Jason Unger

Should Google Pay Me to Be Listed?

Posted by junger - 05/06/08 at 12:05:48 pm

In Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox this week, he proposes an interesting next step for Microsoft, now that their bid for Yahoo! is over (emphasis is mine).

Now that Steve Ballmer has earned his bonus for the year by walking from overpaying for Yahoo, he needs to do something else with his $50B. One idea I would like him to try is to refund some of the outrageous sums harvested by search engines.

a) Give back to the websites that create the content that search engines currently scrape for free: pay sites for only being indexed in one search engine and refuse the other engines. In particular, allow access to deep link archives of value-added content for users entering from your search engine. Value proportion to users: When you search on engine X, you find stuff that's otherwise not available.

So Microsoft, Google or Yahoo should pay me to list my information? Interesting idea, but it's way too late for that.

In a "normal" capitalistic agreement, Nielsen is right — they should be paying me. I put out my information, they use it in their product, and they make money off of selling ads near my listing.

But, given where we are in our expectations with the Internet, this will never happen. Users expect to find the best information when they do an online search — not a company-filtered answer to their query.

What good is a resource if it has no good resources? Obviously, it's no good at all.

This is a similar argument for net neutrality. If your access provider can greatly affect where you get your information, your viewpoint is going to be skewed.

I highly doubt Nielsen's suggestion will happen, and if it does, the types of sites entering into an agreement will be low-profile. Would CNN really NOT want to be indexed by Google News? Would Engadget ONLY want to be indexed by AOL (which owns it)? It would be pretty stupid.

Would you accept money from a search engine for an exclusive listing?

SmartHouse Admits to David Richards' Content Theft

Posted by junger - 05/01/08 at 02:05:14 pm

A representative for 4SquareMedia, the Australian company owned by mass plagiarist David Richards, has admitted to Richards' theft of content, despite his "ghost hacker" excuses.

In an email sent to me, Nicole Bence, a "director" at 4SquareMedia, has the audacity to ask if they can use content from CE Pro — after I asked them AGAIN to remove a story they stole from us (emphasis is mine).

Hi Jason,

My name is Nicole Bence and I am a Director at 4Square Media. I understand David has put up some of your stories in the past without permission. Obviously with web content stories are shared on a daily basis and I was hoping to get some feedback from you in regards to our sites. We have removed this story, but we would like to be able to push our readers to your content when necessary. Is this a possibility and if so what are your guidelines for ensuring CE Pro are given the correct reference.

Thanks Jason – appreciate your help.

Regards,

Nicole

The number of comments and emails I've received from people who have worked for David Richards is constantly growing, and they all have one theme: how horrible it was.

At this point, it's pretty obvious he is not going to change (even if he is exposed all over Australian TV).

For anything to happen, his advertisers need to stop supporting him. But from rumblings I've heard, he doesn't make it easy for them to do that.

Honestly, I'm sick and tired of dealing with this guy.

(BTW – this admission started after SmartHouse copied an article from CE Pro with no permission to do so, despite giving "CE Pro" the byline. I emailed them, and Bence's response followed.)

Newspapers Are Dying, Newspapers Report

Posted by junger - 05/01/08 at 01:05:29 pm

You Are Not Your Users

Posted by junger - 04/28/08 at 04:04:12 pm

If there's one big thing I took away from Usability Week, it's that you are not your users.

It's a mantra every Web publisher should repeat constantly — in fact, you might want to even write it on a Post-It note and leave it in plain sight.

I run into this problem a lot with people who come from the print media world. The old school of thought is that you put out your product, take a survey or two of your audience, and make a change when necessary. But for the most part, your product is your product — you get to define it as you want.

When it comes to Web publishing (especially in the B2B world), your definitions are not always the same as your users. From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox:

A simple example: Many sites use segmentation, in which users must click through to the appropriate site segment. Unfortunately, these segments often don't match the way customers think of themselves, and thus require them to peek through multiple site areas to find the right one. Even a simple segmentation such as company size isn't obvious. What counts as small? Better sites will annotate their choices with a definition (stating, for example, that their small business segment targets companies with less than 100 employees).

Your users come to you for a specific piece of information — the sooner you give it to them (and the easier it is for them to find it), the more likely they will come back to you.

Real estate sites are horrible at this. We've been looking for a bit now, and are generally annoyed at the lack of information (pictures, etc.) given on realtors' Web sites.

From their viewpoint, they want you to give them a call to find out more. But as a user, you want to gather as much information as possible before making that call. It's frustrasting when you can't.

The next time you think about re-organizing your site or restricting the amount of information you present, remember: you are not your users.

Does Emailing Your Blogs Really Count?

Posted by junger - 04/18/08 at 08:04:57 am

I get a lot of stuff from PR people — tons of emails, press kits, sometimes even fruit snacks. But blogs?

Apparently, the folks at DisplaySearch think that's the way to go with their marketing.

Instead of sending me a release, they send me their blogs. Like releases. But blogs.

This is weird, right? Does that actually count? I mean, I agreed to get your press releases, but didn't sign up for your RSS feed or email alerts.

Now in reality, their blogs are really just press releases for their studies, written in a "blog style." (This goes back to my whole "everyone has different expectations for a blog" rant.)

But for some reason, it makes me a little annoyed. I'm on the list for press releases, not your blogs. If I wanted to read them, I would have subscribed.

I think this is weird. Don't you?