> Nothing happens on an Apple device without Cupertino’s knowledge, and as a result Apple can perfectly tailor its devices for it users (and ratchet up record-breaking quarterly earnings in the process).
Are Apple's devices "perfectly tailored for it[s] users"? I don't see any of that tailoring when I use them.
The reason why Apple ratchets up record-breaking earnings is that they build things people want; they build incredibly good devices.
Google is playing with fire; the thing it has that people want is not G+ or Reader or even Gmail: it is search. If they break search, they will die.
OTOH, we might discover adding a social dimension to search results may yield better results for a substantial chunk of the general population. If I am looking for a how-to, knowing whether my geek friends found it useful would be a good indicator.
It has to be carefully balanced to avoid forming social echo chambers and perpetuating instantaneous events, but, in the end, it may prove useful.
And it's a bit of exaggeration when people gets worried about privacy when they voluntarily submit the data to the very machines they fear.
I have to agree. It seems to be a compromise between "hipster" ideals someone else mentioned or competing. And, the reality is that this was already happening, now, perhaps it's just more transparent and streamlined. Interestingly, isn't this what Facebook is already doing? I view the timeline feature as exactly this. Except, instead of creating a more complete profile based on the things you search or use across platforms, FB is allowing its users to do the legwork and fill in the blanks for them. In other words, you provide a more complete profile or timeline for your life and they have more complete info on your preference, likes/dislikes, etc. Like it or not; it's clear it's the way of the future.
> And it's a bit of exaggeration when people gets worried about privacy when they voluntarily submit the data to the very machines they fear. Don
While a valid point, I signed up to g+ and then logged out permanently as I didn't want all my data submitted to a single company (i.e. Google has my search, calendar and gmail) I don't like that they have so much in one spot already but I certainly wasn't going to give them social as well.
I think that everyone likes to have an element of anonymity online and this lets Google have a much clearer idea of the kind of person you are by tying these together.
While we on HN might be clever ones that realise all the data we're putting out there there's a whole world of lay people that have no idea. I assume the outrage isn't so much about the people in the know, but about your grandmother not realising what she's volunteering.
I can't believe people are making such a fuss about a non-issue. Google isn't being 'evil' by aggregating data from all its properties. I'm surprised they hadn't been doing this already!
Think about it. If you owned Facebook and Microsoft, wouldn't you want to co-relate the data in Facebook with Windows? For example, to see how many users of Windows 7 use Facebook, and how it affects bounce rates? Do you think companies don't already do this (Bing and Microsoft, Safari and iTunes, etc.)?
Do you think Google ALREADY wasn't co-relating data from its different properties? And what exactly is wrong with that anyways? You'd have to be pretty naive (and unreasonable) to expect a parent company not to have access to data from all its subsidiary operations. How does one "opt-out" of letting Windows co-relate data with Internet Explorer, short of just not using one of them?
Have you ever tried visiting https://www.google.com/dashboard/? This page shows you all the accounts and information Google associates with your account. This was always the case. All that's changed is that the privacy policies associated with all of these disparate accounts have been combined and simplified.
You CAN opt-out of the Google tracking for ads here: http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/ I've known about this option for ages but haven't used it, simply because I respect Google's approach here. I'd like to see Facebook offer a similar option.
"Google is playing with fire... If they break search, they will die."
Please explain how they might "break search". I keep seeing comments on HN about how Google is messing up search, and also G+ is ruining peoples' lives somehow.
I have seen Google do absolutely nothing that you can't opt out of, or just plain ignore. For example, I technically have a G+ account, but I never ever click on G+ and I never actually see or use it, so it has no effect on my search results or my life at all. But i can see how it might add a lot of value for people who choose to use it. Again, i emphasize that it is a choice. Google is not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use G+. They are never going to sacrifice accurate search by only presenting you with "social" search results.
Yet even the examples that Google employees have been showing off don’t seem very useful to me. On his blog, Matt Cutts, who heads Google’s Webspam team, points out how his query for general tso’s chicken is improved by social links. He follows Jennifer 8. Lee, the author of a book about Chinese restaurants, on Google+. When he searches for general tso’s, he gets a link to Lee’s definitive Quora post on the history of the dish. If you don’t follow Lee and you do the same search, you won’t get that post.
But I don’t see the logic here. Isn’t the Quora post a good result for general tso’s chicken whether or not you’re friends with Lee? And the reason it’s a good result is that she’s an expert on the topic, not that she’s your friend or colleague. If Lee’s post isn’t coming up for all Google searchers—rather than just the ones who are perceptive enough to follow her—it would seem to suggest something is amiss with Google’s algorithm. You shouldn’t have to friend a plumber in order to find a good link about unclogging your toilet.
It's probably true that you can "opt out", sort of; I don't have an account with G+ (probably never will), but I use Gmail.
If Google searches start to feature prominently links to content published by my regular email correspondents, then that will break search for me.
Instead of answering my questions, you have just copy-pasted more speculation and hyperbole from an opinion piece written by just another blogger. What I am trying to do here is get people to actually think logically about these things, not just take everything they hear from the tech-blog echo chamber and accept it as fact.
The part I copied here for your viewing convenience is not "speculation" nor "hyperbole" or "opinion", it discusses the best example given so far by Googlers about the benefits of SPYW: that when you know someone who wrote a book about something, and you search about that something, then posts by this person, relevant to your search, pop up!
Yes, I clicked the provided link and read the entire article from start to finish. First, I want to say that I hope my first post did not sound like a personal attack on you. I was only trying to present my view of the article that you linked to. Next, I would like to try and back up the comments that I made about the article to hopefully make it a little more clear why I said that.
I referred to the article as opinion, hyperbole, and speculation, and here are some reasons why: When I first opened the article, I noticed that the subtitle starts with "Google’s disastrous decision to muck up its search results...", and then the first sentence of the article is "Google just broke its search engine." Calling this "disastrous" is, in my opinion, both speculation and a big exaggeration. I believe it's speculation because the SPYW option was released only two weeks ago, and it is clearly too early to tell if this will have any kind of a negative impact on Google or Google's users... let alone calling it a disaster (the exaggeration/hyperbole). Google has clearly not broken its search engine (more hyperbole, in my opinion). It works exactly the same as it did before, only with the additional option of being able to use SPYW. I would like to emphasize that SPYW is an option that can be toggled on or off at the top of any search page. It is easy to find these search settings/buttons on any search page, and if you would like more details please refer to [1] below.
Throughout the article, the author gives several made-up scenarios to illustrate what he believes to be critical flaws in Google's new SPYW option (although he ignores that it is in fact an option). The author gives the example of doing a Google search for "Facebook". I performed this search just now, and the number one result is Facebook.com, which is exactly what I would expect. The next several results include the Wikipedia entry for Facebook, a link to Facebook's iPhone app, a link to Facebook's Twitter account, and other websites that provide more information and news about Facebook. This is exactly what I would expect to see. I see absolutely no problem with this. The author tries to make it sound like he didn't see any of this, and that the only thing Google presented him with was a suggestion to add Mark Zuckerberg to one of his G+ circles, but this is simply not true. Try this search for yourself right now and let me know what you see. Go ahead and try it both with SPYW on or off (which can be toggled on/off on-the-fly with a single click at the top of the search page), and please let me know if you saw the same "disaster" that the author is talking about.
The author gives the example of searching for a plumber or information on how to fix a clogged toilet. He then says "What I don’t want to know is which link my boss consulted when his toilet was clogged. I bet I’m not alone." He doesn't want that (good, neither do I) and he doesn't have to ever see that in his results. He is giving his opinion of what he thinks is going to happen, and what he predicts will be the downfall of Google as we know it. Again, I am calling this opinion and speculation, because I have been trying all of these search queries that the author suggests, and I have not seen any of the problems he speaks of. I can only come to the conclusion that his complaints are not real, but are just his opinion of what he thinks Google might become in the future for some reason (some kind of slippery-slope argument, fear-mongering mentality? I can't figure it out).
Later, he gives some links to use cases that Google employees have come up with for SPYW. "Yet even the examples that Google employees have been showing off don’t seem very useful to me." They don't seem useful to him, but apparently they are useful to the person who came up with them.... That is the idea of having a "personalized" search option. If he doesn't find that to be useful, he can turn it off, so he won't see things that are not useful to him. In my opinion, this is a good thing. Then he says "If you don’t follow Lee and you do the same search, you won’t get that post." Again, that's the idea of the personalized search option..... and again, it is an option that can be turned off if you don't think it's useful.
Please, explore your Google search settings and check out the new Google "dashboard". You can fine tune exactly what comes up during "personalized" searches. Or you can turn off SPYW permanently if you wish. Also, if you hate it when Google tries to guess what you want, check out the "Verbatim" search option located under "More search tools" on the left side of any search page. The "Verbatim" option makes Google do only what you tell it to do. It won't even ask you "Did you mean...." anymore.
Thanks for this detailed answer (and I do use Verbatim all the time; this is the best thing that ever came out of Google recently).
You're quite convincing about the "hyperbole" part, but I'd argue this is par for the course for journalists: they have to exaggerate a bit.
But where I completely disagree with you is when you say:
> Then he says "If you don’t follow Lee and you do the same search, you won’t get that post." Again, that's the idea of the personalized search option..... and again, it is an option that can be turned off if you don't think it's useful.
The post he's talking about is the most relevant result for that search. If Google only shows it to people who follow the author of the post, then they will have broken search in favor of some kind of "social" thing that is much worse than what we had before.
How sure are you that it is an option? I followed the link you gave, went to search settings (here: http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=en) and found no option to disable it. I went to the dashboard and attempted to find an option for it, but did not see it anywhere. At this point I am under the assumption that while this may have been an option, it's been removed -- and if this is the wrong assumption to make, then all I can say is that it should not be this difficult to find it.
I couldn't agree more with the part about the search.
It looks like they're in a bad position already if they plan to deploy such a feature. I'm guessing they're having some internal issues, they must be concerned with their situation as a company.
'Don't be evil' went down the drain in the meantime.
Are Apple's devices "perfectly tailored for it[s] users"? I don't see any of that tailoring when I use them.
The reason why Apple ratchets up record-breaking earnings is that they build things people want; they build incredibly good devices.
Google is playing with fire; the thing it has that people want is not G+ or Reader or even Gmail: it is search. If they break search, they will die.