"One of Google’s goals in Africa is to make the internet more locally relevant and bring more people online. One of the challenges of the internet in Africa is that there is a lack of local content online. At Google, we find that users search for information about local businesses, entertainment, health, etc but often don’t find it because the information is not yet available online. In order to help bring more local content online, Google engineers have created Baraza to allow people in countries across Africa to ask questions and post answers to questions from others."
Who are "foreigners" for you? That's a bad term on internet forums because people from all over the world use sites like HN, making "foreigners" somewhat meaningless/confusing.
"I am a member of the Google Baraza team. One of Google’s goals in Africa is to make the internet more locally relevant and bring more people online. One of the challenges of the internet in Africa is that there is a lack of local content online. At Google, we find that users search for information about local businesses, entertainment, health, etc but often don’t find it because the information is not yet available online. In order to help bring more local content online, Google engineers have created Baraza to allow people in countries across Africa to ask questions and post answers to questions from others.
Here are some quick tasks to try out
- Answer a question on your favorite topic - Find a question by browsing labels (e.g.,"Programming & Design") or Search (e.g., "Economics")
I'm just saying - what's the purpose of having a "local" african answer to this? Will the answer to that question by impacted by the geography of the people searching? Probably not.
There are plenty of good use cases for having a localized search answer for Africa - but many of the questions that I saw after a quick preview didn't seem to make great case studies for that purpose.
A lot of website use appeals when it has a local flavor. Quora and it's Silicon Valley answerers probably doesn't know how to answer the questions that many Non-US citizens might have. This has a lot to do with user base, and I don't see Quora marketing itself outside of America.
I don't understand why Quora seems to be a standard to some. It hides it's answers behind a registration wall and ask that you give it access to your Facebook profile on registration.
Not to mention quietly setting up a public profile page in your name that starts showing up among top results when people search for you. Creepy is right.
I'm curious what modifications you made to Baraza for making it more available in Africa?
I assume low-bandwidth measures are taking into account (text-only, sms access seems to be popular in Africa, weird addresses (more like orientation vs. popular landmarks, ...).. Could you give us more details about those changes? Those decisions really interests me...
The 24 points seem to be the "initial sign-up bonus" and a "daily login bonus". I got my initial bonus in 2011 it seems, so this must be an older Google service that was just renamed and re-launched.
This looks like an attempt to mimic the Quora or StackOverflow format of Q&A, but the structure isn't there. There doesn't seem to be much organizational structure beyond the top-level "Government" or "Computer Software" categories. It appears to have been around since 2010 or so - there are some users that have been contributing for a while (e.g. ivan - http://www.google.com/baraza/en/user?clk=tpct&userid=0708787...).
What is the purpose of recreating English-language Q&A structure in such a poor form?
Question for the Baraza team: The framework looks good, and I expect the engineering behind the scenes is impressive. What are your thoughts about content curation and acquiring a critical mass of (for want of a better term) moderators?
Will Baraza questions and answers be ranked higher than Quora and Stack Overflow in Google search? When Google starts adding more services with content created by users, will it be harder to rely on Google search?
At one point is google "impartial" search engine or when does it become a funnel to their own services?
You can see it started to happen with the ITA flight software acquisition a few years back (http://www.google.com/press/ita/) - now google flights now beat out every booking engine for any flight query.
I doubt that Google will ruin the integrity of their search results because they want to push Baraza.
They do have widgets such as Google Flights pop up when it is clear the user if looking for airline tickets but that's not an indication that Google funnels all their own services for the heck of it. First of all, the widgets such as Flights and People Bios are not in the actual search results, but appear as separate sections. I believe the actual search results are sacred and are exempt from being tampered with, even for Google's motives.
Second, flights are a very specific and objective thing which makes their Flights widget extremely useful. If I'm searching for "flights from lax to ord", I'm going to get all flight times available without even leaving Google. The same cannot be said for most services such as Baraza, where the quality of answers/questions is very incomplete and subjective.
Their flight widget is the second thing in the search results (right under the ads) and above any actual results. That alone - says they're prioritizing the money-making options.
The place under the ads and above the search results is just where they put stuff like the calculator, sports stats, and other easter eggs. Yes they make money off the Flights widget, but that doesn't automatically mean it's bad for the user. My point was that the Flights widget is great and more useful than the actual search results when you query for "flights to lax" just like the calculator widget is more useful than the search results when you query "sin(50)*1234". They are prioritizing useful widgets, and this one happens to make lots of money.
The fact that 3 years after it was started, most of us still don't know of it means Baraza questions are clearly not ranked higher than other results :)
Are you sure that the Google authentication token(s) sent over HTTP can actually be used to perform sensitive actions (e.g. reading/sending mail, changing settings)?
That is, perhaps Google require an HTTPS-only token for sensitive actions and the authentication token sent over HTTP is only used for basic personalization (like showing your username) and some unimportant actions?
Though I guess we know that someone who has stolen your HTTP authentication token could ask embarrassing baraza questions on your behalf ...
No, I'm not sure and your questions are valid. But wouldn't you be happier if they used https and the questions wouldn't have to be asked in the first place?
This practice of having a website respond to both http and https simply has to die. Google is not the only offender here, but I expected more from them, because they are very security sensitive.
Google, next time you accuse Chinese of hacking you, reconsider your practices.
I agree, it would be good to see Google setting the trend here by going HTTPS everywhere. Personally I think the next website I create will be all-HTTPS.
The main reasons I encounter for not going HTTPS everywhere are:
1) Possible negative effect on search engine ranking during transition period.
2) 3rd party content from analytics tools and advert networks not supporting HTTPS.
3) Slower initial page load over mobile due to SSL handshake.
4) No-one else is doing it.
Hopefully these reasons will become less valid over time!
Nr. 3 is very problematic for satellite connections, which have extremely high latency, making HTTPS websites unusable. I guess that is why Google went with plain HTTP in Africa.
This isn't only a consideration for Africa- I am in rural Missouri, USA, and I am stuck with a satellite connection. HTTPS sites are several times slower than their HTTP siblings. The problem, as I understand it, is that my service provider can't compress the pages before sending them over the satellite link.
There's actually no excuse ... SSL is cheap today and by terminating it at a load balancer or proxy, you don't even have to think about its impact on web-server performance. I imagine that Google has racks of equipment dedicated to SSL termination already!
YouTube defaults to HTTP as well. The security threat is pretty minimal, but an evil captive portal could sneakily grab your signed-in Google email if they wanted to.
To me, I actually see this as Google crowdsourcing the data necessary to have "answers" appear rather than search results for those things that make sense to.
It looks like Google Forums but with StackOverflow-style votes. I guess they didn't really use aardVark for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark_(search_engine). I wonder why they didn't try to make a bigger Q&A service, maybe integrated with G+.
I don't know which I feel sadder: that I'm logged in a service which I did not agree for, or that I've lost will to try out anything from Google.
the NSA deal and (more importantly) Google Reader shutdown really did it to me. As soon as I find an alternative to gmail I'm leaving Google service wholly.
I know I'm mad for irrational reasons. I think you are right that I'm mad at SaaS as well.
Yes, services shut down. That's just the way it is, or at least how I figure.
The thing about Google Reader was that it was one of the reasons that got me interested in Google other than the search engine; then I discovered gmail, and etc. I've felt that Google was one of the 'good guys', and lately, I just don't feel the same way. I guess I'm quoting the Google Reader shutdown as what symbolizes the change.
Having said that, I doubt I will try many things from Google, not because of the fear of them shutting down, but because it won't do much for me.
Displayed in Chrome-based Opera that sends Chrome's User-Agent string and deliberately doesn't even mention "Opera" in the header.
It's so annoying that Google keeps discriminating against other browsers even when there can't even be a vaguest technical reason to do so.
Why would even simple Q&A site need to require only handful of latest browsers? Why is Google still using User-Agent sniffing? (they have top-notch web developers who all know how stupid that is...)
71 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadhttp://www.google.com/baraza/en/thread?tid=3084c339e2379cf8
http://www.google.com/baraza/en/thread?tid=3084c339e2379cf8
"I am a member of the Google Baraza team. One of Google’s goals in Africa is to make the internet more locally relevant and bring more people online. One of the challenges of the internet in Africa is that there is a lack of local content online. At Google, we find that users search for information about local businesses, entertainment, health, etc but often don’t find it because the information is not yet available online. In order to help bring more local content online, Google engineers have created Baraza to allow people in countries across Africa to ask questions and post answers to questions from others.
Here are some quick tasks to try out
- Answer a question on your favorite topic - Find a question by browsing labels (e.g.,"Programming & Design") or Search (e.g., "Economics")
- Ask a question that you have been wondering about [...]" http://www.google.com/baraza/en/thread?tid=3084c339e2379cf8
I'd be interested to know what Q&A services Africans already use.
Just a few of the questions I picked off:
> What is the meaning of stonehenge?
> What is public enlightenment?
> Is politics vicious?
Are these answers necessarily local to Africa?
There are plenty of good use cases for having a localized search answer for Africa - but many of the questions that I saw after a quick preview didn't seem to make great case studies for that purpose.
That's probably a joke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mg
Quora gets more traffic from India than the US. At least 30% of its user base is Indian[1]. Quora does very well overseas.
[1]:http://thenextweb.com/in/2013/02/26/india-passes-the-us-to-b...
It's a creepy website from my perspective.
I assume low-bandwidth measures are taking into account (text-only, sms access seems to be popular in Africa, weird addresses (more like orientation vs. popular landmarks, ...).. Could you give us more details about those changes? Those decisions really interests me...
What is the purpose of recreating English-language Q&A structure in such a poor form?
See (for example) this question and its answers http://www.google.com/baraza/en/thread?tid=618ce3dee8dafc67
(http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-11-16-n46.html)
At one point is google "impartial" search engine or when does it become a funnel to their own services?
You can see it started to happen with the ITA flight software acquisition a few years back (http://www.google.com/press/ita/) - now google flights now beat out every booking engine for any flight query.
They do have widgets such as Google Flights pop up when it is clear the user if looking for airline tickets but that's not an indication that Google funnels all their own services for the heck of it. First of all, the widgets such as Flights and People Bios are not in the actual search results, but appear as separate sections. I believe the actual search results are sacred and are exempt from being tampered with, even for Google's motives.
Second, flights are a very specific and objective thing which makes their Flights widget extremely useful. If I'm searching for "flights from lax to ord", I'm going to get all flight times available without even leaving Google. The same cannot be said for most services such as Baraza, where the quality of answers/questions is very incomplete and subjective.
I'm surprised google can still make that mistake, making my account vulerable after going to so much trouble of protecting it with 2factor auth.
That is, perhaps Google require an HTTPS-only token for sensitive actions and the authentication token sent over HTTP is only used for basic personalization (like showing your username) and some unimportant actions?
Though I guess we know that someone who has stolen your HTTP authentication token could ask embarrassing baraza questions on your behalf ...
This practice of having a website respond to both http and https simply has to die. Google is not the only offender here, but I expected more from them, because they are very security sensitive.
Google, next time you accuse Chinese of hacking you, reconsider your practices.
The main reasons I encounter for not going HTTPS everywhere are:
1) Possible negative effect on search engine ranking during transition period.
2) 3rd party content from analytics tools and advert networks not supporting HTTPS.
3) Slower initial page load over mobile due to SSL handshake.
4) No-one else is doing it.
Hopefully these reasons will become less valid over time!
The muffin stump of Q&A software: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eipl17WpOo&t=12
the NSA deal and (more importantly) Google Reader shutdown really did it to me. As soon as I find an alternative to gmail I'm leaving Google service wholly.
I think you're mad at SaaS, not Google. I don't see the shutting down a CORE offering anytime soon.
Yes, services shut down. That's just the way it is, or at least how I figure.
The thing about Google Reader was that it was one of the reasons that got me interested in Google other than the search engine; then I discovered gmail, and etc. I've felt that Google was one of the 'good guys', and lately, I just don't feel the same way. I guess I'm quoting the Google Reader shutdown as what symbolizes the change.
Having said that, I doubt I will try many things from Google, not because of the fear of them shutting down, but because it won't do much for me.
Displayed in Chrome-based Opera that sends Chrome's User-Agent string and deliberately doesn't even mention "Opera" in the header.
It's so annoying that Google keeps discriminating against other browsers even when there can't even be a vaguest technical reason to do so.
Why would even simple Q&A site need to require only handful of latest browsers? Why is Google still using User-Agent sniffing? (they have top-notch web developers who all know how stupid that is...)