AdWords Adds Feefo Power
November 19, 2018
What the heck is Feefo? Is sounds like the name for the newest and cutest Internet star or some sort of product for the furry community. The Drum shares that it is actually an online review company (huh?) in the article, “Google To Strengthen Adwords Intelligence With Feefo Partnership.” Feefo has now partnered with Google AdWords. Feefo will use its sentiment analysis technology, it works with companies Next, Vauxhall, Expedia, and Thomas Cook, to discover advertising keywords from brand reviews. These keywords will then be pumped into digital ads to increase click-through-rates.
Google is proud of the new partnership:
“Adrian Blockus, head of channel sales for the UK and Ireland at Google, explained: ‘We’re pleased to have Feefo on board as a Google partner. Feefo has the product knowledge, advanced technology and insight needed, to create and optimize Google AdWords campaigns for their customers.’”
AdWords users will be able to use Feefo insights to spruce up their brand copy and landing pages to reflect the language and sentiment customers use in their reviews. In other words, Web sites will be rewritten to use customer-based language to make it sound more consumer friendly.
It is an ingenious strategy, because consumer feedback is being directed funneled into a company’s Web site. The language on a Web site will sound more natural and fluid to directly reflect consumer experiences with the product or service. Feefo says it will help consumers make confident and informed decisions, but actually the consumers are providing the keywords.
Whitney Grace, November 19, 2018
Blood Sugar Levels Will Not Work. What about Death?
November 17, 2018
Google, as I recall, wanted to smash through medical barriers. When the contact lens thing surfaced at Microsoft with inputs from Babak Parviz, I figured Google knew something Microsoft did not. I read “Alphabet Stops Its Project to Create a Glucose-Measuring Contact Lens for Diabetes Patients” and learned:
Verily, Alphabet‘s life sciences arm, has paused work on its so-called “smart lens” program, which was aiming to put tiny sensors on contact lenses to measure blood sugar levels in tears.
Parviz, one of the wizards responsible for Google Glass (that’s a story as well) is now at Amazon. The contact lens thing is a goner.
That happens. But it raises a question in my mind:
If Google can’t make blood sugar monitoring work, what’s that say about the company’s goal of solving death?
High school science club project? Maybe. Death may be a more difficult problem, but it might spark fascinating ad sales.
Stephen E Arnold, November 17, 2018
Google Exits Robots or Replicants
November 15, 2018
Remember Google’s Boston Dynamics unit. That was the outfit with the robot reindeer. Perfect for pre school parties. I learned today that the ever frisky Andy Rubin’s last non humanoid fling has turned off the lights. The news appeared in “Google Shuts Down Bipedal Robot Team Schaft.”
This outfit was Schaft. It too made child friendly robots like this one:
Google now wants to create non humanoid robots. The decision means that robot rentals for children’s parties will not contribute to the company’s 2019 revenue.
“Hello, kids, let’s party,” says the Google Schaft thing.
If the party needs a bit of life, Schaft things can play hide and seek in the field near the pre school. That sounds like a good idea. Here’s Schaft approaching a three year old child cowering in a field behind a clump of grass.
High school science club thinking may be maturing. Think of those disappointed pre schoolers.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2018
Google Struggles with Indexing?
November 14, 2018
You probably know that Google traffic was routed to China. The culprit was something obvious. In this case, Nigeria. Yep, Nigeria. You can read about the mistake that provided some interesting bits and bytes to the Middle Kingdom. Yeah, I know. Nigeria. “A Nigerian Company Is in Trouble with Google for Re-Routing Traffic to Russia, China” provides some allegedly accurate information.
But the major news I noted here in Harrod’s Creek concerned Google News and its indexing. Your experience may be different from mine, but Google indexing can be interesting. I was looking for an outfit identified as Inovatio, which is a university anchored outfit in China. The reference to Inovatio in Google aimed me at a rock band and a design company in Slovenia. Google’s smart search system changed Inovatio to innovation even when I used quote marks. I did locate the Inovatio operation using a Chinese search engine. I was able to track Ampthon.com which listed Inovatio and provided the university affiliation to allow me to get some info about an outfit providing surveillance and intercept services to countries in need of this capability.
Google. Indexing. Yeah.
“Google News Publishers Complaining About Indexing Issues” highlights another issue with the beloved Google. I learned:
In the past few days there has been an uptick in complaints from Google News publishers around Google not indexing their new news content. Gary Illyes from Google did a rare appearance on Twitter to say he passed along the feedback to the Google News team to investigate. You can scan through the Google News Help forums and see a nice number of complaints. Also David Esteve, the SEO at the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, posted his concerns on Twitter.
The good news is that the write up mentions that this indexing glitch is a known issue.
Net net: Many people with whom I speak believe that Google’s index is comprehensive, timely, and consistent.
Yeah, also smart because Inovatio is really innovation.
Stephen E Arnold, November 14, 2018
Google AI: One Model to Learn Everything. Yep, Everything
November 8, 2018
What’s an online advertising company with interesting ethical norms doing with artificial intelligence? Part of the answer appears in the ad stuffed The Stanford Daily’s story “Jeff Dean Discusses Google’s Current Efforts around AI.”
I noted this interesting point:
The future, he said, lies not in creating lots of models and algorithms for distinct tasks but rather in having one model that can learn everything.
Makes sense. A monopoly on information. Now about the ethics part from a company with a founder who dallied with a Glass wearer, a lawyer who sired a Googler at Google, and a Google VP who ended up dead on a yacht from a needle mishap involving a contract worker and a controlled substance.
Will the magic algorithm operate without bias or unusual tendencies?
Yeah, one model to learn everything. Universal. Perfect right?
Sounds good. But Google is not your mother’s AltaVista, is it?
Stephen E Arnold, November 8, 2018
References for those who do not link these ideas:
The Google Glass affair: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/08/sergey-brin-and-susan-wojcicki-split.html
The productive Google lawyer reference: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/your-move-google-board/574036/
The dead Googler and alleged drug explorer: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/07/09/google-executive-yacht-overdose/#ae67e3e9e255
Google: The Right Stuff?
November 8, 2018
Much has been written about Google’s 20th birthday, recently. While a lot of fun retrospectives have taken us down memory lane, it’s worth thinking for a while about what it aims to do in the future and whether it can survive. One recent story gave us much food for thought, according to The Conversation, “Google Hits 20, But It Will Struggle To Become a Billion Dollar Company Like Apple.”
According to the story:
“Amid the success of Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Chrome, Google Drive, Google Translate, and Google Analytics, one thing has never changed. Since its founding, Google’s mainstay has always been advertising revenue. Of Google’s US$60 billion revenue in 2015, only US$8 billion came from non-advertising activities.”
This is not to mention all of the famously failed products, like Google Glass, that have diverted the company’s time and money. But it’s those beautiful losers that kind of make us root for Google. We love their interest in trying new things, even when we laugh at it. However, some enemies of the Search King are actually claiming they are too powerful. With looming lawsuits at home and abroad, it might be time for Google Lawyer to become a thing if they want to survive another two decades.
Patrick Roland, November 8, 2018
Google Search Tips List
November 6, 2018
Another Google Search Tip List Fails
Listicles are popular articles, because they can be easily digest, curated, and take huge advantage of ad placement if you put the listed information on separate pages. One type of listicle that always pops up is how to get the best out of your Google search and the search results. The Teche Blog adds its own post to the Google tips archive with “Customize The Date Range Of Your Search And 10 More Use Google Tips.”
The article starts with a Google history tidbit:
“Most know that Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California, but did you know that the company has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier? That’s right, in February 2010, Google Fiber was announced, a fiber-optic infrastructure that was installed in Kansas City; while in April 2015, it launched Project Fi in the United States, combining Wi-Fi and cellular networks from different providers; and in 2016, it announced the Google Station initiative to make public Wi-Fi available around the world, with initial deployment in India.”
The search tips in the post are either useless or already known. For instance, the wildcard asterisk * tip to replace words you don not know is as old as the Internet as is the next tip about putting a word in quotes for the exact phrase. It also tells readers about how Google can define words, convert measurements, track flights, flip a coin, and exclude specific keywords. UGH!
There are a few useful tips, such as how to search for a specific file type: [keywords] filetype:[filetype], search within a specific Web site: site:[Web site] [keywords], and related Web sites: related: [Web site].
These tips, however, are outdated, old fashioned, and most people already know them. Try something a little more robust next time.
Whitney Grace, November 6, 2018
Google: A New Challenge from Code Piracy?
November 5, 2018
With Google charging for its Android apps and services, one question is, “Will Google’s software be pirated?” The question seems as if it comes from the early days of MS DOS and software piracy of floppy discs.
Google has spent much of its two-decade life in the crosshairs of some enemy or another. Whether it was from rival search engines, advertisers, or other media. However, a new battle recently used their own fire in the fight. We learned more from a CNBC story, “Chinese Firm Touting ‘Innovative’ Software Used Parts of Google Code.”
According to the story:
“Redcore, a Chinese start-up said it has developed “core technology” with “independent intellectual property rights” in regards to its browser. “But eagle-eyed users on Chinese social media spotted traces of Chrome in the installation directory of Redcore’s browser. There was a file in the directory called “Chrome.exe” and some image files of Google’s browser.”
This is not the only time Google has had to battle off theft issues with its software. However, more often than not, it’s people using Google for theft. Such as how they only recently found a way to detect and stop people using Chrome to steal wi-fi network information. The online ad giant seems to be aware of the target on its back and the archers taking aim.
Security lapses, pirated code, and interesting management decisions—worth watching the Google.
Patrick Roland, November 5, 2018
High School Science Club: Employee Walk About
November 1, 2018
High school science club management methods face an interesting situation. The science club has a hierarchy. The whiz kids on the lower levels of that hierarchy are not getting with the program. Allegedly a small percentage of Google’s work force are unhappy with handling of alleged sexual misconduct. Here in Harrod’s Creek, we assumed that members of the high school science club school of thought worried about math, Fourier transforms, and k-means. If “We’re the Organizers of the Google Walkout. Here Are Our Demands” contains accurate information, some affected by high school management methods have other interests; for example, fairness, respectful behavior, and other old fashioned ideas.
I learned:
All employees and contract workers across the company deserve to be safe.
Fancy that.
Here’s an outrageous demand:
A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously. The process today is not working, in no small part because HRs’ performance is assessed by senior management and directors, forcing them to put management’s interests ahead of employees reporting harassment and discrimination. The improved process should also be accessible to all: full-time employees, temporary employees, vendors, and contractors alike. Accountability, safety and an ability to report unsafe working conditions should not be dictated by employment status.
What’s next for practitioners of high school science club membership? Better business processes? Executives not given to dalliances with fascinating methods of motivation? More responsible decision making? Nah, HSSCM methods are just better.
Google’s implementation of such management methods is as interesting as the company’s progress on solving death.
Stephen E Arnold, November 1, 2018
Yeah, Fake News. Yeah, Well, Google?
November 1, 2018
While nearly everyone agrees that Russian Hackers attempted to influence the last major US election, that doesn’t mean much has changed. In fact, America might just be back where it started according to a recent IT Wire story, “Google Policing of Ad Service Fails to Block ‘Russian’ Ads.”
According to the story:
“CfA executive director Daniel Stevens said: ‘The ease with which CfA was able to replicate the 2016 Russian ad campaign shows Google has failed to keep its promise to prevent foreign actors from interfering in our elections. Google is more interested in pocketing rubles than protecting American Democracy.’”
Does this mean all hope is lost and we might as well let another nation decide our elected officials? No way! Some of the brightest minds from Microsoft, Snapchat and Twitter recently gathered to coordinate efforts to protect voters from fraud and fake news leading up to the 2018 midterm elections. What they are working on is pretty hush-hush, but we like seeing this collaborative effort. If we are to move forward and have a fair online space, it won’t be done by a single company lording over others. Here’s to more teamwork in Silicon Valley.
Patrick Roland, November 1, 2018
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