[IP] authors' reply re NYT op-ed "More Is Not Necessarily Better"
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...... Forwarded Message .......
From: "K. N. Cukier" <kn@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Matt Hindman <hindman@xxxxxxxxx>
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@xxxxxxxxx
Kenneth Neil Cukier -- www.cukier.com -- cukier@xxxxxxxxx
(Please note our gmail accounts -- See! We are not anti-Googlists!)
END
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