New “Google Search Plus” Yields Unintended Results

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Google is turning the faceless Web into the Facelook Web with its new “personal search tool linked wih social media.”

From the Washington Post:

Google is taking Googling yourself to a whole new level, by folding users’ personal data into Google search results. The personalized search results pull data from users’ Google accounts such as Picasa and Google+, and offers users the option to toggle between searching their own personal data and searching the Web as a whole.

Super!

Just two problems:

Antitrust issues and privacy concerns.

Regarding the former:

• Twitter, a microblogging service that allows its users to broadcast short, 140-character messages to groups of “followers,” said Google’s changes would make it tougher for people to find the breaking news often shared by users of its service.

“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter. As a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results,” the company said in a statement.

“We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users,” the statement continued.

Twitter’s criticism, which came hours after Google announced new features aimed at making search results more personalized, underscored the growing competition between the Web companies. And it comes at a time when Google is facing antitrust scrutiny for favoring its own services within its search results.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to answer a question about whether the company might reach out to antitrust regulators about Google’s changes. (via Reuters)

• Google is diving deeper into personalized search results, debuting a feature called “Google Plus Your World”. But the debut of the service, which pulls results from your own content plus social circles from Google-owned services may catch the ire of regulators.

The company is fighting off calls on Capitol Hill over antitrust claims, and in September found itself testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Senators wanted to gauge the power the Mountain View, Calif. company has over the search industry, and favoring Google’s own service is sure to raise questions. (via betanews)

Capitol Hill, here you come, Googleniks.

Then there’s the privacy thing, as Search Engine Land points out:

The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.

However, Search Plus Your World may cause some privacy worries, as private content may appear as if it is exposed publicly (it is not). It might also cause concern by making private content more visible to friends and family than those sharing may have initially intended.

So, to summarize:

Google’s new search feature opens up new worlds of results for you.

Google’s new search feature shrinks the world of results for you.

Pick your poison.

Originally posted on the New! Improveder! Sneak ADtack!

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Dead Blogging The New Hampshire Primary Results

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Question, comments, bitter recriminations from 35,000 feet up (the hardworking staff fled to South Carolina early, remember?):

• Who was that screaming meemie at Mitt Romney’s victory speech?

• James Carville is a moron (for insisting on CNN that the GOP electorate has lost enthusiasm since 2008 despite a higher voter turnout this year).

• Why did Jon Huntsman address the crowd at his non-victory speech as “ladies and gentlemen”? Weren’t they ideally “my friends”?

• Newt Gingrich is a moron. Period.

• Rick Santorum needs to unclench his teeth.

• At 39%, Romney beat the over-under.

• Republican gunsel Steve Schmidt has become MSNBC’s house cat.

• What’s a palmetto again?

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Online Political Digests Now Have An Ad-ed Feature

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Because we’re all about you, splendid readers, the hardworking staff reads lots of online political digests, from Politico’s Playbook and Morning Score to ABC’s The Note, MSNBC’s First Read, The Daily Beast Cheat Sheet, The Daily Caller, The Weekly Standard’s Newsletter, and etc.

And what we’ve noticed lately is that many of them are starting to include ads in their daily updates – some blatant, some subtle. But definitely there.

As far as the hardreading staff can determine, Politico’s Playbook was the first to jump in the pool, embedding ads like this in its text:

(Not yet for Politico’s Morning Score, though.)

But The Weekly Standard Newsletter did follow suit:

The Daily Caller’s DC Morning goes them one better, featuring both embedded text . . .

. . . and a display ad:

So far the Daily Beast, First Read, and The Note have avoided this ad-ifying trend. But it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it?

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A Word About Boston Globe’s ‘The Word’ Column

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Boston Globe The Word columnist Erin McKean (who also writes for the Wall Street Journal) had a typically smart piece this past Sunday:

The horror of ungrammatical lyrics

Do language errors in popular songs make you shudder? You’re not alone.

Among McKean’s observations:

A stranger misfire is when songwriters put in an extra preposition. That’s the issue in John Mellencamp’s “Small Town,” in which he sang “I cannot forget from where it is that I come from.” Maybe if you’re lucky, you missed hearing what’s commonly considered one of the “worst Christmas songs of all time” these past few weeks, Andy Williams’s “Happy Holidays/It’s the Holiday Season,” which includes the line: “he’ll be comin’ down the chimney down!”

But – all due respect – McKean missed the best example of all: Paul McCartney’s lyrics from “Live and Let Die”:

But if this ever changing world in which we live in/Makes you give in and cry/Say live and let die

Live and let cry, eh?

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Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Palmetto Preview Edition)

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Just as bigfeet Tom Brokaw and Gail Collins did (Politico Playbook: “Hotel rooms … are freeing up [in New Hampshire] as journalists, including NBC’s Tom Brokaw and New York Times columnist Gail Collins, head straight to South Carolina”), the hardworking staff has exited the Granite State early and headed for the Palmetto State.

Our madcap review of the adstravaganza already underway there:

• Rick Perry Has “Values”

 

Farmer’s son, Air Force pilot, man of faith, married his high school sweetheart – what’s not to like?

• Ron Paul Feels a Sense of “Betrayal”

 

The emergency backup hypocrite to Newt Gingrich is . . . Rick Santorum, corrupt lobbyist.

Okay then.

• Restore Our Future Super PAC Restores Mitt Romney’s Future

 

We don’t need no stinking community organizer. We need a corporate disorganizer.

• Winning Our Future Super PAC Destroys Mitt Romney’s Past

 

The Bain of Mitt Romney’s existence. At least for now.

More, inevitably, to come.

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The Great Expectations Game

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The New Hampshire primary is all about the over-under, the percentage that determines whether Mitt Romney has exceeded, met, or failed to meet expectations.

The game, of course, is who gets to set those expectations.

Here are the early lines from some prominent political bookmakers;

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz (via AP):

“If Mitt Romney doesn’t get over 50 percent on Tuesday here, being a former governor of the state right next door and having a family home here, then there’s something seriously wrong,” said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Associated Press.

Romney strategist Stuart Stevens (via Michael Barone)::

“It’s mathematically impossible to win 40% in this field of candidates.” So Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s chief political consultant, told me yesterday. This is part of the expectations game: Romney was running above 40% in New Hampshire polls in the days just after the Iowa caucuses but is now at 38% in the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls, which includes the most iteration of each tracking poll and other polls taken in January. Stevens obviously wants to avoid the Maria Carrier effect, named after Edmund Muskie’s New Hampshire coordinator in the 1972 Democratic race, who said publicly that anything less than 50% for Muskie (who was from next-door Maine) would be a defeat. So when Muskie beat George McGovern 46%-37%, that was widely treated as a defeat—and McGovern went on to win the nomination.

(For a comprehensive historical overview, see NPR’s political junkie Ken Rudin.)

New York Times numberologist Nate Silver for the tiebreaker:

See you at the exit polls.

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Let The $4 Billion Rumpus Begin! (Extreme New Hampshire Edition)

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Once around the New Hampshire airwaves, James, and don’t spare the horses.

• Mitt Romney’s American Optimism

 

This is Mitt as good cop, doing the “I See An America” thing. Meanwhile, Romney’s bad cop, the Restore Our Future Super PAC, runs this ad in the New Hampshire Union Leader (via Politico):

The hardworking staff sees an America where Pres. Mitt Romney has all sorts of gunsels to do his dirty work.

• Mitt Romney, Vulture Capitalist

The George Sorosly funded MoveOn.org is running this ad in New Hampshire to take the bloom off the Mitt:

 

See: Ted Kennedy playbook, circa 1994.

• Jon Huntsman Is Someone

Our Destiny PAC, the front group established by Jon Huntsman’s father, is currently running a :30 version of this TV spot in New Hampshire:

 

“Why haven’t we heard of this guy” you ask? Why hasn’t he told us about himself loud enough to be heard?

• Huntsman: We’re Getting Screwed

Of course, Jon Huntsman is not just Daddy’s best boy – he’s also his own man, and here’s the ad to prove it:

 

Hey – can a Mormon really say “screwed”? Isn’t that sort of linguistic caffeine? And if we’re gonna have a Mormon president, wouldn’t you prefer one who says H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks when he gets lathered up?

(This has been an unpaid political message from Mitt Romney.)

• Newt Gingrich Goes Timid

The New Hampshire TV spot from Peggy Noonan’s angry little attack muffin:

 

Romney’s timid? Gingrich is downright lame.

More, inevitably, to come.

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Dead Blogging The GOP New Hampshire Debate

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

(The Hardworking Staff Held iPadlocked, Day 4. No video, no links, no ITALICS. Free the Campaign Outsider One!)

Let’s get right to the major results of last night’s Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire:

1) If you picked “jobs” for your drinking game, you were knee-walking by 9:10.

2) The winner: Mitt Romney. The loser: George Stephanopoulos. His line of questioning on state efforts to ban contraception could’ve used some birth control.

In other matters (more or less chronologically):

* Nice ad lib by Rick Santorum when Ron Paul’s mic failed as he whacked Santorum for being corrupt: “It caught you not telling the truth, Ron.”

* Romney smiling while Paul and Santorum go at one another.

* Romney consistently declined to attack his GOP opponents, instead going after Barack Obama. Message: I don’t care about you.

* Paul won’t repeat “chicken hawk” reference to Newt Gingrich, but wins the battle anyway.

* Paul won’t address newsletters issues, changes the topic instead.

* ABC reprises its Debate Rewind cliplets, which are still total SportsCenter wannabes.

* Could Diane Sawyer be any more saccharine and self-satisfied? Two representative samples:

1) She calls for questions that “people in their living rooms are concerned about.” Seriously, Sawyer wouldn’t know average people if they occupied her kitchen.

2) She tells co-moderator Josh McElveen what question to ask about job creation. (Diane Sawyered is the new Tom Sawyered.)

* Jobs blah blah blah economy blah blah blah debt blah blah blah sound money blah blah blah – eyes glazing all across this great nation of ours.

* Mitt Romney: “I don’t want to criticize your questions, George, but the real question is, ‘What’s the vision?'”

Yo, Mitt: That’s exactly the question Diane Sawyer just asked. What debate are you at?

* Gingrich and Santorum whack Romney on economy. Romney responds by whacking – wait for it – Barack Obama.

* But Romney does go at Huntsman on China, leading the former Chinese ambassador to respond in – wait for it – Chinese.

Rule of thumb: Never speak Chinese at a GOP event. See Huntsman’s turn on the Colbert Report for details.

See more on Sunday’s Meet the Press.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Arts Seen In The Big Town (II)

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

Three to see in New York City:

* Cecil Beaton: The New York Years at the Museum of the City of New York (through 2/20/12). And while you’re there, check out The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011 (through 4/5/12).

* The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League at the Jewish Museum (through 5/25/12).

* Maurizio Cattelan: All at the Guggenheim Museum (through 1/22/12 – hurry!).

From the Guggenheim website: “This retrospective survey brings together virtually everything the artist Maurizio Cattelan has produced since 1989, and presents the works en masse, strung haphazardly from the oculus of the Guggenheim’s rotunda.”

(That means hung from the ceiling for all of you keeping score at home.)

Campaign Outsider Nutshell Review (pat. pending):

Common elements in this exhibit: Lots of taxidermy (dogs, pigeons, horses, donkeys), lots of suicide (even a squirrel suicide in a little kitchen), lots of historical figures (Picasso, Hitler, Pope John Paul II killed by a meteor).

Also: Granny in the fridge, the world’s largest foosball table, and a whole bunch of stuff the hardworking staff isn’t smart enough to understand.

But two things we do know:

1) It wasn’t enough for the museum goers (and this was on Pay What You Wish Night) to just look at the the truly amazing array of artwork. Shutterbug Nation needs to RECORD it on their Smartphones.

2) Maurizio Cattelan has got issues.

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Arts Seen In The Big Town

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Campaign Outsider

The Missus and I went down the city and here’s some of what we saw:

* Vivian Maier at the Howard Greenberg Gallery

A professional nanny in Chicago, Vivian Maier was also a street photographer nonpareil from the 1950s to the 1990s. A very smart exhibit.

* Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones at the Bard Graduate Center

This collaboration between the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and hat maker extraordinaire Stephen Jones “displays more than 250 hats chosen with the expert eye of the master milliner.”

And master marketer. But why get technical about it.

* Diego Rivera Murals at MOMA

See it if only for the fabulous dustup between Rivera and his benefactors, the Rockefellers.

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