It's not surprising that a game company knows how to game their ratings. But, they're far from alone in using this tactic. It's also used for gaming Yelp and other review directories by sending up follow-up surveys where positive responders are asked to publish their comments at sites like Yelp while the others are thanks for their feedback (and hopefully given follow-up about their less than idea experience).
The easy way to avoid over-delivery without having any negative impact on small businesses would be to switch to an opt-in system. That way, people who really plan to use the books would receive them and the rest of us wouldn't have to waste our time and tax dollars cleaning up the yellow pages industry's litter.
I've been following this issue closely over the last few years, and have made a solid effort to remove myself from the three directory companies that print spam my home annually (with a total of 5 books combined). So far, I've continued to receive books I have unsubscribed from.
The system breaks down at many levels, starting with the opt-out requirement rather than an opt-in system. Contract delivery services don't appear to be held accountable for over delivery (spam).
Frankly, they just don't seem to care about the people who have to clean up their mess, and pay for disposal via local taxes. It's a disgustingly tone deaf industry.
Using Google Analytics or pretty much any stats program or log file analyzer, a motivated web analyst can tie the query to the IP address, geolocation, browser type, computer OS, etc. It does narrow things down quite a bit when the query volume is narrow. For advertising purposes, people don't need that level of specificity, but the tools definitely provide for it.
One scene where execution gets a nod in the film was when Zuckerberg tears into his CFO for freezing the bank account. He explains that Facebook never goes down, which is one of the factors that is contributing to its success.
I think many of these pieces are riffing off PR pitches where the story is finished before it's started. The "journalist" gets a fresh quote or two that support the reworked press release, and done.
Try running this search on Google if you want to see how common this type of story is:
site:nytimes.com "small but growing trend"
It's certainly not limited to technology. Fashion, dining, travel, etc., all suffer from similar press release regurgitation reporting.
I wonder if Craigslist has ever considered offering law enforcement training on how to effectively use the site to track illegal activity in their cities?
Mike, this is an excellent post that PR people and the people they represent should take very seriously. They're losing in the court of public opinion if they take conversations offline rather than responding with authentic, rational arguments to the points raised by reasonable bloggers like yourself.
Mike, I think you missed on this one. I think this snippet nails it: "...brokers have asked that their data be removed and Zoocasa has not complied."
If they see a benefit to being on the site, there wouldn't be a problem. But some brokers appear to not want to participate. Unlike Google (and other real estate specific search sites like Trulia), ZooCasa refuses to remove listings upon request.
It's similar to statements you've made about newspaper websites and robots.txt. You can argue about whether it's smart for newspapers or real estate sites to participate in search engines. However, in the end, Google makes it easy for the original content owners to control whether (and what) content is indexed.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Ed Kohler.
This is a common ratings tactic
It's not surprising that a game company knows how to game their ratings. But, they're far from alone in using this tactic. It's also used for gaming Yelp and other review directories by sending up follow-up surveys where positive responders are asked to publish their comments at sites like Yelp while the others are thanks for their feedback (and hopefully given follow-up about their less than idea experience).
Re: Switch to opt-in
The easy way to avoid over-delivery without having any negative impact on small businesses would be to switch to an opt-in system. That way, people who really plan to use the books would receive them and the rest of us wouldn't have to waste our time and tax dollars cleaning up the yellow pages industry's litter.
Distribution fail
I've been following this issue closely over the last few years, and have made a solid effort to remove myself from the three directory companies that print spam my home annually (with a total of 5 books combined). So far, I've continued to receive books I have unsubscribed from.
The system breaks down at many levels, starting with the opt-out requirement rather than an opt-in system. Contract delivery services don't appear to be held accountable for over delivery (spam).
Frankly, they just don't seem to care about the people who have to clean up their mess, and pay for disposal via local taxes. It's a disgustingly tone deaf industry.
It's more than the query
Using Google Analytics or pretty much any stats program or log file analyzer, a motivated web analyst can tie the query to the IP address, geolocation, browser type, computer OS, etc. It does narrow things down quite a bit when the query volume is narrow. For advertising purposes, people don't need that level of specificity, but the tools definitely provide for it.
Execution gets a nod
One scene where execution gets a nod in the film was when Zuckerberg tears into his CFO for freezing the bank account. He explains that Facebook never goes down, which is one of the factors that is contributing to its success.
I think many of these pieces are riffing off PR pitches where the story is finished before it's started. The "journalist" gets a fresh quote or two that support the reworked press release, and done.
Try running this search on Google if you want to see how common this type of story is:
site:nytimes.com "small but growing trend"
It's certainly not limited to technology. Fashion, dining, travel, etc., all suffer from similar press release regurgitation reporting.
Craigslist Should Offer Law Enforcement Training
I wonder if Craigslist has ever considered offering law enforcement training on how to effectively use the site to track illegal activity in their cities?
Mike, this is an excellent post that PR people and the people they represent should take very seriously. They're losing in the court of public opinion if they take conversations offline rather than responding with authentic, rational arguments to the points raised by reasonable bloggers like yourself.
Opt-Out Options
Mike, I think you missed on this one. I think this snippet nails it: "...brokers have asked that their data be removed and Zoocasa has not complied."
If they see a benefit to being on the site, there wouldn't be a problem. But some brokers appear to not want to participate. Unlike Google (and other real estate specific search sites like Trulia), ZooCasa refuses to remove listings upon request.
It's similar to statements you've made about newspaper websites and robots.txt. You can argue about whether it's smart for newspapers or real estate sites to participate in search engines. However, in the end, Google makes it easy for the original content owners to control whether (and what) content is indexed.