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Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 20:07:44 -0400 From: "nettime's_cache" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: <nettime> Re: Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction
Re: <nettime> Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction
Amy Alexander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Keith Sanborn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 05:47:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Amy Alexander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: <nettime> Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction
i'm not sure the search engine is actually detourned in this case... it seems unlikely that the guy planned to achieve the #1 ranking for that searchterm and thus become the result of the "i'm feeling lucky" button... seems more likely to me that he just put the page up as a joke (and possible moneymaker) without considering it as a google intervention or even much of a political statement...
beyond that, i'm sort of debating whether i think google mucked with the results to make that one come out on top... on the one hand i guess with all its blog links it *could* have achieved the highest pagerank... on the other hand, it's convenient PR for google, and fits in with their "fun-loving" corporate image (like the "elmer fudd" language translations, etc... ) whether they also get some kickback from amazon i'm not sure.. :-) ... but, when i first saw the site, i actually thought it was a google plant at first, before learning it was an individual's site...
On Sun, 6 Jul 2003, Keith Sanborn wrote:
But this is an interesting case where the search engine is detourned, but then the politics are recuperated by a commercial impulse. Usually, they
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Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 11:26:37 -0400 From: Keith Sanborn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: <nettime> Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction (fwd)
Dear Amy:
It's an interesting point and one inquiring minds would like to know the answer to: how do you achieve number one ranking on Google; it's also one many people very clever people have been paid to think about. We've all seen the junkmail offering to shoot our website to the top of the search engine rankings.
Even with a phrase as commonly distributed through-out the net as is "weapons of mass destructive" it should theoretically be possible to achieve such status, more or less by plan. Previously, metatags were a big part of the picture. Perhaps, this was a calculated strategy which exploits the influence of bloggers. Given google's own corporate interest in blogging, this is not beyond the realm of possibility.
It's like engineering the number one hit single, an A&R man's wet
dream. Hence the manipulation ("detournement" "recuperation"
"manipulation" "appropriation to one's own uses") may still be a
factor. But to take the bloggers by storm to the point that they
could tilt the result to send him to the top of the charts is not so
predictable I think. If this guy has his finger on the pulse of
blogculture to that point, he'll be getting a lot of phone calls from
corporate types and will be able to charge astronomical sums as a
consultant, or if he can even create that perception, or if that
perception exists, whether planned, or not. Shit, he'll be getting
calls from the democratic and republican parties. Appearing at the
top of the Google list could replace the "Letterman effect."I agree with your characterization of Google and it is not impossible. It would certainly be interesting to know whether this was engineered behind the scenes to "succeed." It does certainly focus more attention on Google and in this case that is translatable into profits. However, if it did happen and word got out, it would immediately discredit them. One wonders why they'd risk so much when they're already at the top of the heap of search engines themselves. But then they didn't get there by not taking risks and by not innovating in information culture.
Keith
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Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 07:35:52 -0400 From: "nettime's digest" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: <nettime> Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction [3x]
Table of Contents:
Re: <nettime> Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction (fwd)
Keith Sanborn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Re: <nettime> googological digest [alexander, hwang]
Alan Sondheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Re: <nettime> googological digest [alexander, hwang]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]- ------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 00:03:57 -0400 From: Keith Sanborn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: <nettime> Google's Weapons of Mass Destruction (fwd)
That's very good history and a nice summation. Google has become like the old Walter Cronkite "And that's the way it is." It wasn't the way Walter and his writers said it was, but it was widely believed. It carried a veneer of objectivity, like the NY Times's laughable "all the news that fit to print." Even Dan Rather, the elder statesman of that tradition can hardly be seen in the same way; the mere proliferation of other channels of news, makes such a claim preposterous.
The strange thing is that Google has a kind of Microsoft-like stranglehold on the search engine market. Their algorithms are cultural objects and thus far from neutral as you point out. But they are the horizonline of the self-image of the net. The line beyond which it is impossible to see. Blogging represents a kind of radically subjective alternative to algorithmic constructions of the shape of infoworld. That is a competing and vastly more intelligent paradigm for what people find interesting than whatever they can offer on a purely algorithmic basis. Hence their interest in coopting that alternative and competing paradigm of the construction of the horizon.
Nonetheless, given the dominant position of Google, my guess is that there will be established through a messy series of law suits a body of law which establishes some kind of working definition of reasonably fair page ranking. The implications of the removal of the scientology hits from the rankings is not good. Top down censorship. There are no doubt lessons to be learned here as well from attempts to restrict net access in China and Singapore.
Welcome to the recentralization of information.
Keith Sanborn
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Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 01:16:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: <nettime> googological digest [alexander, hwang]
The page rank algorithm for Google is no big secret - it's reproduced on pp. 294-95 of Google Hacks. To roughly quote -
PR(A) = (1-d) +d( (PR(T1)/C(T1))+...+(PR(Tn)/C(Tn)) ) where PR(A) is the PageRank of page A; PR(T1) is the PageRank of page T1; C(T1) is the number of outgoing links from page T1 - and d is a damping factor 0<d<1, usually set here to .85. "The PageRank of a webpage is therefore calculated as a sum of the PageRanks of all pages linking to it (its incoming links), divided by the number of links on each of those pages (its outgoing links).
This is fairly simple, given the usefulness of the system. You can find information in the book on how to increase your ranking etc. Pages 59-61 give information on blogging rating etc.
For me what makes Google successful is precisely this simplicity - not only front-end but back-end as well.
Alan
http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/ http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm finger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 09:23:55 +0200 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: <nettime> googological digest [alexander, hwang]
Hi
but, google has been known to muck with the results before. for example, AFAIK, the only page with a perfect pagerank of 10 is www.google.com itself. beyond that though, there are the legal-inspired manipulations.
http://directory.google.com also has a 10 rating.
The first hit on there (at least based on my language preferences etc) points to the "weapons of mass destruction not found" 404 error page.
I believe that in this case it's probably a simple algorithm thing:
1) directory.google.com is rated 10 2) directory.google.com links to the error-404 page. 3) All the "competing" pages on the net that link to more "relevant" pages have lower ratings than directory.google.com, thus the directory.google.com top link gets put at the top.
It seems that one of the most powerful things you can do is to become a groups.google.com moderator, or have a highly linked site in there.
Oskar
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