Luck: Ask Any Gambler
March 1, 2018
Right now a game-changing startup is begging for funding. That’s a given. But just as likely is the idea that that company is getting completely ignored. It’s a common story that the biggest asset for startups is luck, which was wonderfully illustrated by a recent Quartz story, “Google’s Early Failure to Sell Itself Shows Why We Can’t Recognize Good Ideas.”
According to the funder who wrote Sergey Brin his second check, who advised them to give up on a failed plan to license Google:
“It’s very hard to get anyone else to adopt your baby. I told them, “You have to raise your baby yourself.” They came back some months later, and I don’t think they said I was right, but they’d decided to start their own company because nobody was interested in their baby.”
This has always been the case. These babies that tech gurus design often don’t find sympathetic investors. It’s often like hearing news of a brilliant musician who went unnoticed because of bad luck or a beautiful movie that fell through the cracks. It’s timing and luck and networking and it’s been like this for as long as anyone can remember. Quora was asking how big of a role luck plays in startup success way back in 2010. The results are about what you can expect, but perhaps luck has a flip side.
What about the companies like Excite which decided not to buy Google when Messrs. Brin and Page were stumping for financial love? What about those whose luck runs out?
Ask any gambler in the Techno Casino.
Patrick Roland, March 1, 2018
Not Quite 15 SEO Assertions: Commentary from the Addled Goose
March 1, 2018
I read “Stay in the Online Marketing Game With these 15 SEO Statistics in 2018.” I am sitting in my log cabin in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. The flood waters are rising, and the odor of mine drainage run off fills the morning air. What’s a good use of my time? Commenting on the 15 search engine optimization “statistics.” The write up presents ten items, but, hey, for the SEO wizards that’s close enough. Ten is a really big number. The 15 in the headline is just marketing.
Buckle your seatbelts. Here we go.
| “Statistic” | Beyond Search Honk |
| Desktop search traffic | This is cratering. Most queries are from mobile devices. Web sites and blogs are going the way of the dodo |
| Searches per second | Bogus data because “searches” happen without the user taking action |
| Number of words in a search | Look at results from multi word queries. See the strikeouts. That’s cost reduction and advertising in action |
| Mobile devices | Smart searches mean less user control |
| Link building and high quality content | Nope, the name of the game is buying ads. That triggers relevance |
| Length of content | Baloney |
| Shares and links | Yep, just like the Russia method. Flooding causes some algorithms to go bonkers |
| Focus on SEO | Sure, why not just say, “Hire and SEO expert”? |
| Strategies | Want traffic? Buy ads. See. Simple. |
| Local SEO | Works great if one does business in a area where users rely on their phone for products and services. Here in Harrod’s Creek, I know the stores. |
Now you and I know how to stay in the online marketing game with “statistics”:
- Make up a headline which is inaccurate
- Present generalizations without back up
- Statistics? Hey, who wants to deal with numbers.
Plus I am thrilled that the missing five elements were not in the write. No intellectual loss?
Stephen E Arnold, March 1, 2018
The New York Times Wants to Change Your Google Habit
March 1, 2018
Sunday is a slightly less crazy day. I took time to scan “The Case Against Google.” I had the dead tree edition of the New York Times Magazine for February 25, 2018. You may be able to access this remarkable hybridization of Harvard MBA think, DNA engineered to stick pins in Google, and good old establishment journalism toasted at Yale University.
The author is a wildly successful author. Charles Duhigg loves his family, makes time for his children, writes advice books, and immerses himself in a single project at a time. When he comes up for air, he breathes deeply of Google outputs in order to obtain information. If the Google fails, he picks up the phone. I assume those whom he calls answer the ring tone. I find that most people do not answer their phones, but that’s another habit which may require analysis.
I worked through the write up. I noted three things straight away.
First, the timeline structure of the story is logical. However, leaving it up to me to figure out which date matched which egregious Google action was annoying. Fortunately, after writing The Google Legacy, Google Version 2.0, and Google: The Digital Gutenberg, I had the general timeline in mind. Other readers may not.
Second, the statement early in the write up reveals the drift of the essay’s argument. The best selling author of The Power of Habit writes:
Within computer science, this kind of algorithmic alchemy is sometimes known as vertical search, and it’s notoriously hard to master. Even Google, with its thousands of Ph.D.s, gets spooked by vertical-search problems.
I am not into arguments about horizontal and vertical search. I ran around that mulberry tree with a number of companies, including a couple of New York investment banks. Been there. Done that. There are differences in how the components of a findability solution operate, but the basic plumbing is similar. One must not confuse search with the specific technology employed to deliver a particular type of output. Want to argue? First, read The New Landscape of Search, published by Pandia before the outfit shut down. Then, send me an email with your argument.
Third, cherry picking from Google’s statements makes it possible to paint a somewhat negative picture of the great and much loved Google. With more than 60,000 employees, many blogs, many public presentations, oodles of YouTube videos, and a library full of technical papers and patents, the Google folks say a lot. The problem is that finding a quote to support almost any statement is not hard; it just takes persistence. Here’s an example:
We absolutely do not make changes 5to our search algorithm to disadvantage competitors.
Shiver Me Timbers! Is this the End of Pirate Bay?
March 1, 2018
Admit it! You, like millions of other people, have downloaded an illegal movie, music, book, or other media from Pirate Bay. Is it illegal? Yes. Are you going to be charged? Probably not. Downloading illegal movies, music, books, and other media is not law enforcement’s top priority because they are more preoccupied with more dangerous crimes. Online piracy has been dealt a serious blow and torrent sites like Pirate Bay may sink into the Internet’s briny deep. Read the details in Express’ article, “End Of Pirate Bay? Torrent Sites Left Fearing 2018 Will ‘Kill’ Off Online Piracy.”
Pirate Bay has haunted the Internet ocean for over fifteen years and is a reliable staple for downloading the illegal content of all kind. Law enforcement has tried to sink Pirate Bay and other torrent sites for years, but when one Web site is destroyed another pops up in its place. A non-law enforcement entity will deal a blow to torrent sites: Google. In 2018, Google will launch its new Chrome browser that features an ad-blocker. The ad-blocker automatically blocks autoplay videos and other annoying pop-ups. Why is this bad for torrent sites?
Torrent websites rely on the revenue they bring in from advertising, and the Chrome ad blocker has left some fearing if they’ll be able to carry on. The owner of one torrent site, who did not want to be named, previously told TorrentFreak that the ad blocker could signal the end of torrents. They said: ‘The torrent site economy is in a bad state. Profits are very low. Profits are f***** compared to previous years. Chrome’s ad-blocker will kill torrent sites. If they don’t at least cover their costs, no one is going to use money out of his pocket to keep them alive. I won’t be able to do so at least.’
Law enforcement agencies and governments have tried to halt online piracy for years. As they have wised up to how torrent Web sites skirt the authorities and laws have changed to ensure takedowns, online piracy may be near its end.
Torrent Websites are nearly as old as the Internet. It is hard to imagine the Internet without the more discoverable illicit activities compared to the Dark Web. While Google Chrome and its ad-blocker may be the end for this generation of online piracy, give China, Russia, the Middle East, and Eastern European countries a few months. They will come up with something and it will probably be on the Dark Web.
Whitney Grace, March 1, 2018
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