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“Most portals show their own content above content elsewhere on the web. We feel that’s a conflict of interest, analogous to taking money for search results. Th

by tedsuo 15y ago

“Most portals show their own content above content elsewhere on the web. We feel that’s a conflict of interest, analogous to taking money for search results. Their search engine doesn’t necessarily provide the best results; it provides the portal’s results. Google conscientiously tries to stay away from that. We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. It’s a very different model.” -Larry Page, 2004 I think it is important to note that google is straying from their original mission, intentionally or not.

ay 15y ago
They are not straying, they are pivoting.
- gfodor 15y ago
  And there goes the last slice of meaning to the word "pivot." I think it's now officially dead.
  - ay 15y ago
    I assumed that I did not need to mark the post with <sarcasm/>. What I implied is that companies are no different to humans in some respects - your life's mission when you are 5 is different from your life's mission when you are 15, and is different from your life's mission when you are 35. And there's nothing wrong about that - companies, like people, have the age. Welcome to the new grown up Google, I suppose. (of course, all of the above rant assumes that the quote is real. Which I decided to hunt down, and it is, apparently: http://glinden.blogspot.com/2004/08/google-playboys.html http://glinden.blogspot.com/2004/08/google-playboys.html) But the other part of the quote got me thinking - "...analogous to taking money for search results. " I caught myself a few times this year that I'd prefer to pay for the premium quality content rather than have to wade through the soup of the ads mixed with semi-relevant results. So maybe therein lies some version of the future. EDIT: of course, the rule "don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance" still holds and it might be just an experiment that went a bit too far - I can not reproduce the "ads above the search results" on my browser right now.
Kylekramer 15y ago
That quote still rings true to me. Google still makes diddly squat even if you spent all day on their sites (besides YouTube). They still want you in and out. Google+ isn't about becoming a portal. Google saw the sheer amount of incredibly relevant data Facebook got from users who were glad to give it away. That data is the prize, not eyeballs (it would be hard to get more eyeballs that Google currently does). With Facebook-like data, Google's ad platform would nearly be unstoppable. Of course, this is troubling in an entirely different manner. But at least Larry isn't a hypocrite.
MaysonL 15y ago
And note what's at the top of almost any page of Google search results: paid ads (granted, they're in a different color, so you know they're ads, but they're still at the top of the page). Not so different a model.
Shorel 15y ago
I think it is different to show 'the portal results' and to show 'also my social results'. That's a crucial distinction.
cbs 15y ago
It is important that they're straying, I'm not particularly happy with it myself, but thats a somewhat separate issue because I hardly think that the criticism they've been getting from their main tech competitors is altruistic concern that google stick to its principles.

by tedsuo 15y ago

ay 15y ago

They are not straying, they are pivoting.

gfodor 15y ago
And there goes the last slice of meaning to the word "pivot." I think it's now officially dead.
- ay 15y ago
  I assumed that I did not need to mark the post with <sarcasm/>. What I implied is that companies are no different to humans in some respects - your life's mission when you are 5 is different from your life's mission when you are 15, and is different from your life's mission when you are 35. And there's nothing wrong about that - companies, like people, have the age. Welcome to the new grown up Google, I suppose. (of course, all of the above rant assumes that the quote is real. Which I decided to hunt down, and it is, apparently: http://glinden.blogspot.com/2004/08/google-playboys.html http://glinden.blogspot.com/2004/08/google-playboys.html) But the other part of the quote got me thinking - "...analogous to taking money for search results. " I caught myself a few times this year that I'd prefer to pay for the premium quality content rather than have to wade through the soup of the ads mixed with semi-relevant results. So maybe therein lies some version of the future. EDIT: of course, the rule "don't attribute to malice what you can attribute to ignorance" still holds and it might be just an experiment that went a bit too far - I can not reproduce the "ads above the search results" on my browser right now.

Kylekramer 15y ago

That quote still rings true to me. Google still makes diddly squat even if you spent all day on their sites (besides YouTube). They still want you in and out. Google+ isn't about becoming a portal. Google saw the sheer amount of incredibly relevant data Facebook got from users who were glad to give it away. That data is the prize, not eyeballs (it would be hard to get more eyeballs that Google currently does). With Facebook-like data, Google's ad platform would nearly be unstoppable. Of course, this is troubling in an entirely different manner. But at least Larry isn't a hypocrite.

MaysonL 15y ago

And note what's at the top of almost any page of Google search results: paid ads (granted, they're in a different color, so you know they're ads, but they're still at the top of the page). Not so different a model.

Shorel 15y ago

I think it is different to show 'the portal results' and to show 'also my social results'. That's a crucial distinction.

cbs 15y ago

It is important that they're straying, I'm not particularly happy with it myself, but thats a somewhat separate issue because I hardly think that the criticism they've been getting from their main tech competitors is altruistic concern that google stick to its principles.