Search Engines Leech Value from Web Sites 308
bigenchilada writes "Jakob Nielsen, former Sun Distinguished Engineer and now usability guru, proposes "that search engines are sucking out too much of the Web's value, acting as leeches on companies that create the very source materials the search engines index."
He says that the value provided by search engines may be tilting too much in favor of the search engines. The web sites that create content are now simply fodder for the search engines' revenue stream."
And without search engines? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Whatever, dude. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's total and utter bullflop, and it works. And we hate him for it . . .
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:2, Interesting)
They will. I've been "crying" at slashdot about how I feel copyright should go away and never come back. Search engines and other "find an answer" utilities will help us get there.
You shouldn't give all your answers on any transportable media format. If you have something to offer, give people an appetite to come and see you and pay you for the rest. If you're a band, put up a bunch of your catchy tunes on BitTorrent and tell people to come and see your shows. If you're an author, put up some catchy story portions with cliff hangers and sell the rest of the book direct to users interested (ending in another cliff hanger maybe). Sure, the information will leak out freely after that, but in the long haul you'll get customers who want it first (or want some added features such as one-on-one question and answer sessions when you do a book tour).
If you create content that is mass produceable, don't give out all your answers in that mass produced content. Hold some back, hold the most important parts back, for one-on-one or face-to-face interaction!
Google is the new content distribution provider -- but they aren't a cartel like the RIAA, MPAA or author's unions.
Re:Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)
I didn't understand one bit of it (Score:4, Interesting)
Next he claims that just when you are making money after you hyped your article with a massive advertising campaign your competitor will do the same because he doesn't want to loose forcing you to run an ad campaign again.
Wow. How odd. Lucky nothing like that happens in the real world.
Coca Cola has just the one ad campaign in the late 1900's (or is that 1800's) and has been coasting ever since.
OF COURSE NOT Gee whiz. News flash, if you sell your product through paid advertising then you got to keep paying to advertise. More and more and more and every time there will be some new upstart who runs an ad campaign for a similar product forcing you to do it again.
What the fuck do search engines got to do with it? This is just plain old advertising.
No this fucktard has just learned that pay-per-click advertising has better statistics (you can actually tie the ad to the sale) and then used some magic math to prove that ad costs can sky rocket. Someone tell Intel. How much are they spending on that new logo again?
But you can tell this guy is a nutjob. He seems to think that because software/service X is available for free this will stop competition. Gee, look at my tagline for two free editors. Now google for other text editors. How many do you find? Rounded to the nearest hundred.
The bubble is over, there is no new economy, all the same old rules still apply. Oh and it says a lot about Jakob Nielsen that quality of your product doesn't seem to enter into equation. The only determining factor in how many people come to your site is how much you pay for ads and the only factor in how much you sell is your site.
Eheh. Explain this to google please. Exactly where did google advertise? Thank you.
Of course even an idiot gets some things right. Who here uses slashdot own search or uses google to search slashdot for old stories (oh and the third option for editors "Search old stories? What for?"). It is far easier to google with a question the find an answer site. Gamefaqs.com is about the only site I search directly.
If you don't want people to search you via google then A disable google from indexing you or B improve your goddamn site so the fucking search works properly.
Oh and if you don't like paying several dollar per google ad click, then don't. Word of mouth can work wonders if you are selling quality. There are plenty of companies that never advertise. They survive because they are the best and everyone knows it or they are so common people don't even think about it anymore. Anyone else. Welcome to the world of the ad agency sucking every last dollar out of you that they can. It is their way of making a living.
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:4, Interesting)
His "solutions" are pretty weak though:
1-general spam (which he calls "email newsletters")
2-targetted spam (for those who intententionally/foolishly request more info)
3-encouraging discussion group shills
4-trading links with "affiliate sites" (pyramid scheme, as another poster suggested)
5-push spam (RSS)
6-put your web address on your product label (gee, what a stroke of genius.)
7-hardware lock-in (his example is iPod and iTunes)
8-"mobile features". Dunno what the hell he's talking about. He prattles about how search engines are hard to use on mobile devices and how a better position is to be "an icon on somebody's Blackberry". Is he advocating "adware" for mobile devices? If so, all I can say is "nice, dickhead".
The real problem is that he's completely misinterpretted the role of the search engine to support his conclusion. The primary purpose of the search engine is to direct people to the sites they 're looking for. His "evidence" that the engines are usurping the sites' place is a flimsy bit of speculative strawman that "people have begun using search engines as answer engines to directly access what they want -- often without truly engaging with the websites". Ridiculous! People looking for a simple answer that can be culled from the tiny snippet of text in a search engine are always going to use a search engine for that. RSS feeds, hardware lock-in, adware on mobiles-- those are all just typical mass-marketing obscenities which will do nothing to lure active seekers of information. For that you need to get placement in search engines, because that's what people like that use. I think he's just pissed that competitors are using search engines as well, creating a bit of an advertising "arms race". Well cry me a river. Welcome to the real world of business, chief.
Re:Only a few annoying sites... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, you could pay more and many sites do. It's called the lifetime value of a customer [wikipedia.org] which, in the long run, could be hundreds of times the initial sale. Consider a site like e*trade which might give away double their profits on the first transaction. Odds are pretty good that you're not just going to buy stock and then forget about it. You're eventually going to sell the stock so they make profit there too. And odds are good that you're not just going to buy and sell one stock and move on to another brokerage. You'll keep using more of their services, and the value of you as a customer will eventually exceed the cost of acquisition.
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's take this debate off slashdot, if you want to go beyond the basics of my proposition.
I propose that the big music companies have a cartel over distribution because they use copyright to its fullest -- they have the law's monopoly as a strangehold on content. I can not name more than 10 artists this year who have made a living on music (except in the country music industry maybe). The majority of artists that I know make nothing as they can not get into the cartel.
If an artist repudiates copyright and offers their music freely, and the big music companies want to knock it off, I say let them. Most artists make their money on tour, and the big music company can't take a piece of the action. When I got my brother to start offering his music freely online, his concerts went up almost 500% in attenders. His income went up MUCH more than 500% since his overhead was fixed (gas, truck, time).
I seriously believe the money in music is in the live broadcast. In books and movies, I am not so sure. Do book authors make money by doing live book signings and question and answer sessions? Maybe. Do movie authors make money doing theater instead of movies? Maybe.
There is no answer yet because no one really has tried it. I have a HUGE amount of artist support, engineer support and live concert venue support towards my No Copyright Studios in Chicago. Most of the "peons" are normal guys who are sick that they can't make a dime because of the cartels, but these are the same people who continue support the cartel's most powerful mechanism: copyright. The Internet changes everything -- distribution is no longer "how do I get on the radio?" or "How do I get in the music store?" it is "How do I get others to promote me." I think I have some answers, I have to just follow through with my beliefs -- which I am doing.
6 figures of my own money are going to this project, you can't say I'm not trying. It isn't theory once it becomes concrete.
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:4, Interesting)
Both of my free books have earned me more than $5000 from giving them away for free to the first reader. In fact, I believe I have made over $100,000 in my life based on the business I have generated from business owners who want my opinion on subjects contained within my free books. Three of my peers have done the same, and all of them have found significant profits from giving away the generalized content while selling the specific content directly to the end customer who can pay the most.
They often make less than you would think.
Two of the most popular bands on MTV right now are people I know directly from their involvement in the Midwest music scene for years. One of the bands (I won't name them now) has brought in millions for their promotions company and has yet to make more than the $200,000 advance they received. Their album is consistently a top seller and they're relatively broke compared to those who know how to manipulate the content cartels. On the flip side, a few local bands who I have told to give their music away freely are making very good money on their local shows -- sometimes over $1000 a night. I believe I will be able to work with many bands over the next few years to making real money without using the force of government to guarantee protection.
It's that, or the galleries.
No, if you're a commercial artist, go and get a salaried job with a commercial distribution house or gallery company. That's how you can make money. Yet most artists feel they want to risk making nothing in exchange for maybe making millions? Come on, its a sucker game. Copyright makes the distribution cartels wealthy because of copyright. I'm finding ways to change that by dumping government as my "protector."
We'd have to put them on welfare if we abolished copyright law altogether.
Sure, you believe that. We'll be opening our No Copyright Studios this spring in Chicago, come and visit. I already believe we'll clear a clean million for the bands and content producers in the first year -- and every thing we record in the studio will instantly be public domain. We'll be watching for others to take the content and redo it, and then we'll be able to use that content as well for our own gain. People with talent CAN turn that into profit.
What you propose is intellectual socialism. I think we've all seen just how well things work out when "the people" collectively own all the property.
Huh? I'm talking about real capitalism. Capitalism does not need regulations or monopolies on force. Capitalism is about supply and demand. CD content or ebooks are infinitely available in supply, so the price should be $0.00. Don't put your most profitable content into CD or e-book form, sell that portion of it in a face-to-face mechanism.
A few dozen people I've met with have listened to my advice and have increased their income significantly -- enough so that they're helping to provide cash for my studio and the promotional side of things. In fact, one of the guys investing nearly $10,000 was broke 2 years ago until he gave up and started to give his products away for free, while gaining a customer base that didn't exist before (he's a painter). Now he makes close to 6 figures a year.
Don't tell me you've made millions because of copyright, no one does. Instead of 10 people making 20 million a year each, I'd rather see 100,000 people making $50,000 a year a piece by producing a live product for sale, and giving the recorded product away electronically, or trying to sell the official release for profit.
Search Engines = SuperMarket Tactics (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm all for seeing copyright reduced to 7 years. I doubt it will ever happen, which is why I'm looking for "sideways" movement in the industry I hope to build.
I'm a book author and I've made all my money on asking people to buy a copy for themselve and pass on the free copy to the next guy. I'm sure I'm a rarity, but I would want to believe others have tried this system and succeeded.
I believe that you can charge for the physical book -- this is real property and I believe you can sell real property. I refuse to believe in intellectual property -- once it leaves your lips, others can copy it freely. All my writings are covered by the (N)o Copyright clause -- I offer others to take my creations and put their own name on them if they want. The great thing is that when people have done this, I have actually increased my customer base because the person copying my works as their own isn't able to produce new works. People who find these "bootlegs" eventually try to find more similar works and they end up finding me. The Internet has made this simple to do as I like to create new "phrases" that when Googled find my writings.
The Internet will let me produce a new industry around the repudiation of copyright and the creation of understand with your customer that their money helps you make more content. Right now very few people see this. They go to concerts and think the bands make money on CDs, but bands never do. I want to see this changed. I think I have the energy and am part of the right team to do the job.
I wish more people that I am working with would come out and promote the ideas better but few of them want to. Even within my own group there are many people who still believe in copyright, but they know I rarely fail at projects I work on. Market revolution happens by taking huge risks against the direction that markets are heading in.
Re:Food for thought. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:more evolving and changing business models (Score:3, Interesting)
Look into direct broadcast of concerts over the Net on a subscription basis as a revenue stream. I've been arguing that a LOT of fans of a band might want to see their favorite band do concerts on line once a week, rather than waiting a year for them to come back around on tour to their local area. It might not have the ambiance of attending a live show, but it could come close enough to be a revenue stream. I've had people come up with all sorts of reasons why they hate this idea, but none of them are convincing to me in view of the basic fact that fanatical fans want their band, and even more casual fans might watch if it was easy and cheap. If TV can broadcast concerts and get people to watch, I don't understand why bands can't do the same.
It seems to me a couple thousand fans paying $5-10/month for a subscription to watch a live (or "pre-recorded live") concert online would be profitable, if the bandwidth and infrastructure costs can be kept low enough.
I also have never understood why bands don't videotape and record every single one of their concerts and offer them for sale to fans (either on the spot, which is being done now by some bands, or later). Especially for bands like The Corrs who are primarily live, visual bands. I know I and many other Corrs fans obsessively download every concert video made by amateurs with camera-phones, so I would think there should be some way of monetizing this - or at least using it to enhance promotion even if they have to be given away. The recordings don't have to be professional, editied, DVD-quality either - just good enough to watch and hear. The Corrs have always been video oriented (playing on their looks) to the degree that they've had a cameraman following them around for the last ten years almost day to day which has resulted in several documentaries and now a documentary on DVD.
Re:Food for thought. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. They take advertising. Attacking this revenue stream is what Nielsen is complaining about, IIUC.
2. They sell you a subscription. IMHO, this is never going to work. There's just too much to subscribe to, and each subscription costs too much. E.g., I get a lot of my interesting essay pointers through Arts and Letters Daily. They may point me to an article in Harper's. I am simply not going to buy a full year of a dead tree magazine, or even a subscription to their website, just to read an essay that interests me mildly.
3. They make you pay an arm and a leg for a single article. I pretty much never do this (technical articles might be an exception). If it's worth $5.00 + an annoying credit card interaction, I'd rather go to the public library and get it that way.
AFAICT, in order for content suppliers like this to make money, there must be a protocol that makes it economically rewarding to collect small payments, and making a small payment must involve an absolute minimum number of keystrokes and web interactions.
I don't really see how we can solve this problem with government regulation, unless we have some kind of tax on the web that is used to pay content providers. (I have a vague memory that some countries have a protocol like this for libraries, but don't really know.)