Sometimes I feel like a giant lab rat online – in a maze with a bunch of super beings observing my every move and then controlling what I can and cannot do.
No I am not paranoid –  “They” are really out to get me. As regular readers know – we have a pretty strong focus on the user experience here at Tnooz.
I have personally worked on the user experience since the earliest days of the web and, indeed, before that in things like Videotext (now that really dates me!).
There are way too many things which say “Beta” on them because too often that’s code for:
“We are putting this product out there and we want you to debug it for us because frankly we are pretty lazy and we got tired of doing it ourselves…”
Nevertheless, one of the things that is a little worrying in the UEX department is the way search results come back differently on computers with the same characteristics and even in the same location.
I either put this down to Google tracking my every move or to the fact they were actually looking at the interaction as a specimen where the web is their personal large petri dish.
I think the web is becoming more like the Googlesphere every day. Well, friends, we are NOT ALONE.
We now have proof, confirmed by Google, confirming they are indeed always experimenting with us.
Messrs Brin, Page and Schmidt (sounds like a 1970s folk band) seem to be running a giant experiment.
Indeed the paranoia seems to be well founded. Not only is Google experimenting with the results but they are actually tracking keystroke activity.
My attention was caught by an article on Infoworld and a follow-up on Tnooz, Google results now updating like a travel metasearch site.
SEO expert Rob Ousbey captured video of a Google experiment that displays search results that change as you type – a process which is just a little disturbing.
And if you think this is just a one off – apparently not.
Google itself gave some insight into this on their blog from Friday, announcing the following:
“Today we’ve launched a change to our ranking algorithm that will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site.
This is enough to drive anyone to becoming a conspiracy theorist. What worries me more than anything else is that now so much power and infrastructure flows through Google that there is almost no possible way that Google cannot do evil. (Yes, a double negative).
I am not doubting their desire to be good and to “do no evil”, but when they can mess with the results as they are doing on both a minor and a macro scale, I know am being abused.
Couple this with the ability to make money and maximize the results to tweak search to suit Google’s commercial ends and we have an end to net neutrality.
But that’s okay because Google has already decided that it is good for us to dispense with that arcane concept.
So next time you feel that “They Are Watching You”, just remember they are and tracking your every keystroke. You have been warned.
Related posts:
- Google fiddles search, does no evil for brands like Expedia
- Google Maps adds hotel search and pricing, panic and confusion assured
- Google-ITA Software deal: the travel ecosystem as Google now sees it
- Google results now updating like a travel metasearch site
- Google secretly tests feed of hotel room prices in natural search results
About Timothy O'Neil-Dunne
Wait so A/B testing is evil now? Just checking…
Per se no A/B testing is not evil. But when you have millions of users – that doesn’t qualify as “beta” in my view.
Having sat on both sides of the fence – suck it and see is often an attitude. Consumers are cheaper than beta testers.
Cheers
Great post.
I do disagree that beta is too often a result of being “too lazy to debug it ourselves” and more so an interest in shipping fast with the intent of failing fast, cheap and often when need be so that you can identify the product that isn’t the failure even faster.
Keeping new products from their eventual end-users only wastes more of your time until you know exactly how your user will respond and what fixes are needed.
For every new product in the world, it’s always a guess the first time, right? So, why not roll the dice sooner than later so you can roll said dice more frequently for your chance to win big…
Regardless, any post in which you draw comparisons between the classic work that is 1984 and Google has to be a winner in my eyes.
Many thanks,
@saykay
So are we lab rats or not? This is a good question….
According to Google’s CEO; “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”… of course that didn’t stop him from demanding his mistress’s blog be taken down
http://gawker.com/5477611/googles-ceo-demanded-his-mistress-take-down-her-blog-source
That whole ‘Google does no evil’ sentiment has definitely blown over for most folks in 2010, and that’s a very very good thing.
Timothy,
of all the issues the travel industry might get nervous about surrounding Google, you pick beta-testing? Would it be less evil if they conducted focus groups? Indeed, isn’t the fact that “Ousbey was one of a handful of people selected to be a Google guinea pig,” a retreat from the permanent beta strategy?
Credit where it’s due, Google has created an extraordinarily usable interface and effective search engine. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t account for 2 / 3 of all search activity and they wouldn’t be the worry that many find them to be.
So what are the issues we should worry about around Google:
1. User information. All this keystroke tracking might feel icky to those of us whose hats are made of tin-foil but the real issue for people whose livelihood depends on a website is that Google knows a lot more about your customers than you do. You might know your customer’s frequent flyer number but Google knows, not just what travel websites they go to, but every website they go to – retail, news everything. They know who your customers send personal emails to and what they say in those personal emails. Google knows your customer’s spelling mistakes. Sure they will share this information with you but you will pay for it.
2. Simple market power. Regardless of how much Google knows about your customers, they have an enormous chunk of the market. 2 / 3 of all search activity.
3. Cost. I’d be interested in a study of how much customer acquisition on the web costs these days. There is surprisingly little public data out there but I bet we’d be surprised by the amount people pay per booking to Google get a paying customer onto their website. I think this would put a different complexion on the view of the online channel as the low-cost channel. Maybe I’m wrong but it would be fascinating to see some hard data.
Tim, Kev or any readers out there – care to share any hard data about the total cost of customer acquisition online?
Dan G.
[fair disclosure: I work at Amadeus but the above is my own view, not a company view]
Dan G. — we actually did a fascinating study on cost of acquisition via Google. Believe me, the results are an eye-opener and completely in line with what you’re guessing at.
For fear of poking a giant in the eye, however, we’ve stayed away from publishing the numbers…
…and yes, I’ve just seen the Google Bypass story which arrived with impeccable timing.