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Friday, May 16, 2003
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 Friday, May 16, 2003
started 5/18/2003; 8:27:04 AM - last post 5/20/2003; 10:10:57 AM
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Doc Searls - Friday, May 16, 2003 
5/18/2003; 12:27:04 PM (reads: 19212, responses: 10)
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More on Printwash 
| | In the past I've appended replies to the ends of the posts they reply to (if that makes any sense). This time I'm putting them up here, where they can be more easily found, all relatively fresh and new. A tip of the hat goes to Michael Hall for bringing up the problem (it's not just mine) and suggesting solutions. Not sure what I'm doing in this case is a solution, but at least it's a differerent approach. |
| | Anyway, various responses are coming in from Larry (whose Memo to the Few is of high importance, and the subject of an upcoming piece I'll have in Linux Journal) Dave (also in DaveNet), Bill, Bruce, Eric, Fernando (interesting points in the postscript), Dan, Scott, Robert, Josh, Third Superpower, Dave, David (further proving the Dave Conspiracy), Tuttle SVC, The Happy Tutor, Team Murder and Jim Moore, who brings us back to the larger phenomenon his Second Superpower essay describes "as we attempt to establish new forms of activism and empowerment in a globalizing world." |
Live Ends
Printwash
| | In other words, if you choose not to participate on the public, freely linkable, not for pay Web, don¹t complain when others who do participate by the rules of the game are easier to find. |
| | Anyway, Doc Searls, the happy blogger (always!) finds a glass-half-full solution. The print journalists should walk down the hall to their publishers' office and request that they make their archive publicly available so it can be indexed by the search engines. Google is just indexing what's on the Web. If you want to be in Google, you gotta be on the Web. It's pretty simple. |
| | If you want a better picture of what's going on, and why the Full Archive Exposure (let's call it FAE) solution is so simple, look in two places: 1) The Breaking News story list in the left column of Technorati; and 2) your local Library. |
| | Right now Technorati's Breaking News lists 20 top stories. The sources: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, BBC. Washington Post, Washington Times, ABC News, Fox News, Time Magazine. This is where blogs are pointing, even though there isn't a blog among them. (Technorati only lists professional news sources here.) |
| | On Technorati's Current Events Page, we see the ecology of News & Commentary at work. All 100 are news stories from newspapers, magazines and other professional news organizations (again, Technorati only lists the professionals here). All the commentaries below each numbered headings are from bloggers. |
| | Now here's the problem: Most of these newspaper stories (the majority on the Breaking News list) are going to dissappear after seven or thirty days, relegated to for-pay archives. I am told, though I don't know (maybe some of you can tell me) that even the current and exposed archives of many print news stories are out-of-bounds for search engine bots, so they never get crawled and hence don't show up in Google and other search engine listings. Recent stories from newspapers do seem curiously absent from Google listings. (Let's gang up and do some research.) |
| | In the ecology of News & Commentary, the News side is largely unchanged. The Commentary side has changed enormously. The major hard news sources number in the hundreds, at best. More like the dozens. The blogs followed by Technorati (those which syndicate with RSS) number in the thousands, or perhaps the hundreds of thousands (at the moment Technorati follows just over 307,000, but it's unclear how many write about hard news). |
| | Blogs are one big fat op-ed section for the news organizations out there. Thanks to the ethics of linkage (crediting sources — a polite grace learned from orthodox journalism and years of compiling footnotes and bibliographies for term papers in high school and college) and of Google's PageRank algorithms, the blogosphere is a vast watershed of credit-giving: an authority-granting system of a high order. |
| | It is vastly dumb, given this situation, for the newspapers to continue hiding their stories and archives from search engines. The cost in lost authority far outweighs the benefits in selling those archives for $2.95 (or whatever) per story. |
| | They almost get it, but not quite. |
| | Now here's the important bit. Look what the phrase "Second Superpower" produces on Google now. Try it!. Moore's essay is right there at the top. And not just first, but it already occupies all but three of the first thirty spots. |
| | Sometimes, though, the deliberations of the collective mind seem to come up short. Take Mr. Moore's use of "second superpower" to refer to the Internet community. Not long ago, an article on the British technology site The Register (theregister.com) accused Mr. Moore of "googlewashing" that expression — in effect, hijacking the the expression and giving it a new meaning. |
| | It had actually originated in a Feb. 17 article by Patrick E. Tyler in The New York Times that referred to the United States and world public opinion as the "two superpowers on the planet." Shortly after that, the phrase "second superpower" was adopted by organizations like Greenpeace and was used by Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, to refer to antiwar opinion. But Mr. Moore's article was linked to by a number of bloggers sympathetic to his ideas, and quickly became the first hit returned when someone searches Google for "second superpower." |
| | There was nothing underhanded in Mr. Moore's ability to co-opt ownership of the phrase in the rankings; it follows from the way Google works. Its algorithms rank results both by looking at how prominently the search terms figure in the pages that include them and by taking advantage of what Google calls "the uniquely democratic nature of the Web" to estimate the popularity of a site. It gives a higher rank to pages that are linked to by a number of other pages, particularly if the referring pages themselves are frequently linked to. (The other major search engines have adopted similar techniques.) |
| | Notice how uncritically Nunberg takes Orlowski's biases, which are about as anti-blog bias as you'll find on the Web today. |
| | But given the "uniquely democratic" nature of the Web, it shouldn't be surprising that the votes reported by the search engines have many of the deficiencies of plebiscites in the democracies on the other side of the screen. On topics of general interest, the rankings tend to favor the major sites and marginalize the smaller or newer ones; here, as elsewhere, money and power talk. |
| | And when it comes to more specialized topics, the rankings give disproportionate weight to opinions of the activists and enthusiasts that may be at odds with the views of the larger public. It's as if the United Nations General Assembly made all its decisions by referring the question to whichever nation cares most about the issue: the Swiss get to rule on watchmaking, the Japanese on whaling. |
| | THE outcomes of Google's popularity contests can be useful to know, but it's a mistake to believe they reflect the consensus of the "Internet community," whatever that might be, or to think of the Web as a single vast colloquy — the picture that's implicit in all the talk of the Internet as a "digital commons" or "collective mind." |
| | Seen from a Google's eye view, in fact, the Web is less like a piazza than a souk — a jumble of separate spaces, each with its own isolated chatter. The search engines cruise the alleyways to listen in on all of these conversations, locate the people who are talking about the subject we're interested in, and tell us which of them has earned the most nods from the other confabulators in the room. But just because someone is regarded as a savant in the barbershop doesn't mean he'll pass for wise with the people in the other stalls. |
| | Both Orlowski and Nunberg miss what should be an obvious fact: Tyler's original piece can't be found by Google. The New York Times' archives are unexposed. They are not, to borrow a bit from Nunberg's analogy to a piazzas and souks, in the marketplace. The "googlewashing" Orlowski talks about was done by the New York Times, not by Google, and not by bloggers. |
| | You won't find a single one of Tyler's stories, in their original form, in a New York Times archive site. In other words, Tyler's presence on the Web is all one degree removed from the New York Times. As for his Second Superpower story, it takes a distant back seat to Orlowski's Googlewash tar-job on Moore, Google and blogs. |
| | Okay, now consider your local library. Look at the periodicals section, the periodicals stacks, all those nearly unsearchable microfiches, and all those Readers Guides to Periodical Literature. You're looking at a system that deeply respects not only the printed word, but the requirement that everything be both sourced, and find-able. |
| | On the whole, blogs are highly compliant with the ethics of the periodicals section, the ethics of the stacks, the ethics of sourcing and archiving, the ethics of giving credit where due. |
| | The bottom line: In the age of the Web, the practice of charging for access to digital archives is a collossal anachronism. It's time for The New York Times and the other papers to step forward, join the real world and correct the problem. Expose the archives. Give them permanent URLs. Let in the bots. Let their writers, and their reputations, accept the credit they are constantly given and truly deserve. |
| | In other words, stop the printwash. |
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Joshua Koenig - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/18/2003; 6:21:59 PM (reads: 688, responses: 0)
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Christopher Coulter - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 5:33:31 AM (reads: 1415, responses: 8)
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Wholly flawed argument. Just because information is walled off, it doesn’t automatically follow that “hijacking the expression” and changing its meaning is acceptable. So if Google doesn’t see it, it doesn’t exist? If Google doesn’t see it, it is not truth?
Charging for access to digital archives is a colossal anachronism? Tell that to the WSJ, to Lexis/Nexis, to serious Scientific/Medical research archives. Charging for access to authoritative digital archives is the salvation of the web, and NOT a collossal anachronism. And comparing the Blog world with the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature? Another wholly flawed argument, as the Readers Guide is merely an index of authoritative WALLED information. And you can do full-text searches, and pull that information in the Readers Guides FROM the web, but guess what? It costs money. Far from being a colossal anachronism, the digitization of authoritative information is a good thing. It however, doesn’t function in this pure fantasy world of the commons.
And just as this ‘Big J vs. Blogs’ is so overwrought, so too is the now, mistaken impression of PR Pro/Print Publisher (evil) that wishes to gum up the “best of all possible worlds” Search Engine by walling it off vs. the Blogger (good) who is speaking unrestrained from the prison that is commercial pressures, as the pitch goes. Well, sorry, it’s a ton more complex than that, as human behavior is so very multidimensional, broad-brushing things in simple Black and White and Good vs. Evil terms, makes the Blogs feel “empowered”, but the real question comes down to authoritative vs. unauthoritative, which is why human editors always win out over algorithms, in terms of quality of information. In the case of Search Engines, human editing is sometimes an impossible task, but it is also why things like Lexis/Nexis exist. And hey, (as they say) Google is only indexing 1/3 of the web, whole slew of authoritative material that Google doesn't reach. And Bloggers are usually devoid of real heavy content, as content, deals with time and money. Once the Blog starts taking up too much time, starts eating into too much income, it stops. Hobbies are well and good, but they are not the end all. Which is why at the end of the day, all Blogs that reach the A-List are all selling something, ego, speaking fees, Amazon engine ads, promoing employers product, promoing ones talent in hopes of a payoff, promoing books, promoing freebies in hopes of a contract, marketing of talent that leads to other gigs, and so on and so forth. Blogs are no less immune to the real world, than anything else; Smart Mobs, “Power-to-the-People” neo-hippie mouthwash, notwithstanding.
Bottom line: Information costs money. If the Bloggers/Google don't grasp that there is a real problem of noise and pollution, then people will go elsewhere. Far more churning rambling conspiracy theories out on the web than real authoritative information. You get what you pay for.
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Doc Searls - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 1:28:36 PM (reads: 1808, responses: 7)
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The real issue is about what the Web can do for publishers and vice versa. That's it. Everything else, blogging included, is a red herring.
The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and any other publication, "serious": or otherwise, is free to wall off and charge for all the information they want. They just shouldn't complain when their stories don't show up in searches, by Google or any other engine (all of which now emulate, one way or another, Google's PageRank algorithms). And they should think twice before pubishing pieces that blame those forms of journalism that allow themselves to be found by search engines for the absence of those that don't.
Papers like the Journal and the Times have tough choice to make, between the easily-established and maintained authority that comes with exposure on the Web, and the money to be made by selling archives. Many periodicals, such as the news and business magazines (other than Business Week, I believe), have chosen to expose their archives. Most big newspapers still charge for their archives. Each to their own. Let's just be fair and informative about the trade-offs involved.
Paid archives are Lexis-Nexis' whole business. Selling advertising and subscriptions are nearly the New York Times' whole business. Selling archives is a relatively small part of the Times' business — small enough that the Times should carefully consider the costs of not exposing those archives on the Web. Those costs are real. So are the opportunities. It is entirely possible that the Times would make more money selling subscriptions and ads if its archives were exposed, crawled by the likes of Google, and present at the tops of search results where the paper's good work remains ever-more-obviously absent.
This isn't about good vs. evil, who has a life and who doesn't, who's trying to "wash" search results, or any of the sarcastic bile in your penultimate paragraph (and also, to different degrees, in Orlowski's and Nunberg's pieces).
Sure, "noise" is an issue. Google and its competitors are all over it, with limited success.. It's not easy to solve, and it has many causes, blogging among them. It's also not the publilshers' problem. Their problem is a Web that's growing larger and more important — to nearly everybody — in their partial absence.
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John Wunderlich - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 2:56:57 PM (reads: 1058, responses: 2)
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Mr. Coulter's last sentence that, "You get what you pay for." is at the heart of the problem. It's not true. The fact is that you pay for what you get, and as the buyer you get to choose what it is that you buy and with what currency.
The likes of Mr. Coulter see only one currency....$. There are others. To suggest that the Grey Lady and her ilk are necessarily better because they have paid staff is, at best, a weak reed. It has no more prima facie validity than the equally juvenile, "..blogs are best because they are free."
The best sources of information are in the category of best for a number of reasons:
- They know the subject matter
- They can communicate clearly
- They are open and honest with their readers
That's it.
That's all.
There ain't no more.
None of the three qualifications have anything to do with the nature of the currency that you pay to read their scribblings. It could be money. It could be the time that it takes to go through open ended web searches. It could be the time that you owe to your child for doing the web search for you.
"Webpistemology" or how we know what we know on the web puts the burden on the reader in a one way dialog, and on the community in a dialog. External authority has been removed from the equation, and I suspect that it is that lack of external validation that makes people the most uncomfortable.
Tough. It's the price we pay for a much richer choice of resources.
John
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Jim McGee - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 4:45:39 PM (reads: 994, responses: 1)
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One question (whose answer I don't know unfortunately) is whether the contracts between the NYT and Lexis-Nexis restrict the NYT from allowing their archives to be indexed?
Part of what may be going on here is that many of the established print authorities also have contractual arrangements with online services such as Lexis-Nexis which predate the web. Perhaps one of our librarian friends could shed some light on this issue?
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Doc Searls - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 6:08:22 PM (reads: 1063, responses: 0)
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Quite possible. I have no idea. Maybe somebody can tell us.
I wouldn't want to be in L-N's shoes, though.
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Christopher Coulter - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 7:02:23 PM (reads: 1023, responses: 1)
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The walled-off nature does make it more difficult to find, but the point was that the orginial meaning gets recoded, if you will, into meaning something entirely differing. Its not only, about being found, its that the noise drowns out the original source. Other less noisy engines, don’t seem to manifest this problem as greatly, and when gaming Google becomes a sport, well people start noticing the changes. The idea that Google is truth is the fallacy. And it is not just “walled vs. open”; web pages come and go, caches aren’t forever. Truth gets lost. When the “comments about” transform into what it was, thats when you have problems. The noise drowns out the speaker; original intent, gets remade. The idea that all you have to do is throw everything out there, and Google will play God and find the most perfect answer is dead wrong. Too perfect world.
A Web that’s growing larger and more important to nearly everybody? Ahhh drinking from the always-expanding, ever-increasing, ‘Dow-always-goes-up’ fountain, eh? Gonna party like it’s 1999? :) And sorry to burst that Bubble, but, in fact, the opposite is true...
“The online population is fluid and shifting. While 42% of Americans say they don’t use the Internet, many of them either have been Internet users at one time or have a once-removed relationship with the Internet through family or household members.” - The Ever-Shifting Internet Population, Pew Internet Project
A spam problem that has made email all but unmanageable, Search Engine Noise, Software/Hardware problems, Virii/Worms/Security problems, endless Discussion Lists that spin eternal circles and solve nothing. The Net has moved away from novelty to utility. Ever expanding? No, as Pew says, it is “fluid and shifting”. And increasingly, people are logging off, not making the Web central to their lives, using it merely as a tool. Whole world out there, not on Google, and since Google only indexes 1/3 of the Web, whole Web out there too, but I guess thats all just a “colossal anachronism”.
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Christopher Coulter - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 7:58:35 PM (reads: 1085, responses: 1)
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To get one must pay. Pay to Get. Get what paid for. Circular word twisting and word coining, “webpistemology”, geeesh. And I never said the only payment is money, but that is quite an universally-accepted method, which in some modes, is fixed. I sure would like to trudge down to CompUSA, choosing my own currency, as payment, but for that I would land in jail.
Motives are many, Fame, Fortune, Ego...but all are some sort of reward. Knowing the subject matter? You think that happens in a vacuum? Knowing the subject matter takes time and effort and yes money. Communicate clearly? Well, thats pointlessly obvious, as if one doesn’t communicate clearly, one hasn’t really communicated at all. Open and honest? Again, that’s basic common sense.
Its just that if a hobby eats up too much time, if it wastes too much money, then people give that up. A paycheck is a great motivator, it extends into doing things that hobbyists give up. Projects need to be finished, code needs to be shipped, bugs need to be fixed, the project doesn’t care about your feelings or your currency of the moment. Customers (who can be difficult, at times) need to be looked after. Your three choices for best informational sources, aren't dependent upon the willy-nilly whims of ones feelings. Nose to grind, and sometimes, (mostly) what keeps one there is an income.
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John Wunderlich - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/19/2003; 10:18:08 PM (reads: 1191, responses: 0)
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The direction of a causal relationship IS important. That's why there is a difference between getting what you pay for, which roughly assumes that if you pay more the quality of the good procured goes up. Even if I grant that this is generally true, you can not depend on it for any specific instance. The dollar cost of Linux vs. the dollar cost of Windows Server is a case in point.
The fact is that information is a qualitatively different kind of good. That is why you can't always judge if by the same standards as a manufactured good. We are all continuously and unavoidably producing and consuming information. Some of us do it in a more or less organized fashion. Some of us are compensated for it.
How then to judge the quality of what you get? One option is to put more weight on that which you have to purchase. If I did that I would assign different weights to what Doc writes for Linux Journal, and what he blogs. That doesn't strike me as appropriate.
I think William Goldman's best screenplay was The Princess Bride, not the Marathon Man or any of the other hits that he wrote, and that was the only one that he wrote for the love of writing (according to his autobiography).
Now both Doc and William Goldman do or did get paid for their writing. They also write because that is who they are. That is the great value of blogs, and why I will always use a Google search.
Does that mean I will not use L/N or ProQuest when I'm doing research? Of course not. I'd be a fool to dismiss those sources. But I'd also be a fool to ignore the Google search results.
Doc's original point still holds. The web is a new type of information game. If the newspapers and magazines don't want to play in that sandbox, that's cool. That's their choice. They should just be aware that there might be a down side to their choice.
John
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xian - Re: Friday, May 16, 2003
5/20/2003; 2:10:57 PM (reads: 1031, responses: 0)
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Could you please provide a citation wherein someone (presumably someone you're arguing against) has said, "Google is truth." Otherwise, I will conclude that "The idea that Google is truth is the fallacy" is a strawman argument.
Second, why are you making your argument in the discussion forum attached to a weblog and not for a paid mass-circulation publication not polluted by hobbyists?
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