60-Second Window from The Design Center and The User Group Network

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.” Stephen Leacock

It saddens me greatly to write this month's column. But I'm writing it anyway.

#107 Shattered Vistas

On April 15, AltaVista Company announced the addition of paid placements.
. . . By the 19th the first wave was in place. Obviously Compaq (who owns AltaVista) is doing so poorly that they'll stoop to these measures to make up for lost revenue. I wonder what else they'll do for money. It's sad, and there's nothing we (as the web-developing population) can do about it.
. . . They've attempted to cleverly gloss things over by claiming the move will increase the relevancy of the AltaVista search returns and reduce the desire of web sites to attempt "spamming" to gain higher positioning. Sure, it'll increase relevancy, but to what end? Does their idea of relevant and useful have dollar marks in front of it? Could it mean that those with deep pockets will forever control the top search results? Or, could it mean that the AV staffers just wanted to relax and stop chasing those unethical developers?
. . . Most ominous is that rather than eliminating site spammers AV may have opened the door for them to buy the top slots, and own them legitimately. Spokesmen for AltaVista say they are intent on delivering the most useful and relevant Internet search experience to their users -- I'm quoting Rod Schrock, President & CEO, AltaVista Company. Yet I couldn't find a single human contact to comment on this. Can you find an email address? We get automated "thank you" email and "Press-6-now" voice mail. Of course, I'd be hiding too. In fact, I'd try to be "out of town" for a few months until the web population either swallows, or wanders off someplace.
. . . Then they tell us the new system is "Designed to maximize exposure of large and small content providers" ... yea, right. How many of you small content providers will be at the auction? Oh, yes. Did I mention that in June they'll begin auctions of the top spots to the highest bidders? Yup. Get that BIG check book out.
. . . Then Celia Francis, Director of Marketing tells us it will be "a great new way to quickly find quality, highly relevant results" ... of course that is probably if you're looking for off-shore gambling, child porn or blinking, gyrating cyber malls.
. . . What's worse, is DoubleClick, (AltaVista's advertising partner) has come up with a scheme where they won't just get you once. They'll be back again and again -- auctioning a few keywords, then removing them to auction them again. So, line up everyone... you'll get your chance.
. . . The boil now festering will change as the months roll on. As AltaVista sees this cash cow ripen, it probably won't be long before more spots are auctioned. Then one day the identifying markers will get a little smaller. As they streamline, the safeguards will relax. (It'll be just too much trouble to follow up to see if the new top dog is redirecting the traffic to porno or commercial spam sites. Besides... no one's complaining!)
. . . Then the web will take another step down hill as the other search engines discover that they can milk this cow too. Before long you'll be going to several auctions a month... then you'll start seeing "Search Engine Ranking" for sale popping up on eBay and Amazon.com. Sites will be sporting new spam and new blinking ads just to cover the cost of their auction habits.

Comments? Anyone got comments?

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