Dear Eric Schmidt, while Nikola Tesla was a bad business man, his inventions have enjoyed huge success. We all use alternating current every day, his power plant in Niagara falls is still working as well as electric motors designed by him. Mark Twain was joking when he complained about the telephone, in fact he admired Alexander Graham Bell and was one of the first telephone users.
great delivery. few of my fav excerpts: Google isn’t useful because it’s popular; we’re popular because we’re useful It’s the recipe that matters the most, not the ingredients. Inventions are always dynamic and the resulting upheavals should make us confident that the future won’t be static
Great article Eric, very insightful and honest. I’ve experienced the same problems with search over the past years and this gave me the motivation to start a company that approaches search in a different way.
The biggest problem with the search industry is that everybody copies the existing model of Google instead of approaching it in an entire new way. Even though the existing model has been doing a perfect job for years, new problems, trends and innovation require new solutions. To solve the problems you’ve mentioned, there needs to be a shift in the approach to search.
Google is great when you know what you are looking for, but when searching for ‘New York’, I get the best links (according to an algorithm) about the topic, without any categorization or alternatives to individual links. Maybe I just booked a flight and thus a link to Booking.com is not the most relevant for me. I rather want an overview of things I can do in New York when I arrive there, preferably categorized. Things that are fun to do are very subjective and differ for each person, so I would prefer several subjective human overviews of curated listings and pick the results of a person I can identify with the most.
The social trend of the internet has significantly changed the way we find relevant information online. PageRank was very effective at interpreting websites linking to each other as a recommendation of A to B, rather than individual persons sharing websites through their social channels. Websites mostly used to be a group of people working together without an actual human face and acted more like media companies rather than a distribution channel, responsible for the style and quality of content available on their platform. Identifying which information is most valuable became much more complex. Nowadays, information online is much more personal and individual websites contain lots of different styles and quality of information, because they act more like a distribution channel for individual persons than a big content producer with a consistent style and quality they safeguard. The value of content has to be identified on the level of an individual piece of content and which person created it, rather than on the reputation of the platform/website itself that published the content.
The social graph of a person is very important these days. People are much more aware of what happens on the internet these days, privacy and trust are a big thing. “Google isn't useful because it's popular; we're popular because we're useful.” - The next big thing in search will be the opposite, it’s useful because it’s popular (and thus social). You don't want the best ranked links on Google, which are influenced by SEM and big budgets, you want the links which are most valued and recommended by your friends, peers and industry experts; an actual human you trust and whose expertise you can validate.
The ‘filter bubble’ is not the right solution to these problems. This approach creates a false sense of (social) relevancy, because individual links are ranked based on privacy-invading methods and are not ‘social’ at the core. You don’t want a stream of individually relevant links, you want more context, subjective overviews about a topic, each ranked and categorized by an actual human independent on your search history. People most close to you in your social graph should be shown first.
I believe search needs to become more human, transparent and contextualized to remain effective now and in the future. When I find a bar in New York, I also want to see alternatives, preferably ranked based on different perspectives, but a ‘related:websiteofbar.com’ query on Google doesn’t provide me with any of this. We need a crowdsourced human filter on top of Google to supply what we need in this information-overloaded social web age and get out of the ‘black box’ of filter bubbles and SEM.
I think the solution could be in the opposite of "Search don't sort" and could be "Sorting your search".
I had an utopian dream during my childhood and the time i fell in love with advertising.
When facebook launched...i was dreaming in my bed and all of a sudden i woke up in the middle of the night screaming: "Now i can do it, now is possible!"
The biggest problem with the search industry is that everybody copies the existing model of Google instead of approaching it in an entire new way. Even though the existing model has been doing a perfect job for years, new problems, trends and innovation require new solutions. To solve the problems you mentioned, there needs to be a shift in the approach to search.
Your article inspired me to write a blogpost to reflect on the problems you mentioned. You can read it here: http://zeef.org/2014/10/15/reply-the-new-grundergeist
As to your comment on showing flights under €300 for places where it's hot in December and I can snorkel, I am surprised to hear that Google can't solve for that today.
It is already sort of done. Please check http://www.emirates.com/us/english/plan_book/inspire-me/inspire-me.aspx. This can be done with the data that ITA has. FYI, I am in the travel tech industry.
I concur with Eric on the search problem still not been solved. In the year 2000 I started on the solution by creating ".travel" hence, one of the first gTLDs wasn't a success. In 2003 the first "design" prototypes showed up. Finally, in 2009 I created a company called Fairquote, and even many of my friend are from the travel industry and gave me hope, I lost my money and also the hope to ever make this a winner. Fairquote "solved" the problem of travel search - most of you will not image how. Despite the ideas being launched now over 10 years ago, it still waits to be discovered. http://fairquote.info Dr. Winfried Boeing
Though yahoo search is a favorite topic of discussion amongst monarchs, presidents and dictators, it is impossible to overestimate its impact on modern thought. Inevitably feelings run deep amongst those most reliant on technology, who are yet to grow accustomed to its discombobulating nature. With the primary aim of demonstrating my considerable intellect I will now demonstrate the complexity of the many faceted issue that is yahoo search.
You are welcome to comment here, but your remarks should be relevant to the conversation. To keep the exchanges focused and engaging, we reserve the right to remove off-topic comments, or self-promoting URLs and vacuous messages
Dear Eric Schmidt, while Nikola Tesla was a bad business man, his inventions have enjoyed huge success. We all use alternating current every day, his power plant in Niagara falls is still working as well as electric motors designed by him. Mark Twain was joking when he complained about the telephone, in fact he admired Alexander Graham Bell and was one of the first telephone users.
ReplyDeletegreat delivery.
ReplyDeletefew of my fav excerpts:
Google isn’t useful because it’s popular; we’re popular because we’re useful
It’s the recipe that matters the most, not the ingredients.
Inventions are always dynamic and the resulting upheavals should make us confident that the future won’t be static
Inspirational to the future and beyond.
ReplyDeleteGreat article Eric, very insightful and honest. I’ve experienced the same problems with search over the past years and this gave me the motivation to start a company that approaches search in a different way.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem with the search industry is that everybody copies the existing model of Google instead of approaching it in an entire new way. Even though the existing model has been doing a perfect job for years, new problems, trends and innovation require new solutions. To solve the problems you’ve mentioned, there needs to be a shift in the approach to search.
Google is great when you know what you are looking for, but when searching for ‘New York’, I get the best links (according to an algorithm) about the topic, without any categorization or alternatives to individual links. Maybe I just booked a flight and thus a link to Booking.com is not the most relevant for me. I rather want an overview of things I can do in New York when I arrive there, preferably categorized. Things that are fun to do are very subjective and differ for each person, so I would prefer several subjective human overviews of curated listings and pick the results of a person I can identify with the most.
The social trend of the internet has significantly changed the way we find relevant information online. PageRank was very effective at interpreting websites linking to each other as a recommendation of A to B, rather than individual persons sharing websites through their social channels. Websites mostly used to be a group of people working together without an actual human face and acted more like media companies rather than a distribution channel, responsible for the style and quality of content available on their platform. Identifying which information is most valuable became much more complex. Nowadays, information online is much more personal and individual websites contain lots of different styles and quality of information, because they act more like a distribution channel for individual persons than a big content producer with a consistent style and quality they safeguard. The value of content has to be identified on the level of an individual piece of content and which person created it, rather than on the reputation of the platform/website itself that published the content.
The social graph of a person is very important these days. People are much more aware of what happens on the internet these days, privacy and trust are a big thing. “Google isn't useful because it's popular; we're popular because we're useful.” - The next big thing in search will be the opposite, it’s useful because it’s popular (and thus social). You don't want the best ranked links on Google, which are influenced by SEM and big budgets, you want the links which are most valued and recommended by your friends, peers and industry experts; an actual human you trust and whose expertise you can validate.
The ‘filter bubble’ is not the right solution to these problems. This approach creates a false sense of (social) relevancy, because individual links are ranked based on privacy-invading methods and are not ‘social’ at the core. You don’t want a stream of individually relevant links, you want more context, subjective overviews about a topic, each ranked and categorized by an actual human independent on your search history. People most close to you in your social graph should be shown first.
I believe search needs to become more human, transparent and contextualized to remain effective now and in the future. When I find a bar in New York, I also want to see alternatives, preferably ranked based on different perspectives, but a ‘related:websiteofbar.com’ query on Google doesn’t provide me with any of this. We need a crowdsourced human filter on top of Google to supply what we need in this information-overloaded social web age and get out of the ‘black box’ of filter bubbles and SEM.
I think the solution could be in the opposite of "Search don't sort" and could be "Sorting your search".
Klaas Joosten
Inpiring.
ReplyDeleteMy first company also "started" from a dream.
I had an utopian dream during my childhood and the time i fell in love with advertising.
When facebook launched...i was dreaming in my bed and all of a sudden i woke up in the middle of the night screaming: "Now i can do it, now is possible!"
: )
Eric, very insightful and honest article.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem with the search industry is that everybody copies the existing model of Google instead of approaching it in an entire new way. Even though the existing model has been doing a perfect job for years, new problems, trends and innovation require new solutions. To solve the problems you mentioned, there needs to be a shift in the approach to search.
Your article inspired me to write a blogpost to reflect on the problems you mentioned. You can read it here: http://zeef.org/2014/10/15/reply-the-new-grundergeist
As to your comment on showing flights under €300 for places where it's hot in December and I can snorkel, I am surprised to hear that Google can't solve for that today.
ReplyDeleteIt is already sort of done. Please check http://www.emirates.com/us/english/plan_book/inspire-me/inspire-me.aspx. This can be done with the data that ITA has. FYI, I am in the travel tech industry.
I concur with Eric on the search problem still not been solved. In the year 2000 I started on the solution by creating ".travel" hence, one of the first gTLDs wasn't a success. In 2003 the first "design" prototypes showed up. Finally, in 2009 I created a company called Fairquote, and even many of my friend are from the travel industry and gave me hope, I lost my money and also the hope to ever make this a winner.
ReplyDeleteFairquote "solved" the problem of travel search - most of you will not image how. Despite the ideas being launched now over 10 years ago, it still waits to be discovered. http://fairquote.info
Dr. Winfried Boeing
Though yahoo search is a favorite topic of discussion amongst monarchs, presidents and dictators, it is impossible to overestimate its impact on modern thought. Inevitably feelings run deep amongst those most reliant on technology, who are yet to grow accustomed to its discombobulating nature. With the primary aim of demonstrating my considerable intellect I will now demonstrate the complexity of the many faceted issue that is yahoo search.
ReplyDelete