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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?

#711

Post by tuesdaynight »

tsunamifury wrote: post #325
bix6 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share any numbers ie roughly how different the spend is? SMB spends $1k on ads but grandes spend $1M or something? Idk how it works.

SMBs broadly spend 200-400 dollars a month on ads and see marginal to negative returns against 10 million in spend for large clients. Even 1000-5000 see marginal returns at best unless the target small demo high return (local premium services). They lack the budgets for learning and optimization let alone optimal price per placement. This combined with SMBs targeting everyday joes with increasing less demand availabi…

What is the proportion of spend of SMBs vs large clients? Would you say that large clients are responsible for most of the advertising revenue? I always assumed that would be something like a 50/50 split, but these numbers made me question that assumption.

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

#712

Post by jll29 »

ptero wrote: post #296
cookiengineer wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a very interesting discussion with a friend today, where I was talking to her about the /r/golang thread about Rob Pike's comments to OpenAI and how the thread was full of bots talking with other bots. No idea why the density of bots was so high in that thread, it was kind of absurd to see. Then she said: "I know nobody that comments on online forums. Nobody would ever comment to strangers on the internet. It's…

> No idea how to fix the internet, maybe it's time to move to gopher or another protocol :-/ Fido and Usenet are still around. Kind-of. IMO google virtually killed that, too, when they started peddling google groups and did the classic embrace-extend-extinguish on the Usenet.

Perhaps time for a revival - text mode only, please, to keep out those that I don't want on there (the platform appearing too unattractive might be the way forward to avoid the TikTokers).

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

#713

Post by alex_suzuki »

socalgal2 wrote: post #283
rickcarlino wrote: post #123

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 rec…

Are you using "Meetups" to mean Meetup.com or just events in general? Meetup.com has completely gone to shit. Trying to find an event is super frustrating. They show the same events over and over. They don't enforce categorization. People mark online only events as in person and the platform doesn't care. They also started trying to charge users (people looking to attend events) instead of only planners (people hosti…

What’s super depressing about Meetup.com are those Modal popups that want you to sign up for Pro. You can’t dismiss them. It’s like they’re intentionally destroying their product to squeeze the last remaining dollars from their users, which I assume are becoming fewer and fewer.

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

#714

Post by mbrochh »

nostrademons wrote: post #160
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 regula…

100% this. I used to be a "digital native". I guess I have migrated away from my native lands and now I am a boring old local again.

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

#715

Post by GuB-42 »

jabwd wrote: post #453
GuB-42 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are probably going to make them obvious at first, like with Google search. But they can also make it more pernicious. For example by having companies pay them so that they can train their AI on their products, with regular updates. Not technically an ad, but the AI will be more aware of their products so that they are more likely to be recommended to the user. In other words, that's paying for the right to adver…

probably, probably and more probably. Why would they ever make it obvious? It makes no sense. google just had the luck of political inaction, and eventually enshitified it further to the point where you might not know it was an ad.

For the same reasons why Google did it in the first place.

To not undermine trust into their product and because ads are lower quality than organic results, and by making them indistinguishable, it will make their product worse.

The chatbot market is still competitive, and while users may tolerate ads alongside their answers, they may not tolerate lower quality answers (that is ads disguised as answers). With Google search, they can get away with it because they are still the best even with the enshitification.

There is another reason why it is in their best interest to make it really obvious there are ads. Chatbots want you to pay directly, sometimes hundreds of dollars a month, they are not getting that kind of money with ads, so obnoxious ads are also a way to say "hey look, if you pay, you won't get ads". It doesn't mean ads won't make a comeback in paid tiers later, but not initially.

So, yes, lots of "probably", but my guess would go towards the first ads being obvious and flashy rather than subtle.

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

#716

Post by basch »

tshaddox wrote: post #135
pedalpete wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go a step further and say the ball/puck is not the interesting thing to watch. Imagine if you couldn't see the players, and just saw the puck. Would that be interesting at all? Think about tennis. There is the trope of people's eyes going back and forth following the ball, but I don't think they are following the ball directly. They are going back and forth looking at the person who is going to hit the ball.

I think you might be conflating knowing where the puck is with being able to fix your eyes on the puck at all times . The complaint is usually about the former. People are complaining that they don't know where the puck is.

you dont know what you dont know. walking into hockey for the first time, you may think you should be looking for the puck.

but really, what you want to look for is how the players are moving. it's sort of a "which one is different from all the others." one person will clearly be moving in a completely unique way, as the others chase them or vie to get open or get in somebodys way. to acomplish this identification, youre looking at their legs, shoulders, hands, feet, and heads.

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

#717

Post by basch »

GuB-42 wrote: post #715
jabwd wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

probably, probably and more probably. Why would they ever make it obvious? It makes no sense. google just had the luck of political inaction, and eventually enshitified it further to the point where you might not know it was an ad.

For the same reasons why Google did it in the first place. To not undermine trust into their product and because ads are lower quality than organic results, and by making them indistinguishable, it will make their product worse. The chatbot market is still competitive, and while users may tolerate ads alongside their answers, they may not tolerate lower quality answers (that is ads disguised as answers). With Google…

but google did erode trust in their product, and the american government went after them, so they "made it more obvious" which still really didnt change that most people dont care if something is sponsored and just look at the first result.

it's something that continually needs to be reenforced again and again. somebody will be made example of.

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

#718

Post by tomjuggler »

austinpena wrote: post #341
tomjuggler wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't remember I think it's just the assets though - seems to be surviving so far. How do you get it to cache everything, is that a paid thing?

Page rules should do it

Page rules did it!! thank you

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

#719

Post by jll29 »

jwrallie wrote: post #436
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still mourn G+. It was clearly put together by somebody who thought first and foremost about privacy. It made deciding who to share what with the central, most visible part of how it worked. And that's probably part of why it failed. Was it hard to choose? Nope. But I guarantee you that if Facebook added a little "hey, are you sure you want to share this post publicly with the whole world under your real name? Yes/…

Another mistake is that they had a significant presence in Brazil through Orkut, but they didn’t bother to integrate and migrate the users in. Orkut’s user base was already degraded through Facebook but it was not inexistent, as some features of Orkut were unique. One was that it allowed people to use alt accounts to participate on anonymous discussion, not much different from Reddit, I’m sure with some creativeness…

Orkut Büyükkökten's orkut.com might have been a semi-private project (Google, like any company, doesn't normally name its products after first names of its coders).

Also, as you say, it was populated by many Brazilians, an imbalance like that may discourage non-Brazilians from joining, so not sure if integrating them would have helped or hurt.

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

#720

Post by MrSkelter »

Googles ad business is riddled with fraud in all levels.

Google profits directly from the fraud. It has no incentive to reduce it and is embarrassed by its extent.

Google is essentially overseeing a huge criminal enterprise which funds its other activities. It’s been well documented for over a decade and no one seems to care.

The traffic is faked, the publishers are faked, the clicks are faked and the ad rates are manipulated.

It’s an incredibly lucrative way to steal money with extremely low risk and trivial penalties. The victims are the advertisers. Google has no interest in rocking the boat while they get paid.

The effective ads via Google platforms are like the percentage of real drugs in what’s bought off the street. Coincidental and ever being shaved.

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