Narrative and Site Created by:
Adam Richard Rottinghaus
North Carolina State University
College of Humanities and Social Sciences: Communication Dept.
December 2007
Searching consumers has two meanings. Consumers use Google as a search function to navigate online, Google is searching the consumer to develop a database of information.
Pacman serves as a good representation of the average consumer for many reasons. The featureless character can represent any demographic simply because it is featureless. The chewing motion symbolizes the constant consumption of media. The pervasiveness of Pacman, the game, into popular culture is representative of popular culture's role in the media at large. The phrase "an average consumer " serves to start the narrative and works as step one to show how the consumer is evolving in today's digital mediascape.
Morse code - The analogy of serves as a good representation of media models on two levels. 1) It shows the relationship between advertising and content. Advertising is inherently part of the media experience and often interrupts the flow of content. 2) Like Morse code, most media experience are built upon the model of a captive audience. The leaves the consumer with very little control over the flow of content. Traditional media models use a top down flow of content. By broad banding from centralized highly professional production, media companies control nearly every aspect of the production and distribution process. Thus the Morse code, a conveniently outdated technology, provides a good model to show the relationship between content and advertising, as well as the top down model of media distribution from old media companies.
T.V. Radio and and print use some variation of this model in old media companies.
The board represents the both the choices a consumer has in navigating through old media environments. It is difficult to find the desired content, and in order to get to it one is exposed to many ads. Media companies profits are directly related to the consumption of these ads. Note the content turns green to show the consumption of a "finally found" desired content.
The plight of the old media consumer is the exposure to ads, based on loose demographics, flooding the content. Often many demographics are consuming the same media, thus advertising must be catered to all the audiences consuming the content. This often results in consumers frustration of exposure to many ads that are not directed at them. Since advertising subsidizes the content production, the bigger the audiences consuming the media, the more it costs to interrupt the content. The process becomes cyclical in that content producers strive for bigger audiences, thus more revenue for the media companies. The consumer bears the brunt of this profit stream, both their content choices and advertising frustration.
The computer represents the empowerment of the new media. Consumers have greater access to find the desired content without the distraction of ads. Thus, the content in new media is not not longer a dash of a Morse code but a power pill. This also shows how content on the internet existed before the subsidization of advertising to cheapen the content cost to the average consumer. The model of advertising online would come after the existence of cheap and readily available content.
"I could use something to wear" – this line shows how online activities are not simply media searches but extend into everyday activities, like shopping.
The Google search bar becomes the channel of the new media. Where TV and Radio where the channel devices in old media, the search bar on a computer, specifically internet browsers, represents the point of interaction which the media is experienced. Rather than a maze to navigate, consumers have a "direct path".
The power pill with a red bow above it represents the organic search results returned by Google's algorithm. The blue line separates the "sponsored links" or advertising that is returned based upon the search and relate them to the current search query. Also the direct results of the query of "bow" and the search results of "bows" shows the rudimentary nature of early Google search results. This is known as semiotics, where the algorithm knows only the single word and its meaning. The varying colors of the bows in the sponsored links area shows how Google has the ability to remember past queries from the same IP address.
Pacman chooses to consume, or click, the organic search result of the red bow. The ads sliding away from Pacman show the ability of the consumer to ignore, or bypass the advertisements without having to consume them. This is fundamentally different than the Morse code where the content and the ads have to consumed as one experience. New media companies separate the two, meaning you don't have to consume both to consume one.
Google's response of "everything" represents 3 things. 1) The desire of Google, the company, to build a database of all the information in the world. "Or as Larry Page told me, a reference librarian with complete mastery of the entire corpus of human knowledge." (Battelle, 2005). 2) The conversational tone of the response show the desired future of search engines."Search technology is 5% of solved." says Udi Manber, CEO of Amazon's A9.com serch engine" (Battelle, 2005). In the future, the goal is to make search interaction as close to conversational as possible to give better results. 3) The awakening of Google's near artificial intelligence like algorithm in the future. The self conscious moment of artificial intelligence that people fear when a computer knows to much, a common theme in science fiction.
The ghost is a reference to the villains in Pacman, to show the looming fears of a company that knows to much about them. It also represents the uncertainty of consumer interaction with such radically new technologies and the speed at which they are evolving.
Personally customized ads iis the goal of Google's advertising ambitions at the moment. They have already achieved this online are are branching out into traditional media outlets, Google Ad Words Print ads and a partnership with Nielsen. How will Google do this?
Even on your "crackberry" – a slang term for the BlackBerry®, a mobile device. The crackberry reference is meant to show how Google will understand the use of slang in the future and be able to relate the slang to proper terminology, another desired attribute of Googles search algorithm. The announcement of Android, Google's mobile operating system makes this a reality.
"Baldness cure" - Google's thinking bubble represents the working algorithm. It is taking into account the current query and past queries. Here we see the semantic web at work. Concepts are created through the associations of semiotics. The bow, previously searched and consumed, could be considered head wear in the context so Google calculates it into the equation, as well as some of the other colors Pacman likes. While more data is involved in the equation, the example works to demonstrate how the process might work theoretically. The query itself hearkens to the vanity of the modern consumer and the plight of the hairless Pacman.
A mullet wig is used as a comical representation of an organic search result. The hair color in a can and the beanie represent sponsored links generated by the algorithm as possible alternatives to that Pacman might not have thought of as baldness cures. "Could you use of these?" shows the early stages of punctuation Google uses. This shows the evolving complexity and understanding of Google's algorithm and search technologies.
Pacman chooses to consume the advertisement. This uncovers the mystery of Google's revenue stream. While nobody makes any direct money from clicking on an organic search, clicking on a sponsored link generates a small revenue for Google. It also shows the empowerment of the consumer in new media. While the organic search result wasn't exactly what Pacman was looking for, the sponsored link returned an unexpected result that fit the consumers desire better than the organic result.
This querry is the third and most abstract one Pacman has tried yet. In order for Google to know what Pacman is asking about it must be incredibly aware of the context in which the search was entered. This would be a long term goal for Google, for the search engine to have a rich database of information on the consumer in order to better understand abstract search results. In combination with understanding the complexity of semantics, we see how the evolution of combing information with semantics and context could generate incrediblyspecific search results that fit exactly the desired result.
The casual nature of the response represents both the confidence of Google's results and the conversational nature of the interaction. Feeling lucky is a nod to the "feeling lucky" button on Google's search engine, which takes the consumer to the first organic results returned.
"I'm me. A searching consumer" This is the completion of the evolution from an average consumer bound by demographics to a consumer defined by behavior.