Search Plus
Constine: There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search Plus; http://eicker.at/SearchPlus
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus Direct Connect
Merging social and search: Google Plus Direct Connect might change Google fundamentally; http://eicker.at/GoogleDirectConnect
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “Google+ Direct Connect lets you quickly navigate to a Google+ page (and even add that page to your circles) when using Google Search. For example, if you searched for the query ‘+youtube’ or ‘+pepsi,’ you could be immediately taken to the YouTube Google+ page, or the Pepsi Google+ page, and given the option to add the page to your circles. … When searching for a major brand, company, or cultural entity, try placing a ‘+’ in front of your query. When you use the ‘+’ operator before your search query, it lets us know that you want to find a Google+ page. … A page’s eligibility for Google+ Direct Connect is determined algorithmically, based on certain signals we use to help understand your page’s relevancy and popularity. In addition to this analysis, we look for a link between your Google+ page and your website. To help Google associate this content, be sure to connect your Google+ page and your website using the Google+ badge, or by adding a snippet of code to your site, in addition to adding your website link to your page.”
SEL: “Postscript From Danny Sullivan: Direct Connect seems yet another clever bribe where Google is leveraging everything it can to win support for Google Plus. … Google’s made changes over the years that help big brands see far less negative references to themselves in search results than in the past, mainly by allowing more than one page from a site to help ‘push’ other content ‘down.’ But that’s not foolproof, especially when negative news is happening. – Consider the searches for Toyota that were bringing up negative news stories during the safety recalls of last year. If Toyota is pushing that people to find them by searching for +Toyota, they would see none of that on Google. – Interestingly, Bing offered a similar solution that didn’t depend on having to take part in a social network. Bing’s ‘Best Match’ results showed only one site when there was great confidence in the query. But Bing quietly dropped this feature since it launched, a sign that consumers didn’t like it.”
Wired: “But more importantly, Google integrates Plus into its web-dominating search engine. With Google+ Direct Connect, searchers can insert a ‘+’ before their query and jump directly to a business’s Google+ page. Type ‘+YouTube’ into a Google search box, for instance, and Google will take you straight to YouTube’s Plus page. – This is where Google will have an advantage over Facebook: With a broad array of services like search and Gmail and Chrome and Android, Google offers tools that are fundamental to the online lives of so many people – and these can be tied to Google+. As Google+ evolves, Google will have the means to promote its social network – and the branded Pages within it – in ways that Facebook or Twitter cannot.”
ZDNet: “But with Google shortcut called Direct Connect, all I have to do is type a ‘+’ in front of the company name – such as ‘+Amazon’ – and the Google+ Page comes up. Better yet, just by typing ‘+A’ into the search box, I get a listing of Google+ Pages for Amazon, ATundT, Angry Birds and ABC News. And surely, there will soon be more in that list. – In that sense, a Google+ Page becomes a must-have for any company looking to establish a presence on the Internet, just as a Web site itself was the must-have a decade ago and Twitter and Facebooks accounts have been in recent years. The difference is that Facebook and Twitter have largely been closed-wall gardens, a members-only type of environment. … You see, this is no longer just about ‘social.’ This is the face of the new interactive Internet, a one-up over the traditional Web site. These Google+ pages are powered by search, share and followers. This isn’t a static place where companies host their corporate blogs or post their news releases. This is a dynamic environment where companies host live video ‘hangout’ sessions and engage in discussions with their followers.”
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Gerrit Eicker
Search Engine Bias
Does Google favour its own sites in search results? New study: Google less biased than Bing; http://eicker.at/SearchEngineBias
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Gerrit Eicker
SEL: “Does Google favor its own sites in search results, as many critics have claimed? Not necessarily. New research suggests that claims that Google is ‘biased’ are overblown, and that Google’s primary competitor, Microsoft’s Bing, may actually be serving Microsoft-related results ‘far more’ often than Google links to its own services in search results. – In an analysis of a large, random sample of search queries, the study from Josh Wright, Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason University, found that Bing generally favors Microsoft content more frequently, and far more prominently, than Google favors its own content. According to the findings, Google references its own content in its first results position in just 6.7% of queries, while Bing provides search result links to Microsoft content more than twice as often (14.3%). … The findings of the new study are in stark contrast with a study on search engine ‘bias’ released earlier this year. That study, conducted by Harvard professor Ben Edelman concluded that ‘by comparing results across multiple search engines, we provide prima facie evidence of bias; especially in light of the anomalous click-through rates we describe above, we can only conclude that Google intentionally places its results first.’ … So, what conclusions to draw? Wright says that ‘analysis finds that own-content bias is a relatively infrequent phenomenon’ – meaning that although Microsoft appears to favor its own sites more often than Google, it’s not really a major issue, at least in terms of ‘bias’ or ‘fairness’ of search results that the engines present. Reasonable conclusion: Google [and Bing, though less so] really are trying to deliver the best results possible, regardless of whether they come from their own services [local search, product search, etc] or not. … But just because a company has grown into a dominant position doesn’t mean they’re doing wrong, or that governments should intervene and force changes that may or may not be “beneficial” to users or customers.”
Edelman/Lockwood: “By comparing results between leading search engines, we identify patterns in their algorithmic search listings. We find that each search engine favors its own services in that each search engine links to its own services more often than other search engines do so. But some search engines promote their own services significantly more than others. We examine patterns in these differences, and we flag keywords where the problem is particularly widespread. Even excluding ‘rich results’ (whereby search engines feature their own images, videos, maps, etc.), we find that Google’s algorithmic search results link to Google’s own services more than three times as often as other search engines link to Google’s services. For selected keywords, biased results advance search engines’ interests at users’ expense: We demonstrate that lower-ranked listings for other sites sometimes manage to obtain more clicks than Google and Yahoo’s own-site listings, even when Google and Yahoo put their own links first. … Google typically claims that its results are ‘algorithmically-generated’, ‘objective’, and ‘never manipulated.’ Google asks the public to believe that algorithms rule, and that no bias results from its partnerships, growth aspirations, or related services. We are skeptical. For one, the economic incentives for bias are overpowering: Search engines can use biased results to expand into new sectors, to grant instant free traffic to their own new services, and to block competitors and would-be competitors. The incentive for bias is all the stronger because the lack of obvious benchmarks makes most bias would be difficult to uncover. That said, by comparing results across multiple search engine, we provide prima facie evidence of bias; especially in light of the anomalous click-through rates we describe above, we can only conclude that Google intentionally places its results first.”
ICLE: “A new report released [PDF] by the International Center for Law und Economics and authored by Joshua Wright, Professor of Law and Economics at George Mason University, critiques, replicates, and extends the study, finding Edelman und Lockwood’s claim of Google’s unique bias inaccurate and misleading. Although frequently cited for it, the Edelman und Lockwod study fails to support any claim of consumer harm – or call for antitrust action – arising from Google’s practices. – Prof. Wright’s analysis finds own-content bias is actually an infrequent phenomenon, and Google references its own content more favorably than other search engines far less frequently than does Bing: In the replication of Edelman und Lockwood, Google refers to its own content in its first page of results when its rivals do not for only 7.9% of the queries, whereas Bing does so nearly twice as often (13.2%). – Again using Edelman und Lockwood’s own data, neither Bing nor Google demonstrates much bias when considering Microsoft or Google content, respectively, referred to on the first page of search results. – In our more robust analysis of a large, random sample of search queries we find that Bing generally favors Microsoft content more frequently-and far more prominently-than Google favors its own content. – Google references own content in its first results position when no other engine does in just 6.7% of queries; Bing does so over twice as often (14.3%). – The results suggest that this so-called bias is an efficient business practice, as economists have long understood, and consistent with competition rather than the foreclosure of competition. One necessary condition of the anticompetitive theories of own-content bias raised by Google’s rivals is that the bias must be sufficient in magnitude to exclude rival search engines from achieving efficient scale. A corollary of this condition is that the bias must actually be directed toward Google’s rivals. That Google displays less own-content bias than its closest rival, and that such bias is nonetheless relatively infrequent, demonstrates that this condition is not met, suggesting that intervention aimed at ‘debiasing’ would likely harm, rather than help, consumers.”
Gerrit Eicker
Yahoo: Google vs. Microsoft?
Are Google and Microsoft participating in a Yahoo bidding? http://eicker.at/YahooGoogleMicrosoft
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “As a host of potential bidders circle Yahoo, several of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are considering whether to jump into the fray themselves. – Microsoft and Google are both weighing whether to participate in the bidding. … [T]here’s one thing the technology giants have in common: Not one of them wants to actually buy or run Yahoo. – Instead, Microsoft and Google are considering lending financial support to private equity firms or others weighing a bid, according to people briefed on the matter. … With a deal, Google could eventually wrest Yahoo away from Microsoft when their partnership expires. … However, it is unclear whether a Google-Yahoo partnership would pass antitrust scrutiny. … Many of the potential suitors for Yahoo have contacted Alibaba‘s chairman and chief executive, Jack Ma, looking to gauge his interest in working with them, these people said. The agreement that governs Yahoo’s 40 percent stake in his company gives Mr. Ma what some analysts have said is a kingmaker role.”
WSJ: “Google Inc. has talked to at least two private-equity firms about potentially helping them finance a deal to buy Yahoo Inc.’s core business, according to a person familiar with the matter. – Google and prospective partners have held early-stage discussions but haven’t put together a formal proposal and Google may end up not pursuing a bid, this person said. It is unclear which private-equity firms Google has talked to.”
WSJ: “The discussions between Google and private-equity firms are the latest indications of growing deal activity around Yahoo. … Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the China-based Internet company in which Yahoo owns a roughly 40% stake, recently said he was interested in buying Yahoo, but it was unclear whether he has made a serious move to do so. … Google has long been the No. 1 player in Web search. But in the display-ad market, Google is a smaller – but growing – competitor. In the U.S., Facebook is expected to generate more than $2 billion in net revenue from display advertising this year, with Yahoo generating $1.6 billion and Google generating $1.1 billion, according to research firm eMarketer Inc.”
Guardian: “Google is already under regulatory scrutiny from governments around the world. … [A] Google bid would trigger regulatory interest. The US government threatened to challenge an earlier proposal by Google to place ads on Yahoo’s site, causing Google to abandon the effort in 2008. At the time Microsoft was making a $44.8bn bid for Yahoo which ultimately proved fruitless.”
TNW: “With Yahoo seemingly unable to find a solid place in today’s online landscape, a sell-off makes plenty of sense, although if Google were to be involved it would undoubtedly face close scrutiny from antitrust authorities – the FTC is already investigating the search giant in the US.”
Gerrit Eicker
ACSI Social Media 2011
ACSI: Social media services struggle with customer satisfaction. Facebook opens door for Google Plus; http://eicker.at/ACSISocialMedia2011
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Gerrit Eicker
ACSI: “The social media market is primed for a new player that allows users to connect with friends, according to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business Report, produced in partnership with customer experience analytics firm ForeSee Results. Despite a small improvement this year, Facebook (+3% to 66) is the lowest-scoring site, not only in the social media category, but of all measured companies in this report. The survey was conducted last month, before the widespread introduction of Facebook’s biggest competitor, Google+, but Facebook’s low score indicates that Google+ could easily pounce and gain market share if they can provide a superior customer experience. – ‘We don’t know yet how Google+ will fare, but what we do know is that Google is one of the highest-scoring companies in the ACSI and Facebook is one of the lowest,’ said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. ‘An existing dominance of market share like Facebook has is no longer a safety net for a company that is not providing a superior customer experience.‘ – Facebook is just one story emerging from today’s report. The ACSI E-Business Report covers three categories of e-business: social media, portals and search engines, and online news. This is the twelfth annual report of its kind, allowing companies and analysts to track the performance of these organizations over time by a critical metric: customer satisfaction. – Wikipedia (+1% to 78) takes the top spot, while YouTube (+1% to 74) comes in a distant second. Myspace drops from this year’s Index because there were not enough users to create a statistically significant sample. Overall, social media is one of the lowest-scoring industries measured by the ACSI – only airlines, newspapers, and subscription television services score lower. – Google leads the search engine and portals category (up 4% to 83), but Bing follows closely, jumping an impressive 7% in one year to 82. Anything over 80 is generally considered an excellent score. Bing has grown in market share over the last year and makes up roughly 17% of the search engine market, up from 9% last year. – ‘While Google+ is the challenger to Facebook’s established dominance in the social media sphere, in the search engine wars, Google is king and Bing is hoping to be a contender,’ added Freed. ‘Last year, Google’s customer satisfaction score was three points higher than Bing’s. This year, that gap narrows to one point. Bing is showing it can challenge Google in terms of revenue, market share, and the customer experience.‘”
Gerrit Eicker
Microsoft and Facebook vs. Google
Williams: Why the Microsoft-Facebook-alliance really is a threat to Google; http://eicker.at/MicrosoftFacebook
Gerrit Eicker
Interest Graph
The interest graph: spanning serendipity vs. search, personalised vs. popular information/news; http://eicker.at/InterestGraph
Gerrit Eicker
Adoption of Online Marketing Services
Local businesses: the adoption of online marketing services; http://eicker.at/2d Chart: http://eicker.at/2e (via @SocialTimes)
Gerrit Eicker
Google Updates Social Search
Google: Social Search will now be mixed throughout results, adds notes, connects social media; http://eicker.at/SocialSearch
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Gerrit Eicker
Google: “First, social search results will now be mixed throughout your results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). … Second, we’ve made Social Search more comprehensive by adding notes for links people have shared on Twitter and other sites. … Third, we’ve given you more control over how you connect accounts, and made connecting accounts more convenient. … As always, you’ll only get social search results when you choose to log in to your Google Account. We’re starting to roll out the updates today on Google.com in English only and you’ll see them appear in the coming week.”
GigaOM: “Google is slowly finding its social legs and is rolling out a set of improvements to its search product that help it keep pace with rivals, who are increasingly weaving social signals into search results. … It’s not the social layer that Google is said to be working on. But it’s another sign that shows Google is figuring out how social fits into its existing properties. The pressure is on the web giant to sort out its strategy in search as rivals like Bing and upstarts Blekko, Greplin, Wajam and others bring the fight to Google.”
FC: “This is a clever, if subtle, way to inject a little extra social relevance into Google’s core business of search, and it will make Googling something seem a little more personalized than simply interacting with a blind, international giant digital tool. It also differentiates it from competitors, like the fast-growing Bing… Will this trick work to convince us Google’s good at social media? Is this the very first layer of social network technology that may become the rumored Google Me social network? We can’t tell. Maybe we’ll Google it up and see what our friends, co-workers and that girl from the coffee shop we once Twittered think.”
RWW: “This, however, is personalization taken to another level. This is personalization in the form of looking at who you know, who you’re connected to on various social networks, and ranking content according to who created it and who shared it. We were told that Google will even go a step further and look at content shared by friends of friends. … Your friends don’t have to even have a Google profile for their content to show up in your search. If you’re friends with them on Twitter and you connect your Twitter account, you can see what they share on Twitter in your search results. … A move to create another, stand-alone social network would seem like folly to some, especially with the company’s track record when it comes to social. This move, on the other hand, feels just right. Gather the information and use it as yet another signal on what is relevant to your search.”
Gerrit Eicker
Bing(oogle)?
Sullivan: Google says Bing watches what people search for on Google to improve its search listings; http://eicker.at/BingGoogle
Gerrit Eicker 08:50 on 12. January 2012 Permalink |
Constine, TC: “Sharks Circle Around Google Search+: EPIC Cries Antitrust, Twitter Provides Evidence – There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search+… EPIC believes that by surfacing in search results the private content shared with a user by their friends, Search+ may violate privacy. I personally don’t buy that argument. Yes, it’s a bit shocking to see private content in Google Search results where we’ve come to expect only public content. However, private content isn’t exposed to anyone that couldn’t already see it, so I think EPIC is fear mongering around privacy. … The issue is that Google has the data to surface its competitors in People and Pages, but doesn’t. Hey, maybe this is all a clever ploy to bring antitrust scrutiny to Facebook’s deal with Microsoft’s Bing to sour its IPO.”
Eldon, TC: “Google+ Search = A Way To Call The Feds In On IPO-Bound Facebook (?) – Like everyone else, I’ve been trying to get my head around why Google has force-integrated its Google+ social network into its main search feed at the expense of leading social services like Facebook and Twitter. The situation seems like an antitrust case waiting to happen, because Google could easily choose to feature the publicly available content from its social rivals in the same way it is showing its own product within its market-dominating search engine. It just hasn’t. … There could be a grand strategy for provoking the US government to investigate the market shares of search and social products as a single issue, in a way that puts Facebook on the defensive, especially as it looks to go public. … The big catch to this idea, at least for now, is that when you consider Bing’s relatively weak market share, and the lack of effect Facebook has had on it, it’s unclear if the Justice Department will take this sort of issue seriously. Facebook may be the Google of the future, but Google is the Google of the present. And maybe Google is just trying to see what it can get away with ahead of what we can expect to be habitually slow federal interest in whatever moves it makes.”
Coldewey, TC: “There has been a great quantity of vitriol corroding the social web over the last few days, a reaction to Google’s decision to optionally integrate Google+ features into their search. … Google is a datavore. All it wants to do is collect data, organize it, and then deliver it to people, peppered with ads and the occasional sales commission. Viewed from this perspective, the new social search is simple – innocuous. The biggest crime Google has committed is giving it such a cumbrous name. … A search that is ostensibly social-focused should be pulling information primarily from Facebook and Twitter, right? I agree. Yet it doesn’t. And people’s accusing fingers jumped up to point at Google, though the problem isn’t Google’s. … What rich data does Facebook share? What deep search does Twitter permit? Google can’t produce something it doesn’t have, and what it does produce isn’t destructive to search – and if it were so, it can be turned off with a click. … There’s nothing controversial about competition. Google has started a new service that gives social data prominent placement. Ironically, the fact that people are complaining that it is not integrative enough (as opposed to Twitter and Facebook initiatives, which are often not integrative at all, and sometimes deliberately exclusive) testifies to Google’s adherence to their promise of even-handedness. … I think it falls outside that area, which to me begs the question, but no doubt the discussion will continue, and Google’s actions will have repercussions further down the line.”
SEL: “Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s ‘Search Plus’ Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy – By having a dominant position in search, Google might ultimately be responsible for going above-and-beyond to include competitors. That’s part of what the current anti-trust investigations into Google are all about. One complaint over today’s move – though likely mostly about privacy – is already being readied. – Google’s job as a search engine is to direct searchers to the most relevant information on the web, not just to information that Google may have an interest in. – These suggestions would be better if they included other services, and that’s the standard Google’s search results should aim for, returning the best. … If You’re Not On Google+, You’re Not A Suggestion… Why Google+ Is A Must-Have For Marketers… Is there anyone out there who still wants to say that being on Google+ doesn’t matter? Anyone? Because when being on Google+ means that you potentially can have your Google+ page leap to the top in those sidebar results, Google+ matters. It matters more than ever before. … It’s not Google’s job to be sticking it to anyone with its search results. Those results are supposed to be showing what are the most relevant things for searchers out there. That’s how Google wins. That’s how Google sticks it to competitors, by not trying to play favorites in those results, nor by trying to punish people through them.”
RWW: “Will Bing Get A Boost Thanks To Google’s Your Way? – All of this could play well for Bing. Since 2009, the number three search engine has had a partnership with Twitter similar to the one that lapsed with Google last summer. Since the Google agreement expired, it is now easier to find tweets in Bing via realtime searches than it is in Google. At the time of the breakup in July, it was unclear which side walked away, but Bing was quick to renew its ties with Twitter and strike a similar deal with Facebook. … The fallout from search isn’t the only reason why Bing may get a boost this year. The company has improved integration of Bing with Xbox and Kinect, which helps Microsoft grab a younger demographic when gamers move their search activity online from their consoles. Bing has also been working to improve its mobile offerings, releasing a much-imtpoved Bing app for Android and iOS5. – But perhaps the biggest indication that Bing is worth paying attention to came from Google itself, when it paid $900 million to Mozilla to be the default search engine in Firefox for the next three years.“