Remember the Metaverse
August 17, 2025
This blog post is the work of an authentic dinobaby. Sorry. No smart software can help this reptilian thinker.
The “Metaverse” was Mark Zuckerberg’s swing and a miss in the virtual world video game. Alphabet is rebooting the failed world says Ars Technica, “Meta’s “AI Superintelligence” Effort Sounds Just Like Its Failed ‘Metaverse.’” Zuckerberg released a memo in which he hyped the new Meta Superintelligence Labs. He described it as “the beginning of a new era for humanity.” It sounds like Zuckerberg is described his Metaverse from a 2021 keynote address.
The Metaverse exists but not many people use it outside of Meta employees who actively avoid using certain features. It’s possible that the public hasn’t given Zuckerberg enough time to develop the virtual world. But when augmented reality uses a pair of ugly coke bottle prototype glasses that cost $10000, the average person isn’t going to log in. To quote the article:
“Today, those kinds of voices of internal skepticism seem in short supply as Meta sets itself up to push AI in the same way it once backed the metaverse. Don’t be surprised, though, if today’s promise that we’re at "the beginning of a new era for humanity" ages about as well as Meta’s former promises about a metaverse where "you’re gonna be able to do almost anything you can imagine."
Zuckerberg is blah blah-ing and yada yada-ing about the future of AI and how it will change society. Society won’t either adapt, can’t afford the changes, or the technology is too advanced to replicate on a large scale. But there is Apple with its outstanding google-headset thing.
One trick ponies do one trick. Yep. Big glasses.
Whitney Grace, August 17, 2025
Google! Manipulating Search Results? No Kidding
August 15, 2025
The Federal Trade Commission has just determined something the EU has been saying (and litigating) for years. The International Business Times tells us, “Google Manipulated Search Results to Bolster Own Products, FTC Report Finds.” Writer Luke Villapaz reports:
“For Internet searches over the past few years, if you typed ‘Google’ into Google, you probably got the exact result you wanted, but if you were searching for products or services offered by Google’s competitors, chances are those offerings were found further down the page, beneath those offered by Google. That’s what the U.S. Federal Trade Commission disclosed on Thursday, in an extensive 160-page report, which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. FTC staffers found evidence that Google’s algorithm was demoting the search results of competing services while placing its own higher on the search results page, according to excerpts from the report. Among the websites affected: shopping comparison, restaurant review and travel.”
Villapaz notes Yelp has made similar allegations, estimating Google’s manipulation of search results may have captured some 20% of its potential users. So, after catching the big tech firm red handed, what will the FTC do about it? Nothing, apparently. We learn:
“Despite the findings, the FTC staffers tasked with investigating Google did not recommend that the commission issue a formal complaint against the company. However, Google agreed to some changes to its search result practices when the commission ended its investigation in 2013.”
Well OK then. We suppose that will have to suffice.
Cynthia Murrell, August 15, 2025
AI Applesauce: Sweeten the Story about Muffing the Bunny
August 14, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby being a dinobaby.
I read “Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls AI ‘Bigger Than the Internet’ in Rare All-Hands Meeting.” I noted this passage:
In a global all-hands meeting hosted from Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, CEO Tim Cook seemed to admit to what analysts and Apple enthusiasts around the world had been raising concerns about: that Apple has fallen behind competitors in the AI race. And Cook promised employees that the company will be doing everything to catch up. “Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab.” …The AI revolution [is] “as big or bigger” than the internet.
Okay. Two companies of some significance have miss the train to AI Ville: Apple and Telegram. Both have interesting technology. Apple is far larger, but for some users Telegram is more important to their lives. One is fairly interested in China activities; the other is focused on Russia and crypto.
But both have managed their firms into the same digital row boat. Apple had Siri and it was not very good. Telegram knew about AI and allowed third-party bot developers to use it, but Telegram itself dragged its feet.
Both companies are asserting that each has plenty of time. Tim Cook is talking about smart software but so far the evidence of making an AI difference is scant. Telegram, on the other hand, has aimed Nikolai Durov at AI. That wizard is working on a Telegram AI system.
But the key point is that both of these forward leaning outfits are trying to catch up. This is not keeping pace, mind. The two firms are trying to go from watching the train go down the tracks to calling an Uber to get to their respective destinations.
My take on both companies is that the “leadership” have some good reasons for muffing the AI bunny. Apple is struggling with its China “syndrome.” Will the nuclear reactor melt down, fizzle out, or blow up? Apple’s future in hardware may become radioactive.
Telegram is working under the shadow of the criminal trial lumbering toward its founder and owner Pavel Durov. More than a dozen criminal charges and a focused French judicial figure have Mr. Durov reporting a couple of times a week. To travel, he has to get a note from his new “mom.”
But well-run companies don’t let things like China dependency or 20 years in Fleury-Mérogis Prison upset trillion dollar companies or cause more than one billion people to worry about their free text messages and non fungible tokens.
“Leadership,” not technology, strikes me as the problem with AI challenges. If AI is so big, why did two companies fail to get the memo? Inattention, pre-occupation with other matters, fear? Pick one or two.
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2025
What Killed Newspapers? Speed and User Preference Did
August 13, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby being a dinobaby.
I read “Did Craigslist Decimate Newspapers? Legend Meets Reality?” I liked the essay. I wanted to capture a few thoughts on this newspaper versus electronic shift.
I left Booz, Allen to join the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co. I had a short hiatus because I was going to become an officer. I couldn’t officially start work until the CJ’s board voted. The question I was asked by my colleagues at the blue chip consulting firm before I headed to Louisville, Kentucky, from the real world of Washington, DC, Manhattan, and other major cities was, “Why?” One asked, “Where’s Louisville?”
I had a hunch that electronic information access was going to become a very big deal. In 1982, I was dumping the big time for what looked like a definite backwater, go-nowhere-fast place. Louisville made liquor, had a horse race, and a reputation for racial disharmony.
But electronic information was important to Barry Bingham, Junior, the top dog at the CJ. When I showed up, my office was next to a massage parlor on Fifth Street. I wasn’t in the main building. In fact, the office was not much more than a semi-slum. An abandoned house was visible from my office window. I left my nifty office overlooking Bethesda High School for a facility that did not meet GSA standards for storage space.
But here I was. My work focused on databases owned by the CJ, but these were actually described by a hardened newspaper person as “Barry’s crazy hobby.” The databases were ABI / INFORM, a bunch of technical indexes, and Pharmaceutical News Index. Nevertheless, the idea of using a computer, a dial up modem, and a database provided something of great value: A way to get smart really fast.
I had dabbled in indexing content, a fluke that got me a job at Halliburton Nuclear. And now I was leaving the land of forced retirement at 55, juicy bonuses, and the prospect of managing MBA drones on thrilling projects. In the early 1980s, not too many people knew about databases.
A relatively modest number of companies used online databases. Most of ABI / INFORM’s online customers were from the Fortune 1000, big time consulting firms, and research-type outfits around the world. The engineering databases did not have that magnetic appeal, so we sold these as a lot to an outfit called Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. I have no idea what happened to the databases nor to CSA. The PNI product was a keeper because it generated money online and from a print reference book. But ABI / INFORM was the keeper. It was only online. Shortly before I departed the CJ to join Ziff Communications in Manhattan, we cooperated with a publisher to bring out topical collections of content based on the abstracts in the ABI / INFORM database.
My arrival disrupted the database unit, and miraculously it became profitable within six months of my arrival. Barry credited me with the win, but I did nothing but do what I had learned at Booz, Allen. We then created Business Dateline, the first online database that included publisher corrections. As far as I know, Business Dateline held that distinction for many years. (That’s why I don’t trust online content. It is often incorrect, outdated, or a fabrication of a crazed “expert.)
But what about the CJ? I can tell you that only Barry Bingham wanted to put the text, the images, and the obituaries online in electronic form. The board of directors thought that move was stupid. The newsroom knew it was stupid. The printers thought the idea was the dumbest thought ever.
But there were three factors Barry understood and I knew were rock solid:
- Online access delivered benefits that would make 100 percent sense to people who needed to find high value, third-party information. (ABI / INFORM abstracted and indexed important articles from more than 1,200 business and management journals, and it was ideal for people in the consulting game)
- Print was a problem because of [a] waste, [b] cost of paper, and [c] the general and administrative expenses required to “do” print newspapers and magazine
- Electronic information was faster. For those to whom rapid access to current information was important, online was the future. Calling someone, like the newspaper reporters liked to do, was time consuming, expensive, and subject to delays.
Now Craigslist.org shows up. What happens? People who want to sell stuff can plug the ad into the Craigslist interface, click a button, and wait for a buyer. Contrast that with the process of placing a print ad. At the CJ, and employment ad could not use the abbreviation “cv.” I asked. No one knew. That’s the way it was. Traditional publishing outfits have a lot of the “that’s the way it was.”
Did Craigslist cause the newspaper sector to implode. No. The way technology works is that it chugs along, confined to a few narrow spaces. Then, when no one is looking, boom. It is the only way to go. To seize the advantage, traditional publishing outfits had to move fast.
That’s like telling a turtle to run in the Kentucky Debry. Why couldn’t newspapers and magazines adapt? Easy. The smell of ink, the tangible deliverable, and the role of gatekeeper combine to create a variant of fentanyl. Addled people cannot easily see what is obvious to those not on the drug.
Read the “Decimate” article. It’s interesting but in my opinion, making Mr. Newmark associate with the death of newspapers is colorful writing. Not the reality I witnessed in the go-go period from 1980 to 2006 for online information.
Stephen E Arnold, August 13, 2025
Explaining Meta: The 21st Century “Paul” Writes a Letter to Us
August 12, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby being a dinobaby.
I read an interesting essay called “Decoding Zuck’s Superintelligence Memo.” The write up is similar to the assignments one of my instructors dumped on hapless graduate students at Duquesne University, a Jesuit university located in lovely Pittsburgh.
The idea is to take a text in Latin and sometimes in English and explain it, tease out its meaning, and try to explain what the author was trying to communicate. (Tortured sentences, odd ball vocabulary, and references only the mother of an ancient author could appreciate were part of the deciphering fun.)
The “Decoding Zuck” is this type of write up. This statement automatically elevates Mr. Zuckerberg to the historical significance of the Biblical Paul or possibly to a high priest of the Aten in ancient Egypt. I mean who knew?
Several points warrant highlighting.
First, the write up includes “The Zuckerberg Manifesto Pattern.” I have to admit that I have not directed much attention to Mr. Zuckerberg or his manifestos. I view outputs from Silicon Valley type outfits a particular form of delusional marketing for the purpose of doing whatever the visionary wants to do. Apparently they have a pattern and a rhetorical structure. The pattern warrants this observation from “Decoding Zuck”:
Compared to all founders and CEOs, Zuck does seem to have a great understanding of when he needs to bet the farm on an idea and a behavioral shift. Each time he does that, it is because he sees very clearly Facebook is at the end of the product life and the only real value in the company is the attention of his audience. If that attention declines, it takes away the ability to really extend the company’s life into the next cycle.
Yes, a prescient visionary.
Second, the “decoded” message means, according to “Decoding Zuck”:
More than anything, this is a positioning document in the AI arms race. By using “super intelligence” as a marketing phrase, Zuck is making his efforts feel superior to the mere “Artificial Intelligence” of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
I had no idea that documents like Paul’s letter to the Romans and Mr. Zuckerberg’s manifesto were marketing collateral. I wonder if those engaged in studying ancient Egyptian glyphs will discover that the writings about Aten are assertions about the bread sold by Ramose, the thumb on the scale baker.
Third, the context for the modern manifesto of Zuck is puffery. The exegesis says:
So what do I think about this memo, and all the efforts of Meta? I remain skeptical of his ability to invent a new future for his company. In the past, he has been able to buy, snoop, or steal other people’s ideas. It has been hard for him and his company to actually develop a new market opportunity. Zuckerberg also tends to overpromise on timelines and underestimate execution challenges.
I think this analysis of the Zuckerberg Manifesto of 2025 reveals several things about how Meta (formerly Facebook) positions itself and it provides some insight into the author of “Decoding Zuck” as well:
- The outputs are baloney packaged as serious thought
- The AI race has to produce a winner, and it is not clear if Facebook (sorry Meta) will be viewed as a contender
- AI is not yet a slam dunk winner, bigger than the Internet as another Silicon Valley sage suggested.
Net net: The AI push reveals that some distance exists between delivering hefty profits for those who have burned billions to reach the point that a social media executive feels compelled to issue a marketing blurb.
Remarkable. Marketing by manifesto.
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2025
Paywalls. Users Do Not Want Them. Wow. Who Knew?
August 12, 2025
Sometimes research simply confirms the obvious. The Pew Research Center declares, “Few Americans Pay for News when they Encounter Paywalls.” Anyone still hoping the death of journalism could be forestalled with paywalls should reconsider. Writers Emily Tomasik and Michael Lipka cite a March Pew survey that found 83% of Americans have not paid for news in the past year. What do readers do when they hit a paywall? A mere 1% of those surveyed have forked over the dough to continue. However, 53% say they seek the same information elsewhere and 32% just give up on accessing it. Why? The write-up summarizes:
“Among the 83% of U.S. adults who have not paid for news in the past year, the most common reason they cite is that they can find plenty of other news articles for free. About half of those who don’t pay for news (49%) say this is the main reason. Indeed, many news websites do not have paywalls. Others have recently loosened paywalls or removed them for certain content like public emergencies or public interest stories. Another common reason people don’t pay for news is that they are not interested enough (32%). Smaller shares of Americans who don’t pay for news say the main reason is that it’s too expensive (10%) or that the news provided isn’t good enough to pay for (8%).”
The study did find some trends around who does pay for journalism. We learn:
“Overall, 17% of U.S. adults pay for news. However, highly educated adults, Democrats and older Americans – among other demographic groups – are more likely to have paid for news.
For example, 27% of college graduates say they have directly paid a news source by subscribing, donating or becoming a member in the last year – triple the share of those with a high school diploma or less formal education who have done so.”
So, those who paid to acquire knowledge are willing to pay to acquire knowledge. Who could have guessed? The survey also found senior citizens, wealthy folks, and white Americans more often pay up. Anyone curious about the survey’s methodology can read about it here.
The rule of thumb I use is that if one has 100 “readers”, two will pay if the content is really good. Must-have content bumps up the number a bit, but online publishers have to spend big on marketing to move the needle. Stick with ads and sponsored content.
Cynthia Murrell, August 12, 2025
Self-Appointed Gatekeepers and AI Wizards Clash
August 11, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby being a dinobaby.
Cloudflare wants to protect those with content. Perplexity wants content. Cloudflare sees an opportunity to put up a Google-type toll booth on the Information Highway. Perplexity sees traffic stops of any type the way a soccer mom perceives an 80 year old driving at the speed limit.
Perplexity has responded to Cloudflare’s words about Perplexity allegedly using techniques to crawl sites which may not want to be indexed.
“Agents or Bots? Making Sense of AI on the Open Web” states:
Cloudflare’s recent blog post managed to get almost everything wrong about how modern AI assistants actually work.
In addition to misunderstanding 20-25M user agent requests are not scrapers, Cloudflare claimed that Perplexity was engaging in “stealth crawling,” using hidden bots and impersonation tactics to bypass website restrictions. But the technical facts tell a different story.
It appears Cloudflare confused Perplexity with 3-6M daily requests of unrelated traffic from BrowserBase, a third-party cloud browser service that Perplexity only occasionally uses for highly specialized tasks (less than 45,000 daily requests).
Because Cloudflare has conveniently obfuscated their methodology and declined to answer questions helping our teams understand, we can only narrow this down to two possible explanations.
- Cloudflare needed a clever publicity moment and we–their own customer–happened to be a useful name to get them one.
- Cloudflare fundamentally misattributed 3-6M daily requests from BrowserBase’s automated browser service to Perplexity, a basic traffic analysis failure that’s particularly embarrassing for a company whose core business is understanding and categorizing web traffic.
The idea is to provide two choices, a technique much-loved by vaudeville comedians on the Paul Whiteman circuit decades ago; for example, Have you stopped stealing office supplies?
I find this situation interesting for several reasons:
- Smart software outfits have been sucking down data
- The legal dust ups, the license fees, even the posture of the US government seems dynamic; that is, uncertain
- Clever people often find themselves tripped by their own clever lines.
My view is that when tech companies squabble, the only winners are the lawyers and the users lose.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2025
DuckDuck Privacy. Go, Go, Go
August 8, 2025
We all know Google tracks us across the Web. But we can avoid that if we use a privacy-touting alternative, right? Not necessarily. Simple Analytics reveals, “Google Is Tracking You (Even When You Use DuckDuckGo).” Note that Simple Analytics is a Google Analytics competitor. So let us keep that in mind as we consider its blog’s assertions. Still, writer Iron Brands cites a study by Safety Detectives as he writes:
“The study analyzed browsing patterns in the US, UK, Switzerland, and Sweden. They used a virtual machine and VPN to simulate users in these countries. By comparing searches on Google and DuckDuckGo, researchers found Google still managed to collect data (often without the user knowing). Here’s how: Google doesn’t just track people through Search or Gmail. Its invisible code runs on millions of sites through Google Analytics, AdSense ads, YouTube embeds, and other background services like Fonts or Maps. That means even if you’re using DuckDuckGo, you’re not totally out of Google’s reach. In Switzerland and Sweden, using DuckDuckGo cut Google tracking by half. But in the US, more than 40% of visited pages still sent data back to Google, despite using a privacy search engine. That’s largely because many US websites rely on Google’s tools for ads and traffic analysis.”
And here we thought Google made such tools affordable out of generosity. The post continues:
“This isn’t just about search engines. It’s about how deeply Google is embedded into the internet’s infrastructure. Privacy-conscious users often assume that switching to DuckDuckGo or Brave is enough. This research says otherwise. … You need more than just a private browser or search engine to reduce tracking. Google’s reach comes from third-party scripts that websites willingly add.”
To owners of those websites, Brands implores them to stop contributing to the problem. The write-up emphasizes that laws like the EU’s GDPR do not stem the tide. Such countries, we are told, are still awash in Google’s trackers. The solution? For both websites and users to divest themselves of Google as much as possible. As it happens, Brand’s firm offers site owners just such a solution—an analytics platform that is “privacy-first and cookie-free.” Note that Beyond Search has not independently verified these claims. Concerned site owners may also want to check out alternative Google alternatives.
Cynthia Murrell, August 8, 2025
Billions at Stake: The AI Bot Wars Begin
August 7, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby being a dinobaby.
I noticed that the puffs of smoke were actually canon fire in the AI bot wars. The most recent battle pits Cloudflare (a self-declared policeman of the Internet) against Perplexity, one of the big buck AI outfits. What is the fight? Cloudflare believes there is a good way to crawl and obtain publicly accessible content. Perplexity is just doing what those Silicon Valley folks have done for decades: Do stuff and apologize (or not) later.
WinBuzzer’s “Cloudflare Accuses Perplexity of Using ‘Stealth Crawlers’ to Evade Web Standards” said on August 4, 2025, at a time that has not yet appeared on my atomic clock:
Web security giant Cloudflare has accused AI search firm Perplexity of using deceptive “stealth crawlers” to bypass website rules and scrape content. In a report Cloudflare states Perplexity masks its bots with generic browser identities to ignore publisher blocks. Citing a breach of internet trust, Cloudflare has removed Perplexity from its verified bot program and is now actively blocking the behavior. This move marks a major escalation in the fight between AI companies and content creators, placing Perplexity’s aggressive growth strategy under intense scrutiny.
I like the characterization of Cloudflare as a Web security giant. Colorful.
What is the estimable smart software company doing? Work arounds. Using assorted tricks, Perplexity is engaging in what WinBuzzer calls “stealth activity.” The method is a time honored one among some bad actors. The idea is to make it difficult for routine filtering to stop the Perplexity bot from sucking down data.
If you want the details of the spoofs that Perplexity’s wizards have been using, navigate to this Ars Technica post. There is a diagram that makes absolutely crystal clear to everyone in my old age home exactly what Perplexity is doing. (The diagram captures a flow I have seen some nation state actors employ to good effect.)
The part of the WinBuzzer story I liked addressed the issue of “explosive growth and ethical scrutiny.” The idea of “growth” is interesting. From my point of view, the growth is in the amount of cash that Perplexity and other AI outfits are burning. The idea is, “By golly, we can make this AI stuff generate oodles of cash.” The ethical part is a puzzler. Suddenly Silicon Valley-type AI companies are into ethics. Remarkable.
I wish to share several thoughts:
- I love the gatekeeper role of the “Web security giant.” Aren’t commercial gatekeepers the obvious way to regulate smart software? I am not sharing my viewpoint. I suggest you formulate your own opinion and do with it what you will.
- The behavior of Perplexity, if the allegations are accurate, is not particularly surprising. In fact, in my opinion it is SOP or standard operating procedure for many companies. It is easier to apologize than ask for permission. Does that sound familiar? It should. From Google to the most recent start up, that’s how many of the tech savvy operate. Is change afoot? Yeah, sure. Right away, chief.
- The motivation for the behavior is pragmatic. Outfits like Perplexity have to pull a rabbit out of the hat to make a profit from the computational runaway fusion reactor that is the cost of AI. The fix is to get more content and burn more resources. Very sharp thinking, eh?
Net net: I predict more intense AI fighting. Who will win? The outfits with the most money. Isn’t that the one true way of the corporate world in the US in 2025?
Stephen E Arnold, August 7, 2025
Microsoft Management Method: Fire Humans, Fight Pollution
August 7, 2025
How Microsoft Plans to Bury its AI-Generated Waste
Here is how one big tech firm is addressing the AI sustainability quandary. Windows Central reports, “Microsoft Will Bury 4.9 Tons of ‘Manure’ in a Secretive Deal—All to Offset its AI Energy Demands that Drive Emissions Up by 168%.” We suppose this is what happens when you lay off employees and use the money for something useful. Unlike Copilot.
Writer Kevin Okemwa begins by summarizing Microsoft’s current approach to AI. Windows and Office users may be familiar with the firm’s push to wedge its AI products into every corner of the environment, whether we like it or not. Then there is the feud with former best bud OpenAI, a factor that has Microsoft eyeing a separate path. But whatever the future holds, the company must reckon with one pressing concern. Okemwa writes:
“While it has made significant headway in the AI space, the sophisticated technology also presents critical issues, including substantial carbon emissions that could potentially harm the environment and society if adequate measures aren’t in place to mitigate them. To further bolster its sustainability efforts, Microsoft recently signed a deal with Vaulted Deep (via Tom’s Hardware). It’s a dual waste management solution designed to help remove carbon from the atmosphere in a bid to protect nearby towns from contamination. Microsoft’s new deal with the waste management solution firm will help remove approximately 4.9 million metric tons of waste from manure, sewage, and agricultural byproducts for injection deep underground for the next 12 years. The firm’s carbon emission removal technique is quite unique compared to other rivals in the industry, collecting organic waste which is combined into a thick slurry and injected about 5,000 feet underground into salt caverns.”
Blech. But the process does keep the waste from being dumped aboveground, where it could release CO2 into the environment. How much will this cost? We learn:
“While it is still unclear how much this deal will cost Microsoft, Vaulted Deep currently charges $350 per ton for its carbon removal services. Simple math suggests that the deal might be worth approximately $1.7 billion.”
That is a hefty price tag. And this is not the only such deal Microsoft has made: We are told it signed a contract with AtmosClear in April to remove almost seven million metric tons of carbon emissions. The company positions such deals as evidence of its good stewardship of the planet. But we wonder—is it just an effort to keep itself from being buried in its own (literal and figurative) manure?
Cynthia Murrell, August 7, 2025
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