To me, the article is mostly just
trying to fool people into
aiming their eyeballs at
the NYT's ads.
For the future of Google:
(1) Right, Google gets competition
for eyeballs and, thus, ad revenue
from Facebook, PInterest, Twitter,
SnapChat, and any popular Web
site/service that is ad supported.
No surprise here.
(2) What the article misses is that search
is a super big problem, issue,
opportunity, and business. Why?
Because (A) now there is a lot of content
on the Internet, (B)
due both to
desktop and laptop computing and
now due to smartphones that can
generate content as text,
audio, still images, video,
and other data,
the total amount of content is
growing quickly, (C)
finding the content really want
is often super tough to do,
and (D) so far Google is one of
the best tools for finding content.
So, Google gets lots of eyeballs
and, as the content grows and,
if Google's search technology improves,
stands to get a lot more eyeballs
and, thus, revenue.
For Web sites/services that
can get a larger chunk of the
ad revenue, in the larger scheme
of things, the Internet is a
better bet than anything like
TV, and for that future Google
has about the best opportunity
and they seem to be trying to
take it. And if some start up
has something close to that future
Google wants, then Google
has plenty of cash to buy
the start up, make it an
offer it definitely will not
refuse.
Google's doing fine and
still looks like one of the
best bets for the future.
The OP is standing on traditional
formula fiction that
tries to deliver an experience,
vicarious, escapist,
fantasy, emotional experience
entertainment (VEFEEE), both as the
content and the ads. Okay,
that's their 1000 year old
drama hammer
that has a very long history
from current TV shows,
movies, novels,
Dickens, Shakespeare,
Chaucer, the Greek dramas,
etc. Okay. That's
long been the 900 pound
Gorilla in media and
remains the main hammer
of the NYT and maybe most of the
NYC ad industry and its $155
billion a year in ad revenue.
Okay. But with that one
hammer, the OP sees
the Internet and Google
as an appropriate nail --
it's not just such a nail,
and that hammer is not all there
is that is important or will
be important in the future.
E.g., a lot that is there in
mobile now is teenage girls,
from the US, and especially in
Japan, using their smartphones
for what apparently teenage
girls commonly have done for centuries,
likely millennia -- gossip.
But, even if VEFEEE
is the content someone wants,
mostly they still need a
search engine to find it.
For the OP and yet another
NYT story, the main
question I would ask is,
where do they get that really
strong funny stuff they've
been smoking?
The biggest problem Google has, in my opinion, is it's identity crisis. It's becoming a stranger.
Googles popularity came from it's simplicity. The services Google started buying (looking at YouTube here) were gaining traction because they were the simple equivalent to their competitors.
Today? Not so much. YouTube has gradually become more alienated since 2009. Yesterday I was watching a video, and not a single video listed in the sidebar (once called "Related Videos") was actually related to the video I was watching. The uploader was a popular YouTuber with easily over a hundred videos (No idea how much exactly because I couldn't find that number) yet all the suggestions were music videos from my usual browsing.
Context switching is no more, because everything is being overengineered to keep you in your own content bubble. Yet, that stupid auto generated playlist in the sidebar that I've never clicked, keeps lurking there on every video, for days at a time, before changing into another playlist that is no more appealing to me than the previous one.
If all the effort of that huge datapool we are selling our souls to is to make advertisers happy, and the users don't get anything out of that effort but more abstraction and more generalized data science slapped onto a new UI every couple years, it's not a fair trade. And people won't put up with that forever.
Google is still going strong. The foundation that put it in its place, is crumbling. A big chunk of their business still relies on that, though, so I think these articles have a fair point.
> all the suggestions were music videos from my usual browsing.
Good observation! Google blew it!
When I go to YouTube, I don't see what you saw,
but then I don't
'log in' to Google or accept cookies from them.
So, the videos I see on the right are related
to what I am watching at the time instead of whatever
I've watched, searched for, etc. in the past.
I can believe that Google is doing what you
describe, and this is a symptom of totally
wacko data science and brain-dead recommendation
engine construction. Where from, why?
One approach to recommendation is to try to
say what a given user likes. So, look at
all their activity, say, products they've looked
at at Amazon, videos they've seen at YouTube,
searches they've done at Google, Web sites
they've visited as determined by following
third party cookies, etc. Then my view
is:
(1) For ad targeting, in the short term
(that is, when displaying an ad
only a short time after the data used
for the targeting)
maybe okay for effective ad targeting,
assuming it doesn't
offend the user.
(2) For content, nope, won't work and
with your experience a solid example
of why not.
Why? Here is a hypothetical example:
I go online and search for
flowers and chocolate candy and
have them delivered gift wrapped;
similarly for some things at
Victoria's Secret.
So, from then on I get recommendations
for flowers, candy, anything chocolate,
and women's frilly undies.
Ha! I'm
a fully normal, heterosexual male
and don't much care for distaff stuff!
So, why'd I buy the flowers? Sure:
As Valentines gift for my wife, once
a year! The other 364 days of the
year, f'get about it!
Or, I shop for some DVDs of some
old Disney movies. Does this mean
that I like old Disney movies instead
of, say, movies about Tom Clancy stories?
Nope! Instead I was just shopping for
some DVDs to entertain the children
of some of my friends my wife and
I had over for a nice
BBQ and beer on the back porch.
Or, as I see it, for something better,
what a person likes at a given
time should to be for some one of their
interests at that time. Then the
recommendation engine has to
learn about that interest at that
time.
A biggie is that that interest
is likely some narrow thing, narrow
in time, circumstances, etc. So,
past browsing history, shopping,
watching, etc. should be treated as,
first cut, irrelevant or, in probabilistic
terms, independent of what the heck the
person wants in their present context.
BTW, with mild assumptions,
probabilistically independent implies
(statistically) uncorrelated, although
in the usual treatments independence is
much, much more general, say, is in terms
of sigma algebras generated by some
sets, possibly uncountably infinite,
of random variables, and such a definition
for uncorrelated is rarely or never given.
With high irony, likely search results
at Google from the keywords/phrases
someone enters are likely independent
or nearly so of anything else Google
knows about the person. Or, if at Google
search type in
"I'm shocked, shocked to learn that
gambling is going on here"
then should get back the script of the
classic movie Casablanca and
don't expect to get back
results about flowers, chocolates,
flimsy undies, and Disney movies,
or Tom Clancy movies either.
It's possible to use butter, milk, eggs,
flour, Kirschwasser sugar syrup,
cheeries,
chocolate, etc. to make a
fantastic cake or a really big mess.
Same for using data science.
Watch here on HN when I announce my
recommendation engine (soon,
currently mud wrestling with DVD
burners)
that will
treat each user's interest as
unique in all the world,
have
the best protections of user privacy,
and do nothing with and have nothing
on anything about the user before
they requested their recommendation.
When the recommendations come back,
the ad targeting may have to do with
just those recommendations but certainly
not with some shopping for flimsy
undies a week before Valentine's day.
Google's search engine is just terrific
for a lot of the content on the
Internet, and where Google is good
my work will not be better.
But as your experience illustrates,
for some searches there is room
for something better. My search
engine has nothing to do with
keywords/phrases; my view is that
what I've developed stands to be
much better for a significant fraction
of the content on the Internet,
searches people want to do,
and results they want to find.
But, again, for where Google works
well, and sometimes it is fantastic,
my work is not better.
Google makes the majority of its profits from web search. The problem is that as search habits change, that entire market could become less valuable. Google could still dominate, but would just make less $, e.g. if search RPMs decline from $70 to $50 in the US, they are in real trouble.
There's a lot of downward pressure on display ads also. The move to programmatic platforms will cut CPMs in half or worse. Google is not immune from this Trend either.
For the future of Google:
(1) Right, Google gets competition for eyeballs and, thus, ad revenue from Facebook, PInterest, Twitter, SnapChat, and any popular Web site/service that is ad supported. No surprise here.
(2) What the article misses is that search is a super big problem, issue, opportunity, and business. Why? Because (A) now there is a lot of content on the Internet, (B) due both to desktop and laptop computing and now due to smartphones that can generate content as text, audio, still images, video, and other data, the total amount of content is growing quickly, (C) finding the content really want is often super tough to do, and (D) so far Google is one of the best tools for finding content. So, Google gets lots of eyeballs and, as the content grows and, if Google's search technology improves, stands to get a lot more eyeballs and, thus, revenue.
For Web sites/services that can get a larger chunk of the ad revenue, in the larger scheme of things, the Internet is a better bet than anything like TV, and for that future Google has about the best opportunity and they seem to be trying to take it. And if some start up has something close to that future Google wants, then Google has plenty of cash to buy the start up, make it an offer it definitely will not refuse.
Google's doing fine and still looks like one of the best bets for the future.
The OP is standing on traditional formula fiction that tries to deliver an experience, vicarious, escapist, fantasy, emotional experience entertainment (VEFEEE), both as the content and the ads. Okay, that's their 1000 year old drama hammer that has a very long history from current TV shows, movies, novels, Dickens, Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Greek dramas, etc. Okay. That's long been the 900 pound Gorilla in media and remains the main hammer of the NYT and maybe most of the NYC ad industry and its $155 billion a year in ad revenue. Okay. But with that one hammer, the OP sees the Internet and Google as an appropriate nail -- it's not just such a nail, and that hammer is not all there is that is important or will be important in the future.
E.g., a lot that is there in mobile now is teenage girls, from the US, and especially in Japan, using their smartphones for what apparently teenage girls commonly have done for centuries, likely millennia -- gossip.
But, even if VEFEEE is the content someone wants, mostly they still need a search engine to find it.
For the OP and yet another NYT story, the main question I would ask is, where do they get that really strong funny stuff they've been smoking?