be, "Google Ads is dead, Where do I promote my business now?" When I hear "Google" I assume search, oof (sigh of relief). They mention running ads on tiktok or instagram but no mention of youtube ads... Also, In my own experience for my business ( also entertainment) I have found reddit ads to be useful. So my next steps would be, Reddit Ads Youtube Ads Instagram Ads Increase…

Google ads is dead precisely because their search product is dead.

Ever since Google bought double click, their ads business has been their search business. They are the same product.

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

#160

Post by nostrademons »

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…

In my anecdotal experience, it's moved to private, trust-based channels: iMessage, WhatsApp, email, face-to-face interactions. Our 30-year bender of putting our lives online and blurring the public and the private has finally ended: people don't want to be online, don't trust social media, don't really trust any media, and are living simple local lives with a small circle of friends that they get together with regularly in person.

But then, my anecdotal experience may not be representative of most of the world. Most of my friends have money, houses, kids, friends - all of which are, by the numbers, rarities these days.

It's an interesting thought experiment to explore what it means if that actually is the new normal, and people are not consuming media or much of anything, or even if the people who are still addicted to social media are now tapped out and don't have any more disposable income left to spend. Probably economic depression. If everybody bought only what they needed and ignored all the advertisements, our present level of economic activity would plunge.

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