
Google Adds Song Lyrics to Top of Search Results Points Searchers to Google Play - jamesgagan
http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/22/google-adds-song-lyrics-to-top-of-search-results-points-searchers-to-google-play/
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zarriak
It seems like this is a great example of the problem that Google faces. They
have built up a good product line based off of the revenue from search and
those products support search in turn by providing content and/or more
opportunities for interactions(read advertising money). This in turn takes
away from the sites that they are listing, making them the lifeline and the
competition at the same time. The problem is making a search engine has
evolved from listing the best websites for the user's request, it is about
providing information as easy and quickly as possible. This optimization in
turn takes away from sites dedicated to relaying that information. It makes
Google seem as they are practicing monopolistic business, but they are really
just trying to improve their product.

It appears as if resolution can only come from splitting up the search part of
the company with the rest (assuming it is split into only two entities). I
think Google can resolve this by splitting up the knowledge graph results from
the rest of search by making the feeling lucky button analogous to showing
only what knowledge graph and information cards. They still would have a very
dominant share of search, mobile, etc. but it would alleviate the connection
of Google the search engine provider and Google the 21st century thesaurus.

~~~
blfr
This is from the perspective of a site owner. From user's perspective,
Google's best guess at the top, and a list of websites below is the optimal
outcome (ie. what I want when searching). Splitting Google would result in a
worse user experience.

~~~
kuschku
Or it could result in a better outcome for the user, if the Search would
include Knowledge Graph results from multiple sources.

YouTube (another Google product) for example shows for videos that contain
songs links to iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and Google Play.

Google Search could do the same — list different places to get the content,
etc.

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jamesgagan
As a consumer, I like this - saves me some clicks and spares me from ads.
Can't be good for lyrics sites though.

~~~
Steko
Spares you ads? The whole thing has been turned into a Google Play ad.

Nobody wants to go to Google Play for lyrics, this is Google giving priority
placement to an inferior search result.

~~~
ori_b
I don't want to go to lyrics sites for lyrics. I have yet to find one that
isn't awful, spammy, slow, popup and interstitial ridden.

Maybe if there were some that weren't utter shit, I'd agree. But the thing is
that before this, the only results I was getting were inferior search results.

~~~
andrewchambers
Genius is pretty awesome.

~~~
Shog9
Ironically, Genius tried to game search results and now almost never shows up
in them (for me at least).

An (anonymous) search for "shake hands with beef lyrics" turns up
azlyrics.com, lyricsfreak.com as #1 and #2, followed by Wikipedia (which
doesn't have lyrics) and then metrolyrics.com - probably the best of a bad
bunch.

Tack "genius" onto the search and it'll show up, but right now it's hardly
competing for first-page search results.

~~~
arfliw
Genius ranks very highly for many, many searches. Even without adding 'lyrics'
to the search.

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btown
Something about this seems familiar... Is there a legal distinction between a
company forcing its operating system users to have its web browser
preinstalled, and a company forcing its search engine users to have its lyrics
search results "preinstalled"?

~~~
zaidf
"forcing"? I think if you objectively reviewed Search's integration of other
google services, almost every single time you will find it is to the benefit
of the user(meaning they are not doing it just to get marketshare; it is
actually a better user experience).

~~~
TrainedMonkey
I think there is qualitative difference between comparing OS, which in case of
Microsoft is ubiquitous[0], and a web site. Effort to use different from
Google search is minimal, most people don't because Google is actually very
good at providing relevant search results.

In the end it is a feature, that will stop abuse of some lyrics websites[1]
and make you be able to find lyrics you care about faster.

Now a problem with this is that it gives Google more control over information
we are presented with as they prioritize resources in their steadily expanding
domain. In the long run I do not know whether this will be better for the
users, but meanwhile immediate quality[2] of search results will definitely
improve.

[0] Especially 10 years ago when "user friendly" and "Linux" had no business
appearing in the same sentence. There was much work done in that area since
then, and now there are distros with much more focus on layman usability.

[1] Shady SEO is very easy due to how repetitive lyrics is, it makes for
perfect keywords. So you either need manual intervention to moderate the
search results[1.1], or extensive tweaks to the search engine algorithm just
for this niche, which is a hack. I rather think this feature is an elegant
solution to that problem. Not quite same as prioritizing youtube helped reduce
number of people going to shady sites to download songs, but in the same
solution space.

[1.1] Which is widely done for some of the other terms such as "credit" and
"loan".

[2] In the future Google could potentially censor some of the results which
will lead to the decreased quality of search.

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jack-r-abbit
It is not like they are showing only their lyrics block and not a list of
links right below it. With or without their lyrics block, they still show 10
results, so their lyrics block isn't bumping other sites off the first page.
If you still have endless love for AZLyrics, fine... click their link. You
still have that choice. I'll choose to take advantage of the much cleaner UI
at Google Play.

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realcul
Not sure if it is pure innovative thinking or not having to worry about
regulatory troubles but Bing has been innovating on ideas like this much
earlier than Google. Irrespective of which company you like, it is always good
to have competition in any market...keeps the companies on their toes.

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extc
Won't rights owners try to sue Google the same way they whine about lyrics
sites?

~~~
salemh
The Rap Genius licensing issue that took until 2014 [1] will be interesting
with Google going after this space. Since Rap Genius seemed to get off the
hook [2] with Google "easier" then others.

I imagine Google can offer better terms and/or soft-velvet glove (traffic)
then Rap Genius.

I only bring up Rap Genius, because they seem to have taken over (admirable)
as the foremost lyrics site.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/business/media/rap-
genius-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/business/media/rap-genius-
website-agrees-to-license-with-music-publishers.html)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6957463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6957463)

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at-fates-hands
I must either listen to really shitty music, or incredibly obscure music
because I don't ever get lyrics when I search for lyrics of songs I like.

some examples:

birthday massacre rain lyrics

katatonia forsaker lyrics

five finger death punch wrong side of heaven lyrics

draconian she dies lyrics

Patrick Reza Take Me Away lyrics

~~~
dfxm12
Search for "shake it off lyrics". As of right now, that leads to a bunch of
non-google related results too.

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sauere
Rest in Peace AZLyrics, you will be missed.

~~~
johnmaguire2013
Really? The only lyrics sites I can stand are SongMeanings & RapGenius because
they aren't coated in ads and people can explain stuff. AZLyrics is one of my
least faves, with MetroLyrics coming in as a fave after the other two.

~~~
psykovsky
The only lyrics sites you can stand are the ones who are burning through
investors millions, you mean.

~~~
jessaustin
If someone is going to spend a lot of money in order to provide a more
palatable free service, it just seems sensible to take advantage of that?

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curiously

        party in the usa lyrics
    

still yields azlyrics.com but that might change soon.

I welcome this, it saves a lot of clicking and viewing ads (not that I do
since adblock is installed) but on mobile phones and such.

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amk_
Edit: Fine, too rambly. Short version.

Google Now or Siri are killing the page as a medium for certain types of
content, and I would not be surprised if the info providers transition to an
API-first model where the primary target is layout-agnostic and possibly
supported by micropayments.

~~~
nl
This is inaccurate.

Google's primary source for their knowledge graph is semi-structured data on
web pages, not APIs. Notably, that claim 1200M "facts" (of which 8% have "high
confidence") extracted by understanding web page DOM structure. That compares
to 140M "facts" from human annotations on web pages, with 0.2% high confidence
(ie, "semantic web").

Given that the premise of your point is wrong it seems your conclusions are
likely to be too.

~~~
amk_
My point is that the semi structured content that makes up theses web pages is
being parsed out and displayed directly alongside search results. The parsed
DOM is used as a defacto API, killing the need to provide any layout
information whatsoever and killing page views, too. If this continues, many
content providers (like lyrics sites) could transition to an information-
serving model (API focused) and just forget about layout altogether.

~~~
nl
You realize there is a close correspondence between the DOM and the layout in
most cases, right?

Google read the CSS as well, and uses the visual features as signal what
humans will see as important on the screen.

That's impossible with APIs.

There are specialised cases where Google does use APIs: public transport and
airline times. They are very special cases though, and for broad web search it
seems unlikely Google will follow that model.

