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And by virality you mean well-tuned for the algorithm. This issue seems like one that Google (or search more broadly) addressed early on, and spared no expense
by hammock 4y ago
And by virality you mean well-tuned for the algorithm.
This issue seems like one that Google (or search more broadly) addressed early on, and spared no expense at making sure their pagerank algo surfaced quality pages no matter how people tried to game it.
It doesn’t seem that social media platforms have taken the same approach with their algorithms, for one reason or another
- pjc50 4y agoQuality of the content is not the concern of platforms; they only want to maximize eyeballs for the ads. Whereas google, incredibly, had to establish itself as better than the competition at providing quality pages.
- hammock 4y agoYeah, what is the insight though as to why the difference? A social platform and Google both rely on active users, visits and time on site. Both make their money by selling ads. Both risk losing users if their algorithm sucks. Yet they tune their algorithms differently. On reflection, two factors come to mind: 1) Social content is inherently emotional - people come to the platform get a dose or three of dopamine. Search is unemotional in that way, people are only looking for accurate information. In the way that Wikipedia straddles the line between dopamine-driven content and search information, I wonder what Wikipedia would look like if it had ads on it? 2) Social ads are built for reach and impressions, not clicks (this is changing though), while search ads are built for clicks off-platform
- lupire 4y ago3. Network effect / lockin. People don't want 2 social networks, and they have to move with their friends. 4. With search, you know what info you want. With social, you are looking to be told what is important.