Google market listings frustratingly circumscribe data

This is an anecdotal account of a Google failure, but bear with me as it links in with a previous post. That was about Facebook, but the problem is the same. 

So what’s the problem? It’s about how forms pigeon hole people, places and things. It’s about the exceptions that get typecast. It’s about flexibility. With Facebook Marketplace it was the issue of pricing, where I’d want to sell a number of similar items for a unified cost (3 for $5, for example). This time with Google it’s about opening hours.

When you look up a business on Google you usually want a few crucial bits of information in order to accomplish your goals. It might be a street address, it might be opening hours, it might be the phone number. You need to get somewhere to buy something but you’re not sure if you’re going to be on-time. Do you have time to drive with your friends across town and arrive before the places closes? You want to know before setting out so you don’t waste fuel and time.

Not long ago I was in a big rush because Google said that the flower markets that Saturday closed at 8.30am. The website the organisation published said 11am when I’d consulted it the day before when I was at home but my friend’s fiancé (we were intent on getting flowers for the wedding) looked at his mobile phone when we were in the car and said that the markets were about to shut. It was still before eight o’clock but we still had to drive all the way across town. An argument ensued. Everyone was blamed. A cup of soy milk was thrown, wetting the interior of the car.

Later, when we’d got the flowers, I cleaned up the car using a Chux wipe and some water but some of the residue would still be hanging in weeks later. In the event we bought $146 worth of flowers but only two of us ended up getting to the markets as my friend’s fiancé got out of the car, soaking wet, and caught the train back home.

None of this drama would’ve been necessary if Google had a way to say “Stallholders start closing at 8.30am but the facility only shuts at 11am.” The problem is that the interface Google has constructed eliminates all complexity. 

So much anguish because of the tyranny of forms.

I’ve worked in software and so I know that getting the interface between the people and the machine right can take time. You need to anticipate exceptions before you make the rules otherwise you get conflict. You get sharp words. You get recriminations. Heartache. You need to accommodate the richness of life if you want to avoid typecasting people and places. Like Facebook, Google has to change.

The holy grail was always due recompense for use of News Corp content

It’s been 12 years – this 6 April – that the media giant’s Robert Thomson declared in an interview:

"Google encourages promiscuity -- and shamelessly so -- and therefore a significant proportion of their users don't necessarily associate that content with the creator.

"It's certainly true that readers have been socialised – wrongly I believe – that much content should be free."

It was a declaration of war for which the peace has just been announced.  

Under the new three-year agreement, Facebook will pay for news articles from publications such as The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun. Sky News Australia has also signed an agreement with Facebook.

Thomson’s negative animus with regard to Google had converted itself, over the years, into a motion by media outlets in Australia that turned into laws drafted and put to Parliament for debate. At the last minute, Google capitulated and began to sign agreements with media companies. Facebook refused, and historically blocked users from posting news articles to its website. Then the government changed some aspects of the laws and Facebook unblocked the news.

Now this.

The “free” bit is still true – most readers of news won’t pay for it. But this is changing. For some the alignment of the interests of the dreaded Murdoch media and IT giants such as Google and Facebook will seem disturbing. A new bogeyman to revile and slam in a thousand new acerbic tweets flung like refuse out of life’s virtual cage. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and smaller media companies will also benefit from the new regime.

But note the sunset clause. Such accord will be contingent upon both perceived return and on public opinion. In a way it’s still up to users what kind of dispensation exists in the public sphere, from an economic standpoint at least. If you think that IT behemoths should pay for the privilege of allowing you to share what you like on social media, then get vocal. And forget about your personal brand of politics. 

More is a stake than whether your favourite political party is elected to office. News Corp’s typically sustained activism over a large number of years – something that it specialised in as it works in various public spheres to get change made – has, in the present case, turned out to be a blessing for all news makers. Even a website as progressive as Crikey – which is run by a company named Private Media – can benefit measurably from Murdoch’s intransigence. No doubt its journalists would never have thought they’d see the day that they might be able to praise the feisty and conservative nonagenarian patriarch.

Blog launch

Welcome to Media Magnet. I began to use this as a place to put posts I'd already written elsewhere but that I thought deserved another run on the track. You can't let an old dog just lie in the sun, you've got to throw them a bone on occasion and take them out to the beach for a frolic in the shallows.

When I look back on those old posts I'm reminded of how the internet has changed in the intervening years. How much more polarised it is since every man (and woman) and his dog has come to the park. On 3 January 2016 I wrote in a post about social media:

One possible downside is that people might just edit events to fit an overarching positive narrative, but that takes a lot of effort and work. It's much easier - if you want to increase your followers - to just become more positive and collected yourself, and the benefits will just follow. In a real sense social media is changing the way we live because we have to actually make our lives fit that overarching positive narrative. It's not just a matter of continuously masking the reality by putting a positive spin on things that might actually have been relatively less satisfying or rewarding. We are starting to behave in ways that would anyway receive a welcome from our friends and acquaintances.

How wrong I was! This post is remarkable however for  the fact that -- like the post you're reading now -- it appeared first at the beginning of the year. Five years back. On 29 April 2013 I wrote in another blogpost:

The big question for people who are looking at the future of the media is revenue, but I think that even more important issues are how to drive the public agenda and how to form trust in the media within the public, trust that has been eroded over time.

In that post I thought aloud about different funding models for journalism, and this brought me into contact with a man who started a new website, but I fell out of the loop with them as I felt that my contributions weren't being properly credited. I did write however:

For the Big Two [Fairfax and News Corp], the tempo stays the same - there are just as many stories as ever - as they move toward raising revenue via paywalls, but overall the quantum of effort in the media environment is shifting to well-funded public relations at the expense of in-depth public-interest journalism. Public confidence in the media is eroded, but the Big Two can't slow down or else they'll lose clicks, so they just keep on doing what they've always done.

You could envision a pyramid structure with part of the content for a story available free-of-charge - this can be shared online - and more in-depth items available for a fee. And you could move beyond the flat story, too. For example, you might offer a podcast video free at the top of the pyramid, with a story readable for a fee and then, lower down the pyramid, transcripts of the source material that can be read by people willing to pay more for more context. Interview transcripts can run to thousands of words and you might have three or four interviews for one 1000-word story. Would people be willing to pay for that? I'd like to find out.

The Guardian took up a different tack from the Big Two, and has given people a means to provide funds independent of a subscription. People do this because they like the website, not in order to read the stories, which remain free (though you have to register now to read).

So there are many models. Disappointing however is how people have taken the disarray of the media -- especially since Google has threatened to take its search engine out of Australia -- and turned it into attacks on the media. So, if you dislike Murdoch papers you then lump all media into the same basket  and crow about their malaise.

What happens is still up ion the air, but keep your fingers crossed Google starts to change its approach. I will be crossing my fingers and toes in anticipation of a win for news over tech giants.