YouTube: Helping Out TikTok
November 23, 2021
I read “YouTube Co-Founder Predicts Decline of the Platform Following Removal f Dislikes.” The write up includes information from “co founder Jawed Karim.” Here’s a statement I circled in blue:
Jawed Karim, the third co-founder of YouTube, has condemned the platform’s removal of public dislike counts on videos, suggesting that the change will lead to YouTube’s decline.
There’s other information in the write up. However, I think the decline of YouTube may take a long, long time. Don’t get me wrong. The Google is annoying me and maybe one or two other people with some of its “business” actions; for example:
- Advertising on YouTube videos. More ads are appearing and soon some YouTube content will take less time to view than the ads.
- Advertising which is off the mark. I know that some thing my ability to write is terrible. Nevertheless, displaying ads for Grammarly multiple times a day is unlikely to have a return for anyone other than Google. Also, I am a Liberty Mutual customers. Too bad Google YouTube shows me multiple Liberty Mutual ads a day.
- Flawed search function. Try finding videos about a specific retired legionnaire who makes videos in German. Let me know how that works out for you.
- Crazy recommendations. We did a project related to a certain high profile content creator. I was then bombarded with suggestions for videos created by females living together in a van. Yeah, too bad the project ended months ago, but the Google YouTube does not forget.
Net net: The death of YouTube is going to take a while to arrive. The major factor in the decline will be one neither Mr. Karim nor I have yet mentioned.
What will do in the Tube?
TikTok. That’s a prediction in which I have about 60 percent confidence.
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2021
Battle of the Experts? Snowden Versus Sullivan, Wowza
November 19, 2021
This is a hoot: “Edward Snowden Dunks on Search Gurus in Hilarious Twitter Clapback.” Mr. Snowden is an individual who signed a secrecy agreement and elected to ignore it. Mr. Sullivan is a search engine optimization journalist, who is now laboring in the vineyards of Google.
The write up makes clear that Mr. Snowden finds the Google Web search experience problematic. (I wanted to write lousy, but I wish to keep maintain some level of polite discourse.)
Mr. Sullivan points out that Mr. Snowden was talking about “site search.” For those not privy to Google Dorks, a site search requires the names of a site like doe.gov preceded by the Google operator site: At least, that’s the theory.
The write up concludes with a reference to search engine optimization or SEO. That’s Mr. Sullivan’s core competency. Mr. Snowden’s response is not in the article or it could be snagged in the services monitored by the Federal service for supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) in everyone favorite satellite destroying country.
Quite a battle. The Snowden Sullivan slugfest. No, think this is emblematic of what has happened to those who ignore secrecy agreements and individuals who have worked hard to make relevance secondary to Google pay to play business processes.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2021
Google Knows How to Make You Smart. No, Really.
November 18, 2021
Think you’re pretty clever, do you? According to a recent study you may be mistaken, especially if you use Google often. MSN declares, “Googling Everything Making Us Think We’re Smarter than We Really Are.” Reporter Dan Avery explains:
“According to a new study out of the University of Texas at Austin, when people use Google to find information they become more confident in their ability to provide correct answers even without using the search tool. Researchers tested subjects on general knowledge, allowing them to answer questions using their own recollection or by googling the answers. Those who used Google didn’t just get more answers right—they were more certain they’d instinctively know the answers to other questions. In some cases, subjects would later believe they had just recalled information from memory when they had actually googled it. ‘When we’re constantly connected to knowledge, the boundaries between internal and external knowledge begin to blur and fade,’ study author Adrian Ward, a marketing professor at UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, said in a release. ‘We mistake the internet’s knowledge for our own.’ … While humans have relied on books and other resources for information since the dawn of the written word, Ward said, the speed and seamlessness of googling can cause us to confuse information found online with stuff we had stored in our gray matter.”
Yikes—talk about fooling oneself. Avery frames the findings as a modern version of the Dunning-Kruger effect. For the study, Ward had subjects answer some questions with or without access to an online search. It is no surprise those who looked up the answers were more confident in their accuracy than those who had not. However, the googlers were also more confident in their own memories. Suspecting the speed of search may play a role, Ward built a 25-second delay into a version of Google. Those participants did not demonstrate the same overconfidence as the first group. Interesting.
Another tweak was to compare subjects searching with Google to those using the more wordy and context-rich Wikipedia. The Google users were less accurate, but more importantly they were more apt to attribute their answers to their own brains than to the search engine. Ward’s theory is the additional time spent discerning an answer at Wikipedia means users actually remember where the information came from. In his alarming words, “We’re seeing that [Google users] even forget that they googled a question.” Not good—as the researcher notes, such overconfidence in one’s own knowledge can lead to poor life decisions or to students spending less time studying than they should. Let’s consider social steering, the Google way.
Cynthia Murrell November 18, 2021
When a Senior Manager Talks about What Top Dogs Know That Could Come Back and Bite Hard
November 12, 2021
I read “Facebook Knew What It Was Doing, Eric Schmidt Says.” Of course, Facebook knew what it had been doing. The company is effectively the personal sandbox of Mr. Zuckerberg. The write up says:
Facebook, now known as Meta Platforms Inc., “went a little too far on the revenue side and not enough on the judgment side,” Schmidt said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “You can see that from the Facebook leaks that have been occurring.”
This astute observation could be the verbal equivalent of a dog that bites its master. Google executives have been somewhat vague in their public statements and Congressional testimony about certain Google practices.
The top dog in a company knows what’s going on, eh? What do Google senior managers know about Google’s boots-on-the-ground practices? Probably a lot.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2021
A Meta Variant: Creating Distraction
November 11, 2021
Is this play a trial balloon?
India is one of the growing hotbeds for technology innovation. Google has business interests in India and Daily Hunt explains that, “Google’s Recent Move To Cut Play Store SubscriptionFees A ‘Distraction Tactic’: ADIF.” The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) says Google’s reduction on Play Store commissions from 30% to 15% is a tactic to “deflect and distract.”
The ADIF is an organization interested in protecting Indian digital startups from unfair practices. The plan to drop commissions on January 1, 2022 only happened, because developers pressured Google. Developers criticized Google for its steep fees. ADIF Executive Director Sijo Kuruvilla George claims Google lowering the commission rate is not an act of kindness, but only an attempt to distract developers from the lack of fair competition in India’s app market:
‘As long as Google gets to unilaterally dictate prices and people don’t have choices, it’s still a Lagaan – be it 30, 15 or even 2, the percentages do not matter. Deflect and distract seems to be what’s in play here. The portrayal and grandstanding, as a measure that fully acknowledges and addresses the concerns of developers, is misleading and objectionable,’ he said.”
Google also requires Indian app developers to adopt their billing system in March 2022. System integration and re-onboarding customers creates more work for the developers and their profits would diminish even with the drop to a 15% commission. The ADIF wants fair market competition and Google to allow alternate distribution of apps other than Google Play on Android OS.
Whitney Grace, November 11, 2021
Google Has the Tools to Shape Reality: Are Local Businesses a Public Demonstration of Functionality
November 9, 2021
I read about Google’s “effort to regain control of the antitrust narrative” in an essay published by Near Media. You can find that write up here. The idea is that Alphabet Google YouTube can employ “search features to sway small business sentiment.” The Cambridge Analytica example makes clear that even if framing, augmenting, and information shaping are not efficient, the methods work.
Now Google may be sufficiently concerned to employ the methods in a way that allows Near Media and even SEO wizards to sit up and take notice. An online newsletter founded by the luminary who later joined Google to explain “search” observed:
This is not the first time. When in legislative trouble before, Google has previously tried to appeal to users to make its case when laws change. In 2013, they made the case for cookies by telling searchers in the SERP, “Cookies help us deliver our services.” This was a prompt in response to European privacy laws.
SERP is one of the buzzwords much loved by search engine optimization specialists. SERP is “search engine result pages.” If an entity is not in Google or on the first page of a query result list, that entity effectively does not exist. Conversely, if information appears in such a position, that information has higher value and should be considered pretty darned reliable.
Shaping results is one of the easiest ways to provide information that frames and then paints the picture the controlling entity wishes to present. Some call this propaganda; others use terminology ripped from Orwell’s 1984.
Search Engine Land “cares.” Here’s the explanation of their emotional involvement:
While marketers are often more skeptical of the search giant’s methods and motives, it may be worth being proactive to your local SEO clients to let them know what this prompt means.
My interpretation is that the baloney shoveled by SEO experts is useless. Google has decided to exert its control in order to avoid regulation and oversight.
Will it work? Sure, it works. Just keep your eye on the lobbying efforts of the world’s largest outfit which once was associated with a truly crazy catchphrase, “Do no evil.”
If Google is sufficiently concerned, it may put pro Google, anti monopoly messages above the ads and before promotions of Google services. That would be something, wouldn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2021
If True, More Google High School Science Club Management Antics on Display
November 9, 2021
I received a link to a tweet stream from Amruta Buge. You can find (hopefully) the posts at this link on the tweeter thing. The idea appears to be that a Googler has unceremoniously become a Xoogler. The brief messages suggest that the newly minted Xoogler was the subject of interesting management methods. Those of you who read my musings in the Beyond Search blog know that I use the phrase “high school science club management methods” to capture the oft en baffling ways in which bright sprouts interact with other humanoids. My hypothesis is that bright sprouts view other people as dim sprouts unable to flourish in the sun light of the superior sprouts’ intellects.
Is this the Xoogler Amruta Buge?
Here’s a rundown of the tweeter’s view of Google management and human resource methods:
- Frightening the employee
- Personal attacks
- Verbal criticism
- Financial penalties
- Failure to provide proof of performance.
Check out the original tweets for the complete list.
Let’s assume the complaints are not true. It seems clear that the Google has hired a person ill suited for the Googley environment. This raises the question, “What’s the hiring method?” (Timnit Gebru was another notable bad fit.)
If we assume the tweets reflect the reality of the GOOG, the high school science club management method of exclusion and snide behavior are remarkably effective in creating tension.
One interesting aspect of the tweet stream is the inclusion of emails for six of the high school science club’s management team. These are allegedly real live email addresses. Gold to some Google advertisers too.
Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2021
A Dry Google Secret: Water Use in Oregon Dalles
November 9, 2021
Just a quick item. I want to keep track of this type of environmental secret and a local government’s effort to carry the water for the mom and pop online ad company. “The Dalles Sues to Keep Google’s Water Use a Secret.” The write up states:
Google is contemplating two new server farms on the site of a former aluminum smelter in The Dalles, where it already has an enormous campus of data centers on its property along the Columbia River. Google says it needs more water to cool its data centers, but neither the company nor the city will say how much more – only that The Dalles can’t meet Google’s needs without expanding its water system.
Data centers have to be cooled. Even nifty low draw devices can become toasty. It seems clear that neither Google nor the Dalles wants to reveal the water consumption. I wager that it is more than a couple of gallons a day.
Interesting.
Whatever the number, Intel may be asked about its proposed fabs’ water consumption. Arizona is downstream from some thirsty farms in Utah. Fabs are water piggies too.
Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2021
YouTube: Doing the We-Are-Responsible, People Thing
November 8, 2021
YouTube has been criticized for how it handles child centric related content. The video platform implemented safety features, including a filter to prevent kids from watching inappropriate content as well as a kids only app. YouTube has responded to critics once more by hitting kid content creators where it hurts: the wallet. TechCrunch explains why YouTube is changing its rules for kid videos in the article, “YouTube Warns Creators It Will Demonetize Low-Quality Kids’ Videos Next Month.”
Many “made for kids” YouTube channels are mass-produced without any oversight. They are heavily commercial, low quality, and encourage bad behavior. YouTube warned these content creators that in November 2021 their videos could be demonetized and/or banned from the platform.
The new rules are similar to the same complaints kid TV shows and movies have faced since the mid-twentieth century:
“Ahead of this move, a number of consumer advocacy groups had been pressuring YouTube and regulators alike to put an end to these types of videos, saying they blurred the lines between content and advertising. Plus, they argued, some creators weren’t disclosing that they had brand relationships behind the scenes that were fueling this sort of content production.
But without enforcement and guidelines around what’s appropriate for kids, some of YouTube’s largest creators were channels like multimillionaire Ryan Kaji of Ryan ToysReview (now Ryan’s World), which focused heavily on consumerism and toy unboxings.”
Videos that promote excessive consumerism, children’s media characters in unofficial videos in non kid-friendly situations, and bad behavior such as bullying, disrespect, dangerous pranks, lying, and unhealthy habits will be deemed low quality. Content creators will be warned by email before their videos are removed. YouTube has not disclosed how any creators will be impacted.
The good news is that better YouTube’s algorithm filters, the “better” quality videos to young viewers. Better quality videos include themes being a good person, promoting learning and curiosity, encouraging creativity, imagination, diversity, equity, and inclusion. None of that bulimia or self abuse hoo hah.
Allegedly? Yep.
Whitney Grace, November 8, 2021
Google Drug Discovery, Not Solving Death
November 5, 2021
In 2013, Google wanted to solve death. Just another problem for the Google wizards to address. The mission was assigned to Calico. Backers included Larry Page. Some thumbtypers will recall that Calico is not a plain woven fabric which can contain chunks of the boll’s husk. Nor is Calico a three color fur wrapper. Calico was the California Life Company. Calico suffered a blow when a couple of wizards left the Google to apply machine learning to drug design. Calico still exists, but it is not making much progress on the solving death problem.
What’s interesting is that Google is jumping into an application of machine learning to a less slippery problem: Using smart software to discover new drugs.
“Alphabet Is Launching a Company That Uses AI for Drug Discovery” reports:
A new Alphabet company will use artificial intelligence methods for drug discovery, Google’s parent company announced Thursday. It’ll build off of the work done by DeepMind, another Alphabet subsidiary that has done groundbreaking work using AI to predict the structure of proteins. The new company, called Isomorphic Laboratories, will leverage that success to build tools that can help identify new pharmaceuticals. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis will also serve as the CEO for Isomorphic, but the two companies will stay separate and collaborate occasionally, a spokesperson said.
With the advent of computational chemistry, researchers could fire up a system like Daylight and head to lunch. Upon returning, the system could grind through some fancy math and output “candidates.” Better than paper and pencil work.
With the Covid thing, IBM in early 2020 stated that its Watson system (the Jeopardy winner, of course) would use deep generative models to identify drugs which would address the Covid thing. IBM’s public explanation appears in “Using Generative AI to Accelerate Drug Discovery.” How did that work out? I am not sure. There were candidate drugs, but I don’t recall any giant breakthrough. Maybe IBM is keeping its success secret like the value of the Web Fountain system?
Now the Google is in the drug discovery game. One of my researchers dubbed the effort, “the drug invention game.” I find it interesting that the solving death moon shot did not get off the launch pad. The idea is intriguing, but death? See “Google Vs Death”, please.
The new effort will be separate from the Google. My research suggests that the former leader of DeepMind has specific ideas about smart software. Some of those ideas are not in line with the Google approach or the methods crafted at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. How does one deal with a management challenge?
The answer may be to cut the wizard off from the Google herd. Set up a separate company. Use the reliable me-too approach to innovation. Avoid internecine warfare between two different ideas about applied machine learning.
Will Google be able to make up for the lost momentum since 2013? I don’t know.
Stephen E Arnold, November 5, 2021
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