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Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

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Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#231

Post by 6ren »

ekianjo wrote: post #204
6ren wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree that social search can improve accuracy, and that google knows more about its own social information so it can use it more accurately. Artificially inflating that, for the purpose of pushing their product, is the problem (that's how I'd define "artificial ranking" - ranking on a basis other than returning a page of search results for the user). This avoids the problematic term "objective". I don't buy th…

I am not sure about the "antitrust litigation" claim you make. Nobody is forcing anyone to use Google. There are tons of old search engines and new ones coming up every year. This is very different than having a computer where Windows is installed by default, instead of having the choice of your OS. It's like saying Facebook is also "abusing its market power" because it only shows you contacts on Facebook and not on…

I was thinking of antitrust suits for abuse of market-power. i.e. not about how you got it, but what you do with it. So the analogy is microsoft using their market-power to bundle their media player. BTW Bill Gates thought as you did, that this was perfectly legitimate.

Your point about alternative search engines, and Windows being hard to avoid, is relevant for another kind of antitrust.

Aside: though, I think google is still far and away the best, in terms of response time (especially for predicting search queries as you type - that requires huge local data centres all over the world). e.g. Duck duck go has great features, but it's just too slow (at least, over here in Australia). Who can afford data-centres everywhere? (maybe Amazon...) Google also has one of the strongest brands in the world. So, the choice is kind of figurative. It's an earned monopoly, not earned through abuse, not bad or wrong; but a monopoly nonetheless.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#232

Post by jeffreymcmanus »

danilocampos wrote: post #56

A few decades from now, when someone writes up an HBS case study on Google, how will it read? My suspicion is that Google is going to treat us to a very painful object lesson: what happens to your business when you compromise the values of a beloved core product. Here's the thing: having the most complete, most accurate, most relevant search results means never having to say you're sorry. You can add ads, you can do…

I'm sure this is going to be unpopular, but sorry, when it comes to corporate success, values don't mean shit.

The HBS case study on Google won't even mention "don't be evil" except maybe as an example of how amateurs shouldn't be permitted to do corporate communications.

There are plenty of companies that we love (hello, Apple) that don't pretend to have lofty corporate values. Yet we keep buying their products and they keep making assloads of money. That's the way it is.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#233

Post by VikingCoder »

waqf wrote: post #222
VikingCoder wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity ...what's an example search? Where, you typed a word, that looks convincingly like another word had been misspelled, but in fact is correctly spelled - but has synonyms that you want to look for?

It's not about a single search satisfying all of those properties. I'm just saying I want them all as defaults: that is to say, I don't find it reasonable that I should have to go find the search options page and turn verbatim search off every time I'm about to make a search where synonyms might be helpful, and turn it on again every time I'm about to make a search which might be autocorrected.

...so, if you type something where synonyms might be helpful, it should automatically use synonyms...

...but, sometimes you want to type something that looks like it should be autocorrected, but you want it to not autocorrect it...

...and it's not enough that you can do these things - you want them to happen automatically?

I'm sorry, but that is not "a search tool that does what you ask for," that's MAGIC that you want.

If you think a search engine exists that does this better, please tell us all about it, because I think it would be an example of an intelligent machine, in the Turing Test sense.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#234

Post by blakeross »

6ren wrote: post #157
joebadmo wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However... artificially ranking their own links, ranking that isn't objective, is deadly to the utility of their search, and to their brand. In the past, google products have seemed to rank highly, but google claimed this was their natural rank. What is the evidence against them now? I think the notion of objectivity in search is a fallacy, and I would hesitate to characterize the addition of social search as artific…

Yes, I agree that social search can improve accuracy, and that google knows more about its own social information so it can use it more accurately. Artificially inflating that, for the purpose of pushing their product, is the problem (that's how I'd define "artificial ranking" - ranking on a basis other than returning a page of search results for the user). This avoids the problematic term "objective". I don't buy th…

That's incorrect. The hardcoded Google+ results in the "People and Pages" box, as well as the other two hardcoded locations outlined on this page (http://www.focusontheuser.org/examples.php), appear for all Google users -- whether or not they have a Google+ profile, and even whether or not they're logged into Google. You can see that in this video, which is conducted in a Chrome incognito window in logged-out Google: http://www.focusontheuser.org/video.php

If you're not seeing the Google+ results on some pages, it's just because Google is still in the process of rolling out the feature.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#235

Post by mindcrime »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #232
danilocampos wrote: post #56

A few decades from now, when someone writes up an HBS case study on Google, how will it read? My suspicion is that Google is going to treat us to a very painful object lesson: what happens to your business when you compromise the values of a beloved core product. Here's the thing: having the most complete, most accurate, most relevant search results means never having to say you're sorry. You can add ads, you can do…

I'm sure this is going to be unpopular, but sorry, when it comes to corporate success, values don't mean shit. The HBS case study on Google won't even mention "don't be evil" except maybe as an example of how amateurs shouldn't be permitted to do corporate communications. There are plenty of companies that we love (hello, Apple) that don't pretend to have lofty corporate values. Yet we keep buying their products and…

There are plenty of companies that we love (hello, Apple)

Speak for yourself... there are plenty of us who cheerily invite Apple to go straight to hell. You can certainly count me among their number, for one.

I have no use whatsoever for their anti-hacker ethos, their locked-down, proprietary, "no user repairable parts inside" attitude, and the arrogance with which they presume to know more about what the customer needs, than the customer does.

I'm sure this is going to be unpopular, but sorry, when it comes to corporate success, values don't mean shit.

That's hardly a settled point. There's evidence on both sides of the argument, to this day.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#236

Post by ekianjo »

6ren wrote: post #231
ekianjo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure about the "antitrust litigation" claim you make. Nobody is forcing anyone to use Google. There are tons of old search engines and new ones coming up every year. This is very different than having a computer where Windows is installed by default, instead of having the choice of your OS. It's like saying Facebook is also "abusing its market power" because it only shows you contacts on Facebook and not on…

I was thinking of antitrust suits for abuse of market-power. i.e. not about how you got it, but what you do with it. So the analogy is microsoft using their market-power to bundle their media player. BTW Bill Gates thought as you did, that this was perfectly legitimate. Your point about alternative search engines, and Windows being hard to avoid, is relevant for another kind of antitrust. Aside: though, I think googl…

On Microsoft, (to close the loop), I think it is legitimate for them to include the software they want with Windows (such as IE, media player and all), however it is not normal that hardware manufacturers sell you computers only bundled with Windows and nothing else. That is where the abuse is, for this case.

I think the term "abuse of market power" has very thin legal ground. Anything that becomes popular tend to appear like it "abuses" its power. That's usually what competitors say when they simply give up competiting: they use lawyers and politicians to weaken the leader.

What matters in the end is what value the service provides, and if there is choice available for users to turn to other alternatives. If Google does not provide value anymore (irrelevant results) it will consumers/users in the end, and that will spark demand for better alternatives. The market will adjust. I do not really see an issue with the current situation.

Regarding search engines, Bing and Yahoo may not be as relevant but they also do the job most of the time. There will be new competitors coming, web contents are changing, the way people use the web are changing, all this environment creates opportunities to challenge search on the way. Looking through pages of results of links is hardly something that can be optimal over the long term - we will need better tools, I have no doubt about that.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#237

Post by resnamen »

veyron wrote: post #62
libraryatnight wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Sarah Lacy is capable of producing a "different" tech news site, really. The article read like a tabloid.

what qualifies as a "different" tech news site?

Something like Ars Technica, which is way meatier than the hyperbole and cheerleading that the PandoLemonCrunch school of venture journalism is capable of.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#238

Post by marshray »

esteth wrote: post #162
marshray wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don't want to tell them who you are at all? I.e., you block cookies.

They'll still no doubt be using geolocation to filter results, as well as time of day, browser being used, etc... At their scale, they can no doubt see patterns in data that make it worth personalising search based on those factors, regardless of wether or not you are signed in.

I'm less concerned with receiving unbiased search results than I am being in control of the choice to divulge my own identity.

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#239

Post by mindcrime »

arctangent wrote: post #81
muyuu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I didn't know what they called it, but if it was an idea coming from Google, then it's a really stupid name. Even Google autocompletes it to "spyware" and it starts with SPY. Come on.

I suppose there are worse names. How about "Enlightenment Via Intimate Links" (EVIL)?

How about "Finding Unsolicited Content & Knowledge"? :-)

Re: Larry Page to Googlers: If You Don’t Get SPYW, Work Somewhere Else

#240

Post by surferbayarea »

joebadmo wrote: post #207
surferbayarea wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

search for mark zuckerberg in google. Which is the first social network page that shows up in the search ranking(ranked by google based on publicly available data and its own click-thru data). Why dont they just show that page rather than the google-plus page, whose rank is probably so low it doesn't even show up in the organic search first 10 pages... I'm saying that the kind of click-thru data that google is asking…

I'm saying it's fine for Twitter and FB to withhold that data. But they can't then complain about not being ranked fairly. Conversely, Google started off complaining about not getting access to FB and Twitter data. Then they shut up and made a competing product. FB and Twitter are free to do the same, but I think what Google has just showed is that it's a lot easier for Google to make a compelling social network than…

:) no data is being witheld ! Both facebook.com/zuck and plus.google.com/zuck are public pages. As with all other docs in google's index, they should just use signals like click-data to decide which page shows up. This has nothing to do with private data or not getting access. That's just all PR bullshit.
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