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Exclusive Interview: Larry Cornett, Yahoo Director Of User Experience Design

Note: This is the 2nd of the Just Behave series from Search Engine Land. This one ran back in February, 2007. At the time of this interview, Yahoo Search was retooling and trying to gain some marketshare lost to Google. They had just launched Panama, their ad management platform. In our eyetracking study, we found Yahoo – more than any of the other engines – loaded the top of the SERP with sponsored ads. We felt this would not bode well for Yahoo’s user experience and we talked about that in this interview. Yahoo pushed back, saying in many cases, a sponsored ad was what the user was looking for. I remember thinking at the time that this didn’t pass our own usability “smell test.” Three years later, Yahoo Organic search would be shuttered and replaced with results from Microsoft’s Bing.

This week I caught up with Larry Cornett, the relatively new Director of User Experience Design at Yahoo and Kathryn Kelly, Director of PR for Yahoo! Search. Again, to set the stage for the interview, here are some high level findings from our eye tracking study that I’ll be discussing in more detail with Larry and Kathryn.

Emphasis on Top Sponsored Results

In the study we found Yahoo emphasized the top sponsored results more than either Microsoft or Google. They showed top sponsored results for more searches and devoted more real estate to them. This had the effect of giving Yahoo! the highest percentage of click throughs on top sponsored, but on first visits only. On subsequent visits the click through rate on these top sponsored ads dropped to a rate lower than what was found on Google or Microsoft.

Better Targeted Vertical Results

Yahoo’s vertical results, or Shortcuts, seem to be better targeted to the queries used by the participants in the survey. Especially for commercial searches, Yahoo did a good job disambiguating intent from the query and providing a researcher with relevant vertical results in the product search category.

How Searching from a Portal Impacted the Search Experience

When we look at how the search experience translated from a portal page where the query is launched to the results page, we found that Yahoo had a greater spread of entry points on the actual search results page. This brings up the question of how launching a search from a portal page rather than a simple search page can impact the user experience and their interaction with the results they see.

I had the chance to ask Larry and Catherine about the Yahoo search experience and how their own internal usability testing has led to the design and the experience we see today. Further I asked them about their plans for the future and what their strategy is for differentiating themselves from the competition, namely Microsoft and Google. One difference you’ll notice from Marissa’s interview last week is the continual reference to Yahoo’s advertisers as key stakeholders in the experience. At Yahoo, whenever user experience is mentioned, it’s always balanced with the need for monetization.

Here’s the interview:


Gord: First let’s maybe just talk in broad terms about Yahoo’s approach to the user experience and how it affects your search interface. How are decisions made? What kind of research is done? Why does Yahoo’s search page looks like it does?

Larry: I can give you a little bit. I have been here about 7 months, so I’m still fairly new to Yahoo. But I can tell you a little bit about how we move forward with our decision making process and the approach we are taking with Yahoo.. We try to strike a balance between user experience and the needs of business as well as our advertising population. We want to provide the best user experience for the users who are trying to find information and give them most efficient experience they can have and then also provide a good ecosystem for our advertisers. And we do a tremendous amount of research here: we do a lot of usability testing, we do surveys. We also do eye tracking studies. All those help inform us when thing are working really well for users and one we need to work on improving things.

Kathryn: And we do bucket testing on a lot of different features, on different properties, to get feed back from our users before ever implementing any new features.

Gord: Since we conducted the study we’ve noticed some changes on the search interface. Do changes tend to be more evolutionary or do you lump them together into a major revision and roll them out together?

Larry: I’d say we do both. We have essentially two parallel tracks. One is continuous improvement, so we’re always looking to improve the experience. They would be considered the evolutionary changes based on a lot of data we are looking at. Then we also have larger things that we’re definitely interested on a more strategic direction, that we look at in a longer term window for larger changes.

Gord: One of the things that we did spend a fair amount of time on in this study is this whole idea of perceived relevancy. If we set a side the whole question of how relevant are the actual results based on the content of those results and what shows, and look more how quickly scent is picked up by the user and how the results that they see are perceived to be relevant. Does that notion coincide with your findings from the internal research and how is that idea of the appearance of relevancy rather the actual relevancy play into the results you present?

Larry: Yes, that absolutely is similar to the types of research findings that we’ve had, specifically with some of the eye tracking studies. We also continue to make efforts on actual relevance so our Yahoo search team is constantly doing improvements to everything to have real relevance improve. But you right, that perceived relevance is actually the most important thing because, at the end of the day, that’s what the users are looking at and that’s what they walk away with. In terms of: Was my search relevant? Did I find what I was looking for?

I do like the concept that you have with the information scent, the semantic mapping. I think it definitely ties into the mental model that a user has when they approach search and they are doing a query. They looking for things that come back to match what they have on their mind, what they are looking for in the results, so the more they actually see those search terms and things they are having in their mind, in terms of what they’re expecting to see, the more relevant the search is going to be for them.

Gord: It comes down to the efficiency of the user experience too, how quickly they find what they are looking for, how quickly they think they find what they are looking for and how successful that click through is. Did the promise match up with what was actually delivered on the other end?

Larry: Yes absolutely.

Gord: One of the biggest differences we saw between Yahoo and the other engines was the treatment of the top sponsored ads. I think it’s fair to say that in both the percentages of the searches that ads were presented for and the number presented, you were more aggressive than MSN (now Live Search) and Google. Obviously I understand the monetization reasoning behind that, but maybe you can speak a little bit as far as the user experience.

Larry: Sure, I mean in many cases those results are, and even in your report you showed this, those results are exactly what the users are looking for. Very often what they see in that sponsored section actually is a good fit for the type of query they are doing, especially if you look at a commercial query. So it’s always finding that balance between monetization and showing organic results. We’re just trying to get the best results for the user based on what they are looking for.

Gord: I certainly agree with you with the fact that in a lot of cases the sponsored results were what they were looking for, but we couldn’t help but notice that there was always a little bit of suspicion or skepticism on the part of the user, both in how they scan the results, and even when they do click through to a result there seems to be a hesitancy to stop there. We found a tendency to want to check out at least the top organic listing as well. One thing with Yahoo is that, with the more aggressive presentation of top sponsored, their choices on the organic tend to get pushed closer and closer to the fold. Have you done any testing on that?

Larry: Yes, those are definitely things that we are exploring as we’re trying to improve the user experience. And we’ve done our own eye tracking as well. A lot of it does come down to a big difference between what’s above the fold and what’s below the fold. So we’re always being very careful when we’re exploring that, thinking about the dominant monitor resolution, settings that we’re looking at as people start to have more advanced systems and larger monitors and really trying to understand what they seeing when they given that first load of the search page.

Gord: We did notice that of all the three engines, Yahoo has the highest percentage of click throughs on top sponsored and first visits. A little more then 30 % of the clicks happened there. But we noticed that it dropped substantially on repeat visits, much more then it did on the other engines. Combine that with the fact that we saw more pogo sticking on Yahoo then we did on the other engines; someone would click through a top sponsored ad then click back to the search results. So, my question is; does the more aggressive presentation of top sponsored ads even out when you factor in the repeat visits and does those lower repeat click through rates negatively impact the monetization opportunities on those repeat visits?

Larry: I can’t get into too many details about that, because it starts to get into some of the business logic and business rules that we have. Especially looking at CTR (click through rates) and repeat visits, so yes, that’s probably a little more information that I actually have access to, myself.

Gord: OK, we’ll put that one off limits for now. Let’s shift gears a little bit. One of the other things that we noticed, that actually works very well on Yahoo, was Yahoo Shortcuts on the vertical results. It seems like you are doing a great job at disambiguating intent based on query and really giving searchers varied options in that vertical real state. Maybe you can talk about that.

Larry: You are absolutely right that those are very effective. And you’ll probably notice over time that we’re continuing to refine our Shortcuts, try to find even more appropriate shortcuts for different types of queries. A lot of that is based on the best end result, what the user is trying to find, and the more we can give them that information the better

Kathryn: And it’s faster too, right?

Larry: Exactly. So a lot of time people just want a quick answer; they don’t want to have to dig through a lot of web pages. They just want a very simple quick answer, so if we can provide that, then that is a great experience for them.
Kathryn: And we found that certain queries like movies, entertainment, weather, sports, travel, blend very nicely with those types of Shortcuts.

Gord: In talking to Google about this, they have fairly strictly monitored click throughs thresholds in both their top sponsored ads and on their vertical results; and if results aren’t getting clicked they don’t tend to show. It automatically gets turned off. What’s Yahoo’s approach to that? Are you monitoring CTRs and determining whether or not vertical results and top sponsored ads will appear for certain types of queries.

Larry: We definitely monitor that as well. We’re interested in tracking usage and so looking at the CTR, because we don’t want to be showing things that are not actually getting usage, so we do continually monitor the CTR and the Shortcuts.

Kathryn: Are you just referring to the Shortcuts or to all of the ads?

Gord: Both; top sponsored and vertical results or Shortcuts.

Kathryn: It’s the same for both.

Larry: Obviously we track CTR in both of those areas and look at that trend over time.

Gord: When we look at the visibility difference or the delta between those top sponsored ads and those side sponsored ads, when you factor in conversion rates, click through rates and everything else, is the difference as significant as it appears to be from an eye tracking study? How do you work with your advertisers to maximize their placement and to help them understand how people are interacting with that search real estate?

Larry: That is actually a separate team that works with those folks.

Gord: Is there overlap between the two departments? You would be on top of how the user is interfacing or interacting with the search results page. Do you share that information with that team and keep them up to date with how that real estate is been navigated?

Larry: Absolutely, it’s a very collaborate relationship, We are in communication constantly, they are giving us performance, we are giving them performance. So it’s always a very collaborative kind of relationship with that team. We definitely can give them recommendations and vice versa. We each have our own worlds that we own.

Gord: Maybe you can speak a little bit from the user’s perspective how Yahoo is when you position it against Microsoft Live Search and Google. What’s unique, why should a user be using Yahoo rather than the other two?

Larry: I’d say one of the key differentiators that you’ve seen released last year, and Terry Semel actually talks about this, is that we’re starting to introduce social search. If you look at Yahoo Answers, it’s one of the key examples of that. It’s a very exciting site that’s performing very well. There’s a lot of great press around it, and we starting to integrate that within the search experience itself, so you can do certain types of queries within search and at the bottom of the page you’ll see relevant best answers that are brought from Yahoo’s Answers. In many cases people look at that and say that it actually adds value. That’s one of the key differentiators here; there is definitely a social aspect to Yahoo Search.

Gord: As Yahoo Answers and that whole social aspect gains traction , is that something that either be moved up as far as visibility on the real state page, moved up into that Golden Triangle real estate or would it be rolled in almost transparently in what the results being shown are?

Larry: Anything is possible, but it’s something that we’re evaluating, so we’re constantly looking at data that comes from user studies and the live site performance, and so we’ll be making a decision about that as the year goes on.

Gord: One other thing that I think somewhat distinguishes Yahoo, especially from Google, is where the searches are launched from. When you look at user’s experience, obviously you are taking into consideration where those Yahoo searches are being launched from; a tool bar versus a portal versus the search page. How does that factor into the user experience?

Larry: You’re right. We definitely look at that type of data and really try to understand how those users might be different and their expectations might be different. So we’re constantly looking at that whole ecosystem because Yahoo is a very large network, with a lot of wonderful properties, so you have to understand how we all play together and what the relationship is between the properties back and forth.

Kathryn: Another thing is knowing where to put a search box on what property and what is going to work with the right mix of users for that property, because not every property is conducive to having a search box prominently displayed, and that’s something that we look at very closely.

Gord: Which brings up another question. One of the things that we speculated on the study is; does the intent of the user get colored based on the context that shows around that search box? If it gets launched from a very clean minimalist search page, there is little influence on intent, but if it gets launched from a portal, where there is a lot of content surrounding it, the intent can then be altered in between the click on the search box and ending up on the search page . Do you have any insight on that? Have you done your own studies on that impact?

Larry: We are definitely doing research within that area to understand the affect of the context and I don’t really have anything I can share at this point but I would say that there’s probably a lot of very interesting information to be derived from looking at that.

Gord: Ok. I’ll go out on the limb once more and say: Obviously if you can take the contextual messaging or what is surrounding that search box, and if it obviously correlates to the search, then I suppose that will help you in potentially targeting the advertising messaging that can go with that, right?

Larry: I think that’s fair to say.

Gord: Ok. I’ll leave it there. One question I have to ask comes down to the user interface. It seems as changes are made the differences between the three engines are getting fewer and fewer and it does seem like everyone is moving more to the standards that Google has defined. Is Google’s interface as it sits the de facto standard for a search results page now and if so, then in what areas does Yahoo differentiate itself? I’m talking more about the design of the page, white space, font usage, where the query bolding is…that type of thing.

Larry: There are a lot of really smart people in each of those companies. They also do their own user studies and they look at their metrics, so I think everyone is realizing over time that they’ve refined their search experience, what is working and what is not. So it’s not surprising to see some convergence in terms of the design and what seems to be most effective. I can’t really speak to whether Google is the de facto standard, but definitely they have a lot of eyeballs, so I think people do get use to seeing things in a certain way. I know from the Yahoo perspective that we want to do what’s best for our users. And I think we do have a user population that has certain expectations of us. I think a big part of that is the social search component, because people do think of Yahoo as a distinct company with its own brand, so there’s a lot that we want to do on that page that is completely independent of what other people might be doing because we want to do what’s best for our users.

Kathryn: And our users tend to be different than Google users. There is obviously overlap but we also have a distinct type of user than Google. We have to take that into consideration.

Gord: Can we go a little bit further down that road? Can we paint a picture of the Yahoo user and then explain how your interface is catering to their specific needs?

Larry: I can’t speak too much about it but one difference is that Yahoo is a lot of different things. We’re not just a search company, not just a mail company, not just a portal company; we serve a lot of needs. And we have a lot of tremendously popular, very effective properties that people use. Millions and millions come to the Yahoo network every day for a whole variety of reasons, so I think that’s one thing that’s different about the Yahoo user. They’re not coming to Yahoo for one purpose. There is often many, many purposes, so that’s something we definitely we have to take into consideration. And I think that’s one reason of many that we’re looking at social search. We know that our users are doing a lot of things in our network and it’s really effective if we’re aware of that.

Gord: So, rather then the task oriented approach with Google where their whole job is to get people in and out as quickly as possible, Yahoo Search supports that community approach where search is just one aspect of several things that people might be doing when they are engaged with the various properties?

Larry: We want to support whatever the user’s task is; and I think search is actually a very simple term and it encompasses a lot. People use search for a whole variety of reasons, millions and millions of reasons, so you have to be aware of what their intent is and, you talk a lot about that in your report, you support that. If they want to get in and out, that’s one task flow. If they want to have a place where they have access to data and information that is coming from their community, all the social information that they think is valuable, that’s another task flow. So, I think just being aware of the fact that search is multi-faceted, it’s not just a simple single type of task flow.

Kathryn: And another thing we talk about a lot is that Google is really about getting people off of their networks as fast as possible; we tend to want to keep people in our network and introduce them to other properties and experiences. So I think that’s also something that we take a look at.

Gord: So, what’s the challenge for Yahoo for search in the future, if you were looking at your whiteboard of the things that you’re tackling in 2007? We talked a little bit about social search, but as far as the user’s experience, what is the biggest challenge that has to be cracked over the next year or two?

Larry: We’ve been touching on that and I think the biggest challenge is really disambiguating intent. Really trying to understand what does the user want when they enter a few words into the search box. It’s not a lot to work with, obviously. So the biggest challenge is understanding the intent and giving them what they’re looking for, and doing that in the most effective way we can. Yes, probably not anything new but I’d say that is the biggest challenge.

Gord: And in dealing with that challenge, I would suspect that moving beyond the current paradigm is imperative in doing that. We’re used to interacting with search in a certain way, but to do what you’re saying we have to move quickly beyond the idea of a query and getting results back on a fairly static page.

Larry: There are certain expectations that users have, because search is search, and it’s been that way for many years, but I think you can see with our strategy with social search and what we’ve been doing with the integration of Yahoo Answers that it is a shift. And it’s showing that we believe for certain types of queries and for certain information that it’s very useful to bring it up, not just purely algorithmic results.

Gord: I’m just going to wrap up by asking one question, and I guess…somewhat of a self serving question, but with our eye tracking report, are there parts where we align with what you have found?

Larry: No…I found the report fascinating. I think you guys have done a wonderful job. It’s a very interesting read. There is a lot of great information there. And I think there is a lot that is in sync with some of our findings as well. So I think you definitely found some themes that make a lot of sense.

Gord: Thanks very much.

Next week, I talk with Justin Osmer, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft about the new Windows Live Search experience, how MSN Search fared in the eye tracking study, and how MSN Search evolved into the Live Search experience.

The Whole US – Canada Thing – “IMHO”

“Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States – a system that Canada has relied on since the second world war, a system that while not perfect has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades – is over”

Mark Carney, the New Prime Minister of Canada

I hope the above is not true. Because I’m not ready to sever my relationships with a whole bunch of Americans that I truly love and respect. Maybe that’s denialism, or maybe it’s just my hope that someday – eventually – cooler heads will prevail, and we’ll put this current spat behind us.

There was a good stretch of my life where I spent almost as much time in the U.S. as I did in Canada. I crossed the border repeatedly every month. I was on a first name basis with some of the U.S. Customs and Border officials at SeaTac airport in Seattle. I ran out of visa stamp pages on my Canadian passport and had to get more added. Many people in the search industry at the time just assumed I was American. Some back here in Canada even told me I had picked up an American accent somewhere along the way.

In that time, I made many wonderful friends, who came from every corner of the US:  Boston, Atlanta, Sacramento, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Hartford, Phoenix, Palo Alto, San Diego and Seattle.

I have to admit, my trips to the U.S. have dropped dramatically since November 2016. Part of that is that I no longer need to go to the U.S. for business. But part of it is also just my emotional distress, especially in the past few months. One of the analogies that really seemed to resonate with me is that the current US-Canadian relationship is akin to a messy divorce, and we’re the kids caught in the consequences of that. Going to the U.S. right now would be like going to a family reunion after your mom and dad have just split up. You don’t want to have to deal with the inevitable awkwardness and potential confrontations.

I’m not alone in my reluctance to cross the border. Travel from Canada to the U.S. has plummeted this year. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Canadian entries into the U.S. fell by 12.5% in February and dropped a further 18% in March.  A lot of Canadians have opted out of U.S travel, probably for many of the same reasons that I have.

But I think that’s part of the problem. As awkward as a conversation maybe between a Canadian and an American, whatever their politics, we need more of them, not less. Yes, there is a rift and damage has been done to one of the most successful international alliances in history, but as any counsellor will tell you, healing any relationship requires communication.

Also, I’ve never seen so much media attention from the U.S. turned towards Canada. Half of America seems to have chosen us as a beacon of democracy, truth and justice. While I appreciate that, I feel I have to level with you, my American friends and cousins; we are far from perfect. In fact, I have grave concerns about the future of Canada. We have our own extreme political polarization that has to be recognized and dealt with. It may be a little more polite and nuanced than what is happening currently in the U.S., but it is no less real.

We still have at least two provinces (Alberta and Quebec) who have political leaders that feel their futures would be better outside the Canadian dominion than within it. We have large segments of our population that feel unheard by our current government. We have many acute crises, including housing, a rising cost of living, broken promises to our indigenous community, an environment ravaged by climate change and many others. It’s just that the current economic crisis caused by Trump’s tariffs and vocal sabre rattling about becoming a 51st State has –  well – “Trumped” them all.

While we’re talking about Donald Trump, I have to admit that he does have a point – Canada has taken advantage of America’s willingness to protect the world. We have fallen well short of our 2% defense spending commitment to NATO since the end of the Cold War (we currently spend about 1.37% of our GDP). We have always enjoyed the benefits of cozying up to our American big brother. And in return, we have often repaid that with our own blend of passive aggressive sarcasm and a quiet feeling of moral superiority that is as much a part of the Canadian identity as hockey and Tim Horton’s coffee.

Being Canadian, I feel the need to apologize for that. I’m sorry.

Look. We’re in a tough spot right now. I get that. But I also believe this is not the time to retreat behind our own fences and refuse to talk to each other. This is the time to recognize how special what we had was. Emotions are running high but at some point, I’m fervently hoping this isn’t a permanent split.

Maybe we’re just taking a break. If you want to talk about it, I’m here.

Wishful Thinking for 2024

I write this on the first day of 2024. My 2023 went out last night with a whimper. That was intentional. Given the global trauma inflicted on us over the past few years, I felt a muted goodbye was best. And I’d be lying if I said I was looking forward to 2024. I am approaching it with the same enthusiasm as a minefield I have to tiptoe to the other side of.

I never really got celebrating New Year’s. It is literally just another day. In my childhood, many eons ago, New Year’s Eve was significant only because it was the one day a year when we were able to get both potato chips and dip.  If I remember rightly French Onion was our dip of choice. And I got to stay up late. The glow of that perk had dimmed dramatically over the years.

I suppose New Year’s gives us a chance for a global reset, to put the past year behind us and promise to do better in the coming year. It’s like that moment right after you have sorted out your sock drawer, writ large. You go forward swearing that only matched and bundled socks will go there from this point forward. Of course, it’s probably only a matter of days before that first stray Nike athletic sock finds its way there and the portal to the alternative universe of mismatched socks is prised open, allowing them to proliferate in your drawer without restraint.

But still, a fellow can dream, can’t he?

So, in that spirit, I do have a few things I hope take place in 2024. They are not resolutions – more like wishful thoughts.

Less Toxic Social Media

Given that 2024 is a US election year and is promises to be the most bizarre one yet, I hope that social media starts to move away from the cesspool of misinformation it currently is. Digital Anthropologist Giles Crouch (a job title I wish I had pursued 30 years ago) thinks “the invisible hand” (subscription required) will start to move on social media. Recent lawsuits and more restrictive legislation are already impacting the profitability of the main platforms.

But more than that, usage is changing. People under 30 are using social media as a connector less and less, preferring to meet face to face IRL (in Real Life). And the toxic audience (yes, I’m talking about my generation) that made Facebook and X (the former Twitter) such a threat to democracy is aging out. Hopefully new social media players that fill this emerging gap will learn from past mistakes.

World Governments Getting Serious about Climate Change

I hope that 2023 will prove to be the tipping point for dealing with Climate Change, moving it from a right vs left campaign talking point to something that we actually start doing something about.  Here in Canada, I’ve seen a few promising signs. Our federal government has a nasty habit of setting climate targets and then completely ignoring them. The website Climateactiontracker lists our targets as “Almost Sufficient” but our overall action as “Highly Insufficient” (putting us behind the US, which is rated as “Insufficient”).

But after last summer, when much of our country was on fire, I think we might finally be getting some legislation with some teeth in it.  Canada just unveiled plans to phase out sales of gas-powered cars by 2035. We just have to make our government stick to that plan.

Make Conscientious Capitalism a Real Thing

My final hope is that this year, we start to find a way to make free markets, consumerism and capitalism work for a sustainable society rather than against it. History has proven that there is no more efficient engine for innovation than capitalism, but it has also shown that economist Milton Friedman was right: the only thing corporations care about (or should care about) is maximizing profit.

Maybe this year, we can find a way to make good behavior more profitable. And that puts the onus on us, the market. We have to make our purchase decisions with our future in mind. Ultimately, that future will follow the money and for that reason, the buck always stops with us. In a capitalist society, no one is more powerful than the consumer. We have to wield that power wisely.

It’s 2024. Good luck. I think we’ll need it.

(Image – Laura Billings – Creative Commons License)

AI, Creativity and the Last Beatle’s Song

I have never been accused of being a Luddite. Typically, I’m on the other end of the adoption curve – one of the first to adopt a new technology. But when it comes to AI, I am stepping forward gingerly.

Now, my hesitancy notwithstanding, AI is here to stay. In my world, it is well past the tipping point from a thing that exists solely in the domain to tech to a topic of conversation for everyone, from butchers to bakers to candlestick makers. Everywhere I turn now I see those ubiquitous two letters – AI. That was especially true in the last week, with the turmoil around Sam Altman and the “is he fired/isn’t he” drama at OpenAI.

In 1991 Geoffery Moore wrote the book Crossing the Chasm, looking at how technologies are adopted. He explained that it depends on the nature of the technology itself. If it’s a continuation of technology we understand, the adoption follows a fairly straight-forward bell curve through the general population.

But if it’s a disruptive technology – one that we’re not familiar with – then adoption plots itself out on an S-Curve. The tipping point in the middle of that curve where it switches from being skinny to being fat is what he called the “chasm.” Some technologies get stuck on the wrong side of the chasm, never to be adopted by the majority of the market.  Think Google Glass, for example.

There is often a pattern to the adoption of disruptive technologies (and AI definitely fits this description).  To begin with, we find a way to adapt it and use it for the things we’re already doing. But somewhere along the line, innovators grasp the full potential of the technology and apply it in completely new ways, pushing capabilities forward exponentially. And it’s in that push forward where all the societal disruption occurs. Suddenly, all the unintended consequences make themselves known.

This is exactly where we seem to be with AI. Most of us are using it to tweak the things we’ve always done. But the prescient amongst us are starting to look at what might be, and for many of us, we’re doing so with a furrowed brow. We’re worried, and, I suspect, with good reason.

As one example, I’ve been thinking about AI and creativity. As someone who has always dabbled in creative design, media production and writing, this has been top of mind for me. I have often tried to pry open the mystic box that is the creative process.

There are many, creative software developers foremost amongst them, that will tell you that AI will be a game changer when it comes to creating – well – just about anything.

Or, in the case of the last Beatle single to be released, recreating anything. Now and Then, the final Beatles song featuring the Fab Four, was made possible by an AI program created by Peter Jackson’s team for the documentary Get Back. It allowed Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and their team of producers (headed by George Martin’s son Giles) to separate John Lennon’s vocals from the piano background on a demo tape from 1978.

One last Beatle’s song featuring John Lennon – that should be a good thing – right?  I guess. But there’s a flip side to this.

Let’s take writing, for example. Ask anyone who has written something longer than a tweet or Instagram post. What you start out intending to write is never what you end up with. Somehow, the process of writing takes its own twists and turns, usually surprising even the writer. Even these posts, which average only 700 to 800 words, usually end up going in unexpected directions by the time I place the final period.

Creativity is an iterative process and there are stages in that process. It takes time for it all to  play out. No matter how good my initial idea is, if I simply fed it in an AI black box and hit the “create” button, I don’t know if the outcome would be something I would be happy with.

“But,” you protest, “what about AI taking the drudgery out of the creative process? What if you use it to clean up a photo, or remove background noise from an audio recording (a la the Beatles single). That should free up more time and more options for you to be creative, right?”

That’s promise is certainly what’s being pitched by AI merchants right now. And it makes sense. But it only makes sense at the skinny end of the adoption curve. That’s where we’re at right now, using AI as a new tool to do old jobs. If we think that’s where we’re going to stay, I’m pretty sure we’re being naïve.

I believe creativity needs some sweat. It benefits from a timeline that allows for thinking, and rethinking, over and over again. I don’t believe creativity comes from instant gratification, which is what AI gives us. It comes from iteration that creates the spaces needed for inspiration.

Now, I may be wrong. Perhaps AI’s ability to instantly produce hundreds of variation of an idea will prove the proponents right. It may unleash more creativity than ever. But I still believe we will lose an essential human element in the process that is critical to the act of creation.

Time will tell. And I suspect it won’t take very long.

(Image – The Beatles in WPAP – wendhahai)

An Ex-SEO Looks Back at 25 Years of Google

Google turned 25 last week. I guess you could say it’s been a successful quarter century. The term “to Google” is synonymous with “to search”.

Maybe it’s been a little too successful. Currently the global Giga-gargantuan tech giant is facing a massive anti-trust trial that starts this week due to its dominance of online search. Depending on the outcome, Google’s search business might be torn up into much smaller Google-bits.

Who would have thought all this would happen? Not me. Not on that day back in 1998 when I first “Googled.” For a good chunk of the following two and a half decades, as a SEO (Search Engine Optimizer), I had a love-hate relationship with Google.

Let me share.

First, to understand the impact of Google, you had to understand the world of SEO pre-Google. Back then, there was the band of usual search suspects, which included Excite, Lycos, HotBot, Infoseek, and AltaVista. To be a successful SEO, you had to juggle visibility on all of them, because they each had a small chunk of the search audience.

Then, you also had the directories: Yahoo! and the Open Directory project. You couldn’t ignore them, because they were the most popular choice for finding sites. But they were clunky – both to use and to submit to.

Plus, most importantly for SEO (which wasn’t even commonly called SEO back then), you couldn’t really game the directories. But you could game AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek and the rest. Their algorithms depended exclusively on “on-the-page” elements – text and hidden text, metatags and titles. It was the heyday of keyword stuffing, cloaking and “doorway” pages – collectively called spam.

Then came Google – a game changer in more ways than one.

I, like every other user, used to rotate my searching through the available engines, because none of them was that good. Then someone pointed me to the fledgling Google. I think it might have still been hosted on the Stanford served at the time. From that day forward, I only used Google. It wasn’t that it was perfect, or even very good. It was just better than every other alternative.

And that’s when Google changed the game for SEOs. Suddenly, it was all about backlinks. It made us embrace the central concept of the Internet – the way information was connected together. And that made SEO a lot tougher.

It was tougher, but it was also a helluva lot of fun. As I now know, I had a front row seat for the historic rise of search. Today, Google has somewhere around 175 thousand employees. Back then, the numbers were in the low double digits. And I knew many of them, including Marissa Mayer (hire #21) and Craig Silverstein (hire #3). I – and every other SEO – used to hang out with Matt Cutts (the former head of the Spam team) when we were at the same speaking gigs together.

When SEOs got together for a conference in Silicon Valley, Google used to host something called the “Google Dance”. It was a little like inviting the foxes into the hen house, but there was a weird “frenemies” dynamic back then between SEOs and Google.  The first Google Dance I went to would have only been a few years after they moved out of Susan Wojcicki’s garage. I think it was probably their first office space in Mountainview. I remember both Larry Page and Sergey Brin were working the crowd. I just kept missing them. This pattern would continue. I never did meet them face-to-face. But I was in a meeting where Eric Schmidt (then the CEO) just happened to drop in and asked me “what (as a search marketer) I wanted from Google.” I wish my answer was historic, but I’m pretty sure it involved shrugging and mumbling.

That was the vibe back then. When you were on campus, you just never knew who you were going to see. Because of the research we used to do, we enjoyed a more symbiotic relationship than many SEOs had with Google. Our early research established just how valuable that Google top-of-page real estate was for advertisers and helped make the business case for Google AdWords.

I was also invited on more than one occasion to present to Google’s search team, the engineers who made the engine tick. I was lucky enough to talk to Marissa Mayer about the nuances of page design, or Peter Norvig (a literal rocket scientist who was Google’s head of research) about the role of AI in search. I was always in awe of the sheer wattage of brain power that could be found at 1600 Ampitheatre Parkway in Mountainview. A chat with Marissa Mayer was kind of like riding a roller coaster; you just hung on for dear life and tried to stay inside of your car.

My last time on the Google campus was a little over a decade ago, when I dropped out of the search business. But when this particular 25th birthday showed up on my newsfeed, it brought a lot of memories back. Some were a little traumatic (like when all your clients disappeared off of the first page due to an algorithmic update), but mostly they were good.

So happy birthday Google. And like they used to say where I grew up in rural Alberta – don’t get too big for your britches.

I Wish I Were Half the Person ChatGPT Thinks I Am

Yes, I’ve finally crawled aboard the journalist bandwagon about CHatGPT. The reason I’m waited so long is that I don’t really have any valid technical or professional perspective to add to the conversation. All I have is my own personal opinion.

So here it is, for what it’s worth.

For my first test, I wanted to ask ChatGPT about something where there would be a fair amount of information online but also something where I had the advantage of knowing the inside scoop, allowing me to judge the accuracy of its response. So I asked about the Golden Triangle – the outcome of eye tracking studies we did almost 20 years ago (I just had a minor internal meltdown when I did the mental math and realized that was two decades ago).

I have to admit, ChatGPT nailed it. It did an accurate and concise summary. I’m not sure I could have done better myself.

Google’s Golden Triangle, also known as the “Golden Triangle of Search,” refers to the top section of Google’s search engine results page (SERP) where the most relevant and highest-ranked search results are displayed. It is called the “golden triangle” because eye-tracking studies have shown that users tend to focus their attention on the top three results in the search results page, forming a triangular shape.

The concept of the Golden Triangle is important for search engine optimization (SEO) because it emphasizes the importance of ranking high in search results. Websites that appear in the Golden Triangle are more likely to receive clicks and traffic than those that appear lower on the page.

However, it’s worth noting that the layout of Google’s search engine results page has changed over the years, and the Golden Triangle may not be as relevant as it once was. Google now includes various types of results, such as featured snippets and knowledge panels, that may appear above or alongside the traditional organic search results. As a result, SEO strategies have evolved to include optimizing for these new types of results as well.

When I asked who discovered The Golden Triangle, ChatGPT accurately said it was a joint effort.

The concept of the Golden Triangle in relation to Google’s search engine results page (SERP) was not discovered by a single person, but rather through a combination of eye-tracking studies and data analysis conducted by various researchers and digital marketing professionals.

One of the earliest studies that examined how users interact with Google’s search results page was conducted by Enquiro Research in 2005. This study, titled “The Golden Triangle,” found that users tended to focus their attention on the top-left portion of the search results page, where the first few results were displayed.

Since then, other studies and analyses have confirmed the importance of the top section of the search results page, and the term “Golden Triangle” has become a widely used term in the SEO industry to describe this phenomenon.

For the record, the main players in identifying the pattern were Kevin Lee at DidIt, myself and my agency, Enquiro, EyeTools, the San Francisco eye-tracking consultants who conducted the first study and – in an independent study – Jakob Nielsen at the Nielsen Norman Group. It was Kevin and I who gave it the name The Golden Triangle, mere moments before we had to present the findings to a group at a search conference in San Jose.

So let’s try something a little less black and white. Let’s see how ChatGPT does when it has to freestyle a bit. I asked who I was.

The first paragraph was pretty accurate:

Gord Hotchkiss is a Canadian internet marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) expert. He is the CEO of a digital marketing agency called “Enquiro Search Solutions” which specializes in providing marketing and SEO services to businesses. Gord Hotchkiss is also a well-known speaker and author on the topics of online marketing and search engine optimization.

The second paragraph started a slight pumping of my ego, throwing in some accomplishments I either never did or else can’t remember doing:

Gord Hotchkiss has been involved in the online marketing industry for over 20 years and has worked with a wide range of clients, including Fortune 500 companies. He has written numerous articles on the topics of SEO, online marketing, and search engine technology for publications such as Search Engine Land, ClickZ, and MarketingProfs.

But in the third paragraph, ChatGPT definitely had me confused with someone else:

In addition to his work in the online marketing industry, Gord Hotchkiss is also a co-founder of the “Think Tank of Human Values in Business”, a non-profit organization that focuses on the intersection of business and ethics. He is known for his thought leadership in the industry and for advocating for ethical and sustainable business practices.

Okay, where the hell did that come from? It sounds extraordinarily cool and it’s something I would love to do, but it’s definitely not on my CV. As far as I’m aware, there is no such thing as the “Think Tank of Human Values in Business.” I wish there were, but there’s not.

I tried again. This time, ChatGPT seemed a little less sure of itself. The first sentence was somewhat correct, but after that ChatGPT seemed to manufacture my bio out of nothing but moonbeams and fairy dust. It said I was:

the CEO of a leading digital marketing agency, named “Digital Always Media Inc.” Gord is also a co-founder and chair of the “The Agents of Change” conference, an annual conference focused on helping businesses adapt to the ever-changing digital landscape.

Gord has written numerous articles and books on digital marketing and has been featured in several major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN.

I don’t know who this particular Gord Hotchkiss is, but I’d like to meet him. My AI doppelgänger is leaving me in the dust. I’d better get my shit together.

Or maybe ChatGPT can actually see into the future, showing me the person I just haven’t become yet.

What worries me is how easily ChatGPT constructed complete fabrications of who I was that sounded perfectly plausible. If I didn’t know myself better, I would have simply accepted it as fact. And that – unfortunately – is what we tend to do. We don’t analyze new information and determine if it’s right or wrong. Our default is to believe it’s true until proven otherwise.

It’s this human tendency that flags the real danger with ChatGPT. And, for that reason, I have some more digging to do.

Maybe this other Gord Hotchkiss guy can give me a hand. He sounds wicked smart.

(Image by Brian Penny — Pixabay license)

The Ten Day Tech Detox

I should have gone cold turkey on tech. I really should have.

It would have been the perfect time – should have been the perfect time.

But I didn’t. As I spent 10 days on BC’s gorgeous sunshine coast with family, I also trundled along my assortment of connected gadgets. 

But I will say it was a partially successful detox. I didn’t crack open the laptop as much as I usually do. I generally restricted use of my iPad to reading a book.

But my phone – it was my phone, always within reach, that tempted me with social media’s siren call.

In a podcast, Andrew Selepak, social media professor at the University of Florida, suggests that rather than doing a total detox that is probably doomed to fail, you use vacations as an opportunity to use tech as a tool rather than an addiction.

I will say that for most of the time, that’s what I did. As long as I was occupied with something I was fine. 

Boredom is the enemy. It’s boredom that catches you. And the sad thing was, I really shouldn’t have been bored. I was in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I had the company of people I loved. I saw humpback whales – up close – for Heaven’s sake. If ever there was a time to live in the moment, to embrace the here and now, this was it. 

The problem, I realized, is that we’re not really comfortable any more with empty spaces – whether they be in conversation, in our social life or in our schedule of activities. We feel guilt and anxiety when we’re not doing anything.

It was an interesting cycle. As I decompressed after many weeks of being very busy, the first few days were fine. “I need this,” I kept telling myself. It’s okay just to sit and read a book. It’s okay not to have every half-hour slot of the day meticulously planned to jam as much in as possible.

That lasted about 48 hours. Then I started feeling like I should be doing something. I was uncomfortable with the empty spaces.

The fact is, as I learned – boredom always has been part of the human experience. It’s a feature – not a bug. As I said, boredom represents the empty spaces that allow themselves to be filled with creativity.  Alicia Walf, a neuroscientist and a senior lecturer in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, says it is critical for brain health to let yourself be bored from time to time.

“Being bored can help improve social connections. When we are not busy with other thoughts and activities, we focus inward as well as looking to reconnect with friends and family. 

Being bored can help foster creativity. The eureka moment when solving a complex problem when one stops thinking about it is called insight.

Additionally, being bored can improve overall brain health.  During exciting times, the brain releases a chemical called dopamine which is associated with feeling good.  When the brain has fallen into a predictable, monotonous pattern, many people feel bored, even depressed. This might be because we have lower levels of dopamine.”

That last bit, right there, is the clue why our phones are particularly prone to being picked up in times of boredom. Actually, three things are at work here. The first is that our mobile devices let us carry an extended social network in our pockets. In an article from Harvard, this is explained: “Thanks to the likes of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and others, smartphones allow us to carry immense social environments in our pockets through every waking moment of our lives.”

As Walf said, boredom is our brains way of cueing us to seek social interaction. Traditionally, this was us getting the hell out of our cave – or cabin – or castle – and getting some face time with other humans. 

But technology has short circuited that. Now, we get that social connection through the far less healthy substitution of a social media platform. And – in the most ironic twist – we get that social jolt not by interacting with the people we might happen to be with, but by each staring at a tiny little screen that we hold in our hand.

The second problem is that mobile devices are not designed to leave us alone, basking in our healthy boredom. They are constantly beeping, buzzing and vibrating to get our attention. 

The third problem is that – unlike a laptop or even a tablet – mobile devices are our device of choice when we are jonesing for a dopamine jolt. It’s our phones we reach for when we’re killing time in a line up, riding the bus or waiting for someone in a coffee shop. This is why I had a hard time relegating my phone to being just a tool while I was away.

As a brief aside – even the term “killing time” shows how we are scared to death of being bored. That’s a North American saying – boredom is something to be hunted down and eradicated. You know what Italians call it? “Il dolce far niente” – the sweetness of doing nothing. Many are the people who try to experience life by taking endless photos and posting on various feeds, rather than just living it. 

The fact is, we need boredom. Boredom is good, but we are declaring war on it, replacing it with a destructive need to continually bath our brains in the dopamine high that comes from checking our Facebook feed or latest Tiktok reel. 

At least one of the architects of this vicious cycle feels some remorse (also from the article from Harvard). “ ‘I feel tremendous guilt,’ admitted Chamath Palihapitiya, former Vice President of User Growth at Facebook, to an audience of Stanford students. He was responding to a question about his involvement in exploiting consumer behavior. ‘The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works,’ “

That is why we have to put the phone down and watch the humpback whales. That, miei amici, is il dolci far niente!

Of Streaming, Satellites and Sunsets

I’ve been out of the loop for the last 3 weeks as I actually did life stuff. Today, looking to get back into the loop so I could write a column about media, I ran through several emails from Mediapost to see what y’all have been talking about in my absence.

Two caught my eye. The first was a Media Insider from Dave Morgan titled “Cross-Training for Cross-Platform TV”. Dave’s jist, paraphrasing heavily, is that to get a decent audience for high engagement video ads, we’ll have to get comfortable with fishing in a whole bunch of smaller ponds rather than casting our net in a single ocean.

That checks out. As our entertainment choices and information sources keep multiplying exponentially, it’s natural that the big blocks of purchasable attention advertisers used to rely on are getting split into smaller and smaller chunks. This is certainly true for video-based media. In the column, Morgan said, “the next decade will mean navigating a mix of linear and streaming TV channels and platforms to have any hope of efficiently reaching audiences at scale.”

Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about buying video ads –Mr. Morgan certainly has forgotten more than I’ll ever know – but I do know this. I recently caught up on a network series through getting it on demand on the network’s streaming platform. The ad execution was abysmal, to say the least. The creative, the delivery and the viewer experience was excruciating to sit through. I literally hated any brands that placed ads through the channel by the time I was done.

If I had to guess, I would say that this was treated like an advertising bargain bin – a last minute throw in for network advertisers that no one really thought or cared about. Some of the creative wasn’t even designed for the platform. The images didn’t execute correctly on the screen (tablet) I was watching it on. Whatever it cost these advertisers for this exposure, it was completely wasted on this audience of one.

The other item was more of a WTF moment – a column by Mediapost staff writer Wayne Friedman. In the column – “Look Into The Night Sky – You Might See An Ad For Car Insurance” – Friedman tells of a recent study that “looked at the possibility of a ‘space advertising’ mission, where one could advertise in the twilight over a particular urban area or city.”

This would be done by launching a number of satellites into a station orbit and letting them literally unfurl an advertising banner every night just after sunset.

Again, WTF. Do I want an ad popping up after a spectacular sunset telling me said sunset was brought to me by the MyPillow guy? No.

And knowing that advertisers can be a little obtuse sometimes, I’ll repeat – a little more emphatically – “F*&k NO!”

I had just a little taste of this the last week when I happened to see a Starlink train head across the night sky above me. If you haven’t seen this, it’s a perfect row of SpaceX Starlink satellites in orbit that can be seen in just the right conditions. In my case, there were probably about 50 satellites in a row.

Was it cool? Sure. But it was also unsettling. The night sky is supposed to be messy and spectacular, not precisely lined up like a set of Christmas lights. It was disconcerting to see something so obviously man-made encroaching on nature’s firmament.

Look advertisers, I get that it’s getting harder and harder to get our attention with your ads. That’s probably because we don’t want to give it to you, and – increasingly – we don’t have to. If that sounds harsh, it’s because you’ve burnt out any goodwill you might have had by sledgehammering us over the head with poorly executed, ham-fisted ads delivered ad-nauseum without any concern for our experience on the receiving end. That will be true on any platform you choose to deliver those ads on.

So, to circle back to Dave Morgan’s message, if you’re going to do it, at least try to do it well.

And finally, just so we’re clear, stay the hell out of my sunset!

Crisis? What Crisis?

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

— Winston Churchill, approximately 1944

Crisis? What crisis?

— Supertramp album, 1975

I’ll be honest. I was struggling to finish this column. It was actually heading for the digital dustbin when I happened on MediaPost Editor in Chief Joe Mandese’s excellent commentary, “It’s Time For A Change, And By That, I Mean A Crisis.”

Much as I respect Joe, whose heart and head are definitely in the right place, I think we may have to agree to disagree. He says,

“What the ad industry really needs to do is organize a massive global campaign to change the way people think, feel and behave about the climate — moving from a not-so-alarmist ‘change’ to an ‘our house is on fire’ crisis.”

Joe Mandese – Mediapost

But exactly how do you make people pay attention to an existential crisis? How do you communicate threat?

The problem may be that we can’t. It may simply not be possible.

That was crystallized in the scariest way possible recently on the U.K.’s GB News channel, where an anchor desperately tried to make light of the meteorologist’s dire predictions of potential fatalities ahead of an unprecedented heat wave in England.

Weather expert John Hammond issues a warning over the ‘extreme’ conditions expected next week – GB News – July 14, 2022

The Basics of Communication

There are typically four parts to any communication model: the sender, the message, the medium and the receiver. Joe’s post said the problem may be in the message — it hasn’t been urgent enough. I disagree. I think the problem is at the end of the chain, with the receiver. The message is already effective. It’s just not getting through.

In online course on business communications, Lumen Learning lists a number of potential barriers to communication. I’d like to focus on three that were mentioned: filtering, bias and lack of trust.

The first one is the big one, but the last two contribute. And they all lie on the receiving end of the communication model, with the receiver, who just doesn’t want to receive the message.

The problem, most of all, is one of entitlement.

I’m not pointing fingers — unless I’m pointing at myself. I live a privileged lifestyle. I don’t think I’ve let the message, with all its implications, fully get through to me, because to accept that message is unimaginably depressing and scary. I fully admit I’m filtering, because I feel overwhelmed. Climate change has gone from being an inconvenient truth to something we’re determined to ignore, even if it kills us.

If I count all the people whose lifestyle I have some understanding of, it’s aboiut a thousand people. I think an overwhelming majority of them get the massive implications of climate change.  Of all those people, I can count on the fingers of one hand (maybe two) those who have truly made substantive changes in their lifestyle to really address climate change. That’s — at best – .5% to 1% of everyone I know.

 I’m not judging. I haven’t made the changes required myself. Not really.

I have done all 10 of the UN’s suggestions of 10 ways you can help fight climate crisis to one extent or another. But I can’t help feeling that even doing all 10 is like peeing on a forest fire. Given the high stakes we’re talking about here, I really don’t feel I’m making a meaningful difference.  I haven’t sold either of my two vehicles, I haven’t stopped planning trips that involve air travel, or moved into a more energy- efficient house. I still eat red meat (although not as much as before).

The fact is, when a message is trying to tell us that our inevitable future means we’re going to have less than we have today, we will ignore that message. 

I get it. I truly do. I started and stopped this column several times because it depressed the hell out of me. But I am now determined to plow through to the end, so let’s talk about entitlement. We use this word a lot, especially lately. But what does it mean? It means we believe we have the right to the lifestyle we currently have.

But there’s no one to give us that right. Our lifestyle isn’t granted to us by anyone. If we live a good life, as I do, we like to think that it’s due to our hard work and wise choices. That’s why we’re entitled to everything we have. But if we rationally pick apart our success, we find that plain old dumb luck plays a bigger role than we’d like to admit. In my case, I was born a white, anglo male in one of the richest countries in the world. I came out of the womb with advantages most of the world can only dream of.

Entitlement is actually the result of a cognitive bias – or rather, a bundle of cognitive biases that include loss aversion and endowment effect. It’s a quirk in our mental wiring. It’s a mistaken belief – an illusion. I’m not owed the life I have. I have that life because of a convergence of lucky factors, and it appears my luck may be running out. There is no arbitrator of privilege that has granted North America the right to be the single biggest consumer of natural resources (per capita) in the world. But we seem prepared gamble our planet away on this mistaken belief about our own entitlement.

In psychology, there’s something called the Psychological Entitlement Scale. It measures the strength of this cognitive bias. A recent study showed just how strongly this was correlated with our ability to ignore messaging that we didn’t want to hear because we felt it interfered with our “rights.” In this case, the message was about health guidelines during COVID-19. And we all know how that turned out. Even something as ridiculously simple as wearing a face mask whipped up a shitstorm of entitlement. 

This is not a problem of messaging. We are not going to be persuaded to do the right thing.  We are being asked to give up too much.

Climate change can only be addressed by two things: legislation and a mobilization of the market. We cannot be left with the option of doing nothing — or too little — any longer.

We must be forced to be better. We need more massive omnibus bills, like the recent Manchin-Schumer deal, that mobilize industry and incentivize better behavior. I only hope my own Canadian government follows suit soon.

Much as I wish Joe Mandese were right that by turning up the intensity of the messaging, we could persuade consumers to really move the needle on the climate threat, I don’t think this would work. It’s not that we don’t know about climate change. It’s that we can’t let ourselves care, because our entitlement won’t let us.

Putting a Label on It

We know that news can be toxic. The state of affairs is so bad that many of the media sources we rely on for information have been demonstrated to be extremely harmful to our society. Misinformation, in its many forms, leads to polarization, the destruction of democracy, the engendering of hate and the devaluing of social capital. It is – quite likely – one of the most destructive forces we face today.

To make matters worse, a study conducted by Ben Lyons from the University of Utah found that we’re terrible at spotting misinformation, yet many of us think we can’t be fooled. Seventy five percent of us overestimate our ability to spot fake news by as much at 22 percentile points. And the more overconfident we are, the more likely we are to share false news.

Given the toxic effects of unreliable news reporting, it was only natural that – sooner or later – someone would come up with the logical idea of putting a warning label on it. And that’s exactly what NewsGuard does. Using “trained journalists” to review the most popular news platforms (they say the cover 95% of our news source engagement) they give each source a badge, ranging from green to red, showing its reliability. In a recent report, they highlighted some of the U.S.’s biggest misinformation culprits (NewsMax.com, TheGatewayPundit.com and the Federalist.com) and some of the sources that are most reliable (MSNBC.com, NYTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com and NPR.com).

But here’s the question. Just because you slap a warning label on toxic news sources, will it have any effect? That’s exactly what a group of researchers at New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics wanted to find out. And the answer is both yes and no.

Kevin Aslett, lead author of the paper, said,

“While our study shows that, overall, credibility ratings have no discernible effect on misperceptions or online news consumption behavior of the average user, our findings suggest that the heaviest consumers of misinformation — those who rely on low-credibility sites — may move toward higher-quality sources when presented with news reliability ratings.”

Kevin Aslett, NYU Center for Social Media and Politics

This is interesting. In essence, this study is saying that if you run into the odd unreliable news source and you see a warning label, it will probably have no effect. But if you make a steady diet of unreliable news and see warning label after warning label, it may eventually sink in and cause you to improve your sources for news consumption. This seems to indicate warning labels might have a cumulative effect. The more you’re exposed to them, the more effective they become.

We are literally of two minds – one driven by ration and one by emotion. Warning labels try to appeal to one mind, but our likelihood to ignore them comes from our other mind. The effectiveness of these labels depends on which mind is in the driver’s seat. There is a wide spectrum of circumstances that may bring you face to face with a warning label and the effectiveness of that label may depend on some sort of cognitive “Russian roulette” – a game of odds to determine if the label will impact you. If this is the case, it makes sense that the more you see a warning label, the greater the odds that – at least one time – you might be of a mind to pay attention to it.

Up in Smoke

This might help explain the so-so track record of warning labels in other arenas. Probably the longest trial run of warning labels has been on cigarette packages. The United States started requiring these labels in 1966. In 2001, my own country – Canada – was the first country in the world to introduce graphic warning labels; huge and horrible pictures of the effects of smoking plastered across every pack of smokes.

This past week, we in Canada went one better. Again, we’re going to be the first country in the world to require warning labels on each and every cigarette. Apparently, our government has bought into the exposure effect of warning labels – more is better.

It seems to be working. In 1965 the smoking rate in Canada was 50%. In 2020 it was 13%.

But a recent study (Strong, Pierce, Pulvers et al) showed that if smokers aren’t ready to quit, warning labels may have “decreased positive perceptions of cigarettes associated with branded cigarette packs but without clearly increasing health concerns. They also increased quitting cognitions but did not affect either cigarette cessation or consumption levels.”

Like I said – just because you get through to one mind doesn’t mean you’ll have any luck with the other.

Side Effects May Include….

Perhaps the most interesting case of warnings in the consumer marketplace are with prescription drugs. Because the United States is one of the few places in the world (New Zealand is the other one) that can advertise prescription drugs direct to the consumer, the Food and Drug Administration has mandated that ads must include a fair balance of rewards and risks. Advertisers being advertisers, the rewards take up much of the ad, with sunlight infused shots of people enjoying life thanks to the miracles of the drug in question. But, at the end, there is a laundry list of side effects read in a voice over, typically at breakneck pace in a deadly monotone.

It’s this example that highlights perhaps the main issue with warning labels; they require a calculation of risk vs reward. If this wasn’t true, we wouldn’t need a warning label. Nobody needs to tell us not to drink battery acid. That’s all risk and no reward. If there’s a label on it, it’s probably on something we want to do but know we shouldn’t.

A study of the effectiveness of these warnings in DTC prescription ads found they become less effective because of something called argument dilution effect. Ads that only include the worst side effects are more effective than ads that include every potential side effect, even the minor ones. Hence the laundry list. If a drug could cause both sudden heart attacks and minor skin rashes, our mind tends to let these things cancel each other out.

This effect is an example of the heuristic nature of our risk vs reward decision making. It needs to operate quickly, so it relies on the irrational, instinctive part of our neural circuitry. We don’t take the time to weigh everything logically – we make a gut call. Marketers know the science behind this and continually use it to their advantage.

Warning labels are an easy legislative fix to try to plug this imperfectly human loophole. It seems to make sense, but it doesn’t really address the underlying factors. Given enough time and enough exposure, they can shift behaviors, but we shouldn’t rely on them too much.