I surrender. I’m now officially retiring from trying to convince anyone that making online content replicate the offline version it mirrors “misses the point.”

When one of Google’s most senior executives suggests that online content needs to preserve the context of how it appeared in print, any logic in my argument is toast. In this video, Google’s Marissa Mayer argues that online content mirroring content offline publications is best understood when the offline context is preserved: Same headlines, same page numbers, same linear navigation that starts with a front page and ends with a back page. You know, the kind of media where you don’t have the luxury of search to help you navigate through.

In the linked-to video (from TechCrunch 50), Mayer demonstrates a new initiative of Google that will scan newspapers to add to the results one finds on Google’s News Archive Search. The business model is this: The newspaper archives will display Google Adsense ads and the revenue will be shared with the newspaper’s publisher. The service will also have links “to drive off-line subscriptions to the newspapers,” she said (with a straight face).

In what I would have considered an unintentionally ironic comment had she not repeated it so many times, Mayer says in the video, “(scanning the full page of a newspaper) is important because the news articles can be seen in their original context.” In the demo, she shows how one can see the relative placement of the stories and what ads were appearing next to the article and what was on the front page of the newspaper on that day.

Why is that ironic?

Google has just spent the past ten years creating technology and one of the world’s largest businesses that is based on getting you to the exact word or phrase you are looking for — not the sentence, or paragraph, or article, or page or issue you are looking for, but the precise nugget of knowledge you are seeking. Context, be damned.

As someone who loves research and history, I am delighted that Google is bringing online what I used to search for using microfiche. I think it will be a great academic research tool. Indeed, I’m already a huge fan and I’ve only spent five minutes testing it out.

However, let’s be honest. The only reason Google is doing this is to shovel a vast inventory of archival content online on which to run Google ads. The notion that Google is about preserving the “context” of content is, at best, ironic, at worst, cynical spin.

Google is an advertising search company, not a context preservation company.

Later: One of my favorite Googlers has let me know they think this post is mis-guided. That Google has always pointed back to the the place where the content can be found — this merely adds another dimension wherein Google can point to where content is found in a medium first created offline.

I agree that this new project is a great research tool and can benefit academics and anyone doing historical research. However, my original post is influenced by the number of years I’ve spent trying to explain why content online does not have to replicate the same format and conventions of its offline version. There’s an entire industry of web-apps people who are trying to convince publishers they should produce exact, PDF-like versions of their magazines online. I think that’s fine in certain instances and for certain publications. But I don’t think it’s an effective online strategy. My argument is nuanced and esoteric and of interest to very few. So I’ll stop there.

Note: I removed the UStream embedded video (here’s a link to it) because it automatically started playing whenever I landed anywhere on this blog’s front page. Very annoying.

A comment on comments: Yesterday, I wrote the following on Twitter:

“FriendFeed, Twitter, Seesmic et al, are pointing in the direction of something. They aren’t the destination.”

Because everything I post on Twitter (and other places) is mirrored on FriendFeed, the “tweet” appeared there at the same time.

If you look at the comments following that FriendFeed post, you’ll note that my friend (and I don’t mean that just because we said so on FaceBook) Dave Winer commented that he, “Totally agree(d) with this.”

Because so many people have learned that it’s important to listen to Dave (even when they disagree with him) his FriendFeed comment about my “tweet” led to a robust disussion that still lingers 17 hours later.

Which leads me to the topic of comments: A small group of the people who read this blog are currently obsessed with trying to understand where “comments” fit into conversational media. Even those of us who think we at least have a grasp of social media — who know its role in de-centralizing “content” — are fascinated (and some, upset) that comments on our blogs are now becoming de-centralized.

It fascinates me that some bloggers, who more often than not, are using their blog to comment on items they read elsewhere, are becoming upset that comments about their posts are taking place elsewhere.

As for me, I love that comments are finally being recognized as the treasure they are.

I don’t care where the conversation takes place. I want to understand it and embrace it.

Why I find all of this fascinating: You know that kid who loves tearing apart physical things to understand how they work. The one who can actually put the stuff he or she tears apart back together again. “She should be an engineer when she grows up,” people will say about that kid.

I wasn’t that kid.

But looking back, I was obsessed with tearing apart virtual things to understand how they work. I was never interested in how my television worked, but I was extremely curious about how programs were written and produced. I was never really that interested in printing presses, but I can’t remember a time I didn’t wonder about how reporters gathered news and editorial decisions were made. I was also fascinated with what today I’d call group dynamics and how teams and clubs and cliques came together and grew or fell apart. I was an organizer of groups and a conversation “moderator” decades before I even realized that groups and conversation need to be organized and moderated. I was fascinated with why fans become fans and what “loyalty” is all about. I was that kid.

For almost 20 years (back to the CompuServe days) the online world has provided me (and many others like me) with an amazing laboratory in which we get to tear apart the flow of information and the creation of conversation and community in an attempt to understand how they work. For some of us, that’s like being a kid in a, well, info-candy shop.

I’ll admit. I’m not merely doing this for fun. I have a business that allows me to apply what I learn in this laboratory to improve our internal conversations and community — and to incorporate what we learn into improving and enhancing the products and services we sell. But, I think it’s also apparent that I still have a child-like curiousity about the ways in which people use technology to share with one-another and to spread information — and create community.

The most important thing I’ve learned is this: It’s not about the technology. I know so many people who are “afraid” of something because they think it’s “technology.” Frankly, technology developers don’t help things by creating products that are driven by features and functions than by ease-of-use. It still amazes me that after 30 years, so many professional marketers don’t understand why Apple has a cult following. “Cool” is what marketers think Apple is all about. “Not corporate” perhaps, you know, that I’m a Mac, I’m a PC thing, perhaps. As a Mac-tard since 1984, I’ll tell you why Apple has a cult following. They make products for people who don’t give a rip about technology. They make products for users. And even though they don’t say it anymore, their products are for the “rest of us” who don’t really care how the technology works, we just want the technology to disappear so we can listen, read, write, create, share, buy, sell, etc.

I’m obsessed with what’s taking place here. But I’m obsessed as a user and “content” creator and “community” builder and participant.

That’s why I’m such a geek.

[Photo: cocoen via Flickr.]

[Sorry, earlier I had some versioning issues with this post as it reverted to previous iterations (user error, I'm sure). I think that's cleared up now.]

From Robert Cox’s post on the back story of how the AP and the Drudge Retort came to terms comes this quote:

“AP’s position that there was no fair use exception for a post which contained only the verbatim AP headline of a story and the lede paragraph. AP’s argument has been that a large percentage of the value of what they deliver is carefully packaged in that content and so the publishing of that information without permission was a copyright violation.

I’m trying to remain open-minded until I hear from the AP their specific guidance on what they believe IS fair use. One thing seems clear, however. They view this as a legal issue, not an issue of common sense the value of links in an attention-based economy.

But something else is also clear to me. They can do whatever they want. It’s their content. We may believe content wants to be free, but if those who own it don’t want it to be free, they can hire an army of lawyers to argue that belief. You need to be prepared to do similarly if you want to fight for your beliefs. If AP wants to, they can rope-a-dope this issue for a decade (or as long as newspapers are around). Personally, I don’t want to spend another dime on attorney fees testing anything — however I would contribute to the cause.

The reality is, there are lots of sources to link to who would welcome the Google juice that comes from bloggers linking to them. The Wall Street Journal goes out of its way to tear down its paywall for bloggers. So if the AP wants to drive traffic away from its member newspaper sites and to content from Reuters, Dow-Jones, the New York Times and the original news stories on which much of the AP stories are based, then why bother fighting them? (That was a rhetorical question — I actually know the answer, but really don’t care to engage in the debate.)

Bonus links: While I haven’t had time to blog about this issue during the past week (nor, frankly, the desire to jump in until now), I’ve read some great analysis — along with way too-much of what Dave Winer calls “breast-beating” to attract traffic. Two posts written by Scott Karp were especially insightful to me: “Associated Press Hands Local And National News Sites An Opportunity To Get Links And Traffic” and “Connecting The Dots Of The Web Revolution.” Also, Dave Winer suggests this morning that, “(it would be great to) have a discussion, even an argument, without the posturing and breast-beating. It’s all bluffing, a play for more attention, page-reads, flow, money.” I agree, but am not sure if I can always discern the difference between arguing and breast-beating. Oh well, enjoy the day.

Over the years, it’s been fascinating to watch the light turn on for certain people regarding what’s taking place in the marketplace of “content” (excuse me, Doc). For example, today, Paul Krugman writes an “a-ha” piece after using an Amazon Kindle for a couple of months.

Quote:

“Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me.

Whenever I read something like that, I have to take a deep breath and admit to myself that not everyone has spent the past 20 years obsessed with this topic. Whenever I read something like that, I wish I had a place to point people to a few seminal writings that have provided similar a-ha-moments to really geeky folks (like me) — but a long time ago.

If you have some more writings that provided an a-ha moment to you, please add them to the comments.

Here are a few of my go-to ones:

1. The Esther Dyson essay, “Intellectual Value,” written in the July, 1995, issue of Wired magazine. (Krugman quotes Dyson in his piece today, but does not link to it.) Go ahead, commit it to memory. It’s like the Gettysburg Address.

2. The book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, grew from this now “read-only landmark website.” (Here’s a place to read the book for free.) It pretty much foresees everything that marketing is becoming. It’s like when Luther nailed his 95 theses to that door in Wittenburg.

3. While not a specific article, I find myself referring often to the concept Paul Saffo coined “macro-myopia.” It relates to forecasting the impact of new technology and means, roughly, “in the short term we overestimate, in the long term we underestimate” the impact of new technology. This is an idea I’ve written about several times over the years (on the Cluetrain listserv in 2000, here in 2002 and in 2004 when Paul explained his role in adding to a concept developed by Roy Amara, Ev Rogers and others. The importance of the concept today is this: When those of us who are obsessed with technology see something that we know is going to change everything, we delude ourselves into thinking the change will be overnight. Technology adoption has a very predictable cycle and even those technologies that look like instant hits are likely catching a wave that was two-decades in the building.

Two bonus long reads for those who find comfort in realizing all these new ideas have been around a long, long time.:

4. The 1945 article, “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush (synopsis).

5. The Machine Stops, a 1909 science fiction novella (12,000 words) by E.M. Forster.

Chris Anderson’s post on LongTail.com contains an observation that is so obvious, it is missed by many self-appointed experts. (Okay, I’ll admit I live in that glass house.):

“Not only do small (Long Tail) publishers montetize their content at 3-5 times the rate of the larger publishers in PubMatic’s survey, but they’re improving in the current environment while the big publisher decline.

This is a fact of life in business-to-business-media, where the business model has long been focused on “free” distribution of content to decision-makers in specialized fields. The “cost per thousand” (CPM) model of advertising sales does not exist as a metric in this long-tail of the media world. Of course, if an advertiser selling a $100,000 piece of equipment can reach 90% of the decision makers in a market of 5,000 specifying engineers, then, hell-yeah, the publisher of that content should be able to monetize it at hundreds of times the rate of, say, a newsweekly.

The lesson here: Online, if you want to monetize content, the number of eyeballs seeing your content is less important than who those eyeballs belong to. And the more helpful that content is in assisting real people make important and valuable decisions, the more “monetizable” it will be.