"These days, a lot of newspapers look to cut their overheads by reducing their actual journalist and editor head-count — after all, these folks aren't contributing much to the bottom line .... But in the long term, it's insane: it's the kind of move that cuts one or two percentage points off the bottom line, but pisses off the subscribers."
Which I totally agree with, my local newspaper is just empty calories in that sense.
He then goes on to say
"Given that the crappiest spam blog is as useful to Google as the greatest virtuoso symphony performance or the Nobel prize winning novel, if it generates the same number of advertising click-throughs, they'd do just as well to spend the money on automated spambots."
Which is where I go astray. I am getting annoyed with Google junk results. If I am searching for weird niche tech stuff I get fine results, but if I look for products, general health information, financial info, or any of the things an "average person" looks for I just get crap. Spambot blogs, and the inevitable list of pages that are from heavily SEOd, but useless sites.
That has got to be driving people crazy, and if Google does not figure out how to weed out the useless content they will lose their users to some sort of trusted social networking bookmarking model. Already I see this on Facebook where my friends ask each other for links and sources.
Agreed. I posted saying basically, he was dismissing Google's attachment to good content far too readily - consider YouTube, where they pay royalties per music playback. Might they do something similar for books?
Also if you look at Google owning web advertising with a critical eye, one question seems to appear to me.
How is it that Google has become essentially the equivalent of a broadcast advertiser in a narrowcast distributed ownership venue like the web.
The answer as I see it is, that we are still accustomed to the old ways and have a tough time trying the new models and tend to leap on the biggest bandwagon out of fear. Fear of missing out on the imaginary gravy train.
Comments
Great read,
However, first he says:
"These days, a lot of newspapers look to cut their overheads by reducing their actual journalist and editor head-count — after all, these folks aren't contributing much to the bottom line .... But in the long term, it's insane: it's the kind of move that cuts one or two percentage points off the bottom line, but pisses off the subscribers."
Which I totally agree with, my local newspaper is just empty calories in that sense.
He then goes on to say
"Given that the crappiest spam blog is as useful to Google as the greatest virtuoso symphony performance or the Nobel prize winning novel, if it generates the same number of advertising click-throughs, they'd do just as well to spend the money on automated spambots."
Which is where I go astray. I am getting annoyed with Google junk results. If I am searching for weird niche tech stuff I get fine results, but if I look for products, general health information, financial info, or any of the things an "average person" looks for I just get crap. Spambot blogs, and the inevitable list of pages that are from heavily SEOd, but useless sites.
That has got to be driving people crazy, and if Google does not figure out how to weed out the useless content they will lose their users to some sort of trusted social networking bookmarking model. Already I see this on Facebook where my friends ask each other for links and sources.
Agreed. I posted saying basically, he was dismissing Google's attachment to good content far too readily - consider YouTube, where they pay royalties per music playback. Might they do something similar for books?
Sure, crap only wins in the short term and psychologically speaking the last 10 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I have a coat older than Google. I have drill press older than the entire internet. I have books that predate the transistor.
This is all new and we are just barely coming to terms with a giant sea change in every industry and cultural institution.
We need more ideas and techniques to try, old ones, new ones and everything in between.
Also if you look at Google owning web advertising with a critical eye, one question seems to appear to me.
How is it that Google has become essentially the equivalent of a broadcast advertiser in a narrowcast distributed ownership venue like the web.
The answer as I see it is, that we are still accustomed to the old ways and have a tough time trying the new models and tend to leap on the biggest bandwagon out of fear. Fear of missing out on the imaginary gravy train.