Digital Work: Pick Up the Rake and Get with the Program
June 27, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
The sky is falling, according to “AI Is Killing the Old Web, And the New Web Struggles to Be Born.” What’s the answer? Read publications like the Verge online, of course. At least, that is the message I received from this essay. (I think I could hear the author whispering, “AI will kill us all, and I will lose my job. But this essay is a rizz. NYT, here I come.”)
This grumpy young person says, “My brother dropped the car keys in the leaves. Now I have to rake— like actually rake — to find them. My brother is a dork and my life is over.” Is there an easy, quick fix? No, the sky — not leaves — are falling when it comes to finding information, according to the Verge, a Silicon Valley-type “real” news outfit. MidJourney, you have almost captured the dour look of a young person who must do work.
I noted this statement in the essay:
AI-generated misinformation is insidious because it’s often invisible. It’s fluent but not grounded in real-world experience, and so it takes time and expertise to unpick. If machine-generated content supplants human authorship, it would be hard — impossible, even — to fully map the damage. And yes, people are plentiful sources of misinformation, too, but if AI systems also choke out the platforms where human expertise currently thrives, then there will be less opportunity to remedy our collective errors.
Thump. The sky allegedly has fallen. The author, like the teen in the illustration is faced with work; that is, the task of raking, bagging, and hauling the trash to the burn pit.
What a novel concept! Intellectual work; that is, sifting through information and discarding the garbage. Prior to Gutenberg, one asked around, found a person who knew something, and asked the individual, “How do I make a horseshoe.” After Gutenberg, one had to find, read, and learn information.” With online, free services are supposed to just cough up the answer. The idea is that the leaves put themselves in the garbage bags and the missing keys appear. It’s magic or one of those Apple tracking devices.
News flash.
Each type of finding tool requires work. Yep, effort. In order to locate information, one has to do work. Does the thumb typing, TikTok consuming person want to do work? From my point of view, work is not on the menu at Philz Coffee.
New tools, different finding methods, and effort are required to rake the intellectual leaves and reveal the lawn. In the comments to the article, Barb3d says:
It’s clear from his article that James Vincent is more concerned about his own relevance in an AI-powered future than he is about the state of the web. His alarmist view of AI’s role in the web landscape appears to be driven more by personal fear of obsolescence than by objective analysis.
My view is that the Verge is concerned about its role as a modern Oracle of Delphi. The sky-is-falling itself is click bait. The silliness of the Silicon Valley “real” news outfit vibrates in the write up. I would point out that the article itself is derivative of another article from an online service Tom’s Hardware.
The author allegedly talked to one expert in hiking boots. That’s a good start. The longest journey begins with a single step. But learning how to make a horse shoe and an opinion about which boot to purchase are two different tasks. One is instrumental and the other is fashion.
No, software advances won’t kill the Web as “we” know it. As Barb3d says, “Adapt.” Or in my lingo, pick up the rake, quit complaining, and find the keys.
Stephen E Arnold, June 27, 2023
Yandex: Just Helping Others to Understand Geography
June 14, 2022
The Yandex news has been interesting. Some staff turnover. Some outages. Some changes to Yandex images. But there’s more! Example:
On June 3, European Union introduced sanctions against one of the company’s founders, Arkady Volozh prompting his immediate resignation.
“Russia’s Yandex Maps to Stop Displaying National Borders” also reports:
the company said that their updated digital maps would “focus on natural features rather than on state boundaries.”
What’s this “real news” statement mean?
My thought is that national borders can be fuzzy and then defined as necessary.
The map is not the territory as YouTube videos about a certain dust up near the Black Sea makes evident.
Stephen E Arnold, June 14, 2022
More Search Excitement: Apple Google Payoff Alleged
January 5, 2022
I read “Class Action Lawsuit Filed in California Alleging Google Is Paying Apple to Stay Out of the Search Engine Business.” Now that lawyers are digitally aware professionals cades after the online money magnets began operations, interesting allegations are zipping around. I commented about the shallowness of some pundits’ understanding of the fuzzy wuzzy concept of “search.” (Chemical informatics, anyone or train movement in Ukraine?)
This news release may be a way for a law firm to generate some buzz, or it may be a valid proposition. Either way, the allegation is interesting. The source document states:
The complaint charges that Google and Apple agreed that Apple would not compete in the internet search business against Google. The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it’s search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the competition of smaller competitors and foreclosing competitors from the search market; (6) acquiring actual and potential competitors.
Plus, I love the word “effectuate.”
This is worth watching. From my point of view, the effort seems like trying to alter the characters in a film like the “Wolf of Wall Street.”
Stephen E Arnold January 5, 2022
DuckDuckGo Email Protection Now in Beta
August 4, 2021
DuckDuckGo has released a new privacy-centric service. The Verge reports, “DuckDuckGo Launches New Email Protection Service to Remove Trackers.” Famous for its non-tracking search platform, the company also offers mobile and desktop browser extensions and is working on its own privacy-focused desktop browser. Metasearch to browser to email: the company aims to protect privacy across the online environment. The article describes how the email service removes trackers, and one can find details on how its other offerings work at its website. It all sounds very effective, and we are glad to see these measures in place. However, we have a question: What about those log files? I suppose we are to assume no admin ever, ever looks at that data.
Writer Dave Gershgorn describes how the Email Protection tool works:
“The company’s new Email Protection feature gives users a free ‘@duck.com’ email address, which will forward emails to your regular inbox after analyzing their contents for trackers and stripping any away. DuckDuckGo is also extending this feature with unique, disposable forwarding addresses, which can be generated easily in DuckDuckGo’s mobile browser or through desktop browser extensions. The personal DuckDuckGo email is meant to be given out to friends and contacts you know, while the disposable addresses are better served when signing up for free trials, newsletters, or anywhere you suspect might sell your email address. If the email address is compromised, you can easily deactivate it. These tools are similar to anti-tracking features implemented by Apple in iOS 14 and iOS 15, but DuckDuckGo’s approach integrates into iOS, Android, and all major web browsers. DuckDuckGo will also make it easier to spin up disposable email addresses on the fly, for newsletters or anywhere you might share your email. Tackling email privacy has been a major goal for DuckDuckGo, as the company pushes for privacy-friendly methods for various online tasks.”
According to this 2017 study, more than 70 percent of email lists employ trackers that tell advertisers when, where, and on what device a message is opened. This information, of course, is then used to build advertising profiles. DuckDuckGo knows switching email addresses is a hassle most users would be unwilling to endure, so it came up with this intermediary layer. Naturally, the tool integrates with the company’s browser extensions. One limitation—while a user can respond to email that comes in to their @duck.com address, one cannot use it to initiate a new email thread. Email Protection is currently in beta; no word on when we can expect the tool to be released to the public.
Cynthia Murrell, August 4, 2021
Search Share, Anyone? Qwant, Swisscows, Yandex, Yippy? (Oh, Sorry, Yippy May Be a Goner)
May 17, 2021
A recent study by marketing firm Adam & Eve DDB examined the impact of search-result placement on brand visibility over the past six years. McLellan Marketing Group summarizes the findings in it’s post, “Share of Search.” A company’s “share of search” is the percentage of searches for its product category that result in its site popping up near the top. The Google Analytics dashboard helpfully displays organizations’ referrals for specific keywords and phrases, while the Google Keyword Tool reports overall searches for each term or phrase. The study checked out the metrics for three examples. We learn:
“[Adam & Eve DDB’s Les] Binet explored three categories: an expensive considered purchase (automotive), a commodity (gas and electricity) and a lower-priced but very crowded brand segment (mobile phone handsets). The results were very telling. Here are some of the biggest takeaways:
Share of search correlates with market share in all three categories.
Share of search is a leading indicator/predictor of share of market – when share of search goes up, share of market tends to go up, and when share of search goes down, share of market falls.
This long-term prediction can also act as an early warning system for brands in terms of their market share.
Share of voice (advertising) has two effects on share of search: a significant short-term impact that produces a big burst but then fades rapidly, and a smaller, longer-term effect that lingers for a very long time.
The long-term effects build on each other, sustaining and growing over time.
Share of search could also be a new measure for brand strength or health of a brand by measuring the base level of share of search without advertising.
While share of search provides essential quantitative data, brands should also use qualitative research and sentiment analysis to get a more robust picture.”
We are told that when a brand’s search share surpasses its market share, growth is on the way. Yippee! How can one ensure such a result? Writer Drew McLellan reminds us that relevant content tailored to one’s audience is the key to organic search performance. Or one could just take the shortcut: buying Facebook and Google ads also does the trick. But we wonder—where is the fun in that? Yippy? Yippy? Duck Ducking the search thing?
Cynthia Murrell, May 17, 2021
More Pix Online: 700K Images from the Rijksmuseum
January 22, 2021
We spotted this news item: “Over 700,000 Pairings from the Rijksmuseum Online Copyright Free.” These, according to the write up, are copyright free. The source of the money for this project was BankGiro Lottery, which is a culture lottery. I love that phrase “culture lottery.” I wonder if Russian individuals of character will implement similar terminology? You can access the service at this link.
The value of any image collection is one’s ability to locate a picture by artist, date, subject, and hopefully the name of the individual who made the painting possible for the museum to acquire. Art, like yachts, often has a fascinating back-story.
I ran this query: Canal boats.
The system displayed:
I clicked on Canals Boats and Ships. Notice that my “canal” was expanded to include “canals.” The term “boats” was matched exactly.
That’s a step forward considering the issues I have encountered with Internet Archive, Google Life collection, Library of Congress, and other image services.
My family was forced out of Amsterdam in 1605. Perhaps by getting image search to mostly work, the citizens are extending an olive branch to the remaining Arnolds.
Stephen E Arnold, January 22, 2021
Enterprise Search Art
December 8, 2020
I noted Pixeltrue’s collection of Covid art. Take a look. Very good work. But — there is a but when Beyond Search looks at Covid art. One of the Beyond Search team revised the captions for several of the images so that each reflects more accurately what we call “search syndrome.”
Headache: The direct result of a free Web search results page.
Plus, choking when reviewing irrelevant results:
Gag, hack, hack.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2020
Stupid Enterprise Search Promotions
July 6, 2020
Check out these incredibly silly pitches for the same market study about enterprise search:
This is an example of search engine optimization gaming the Google Alert system. Ridiculous SEO play and a ridiculous report.
The offending company appears to be:
Shameful.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2020
New Arnold-Steele Discussion: Findability Is Terrible
May 7, 2020
Robert David Steele, a former CIA professional, stored a video of our recent discussion about finding open source information. The main point is that findability has degraded to the point that results are generally useless. Bing, Google, and other ad-supported systems have abandoned precision and relevance. Search results are a dog’s breakfast. To view the findabiity discussion, navigate to this link. The video was produced by Mr. Steele.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2020
Dig.ccMixter for Royalty-Free Tunes
April 22, 2020
Here is a resource that makers (and aspiring makers) of video content and games will want to bookmark. CCMixter is an online community where musicians share their work through creative commons licenses. Dig.ccMixter is our search portal into that content, free to download and use even for commercial purposes. Scrolling down reveals three categories: instrumental music for film & video; free music for commercial projects; and music for video games. Clicking the “Dig!” button leads to a keyword search page, where you can search by attributes like genre, mood, and instruments. The site’s About page, titled Yea, But Is It Legal? explains:
“This is a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses. Music on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons license. You are free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses. Each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it.”
So there you have it—a free source of music for your projects, even ones you intend to profit from. All you have to do is give credit where credit is due.
Interestingly, developers can also access the site’s ccHost Query API. We’re told:
“The ccHost Query API is an open, publicly available interface that is available for public use, especially by 3rd party websites, mobile applications, smart TV appliances and any other network connected device. We here at ccMixter use it to help expose the artists that upload their Creative Commons licensed music to audiences that otherwise would not have access to. The API and software implementation is owned by ArtIsTech Media under a license agreement with Creative Commons. The music itself is owned by the individual artists that uploaded it to the site and agree, through the Creative Commons licenses to share the music through this mechanism.”
Bing, Google, and Yandex are not suited for some types of music search. Enter Dig.cc Mixter. Applause, please.
Cynthia Murrell, April 22, 2020
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