4 ms·

Quarterly reports are used for estimating second order derivatives aka growth of growth, which are very noisy. So friends don't let friends use quarterly report

Quarterly reports are used for estimating second order derivatives aka growth of growth, which are very noisy. So friends don't let friends use quarterly reports without smoothing :). That aside, one thing I have never understood is why Google shutdown their Product Search and then re-incarnated as some half-assed effort. When Google's product search was alive and well, I often used that for comparison shopping, finding related products etc. I'd hopped one day they would add integrated payment, inventory and offer a viable platform for lot of retailers who have no real IT departments to compete with Amazon. I also thought this was perhaps much higher valued search (intent to buy!!). Instead they shut down the whole thing. Now Amazon is the only well known comprehensive place for product search. It looks to me Google handed over one of the most lucrative search segment to Amazon on a silver platter and now we are seeing the result of that decision.

ec109685 8y ago
They tried a bit of that with Google Shopping Express. Unfortunately that turned into a me too product versus when it launched you could get same day delivery from a variety of places.
strstr 8y ago
Yeah, evaluating stocks based quarterly reports accuracy always feels like a bit of a fools errand. The heuristic I use for dips in a stock is always “how many days of value did this erase?”. It keeps me sane when looking at large dips. The most recent time Google was at this value was early April. The earliest time Google was at this value was July 2018. Google’s stock valuation has clearly stagnated a by that second metric, but definitely not by the first. This quarterly report didn’t encode much more than a bust of the pre-earnings run-up.
threezero 8y ago
Google shut down their product search because of antitrust issues. It took a while before they realized that they were about to get into real trouble. Hence the “half-assed” replacement.
- nothis 8y ago
  Really? In the US? Do you have any good article on that?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - oflannabhra 8y ago
    Not in the US. In the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Google_Shopping_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Goog...
- prepend 8y ago
  The antitrust issues were that they were favoring their own results [0]. I would have used the site more if their response was to have a fair algorithm for results. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/google-fined-e2-42bn-for-eu-antitrust-violations-over-shopping-searches/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/google-fined-e2-42bn-for-e...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tyingq 8y ago
"Quarterly reports are used for estimating second order derivatives aka growth of growth, which are very noisy" Perhaps, but they have shown double digit YoY growth that exceeds general internet growth for many years. Personally I think it's largely because, for lucrative queries, everything above the fold is now an ad. Ads that have been tweaked and a/b tested to oblivion. Hard to grow on growth when your best trick is mostly played out.
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  > everything above the fold is now an ad. Is this actually true? Assuming that the top queries are still things like "mortgage", "lawyer", etc, when I search those terms, my above the fold are a Google Maps box with local results, a Wikipedia box, and a single organic Yellow Pages link. Now, "personal injury lawyer" is indeed all ads for me, but on the whole, I feel like I'm seeing fewer overall explicitly sponsored links than was the case 5-10 years ago.
  - rootusrootus 8y ago
    My anecdotal experience: When I searched "mortgage" just now, the first four results on the page were advertisements. The fifth and final result on the first page, of which only one line was actually visible without scrolling, was a mortgage calculator website. On the right side of the page there was another ad with graphical links to mortgage companies.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      I guess for those queries it depends on lot on what the ad spend is in your particular locale, since you want those particular businesses to be close by. We certainly have plenty of lawyers and mortgage agents here in Kitchener, but perhaps they aren't big into advertising on Google.
      - antonvs 8y ago
        The ad targeting might be locale-specific, but the companies advertising aren't. In the NY area, I also get 4 ads as the first results for "mortgage", from lendingtree, consumeradvocate.org, mortgage-loans.thetoptensites.com, and bankrate.com. They may do geo-restriction just to reach the largest number of people with the smallest spend, or something like that. The other person's point stands though, for many searches you don't get many non-ad results on the first page.
hartator 8y ago
Unsure if that's you looking for but we built this: https://serpapi.com/shopping-results https://serpapi.com/shopping-results

ec109685 8y ago

They tried a bit of that with Google Shopping Express. Unfortunately that turned into a me too product versus when it launched you could get same day delivery from a variety of places.

strstr 8y ago

Yeah, evaluating stocks based quarterly reports accuracy always feels like a bit of a fools errand. The heuristic I use for dips in a stock is always “how many days of value did this erase?”. It keeps me sane when looking at large dips. The most recent time Google was at this value was early April. The earliest time Google was at this value was July 2018. Google’s stock valuation has clearly stagnated a by that second metric, but definitely not by the first. This quarterly report didn’t encode much more than a bust of the pre-earnings run-up.

threezero 8y ago

Google shut down their product search because of antitrust issues. It took a while before they realized that they were about to get into real trouble. Hence the “half-assed” replacement.

nothis 8y ago
Really? In the US? Do you have any good article on that?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- oflannabhra 8y ago
  Not in the US. In the EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Google_Shopping_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Goog...
prepend 8y ago
The antitrust issues were that they were favoring their own results [0]. I would have used the site more if their response was to have a fair algorithm for results. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/google-fined-e2-42bn-for-eu-antitrust-violations-over-shopping-searches/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/google-fined-e2-42bn-for-e...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tyingq 8y ago

"Quarterly reports are used for estimating second order derivatives aka growth of growth, which are very noisy" Perhaps, but they have shown double digit YoY growth that exceeds general internet growth for many years. Personally I think it's largely because, for lucrative queries, everything above the fold is now an ad. Ads that have been tweaked and a/b tested to oblivion. Hard to grow on growth when your best trick is mostly played out.

mikepurvis 8y ago
> everything above the fold is now an ad. Is this actually true? Assuming that the top queries are still things like "mortgage", "lawyer", etc, when I search those terms, my above the fold are a Google Maps box with local results, a Wikipedia box, and a single organic Yellow Pages link. Now, "personal injury lawyer" is indeed all ads for me, but on the whole, I feel like I'm seeing fewer overall explicitly sponsored links than was the case 5-10 years ago.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  My anecdotal experience: When I searched "mortgage" just now, the first four results on the page were advertisements. The fifth and final result on the first page, of which only one line was actually visible without scrolling, was a mortgage calculator website. On the right side of the page there was another ad with graphical links to mortgage companies.
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    I guess for those queries it depends on lot on what the ad spend is in your particular locale, since you want those particular businesses to be close by. We certainly have plenty of lawyers and mortgage agents here in Kitchener, but perhaps they aren't big into advertising on Google.
    - antonvs 8y ago
      The ad targeting might be locale-specific, but the companies advertising aren't. In the NY area, I also get 4 ads as the first results for "mortgage", from lendingtree, consumeradvocate.org, mortgage-loans.thetoptensites.com, and bankrate.com. They may do geo-restriction just to reach the largest number of people with the smallest spend, or something like that. The other person's point stands though, for many searches you don't get many non-ad results on the first page.

hartator 8y ago

Unsure if that's you looking for but we built this: https://serpapi.com/shopping-results https://serpapi.com/shopping-results