Paid Links May Be the New Content Manipulation Game
January 8, 2013
With the New Year upon us, we can count on new tricks for content manipulation. Search Engine Land brings to our attention of the of the possible new tricks in “Will 2013 Bring a Paid Link Resurgence?” Not many people give credit to link builders, but the conjecture is that bad links for Web sites could potentially be as bad as negative SEO. Google has once more updated its Webmaster Guidelines and paid linkage is a way to manipulate Google’s search results. Google is punishing web sites for unnatural links. Webmasters will have to finally admit that content is the only way to get to the top of Google’s search results or control their marketing process. The later usually involves greenbacks that most do not want to spend. If business starts to suffer, however, guess where investments will need to be made?
Google is working overtime to control its search results:
“Google’s constant attempts to crack down serve only to spawn new and harder-to-catch ways to win. It sounds harsh but I know that no matter what methods they develop of controlling manipulation in one form, people will find ways to manipulate something else, until that gets smacked too, and they start over again.”
Paid links are part of everyday Web search and their impact is felt, we just do not realize it. However, one method of search results manipulation does not prove better than the other. It all depends on what is popular at the time and what can get past Google’s aggregators.
Whitney Grace, January 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Amazon Needs Content to Redeem Kindle Sales
October 24, 2012
Our beloved chief goose has commented about Amazon’s battle with its rising costs. Selling hardware at a loss in the hopes that the business model of Richard King Gillette will work is the sign of an optimist.
According to a recent admission from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon needs content, and it needs it to sell fast. The company stated that it makes virtually no money on its Kindle hardware and is counting on content to sell to make the ebook venture worthwhile. The reporting article, “No More Games: Amazon Admits it Needs Content Sales for Kindles to Fly” on Ars Technica, shares that the company is hoping that content purchases from Kindle users will redeem the profit margin on the ereader.
The article reveals more information about the pricing and the company’s game plan:
“The Kindle line has long seemed like it might be a loss leader for Amazon, though the company has been reticent about stating that outright. Bezos said at the press event announcing the new Kindle Fires and the Kindle Paperwhite that ‘We want to make money when our customers use our devices, not when they buy our devices,’ before unveiling their competitive (but not staggeringly low) prices.”
The revelation sounds particularly dreary for Amazon and its content providers. We wonder if the company will be able to control its costs at this time of tactical loss leaders in tablets and ebook readers? What happens if the costs exceed revenues? Interesting question.
Stephen E Arnold, October 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com
Study Proves Students Not Enthused About Digital Classrooms
October 17, 2012
Numerous opportunities exist online to assist in the development of education, such as social networking, blogs, and even simple email. However, according to an article I spotted on Phys.org titled “Study Reveals Disparity Between Students’ and Professors’ Perceptions of the Digital Classroom,” the integration of education and information and communication tools (ICTs) is not exactly welcome by many students. A recent study from Concordia University shows that students actually prefer an engaging lecture to some wired supplement.
The article elaborates on the results:
“Instructors were more fluent with the use of emails than with social media, while the opposite was true for students.
‘Our analysis showed that teachers think that their students feel more positive about their classroom learning experience if there are more interactive, discussion-oriented activities. In reality, engaging and stimulating lectures, regardless of how technologies are used, are what really predict students’ appreciation of a given university course,” explains [Magda Fusaro from UQAM’s Department of Management and Technology.]”
The countless possibilities that exist online to expand learning and teaching methods could prove to be a mad rush to the Web for many learning establishments as they attempt to explore the options. However, if this study is accurate, students may not be willing to go along on the ride. It appears online information and services may not be able to fill student expectations.
Andrea Hayden, October 17, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
High Speed Internet Access for Some
September 10, 2012
Many of us have come to see high-speed internet access as a given, kind of like electricity and indoor plumbing. However, TechNewsWorld informs us, “FCC Report Finds 19 Million Internet Have-Nots.” It is tough to search without a workable connection.
Yes, the FCC‘s Eighth Broadband Progress Report found that about 19 million Americans lack high-speed Internet access. Out in the boonies, 14.5 million folks go without; in tribal areas, nearly one-third of the population is out of luck, according to the Report. Compared to the rest of the world, we lag in both our rate of high-speed deployment and the overall speed at which the Internet is delivered. The article notes:
“The FCC appears to agree in its report that the situation is untenable, noting that broadband is essential to innovation, jobs and global competitiveness. . . . However, the FCC goes on to say in its report that a lot of progress has been made. It noted that ‘billions’ have been invested by the communications industry in broadband deployment, including next-generation wired and wireless services. Also, there has been an expansion of networks technically capable of 100 megabit-plus speeds to over 80 percent of the population through cable’s DOCSIS 3.0 rollout. Finally, it also said, LTE is steadily spreading via mobile operators.”
True, but that still leaves us relying on the actions of the private carriers, whose goal is to run a successful business, not ensure Internet access for all. While telecom law still does not recognize the Internet access as a “need,” like phone access, it probably should be. The question is—what will we do about it?
Cynthia Murrell, September 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Updates the Portal from 1996: Info on Multiple Devices
August 30, 2012
The portal never really died. AOL and Yahoo have kept the 1990s “next big thing” despite the financial penalties the approach has imposed on stakeholders. There are other portals which are newer versions of the device which slices, dices, and chops. Examples I have looked at include:
- NewsIsFree, which delivers headlines, alerts, and allows me to find “sources”
- WebMD, which is a consumer “treat thyself” and aggregation information portal
- AutoTrader, which provides a vehicle research, loan, and purchasing portal.
Google when it rolled out 13 years ago took advantage of search systems’ desire to go “beyond search.” The reasons were easy to identify. Over the years, I have enumerated them many times. Google’s surge was due to then-search giants looking for a way to generate enough revenue to pay for the cost of indexing content. Now there are some crazy ideas floating around “real” consultant cubicles that search is cheap and easy.
Next Generation Portals: Gate to Revenue Hell?
Fear not, lads and lasses.
Search is brutally expensive and—guess what?—the costs keep on rising. The principal reasons are that systems need constant mothering and money. No, let’s not forget the costs which MBAs often trivialize. These include people who can make the system work, run faster, remain online, and keep pace with technology. Telecommunications, power, hardware, and a number of other “trivial” items gobble money like a 12 year old soccer player after practice chowing down on junk food.
Next Generation Portals: Gate to Revenue Heaven?
Portals promised to be “sticky”, work like magnets and pull more users, and provide a platform for advertising. Portals were supposed to make money when search generated modest amounts of money. First Overture, then Yahoo, and finally Google realized that the pursuit of objectivity was detrimental to selling traffic. Thus, online pay-to-play programs took off. The portals with a lead like Yahoo fumbled the ball. The more clever Googlers grabbed the melon and kept going back to the farmer’s garden for more. Google had, it appeared, figured out how to remain a search system and make lots of money.
No more.
Do we now witness the portalization of Google? Is the new twist is that the Google portal will require the user to have multiple devices? Will each device connects to Google to show more portal advertising goodness?
There is a popular impression among some MBAs on Wall Street and “real” consultants that Google is riding the same old money rocket in did in 2004 to 2006. My view is different.
Amazon and Pinterest: Information or Disinformation
August 30, 2012
I found “Uh Oh! Amazon Researchers Say Pinterest Doesn’t Generate A Lot Of Sales” interesting. Why? When a major Web outfit does research which suggests another Web outfit is either good or bad, my radar pings. Is the article praising Pinterest or is the article criticizing Pinterest. I find survey data remarkably malleable. Information can be shaped in different ways.
Consider this statement:
Will Young, director of Zappos Labs, told Bloomberg that Pinterest users are far more likely to share a purchase than Twitter or Facebook users—but that shared items generate far less revenue than Twitter or Facebook. This is a big problem for Pinterest, because the whole idea of the site is that it’s supposed to be better at monetizing social activity than Twitter or Facebook.
We have a positive statement about the sharing and a negative statement about generating sales.
You decide. My questions are:
- Is Amazon planning on competing with or buying Pinterest? A touch of doubt is useful when negotiating.
- Does it matter to Pinterest users if they don’t buy at a rate another retail site thinks is “low”? If Pinterest users are happy, does survey data matter?
- Were the survey data assembled doing the “right stuff.” When creating questions and analyzing survey data, tiny choices can have major implications for the outputs. I am confident that Amazon Zappos worked hard and did the maths correctly. I am just asking, “Was the finding one that required some tiny decisions about which I know nothing?”
Pinterest, in my opinion, works for a specific demographic segment. “Works” does not mean buy Mr Clean bleach pens on Amazon or snap up discounted evening slippers on Zappos.
Search is subject to similar tiny decisions. What happens when I try just published books on Amazon? I get pages of results listing books that will be published in the future. Tiny decision? Carelessness? An attempt to make a sale before having the product?
Stephen E Arnold, August 30, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Russia Passes Internet Censorship Legislation Impacting LiveJournal Blog
August 26, 2012
Internet censorship is a hot topic these days due to the fact that some countries do not value freedom of speech and choose to restrict it. ZeroPaid recently reported on this issue in the article “Russia Censors LiveJournal.”
According to the article, Russia has passed internet censorship legislation in the name of protecting its citizens from suicide, drug use, and other criminal activity. The impetus for censoring LiveJournal, a social network owned by SUP Media where Internet users can keep a blog, occurred on July 18 when:
“Local law enforcement informed a Yaroslavl court about pat-index, a neo-Nazi blog it had found on LiveJournal during a sweep. The blog’s hateful message violates Russian federal laws against extremism. Because of Bill 89417-6, the court now has the power to stamp it out completely and immediately. The court ordered Internet provider Netis Telekom to block, among other illegal sites, this blog’s IP. The court order shows the IP to be blocked as 208.93.0.128.
However, LiveJournal blogs don’t have unique IP addresses. That IP belongs to all of LiveJournal Russia, effectively blacking out LiveJournal for everyone in Yaroslavl (a city of nearly 600,000) and all the surrounding areas to which Netis Telekom provides service.”
Despite the fact that the censorship only occurred for a short period of time, the fact that legislation restricting Internet rights, which have been deemed part of freedom of speech by the United Nations, exists is very problematic.
Jasmine Ashton, August 26, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Flaw in Cloud Search: No Connectivity, No Access
August 21, 2012
Sitting in Fairbanks, Alaska, I realized that the cloud does not work. I had my trusty laptop, an iPad, and my smartphone. The only device which allowed me to work was the laptop with its local storage. The wireless connections were unusable due to insufficient network capacity and latency. The iPad was a glorified book reader. The mobile phone simply did not work. My T Mobile hot spot said it was device 330336 and refused to do anything except run down its battery.
Unusual situation? For me, no. For the poobahs, mavens, and self-appointed wizards formerly known as “real” journalists? Yes. Impossible.
Let me assure you that the world contains many places which render mobile devices mostly useless. However, when I read such articles as “Will Google Fiber Waste $28 Billion”, I perceive a disconnect. Google is investing in a high speed demonstration network in Kansas City, a metropolis with what I consider adequate connectivity. WiFi works from Boingo.com hot spots. My mobile phone allows voice and data access. My iPad displays Pulse headlines.
A happy quack to http://athenspio.posterous.com/athens-co-is-under-a-severe-thunderstorm-warn
The New York centric Forbes’ article asserts:
At a societal level, Cioffi [an expert in telco matters] argues that the benefit of Google Fiber would be way below its costs. After all, if a billion phone lines were replaced by fiber, the cost would be $3 trillion. But DSL and shared WiFi — currently in use by 400 million subscribers according to research firm Point Topic — could boost the speed by a factor of two or three — to between 200 megabits/second (Mbps) and 400 Mbps. If Cioffi is right, it does not look likely that Google Fiber will reach the critical mass needed to get the additional advertising revenues from faster Internet access it would need to come close to justifying its enormous investment.
If Google cannot deploy high speed connections in Kansas City, who will be able to foot the bill for providing basic high speed connectivity in smaller communities.
So what?
First, with the shift to the promise of the cloud, individuals may find themselves like me without access to basic communications for considerable periods of time. The fact that those in New York City or Los Angeles have the resources and connectivity does not help those in underserved areas. Perhaps this is not a big deal because the real money comes from customers in densely populated areas. For those outside those areas, tough luck.
Second, as people become less dependent on local storage both magnetic and paper, access to information decreases. The yap about information overload is a problem for those with access and the money to pay for bandwidth. For those just relying on cloud services, a certain segment of the population may be information starved.
Third, the models for pricing such as the analysis summarized in the Forbes’ article don’t work where there are too few people or geographic locations which cannot be economically served with today’s technology. Forget the next generation technology, more primitive methods are not part of the equipment for living.
Little surprise, then, that there is investor panic setting in with regard to online services such as Facebook, Groupon, and even Google. When the models don’t work in densely populated areas, it does not take much thinking to realize that the shift to the cloud will deliver big bucks from the hinterlands.
I can’t search if I can’t connect. What’s this mean for cloud search? A potential hurdle?
Stephen E Arnold, August 22, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Wall Street Journal Fails to Correct Major Misstep
August 20, 2012
A big flub at Wall Street Journal was made when L. Gordon Crovitz made some extravagantly false claims about the origins of the Internet.
The incredibly wrong opinion piece by the former publisher was not the part of this story that is impressive. The fascinating part is that WSJ is not making any corrections, instead choosing to simply state, “A version of this article appeared July 23, 2012, on page A11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Who Really Invented the Internet?” We learn more about the mishap in the TechDirt article, “WSJ Still Hasn’t Corrected Its Bogus internet Revisionist Story, As Vint Cerf & Xerox Both Claim the Story is Wrong.” The article states:
“That was a pretty minor correction, involving Crovitz being confused about how to understand how blockquotes work in HTML. But what about all of the other factual errors, including whoppers like saying that Tim Berners-Lee invented hyperlinks? Of course, considering the very premise of the article and nearly all of its supporting factoids were in error, it raises questions about how you do such a correction, other than crossing out the whole thing and posting a note admitting to the error (none of which has yet been done).”
We here at the goose pond love seeing real journalists in action. Considering how public the discussion about these errors has gotten, we are surprised that the WSJ is not doing more to remedy the situation. Which begs the question: why aren’t they?
Andrea Hayden, August 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Pivot: Business Gold or Baloney
August 15, 2012
Let’s think about the belief that services will cure revenue problems. Straight away, services can be lucrative. Check out the revenues from McKinsey, BCG, or Bainie Mr. Romney.
The question is, “Can a company anchored in services become a hardware company?” And the flip side, “Can a hardware company become a services company?” These questions highlight the latest in business baloney: The pivot. The idea is that a company can go in a different direction, pay its debts, maintain its existing revenues, and generate large flows of new revenues. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is a children’s book metaphor for this strategic vision.
Google is doing the pivot. First, there was the purchase price of $12 billion and change. Then there was the $200 million plus operating loss mentioned in the most recent Google quarterly report. Today (August 13, 2012) I read “Google to Cut 4,000 Motorola Mobility Jobs, Take $275 Million Charge.” The core of the news story is like the refrain of a sad Sinatra tune:
Motorola Mobility has lost money in fourteen of the last sixteen quarters and in its latest quarter reported an operating loss of $233 million on revenue of $1.25 billion. “These changes are designed to return Motorola’s mobile devices unit to profitability,” Google said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Google has “grand plans.” The task is to keep the ad revenues pumped up as the company invests in new revenue opportunities such as Motorola hardware, legal experts to deal with the copious supply of litigation, and tactical moves which seem to target Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and other companies with possible monopolistic business models.
Will firing people and the possible sale of deadwood make the pivot work?
Given enough money and time, my view is that Google may succeed. The race
is on for Google. The three reasons I have identified include:
The click pattern difference between desktop Google searching and mobile device Google searching. To sum up what I understand is the “new wisdom”, mobile clicks are growing but deliver less bang for the advertisers’ buck. Desktop searches are not growing as they once did. Advertisers get less bang for their buck. My simple conclusion is that Google will have to find ways to work around these revenue producing online behaviors. But isn’t down down?
Second, like Amazon, Google has a cost control problem. Google is making cuts in services, buying companies to get a jump start or head start in certain application spaces, and investing in gee whiz technology in hopes of getting operational costs to flatten. My view? Good luck with that. Companies like Amazon and Google need increased revenue to keep pace with technology costs. In my experience, technology costs just keep on going up no matter what a manager does to contain them. The solution is to cap the budget and fall behind or keep spending until the business model collapses. (Example: Convera.)
Third, the bets on the future are predicated on the fact that the Internet is nothing more than a communications and information utility. The ubiquity opens the door to a cuteness and convenience thermonuclear war. Witness the efforts of Facebook and Google to co-opt the other company’s territory. The problem is that when cuteness and convenience become important, the tech companies may find themselves at the mercy of the experts in these disciplines. Google is making nice with the entertainment industry. Facebook cooperates with US government agencies. The problem for Facebook and Google is that the specialists in cuteness and convenience have more monetization options that the technology companies. One buys a mobile phone or runs a Web search. A child nags to go to the new Disney movie, get the coloring book, and have the Mickey Mouse T shirt. Facebook and Google give these cute items away. Disney and other experts in cuteness and convenience sell them, year in, year out, generation after generation.
Read more
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
