Publishers Sign Up for the Great Unknown: Risky, Oh, Yeah
June 7, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
OpenAI is paying for content. Why? Maybe to avoid lawsuits? Maybe to get access to “real” news to try to get ahead of its perceived rivals? Maybe because Sam AI-Man pushes forward while its perceived competitors do weird things like add features, launch services which are lousy, or which have the taste of the bitter fruit of Zuckus nepenthes.
Publishers are like beavers. Publishers have to do whatever they can to generate cash. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough. Not a cartoon and not a single dam, but just like MSFT security good enough, today’s benchmark of excellence.
“Journalists Deeply Troubled by OpenAI’s Content Deals with Vox, The Atlantic” is a good example of the angst Sam AI-Man is causing among “real” news outfits and their Fourth Estate professionals. The write up reports:
“Alarmed” writers unions question transparency of AI training deals with ChatGPT maker.
Oh, oh. An echo of Google’s Code Red am I hearing? No, what I hear is the ka-ching of the bank teller’s deposit system as the “owner” of the Fourth Estate professional business process gets Sam AI-Man’s money. Let’s not confuse “real” news with “real” money, shall we? In the current economic climate, money matters. Today it is difficult to sell advertising unless one is a slam dunk monopoly with an ad sales system that is tough to beat. Today it is tough to get those who consume news via a podcast or a public Web site to subscribe. I think that the number I heard for conversions is something like one or two subscribers per 100 visitors on a really good day. Most days are not really good.
“Real” journalists can be unionized. The idea is that their services have to be protected from the lawyers and bean counters who run many high profile publishing outfit. The problem with unions is that these seek to limit what the proprietors can do in a largely unregulated capitalist set up like the one operating within the United States. In a long-forgotten pre-digital era, those in a union dust up in 1921 at Blair Mountain in my favorite state, West Virginia. Today, the union members are more likely to launch social media posts and hook up with a needy lawyering outfit.
Let me be clear. Some of the “real” journalists will find fame as YouTubers, pundits on what’s left of traditional TV or cable news programs, or by writing a book which catches the attention of Netflix. Most, however, will do gig work and migrate to employment adjacent to “real” news. The problem is that in any set of “real” journalists, the top 10 percent will be advantaged. The others may head to favelas, their parent’s basement, or a Sheetz parking lot in my favorite state for some chemical relief. Does that sound scary?
Think about this.
Sam AI-Man, according to the Observer’s story “Sam Altman Says OpenAI Doesn’t Fully Understand How GPT Works Despite Rapid Progress.” These money-focused publishers are signing up for something that not only do they not understand but the fellow who is surfing the crazy wave of smart software does not understand. But taking money and worrying about the future is not something publishing executives in their carpetlands think about. Money in hand is good. Worrying about the future, according to their life coach, is not worth the mental stress. It is go-go in a now-now moment.
I cannot foretell the future. If I could, I would not be an 80-year-old dinobaby sitting in my home office marveling at the downstream consequences of what amounts to a 2024 variant of the DR-LINK technology. I can offer a handful of hypotheses:
- “Real” journalists are going to find that publishers cut deals to get cash without thinking of the “real” journalists or the risks inherent in hopping in a small cabin with Sam AI-Man for a voyage in the unknown.
- Money and cost reductions will fuel selling information to Sam AI-Man and any other Big Tech outfit which comes calling with a check book. Money now is better than looking at a graph of advertising sales over the last five years. Money trumps “real” journalists’ complaints when they are offered part-time work or an opportunity to find their future elsewhere.
- Publishing outfits have never been technology adept, and I think that engineered blindness is now built into the companies’ management processes. Change is going to make publishing an interesting business. That’s good for consultants and bankruptcy specialists. It will not be so good for those who do not have golden parachutes or platinum flying cars.
Net net: What are the options for the “real” journalists’ unions? Lawyers, maybe. Social media posts. Absolutely. Will these prevent publishers from doing what publishers have to do? Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2024
Meta Deletes Workplace. Why? AI!
June 7, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Workplace was Meta’s attempt to jump into the office-productivity ring and face off against the likes of Slack and MS Teams. It did not fare well. Yahoo Finance shares the brief write-up, “Meta Is Shuttering Workplace, Its Enterprise Version of Facebook.” The company is spinning the decision as a shift to bigger and better things. Bloomberg’s Kurt Wagner cites reporting from TechCrunch as she writes:
“The service operated much like the original Facebook social network, but let people have separate accounts for their work interactions. Workplace had as many as 7 million total paying subscribers in May 2021. … Meta once had ambitious plans for Workplace, and viewed it as a way to make money through subscriptions as well as a chance to extend Facebook’s reach by infusing the product into work and office settings. At one point, Meta touted a list of high-profile customers, including Starbucks Corp., Walmart Inc. and Spotify Technology SA. The company will continue to focus on workplace-related products, a spokesperson said, but in other areas, such as the metaverse by building features for the company’s Quest VR headsets.”
The Meta spokesperson repeated the emphasis on those future products, also stating:
“We are discontinuing Workplace from Meta so we can focus on building AI and metaverse technologies that we believe will fundamentally reshape the way we work.”
Meta will continue to use Workplace internally, but everyone else has until the end of August 2025 before the service ends. Meta plans to keep user data accessible until the end of May 2026. The company also pledges to help users shift to Zoom’s Workvivo platform. What, no forced migration into the Metaverse and their proprietary headsets? Not yet, anyway.
Cynthia Murrell, June 7, 2024
OpenAI: Deals with Apple and Microsoft Squeeze the Google
June 6, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Do you remember your high school biology class? You may have had a lab partner, preferably a person with dexterity and a steady hand. Dissecting creatures and having recognizable parts was important. Otherwise, how could one identify the components when everything was a glutinous mash up of white, red, pink, gray, and — yes — even green?
That’s how I interpret the OpenAI deals the company has with Apple and Microsoft. What are these two large, cash-rich, revenue hungry companies going to do? The illustration suggest that the two was to corral Googzilla, put the beastie in a stupor, and then take the creature apart.
The little Googzilla is in the lab. Two wizards are going to try to take the creature apart. One of the bio-data operators is holding tweezers to grab the beastie and place it on an adhesive gel pad. The other is balancing the creature to reassure it that it may once again be allowed to roam free in a digital Roatan. The bio-data experts may have another idea. Thanks, MSFT. Did you know you are the character with the tweezers?
Well, maybe the biology lab metaphor is not appropriate. Oh, heck, I am going to stick with the trope. Microsoft has rammed Copilot and its other AI deals in front of Windows users world wide. Now Apple, late to the AI game, went to the AI dance hall and picked the star-crossed OpenAI as a service it would take to the smart software recital.
If you want to get some color about Apple and OpenAI, navigate to “Apple and OpenAI Allegedly Reach Deal to Bring ChatGPT Functionality to iOS 18.”
I want to focus on what happens before the lab partners try to chop up the little Googzilla.
Here are the steps:
- Use tweezers to grab the beastie
- Squeeze the tweezers to prevent the beastie from escaping to the darkness under the lab cabinets
- Gently lift the beastie
- Place the beastie on the adhesive gel.
I will skip the part of process which involves anesthetizing the beastie and beginning the in vivo procedures. Just use your imagination.
Now back to the four steps. My view is that neither Apple nor Microsoft will actively cooperate to make life difficult for the baby Googzilla, which represents a fledgling smart software activity. Here’s my vision.
Apple will do what Apple does, just with OpenAI and ChatGPT. At some point, Apple, which is a kind and gentle outfit, may not chop off Googzilla’s foot. Apple may offer the beastie a reprieve. After all, Apple knows Google will pay big bucks to be the default search engine for Safari. The foot remains attached, but there is some shame attached at being number two. No first prize, just a runner up: How is that for a creature who views itself as the world’s smartest, slickest, most wonderfulest entity? Answer: Bad.
The squeezing will be uncomfortable. But what can the beastie do. The elevation causes the beastie to become lightheaded. Its decision making capability, already suspect, becomes more addled and unpredictable.
Then the adhesive gel. Mobility is impaired. Fear causes the beastie’s heart to pound. The beastie becomes woozy. The beastie is about to wonder if it will survive.
To sum up the situation: The Google is hampered by:
- A competitor in AI which has cut deals that restrict Google to some degree
- The parties to the OpenAI deal are out for revenue which is thicker than blood
- Google has demonstrated a loss of some management capability and that may deteriorate at a more rapid pace.
Today’s world may be governed by techno-feudalists, and we are going to get a glimpse of what happens when a couple of these outfits tag team a green beastie. This will be an interesting situation to monitor.
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2024
Large Dictators. Name the Largest
June 6, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
I read “Social Media Bosses Are the Largest Dictators, Says Nobel Peace Prize Winner.” I immediately thought of “fat” dictators; for example, Benito Mussolini, but I may have him mixed up with Charles Laughton in “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
A mother is trying to implement the “keep your kids off social media” recommendation. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough.
I think the idea intended is something along the lines of “unregulated companies and their CEOs have more money and power than some countries. These CEOs act like dictators on a par with Julius Caesar. Brutus and friends took out Julius, but the heads of technopolies are indifferent to laws, social norms, and the limp limbs of ethical behavior.”
That’s a lot of words. Ergo: Largest dictators is close enough for horseshoes. It is 2024, and no one wants old-fashioned ideas like appropriate business activities to get in the way of making money and selling online advertising.
The write up shares the quaint ideas of a Noble Peace Prize winner. Here are the main points about social media and technology by someone who is interested in peace:
- Tech bros are dictators with considerable power over information and ideas
- Tech bros manipulate culture, language, and behavior
- The companies these dictators runs “change the way we feel” and “change the way we see the world and change the way we act”
I found this statement from the article suggestive:
“In the Philippines, it was rich versus poor. In the United States, it’s race,” she said. “Black Lives Matter … was bombarded on both sides by Russian propaganda. And the goal was not to make people believe one thing. The goal was to burst this wide open to create chaos.” The way tech companies are “inciting polarization, inciting fear and anger and hatred” changes us “at a personal level, a societal level”, she said.
What’s the fix? A speech? Two actions are needed:
- Dump the protection afforded the dictators by the 1996 Communications Decency Act
- Prevent children from using social media.
Now it is time for a reality check. Changing the Communications Decency Act will take some time. Some advocates have been chasing this legal Loch Ness monster for years. The US system is sensitive to “laws” and lobbyists. Change is slow and regulations are often drafted by lobbyists. Therefore, don’t hold your breath on revising the CDA by the end of the week.
Second, go to a family-oriented restaurant in the US. How many of the children have mobile phones? Now, be a change expert, and try to get the kids at a nearby table to give you their mobile devices. Let me know how that works out, please.
Net net: The Peace Prize winner’s ideas are interesting. That’s about it. And the fat dictators? Keto diets and chemicals do the trick.
Stephen E Arnold, June 6, 2024
The Leak: One Nothing Burger, Please
June 5, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Everywhere I look I see write ups about the great Google leak. One example is the poohbah publication The Verge and its story “The Biggest Findings in the Google Search Leak.” From the git-go there is information which reveals something many people know about the Google. It does not explain what it does or its intentions. It just does stuff and then fancy dances around what the company is actually doing. How long has this been going on? Since the litigation about Google’s inspiring encounter with the Yahoo, Overture, GoTo pay-to-play advertising model. In one of my monographs about Google I created this illustration to explain how the Google technology works.
Here’s what I wrote in Google: The Calculating Predator (Infonortics, UK, 2007):
Like a skilled magician, a good stage presence and a bit of misdirection focus attention where Google wants it.
The “leak” is fodder for search engine optimization professionals who unwittingly make the case for just buying advertising. But the leak delivers one useful insight: Google does not tell what it does in plain English. Some call it prevarication; I call it part of the overall strategy of the firm. The philosophy is one manifestation of the idea that “users” don’t need to know anything. “Users” are there to allow Google to sell advertising, broker advertising, and automate advertising. Period. This is the ethos of the high school science club which knows everything. Obviously.
The cited article revealing the biggest findings offers these insights. Please, sit down. I don’t want to be responsible for causing anyone bodily harm.
First snippet:
Google spokespeople have repeatedly denied that user clicks factor into ranking websites, for example — but the leaked documents make note of several types of clicks users make and indicate they feed into ranking pages in search. Testimony from the antitrust suit by the US Department of Justice previously revealed a ranking factor called Navboost that uses searchers’ clicks to elevate content in search.
Are you still breathing. Yep, Google pays attention to clicks. Yes, that’s one of the pay-to-play requirements: Show data to advertisers and get those SEO people acting as an advertising pre-sales service. When SEO fails, buy ads. Yep, earth shattering.
An actual expert in online search examines the information from the “leak” and realizes the data for what they are: Out of context information from a mysterious source. Thanks MidJourney. Other smart services could not deliver a nothing burger. Yours is good enough.
How about this stunning insight:
Google Search representatives have said that they don’t use anything from Chrome for ranking, but the leaked documents suggest that may not be true.
Why would Google spend money to build a surveillance enabled software system? For fun? No, not for fun. Browsers funnel data back to a command-and-control center. The data are analyzed and nuggets used to generate revenue from advertising. This is a surprise. Microsoft got in trouble for browser bundling, but since the Microsoft legal dust up, regulators have taken a kinder, gentler approach to the Google.
Are there more big findings?
Yes, we now know what a digital nothing burger looks like. We already knew what falsehoods look like. SEO professionals are shocked. What’s that say for the unwitting Google pre-advertising purchase advocates?
Stephen E Arnold, June 5, 2024
Lunch at a Big Time Publisher: Humble Pie and Sour Words
June 4, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Years ago I did some work for a big time New York City publisher. The firm employed people who used words like “fungible” and “synergy” when talking with me. I took the time to read an article with this title: “So Much for Peer Review — Wiley Shuts Down 19 Science Journals and Retracts 11,000 Gobbledygook Papers.” Was this the staid, conservative, and big vocabulary?
Yep.
The essay is little more than a wrapper for a Wall Street Journal story with the title “Flood of Fake Science Forces Multiple Journal Closures Tainted by Fraud.” I quite like that title, particularly the operative word “fraud.” What in the world is going on?
The write up explains:
Wiley — a mega publisher of science articles has admitted that 19 journals are so worthless, thanks to potential fraud, that they have to close them down. And the industry is now developing AI tools to catch the AI fakes (makes you feel all warm inside?)
A group of publishing executives becomes the focal point of a Midtown lunch in an upscale restaurant. The titans of publishing are complaining about the taste of humble pie and user secret NYAC gestures to express their disapproval. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Your security expertise may warrant a special banquet too.
The information in the cited article contains some tasty nuggets which complement humble pie in my opinion; for instance:
- The shut down of the junk food publications has required two years. If Sillycon Valley outfits can fire thousands via email or Zoom, “Why are those uptown shoes being dragged?” I asked myself.
- Other high-end publishers have been doing the same thing. Sadly there are no names.
- The bogus papers included something called a “AI gobbledygook sandwich.” Interesting. Human reviews who are experts could not recognize the vernacular of academic and research fraudsters.
- Some in Australia think that the credibility of universities might be compromised. Oh, come now. Just because the president of Stanford had to search for his future elsewhere after some intellectual fancy dancing and the head of the Harvard ethic department demonstrated allegedly sci-fi ethics in published research, what’s the problem? Don’t students just get As and Bs. Professors are engaged in research, chasing consulting gigs, and ginning up grant money. Actual research? Oh, come now.
- Academic journals are or were a $30 billion dollar industry.
Observations are warranted:
- In today’s datasphere, I am not surprised. Scams, frauds, and cheats seems to be as common as ants at a picnic. A cultural shift has occurred. Cheating has become the norm.
- Will the online databases, produced by some professional publishers and commercial database companies, be updated to remove or at least flag the baloney? Probably not. That costs money. Spending money is not a modern publishing CEO’s favorite activity. (Hence the two-year draw down of the fake information at the publishing house identified in the cited write up.)
- How many people have died or been put out of work because of specious research data? I am not holding my breath for the peer reviewed journals to provide this information.
Net net: Humiliating and a shame. Quite a cultural mismatch between what some publishers say and this alleged what the firm ordered from the deli. I thought the outfit had a knowledge-based reason to tell me that it takes the high road. It seems that on that road, there are places where a bad humble pie is served.
Stephen E Arnold, June 4, 2024
Spot a Psyop Lately?
June 3, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
Psyops or psychological operations is also known as psychological warfare. It’s defines as actions used to weaken an enemy’s morale. Psyops can range from simple propaganda poster to a powerful government campaign. According to Annalee Newitz on her Hypothesis Buttondown blog, psyops are everywhere and she explains: “How To Recognize A Psyop In Three Easy Steps.”
Newitz smartly condenses the history of American psyops into a paragraph: it’s a mixture of pulp fiction tropes, advertising techniques, and pop psychology. In the twentieth century, US military harnessed these techniques to make messages to hurt, demean, and distract people. Unlike weapons, psyops can be avoided with a little bit of critical thinking.
The first step is to pay attention when people claim something is “anti-American.” The term “anti-American” can be interpreted in many ways, but it comes down to media saying one group of people (foreign, skin color, sexual orientation, etc.) is against the American way of life.
The second step is spreading lies with hints of truth. Newitz advises to read psychological warfare military manuals and uses an example of leaflets the Japanese dropped on US soldiers in the Philippines. The leaflets warned the soldiers about venomous snakes in jungles and they were signed by with “US Army.” Soldiers were told the leaflets were false, but it made them believe there were coverups:
“Psyops-level lies are designed to destabilize an enemy, to make them doubt themselves and their compatriots, and to convince them that their country’s institutions are untrustworthy. When psyops enter culture wars, you start to see lies structured like this snake “warning.” They don’t just misrepresent a specific situation; they aim to undermine an entire system of beliefs.”
The third step is the easiest to recognize and the most extreme: you can’t communicate with anyone who says you should be dead. Anyone who believes you should be dead is beyond rational thought. Her advice is to ignore it and not engage.
Another way to recognize psyops tactics is to question everything. Thinking isn’t difficult, but thinking critically takes practice.
Whitney Grace, June 3, 2024
Google: Lost in Its Own AI Maze
May 31, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
One “real” news items caught my attention this morning. Let me tell you. Even with the interesting activities in the Manhattan court, these jumped at me. Let’s take a quick look and see if Googzilla (see illustration) can make a successful exit from the AI maze in which the online advertising giant finds itself.
Googzilla is lost in its own AI maze. Can it find a way out? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Three tries and I got a lizard in a maze. Keep allocating compute cycles to security because obviously Copilot is getting fewer and fewer these days.
“Google Pins Blame on Data Voids for Bad AI Overviews, Will Rein Them In” makes it clear that Google is not blaming itself for some of the wacky outputs its centerpiece AI function has been delivering. I won’t do the guilty-34-times thing. I will just mention the non-toxic glue and pizza item. This news story reports:
Google thinks the AI Overviews for its search engine are great, and is blaming viral screenshots of bizarre results on "data voids" while claiming some of the other responses are actually fake. In a Thursday post, Google VP and Head of Google Search Liz Reid doubles down on the tech giant’s argument that AI Overviews make Google searches better overall—but also admits that there are some situations where the company "didn’t get it right."
So let’s look at that Google blog post titled “AI Overviews: About Last Week.”
How about this statement?
User feedback shows that with AI Overviews, people have higher satisfaction with their search results, and they’re asking longer, more complex questions that they know Google can now help with. They use AI Overviews as a jumping off point to visit web content, and we see that the clicks to webpages are higher quality — people are more likely to stay on that page, because we’ve done a better job of finding the right info and helpful webpages for them.
The statement strikes me as something that a character would say in an episode of the Twilight Zone, a TV series in the 50s and 60s. The TV show had a weird theme, and I thought I heard it playing when I read the official Googley blog post. Is this the Google “bullseye” method or a bullsh*t method?
The official Googley blog post notes:
This means that AI Overviews generally don’t “hallucinate” or make things up in the ways that other LLM products might. When AI Overviews get it wrong, it’s usually for other reasons: misinterpreting queries, misinterpreting a nuance of language on the web, or not having a lot of great information available. (These are challenges that occur with other Search features too.) This approach is highly effective. Overall, our tests show that our accuracy rate for AI Overviews is on par with another popular feature in Search — featured snippets — which also uses AI systems to identify and show key info with links to web content.
Okay, we are into bullsh*t method. Google search is now a key moment in the Sundar & Prabhakar Comedy Act. Since the début in Paris which featured incorrect data, the Google has been in Code Red or Red Alert of red faced-embarrassment mode. Now the company wants people to eat rocks, and it is not the online advertising giant’s fault. The blog post explains:
There isn’t much web content that seriously contemplates that question, either. This is what is often called a “data void” or “information gap,” where there’s a limited amount of high quality content about a topic. However, in this case, there is satirical content on this topic … that also happened to be republished on a geological software provider’s website. So when someone put that question into Search, an AI Overview appeared that faithfully linked to one of the only websites that tackled the question. In other examples, we saw AI Overviews that featured sarcastic or troll-y content from discussion forums. Forums are often a great source of authentic, first-hand information, but in some cases can lead to less-than-helpful advice, like using glue to get cheese to stick to pizza.
Okay, I think one component of the bullsh*t method is that it is not Google’s fault. “Users” — not customers because Google has advertising clients, partners, and some lobbyists. Everyone else is a user, and it is users’ fault, the data creators’ fault, and probably Sam AI-Man’s fault. (Did I omit anyone on whom to blame the let them “eat rocks” result?)
And the Google cares. This passage is worthy of a Hallmark card with a foldout:
At the scale of the web, with billions of queries coming in every day, there are bound to be some oddities and errors. We’ve learned a lot over the past 25 years about how to build and maintain a high-quality search experience, including how to learn from these errors to make Search better for everyone. We’ll keep improving when and how we show AI Overviews and strengthening our protections, including for edge cases, and we’re very grateful for the ongoing feedback.
What’s my take on this?
- The assumption that Google search is “good” is interesting, just not in line with what I hear, read, and experience when I do use Google. Note: That my personal usage has decreased over time.
- Google is trying to explain away its obvious flaws. The Google speak may work for some people, just not for me.
- The tone is that of a entitled seventh-grader from a wealthy family, not the type of language I find particularly helpful when the “smart” Google software has to be remediated by humans. Google is terminating humans, right? Now Google needs humans. What’s up Google?
Net net: Google is snagged it ins own AI maze. I am growing less confident in the company’s ability to extricate itself. The Sam AI-Man has crafted deals with two outfits big enough to make Google’s life more interesting. Google’s own management seems ineffectual despite the flashing red and yellow lights and the honking of alarms. Google’s wordsmiths and lawyers are running out of verbal wiggle room. But most important, the failure of the bullseye method and the oozing comfort of the bullsh*it method marks a turning point for the company.
Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2024
A Different View of That Google Search Leak
May 30, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
As a dinobaby, I can make observations that a person with two young children and a mortgage are not comfortable making. So buckle your seat belt and grab a couple of Prilosec. I don’t think the leak is a big deal. Let me provide some color.
This cartoon requires that you examine the information in “Authorities: Google Exec Died on Yacht after Upscale Prostitute Injected Him with Heroin.” The incident provides some insight into the ethical compass of one Google officer. Do others share that directionality? Thanks, MSFT Copilot. You unwittingly produced a good cartoon. Ho ho ho.
Many comments are zipping around about the thousands of pages of Google secret information are flying around. The “legend” of the leak is that Search API information became available. The “spark” which lit the current Google fire was this post: “An Anonymous Source Shared Thousands of Leaked Google Search API Documents with Me; Everyone in SEO Should See Them.” (FYI: The leaker is an entity using the handle “Erfan Azimi.”)
That write up says:
This documentation doesn’t show things like the weight of particular elements in the search ranking algorithm, nor does it prove which elements are used in the ranking systems. But, it does show incredible details about data Google collects.
If you want more of this SEO stuff, have at it. I think the information is almost useless. Do Googler’s follow procedures? Think about your answer for a company that operates essentially without meaningful controls. Here’s my view which means it is time to gulp those tabs.
First, the entire SEO game helps Google sell online advertising. Once the SEO push fails to return results to the client of the SEO expert, Google allows these experts to push Google ads on their customer. Why? Pay Google money and the advertiser will get traffic. How does this work? Well, money talks, and Google search experts deliver clicks.
Second, the core of Google is now surrounded by wrappers. The thousands of words in the leak record the stuff essentially unmanaged Googlers do to fill time. After 25 years, the old ideas (some of which were derived from the CLEVER method for which Jon Kleinberg deserves credit.) have been like a pretty good organic chicken swathed in hundreds of layers of increasingly crappy plastic wrap. With the appropriate source of illumination, one can discern the chicken beneath the halogenated wrap, but the chicken looks darned awful. Do you want to eat the chicken? Answer: Probably no more than I want to eat a pizza with non-toxic glue in the cheese.
Third, the senior management of the Google is divorced from the old-fashioned idea of typing a couple of words and getting results which are supposed to be germane to the query. When Boolean logic was part of the search game, search was about 60 percent effective. Thus, it seemed logical over the years to provide training wheels and expand the query against which ads could be sold. Now the game is just to sell ads because the query is relaxed, extended, and mostly useless except for a narrow class of search strings. (Use Google dorks and get some useful stuff.)
Okay, what are the implications of these three observations? Grab another Prilosec, please.
First, Google has to make more and more money because its costs are quite difficult to control. With cost control out of reach, the company’s “leadership” must focus on extracting cash from “users.” (Customers is not the right word for those in the Google datasphere.) The CFO is looking for her future elsewhere. The key point is that her future is not at the Google, its black maw hungry for cash, and the costs of keeping the lights on. Burn rate is not a problem just for start ups, folks.
Second, Google’s senior management is not focused on search no matter what the PR says. The company’s senior leader is a consultant, a smooth talking wordsmith, and a neutral personality to the outside world. As a result, the problems of software wrappers and even the incredible missteps with smart software are faint sounds coming from the other side of a sound-proofed room in a crazy college dormitory. Consultants consult. That’s what Google’s management team does. The “officers” have to figure out how to implement. Then those who do the work find themselves in a cloud of confusion. I did a blog essay about one of Google’s odd ball methods for delivering “minimum viable products”. The process has a name, but I have forgotten it, just like those working on Google’s “innovative” products which are difficult for me to name even after the mind-numbing Google I/O. Everything is fuzzy and illuminated by flickering Red Alert and Yellow Alert lights.
Third, Google has been trying to diversify its revenue stream for decades. After much time and effort, online advertising is darned close to 70 percent of the firm’s revenue. The numerous venture capital initiatives, the usually crazy skunk works often named X or a term from a weird union of a humanoid and a piece of hardware have delivered what? The Glasshole? The life-sized board game? The Transformic Inc.s’ data structure? Dr. Guha’s semantic technology? Yeah, failures because the revenue contributed is negligible. The idea of innovation at Google from the Backrub in the dorm has been derivative, imitative, and in the case of online advertising methods something for which Google paid some big bucks to Yahoo before the Google initial public offering. Google is not imitative; it is similar to a high school science club with an art teacher in charge. Google is clever and was quick moving. The company was fearless and was among the first to use academic ideas in its commercial search and advertising business until it did not. We are in the did not phase. Think about that when you put on a Google T shirt.
Finally, the company lacks the practical expertise to keep its 155,000 (estimated to be dropping at a cadence) full-time equivalents on the reservation. Where did the leaked but largely irrelevant documents originate? Not Mr. Fishkin: He was the lucky recipient of information from Mr. Ezimi. Where did he get the documents? I am waiting for an answer, Mr. Ezimi. Answer carefully because possession of such documents might be something of interest to some government authorities. The leak is just one example of a company which cannot coordinate information in a peer-reviewed journal paper. Remember the stochastic parrot? If not, run a query and look at what Google outputs from its smart software. And the protests? Yeah, thanks for screwing up traffic and my ability to grab a quick coffee at Philz when the Googlers are milling around with signs. Common sense seems in short supply.
So what?
For those who want search traffic, buy advertising. Plan to spend a minimum of $20,000 per month to get some action. If you cannot afford it, you need to put your thinking cap in a USB C socket and get some marketing ideas. Web search is not going to deliver those eyeballs. My local body shop owner asked me, “What can I do to get more visibility for my Google Local listing?” I said, “Pay a friend to post about your business in Nextdoor.com, get some customers to post about your dent removal prowess on Facebook, and pay some high school kid to spend some time making before and after pictures for Instagram. Pay the teen to make a TikTok video of a happy customer.” Note that I did not mention Google. It doesn’t deliver for local outfits.
Now you can kick back and enumerate the reasons why my view of Google is wrong, crazy, or out of touch. Feel free to criticize. I am a dinobaby; I consulted for a certain big time search engine; I consulted for venture firms investing in search; and I worked on some Fancy Dan systems. But my experience does not matter. I am a dinobaby, and I don’t care how other people find information. I pay several people to find information for me. I then review what those young wizards produce. Most of them don’t agree with me on some issues. That’s why I pay them. But this dinobaby’s views of Google are not designed to make them or you happy.
Net net: The image of Google to keep in mind is encapsulated in this article: Yacht Killing: Escort to Be Arraigned in Google Exec’s Heroin Death. Yep, Googlers are sporty. High school mentalities make mistakes, serious mistakes.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2024
Guarantees? Sure … Just Like Unlimited Data Plans
May 30, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness.
I loved this story: “T-Mobile’s Rate Hike Raises Ire over Price Lock Guarantees.” The idea that something is guaranteed today is a hoot. Remember “unlimited data plans”? I think some legal process determined that unlimited did not mean without limits. This is not just wordsmithing; it is probably a behavior which, if attempted in certain areas of Sicily, would result in something quite painful. Maybe a beating, a knife in the ribs, or something more colorful? But today, are you kidding me?
The soon-to-be-replaced-by-a-chatbot AI entity is reassuring a customer about a refund. Is the check in the mail? Will the sales professional take the person with whom he is talking to lunch? Absolutely. This is America, a trust outfit for sure. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Working on security today?
The write up points out:
…in T-Mobile’s case, customers are seething because T-Mobile is raising prices on plans that were offered with “guarantees” they wouldn’t go up, such as T-Mobile One plans.
Unusual? No, visit a big time grocery store. Select 10 items at random. Do the prices match what was displayed on the shelves? Let me know. Our local outfit is batting 10 percent incorrect pricing per 10 items. Does the manager care? Sure, but does the pricing change or the database errors get adjusted. Ho ho ho.
The article reported:
“Clearly this is bad optics for T-Mobile since it won many people over as the ‘non-corporate’ un-carrier,” he [Eric Michelson, a social and digital media strategist] said.
Imagine a telecommunications company raising prices and refusing to provide specific information about which customers get the opportunity to pay more for service.
Several observations:
- Promises mean zero. Ask people trying to get reimbursed for medical expenses or for post-tornado house repairs
- Clever is more important that behaving in an ethical and responsible manner. Didn’t Google write a check to the US government to make annoying legal matters go away?
- The language warped by marketers and shape shifted by attorneys makes understanding exactly what’s afoot difficult. How about the wording in an omnibus bill crafted by lobbyists and US elected officials’ minions? Definitely crystal clear to some. To others, well, not too clear.
Net net: What’s up with the US government agencies charged with managing corporate behavior and protecting the rights of citizens? Answer: These folks are in meetings, on Zoom calls, or working from home. Please, leave a message.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2024
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