crockstar

My understanding is that people object to this as it is a means of defining them rather than describing them. In fact, I know people who would be insulted with the use of "autistic people" as opposed to "people with autism"

As someone who works in the advertising space I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that SnapChat will not be able to monetize in the way you describe and make enough money (without pissing off users) to justify the price tag.

Unless they've got a very clever model that is more advanced than what you've described or that FB or Twitter have ever used it's a very long shot. Unless the owner has a personal issue with FB and didn't want their money for this reason I do not believe this was a sound business decision.

I'd love to be wrong but I don't think I will be in this case.

I'm biased but I always recommend that anyone interested in SEO start with the Beginner's Guide. It is a fantastic resource that is updated regularly frequently and I find it easier for folks to grasp than many of the alternatives.

It's not "straight from the horse's mouth" as is the case with the Google guide (which frankly what Google wants to drive rankings does not always tie up nicely with what actually seems to drive rankings in practice), but I always have users start there and then look further afield if they're still interested.

I have got to say that I don't tend to place a lot of faith in an article that cites The Daily Mail as a source and I'm inclined to agree with you about the tone. Even the Mail article referenced paints a much more balanced story and the headline is ironically "Vettel did not cheat! Horner defiant..."

As a non-F1 fan though it certainly made for interesting reading.

I'm not sure that's explicitly true about competitions. I know there are a number of rules around weight, helmet design, etc. However, I think there is at least some room for innovation that does occur and at least some variation of equipment (see: http://road.cc/content/feature/85959-tour-de-france-team-bik... as well as http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4320804). I distinctly remember growing up and watching the debate over which types of TT helmets were allowed, which wheelsets were allowed, etc.

One area where I feel like is also an interesting comparison and where I thought ronaldx was going with this is around performance enhancing drugs and the UCI. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that things that Vettel being accused of now are, strictly speaking, not against the rules but clearly creating an advantage. The innovation is in the details in the same way that the drug regimens of many cyclists throughout the last couple of decades in many cases did not include drugs listed on a banned substance list (e.g. early blood doping '70s vs. became illegal in '86), because the UCI and WADA simply didn't know about them. It will be interesting to see if Vettel is found to be playing in this gray area how he and Red Bull will be judged.

*Please note I do appreciate there is a big difference between doping and mechanical advantage through design, just thought there were some interesting parallels there too.

I'd personally be surprised if a court even agreed to hear this.

Hi Chuck,

I'm glad that folks like Blekko are trying to improve the search landscape but do you have any figures to back up the declining revenue per click?

I feel as though Google are becoming more and more focussed on profits (evidenced by their (not provided) data hypocrisy, role out of "enhanced campaigns, etc.) but their profits seem to grow[1] and they seem to focus on margins over advertiser or user experience with increasing focus.

I'm glad that folks like yourselves are in the market as I say but until someone develops better algos and better results (for the majority of queries) it's unlikely that folks will get angry enough to move or see a viable alternative.

In spite of these changes I haven't really seen a decline in Google's market share[2] drop consistently or significantly so I don't really see a change coming any time soon.

References: [1] http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/01/1-22-2...

[2] http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2275863/Google-Bing-Bot... (June, '13) "Google has the identical search share of 66.7 percent when comparing May 2012 and May 2013."

vs.

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2269591/Googles-Search-... (May, '13)

I use Ghostery to see what is being tracked rather than block it outright. Call me foolish but I never realised that blocking ads was the primary intended purpose of the tool, I've always just used it to check for missing analytics tags and so forth.

In the context of how others scored I would say 17% is fairly decent as well. However, most Hacker Newsers make up a small percentage of a standard "UK consumer." I thought this number was incredibly low given that most people's interaction with Google would be as the organisation with the stated intent "to organise the world's data" - not as a corporation that makes money from advertising.

With that said, Google & Starbucks have been front and center in the mainstream news a lot lately in the UK with regards to "tax avoidance" claims.

I don't believe the full case study has been published yet.

All I can say is "thank you." In spite of not being one of our greatest minds (far from it) this kick up the backside forced me to respond to an email and get involved in a project that might actually do some good.

I get that they were going for excitement but for someone who wasn't watching it live I can't help like feeling: what a waste of bright minds. And I do think this comes down to the demo.

As others have mentioned there must be better uses but to me it seems like sensationalism that boils down to this if you weren't there: I can livestream something from (essentially) a helmet cam to a platform that not many people actually use.

I know I'm being cynical but I struggle to come up to a practical use where the technology does not already exist (thinking surgery, military, etc.) so my only assumption is they can compete on price or I'm just missing something and getting old.

Fair enough. I do get your point - people seem to go mad about privacy in general. It does sometimes feel (to me) like people aren't as bothered about it with Google as they are with Apple, Amazon or Facebook, but maybe that's just me.

No need to apologise, wasn't trying to call you out or anything, just felt like this was one of the few posts I've read that doesn't whine too much about it.

To be fair, I haven't seen a load of claims about how this is "insane" or "horrible" within the context of this article. It just provides a useful instruction as to how those that wish to opt-out, may do so.

It's fine that you don't see how this matters but it does matter to some and having the choice and understanding how to exercise that choice is essential.

My feelings and the reason that (personally) I don't want this is I spend all day doing online marketing for brands and retailers and I have very different interests outside of work.

The system (at present) does not seem intelligent enough to decipher between which of my friends should suggest what film I should go to vs. which should be giving me financial advice vs. which are just backing a product because they're a client.

Strictly regarding the web/search history thing, if I work on a campaign for Burger King and browse their site and related products a lot of the day, I don't really want "Burger King" to come up first on a search with local intent for "restaurants in New York", in that instance I'd prefer see the generic results.

For me it's not that I don't want Google to have the data or I have anything to hide, it's that I think the "search" experience it creates because of my very different needs in and out of work is poor (and likely to get worse with sharing this data across platform) and I don't want to spend my days having to keep a super close eye on which account I'm currently logged into before doing a search.

It's all personal preference and for some this will provide a great experience, and it may get better. For now though, I like the ability to say "no thank you, I like generic search".

My understanding is that the platform has been pitched primarily as a "proof of concept" type thing to artists and labels with assurances that if enough people subscribe/stream the service and your music you can get paid out. My guess is that the forecasts and hopes aren't stacking up in payouts to the labels/artists quite how they hoped and the result is frustrating these individuals.

I'm sure there's a lot more at play here but this is what I've understood from the research I've done.

Totally agree, as I say: well done for getting it off your chest. If people don't speak up about it things are unlikely to change. Though obviously if there is any justification whatsoever to the claim scratching that itch may be bad news.

So having 4 total (3 others) wouldn't be out of the question if all brought different skills to the table? Thanks for your thoughts, would love to get some other opinions too!

Unfortunately your experience is not something new and I've heard of considerably worse involving pointing dodgy links at competitors sites, "review" sites that charge to rebut a negative review, etc. It really sucks that people behave like this but good on you for the outing, maybe it will help.

For backlink juice almost certainly not as the links don't stick around very long. For traffic on the other hand? That's a more likely possibility.

In response to all of the comments, would be great if you could direct them to the post itself. The team behind the site/push have said they are happy to address/answer questions so please fire away.

Not including those already mentioned:

Techmeme

Twitter

SEOmoz

Search Engine Land

State of Search

HN

PRweb - Filter for Online Marketing (generally rubbish, but a few gems

Econsultancy

All the more poignant given the announcement to restrict API access for 3rd party clients a couple of days ago.