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>Again, no where did I ever say that an ad is better than an organic result. Please don't claim that I did. It's simply not true. Hm. I'm sorry. That is the

by lsc 13y ago

>Again, no where did I ever say that an ad is better than an organic result. Please don't claim that I did. It's simply not true. Hm. I'm sorry. That is the impression I've gotten from multiple google employees... that is the impression I got from your post, too. However, you are correct. that's not what you said, that's my interpretation of what you said, which yeah. Is a very different thing. (I mean, I could say I was using "saying" to mean 'meaning' but... yeah, I was incorrect, and rudely so. I'm sorry.) >So if you optimize for the long term you want users to be glad that they clicked on an ad, so that they'll continue to do that over the the long term, and that means making them good for the user. This means that a "good ad" has some usefulness to the user: if highlights a product or service they were looking for, it educates, it offers a good price, etc. I agree that making ads "less bad" is a good long-term goal for an advertising company (and I think google has actually done a pretty good job of that) I think my disagreement comes when you start calling ads 'good' rather than 'less bad' (outside of the content or services those ads pay for.) The essential point of disagreement, I think, is that all other things being equal, both the merchant and the customer are better off if they make the exchange without paying a middleman. Sort of how many people feel that groupon is bad. Thus, when you say "a good ad can benefit everyone involved." I hear, perhaps incorrectly, "an ad can be better than an organic search result" >Yes, it's idealistic, but not overly so. The premise is just that built right, an ad system can produce good results for everyone. Good free content; relatively useful ads; revenue for content producers, ad marketplace, and advertisers; etc. I think this ends up being the case at least some of the time, and it's important to realize that it's not just by accident, it's by design. And it's not strictly capitalistic or benevolent, but a case where the two can coexist if done right. You still have the long-term problem that your organic search results are competing with your ads, creating a long-term conflict of interest within google. Nobody is going to click on your ads if your organic results are better than your ads.

spankalee 13y ago
That's actually as much, or more, of an argument for better ads as it is for "worse" content. Competition is generally considered good, and I see competition all around here. In search Google is not simply going to slow down, that would be a recipe for obsolescence. If Google can make search results 10x better, I'm sure they can figure out how to monetize it. If Google lets Bing catch up, that's trouble. In ads, if the ads compete with search results, then make the ads better. Showing endorsements from friends is an example of this, just like such endorsements can show up in search results (I think, not sure). Ad networks also compete against each other, so another search engine that does ads in a way that's better for users will hopefully get rewarded for that, making others respond.
- lsc 13y ago
  >That's actually as much, or more, of an argument for better ads as it is for "worse" content. That's certainly a healthy way to look at it, but google is still competing with itself internally, which I think is rather different from competing with an external company. >Competition is generally considered good, There are two ways of competing; making your product [appear] better, and making the other guy's product [appear] worse. The difference between external and internal competition is that with external competition, you have the option of trying to make your competitor's product appear to be worse, but it's pretty difficult to actually make it worse. With competition within a company? It's much easier to actually make the competing product worse. (Note, I'm not saying that google is doing that... just that competition between departments within a company is often not as beneficial as competition between companies with different ownership.) >I see competition all around here. Well, first, I am glad that you (as a googler) see competition, but my view, as an outsider? you don't have serious competition. I mean, as a business owner (and someone who buys ads) your competition is... meat-space ads, mostly. And relationships with sites your customers care about. (Sponsorship and the like, which is higher labor, but I think often gives higher value to the advertiser than display ads. I'm not sure it's an approach that scales.) As a consumer, I don't see serious competition for low-cost email. I don't see serious competition for search. You have a big lead, in most of your consumer products. Obviously, Google doesn't have a lead at all in social networking, and, I think, google shifting so much of their emphasis to that market is a symptom of not having serious competition in other markets. (I believe, well... I hope that the social networking market is not as big or as important as the market right now thinks it is.) >If Google can make search results 10x better, I'm sure they can figure out how to monetize it. There's a difference between "oh, that would be nice" and "we must do this or we will no longer exist as a company (or lose significant market share.)" I can tell you this from recent personal experience. Two years ago, increasing ram and disk allocations for my customers "would be nice" - and I started moving on it. some customers got upgraded, but not many. Today? it's an existential problem. I've lost 15% of my customers in just a few months. If I don't get users upgraded (and open new signups) with dramatically more resources per dollar soon... So yeah; Consider me motivated. Between my previous post and this post, I caused nearly a terabyte in ram (and servers to put said ram in) to appear in my van. (I know that the motivations of public companies are... different. But generally, this is the narrative that is used to explain why competition is good, even if this narrative does not always fit the data.)

by lsc 13y ago

spankalee 13y ago

That's actually as much, or more, of an argument for better ads as it is for "worse" content. Competition is generally considered good, and I see competition all around here. In search Google is not simply going to slow down, that would be a recipe for obsolescence. If Google can make search results 10x better, I'm sure they can figure out how to monetize it. If Google lets Bing catch up, that's trouble. In ads, if the ads compete with search results, then make the ads better. Showing endorsements from friends is an example of this, just like such endorsements can show up in search results (I think, not sure). Ad networks also compete against each other, so another search engine that does ads in a way that's better for users will hopefully get rewarded for that, making others respond.

lsc 13y ago
>That's actually as much, or more, of an argument for better ads as it is for "worse" content. That's certainly a healthy way to look at it, but google is still competing with itself internally, which I think is rather different from competing with an external company. >Competition is generally considered good, There are two ways of competing; making your product [appear] better, and making the other guy's product [appear] worse. The difference between external and internal competition is that with external competition, you have the option of trying to make your competitor's product appear to be worse, but it's pretty difficult to actually make it worse. With competition within a company? It's much easier to actually make the competing product worse. (Note, I'm not saying that google is doing that... just that competition between departments within a company is often not as beneficial as competition between companies with different ownership.) >I see competition all around here. Well, first, I am glad that you (as a googler) see competition, but my view, as an outsider? you don't have serious competition. I mean, as a business owner (and someone who buys ads) your competition is... meat-space ads, mostly. And relationships with sites your customers care about. (Sponsorship and the like, which is higher labor, but I think often gives higher value to the advertiser than display ads. I'm not sure it's an approach that scales.) As a consumer, I don't see serious competition for low-cost email. I don't see serious competition for search. You have a big lead, in most of your consumer products. Obviously, Google doesn't have a lead at all in social networking, and, I think, google shifting so much of their emphasis to that market is a symptom of not having serious competition in other markets. (I believe, well... I hope that the social networking market is not as big or as important as the market right now thinks it is.) >If Google can make search results 10x better, I'm sure they can figure out how to monetize it. There's a difference between "oh, that would be nice" and "we must do this or we will no longer exist as a company (or lose significant market share.)" I can tell you this from recent personal experience. Two years ago, increasing ram and disk allocations for my customers "would be nice" - and I started moving on it. some customers got upgraded, but not many. Today? it's an existential problem. I've lost 15% of my customers in just a few months. If I don't get users upgraded (and open new signups) with dramatically more resources per dollar soon... So yeah; Consider me motivated. Between my previous post and this post, I caused nearly a terabyte in ram (and servers to put said ram in) to appear in my van. (I know that the motivations of public companies are... different. But generally, this is the narrative that is used to explain why competition is good, even if this narrative does not always fit the data.)