Comments on: Jeff Jarvis Comes Clean http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/02/jeff-jarvis-comes-clean/ Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:14:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/02/jeff-jarvis-comes-clean/comment-page-1/#comment-2744 Daniel Tunkelang Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:51:57 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1830#comment-2744 And Jeff, to be clear, I agree with what you said during the interview with Rubel. Google's mission statement, like many religious texts, has some great rules to live by. But you talk about Google as a company, and not just googleyness as a platonic ideal. Retro as it may sounds, I'm just being a good investigative reporter, trying to keep you honest and the world informed. And Jeff, to be clear, I agree with what you said during the interview with Rubel. Google’s mission statement, like many religious texts, has some great rules to live by. But you talk about Google as a company, and not just googleyness as a platonic ideal. Retro as it may sounds, I’m just being a good investigative reporter, trying to keep you honest and the world informed.

]]> By: Daniel Tunkelang http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/02/jeff-jarvis-comes-clean/comment-page-1/#comment-2743 Daniel Tunkelang Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:40:29 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1830#comment-2743 Jeff, I beg to differ. I admit that I haven't read your book, but I did attend the launch party and I've also followed much of the buzz online. But, lest I be accused of quoting you out of context, I'm embedding your own video preview for the book in its entirety, where you call Google "open and transparent" within the first fifteen seconds. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VYL_Jz3XKjw&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VYL_Jz3XKjw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Jeff, I beg to differ. I admit that I haven’t read your book, but I did attend the launch party and I’ve also followed much of the buzz online. But, lest I be accused of quoting you out of context, I’m embedding your own video preview for the book in its entirety, where you call Google “open and transparent” within the first fifteen seconds.

]]> By: jeremy http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/02/jeff-jarvis-comes-clean/comment-page-1/#comment-2742 jeremy Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:01:23 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1830#comment-2742 The ad revenue splits or the Google News sources are the least of Google's non-transparency woes. There are even more important aspects of where Google is not transparent, such as (1) what the objective function is that Google is trying to optimize w/r/t its organic search, and (2) what the decision and measurement criteria are for mixing ads in with the organic results, for example: (i) How does Google decide when to show ads (on the right) and when not to. (ii) How does Google decide when to show ads (on top) and when not to. And how much does that confuse the user to have ads coming and going on a per-query basis, dynamically changing the location of the first organic result. (iii) When optimizing for the user, how did Google decide that it was better to put ads on the right and query suggestions on the bottom, rather than query suggestions to the right and ads on the bottom? And that's just a start. I can think of a dozen other design and algorithm decisions that are anything but transparent, and make my interaction with the search engine, and my ability to understand what it is trying to do for me, and when I should and shouldn't use it, that much more difficult. The ad revenue splits or the Google News sources are the least of Google’s non-transparency woes.

There are even more important aspects of where Google is not transparent, such as (1) what the objective function is that Google is trying to optimize w/r/t its organic search, and (2) what the decision and measurement criteria are for mixing ads in with the organic results, for example:

(i) How does Google decide when to show ads (on the right) and when not to.
(ii) How does Google decide when to show ads (on top) and when not to. And how much does that confuse the user to have ads coming and going on a per-query basis, dynamically changing the location of the first organic result.
(iii) When optimizing for the user, how did Google decide that it was better to put ads on the right and query suggestions on the bottom, rather than query suggestions to the right and ads on the bottom?

And that’s just a start. I can think of a dozen other design and algorithm decisions that are anything but transparent, and make my interaction with the search engine, and my ability to understand what it is trying to do for me, and when I should and shouldn’t use it, that much more difficult.

]]> By: Jeff Jarvis http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/04/02/jeff-jarvis-comes-clean/comment-page-1/#comment-2741 Jeff Jarvis Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:50:40 +0000 http://thenoisychannel.com/?p=1830#comment-2741 Just for the record, I've always said this and said it in the book. Nothing new, really. Just for the record, I’ve always said this and said it in the book. Nothing new, really.

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