Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Gabe Rivera trumps Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt in one big way: He acknowledges his TechMeme algorithm can’t help but be biased:

“I wish it were obvious, but there’s no such thing as an unbiased automated news site (or search engine for that matter). Automation doesn’t remove bias, it merely obscures it.”

I have said the same in debunking Google’s claims of a machine driven perfection of its SERPs. The Brin & Page PageRank legacy espouses an unattainable, supposedly hands-off supreme neutrality:

There is no human involvement or manipulation of results.

So extols the Googleplex. Nevertheless, Mountain View neglects to recognize the human foundations of its PageRank formulations.

Two particular humans originated Google’s PageRank filter aimed at “organizing the world’s information,” Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders. Contrary to Google’s lofty mission statement, however, PageRank does not absolutely insure that the “world’s information” is “universally accessible and useful.”

Why not? The PageRank concept and Google’s specific implementation result in arbitrary, pre-determined exclusions and/or low rankings of “relevant” Web pages within Google SERPs.

At its core, PageRank is fundamentally flawed. By requiring that Web pages have inbound links from third-party Web sites, the PageRank based algorithm may result in automatic exclusion of the most relevant pages for a given query simply because no other Web sites have linked to them.

Google’s PageRank = “I am linked to, therefore I am.”

Page’s and Brin’s core assumption that a Web page can not be the most “relevant” if no third-party Web site links to it is not a defensible position, philosophically or scientifically.

Google’s “sandbox” also may result in automatic exclusion of the most relevant pages for a given query. Google’s exclusionary sandbox rationale is based on arbitrary, human-derived notions of “aging.”

If Google was indeed a public service, its sandbox could theoretically be disallowed due to age discrimination.

How about the TechMeme secret sauce? Rivera does not put forth high falutin notions of infallibility or absoluteness:

I hope you find it useful, and if you have a stake in tech reporting, not too infuriating.

One thing is certain: Every 20 minutes, 100 people with a stake in tech reporting will NOT find the Techmeme Leaderboard infuriating. AND, for the not so silent majority, the next shot at Leaderbaord glory will always be  but 19 minutes away!

ALSO: YAY! InsiderChatter.com on WebbAlert: NO Google Barbarians at Microsoft Gate and Hey, Henry: Doesn’t CNET Have a Blog Network, aka ZDNet?

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Does Facebook want to be the next Google? Mark Zuckerberg already claims to run the number one people search engine.

Dave Morin, Facebook senior platform developer, is now taking a page from the infamous Matt Cutts, Google’s Webspam fighter. Just as the world’s Webmasters brace for Cutts’ pronouncements at his blog of dos and don’ts impacting Google’s almighty PageRank, the world’s Facebook App developers shuddder when Morin posts Facebook Developer dos and don’ts for the almighty Facebook Platform.

Morin’s good cop, bad cop routine for “good apps,” bad apps: We’re focused on making “a better experience for both developers and users.”

In other words, Facebook Applications will be prohibited going forward from: 1) displaying profile content that the user isn’t aware of, and 2) email functionality within notifications.

Facebook is also “shifting” how Facebook Applications interact with the directory, invitation tool and news feeds.

Morin says Facebook wants to promote “good apps,” so that “the applications that achieve the most growth and usage are the ones that are the highest quality and add the most utility to users’ lives,” regardless of the individual (mis)fortunes of Facebook Developers.

Cutts always says Google “does what we think is best to maintain the relevance of our search results, and that includes taking action” against Websites, regardless of the individual (mis)fortunes of Webmasters.

At the end of the Google day, Google rules, for the good of Google shareholders AND Facebook rules for the good of Mark Zuckerberg and company.

Want in on “free” Google and Facebook love, play by their rules.

ALSO READ: Lending Club $108 billion Market Opp ex Facebook: Goodbye Banks! EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

AND: NewsFriends? Facebook Anti Social Utility: Real Friends DON’T Share and Hey Facebook! Free Robert Scoble: Unlock Your 5000 Friend Quota

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Google News is a joke: Shelby Bonnie, former CNET CEO, suggested as much at the NYC MIXX conference last year. With a nod to fellow panelist Tim Armstrong, Google VP Ad Sales, Bonnie underscored the uselessness of listing dozens of versions of the “same AP story,” as Google News does.

Algorithmic filtering and machine ranking can not subsititute for editorial judgement in identifying and prioritizing content, Bonnie indicated. Moreover, seeing the handful of stories that “people are actually doing the work on” ought to be the norm, Bonnie asserted.

Can Google News get its editorial act together? The Los Angeles Times does not believe so, headling an editorial on Google News: “It’s not journalism.”

Does the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review want the LA Times to shut up about Google?

Should the Times apologize to Google for pointing out that “journalism is more than just aggregating information”? The blogosphere undoubetdly thinks so.

After all, Dave Winer admonished Jason Calacanis that HE should apologize to Google for pointing out that Google SERPs are not pristine. Winer even scripted a handy mea culpa for Calacanis to submit to Google:

To our friends at Google. I’d like to apologize for saying that your search engine is filled with spam.

“Our friends” at Google? The shrewd, secretive $160 billion market cap Google with a determined manifest destiny to obtain, control and house all the public, private and personal data in the world, belonging to every man, woman and organization on the planet, in its “massively, scalable infrastrucure” in the cloud? THOSE Google “friends”?

Why is the Web’s monopolist acting powerhouse welcomed as a personal friend, while desktop monopolizing Microsoft is reviled as a direct enemy? Because Google is seen as a new age Santa Clause, a beneficent SERP fountain of the almighty “flow” and a turnkey AdSense monetization spigot.

Google “friendship” is a dangerous illusion, though. From dreams of “free, organic” traffic to calculations of super sized AdWords and AdSense ROI, the Web’s Google dependency fuels a ballooning GOOG while robbing Web publishers of their independent, stand alone economic futures.

The L.A. Times actually case in point. For all their independent who needs Google “sound and fury,” Times’ journalists are very conventionally Google dependendent as well.

ALSO: Does USC Annenberg OJR Want Old Media Journalists to Shut Up?

The Web’s fuel–Ads by Google–is funding the L.A. Times “It’s not journalism” opinion.

PLUS: Google Office Ignores Sun StarOffice: Microsoft Killer Still MIA and Google vs. Facebook, the Next Big Battle

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

In announcing its new Travel Destination Shortcut, Yahoo wistfully calls “Time to hit the beaches.”

Really? Yahoo’s search marketers are the ones being hit!

Hearalded as making the vacation planning process “that much easier,” the new Yahoo SERP feature puts Yahoo’s own Travel Channel up front and center stage for any and all Yahoo users searching for travel information.

What Yahoo travel searcher could possibly miss the oversized, in full living color, one-stop box pitching the travel.yahoo.com visitor guide?

Not only does the BIG Yahoo self-promo supercede the supposedly most relevant Web pages fo the topic at hand, it overshadows Yahoo’s paid “Sponsor Results” customers as well:

Hotels.com
Travelocity
Amazon.com/books
Holiday Inn
Singapore Air….

How will Yahoo search advertisers in the travel sector be impacted as Yahoo is now more directly competing against them? Lower clicktroughs? Hiigher bids required to guarantee placement?

The Yahoo Travel Channel that Yahoo’s new travel search “shortcut” leads to leads to more Yahoo paid links, “Sponsored Deals.” Will Yahoo search marketers need to up their spend in Yahoo’s travel channel to recoup lost clicks from Yahoo SERPs?

Once again, Yahoo is following in Google’s search footsteps; This time, in terms of big, bad coopetition.

ALSO: Twitter This: Google AdSense is NOT a Business Model! and Autonomy vs. Google Search Appliance? No Contest: Google Enterprise Gets Defensive

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

It’s NOT G’day Australia, for Google!

Just when it seemed Google would succeed at controlling all the world’s information AND sell all the advertising in the world, the (apparently not so) friendly folks down under step up to dash Google’s hopes at worldwide domination.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed a “landmark” lawsuit in the Federal Court in Sydney alleging that Google engages in systematic deceptive and misleading conduct by “failing to adequately distinguish sponsored links from ‘organic’ search results,” citing sections 52 and 53(d) of the country’s Trade Practices Act 1974.

What is the concern? Google’s SERPs do not “expressly distinguish advertisements from organic search results.” The ACCC seeks an injunction against Google.com AdWords enhanced search results pages that the world has come to know and love.

Google, of course, is quite displeased, and has declared its intention to “vigorously” defend itself against the ACCC’s claims.

Google’s entire $169 billion market cap AdWords and AdSense kingdom is at stake. The agressive move by the ACCC comes even while Google steps up its outreach to Australians, both in the U.S. and down under.

Does the ACCC have a “case”? Public and court sentiment often impact such proceedings; Google has enjoyed 80% search market share in Australia.

To make a stronger case against Google advertising evil, the ACCC ought to have waited for the impending worldwide debut of the soon to be infamous Google CPA (cost per action) editorially embedded, not  adequately discliamed, inline hyperlinks cum Google AdWords.

What will Google be unleashing to the unsuspecting consumers of the world? READ my detailed exposes of the big, bad REAL advertising evil Mountain View has in the works:

Google Exec Skirts CPA Advertising Evil

Google Wants Paid Link Ad Market

Google Advertising Evil: Pop-Ups Bad, In-Editorial Ads Rock

Google PPA Advertorial: The Next PayPerPost?

Google CPA Ads: Beware Advertorial ‘Conversation’

ALSO: Why Google MUST Buy Facebook: Universal Search Envy and Google CEO Schmidt: Anti-Microsoft Lawyers Good, Viacom Lawyer in Chief Bad and

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

What happens at Google does NOT stay at Google, anymore.

Google may keep all the information it gathers from the world’s citizens locked away for perpetuity in its “massively scalable” banks of server farms around the world BUT it can not lock up the minds of all the rocket scientists that help lock up the world’s information, for Google.

Jason Shellen’s mind is the latest to be liberated from the Googleplex.

Shellen has been a Googler since 2003, “acquired” as part of Google’s acquisition of Pyra Labs, creators of Blogger. According to Shellen, he spent the last few years as a product manager on diverse projects, and then worked with the Google New Business Development team to “drive partnerships and explore emerging markets.”

Shellen is a Googler no more. He announces:

Despite the fun I’ve had at Google and the weird looks I’m going to get from people for turning down the free Google food, massages, excellent benefits and the like - I feel I’ve got that entrepreneurial/start-up bug deep within me and I can’t help but think about the next thing. I’m going to take a little time off while I think about what is next (hopefully while surfing and riding my bike in Santa Cruz) but I’ve decided to leave Google.

What gives?

There were times when we felt like royalty and other times when we felt like guinea pigs but all-in-all it has been an amazing ride

Shellen hopes to have an “amazing ride” going forward, for his own account.

A cherished $169 billion market cap Google competitive advantage has been what Mountain View calls “surprise.” Secrecy is the more operative term, though, and it works. By keeping the Googleplex locked down and keeping Googlers mum, Google’s blockbuster fait accompli announcements have indeed been publicly perceived as bold, winning moves: Postini, Feedburner, DoubleClick…

Google famously requires prospective Googler rocket scientists to execute highly restrictive non-disclosure agreements as a condition of the honor of being evaluated by Google. Experienced Googlers’ brains, however, are difficult to police.

Shellen may not directly “give away” any specific Google “secrets” but he, and any future comany he works for, will indirectly benefit from the Google engineering DNA he has absorbed over the years of working on the Google products he “knows and loves like Picasa, Reader and Blogger.”

Another recent Google defection brings a mind enriched by intimate knowledge of Google PageRank DNA to a Web property aiming to increase its Google SERP rankings: Vanessa Fox went to Zillow.

In Zillow Gets Google Webmaster (secrets?) I discuss how Zillow may be “Your edge in real estate, ” BUT ex Google Webmaster Fox will be Zillow’s edge in Google SEO “goodness.”

Shellen is now planning how he can best personally exploit the Googley engineering and strategy goodness that he has amassed while enjoying Google’s free lunches.

ALSO: Battelle on Facebook vs. Google: Zuckerberg is NO Brin or Page and Scott Heiferman: Who Needs Google Rocket Scientists! Meetup Engineers Rock

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN