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Why Bite the Google Hand That Feeds You?
Techdirt pointed out that not long ago, John Byrne, ex-editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com and now CEO of newly founded C-Change Media, decided to tackle the problem of why publications seem to be so vehemently opposed to Google being a part of their business process. While there aren't any earth-shattering revelations, it is a great, succinct description of the problem. "I received several solid answers from followers of this blog, including Frymaster who immediately took sides in the ongoing war between Traditional Media and Google. Wrote Frymaster: 'I reject out-of-hand the assertion that Google is profiting from others' content. Rather, I say that Google profits from connecting users to content. It is a service that most web publishers appreciate greatly. Google, unlike any other search engine ever, goes to great pains to deliver the least-skewed results possible. Google is constantly on the hunt for people who game their system. That's why they succeed. There is a direct connection between Google's user-centric, community-oriented approach and their financial success.'"
If you make a product people like and don't piss off people while making them want to use something else... they'll use your product?
STOP THE PRESSES!
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
You are right Google does profit from connecting users to content.
Problem is most traditional content producers - newspapers in particular - gain nothing from Google visitors.
Their advertisers - mostly localized vendors - do not want to pay to connect to visitors from half-way across the world.
Nobody likes middlemen, especially middlemen who control a large part of the business.
Google is like a market maker. Some people despise market makers, but they are ignorant of how trade works. Does the market maker profit from the trades of others? Yes, but without him there would be much less trade, and everyone would be worse off.
I can tell you Google Scholar is skewed, for instance by not citing a highly cited (in print) original research article (not even deep in the listings) but citing a later, derivative one instead. I contacted Google about the matter twice, including once when Scholar was quite new, and they've done nothing about it.
TFS/TFA just says, what everybody on the net is repeating since the beginning of it all. Including pretty much every commenter here on Slashdot.
But now it’s all news, because a site that PHBs read mentiones it?
Are we PHBs, or what?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
They send you traffic, for free, and set up advertising to make you money.
Papermongers hate google, because no one wants their wares anymore, much as I'm sure horse breeders hated Henry Ford.
Google does not deliver the package of ads with gratuitous attractive content supplied by traditional media. While this has as much to do with online delivery as google, google has first go at ads, in the search results, which tends to decouple any matching that may be done on the article level.
In effect, google completely breaks the traditional mass advertising model. Traditional media realizes this, which is why they are rebelling. The problem is that some traditional media thinks it can replace the ad model with a fully paid subscriber model. I don't think it can. There has to be a way for traditional media to co-exist with search engines,and this is the challenge. The companies that can innovate the ad model will be the companies that get out in tact. The others that just complain about all the money that is being stolen by google will likely be on those lame shows where losers complain about the government taking their jobs,and how socialism is ruining the country.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Why are the news publishers never up in arms about Yahoo News? Yahoo News is more popular than Google News by a significant amount.
I guess they realize there is more money in going after Google than there is in Yahoo.
Google is utterly evil as far as I am concerned. Why? Because they are in league with the worst people in existence: advertisers. Advertisers have ruined just about every great thing I have ever liked.
Remember when magazines had more content than ads? No longer. In fact, they purposefully don't put page numbers on the ad pages so you are forced to page through them to try to find the fucking articles.
Remember when TV shows only had 2 minutes of commercials? Now they have almost 10 minutes or so, and that doesn't include the logos and ticker/pop-up advertisements during the shows themselves...
Remember when cable had no commercials at all?
Remember when radio stations regularly had half hour to hour long blocks of uninterrupted music?
Remember when the internet wasn't a bunch of fucking pop-ups, banners, and flash crap? In fact, remember when the net was more like a library than a TV?
I even remember a time when my e-mail was just that and not a bunch of spam. Besides, my dick is rock hard and I don't want a Rolex so STFU already.
Even Google itself has been getting steadily worse as well over the years with searches returning less and less pertinent results.
I swear, the day a Minority Report type ad assaults me at the mall, I'm going to go postal. I can only take so much before I have to start making ear necklaces out of these bastards.
In every case the product has gotten worse, not better due to advertising influence. You would think with all that income it would be otherwise, but not so.
I've finally blocked google and all their accomplices from my home network to the degree that I am able and I don't care in the slightest if certain sites fail due to lack of advertising income. The internet is like an information based RAID array. Another site will just take their place and fill the void until it too fails and the cycle repeats.
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. " ---Henry David Thoreau
The problem is this:
1. Print advertising makes ten times as much per buyer than online advertising.
2. No-one much is buying print advertising any more.
The papers are no good at selling print ads any more, so they blame the supplier of online ads. i.e., anyone other than themselves.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
You have to distinguish the Google functionality that provides search results and leads users to the content owner's website from the various Google projects that incorporate - in "corporate" terms you'd say "steal" - sufficient content for the user's needs and only provide a link to the owner for further information. For example, most users only read short summaries of news articles - so they never click on the link to the content owner's pages when they can read that on Google News. Or look at blatantly stolen user reviews from other shopping portals that appear on Google Products, where the originating website's owner can't even moderate them anymore in case of slander/false accusations but still has to deal with ramifications.
We all love Google Search, but could do without Google the content aggregator who monetizes everyone else's content. It's easy to mock the media moguls like Murdoch for taking such a defensive stance, but they have no means whatsoever to get people to pay for their content or even live from advertising as long as Google effectively keeps traffic off their websites by publishing big enough excerpts for most users.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
As I have watched this situation unfold, I keep thinking of something I read once. "A wise (powerful?) man keeps his friends close and his enemies closer." I tried Machiavelli, and Sun Tzu but can't quite find it. If Google is bringing them readers who will click on ads, then they are a friend and should be kept close, or in the loop. If Google is truly breaking their business model the choices are even clearer. Quit whining and lure Google into the castle, close the door and win; or just go to war and destroy Google. If the old media have not the sense to do the first and have no way to do the second, then it sounds like their power is gone. If Google is actually doing something wrong, the newspapers should be able to win in court, since they have not had a successful lawsuit, that I am aware of, then Google is not out of bounds.
I just do not understand the pathetic behavior of the old media. (And yes, my major was Bus. Adm)
Thank you
This being slashdot, I can predict that there will be lots of people modding each other up for saying that news should be free, comparing newspapers to manufacturers of buggy whips, etc. Actually the positions of both google and the traditional print media are a lot more nuanced than that, so it might be worth considering whether they actually know their own business better than slashdotters do. This article (not paywalled!) has a nice, up-to-date discussion of the issues. Google is trying to work out a compromise that works for both newspapers and users. The model they seem to have in mind is that articles will be indexed by google, and users will be able to click through to the articles for free after finding them in a google search, but newspapers will still be able to keep users from effectively getting a free subscription without paying for a subscription. Essentially you'd be able to read some number of articles over some period of time, but at some point a paywall will kick in.
Okay, I hear the howls of disgust. We hate paywalls, etc. Yeah, sure. As an internet user, I hate paywalls, and I especially hate sites that try to get into google search results, but then when you click through on the google search results, you can't actually read the content. It's misleading and a waste of my time. But it's not completely unreasonable for, e.g., the Wall Street Journal to want readers to pay for a subscription. They make money that way. They can only do high-quality reporting if they get income. Different newspapers are trying different models. The NY Times has messed around with its setup over the years, with the current situation being that anyone can read anything for free, without registering. That may be a workable business model for the NY Times in the long run, provided that they have some other revenue stream. That's why I subscribe to the NY Times in print. Editorial work isn't free. Sending reporters to Afghanistan isn't free. Yes, they can get some revenue from advertising, but possibly not enough to support high-quality reporting if it's the sole source of revenue.
Please, spare me the buggy whip analogy. It's a false analogy. Cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, and were superior to them. We don't have a superior replacement for traditional newspapers. No Digg is not a replacement for the NY Times.
Find free books.
I've worked pretty hard to pull away from the mainstream dead-pulp press sites unless they offer a variety of features I think are necessary:
1. No login, but if I do voluntarily create an account, I should get some advantages (targeted ads would be nice, like Facebook where I can vote on ads)
2. Comments. If the deadpulpsters don't want my input, I don't want theirs.
3. Reasonable variety of facts over what the AP and other wires vomit. Originality counts, even if I disagree with it.
Yet there's another short-rule I follow: if they're going to put up ads that make no sense, I will generally back off of their site. I don't use adblock because I am WILLING to visit advertisers of the blogs and news-sites I read, if the ads are relevant. But if it's "Rachel Ray lost 40 lbs using this diet" or "Find out more about acai" or "Quit smoking today with a vaporizer" then I'm pretty much done with that site.
The ad desks need to accept LESS money from advertisers in exchange for ads that are actually relevant. Why can't these companies offer real-time advertising on a per-article basis? That way, Mike Flower Shop can advertise on the poinsettia article, and Subaru can advertise on the article about Saab going under.
It isn't Google who is killing these papers, it is their lack of advertisers who actually matter to the readers. Heck, I have no problem giving away my information when I register (voluntarily) for an account. My age, my sex, my income, my general location -- that way, advertisers can target me at those sites, and maybe I'll even buy.
For what it's worth, I advertise for some of my businesses on Facebook. I pick the keywords, the sex, the age and more, and my ad conversion rate is pretty high (I pay about $4 per new buying customer, on average). It costs me $100 to get a new client through other means (direct mail, even referrals that require me to spend time winning the new customer). Facebook has it right, even if a lot of their ads are shady (I can dislike them, thumbs down). It's time for the deadpulp media to do the same thing, or even turn their advertising over to another venture who will shut down the diet, anti-smoking and cleaner skin spammers.
Google brings us information, more often than not produced by someone else. This is a concept upon which all of humanity exists upon. The only difference is now there's a new medium and they're doing it better than everyone else. Murdoch (and others) are from a generation were they had control. A generation where they did something, and made lots and lots of money. However, much like the entirety of human history, advances happen. Because of those advancements they can no longer control what they used to. Too often does our society stifle innovation because it threatens a certain sect of individuals control. Adapt or die, thanks.
Blow up my plane? Nuke ten of your airports.
It's a different C word: "Control"; traditional media is scared to death by the changes that are occurring.
First dead-tree media is all but gone, now even the online variety can be accessed without even hitting the homepage.
Add the fact that Google is seen as "taking" money from the newspaper by profiting from their content.
"The proverb warns that you should never bite the hand that feeds you, but maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself."
You're asking people to accept that they exist at the whim of some other business and through rules that they can't influence or control. Would you put your own business at that level of dependence? Why should a publisher?
Google may be superficially good for a publisher today, but the reality is that they lose influence and control over their own product. They become commodity suppliers to Google, and that's no good to them. It may or may not be good for you-the-consumer, but that's not the viewpoint being argued.
Cheers,
Ian
+1 Mod parent up. A+++ WOULD BUY AGAIN
(By the way, I gave up ads on my news site when I realised that I was taking 1/120 of the money I made working for a living in order to shove FLOATING FUCKING BANNERS in my friends' faces. WTF.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I say that Google profits from connecting users to content. It is a service that most web publishers appreciate greatly. Google, unlike any other search engine ever, goes to great pains to deliver the least-skewed results possible. Google is constantly on the hunt for people who game their system. That's why they succeed.
The quote's a good contrast with Altavista, which started out with "least-skewed" results, but declined when they were attacked by search engine gamers flooding the results with crap that they never really got very good at filtering out. All the while adding various portal features that cluttered up the site and tried to push users towards content they weren't looking for.
Or if they do have a news site that they like, they subscribe to its headlines via RSS and only actually visit it to read articles which seem worthwhile.
The only problem with this is when the newspapers compare it with their old business model, where everyone had to buy a whole newspaper in order to be able to skim it for the interesting stuff.
A bit similar to "the album is dead" phenomenon which has hit the music industry.
Google is *both* brilliantly customer-centric AND a deeply yet unproveably abusive monopolist. How?
Google search is so useful, simple, fast, and ubiquitous that no wonder they have 70-90% market share. I use it all the time, and no other search engine could approach that usefulness w/o spending BILLIONS of dollars and years of development; hell, even rich old Microsoft can't catch them. As a service, they're amazing.
BUT...most of their enormous revenue stream depends on search advertising, and their near-monopoly position lets them set the price for search ads. They *claim* it's an impartial auction, but unlike real auctions, their system doesn't have clear or even consistent rules for what bidders pay and get in return. Google could very well be algorithmically "gaming" their own auction--say with shill bids or biased "quality scores"--and no one would be the wiser, since all relevant proof is hidden away on their servers ("Pay no attention to the man behind the firewall!"). The Register has some awesome coverage of some of their well-hidden tricks, and the elaborate deceptions (like the incantation "auction") Google uses to keep people in the dark.
So as an advertising monopolist, they're evil.
Imagine where Microsoft might still be if all the solid evidence against them had stayed behind a firewall too....
I don't live in Soviet Russia, where the Google hand feeds YOU!
In the rest of the world, YOU feed the Google hand!
Traditionally, the press have cultivated "loyalty" among their readership - not factual reporting. That means they want people who are comfortable with their output and will believe (or at least agree with) their content and read what is put in front of them without any critical thought. The way people find news with google is that they go and search for a topic or story or word - not for a publications's title (which they already have bookmarked). That puts pressure on the content providers to publish true, concise, and short pieces that googlers will compare with the other search results from other news sources,. before settling on reading the whole story (and advertisements) from one newspaper or news outlet.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
You just don't know how to read.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
goes to great pains to deliver the least-skewed results possible
That is the problem they have right there, or at least one of the problems some of the publishers have with Google. The don't want any unhelpful unskewed sources out there. They either want things skewed in their direction or skewed so badly another way that they can gain public support "capital" (or just some common or garden PR fodder) by making an issue of it.
why is google now the hand?? I NEVER GAVE THEM SOMETHING btw subject is google forced sht LOOL
You just don't understand what google is doing.
I quote: "Google does not deliver the package of ads with gratuitous attractive content supplied by traditional media."
Google's content is, "an answer to your question".
It's not movies.
It's not music.
It's not political commentary.
It's an answer to the question, where do I find ___.
The essential problem, the reason for revolt, is that on google, THE ADVERTISING CONFLICTS WITH THE CONTENT.
Maybe you want to buy a honda. But here's this nissan ad, and you click on it. See how this could get someone upset?
Another example: I want my users to type in my domain and drill down to pages. This gets me maybe 3 or 4 pageviews.
Coming in straight from google gets me one pageview.
See how this could get someone upset?
Google's primary business is to mine data from every place they can think of for the purpose of serving up the most precisely targetted online advertising that they can. That's what they do. If you use google docs, you are probably uploading data to a company that serves your competitor's ads. If you embed google analytics in your web site, you are probably helping google do a better job of targetting visotors to your web site with your competitor's ads. If you "make google part of your business process" in any way other than paying them to display your banner ads to web surfers, you are probably making a strategic business error. They're an advertising company. That's all they do. Don't be fooled by the fact that google has so much money sitting around that they spend it it on crazy stuff that makes them appear to be anything other than an advertising company, and make business decisions accordingly.
Big media is to worried Google will gain too much control and influence over media and make it mostly free or inexpensive.
Google does not FEEL evil. I love their search engine. They are a good company. Chrome is not quite as wholesome as Firefox, but still, I love Google. Just like it makes me mad when someone condemns Intel. I like Intel. I will not buy and AMD chip. They just feel cheap, and when I do get one, they overheat. Who cares if Intel tries to stay on top? They make good stuff! Microsoft is another story, they make ABOMIDABLE products! I am a PROUD Linux user for five years and counting.