5 ms·

Does AMP Counter an Existential Threat to Google?

28 points by moehm 11y ago

nostrademons 11y ago
Yes it does, but it's one of many counters to it. Google is also crawling deep-linked native mobile content through App Indexing [1]. They own one of the dominant mobile advertising platforms [2]. They also own the dominant mobile operating system [3], and make money directly off selling apps on it [4]. It's a very Larry-Page style strategy: when faced with an existential threat, solve it on every possible level. He did the same thing when faced with the possibility that Microsoft would build search into Internet Explorer: build Google Toolbar, and Google Chrome, and get OEM distribution deals for both, and Chrome Frame so you could use IE inside of Chrome, and Android just in case there was a chance to make the desktop market irrelevant, and Chromebooks as another way to make the desktop market irrelevant. Interestingly, Sundar Pichai was involved in basically all of these, which may be why he's now CEO of Google. [1] https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/?hl=en https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/?hl=en [2] https://www.google.com/admob/ https://www.google.com/admob/ [3] https://www.android.com/ https://www.android.com/ [4] https://play.google.com/store/apps?hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps?hl=en
awakeasleep 11y ago
Does anyone know why people write sentences like this? > Pinterest found AMP pages load four times faster and use eight times less data than traditional mobile-optimized pages. Does "Eight times less data" seem insane to anyone else? Shouldn't it be "one eighth the data" or "twelve and a half percent of the data" I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, because I always see things written like the article and it seems to make ~zero~ sense.
- dajohnson89 11y ago
  Nope, not just you. I suspect it's because most readers are afraid of fractions.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    It's because of parallelism. Not the computing kind, but the writing kind. Sentence constructions like "AMP pages load four times faster and use one-eighth the data" or "AMP pages have one fourth the latency and eight times better data compression" read awkwardly; try reading them aloud, vs. the original sentence. You're taught in writing class to use equivalent constructions for all clauses within a sentence. It's much like the stylistic rule in programming languages to not mix camelCase and snake_case in the same file.
    - dajohnson89 11y ago
      I get what you're saying, but FWIW I honestly have no problem with the non-parallel sentence constructions in your example. It's a technical article. I want a high amount of information in a concise and clear package.
paulddraper 11y ago
Betteridge's law
JoshMnem 11y ago
> "Does AMP work? Pinterest found AMP pages load four times faster and use eight times less data than traditional mobile-optimized pages." A better question is: how much faster is it than ad-blocked webpages? I think it's more about ad-blocking than "making the web faster". Also, it looks like it framejacks web pages so that you just visit sites as a side journey from Google.com, with Google's toolbar on top: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2430844/google-s-amp-project-what-will-be-the-impact-on-publishers http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2430844/google-s-am... "From the search engine results page, users can click through to a list of AMP-compliant partner sites. Doing so will load that content almost instantaneously, as Google will also pre-render content above the fold for AMP listings. Once a user clicks through, there is a persistent blue bar at the top with a call to action to return to the Google SERP." Do publishers really want a "go back to Google.com" toolbar on the top of their webpages? I'd rather encourage users to stay on my own sites.
- gregable 11y ago
  > how much faster is it than ad-blocked webpages? Poke at it out yourself to get a feel for the answer. Find any recent article on any site of one of these publishers that have enabled AMP pages. You can find a list on https://www.ampproject.org/ https://www.ampproject.org/ or any AMP-enabled site you find. Once you've found an article/web page, view source. Look for a line in the html that reads: <link rel="amphtml" href="AMP URL HERE"> If you don't find that tag, the article is not AMP enabled, so find another article that is. Now, grab the URL at that href attribute and compare it to the original non-AMP URL you started at. Turn on/off ad-blockers, use a cold cache / hot cache, have fun. Don't forget that this comparison is not including the additional speedup gained from using the AMP Project (Google's) CDN.
  - JoshMnem 11y ago
    I wouldn't consider that a benefit, since I don't want every site I visit to ping Google's servers. I haven't researched it in depth, but it seems like an attempt to appify the Web even more and bring it under Google's control. A "webpage" just becomes a brief side trip from the Google homepage, with a giant back button to send your traffic back to Google rather than deeper into your site. The fox (any single, large company with an interest in replacing the WWW with itself) should not be guarding the henhouse (the WWW). I mean that in reference to Chrome, appification, and things like AMP. It isn't good for publishers or for the future of the open Web. It seems absurd for sites to put code on their pages that adds a giant "go back to Google.com" banner on top of their pages, if that's what it does.
adtechthrowaway 11y ago
I've been told that google has intraday downloads of their doubleclick logs "on their roadmap". For me in adtech, a lot of the pain I feel in having to add more tagging would be reduced if google had this stuff streaming in realtime. Their lack of this functionality has fed the thirst for other tags (adobe, bluekai, etc.), since we can't build really fast behavioural reactions on their data. They've told me the solution is to use Google Analytics Premium, and upload our behavioural reaction rules into there. Just like everyone else, that is a black box, and I then have to adhere to the functionality they have built. Businesses will always ask for a custom tweak that any black box can't deliver, and that also leads to more tagging. ;) Truly open up your platforms!!! Currently it feels like a mexican stand-off, where the first company to open up loses control of their data asset, while all others win.

28 points by moehm 11y ago

Yes it does, but it's one of many counters to it. Google is also crawling deep-linked native mobile content through App Indexing [1]. They own one of the dominant mobile advertising platforms [2]. They also own the dominant mobile operating system [3], and make money directly off selling apps on it [4]. It's a very Larry-Page style strategy: when faced with an existential threat, solve it on every possible level. He did the same thing when faced with the possibility that Microsoft would build search into Internet Explorer: build Google Toolbar, and Google Chrome, and get OEM distribution deals for both, and Chrome Frame so you could use IE inside of Chrome, and Android just in case there was a chance to make the desktop market irrelevant, and Chromebooks as another way to make the desktop market irrelevant. Interestingly, Sundar Pichai was involved in basically all of these, which may be why he's now CEO of Google. [1] https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/?hl=en https://developers.google.com/app-indexing/?hl=en [2] https://www.google.com/admob/ https://www.google.com/admob/ [3] https://www.android.com/ https://www.android.com/ [4] https://play.google.com/store/apps?hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps?hl=en

awakeasleep 11y ago

Does anyone know why people write sentences like this? > Pinterest found AMP pages load four times faster and use eight times less data than traditional mobile-optimized pages. Does "Eight times less data" seem insane to anyone else? Shouldn't it be "one eighth the data" or "twelve and a half percent of the data" I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, because I always see things written like the article and it seems to make ~zero~ sense.

dajohnson89 11y ago
Nope, not just you. I suspect it's because most readers are afraid of fractions.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  It's because of parallelism. Not the computing kind, but the writing kind. Sentence constructions like "AMP pages load four times faster and use one-eighth the data" or "AMP pages have one fourth the latency and eight times better data compression" read awkwardly; try reading them aloud, vs. the original sentence. You're taught in writing class to use equivalent constructions for all clauses within a sentence. It's much like the stylistic rule in programming languages to not mix camelCase and snake_case in the same file.
  - dajohnson89 11y ago
    I get what you're saying, but FWIW I honestly have no problem with the non-parallel sentence constructions in your example. It's a technical article. I want a high amount of information in a concise and clear package.

paulddraper 11y ago

Betteridge's law

JoshMnem 11y ago

> "Does AMP work? Pinterest found AMP pages load four times faster and use eight times less data than traditional mobile-optimized pages." A better question is: how much faster is it than ad-blocked webpages? I think it's more about ad-blocking than "making the web faster". Also, it looks like it framejacks web pages so that you just visit sites as a side journey from Google.com, with Google's toolbar on top: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2430844/google-s-amp-project-what-will-be-the-impact-on-publishers http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2430844/google-s-am... "From the search engine results page, users can click through to a list of AMP-compliant partner sites. Doing so will load that content almost instantaneously, as Google will also pre-render content above the fold for AMP listings. Once a user clicks through, there is a persistent blue bar at the top with a call to action to return to the Google SERP." Do publishers really want a "go back to Google.com" toolbar on the top of their webpages? I'd rather encourage users to stay on my own sites.

gregable 11y ago
> how much faster is it than ad-blocked webpages? Poke at it out yourself to get a feel for the answer. Find any recent article on any site of one of these publishers that have enabled AMP pages. You can find a list on https://www.ampproject.org/ https://www.ampproject.org/ or any AMP-enabled site you find. Once you've found an article/web page, view source. Look for a line in the html that reads: <link rel="amphtml" href="AMP URL HERE"> If you don't find that tag, the article is not AMP enabled, so find another article that is. Now, grab the URL at that href attribute and compare it to the original non-AMP URL you started at. Turn on/off ad-blockers, use a cold cache / hot cache, have fun. Don't forget that this comparison is not including the additional speedup gained from using the AMP Project (Google's) CDN.
- JoshMnem 11y ago
  I wouldn't consider that a benefit, since I don't want every site I visit to ping Google's servers. I haven't researched it in depth, but it seems like an attempt to appify the Web even more and bring it under Google's control. A "webpage" just becomes a brief side trip from the Google homepage, with a giant back button to send your traffic back to Google rather than deeper into your site. The fox (any single, large company with an interest in replacing the WWW with itself) should not be guarding the henhouse (the WWW). I mean that in reference to Chrome, appification, and things like AMP. It isn't good for publishers or for the future of the open Web. It seems absurd for sites to put code on their pages that adds a giant "go back to Google.com" banner on top of their pages, if that's what it does.

adtechthrowaway 11y ago

I've been told that google has intraday downloads of their doubleclick logs "on their roadmap". For me in adtech, a lot of the pain I feel in having to add more tagging would be reduced if google had this stuff streaming in realtime. Their lack of this functionality has fed the thirst for other tags (adobe, bluekai, etc.), since we can't build really fast behavioural reactions on their data. They've told me the solution is to use Google Analytics Premium, and upload our behavioural reaction rules into there. Just like everyone else, that is a black box, and I then have to adhere to the functionality they have built. Businesses will always ask for a custom tweak that any black box can't deliver, and that also leads to more tagging. ;) Truly open up your platforms!!! Currently it feels like a mexican stand-off, where the first company to open up loses control of their data asset, while all others win.