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If I search for a programming tip and find it through Google, I might bookmark it or use bit.ly to tweet it. If I have to scroll down past a bunch of garbage th

If I search for a programming tip and find it through Google, I might bookmark it or use bit.ly to tweet it. If I have to scroll down past a bunch of garbage that is trying to fool me into paying for the tip, I am not going to bookmark it or share it. If I lose my mind and share it and I immediately get 500 emails telling me that when they go to the site they don't see the tip (because they didn't go through GOOG), I am goingto have a lot of egg on my face. If I do the same search in Bing and I get stack overflow, I'm a happy man. How often does that have to happen before I bail on using GOOG? I don't think of this as privileging Google users, I think of it as creating a nasty time bomb when users discover that they can't share or save their results.

gojomo 17y ago
Those outcomes after bookmark/shorten/share are inconvenient. But are you more angry at ExEx or at Google? Most people in this thread have retaliated against ExEx, not Google. And, are these frustrating outcomes inconvenient enough for you to actually switch away from Google? Or to do other things that help Google? If instead you search again to access the answer or find an alternate source -- net win for Google! If you are driven to use Google Web History, Google Bookmarks, Google Reader, or Google Buzz to bookmark/shorten/share -- net win for Google! If initially including the 'time bomb' ExEx result, as decepulative as it was in the long run, prevented you from trying another service on your first search -- net win for Google! By advantaging the use of Google search (and services) over all other link-discovery mechanisms, ExEx is doing Google a small service. The same paradox applies with the legions of SEO-pablum and Made-For-AdSense sites. Google doesn't want them if they totally destroy the user experience, but if they marginally force a few more search refinements, and result in a few longer sessions viewing more Google AdWords/AdSense, the net economic incentives are for Google to tolerate them, and rationalize their existence. I wonder if in the domain where we pay the price with our attention, Google search is a little like a 'Giffen Good'. That is, a good whose consumption goes up as it becomes more costly -- because there are no easy substitutes, and it depletes our overall budget so much that other expenditures are crowded-out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good
gojomo 17y ago
Just remembered another salient point: it's not only ExEx creating these bookmark-broken, sharing-broken Google-favoring pages. It's also the Wall Street Journal and other major media sites. And rather than that becoming a selling point for Bing -- "we'll show you fewer results, but at least they'll still work in a week" -- the idea that's gotten more attention is that Bing should outbid Google to get such preferential access itself. (For example, the rumors that Fox/Murdoch was discussing such a deal with Microsoft, and Mark Cuban's enthusiastic promotion of the idea: <http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/22/bing-trying-to-get-exclusive-on-fox-smart/>. http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/22/bing-trying-to-get-exclus...)

gojomo 17y ago

Those outcomes after bookmark/shorten/share are inconvenient. But are you more angry at ExEx or at Google? Most people in this thread have retaliated against ExEx, not Google. And, are these frustrating outcomes inconvenient enough for you to actually switch away from Google? Or to do other things that help Google? If instead you search again to access the answer or find an alternate source -- net win for Google! If you are driven to use Google Web History, Google Bookmarks, Google Reader, or Google Buzz to bookmark/shorten/share -- net win for Google! If initially including the 'time bomb' ExEx result, as decepulative as it was in the long run, prevented you from trying another service on your first search -- net win for Google! By advantaging the use of Google search (and services) over all other link-discovery mechanisms, ExEx is doing Google a small service. The same paradox applies with the legions of SEO-pablum and Made-For-AdSense sites. Google doesn't want them if they totally destroy the user experience, but if they marginally force a few more search refinements, and result in a few longer sessions viewing more Google AdWords/AdSense, the net economic incentives are for Google to tolerate them, and rationalize their existence. I wonder if in the domain where we pay the price with our attention, Google search is a little like a 'Giffen Good'. That is, a good whose consumption goes up as it becomes more costly -- because there are no easy substitutes, and it depletes our overall budget so much that other expenditures are crowded-out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good

gojomo 17y ago

Just remembered another salient point: it's not only ExEx creating these bookmark-broken, sharing-broken Google-favoring pages. It's also the Wall Street Journal and other major media sites. And rather than that becoming a selling point for Bing -- "we'll show you fewer results, but at least they'll still work in a week" -- the idea that's gotten more attention is that Bing should outbid Google to get such preferential access itself. (For example, the rumors that Fox/Murdoch was discussing such a deal with Microsoft, and Mark Cuban's enthusiastic promotion of the idea: <http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/22/bing-trying-to-get-exclusive-on-fox-smart/>. http://blogmaverick.com/2009/11/22/bing-trying-to-get-exclus...)