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authors' reply re NYT op-ed "More Is Not Necessarily Better"
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 18:37 -0400
___ ...... Forwarded Message ....... From: "K. N. Cukier" <kn () cukier com> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: Matt Hindman <hindman () gmail com> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 19:57:02 +0100 Subj: authors' reply re NYT op-ed "More Is Not Necessarily Better" Dave, We'd be grateful if you'd post this note to the list, as a quick reply to the thoughtful criticisms on IP to our NYT op-ed on Google and the concentration of online information. Many thanks. KNC & MH _______________ Reply to IP List Comments: If truth is the first casualty of war, then nuance is the first victim of journalism.... We appreciate Gerry's and Eszter's comments on IP about our op-ed in Monday's New York Times, about the social implications of Google. Since there is more to our views than can be crammed into 700 words for the mainstream media, we'd like to offer a quick response (and added a few cites to our work at the bottom). Gerry's criticism, in short, is: "No-duh, and it's a good thing, too!" Eszter suggests that our stats overstate the case (her other points, which focus on users' lack of skill, supports our central argument). We'll address each separately, but first state: 1. Google is of course a godsend for finding information online, and 2. the phenomenon we discuss, that the technology winnows what people see, is not Google's fault (though their approach extenuates the situation). To Gerry's point, we agree that there is an overabundance of information, and the use of filters -- be it newspaper editors or new technologies -- isn't newsworthy. But if filtering is inevitable, it is equally clear that how these filters work matters for society. In the case of newspapers, they have inherent and fairly understood biases; sometimes, such as with the WSJ, it's worn on their sleeves. Likewise, technology is rarely neutral, though why so is less apparent. It is probably fair to say that most people are unaware of the tradeoffs between locating information online and the diversity of information that is visible, which happens every time they use a search engine. The article was meant to raise that awareness. Gerry bases his criticism on the idea that the great mass of overlooked information must necessarily be uninteresting anyway. That is a hard statement to accept. Consider what the hierarchical nature of the Web means on an empirical level, for instance, for a search on a sensitive topic like abortion. Google identifies 4,010,000 pages; Matt's research (link at bottom) suggests that the top-site in that category accounts for roughly 30% of all in-bound links (and thus is most prominent in searches), the top 10 pages account for 70% of all links, and the top 50 almost 90%. Stop to realize what this means: the other 4,009,950 pages on the topic get only 10% of all in-bound links combined -- and as a result, they are essentially invisible online. Is most of this content poor? Probably. All of it? Surely not. As for Eszter's comment that the stats we use overstate our case, we disagree. The data that Google's and Yahoo's technology account for 95% of all searches comes from comscore Media Metrix, which despite its limitations, is nevertheless the best stats available (see: http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156431). In the article, we use this data to highlight market power, not agreement among search results, and in this context the 95% figure is very appropriate. (Microsoft's intention to enter the search market will bring the number of competitors to three -- but the fact it requires a multi-billion-dollar investment to do so actually reinforces our point.) Strikingly, search engine convergence has grown enormously since March 2004 when Eszter published her First Monday article, which she cited in her note (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_3/hargittai/index.html). Her piece explains that though AOL and myway.com are based on Google's technology, the results are different. However, that is no longer true. Take her example of the query "taxes." Entering the term into search.aol.com or myway.com now returns EXACTLY the same results as Google itself. Try it. Moreover, Yahoo's results for "taxes" are now quite close to Google's: the same top site, with seven of the top ten now identical. Taken together, these examples show that the use of link-structure to identify content effectively limits the diversity of what the average user is exposed to online, even if one uses multiple search engines. Compared to the bad old days of search, this seems a tradeoff worth making. At the same time, though, we shouldn't be blind to the social consequences of search engine convergence. We're thankful for all the feedback we've received. On a final note, the NYT piece served as our swan-song at the NCDG. After two wonderful and productive years, we've both recently left our fellowships at the Kennedy School; Matt to teach politics at Arizona State University, and myself, to cover technology and policy issues for The Economist in London. We both look forward to discussing these issues more going forward. Best, Kenn & Matt ______________________ Some references to our previous work on the topic (going from somewhat simplified to more complex): "The Web, Media Diversity and Power Laws" Harvard University NCDG Resource Page http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/digitalcenter/powerlaw.htm "More Media, Less Diversity" The New York Times, op-ed page, June 2, 2003 http://www.princeton.edu/~mhindman/NYTimesOpEd2.htm "Measuring Media Concentration Online and Offline" Ford Foundation conference on media diversity, Dec. 2003. http://www.cukier.com/writings/webmedia-jan04.htm "Googlearchy: How a Few Heavily-Linked Sites Dominate Politics Online" Early draft chapter of Matt's dissertation http://www.princeton.edu/~mhindman/googlearchy--hindman.pdf To contact the authors: Matthew Hindman -- www.hindman.cc -- hindman () gmail com Kenneth Neil Cukier -- www.cukier.com -- cukier () gmail com (Please note our gmail accounts -- See! We are not anti-Googlists!) 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- authors' reply re NYT op-ed "More Is Not Necessarily Better" Dave Farber (Aug 26)