Tag Archives: Francis Narin

A brief recollection

Yesterday I saw an article (source: BBC) that gave me reason to give a little recollection. The article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2dpkpmv1o) giving us ‘Google’s lucrative ad tech business goes on trial’ and the text “A trial beginning on Monday will hear the Department of Justice’s case that the search engine’s parent company Alphabet illegally operates a monopoly in the market.” set me off. You see, I worked on that system as an operator, a technical account manager if you prefer. I worked on this system in 2015. This is important because in the nine following years Microsoft and its ‘system’ Bing couldn’t even remotely get anything working that presented some weak looking imitation. The system was that excellent. And excellent is the operative word. You see before that advertising agencies were taking their clients in some kind of a looting ride. Prices were out of this world for the advertisers. It was a business limited to big business. The Google ad system was made so that everyone had a clear possibility, a fair system that didn’t overcharge, something that wasn’t possible before. That was a new approach to advertising. 

Bid for placeCharged
9.001.28
3.001.27
2.001.26
1.251.25

The setting was that the higher bid was only charged one cent more than the previous one. The advertisement agencies would pocket the difference from $7.62 of the first bidder. Now consider this happening ten thousands of times every day. When you realise this you see how this was the better system. There was no monopoly, customers suddenly had a fair chance to their advertisement options. That part is missing. It is not the fault of the BBC, they merely report. They also give us “Alphabet has argued its success is due to the “effectiveness” of its services – but prosecutors say it has used its market dominance to stifle rivals” which is exactly what I am saying. But the prosecutors are exaggerating (as anyone would suggest). We then get ““It is a really important industry that grabs billions of consumer dollars every year,” said Laura Phillips-Sawyer, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.” A statement (possibly taken out of context) from a law professor from Georgia. The less excusable statement was “grabs billions of consumer dollars every year”, that is where my example comes in. This is not the way of this system. It tempers the cost and need for ‘over’ bidding. I gave an example of four, but the list goes on for a lot more. This illustrates the loss of Laura Phillips-Sawyer and how little she knows of this system. So its not “I think all consumers have an interest in this litigation”, I believe that Microsoft minded people want to get into this business and the prosecutor is a possible way for these people to get in. 

As such we see that the statement “Google dominates the digital ad marketplace and has leveraged its market power to stifle innovation and competition” Google innovated this market more than anyone ever considered. The fact that Microsoft has no chance and lacks expertise in software to make any dent in Google application is one part of the evidence. It also didn’t stifle competition, the fact that Microsoft had no option to push anything in Google’s path seems to me that this is the second part of the evidence is also nullified. After decades of ‘exploitation’ of customers, Google gave them all a fair chance. So why doesn’t anyone see that? How come that this is not shown to us all? Is it perhaps that the prosecutor has the ear of those people who lost their golden eggs? I am stating that not only is Google innocent in this, the world doesn’t realise how fair this system is. And the wannabe’s want to hack into this system for their own selfish needs. We are also given “It argues that competition in the digital ad space is growing, not contracting – citing increased ad growth and revenues for companies such as Apple, Amazon and TikTok as proof”, in this I say that the digital ad space is growing because Google made it more fair and as such players like Apple, Amazon and TikTok are given a space where they have millions more to advertise against the once exploitative system. What we do not get to see is that I enabled dozens of advertisers, small business units to get a grasp of advertisement space on. Monthly basis. They had the option to set a budget for as little as $5 a month to get several placements every day. Yes, they might not be above the fold as the expression goes, but they were on the page. The advertisement agencies would not have even talked to those. Now consider that this happens to tens of thousands of customers and realise that the statement “I think all consumers have an interest in this litigation” becomes folly.

When we consider this the statement “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly” is equally folly. And I wonder who Judge Amit Mehta was serving. Even as the judge was an optional idolising fair play person we need to realise that the Google rank system was re-invented

The eigenvalue problem behind PageRank’s algorithm was independently rediscovered and reused in many scoring problems. 

Now consider that Sergey Brin and Larry Page made this system 30 years ago based on ideas dating back to (as quoted) 1895. And then three times more and no one at Microsoft woke up. They were all so focussed on greed and gaining the attention of board of directors at big business. Google focussed on the millions of people working there and getting the attention of people who needed a better option. “As of September 24, 2019, all patents associated with PageRank have expired” and now these systems are under attack. However, the data is already with Google and the larger players (read: Microsoft) will need decades to catch up and they know they are not able to, in case of Microsoft I personally believe that they merely have at most 24 months left until they collapse and that is it for the once computer behemoth. As per now, fr a player like Microsoft, the ad space is a much safer option to recollect lost revenue and keep their head above water. I admit that this is speculative, but it makes the most sense. Even in 1995 I saw how Microsoft was lagging behind, but they had serious problems (read: Netscape) and it get worse after that. But that is not the aim of this article. As I have shown here Google was a true innovator and you need to wonder if monopoly is a valid setting when all the others cannot even get close because their innovators are merely presented spinners, or optionally previous exploiters. How is it a monopoly when there is no other realistic contender for the crown? Is an island with a population of one totalitarian in nature?

Simple questions that are hard to answer. Enjoy your day today, this fine Wednesday where we start yearning for the coming weekend.

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What ya gonna do?

It started two days ago, actually it started a lot earlier, but I basically had enough of the BS stage that we are given. Just to be sure, this is for the largest station not a media thing, so even as the BBC flamed my mood, the BBC is not responsible. As such before I go into ‘Google hit by landmark competition lawsuit in US over search’, I need to set the record straight according to the view I have and you might decide that I am wrong, which is perfectly fair. 

History gives us that Larry Page (aka Clever Smurf) and Sergey Brin (aka Papa Smurf) developed PageRank at Stanford University in 1996 as part of a research project about a new kind of search engine. It was not the first attempt, or perhaps ‘version’ is a better setting, there were earlier versions that go all the way back to the eigenvalue challenge by Gabriel Pinski and Francis Narin. So two bright surfs came up with the setting that big people players like Microsoft and IBM ignored for the longest time, and as such Google had the patents. The idea of link based popularity had not syphoned through because a lot of these wannabe bullet point managers basically did not understand the internet, they merely understood the options of selling concepts, yet in that age of selling concepts Google had the inside track to sell a setting that was ready and able as early as 1998. As such I have watched with my eyes desperately focussed on the heavens, asking our heavenly father to smite some of these stupid people, we now see “The charges, filed in federal court, were brought by the US Department of Justice and 11 other states. The lawsuit focuses on the billions of dollars Google pays each year to ensure its search engine is installed as the default option on browsers and devices such as mobile phones”, the same organisation that ignored Netscape and gave free reign to Microsoft is now seeing the government data lights? So when we see ‘the billions of dollars Google pays each year to ensure its search engine is installed as the default option on browsers and devices such as mobile phones’, all whilst it truthfully should say ‘Google installs its search engine on its mobile operating system Android, an alternative to the largely unaffordable iOS iPhones’, consider that the three generations of mobiles I have bought containing Android in times when the Apple alternative was close to 250% more expensive each and every time. The last time around the iPhone was $1999, whilst my Android phone (with almost the same storage) was $499, I will let you work out the setting. So when I see “Officials said those deals have helped secure Google’s place as the “gatekeeper” to the internet, allowing it to own or control the distribution channels for about 80% of search queries in the US”, I merely see (with my focal points partially towards the history of things) “Google was active and affordable in an age when Apple was not, Apple was unaffordable as they set themselves up as the larger elite provider, Android had affordable models by Motorola, Huawei, Google Nexus, Google Pixar, Oppo, HTC, Samsung, Oneplus. A setting that was open and affordable. And the officials that are raving on ‘allowing it to own or control the distribution channels for about 80% of search queries in the US’, these (as I personally see it) so called idiots, optionally way too deep in funky mushrooms are ignorant of the stage that Google catered to the user, Apple (the alternative) catered to its own bottom dollar way too often. In that same trend we need to see that “Apple’s iOS operating system has a share of 50 percent of the mobile operating system market in the United States”, so how come that Google has 80%? They thought things through, the BI management idiots with their bullet point presentations never thought things through. I have at least two examples that predate Facebook and well over half a dozen examples of 5G IP that is beyond the comprehension of mot of them (with the exception of Google and Huawei), these two UNDERSTAND systems, the others merely use and use to their nature towards limited comprehension, or at least that is how I see it. And in this ZDNet was a happy supplier in January of ‘Microsoft is about to force Bing onto Office 365 Plus users. But does even Bing think it’s better than Google?’, which is a nice setting, because I can ask bing on my Android, yet it seems that Microsoft forces Bing on its system, but it allegedly seems that they get way with that. The article has a few nice tidbits, but I particularly liked “Why Hasn’t Bing Improved To Become Better Than Google?”, an 2016 article by Forbes. With the article (at https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-google-better-than-bing-i-asked-google-and-bing-and-got-surprising-results/) giving us the added “and why Bing has a bit of a reputation as ‘the porn search engine’”, it seems that 18 years later bing is still sliding very much behind Google, Google had a few things better and better set. It is the final two parts that matter, the first one is “Both companies might try to offer something authoritative, but you should always use your own judgment and realise the vast limitations and algorithmic biases of all search engines. If Bing works for you, be happy. If Google does, be happy too. In both cases, though, be wary. Can you cope with the responsibility?” Yet in all this Bing never shows up in any official part does it? The second part gives the larger stage “in Bing searches, the entries under the News tab were far, far more dated than those in Google”, consider the need of us, the users, when do we accept dated information? It seems that any competitor of Google is vastly behind, even the rich bitch Microsoft. When we see that part of the equation, we need to wonder what is the play that these officials are making? What is it actually about? The BBC article also gives us “Google called the case “deeply flawed”” and that is the larger truth, the Bing setting proves that side of it, and more important, Microsoft who pushed Netscape out of the market is not being asked any questions in this regard, or is used to show the inferiority of what they have countering the vastly superior solutions by Google. As such, when we see “Politicians in Congress have also called for action against Google and fellow tech firms Amazon, Facebook and Apple in an effort that has united Democrats and Republicans”, no one seems to be wondering what Russia and China have on the market, because the advantage Google has now could become the stage of a fight against whatever Russia and China offer, in this data is the catalyst in these systems and before anyone starts trivialising that, consider that TikTok is Chinese, when we consider that over 2 billion people have downloaded it and it nw has a value between 110 and 180 billion, in a stage that only had Google before (YouTube), yet even in that setting the larger US tech giants set on their hands and they never came up with it, a Chinese entrepreneur did, so what else can they come up with? In a stage with non comprehending officials on just how cut throat this market is, they are weighting down on the tech giants all whilst Chinese innovators are going to town. And none of them have my IP yet. Another stage they ALL overlooked. What else do you think they will miss, because I do not think of everything (I just cannot be bothered thinking of everything), so what else is not seen? 

Consider that when you look at these so called ‘lets kick the tech-giants’ because at this speed the US will only have these four tech-giants left, the rest is most likely Indian or Chinese, the hungry tend to be innovative and in America these so called innovators haven’t been hungry for the longest time, so their track record wanes more and more. That is partially seen with ‘Quibli is the Anti-TikTok’ (at https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/09/quibi-vs-tiktok). Here we see the article from April where we are given “Rather than iterating toward product-market fit, it spent a fortune developing its slick app and buying fancy content in secret so it could launch with a bang.Yet Quibi’s bold business strategy is muted by a misguided allegiance to the golden age of television before the internet permeated every entertainment medium. It’s unsharable, prescriptive, sluggish, cumbersome and unfriendly. Quibi’s unwillingness to borrow anything from social networks makes the app feel cold and isolated, like watching reality shows in the vacuum of space”, with that consider that Quibli was founded 2 years AFTER TikTok, as such the stage for a better product was there to a much larger extent, and as Tech Crunch states “It takes either audacious self-confidence or reckless hubris to build a completely asocial video app in 2020”, and when we consider the fact that TikTok was created earlier by 2 years, the lack of innovation in Quibli is easily seen and as such after 6 months it shut down. These officials need to wake up and smell the coffee, the race is on and even as scare tactics towards anti-China might work to some degree in the US, the EU with 700 million consumers have little faith in US Hubris and that is where the stage changes, especially now with data laws in place. If Chinese and Indian innovators get the name and therefor the people and consumers, the marketshare of US companies will collapse more and more, as I see it 2022-2025 will not be a pretty picture for the US, the 5G backlog is starting to show and it will show more and more soon enough. 

As I see it, Google has two wars to fight, one with its own political administration, one with the true innovators out there. The second war they can win as they have true innovators themselves, but the one with the US political administration is a larger issue, because that war will also hinder the second war, which would be a bad situation for Google to be in.

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