Tag: Google

The Wealth of the Nation: Observation #3


Rambo BillboardJust like every other New Yorker, I have experienced the rush of LIE's giant billboard ads coming at me on the way out of and into the Midtown Tunnel on numerous occasions.  You cannot really avoid the experience – there are just too many possibilities that can draw you that way: JFK, LaGuardia, US Open at Flushing Meadows, its next-door neighbors the Mets, your relatives in Queens, your suburban friends with their Near Long Island homes, and maybe even rich acquaintances with summer residences in the Hamptons.  Hey, it's possible you just like sitting in traffic for hours.  Whatever is the reason, the majority of people who live in or visit NYC have been exposed to the visual calls of various brands, upcoming movies, TV seasons' premiers, etc. strategically positioned on that particular spot between the boroughs.

Liberal extremists and snooty hipsters unconditionally reject all forms of commercial publicity as the front-end of consumerism (yet, they all support it by the sheer fact of having facebook accounts and iPhones).  But I'm no hypocrite – I don't simplistically dismiss advertising and even consumerism itself as evil.  In full honesty: quality objects are quite necessary in my life for aesthetic, utilitarian, vain, and psycho-therapeutic reasons.  Quality being an operative word, of course.  Unfortunately, the majority of contemporary promotions target general public that cannot afford quality anymore.  And it has been reflected on the ever-changing billboards.

Over the years I've experienced a broad spectrum of reactions to the images coming into my view on LIE.  At worst, they've ranged from "Who the hell is this ad for?  Billionaires?" to "God, that's just cheap and ugly!"  And at best, I have been pleasantly surprised by the resurrection of a high quality classic (Longines); awed by the first digital installation (FreshDirect); excited by the success of a small business (7 for All Mankind – unfortunately, they sold out to a global conglomerate VF within a couple of years); inspired by the social changes we have witnessed (Queer As Folk).    

Sadly, in the last couple of years my reaction range narrowed to one very intense sliver of irritation, but at least the billboards were largely occupied as recently as four months ago.  Imagine my surprise last weekend when I saw that less than 50% of the boards were actually covered by promo bills.  I don't think I've ever seen them like that.              

No, wait!  There was a period back in, I believe, 2012 when a lot of ads had to be taken down and boards dismantled due to the strict enforcement of the billboard laws related to the size and distance requirements.  But it is safe to assume that both the space owners and advertisers overcame the regulation hurdles, since, as I said, I just recently saw practically all billboards occupied.

So, that's not it.  What then?  Two things, really – the national impoverishment and the incurable social-media degeneracy.

You see, the billboards are not cheap.  It's not Super Bowl prices ($4.5 million for a 30-second spot this year), but still – an LIE billboard rents for about $30K per month.  And that's at the time when every single company that targets the consumer market with its goods or services MUST make room in their advertising budgets for GoogleAds (which also owns YouTube), iAds, facebook, Twitter, etc.  

Multiply that consideration by the wavering consumer confidence (I don't care what the "official" numbers are showing) compounded with the dwindling buying power and you come to the point when even the companies selling the highest volumes of consumer goods have to start making tough choices: whether to allocate $300K per year to a physical spot with a maximum of 210,000 possible views a day (LIE's 2014 auto throughput) or to a virtual spot tied to some viral YouTube video that generates 5 million views in 5 days. 

The empty spots along the expressway testify to the choices the companies are making.  It's totally opportunistic, of course.  Moreover, from my POV it's also totally short-sighted – there are so many existing and potential problems with online advertising, I intend to write a separate post on the subject.  It is possible that we are yet to see the times when advertisers will be fighting for the physical publicity spaces.  But for now, more and more billboards along the highways and on the City's buildings will go empty. 

I have a feeling that even the famous and fabulous digital screens at one of the most visited places in the world (50 million visitors a year), Times Square, may end up going dark at some point.  After all, nowadays the tourists and locals alike are mostly looking down at their electronic devices, not up.  So, it would be only fiscally prudent for the consumer-oriented companies to spend $1M-$4M a year (2015 rates) some place else.

And I find it very telling that the most gigantic (the whole block, 77 feet tall by 323 feet long, 20 pixels big) and the most expensive ($2.5 million for EVERY 4 WEEKS) LED advertising screen was taken by the company that makes billions on online advertising – Google.  They can actually afford it easily. 

Of course, the blank billboards are good news for graffiti artists like Rambo – more real estate for them! There is a poetic justice in that: the promotion of consumerism gets replaced by the guerrilla art.  Historically, the explosion of street art always went hand-in-hand with the economic downfalls.  That's why in the past it frequently (and expediently) turned into Prop Art – going from philosophical expressionism straight into political activism.  People should remember that as a valuable lesson in social science. 

In my opinion, it's not accidental that the crumbling of our ecological and socioeconomic environments coincides with the aesthetic degradation we are experiencing right now – when people bow to false idols and nepotistic, masturbatory garbage is passed as the "contemporary art" by the pushers from auction houses and big-name galleries.  I can only hope that real artists will fulfill their soul-changing mission and force people to look away from their little crack-emitting handheld displays and up at something awesome and powerful.          

Can’t You See? Google’s Hummingbird, or the Monopolization of Information


HummingbirdEvery time the proverbial wool is pulled over the masses' eyes, this question materializes in my mind in a very specific way: Can't you see?  Pumped with drugs, submerged into the water, and literally attached to a supposed crime-fighting machine, the main precog Agatha (Samantha Morton) pleads with Tom Cruise's John Anderton to see the truth: to clear his mind and look behind the foggy wall of deceit; to figure out what is right and what is wrong, who is a victim and who is a real criminal, where is the true justice and where is the pure greed for power and domination? 

Can't you see?  With their latest search-engine revamp (aka the Hummingbird offensive), Google is trying to deprive you of your basic rights (particularly those guaranteed by the First and the Ninth Amendments) and turn the last bastion of freedom, the Internet, into the same corrupt mess our tangible world has become – the wasteland, where the bigger your teeth and claws are the larger the piece of the pie you will grab.

Even though the implementation of the "hummingbird" algorithm was publicly revealed on the day of Google's 15th anniversary, it had been enacted several weeks ago.  I noticed something new a month back:  Like everyone else who writes, from time to time I go online to look for the best choice of words.  For years, Thesaurus.com has been the first-listed result.  It still is, but right above it (above everything) appears a lightly-bordered box with a Google-provided selection of synonyms, word origin, etc.  Even on the 21" screen it dominates most of the initially visible space – you have to scroll down to see other results.  If all you need is basics, you don't need to go to any other dictionary site – it's all right there, in the box. 

Now, try to google, for example, Advil and you will see the same (only larger) box at the top, filled with medical information on this over-the-counter drug.  Type 3D Printing in the search field, and you will get featured ads (powered by Google's AdSense) at the top and the hummingbird's box on the right with the top four choices for 3D printers from Google's Shopping.  And don't be deceived by the fact that many of your searches don't bring back the ghostly box just yet – the knowledge base will self-educate and expand with incredible speed, just you wait.             

They are not too shy about it either: In the midst of listing all the "innovative" features of the hummingbird algorithm, they freely speak about their strategy to squash the other online information purveyors.  During the unveiling ceremony, Google's search executive Tamar Yehoshua constructed his demonstration specifically around queries related to nutrition.  The first results were long lists compiled by Google and shown on Google's own site.  No need to go to WebMD – one of thousands of online businesses dependent on the Internet users' ability to "find" them. 

Wow!  First, they started tracking your web patterns in order to "suggest" ads and rank search results according to your "tastes" (how are you supposed to find, buy, learn anything new, if Google keeps polluting your visual field with old, familiar shit all the time?), and now this?!  They want to monopolize the Information Superhighway; they want to own your mind and hinder your psyche!  This is much worse than anything Snowden has revealed about Big Brother.  Can you imagine the breadth of opportunities for manipulations?

How about the unlimited possibilities for murky dealings?  Just think of the fees you can charge a company for the right to be a part of Google's knowledge database, to be included into that top-of-the-page box.  Judging by the experience so far, we will never know how much exactly:  While making the basic AdSense pricing available to everyone, Google makes sure that it is impossible to find out how much it costs to guarantee that your ad or product always appears in the featured boxes, bypassing hundreds of others. 

For many, Google's true intentions of global domination are obscured by gimmicks, oh, so attractive to the techno-savvy Internet users.  You've got complex, multiword queries; you've got voice recognition with detectable accents – Google pretty much promises to come up with search results in response to your mumbling something in your sleep.  Everybody's like, "Oo-la-la! Symantic search capabilities!"  That's all great, except don't lead me straight to your own websites, bro, let me make my own choices!   

What happened to Sergey Brin, who came here from the Soviet Union in 1979, at the tender age of 6?  Didn't his parents teach him anything about the importance of personal freedom and the dangers of totalitarianism?  And why?  What,  $24.5 billion is not enough?     

I don't really know if the algorithm's nickname is an unabashed display of gall and an inside joke hinting at Google's true intentions, but I find its selection uncanny: Hummingbirds, pretty and quick, are essentially omnivores – sucking out flowers's nectar and praying on insects' protein, all in the course of one meal.

I sold my Google stock as soon as they monopolized the online advertising, and I wish I could tell you that I plan to stop googling, or use Maps.  Unfortunately, I am not able to take such a pledge: no matter how hard other search engines try (and I would like them to try harder), as of this moment they cannot match Google's speed and range.  Yet, I refuse to give into their tricks: I will not be boxed out neither by the AdSense tracking my Internet movements nor by the hummingbird's hijacking the top spot of the informational ladder.  I will continue to exercise my freedom of going to the search results that I believe are relevant.  What about you?  Can you force yourself not to be lazy and bypass Google's conveniently positioned traps?  Can you brush off that wool and see?       

Pop Culture Impediment and Career Advancement


The-economist-cover-facebookA couple of months ago I was working with a client, primarily concentrating on the improvement of accounting policies and the transition from QuickBooks to ERP. In the process, I interacted a lot with the company's staff accountant.

She is a sharp and ambitious young woman from Pacific Asia. I liked her very much and was particularly impressed by her outstanding work ethics (a rarity nowadays). She's been with the company for nearly two years and this was her first job after she got her BBA in Accounting.

Her knowledge of bookkeeping basics was pretty solid, which gave her much confidence. She was determined to leave the company and look for a job that would give her a faster career track. Never mind the fact that I've discovered a lot of errors and holes in those areas of company's records that pertained to somewhat more sophisticated concepts, such as Inventory/COGS conversion and revenue recognition.

It wasn't entirely her fault. She didn't have a benefit of working with a seasoned supervisor and wasn't savvy enough yet to understand that accountants were expected to look for standards pertaining to a specific industry. She is a capable individual, though, and most likely will get better with years. Hey, under contemporary standards, she is probably in a top 10% of quality workers. Those experience and knowledge gaps are not the reasons why I think it's unlikely for her to have a high-level career in an average American company.

Here is what happened during that consulting engagement.  Facebook filed S1, thus making public its hopes for a $5 billion IPO. The 02/02/12 issue of The Economist arrived at the client's office with a cover spoofing Mark Zuckerberg's profile on his own website, completed with Caesar's boast as a "status" and comments from various "friends," including Bill Gates, Matt Romney, etc.

Unfortunately, the "author" of the most amusing comment was obscured by the embedded subscriber's label – one could only see two letters "ge." I read, "The Death Star is fully armed and operational" and laughed, "This must be Google." The girl was standing next to me. She said, "It's 'ge,' not le' we can see." I explained, it's Larry Page of Google. She looked doubtful and also didn't understand, why I found it so funny. Something hit me and I asked, "Do you know what the Death Star is?" She shook her head, "No."

I didn't show it, but I was very surprised.  I understand that she was isolated from the rest of the world back home, but she graduated from high school and college here, in the States. I took her out for lunch and spent 40 minutes explaining: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Google – Facebook competition, "Stars Wars," the Dark Side, Jedi, the irony of the reference – all fresh news to her.

This incident put me into an inquisitive mode and from time to time I threw well-camouflaged, unobtrusive questions at her.

"What kind of music to you like?" "Pop." "Like who?" "You wouldn't know them." "Try me. I am extremely eclectic when it comes to all arts. Who is your favorite band?" "They are all Asian."

Some time later she ventures, "What are your favorite bands?" "It's a long list, but there is a Top 10 that I can never rank – like Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Queen…" She said she'd never heard those names. I am ready to give up, but still, "The Beatles is one of my Top 5." She has heard the name, but never listened to their music. My heart aches in utter pity.

Every night she watches funny videos from her home country on YouTube. How about TV? (C'mon, people all over the world watch American TV shows . In 2004, I flew from Amsterdam to Istanbul and saw a Dutch girl watching an episode of "Six Feet Under" on her laptop). Alas, not this girl, "I don't watch American television."

The question is, does this hard-working, diligent, and fairly bright person have a chance of ever becoming a partner in an accounting firm, or a corporate CFO, if the said companies are not under Asian management? Unlikely.

The higher you advance in your career, the more you have to communicate with people around you. Nobody sticks to just business, there is always the small-talk. People will be discussing the latest "Homeland" episode and she won't even know what it is? When everyone starts noticing, what will they think? In this country, pop culture is like English – a common language of the melting pot, and you must be able to speak it, or you will devalue yourself in the eyes of others.

To tell you the truth, in spite of my religious belief in the merit-based system, I don't think that this is wrong. You don't have to like pop culture and, like me, you can criticize its prevailing weaknesses all the time. Yet, not to be aware of it entirely – that's just strange. Someone who does her job well, but is so disinterested in her immediate surroundings, will be considered a reliable functionary, but unlikely to climb too high up the corporate ladder.

SOPA, PIPA and “CFO Techniques”


GI_98327_CFO TechniquesThe inner conflict many intelligent people experience over Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), is an old problem for me. For many years before the pharmaceutical and media lobbies brought the issue of proprietary rights infringement in the Internet age to Washington DC, I've been torn between two firm believes of mine: (1) that content creators (writers, musicians, artists, designers, etc.) are entitled to get paid whenever their creative products are used for commercial purposes (i.e. to make money), and (2) that the information available on the Internet cannot be restricted by any means.

That's why more than 10 years ago, I thought of Napster as a violator of musicians' rights to financially benefit from their products. It was obvious to me that the whole purpose of the "file-sharing service" was Sean Parker's publicity stunt to show off the Fanning brothers' technological platform with a purpose of selling it and profiting from it (which is exactly what happened).

YouTube, whose owners obviously always intended to capitalize on the advertising, is also at fault when it lets the users to upload copyrighted material without paying the content owners royalty out of their revenues. On the other hand, I don't see anything wrong with YouTube being a promotional portal for young artists, musicians, filmmakers, and such (including the crazy exhibitionists catering to voyeurs), who upload their own creations knowingly in hopes of receiving the tangible benefits of being noticed.

Of course, the most conflicting entity is Google. On one hand, we cannot exist without their search engine (I am well aware that there are geeky alternatives out there, but let's face it – Google dominates); on the other hand, when it comes to the Internet advertising they are the closest example of a monopoly we've got in our screwed up economy. Moreover, Google attains its riches by using every single one of us, the information-seeking users. Ultimately, it's in their interests to tag counterfeiters and bootleggers, because users are looking for them. And I guess they know that their hands are not exactly clean. Why else would they settle with the Department of Justice to pay $500 million for allowing Canadian Pharmacies' advertisement?

Presently the issue of the online copyright infringement hits very close to home for me. A bunch of unlicensed eBook-hacking sites are offering "CFO Techniques" downloads for free. Neither me nor my publisher is getting a single penny out of this, while the sites' owners get advertising income, revenues on sales of their users' information, and ability to pollute the hapless freeloaders' computers with the spyware invisibly attached to the plug-ins required for viewing the books. They profit unfairly using MY PRODUCT. And that's not fair.

Still, even this wouldn't force me to support the half-assed anti-constitutional laws like SOPA and PIPA. Why? Because if these laws are passed, I could go to jail for offering my readers a clip from "So, I Married an Axe Murderer" within my post about The Best Boss in Cinematic History , even though I derive no material benefits from this blog (none at all). I'd rather people steal my shit than go along with freedom of speech violations in the name of copyrights protection.

Yet, I am all for fighting piracy in an intelligent way that doesn't take our civil liberties away. And the "financial benefit" criteria seems to my CFO mind like a sensible approach. If a site takes any form of payments or generates advertising revenue through deliberate peddling (not just illustrative usage) of unlicensed and unpaid for content, the enablers of payment processing and advertising portals should stop providing their services to this site. This would be not much different than YouTube's actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): they get a notice and remove the violating content.

Money is the key. I always said that the best way to fight terrorism is going after the financial sources. The now supposedly dead Osama Bin Laden without his multimillion wealth would've been just a thug on the street. Facebook without the advertisement revenue would be just a well-designed electronic hangout with no prospects for an IPO (expected in May this year).