Never Enough! Even Google Needs To Buy Data
July 15, 2022
Google needs to buy data. Say what? That seems to be a contrary sentence, but The Verge explains that: “Google Is Paying The Wikimedia Foundation For Better Access To Information.” It would make sense that Google would buy large datasets to feed/instruct its AI projects, but why would the search engine need to buy Wikimedia Foundation information? Google is one of the first Wikimedia Enterprise customers and the company wants to buy its data to be the most accurate and up-to-date search engine. The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization that created Wikipedia.
Google’s crawlers already scrape Wikipedia’s pages, but that has the downside of being outdated and inaccurate. Google will no longer need to rely on free data dumps and free APIs. Wikimedia Enterprise customers are given access to proprietary APIs that recycle and process information at larger rates. Google has loved Wikipedia for years:
“Although you may not notice it, Google uses Wikimedia’s services in a number of ways. The most obvious is within its “knowledge panels,” which appear on the side of search results pages when you look up the people, places, or things within Google’s massive database. Wikipedia is one of the sources Google frequently uses to populate the information inside these panels. Google also cites Wikipedia in the information panels it adds to some YouTube videos to fight misinformation and conspiracy theories (although it didn’t really inform Wikimedia of its plans to do so ahead of time).”
Google has not explained how it will use the Wikimedia Foundation, but we can surmise that it will be cited more and pushed to the top of search results more. The Internet Archive also is a Wikimedia Foundation customer.
Whitney Grace, July 15, 2022
Listen Up! Direct from a Former Verity Executive: Google Search Lags
July 13, 2022
If anyone knows about falling behind in search and retrieval, it is probably a former Verity executive. Verity provided a decent security token to limit content access and created one of the world’s most sluggish indexing updating methods I had ever encountered. When was this? The late 1990s. Verity ended up as a contributor to the estimable Autonomy “search” offering. Therefore, experience in moving users to content is a core competency of former Verity executives.
I spotted a Googler who was a former Verity executive. The individual identified how a search and retrieval system does not meet the needs of the here and now user. The information is contained in what I think somewhat askew discussion of the Google finding system. The information appears in “Google Exec Suggests Instagram and TikToc Are Eating into Google’s Core Products, Search and Maps.” The write up includes some interesting observations. These comments reveal Google’s apparently slow realization that it is making money as it loses the hearts and minds of a couple of important customer segments. It also colors the outlines of Google’s hesitancy to identify one of its most difficult search problems: Amazon.com.
I noted these statements in the article:
he [the former Verity executive] somewhat offhandedly noted that younger users were now often turning to apps like Instagram and TikTok instead of Google Search or Maps for discovery purposes. “We keep learning, over and over again, that new internet users don’t have the expectations and the mindset that we have become accustomed to.” Raghavan said, adding, “the queries they ask are completely different.”
Experience matters. Verity went nowhere and ended up a footnote in Autonomy’s quest for customers, not technology and cutting edge functionality. Been there, seen that could be one of the triggers for this moment of candor.
Here’s another:
“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search,” he continued. “They go to TikTok or Instagram.” The figure sounds a bit shocking, we have to admit. Google confirmed to us his comments were based on internal research that involved a survey of U.S. users, ages 18 to 24. The data has not yet been made public, we’re told, but may later be added to Google’s competition site, alongside other stats — like how 55% of product searches now begin on Amazon, for example.
Flash back to the Verity era. New systems were becoming available. The wild and crazy Fast Search & Transfer folks were demonstrating a different almost “webby” approach to finding enterprise information. There was a sporty system from ISYS Search which provided a graphical interface, which — believe it or not — is still in the commercial market. There were quite fascinating folder oriented systems like Folio and Lextek. There were rumblings about semantics from Purple Yogi, later renamed Stratify, and also still available sort of from a records management company. Verity was lagging in the race to search domination.
So is Google. And a former Verity wizard identifies three companies which pose a bit of a challenge to a company which lacks focus, urgency, and hunger.
Add to this mea culpa the allegedly accurate statements reported in “Read the Memo Google’s CEO Sent Employees about a Hiring Slowdown.” The main idea in my opinion is that the mighty Googzilla is wandering in the wilderness with billions from online advertising. The problem is that developers are putting up trailer parks, slumurbia housing, and giant digital K-Marts. Googzilla is confused. Where’s the Moses to snap a leash on the beastie and pull the multi-ton monster to a valley filled with prey?
The trajectory for Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind and the solving death folks seems to be discernable. Peak Google, yep. Now gravity. (No, I won’t quote from the endlessly readable Gravity’s Rainbow. Sorry, I lied. How about this line from the page turner?
You think you’d rather hear about what you call life: the growing, organic Kartell. But it’s only another illusion. A very clever robot. The more dynamic it seems to you, the more deep and dead, in reality, it grows.
Verity, mostly dead. The Google? Well, gravity. No pot of gold at the end of this digital rainbow I surmise.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2022
The Google: A 20-Something with Digital Cancer?
July 9, 2022
I read a blog post called “Who Is Going To Replace Google For Us?” The write up, in my opinion, starts with the premise that Google is in big trouble. I like to think of the Google as struggling with digital cancer, not the fixable skin stuff but the not-so-slick pancreatic cancer.
The blog post states:
The primary search product no longer works for many things, it is no longer adjusted to fight SEO. They have allowed shopping to be dominated by near 60% Amazon links and search results for any kind of product are consumed by semi-fake comparison pages Amazon referral clickbait.
I also noted this comment:
The modern internet – for which Google by virtue of it’s near-monopoly status is responsible – falls far short of what 20th century science fiction thought it would be. There’s not a lot of information. There’s a lot of crappy goods being sold and a lot of ads. I occasionally find some good things, like agricultural extension websites, but there’s not a lot of genuine content that rises to the top.
I found this harsh. Employees and certain contractors can call a Googler. Oh, you are not in one of those categories. Well, think of the contact problem as an emulation of the AT&T-type approach to customer service. A “customer” spends big bucks. If not, you are not a “customer”; therefore, no customer service. This makes sense in the current business context I believe.
I liked the post. I would point out that Google wants to include links to Amazon because Amazon.com is not the go-to place for product information. The new wizard from Verity (remember those nifty security tokens and remarkable performance?) is going to do more of this shopping stuff. Why?
Amazon. Plus Google has problems with the TikTok thing. Also, Google faces a bit of management pressure from assorted Timnit-Gebru type situations, the absolute out of control wackiness of Google’s version of HAL, and the rascals in the European Union who are definitely not Googley.
Search is just one visible presentation of a certain digital issue. Incurable? Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2022
Is Google a Giving Outfit? One Possible Example
July 9, 2022
I believe everything I read whilst loafing along the info highway. Here’s an example of a real news item which seems plausible, but is the information accurate? Who knows? Let’s consider that a tittle of truth lies therein. The article is “Google Allowed a Sanctioned Russian Ad Company to Harvest User Data for Months.” The write up asserts:
…As recently as June 23, Google was sharing potentially sensitive user data with a sanctioned Russian ad tech company owned by Russia’s largest state bank
The info comes from an outfit called Adalytics. The article continues:
Adalytics identified close to 700 examples of RuTarget receiving user data from Google after the company was added to a U.S. Treasury list of sanctioned entities on Feb. 24. The data sharing between Google and RuTarget stopped four months later on June 23, the day ProPublica contacted Google about the activity.
I believe in coincidences, particularly when real media, the Google, and the special action are inter-twined.
My thoughts this morning (July 2, 2022):
- I will probably hear on CSPAN at some point in the future: “Senator, thank you for the question. I don’t have knowledge of that. I will get back to you with the information you request.”
- Google is sufficiently disorganized, involved with personnel management issues, and dealing with media inquiries about it’s smart software become alive that the Googlers downstream did not get the memo.
- Google’s incentive plans reward benchmarks and upticks. Downticks like cutting off a revenue stream are not high on a Googler’s to do list.
Net net: I believe everything I read on the Internet. In this case, maybe this report from a firm of which I have never heard is an arrow in Googzilla’s eye. Maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2022
Dr. Google, Dr. Google, Emergency, Emergency
July 8, 2022
The United States’s healthcare system is a giant mess controlled by drug makers, pharmacies, insurance companies, hospitals, and others who benefit from the system. The country spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare. There is a lot of money to be made in American healthcare and big tech companies know it. The Economist explains how, “Alphabet Is Spending Billions To Become A Force In Health Care.” The five big tech companies have invested over $3 billion and probably more. These investments range from Amazon’s telemedicine and online pharmacy, the health features on Apple’s smartwatch, Microsoft has health-related cloud computing offerings, and Meta’s reality-reproducing releasing fitness-related features.
Google’s parent company Alphabet is making the most ambitious moves in healthcare. Between 2019 and 2021 Alphabet more than one hundred deals in life sciences and healthcare with venture capital funds. In 2022, Alphabet has so far spent $1.7 billion in advancing health technology and science. Alphabet is using the same business tactics as in the past: throwing lots of money at projects and seeing what develops.
Alphabet has plans for wearables, health records, health-related AI, and extending human life. Google purchased Fitbit in 2019 for $2.1 billion and the company designed a feature that monitors the heart for irregularities. The FDA approved it. With this approval, Google hopes it will also see the same for its Pixel Watch, Pixel phone, and Google Nest.
Alphabet also wants to increase transparency in electronic health records:
“Google is also giving health records another whirl. The new initiative, called Care Studio, is aimed at doctors rather than patients. Google’s earlier efforts in this area were derailed in part by hospitals’ sluggishness in digitizing their patient records. ‘That problem has mostly gone away but another has emerged,’ says Karen DeSalvo, Google’s health chief—‘the inability of different providers’ records to talk to each other.’ Dr DeSalvo has been vocal about the need for greater interoperability since her days in the
Obama administration, where she was in charge of coordinating American health information technology. Until that happens, Care Studio is meant to act as both translator and repository (which is, naturally, searchable).”
The company has already made headway with AI, such as AlphaFold-software that predicts protein structures and Isomorphic Labs that will accelerate and cheapen drug discovery. As for stopping the aging process, subsidiary Verily partnered with L’Oréal to study skin biology. Its other subsidiary Calico received 42.5 billion from AbbVie to study age-related diseases.
Alphabet faces many roadblocks, such as governments, government data that is difficult for AI to read, market competition, and general difficulties. Alphabet probably will not solve the mystery of death.
Whitney Grace, July 8, 2022
Waymo: A Few Bugs? Impossible, Google Does Not Do Bugs, Does It?
July 5, 2022
I read an amusing article about Google’s smart autos. It was “Traffic Cones Confused a Waymo Self-Driving Car. Then Things Got Worse.” I noted this explanation of a minor issue:
A confused Waymo self-driving car was captured on video as it became stranded on an Arizona road earlier this month while carrying a passenger and then unexpectedly driving away as a worker from the company’s roadside assistance arrived to help. But the Waymo vehicle soon became stuck farther down the road, which was lined with construction cones. The Waymo worker caught up to the vehicle, took over, and drove the paying passenger to his final destination. Waymo operates a limited ride hail service in Chandler, Arizona.
Traffic cones are familiar, if unloved, accoutrements of modern highway life. Telecommunication companies, contractors related to elected officials, and fun loving high school students put them in interesting places. Japan has traffic cones with embossed faces, according to the real news outfit SoraNews24.com:
This image originated with www.soranews24.com and I am eager to credit them for their outstanding news coverage of traffic cones. Could the face on the cone have frightened the almost sentient Google smart software?
An outfit called Briskoda.net offers a traffic cone with humanoid characteristics but no explanation.
Kudos to Briskoda, a forum for the owners and lovers of the outstanding Skoda vehicles. Sorry. I don’t know how to enter the S with the little hat. Check out www.briskoda.net, and you may inspired to acquire this gem of a European vehicle.
If the Waymo smart software was confused by these types of traffic cones, I think we should forgive Google for the misstep described in the article. If the smart software is just not functioning, perhaps a critical look is warranted? Perhaps Google has to put “waymo wood” behind this smart driver autonomous thing.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2022
Xoogler Demonstrates Historical Revisionism
July 4, 2022
How did Google’s famous “solving death” project get funded? What about the “put wood behind” social networking initiative? What about those X moon shots?
The answers to these and other Google mysteries allegedly appear in “Former Google CEO Describes Brutal Review Process for New Projects.” The write up reveals:
Schmidt always stated Google took a bottom-up approach to managing the 20% project. Meaning it was a collaborative effort in deciding what steps to take with new product ideas. However, Schmidt says at Collision that company leaders were more involved than previously stated. It wasn’t a team decision that allowed projects to advance to the next level. The decision was determined through a “brutal” review process from management.
The questions asked, according to the article, were:
Are these ideas good enough?
Can we fund them?
Are they going to work?
Are they going to scale?
Are they legal?
One question I thought would be included was, “Is it possible to solve death?”
Obviously I am not officially Googley, but, take it from me, that is okay. Tony Bennett crooning in the cafeteria was sufficient for me. I also liked entering a building on Surfside because the door was propped open so those washing cars could traipse in and out without those silly key cards.
But death?
The write up includes this quote from the former leader of the online ad outfit:
To build a systemic innovation culture, which is what I think we’re talking about here, you need to have both bottoms up and tops down.
That’s logical. And logic rules at Google, right? Oh, I forgot to ask, “Is it possible arrogance plays a small part?”
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2022
Has Google Search Lost Interest in South Africa?
July 1, 2022
I read “Google.co.za Is Down and the Domain Is Pending Deletion.” The write up states:
The website address google.co.za, which many South Africans use to access the Google search engine, was unavailable on Friday – apparently because the company failed to renew the domain. Popular subdomains, including news.google.co.za and maps.google.co.za were also unavailable.
And so are the ads! That’s serious, gentle reader.
Like WebAccelerator and Orkut, the Google can lose interest in a project. Remember when Google was going to solve death. I also liked the quaint idea of relevant search which is morphing into a jazzed up way to catch up with Amazon ecommerce search.
The article points out:
The google.co.za domain was registered by MarkMonitor on Google’s behalf. According to WikiPedia, MarkMonitor is a US software company that protects corporate brands from Internet counterfeiting, fraud, piracy and cybersquatting.
Has MarkMonitor some of the characteristics of the recruiting and contractor savvy firm responsible for placing alleged cult members in one Google unit.
My thought is that if the country of South Africa has been deemed surplus, the reason may be that someone had a bad safari experience or because … Google.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2022
Google: Trust an Issue?
July 1, 2022
I read “After 16 Years, Google Is Doing the 1 Thing No Company Should Ever Do.” The write up states:
Google is now requiring businesses who still have a G Suite Legacy Free Edition account to transition to a paid Workspace account by June 27. If you don’t, the company will do it for you. If you don’t start paying by August 1, Google will suspend your account.
The point of the article is that Google once said, “Hey, free!”
The business magazine appears to find Google’s behavior surprising, fresh, new, different, and bad. The effect is to erode the trust one has in Google. Trust! Google?
I learned in “Google Pledges to Negotiate Fairly with French News Media” (Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2022):
France’s competition authority said … that a new set of promises that Google made, including a pledge to give publishers estimates of indirect revenue it generates from including news content in its search results, has resolved a dispute that has stretched for more than two years.
Does this mean that Google was not negotiating fairly?
Okay whatever.
I wonder how many people have notice that Google has some other tricks up its sleeve.
Impressive. But TikTok continues to gobble up online advertising dollars. And Amazon is building its online ad business. (To deal with Amazon, the pesky online bookstore, Google has deployed the absolutely fantastic Prabhakar Raghavan to make free Google Web search more like a product catalog. Take that, Amazon!
Here’s one trust example possibly related to YouTube advertisers seeking the wlw audience. The estimable Murdochian newspaper published “YouTube Gains on TikTok in Short Video.” The story ran in the Wall Street Journal on June 16, 2022. Here’s one factoid which is allegedly true:
More than 1.5 billion people watch YouTube Shorts every month…. The short video service had reached a comparable scale to rival app TikTok after launching less than two years ago.
I noticed that when one searches YouTube for “wlw”, there are a number of hits to TikTok compilations on this topic of “women loving women.” Upon further inspection, Google Shorts includes these long form compilations in its short form video service. Clicking on a single TikTok source video repeats the video until the user terminates it.
So what?
Answer: Clicks, gentle reader.
If one is an advertiser, one may want to explore how much TikTok content is helping the Google grow at its impressive rate.
Trust? Inc. Magazine understands trust I think.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2022
Chrome De-Googled?
June 27, 2022
Concerned about the Google and its engineered advertising delivery vehicle? If you are like those in Italy’s government banning some Google tools, you might be interested in the Chrome browser without some of Google’s added extras. Are you familiar with Google hotwords? Ah, right.
Navigate to “Ungoogled Chromium.” The article provides a summary of the features of the De-Googled version of Chrome. There’s also a link to download the code; however, these software links can disappear into the aether without much warning. If so, you are on your own, gentle reader. There are even command line switches available. These make it easier to see what the Google version of Chrome does to manage one’s browsing experience. (What did TikTok learn from Google? That’s a question which a motivated researcher might want to explore. Just a thought?)
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2022
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