

Google in the middle - quoderat
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/04/google_in_the_m.php

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pg
"When a middleman controls a market, the supplier has no real choice but to
work with the middleman"

Google dominates its market, but it doesn't _control_ it in the classic
monopolist fashion.

Consider this thought experiment. Suppose the government, for the public good,
built a service for searching the web. If they did it really, really well,
would it not work just like Google, minus the ads?

The newspapers aren't being destroyed by Google. They're being destroyed by
the evolution of technology. Google is just the messenger. And a pretty
neutral one, as such messengers go.

(Indeed, that neutrality is one reason Google is so successful. They approach
business with the intellectual detachment of scientists.)

~~~
DannoHung
Quite right. Take away Google and everything like them and you've killed the
technology that's killing the business, not the middleman strictly.

As a thought experiment: Imagine that Google was unnecessary. Every person had
a device that found exactly the page on the internet that they were looking
for without using any centralized service. It just went out and scanned the
whole public web in a snap. Is there a middleman now? Nope. Is it still going
to kill people that choose not to participate? Yes sir!

His second point is quite accurate though: A reduction in supply of highly
redundant articles will behoove journals of record. Specialization and
reduction of repetitive effort will see the day through.

~~~
pj
yes, there is still a middle man, it is "a device that found exactly the page"

The issue isn't google, it's newspapers. THey are big and bulky and kill trees
and there are millions of them accessible by the web now making all of them
less valuable. It has nothing to do with Google and nothing to do with a
middle man. Besides, lazy people can't waste time at their desk reading the
newspaper, but they can stare at news.google all day.

------
ZeroGravitas
If you take a step back from this you realize that the news industry is the
middlman.

People want the info or news, prior to the web you needed printing presses or
a tv station to deliver it. This concentration of power has led to all sorts
of power-crazed idiots getting involved to push their viewpoints and crowd out
their opponents.

To add insult to injury they make all their money from providing eyeballs to
advertisers leading to the same race to the bottom you see happening online.

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quizbiz
I noticed the other day that I am using Google significantly less than I used
to. I fulfill my internet needs by either searching direct on wikipedia or
finding things on social networking sites, social bookmarking sites. My home
page is now this Safari top sites page which I love and helps me avoid Google
even further. And when I can't remember a domain, I use a QuickSilver trigger
function which lets me search and open up the "I'm feeling lucky" or the
number one result on google automatically.

I don't mean to suggest I don't search or that we are moving beyond search but
trends in which we are navigating and interacting on the internet are
changing.

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gruseom
I'm not sure why we're supposed to feel bad about it no longer being
profitable to produce news content. Stuff changes. Old forms die and new ones
appear. In total, we're incomparably better off than we were before the web.
Google's power may be problematic but they played a large role in making that
happen.

Buchheit was over-optimistic. I'd have suggested "Be Less Evil". Then everyone
would say they're doing a great job!

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mattmcknight
This seems ridiculous to me. I don't go to Google when I want to read news, I
go direct to NY Times, Washingtonpost, or WSJ. I seldom search for something
and end up at a newspaper web site. Google isn't in the middle of the news
business. This is some kind of red herring for the real problems.

Carr really hit the nail on the head in his response to Shirky a few weeks
ago. The issue is that there are 5000 articles on the same thing from all of
these different news sites. It didn't matter when you got one of these 5000
newspapers delivered to your doorstep, but now that they are online, the 5000
stories are all in direct competition, and many of them are just thin rewrites
of AP content. The smart papers will stop printing a daily paper today and
start finding niches where they can provide the best content. However, the end
state is clearly that we don't need so many newspapers that cover the same
things.

~~~
brandnewlow
As a news publisher there are problems with your suggested scenario.

Let's look at the currrent situation online news publishers face. Let's say I
run a business news site like Business Insider and the AP has a hot story
about Steve Jobs.

I have a choice:

1\. Put up a 2-3 sentence post explaining why this is a great story and
sending people over there. Jeff Jarvis calls this link journalism.

2\. Copy and paste that AP story as an article on my site, with 2-3 original
sentences above it and 5-6 below it.

3\. Rewrite the story so it looks like original material even though its just
a pure rewrite.

4\. Find and report out an original angle on the news that the AP overlooked.

Outcomes:

If you choose option 1, your story will be deemed too short for Google News
and Google search and you will lose lots of traffic. Link journalism is not a
realistic option for a real business.

Option 2 and 3 are quick and easy and guarantee that your article will be "in
the mix" of the 5000 articles competing for top placement for related searches
in Google News.

Option 4 will get you in the mix but will put you behind the rest of the pack
time-wise so you'll likely lose out on eyeballs unless you have a legitimate
scoop that can itself start off a news cycle of its own.

So that's the current situation.

Now, let's take a look at the scenario you suggest:

"The Smart Papers will stop printing a daily paper and start finding niches
where they can provide the best content."

Let's say you're the a Chicago news publisher _cough_ and decide to start a
site that will cover the city's South Side businesses, breaking news and
politicians.

1\. Yes, you're creating value and bringing new content to the web that wasn't
there before.

2\. Unfortunately, no one's searching for stories about what you're covering
yet, which means YOU HAVE NO DISTRIBUTION. Which means you get no traffic and
thus have a hard time selling advertising.

So I'm fully on board with news publishers going against the grain and
covering stuff beyond whatever the day's scrum is chasing after, but
unfortunately the online news audience for whatever the scrum is covering is
much, much, much larger than whatever niche audience you're going to be able
to get.

There are solutions of course. But right now, it's A LOT easier to get a bunch
of friends together and just start rewriting AP stories about celebrities and
tech companies 10-12 times a day and letting Google handle distribution than
it is to go out and build a new audience in a niche.

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nazgulnarsil
meandering hyperbole. perfect is the enemy of better.

~~~
einarvollset
How so? Seems a thoughtful piece worthy of consideration.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
his claim is starry eyed idealism that the internet would usher in an age
where supply directly met demand. there will always be arbiters of both.

