Beyond Search to Cybersocialization
May 23, 2009
Ad Age is not my first choice in morning reading. I scanned the article “The Coming End of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Socialism” by Simon Dumenco here because these services are going like great guns in World War One. In fact, one of my history profs asserted that World War One was a precursor to World War Two, and that, ladies and gentlemen, ushered in much of our current brave new world.
Mr. Dumenco asserted:
It’s sweet, really, that venture capitalists have ponied up millions so that we can all keep tweeting. It’s also more than a bit scary. Because more and more of us are increasingly addicted not only to Twitter, but to other services that lack workable business models. What happens if the “dealers” who feed our habits disappear? (It’s been known to happen. Last week, for instance, Yahoo announced it was shutting down last century’s hot social-networking-esque service, GeoCities, for which it paid $3.5 billion in 1999.)
After reminding me that money may not be “smart” when it comes to Ad Age’s view of business, Mr. Dumenco concluded:
Seriously. I love YouTube, I’ve made some interesting connections through Facebook, and I enjoy Twittering. (Last week, for instance, I tweeted about an astonishing bit of information I came across in Britain’s Daily Telegraph: YouTube “reportedly uses as much bandwidth as the entire internet took up in 2000.”)
Two thoughts this gloomy day in Cleveland, once home to the burning river:
One. The notion of socialism is interesting, but I don’t think the argument was developed, nor presented in a way that squeezed the milk from this metaphor. The referenced services are superficially similar if one views them from the with it, Mad Ave vantage point. But I don’t see the three as having much similarity with socialism let alone to coinage “cybersocialization”. Balkanization and middle school friendship groups seem to be more on point to me along with the prospect of skills no longer in demand in today’s job market. The lack of cohesion within the services and their interesting swarming behavior seems to be a new type of social integration. The old and familiar “isms” don’t provide much in the way of handholds in my opinion.
Two. The ad perspective is commissionable monetization. None of these three services has figured out a business model for themselves that generates sufficient cash to keep the Odwalla flowing for the employees and contractors. More problematic is the reality that Mad Ave types have to sit on the sidelines, Twittering and updating Facebook pages, without an opportunity for billing. The market available to Facebook owners, for example, seems to be a challenge to squeeze into the old, familiar business models. As a result, Facebook is experimenting and while Facebook tries to figure out its financial future, the Mad Ave types are being driven wacky because they can’t figure out how to cash in on the service. The squirming reminds me of a class of third graders denied recess.
Bottomline for me: traditional and familiar advertising models have to be custom fit to these new markets. Venture firms have nothing to do with this problem, nor can money solve the problem. When I watched a jeweler in Istanbul fit a stone into a cheap sterling silver setting, I was surprised at how long it took. The value of the finished piece was insufficient to compensate the worker for the labor. But the jeweler managed. Ad execs may not have the degrees of freedom the jeweler enjoyed. With each passing day, the old Mad Ave skills may be eroding.
Like the publishing and financial sectors, the issue is not socialization. It is life on the dole or a McJob. I don’t think the end of YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter is impossible. I think that more disruption will take place before these outfits bite the dust. Traditional advertising is likely to face a greater challenge in the short term. Tweet that.
Stephen Arnold, May 23, 2009
Google, YouTube, and Digital Volume
May 22, 2009
Short honk: A year or so ago, I learned that Google received about one million new video objects per month. TechCrunch reported here that Google’s YouTube.com ingests about 20 hours of video every minute. I don’t know if this estimate is spot on, but it is clear that YouTube is amassing one of the world’s largest collections of rich text content in digital form. For me, the most interesting information in the write up was:
Back in 2007, shortly after Google bought the service, it was 6 hours of footage being uploaded every minute. As recently as January of this year, that number had grown to 15 hours, according to the YouTube blog. Now it’s 20 — soon it will be 24.
Lots of data means opportunity for the GOOG. I am looking forward to having the audio information searchable.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2009
Drat. Wolfram Alpha May Not Be Revolutionary
May 22, 2009
The Guardian really wants to hobble the Google. When I lived in Brazil as a child, I recall my picking up a certain small lizard. The tail would break off and the lizard would scamper to safety. A friend of the family who was a surgeon told me that some lizards could regrow their tails. The Guardian grabs the GOOG’s tail, and it breaks off, leaving Googzilla free to do whatever Googzillas enjoy doing.
You can see this approach in the Guardian’s story “Where Does Wolfram Alpha Get Its Information?” by Bobbie Johnson here. The angle is to write about Wolfram Alpha, the current Google challenger. Bobbie Johnson said:
Some of the references come, Google-style, from ordinary websites but most of the information is drawn from the texts and databases that are pulled into Mathematica, which performs most of the numerical calculations. This means Alpha is strong on science and maths but struggles with some other fact-based disciplines (such as history) and seems nonplussed by social sciences and popular culture. There are plenty of queries that result in the weary (and wearying) refrain of “Wolfram Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input”. However, the search engine is not just pulling information from academic data: it has its fair share of oddball references too – injected by the site’s staff in an attempt to draw a smile from users and build up early-adopter credibility.
In this passage, I can hear the sigh of disappointment that Wolfram Alpha wasn’t – well – a Google killer. Bobbie Johnson concluded:
In the end, that’s not necessarily much different or better than the information returned from a search on Google or Wikipedia. Perhaps Wolfram Alpha isn’t quite so revolutionary after all.
The Guardian will be on the look out for the next potential Google killer. Maybe Microsoft’s Bing Kumo will be the next knight in the lists. I am betting on the Google. The Guardian has another tail in its hands I believe.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2009
Beta Eta a Spoiled Fish
May 21, 2009
Michael Arrington’s “Google’s Beta Love May Die in Fight for Enterprise Customers” ripped the covers off a big Google shin scrape. He pointed out here that perpetual product betas, particularly Google’s, may not help close enterprise software deals. He wrote:
About half of Google’s products were still in Beta
at the end of 2008. Retaining the Beta notation in the logo gives the company a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card when problems occur. Hey, it’s still in Beta, so don’t be surprised when something goes wrong. There’s a problem though. Sure, users think Beta is geeky and fun and cutting edge. But it turns out that enterprise customers are a little more serious about stuff working.
He provided a link to a Google video of Marissa Mayer explaining Google betas. You will have to read his essay and watch the video and make up your own mind.
My view on Google betas has been spelled out in some detail in my three Google monographs, and I can highlight a handful of my observations in this forum:
- Google, like many organizations, is not sure what will work. The result is a culture of start-stop-assess. The notion of a beta is an ideal method for making indecision work as a tactic. It’s not IBM’s fear, uncertainty, and doubt. It’s “sort of” and “maybe”.
- Google needs data. A beta is a click thermometer. A product shoved into the wild can attract a loyal following like Gmail and earn “perpetual beta” status which is what Mr. Arrington described clearly. It also makes it easy to determine which products are dogs and can be starved or killed. Think Web Accelerator.
- Betas are disruptive. I think that the discovery by Google management of its disruptive power was a happy lab accident. Now, the notion of developing a service quickly and probing a potential market makes it hard for competitors to figure out exactly what Google is going to do in their sector. Consider the Recommendations feature rolled out almost the same day as eBay’s announcement of its acquisition of StumbleUpon. Nothing much came of Recommendations, which I still use, but it is a subtle disruptive perturbation. Shoot enough waves into a sector and something interesting may happen. Betas generate these forces.
Now Google betas, if I understand Mr. Arrington’s point, are causing a bit of indigestion. Google’s betas may have eaten a spoiled fish and seems to require remediating action. I liked Google’s eternal beta program because it has helped destabilize a number of sectors, thus creating opportunities. Google’s shaking up online, for instance, helped create an environment in which Facebook and Twitter could emerge and evolve.
Stephen Arnold, May 21, 2009
Google Books: Peace, Capitulation, or Tactic
May 20, 2009
My newsreader spat Miguel Helft’s “Google Book-Scanning Pact to Give Libraries a Say in Prices”. You can read the story here. Mr.. Helft reported:
In a move that could blunt some of the criticism of Google for its settlement of a lawsuit over its book-scanning project, the company signed an agreement with the University of Michigan that would give some libraries a degree of oversight over the prices Google could charge for its vast digital library.
Mr. Helft does not tackle the strategic implications of this deal. I am not going to tackle them either. I want to ponder whether this means peace, capitulation, or another tactic.
Stephen Arnold, May 20, 2009
Yahoo: Chasing Google with Semantic Intent
May 20, 2009
Information Week’s story “Yahoo Aims to Redefine What It Means to Search” which you must read here brought a tear to the eye of the addled goose. Yahoo aimed its former IBM and Verity “big gun” at Googzilla and fired a shot into the buttocks of their Mountain View neighbors. Mr. Cliburn, the author of the Information Week story, offered:
As described by Raghavan, Yahoo is directing its search efforts toward assessing user intent. When a user types “Star Trek,” Raghavan said, he doesn’t want 10 million documents, he wants actors and show times.
Information Week approaches the yawning gap between Google and Yahoo in a kinder, gentler way. Thomas Claburn wrote:
it’s perhaps understandable why Yahoo might want to re-frame the debate. Given its lack of success challenging Google directly — Google’s April search share in the U.S. reached 64.2%, a 0.5 point gain, while Yahoo’s search share fell to 20.4%, a 0.1 point decline, according to ComScore — Yahoo wants to change the game.
How will Yahoo deliver its better mousetrap?
Yahoo is relying on its partners to feed it with structured data.
Google’s approach includes algorithmic methods, the programmable search engine methods (Ramanathan Guha), and user intent (Alon Halevy). Yahoo, on the other hand, wants Web site operators and other humans to do the heavy lifting.
Yahoo’s focus on user intent could lead to happier users, if Yahoo Search can guess user intent accurately. It could also help Yahoo make more money from advertising. “If we can divine the user’s intent, that’s obviously of great interest to advertisers,” said Raghavan.
Advertisers want eyeballs of buyers. Google delivers eyeballs in droves. One percent of two billion is a useful segment. Yahoo has struggled to: [a] deliver segments that make advertisers abandon Google’s big data method for the flawed Panama system, [b] monetize its hot, high traffic services like Flickr in an effective manner, and [c] put real flamethrowers on the GOOG’s hindquarters, which is what Yahoo has seen since mid 2003.
Yahoo will need divine intervention to close the gap with Google. More importantly, neither Google nor Yahoo have an answer to the surging popularity of Twitter, Facebook, and other real time search systems. I am watching the sky for an omen that Woden is arriving to help the Yahooligans. So far, no portents, just PR.
Stephen Arnold, May 20, 2009
Google Pays So You Can Play YouTube Videos
May 20, 2009
Who pays? Google. TechDirt’s story “YouTube Ordered to Pay $1.6 Million To ASCAP” reported that a legal shoe dropped. You can read the full story here. For me the interesting point was:
ASCAP gets to go in and demand cash from anyone who benefits from music anywhere, and a judge sorta randomly makes up reasons to give them cash. I know that ASCAP supporters will claim that the money is for songwriters, not the record labels, and it’s important and blah blah blah. But the whole system of such collective licenses is a mess that it makes it close to impossible to do anything with music without getting yourself into a huge licensing hole. For more than a century now, Congress and the courts seem to look at every innovation and simply slap another license fee on it, and leave it to the courts to sort out any mess. All of these license fees add up to a massive tax on innovation that divert money from good business models and into the hands of collections societies, who siphon off a piece and often don’t do a very good job distributing that cash. It’s a massively inefficient model that’s simply not needed.
Economy day for the Google.
Stephen Arnold, May 20, 2009
Google Health
May 20, 2009
A battle is shaping up among some heavy hitters for digital health services. If you want a useful summary of what Googzilla has been doing, you can click here to read Mark Gibbs’s overview of the service. For me the most interesting comment was:
Google Health provides an API based on a subset of the “Continuity of Care Record” API described as “a standard format for transferring snapshots of a patient’s medical history.” This API allows developers to build software that can create and read consumer’s medical records with sophisticated authorization and access controls.
Not much about search and data mining in the story, however. Keep in mind that Google products and services have search baked in. Google seems to be pursuing a consumer strategy whilst Microsoft is chasing the health enterprise. Lots of exciting coming in this sector. Health information is in the same sorry state as the US health care system. My thought is that it will evolve along the same lines as the US auto and airline industry. That’s a comforting notion, isn’t it?
Stephen Arnold, May 20, 2009
Wired Fraying and Shorting Out
May 19, 2009
Making money with electronic information is tough. Making money writing about the wired world is also difficult. Joel Johnson’s interesting “Welcome, Wired. We Call This Land Internet” here provided me with a useful anecdote for an upcoming talk I will be giving at an NFAIS conference at the end of June 2009. Mr. Johnson informed me that Wired Magazine may be killed off. No surprise. The magazine business was challenging when readers did not worry about dead trees and the chemicals in ink, distribution costs, and the millions of direct mail solicitations required to build a subscription list. In May 2009, the magazine business is different from those salad days between the late 17th century and 2008. Mr. Johnson wrote:
Wired is great print, but if the magazine can’t make money and is shuttered, taking the website down with it, I’m going to be livid. Not that making money online is easy—it’s not, especially without sacrificing your ethics and your voice—but if any mainstream outlet should be able to make the transition, it should be Wired. I fear that may be impossible, not just for Wired but for all these old brands, because they can’t accept that the work at which they have excelled for years will be just as important when it’s online—and online only.
I bought two magazines at the airport news kiosk this morning. The total price was about $14. I paid for them, but I was the only person in the shop in Washington Reagan Airport buying magazines. With buyers like me in short supply and advertisers trying to figure out how to maximize their ad dollars, Wired is not the only traditional publication to face a problematic future.
I also thought about the Wired wizards who described the brave new digital world. It is one thing to write about electronic information. It is quite another to make money from a print publication that contains information about online. I don’t think the Wired Web site can survive in its present form, regardless of the fate of the print publication.
Again. That pesky writing and doing problem.
Stephen Arnold, May 19, 2009
Searching for Spy Recruits
May 19, 2009
I can’t quote from this news report. You will have to click here and read the Associated Press story “Israeli intelligence Issues Facebook Warning.” The AP stringer Ian Deitch reported that intel pros in Israel believe that bad guys from Al-Qaida are using Facebook.com to recruit helpers. Why search the old fashioned way by asking people and hanging out in certain restaurants? Use Facebook’s zippy new features to round up potential operatives. Social search has a fresh use case. Is this true? Not for me to say.
Stephen Arnold, May 19, 2009
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