Newspapers Can Assist Google
April 13, 2009
Steve Outing’s “How Can Newspapers Help Google?” here struck me as an old goose trick–just flip the argument 180 degrees. I read the essay and noticed this passage:
So here’s an idea for newspapers, the AP, et al: Think through how you can help Google make more money! Figure out how to spread your content much more widely instead of focusing on how to restrict its flow.
I know this is an idea that will go nowhere. I gave a talk to some of the Associated Press management and made the point a couple of years ago to “surf on Google”. I recommended that four of the “owners” or stakeholders of the AP contribute one young, Googley type person to serve on a joint task force. The goal would be to come up with demos of products that would make money from various Google programs.
What happened?
No one talked with me. One senior executive insisted that he would get in touch with me and never did. I did get paid for my talk and left wondering it seemed difficult to look at a popular service as a source of revenue. My impression based on the chill response my talk received was that Google was not something that most of those in my audience knew much about nor cared to figure out how to exploit.
Now it’s too late. Newspapers are, like other traditional media companies, on the downward side of a tilting business model. Mr. Outing’s idea is a couple of years behind mine. I can tell you that it won’t happen if my addled goose fortune telling machinery is working.
Stephen Arnold, April 13, 2009
Google and News Irrigation
April 13, 2009
The Washington Post’s Erick Schonfeld asked a question to which I knew the answer. The question here was: “Does Google Really Control the News?” Mr. Schonfeld answers the question by walking down the road, sometimes veering left and sometimes right. He wrote:
The bigger question is whether Google as a search engine is controlling access to news sites. That really seems to be Carr’s main concern, although it is not clear because he uses a Google News search as his main example. Nevertheless, Google’s main search engine is certainly a major source of traffic to information sites of all stripes. At TechCrunch, for instance, it is the single largest source of traffic, accounting for about a third of the total. I have no idea whether this is representative of other news sites, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Google search is a very important middleman indeed.
Mr. Schonfeld’s hook for this story is the Nick Carr posting about Google as middleman here. I want to steer clear of this discussion. My views appear in my forthcoming study Google: The Digital Gutenberg. I do want to ask several questions:
- What if Google embodies creating, intermediating, distributing, and monetizing functions in one system?
- With users clicking on services, are not the users making a decision, which may, of course, be limited by the function of the natural monopoly?
- If one outfit is in charge, is this going to leave much doubt about who steers the automobile?
Stephen Arnold, April 12, 2009
Appearances Are Deceiving
April 11, 2009
Peter Kafka has a wonderful post here. The title tells the tale: “‘AP Exec: “To the Untrained Eye It Looks Like We’re Stupid’” Do you think? In my opinion, the most interesting comment in the article was this paragraph:
On the confusing message that the AP presented to the world this week: Guilty as charged, says Kennedy [an Associated Press senior manager]. But he argues that his group has indeed given some thought to what it’s doing, even if it hasn’t communicated that clearly to date.
Wow. No, I don’t think appearances are deceiving in this case. What you see is what you get.
Stephen Arnold, April 11, 2009
Wired Explains Why the Children of Publishers Are a Problem
April 11, 2009
Now the remaining hands at the downsized Wired did not say that. I wrote a headline that expresses why the dead tree crowd is paddling against the current at Niagara Falls. First, click to this Wired story here: “Teens Love Aggregation and ‘Free’, Newspaper Study Finds”. Second, consider this snippet from the article:
“Not only are teens not rushing to pay for content, but they also struggle to envision in what realm they would need to pay for content,” said the study, conducted for the NAA by Northwestern University’s Media Management Center. They are less interested in news brands than a site’s usability and depth of content. “Ask teens where they find news, and they typically say Yahoo!, Google, AOL or MSN,” the study said. “Sometimes, they mean Yahoo! and other times they mean Yahoo! News; sometimes they mean Google, the search bar, and other times they mean Google News or iGoogle. And sometimes they say MSN but mean MSNBC.com.”
The problems seems to be what I call demographic. The children of the traditional media giants are the termites in the old media’s business model. Wonder how the media companies will deal with that. Ground them and cut off online access. I heard a rumor that William Gates banned Apple iPhones and iPods from his house. I suppose that works too.
Stephen Arnold, April 11, 2009
Why Traditional Media Companies Cannot Innovate
April 9, 2009
Eric Schmidt suggested that newspapers innovate to generate revenue. A reader sent me a link to an essay called “Startup #119: Why Startup Innovation Kicks Corporate Booty” by Joseph Ansanelli here. I found this write up quite good. I downloaded it and printed it out. I think I will be able to reference it in my upcoming iBreakfast talk about Google’s newspaper “issue” in New York on April 23, 2009.
Mr. Ansanelli hits the nail on the head. Technology is not the problem. What is? Mr. Ansanelli identifies three factors: People, freedom, and failure. In my opinion, a large media company is a political animal fueled by soft skills. Instead of figuring out technology, the media wizards talk about color. Color is important as is design. The problem is that innovation in a media company is different from the type of innovation one finds in a engineering centric start up.
Mr. Ansanelli wrote:
You need to invest money in lots of projects and only a few will succeed. Corporations cannot typically afford to do this. Which is why the most common route for successful innovation for large corporations is through acquisition of these companies. It is far less expensive and risky to acquire an ongoing business that has proven itself then to invest in the 50 different ideas to try and find one that works.
With newspapers starved for cash, in my opinion, innovation is going to find itself starving for cash. No money, innovation will die from a lack of oxygen.
Stephen Arnold, April 9, 2009
Google: A Helpful Critique UK Style
April 9, 2009
I enjoy poking fun at the GOOG, but I recognize the important shift it represents. Not surprisingly those who want to keep the Newtonian universe intact are not too thrilled with Googzilla. One of my two or three readers sent me a link to “Google is Just an Amoral Menace” by the wordsmith Henry Porter. You can read this essay here. The write up does a good job of hooking verbal electrodes to various parts of the Google and cranking the voltage. I don’t feel comfortable capturing the verbal pyrotechnics but I would like to call attention to one that I found amusing:
Despite the aura of heroic young enterprise that still miraculously attaches to the web, what we are seeing is a much older and toxic capitalist model – the classic monopoly that destroys industries and individual enterprise in its bid for ever greater profits. Despite its diversification, Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing, merely offering little aggregation, lists and the ordering of information generated by people who have invested their capital, skill and time. On the back of the labour of others it makes vast advertising revenues – in the final quarter of last year its revenues were $5.7bn, and it currently sits on a cash pile of $8.6bn. Its monopolistic tendencies took an extra twist this weekend with rumours that it may buy the micro-blogging site Twitter and its plans – contested by academics – to scan a vast library of books that are out of print but still in copyright.
I recall Mr. Porter turning down an invitation to review my Google studies. These make clear that the GOOG has been chugging away for a decade. Over the past 360 plus months, Google engineers have applied math and technology to information processes. The result is a new type of information system. Google has not done a particularly good job of explaining how MapReduce works, what a container is, or providing a coherent explanation of its semantic methods. I don’t think the GOOG is a secret outfit. I think it is a haven for mathematicians and technologists who are more comfortable with equations and birds of a feather than journalist, public relations, or marketing types.
The world of Newton.
Even more interesting is that my research revealed that Google has not been an innovator in the sense of the guy who ran naked shouting Eureka! centuries ago. Nope. The GOOG amalgamates chunks of tech that deliver results. Because Google focused on scale (necessary to index the dross on the Internet), Google ended up with a machine built to do Web search that quite surprisingly had other uses. My mom did this trick all the time. A milk carton was converted to a flower pot or a clothes pin to a child’s doll. Math folks are clever. Google has lots of math folks. So what’s the big surprise that Google is clever. Remember how most students hated the kid who said, “Train A arrives five minutes before Train B” and then can’t explain how she got the answer. Not only that, the girl of whom I am thinking never worked any steps in any math problem and I was in an advanced class in high school. The teachers were forgiving and let her work on physics while the rest of the class laboriously followed the rules. She’s now a doctor in Colorado and still can’t explain how she “knows” answers. Live with it. That’s what I did. I got an A, but she was in another league.
The world of Google.
I think it is interesting to read the howls against the wind. The problem is that the GOOG is more than a decade old and has become the 21st century equivalent of Stanford-Morgan-Rockefeller-Carnegie. My suggestion. Learn how to surf on Google.
Where were these critics for the last eight or nine years? I wonder if they were using Google Web search and ignoring the company’s surround and seep strategy in publishing and six other business sectors. My research revealed that the GOOG has been running straight and true for a long time in the online world.
Stephen Arnold, April 9, 2009
Googzilla to Newspaper Titans: Keep Customers Happy
April 8, 2009
I absolutely love the intellectual ultimate fighting championship underway. In one corner is Googzilla–oops–I mean Google. In the other corner is the entire newspaper industry. Seems like a fair fight to me. The GOOG is a global behemoth. The company has a killer business model that provides users with oodles of “free” information and services. Sure, a motivated customer can buy services from the Google, but the fusion power of Googzilla is its business model that sells access to its customers. Google’s brand is a hot one. Google love is rampant. Sure, there are some complainers, when it comes to search systems, the Google is the love bunny.
When I read “Google’s Schmidt To Newspaper Publishers: Don’t ‘P#&% Off’ Consumers” here, I had to honk merrily. I know the top Googlers don’t think the grousing–er, escalating hostility–is amusing. In my opinion, I don’t think most of the Googlers understand what the newspapers’ problem is. PaidContent.org’s article does a great job of capturing the facts of the top Googler’s speech. What the article underscores is the general cluelessness of both sides of this battle about one another’s business zeitgeist. As I read the story, I though of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Same deal. Google is the future. The newspaper industry is the castle artisan. Everything the Connecticut Yankee did was magic. Same problem. Pretty funny when Mark Twain tells the story. Not so humorous for the traditional publishing companies. The traditional newspaper folks are trying fix a water problem with incantations. The Yankee repairs the leak. Pragmatism wins out over shamanism every time in Mr. Twain’s world.
I found this passage from the excellent PaidContent.org write up most interesting:
But Schmidt came down harder on concerns about intellectual property and fair use: “From our perspective, we look at this pretty thoroughly and there is always a tension around fair use … I would encourage everybody, think in terms of what your reader wants. These are ultimately consumer businesses and if you piss off enough of them, you will not have any more.”
If I were a betting goose, I would wager that some in the newspaper industry might have interpreted Mr. Schmid’s comments a somewhat arrogant. Not much Mark Twain in Mr. Schmidt’s alleged comment. Good advice in my opinion. Probably ignored though.
Stephen Arnold, April 8, 2009
Exclusive Interview with David Pogue
April 8, 2009
This year’s most exciting conference for online professionals in Philadelphia is now only four weeks away. In addition to top notch speakers like David Pogue, the networking opportunities at a J. Boye conference are excellent.
One attendee said, “What I like about the J. Boye Conferences is that they bring together industry experts and practitioners over high-quality content that seems to push participants’ professional limits and gets everyone talking. So if you want to learn – but participate as well – consider joining us in Philadelphia this May.”
Instead of product pitches, the speakers at a J. Boye conference deliver substance. For example, among the newest confirmed case studies are Abercrombie & Fitch, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Pan American Health Organization, Hanley Wood and Oxford University (UK).
For a preview of what you will experience. Here’s an exclusive with David Pogue, technology expert and New York Times’s journalist. Sign up here and secure one of the remaining seats.
Why is Google so much more used than its competitors?
Mostly because it’s better. Fast, good, idiotproof, uncluttered, ubiquitous. There’s also, at this point, a “McDonald’s factor” happening. That is, people know the experience, it’s the same everywhere they go, there’s no risk. They use Google because they’ve always used Google. It would be very hard, therefore, for any rival to gain traction.
David Pogue, one of the featured speakers at JBoye 09 in Philadelphia May 5 to 7, 2009.
When will Gmail become the preferred email solution for organizations?
August 3, 2014. But seriously, folks. Nobody can predict the future of technology. Also, I’m sure plenty of organizations use it already, and it’s only picking up steam. Gmail is becoming truly amazing.
Will Google buy Twitter – and what will it mean if they do?
I don’t know if they’ll buy it; nobody does. It would probably mean very little except a guaranteed survival for Twitter, perhaps with enhancements along the way. That’s been Google’s pattern (for example, when it bought GrandCentral.)
Why is it so hard for organizations to get a grip on user experience design?
The problems include lack of expertise, limited budget (there’s an incentive to do things cheaply rather than properly), and lack of vision. In other words, anything done by committee generally winds up less elegant than something done by a single, focused person who knows what he’s doing.
Why are you speaking at a Philadelphia web conference organized by a Denmark-based company?
Because they obviously have excellent taste. 🙂
Stephen Arnold, April 8, 2009
Associated Press: Tech Media Snaps Back
April 7, 2009
I enjoyed Larry Dignan’s “AP Eyes News Aggregators; Risks Exposing Its Lack of Value Add” here. The article made a good point: “Be careful what you wish for AP.” I don’t think the Associated Press thinks too much about folks who write Web logs. I agree with Mr. Dignan’s assertion that the AP may not deliver the value add that its owners perceive it does. The examples of the non news that the AP distributes tickled my funny bone. But I know the AP senior managers know quite well the content that flows to its owners and licensees.
What Mr. Dignan did not point out (and to be fair most of the articles I scanned did not point out either) is this item. The high value part of the AP is its coverage of state capitals. Here in the Bluegrass State, the AP files stories about the state government’s activities. Multiply this by 50, and you have the real money maker for the Associated Press. The bulk of the info flowing “down the wire” is recycled information. Prior to the advent, companies as diverse as Halliburton’s Nuclear Utility Services to the Bureau of National Affairs recycled government information and packaged it for resale. The revenue streams were solid because who wanted the hassle of aggregating memos from the Department of Energy or the latest from the Railway Retirement Board. The AP’s money maker is its coverage of the state capital scene. Individual papers have long relied on the AP’s coverage of state news because it was cheaper than putting expensive staff in a state bureau.
My view is that this hassle could be resolved pretty quickly if one of the younger, more energetic readers of this Web log would do a mash up of the state and major city information, update it in near real time, and slap Google AdSense on the service. Deprived of its advantage in this information channel, the AP would be put on notice that reasonable behavior is highly desirable.
If the coding is not comfy for some former journalists, why not form an informal group via a social network and cover the state news via a pool. The bylined stories would open doors for freelance jobs and maybe come political strategy / analysis work. I might even look at a state tech news feed so I could keep track of what Kentucky spends for technology services provided by Unisys.
Either approach sends a much clearer message about the power of the “digital Gutenberg” than the interesting but anecdotal chatter about a service firm dependent on the dead tree crowd for survival. But I am an addled goose. What do I know? Nothing. Just my opinion. Honk.
Stephen Arnold, April 7, 2009
Consumer Watchdog Chasing Google
April 7, 2009
I just received a news release with the title “Consumer Group Calls on Justice Department to Intervene In Google Book Settlement; “Orphan Works” provision and “Most Favored Nation” Clause Raise Antitrust Concerns”. The news release points to a letter here that raises concerns about the Google deal with The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers. I’m no lawyer, but this is one more indication of growing interest in the GOOG. My question: Isn’t this concern a bit like the farmer who complains that his barn burned, his horses ran off, and a real estate developer built a Costco on the vacant lot? The GOOG has been chugging along for a decade and not doing much different year to year. Now folks realize that Google is more than search and want to change reality. My thought: find a way to surf on Google and live with the 21st century version of Ma Bell. Google is not a cause. Google is a manifestation of a change that has already taken place.
Stephen Arnold, April 7, 2009
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