Changes to Web Search & How AI is Shaping Publishers' Strategies | Publisher Lab Ep. 55

Name: Changes to Web Search & How AI is Shaping Publishers' Strategies | Publisher Lab Ep. 55 | Humix Video
Uploaded: 2024-02-22T21:06:16+00:00
Duration: 27 min 45 s

0:00
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Publisher Lab
0:08
My name is Manny Ramos, aka producer Manny. And we have no Tyler on today's show, but we do have someone here with me
0:17
Jan Kreidenberg. Yon has been with the Azoic team for a while now
0:23
But let us know what you do. Yeah, so I've been working at Ezoic for almost nine years now
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So I currently am running our, I'd say kind of our onboarding for smaller publishers
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So, you know, working with new creators, people that typically are less than 20,000 visits per month to their website
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But obviously just trying to, you know, we want the platform to be available to everyone
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So, you know, enabling smaller publishers to get started with Ezoic, kind of training them, guiding them, how to use the platform to the most of ability
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So yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Previous to that, I was working on our account management side
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And then I also worked kind of on our sales side as well. So I've dealt with publishers of all sizes
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You know, seen a variety of different trends over the years as well. So I'm excited to come on and hopefully share some good insights with you guys
1:20
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, we're very excited to have you. I feel like you're going to be able to give us insights that not a lot of people may have
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just from your perspective. I'll do my best. Yeah, yeah. So definitely a familiar face for some of our publishers here, but let's jump right into it
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So we got some AI news this week. Starting off with OpenAI will now let you create videos using verbal cues
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So they recently announced the launch of SORA. Now, it's not out yet, so it's still a limited release and only a few people have their hands on it
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But some of the videos that came out from the product are insane
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It's pretty impressive what they've done. able to do with that. Yeah. So it's an AI model that was designed to create realistic and imaginative
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60-second videos from simple text prompts. SORA stands out for its ability to generate videos
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featuring multiple characters, specific motions, and intricate backgrounds, all tailored to user
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interactions. Open AI's goal with SORA is to push the boundaries of AI in solving real-world
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interaction challenges, building on the success of its widely recognized. recognized chatbot. Although SORA showcases remarkable capabilities in video generation
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OpenAI acknowledges its current limitations, particularly in managing spatial details and complex cause and effects relationships. To ensure the safe deployment of SORA, OpenAI is engaging
2:45
with experts to evaluate potential risks, such as misinformation and biases. Initially, SORA will
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be available to a select group of people, including cybersecurity professionals, and creative professionals aiming to refine
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its functionalities and explore particular or practical applications. Now, from the clips that I saw online
3:08
it was so wild to see how much AI has advanced. I think there was a video on social media
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that was surfacing where it showed a video generation of Will Smith eating spaghetti
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on one side from a year ago, and it was just the most laughable thing, right
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And then now it just looks so incredibly real that it's, it's pretty scary
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And I know that it's been something that's been a topic of contention among like all AI
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where it's like, is this going to be a problem with misinformation? Is it going to be a problem with
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especially with an election coming up? So there's a lot to take away from this going on
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But from a publisher perspective, I think that like there has never been a tool that has made it
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easy to get into just video content because it's literally making all the bits and pieces for you
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Right. Yeah. And I see some parallels. I mean, when you think about when chat GPT came out
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like it made it so easy to create a ton of articles really, you know, with the click of a button or
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with a simple prompt. So I feel like this kind of wave to with the video side of things
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Yeah, it's going to be super powerful. I think with all of this AI advancements, it's important
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to remember it's it's a tool set it's not your kind of you know silver bullet to hey i'm now going to make
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incredible videos it's uh you know we've talked about it some it's you still have to put into work
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and create the video but it probably allows you to make some really complementary parts or
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aspects of video in ways that you know an individual publisher could never have done before oh absolutely
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absolutely and like you mentioned it's some if someone hasn't gone into video this is a great segue to get into it
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And then especially because this is something that's going to affect their EPMV, improve the quality of their traffic and hopefully improve revenue as well
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So what's a great way you think that they can get started using something? Yeah. I mean, I think we've seen it the last few years, but the way we consume constant is totally going towards video
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I mean, you think of the younger generations. They spend hours on YouTube where, you know, traditionally it was maybe Google search or something
5:23
So yeah, I mean, I think it's really about how do I still make really good content, but use, you know, use these prompts to generate small clips and see if you can put together
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You know, I think it'll allow you to put together much more robust and, you know, engaging videos using other tools
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I mean, I don't think you can just go and put in a prompt and then you get this 60 second video that's ready to get hundreds of thousands of people
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But again, it's can you use the video or create the videos and then use other tools, Flickify, for example, to, you know, stitch together this generated content along with other information that you want to provide to your audience
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Oh, definitely. And then I think just from an aspect of like royalty free contract, or not royalty free, but like where you have to say like get something from like shutter stock or something. Right
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just within like the AI generator in Flickify. If sometimes you can't find that video clip you need
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let's say you're looking for, I don't know, someone mixing chocolate chips into like a bowl or something
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This is something that's going to be able to recreate that and it's going to look very real
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And now if you combine that with like other segments and other key important information
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like boom, you got a great piece of content that's now on your website. So it's going to definitely open some doors
6:49
Definitely open some doors. Yeah. and cutting costs I mean the big thing the last three years was video is important but it just so expensive And you know a small publisher was not going to be able to do that unless they had dedicated most of their time to it
7:02
But I think this opens up a lot of doors. And I also think, you know, the videos we saw were so impressive and we're just scratching the surface
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It's just going to get better and better over the next, you know, six to eight months, too. Oh, yeah
7:15
My favorite video that came out of that, too, was someone generated two Golden Retrievers podcast
7:21
on top of a mountain. Yeah. And I was like, oh, that's so wholesome. That's so wholesome
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Yeah. All the fields. But sticking with some AI news, but diving into the world of search as well
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Open AI is venturing into the web search arena with a new product leveraging Microsoft's Bing's capability
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alongside its own advanced technologies. According to the report from the information, this moves builds on OpenAI's repertoire
7:47
of tools like GPT bot and chat GPT. Plus, which already integrate Bing for web searches
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The search engine will be powered by OpenAIs GPT4 tailored specifically for search
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functionalities, while the initiative sparks interest in its potential to draw organic
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traffic and offer benefits to businesses. The prospect of it challenging Google's search market supremacy is met with skepticism
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Google's entrenched position bolstered by habitual user reliance and a history of failing
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competitors presents a formidable barrier. This underscored by the stark contrast in traffic
8:26
with Google receiving over 50 times of visits of ChatGBT in December. Open AI's foray into
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web search signals an ambitious step to expand its technological footprint, yet it faces monumental
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task of disrupting the established search ecosystem. Now, Tyler was on the show last week
8:44
and we talked about how TikTok was nudging their users to create
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like a home icon of the app for search, because we're starting to see an influx in Gen Z users
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using TikTok as opposed to Google or Bing or anything else. Additionally, we also talked about how in the last year
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Microsoft has become one of the biggest companies in the world overtaking Apple as far as their stock growth
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However, even despite their big investments into AI, they only took a small sliver of the market share
9:24
that Google still heavily dominates. So seeing something like this, it may seem big
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but I feel like Google still has such a chokehold on the search market that it's not something
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that I feel like it should be too much of a concern for publishers. However, in the growing landscape
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and we'll talk about this in one of the later stories too, everything is changing
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And the directions from which traffic gets sent to and where it's ending up, it's definitely changing
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And it's not something that's a positive trend for publishers, but it's just something else to take account of, especially with Open AI
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Do you have any takes as far as like if you were a publisher, especially one of the smaller publishers you work with
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What does this news mean for them? Yeah, I mean, it's, I think you're right
10:12
Like, it would be cool. I think we all would be stoked if, you know, if there was
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was a competitor and Google wasn't dominating everything. I don't think this is going to be the
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solution. You know, Google is so ingrained into, you know, search on our phones and all these
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other companies to where it's going to be the default and user behavior is going to take a while
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to change. But I think the fact that there are going to be different search behaviors, I mean
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I think it's an opportunity to look at how you create the content and how you're
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delivering it to people. One of the big things that I've seen a lot of complaints online or
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comments in general is content on the internet has instead of been created for people. It's a lot of
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the work is done to how do I get it to rank on Google and how do I not manipulate but play to
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what they're looking for, which I think in a lot of ways has made content objectively worse at
11:16
solving the question people are looking for. So yeah, kind of just on that, you know, I think
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people should be looking at, you know, not just with this way of search, but in general
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how do people consume content? Do I need to be just going by the book of Google? Or can I
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you know, take a step back and rethink how I am creating the content and, you know
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how I'm structuring it and everything to answer those questions? Yeah, definitely like quality
11:45
over quantity and especially with, you had mentioned something to me yesterday
11:49
where it's like just because there are now AI tools that will help you write the content
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and make the job easier for you, that also makes it easier for hundreds
12:00
and hundreds of publishers. Exactly. So how do you make yourself stand out
12:04
Well, and that's, yeah, I don't think, again, we talk about you can't just put a prompt
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into chat GPT or I know there's AI writing tools out there
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but it's not, hey, I paid money to use this tool. Now I put it on my website and wait
12:19
It's, you know, that article maybe is 80% of the way there
12:25
Once you are seeing it start to rank, well, can you go back and kind of review the content
12:30
augment it and make it, you know, more engaging, add, you know, add new aspects to it and things like that
12:38
In a great video. In a great video. Yeah, exactly. I think that's where publishers are going to get ahead, is, you know, leveraging these tools
12:47
And I know that, you know, Tyler's probably said it before on here as well, but it, I kind of think
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of it as similar to, you know, Excel. It's not going to replace you as a worker, and AI is not going to replace people as workers
13:01
but it does make people significantly more efficient and kind of takes out some of the monotonous
13:08
work and allows you to kind of get to the next level of kind of producing the content and
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you know putting it on your website right the value is from the idea not so much from how you create
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exactly definitely definitely and then just kind of sticking with the trend of traffic changing and
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just like a shift in this landscape a study was done by cartner who has forecasted a significant
13:33
shift in the digital landscape and he predicted or they predicted 25
13:38
percent decline in traffic from traditional search engines by 2026 and this anticipated change
13:44
is attributed to the growth preference of regenerative AI answering machines such as chat gpt and Claude over conventional search methods The projection underscores the pivotal transformation and how information is sought online
14:00
with AI-driven platforms potentially redirecting user search habits. For businesses reliant on search engine traffic for revenue, such as our publishers
14:09
this trend could necessitate a re-evaluation of SEO and PPC strategies alongside concerns
14:17
over rising advertising costs, while Gartner's predictions offers a glimpse into the future of digital marketing
14:24
their speculative nature warrants cautious interpretation. The firm's advisories include a prior warning about decrease in organic search traffic by 2028
14:34
and highlight the need for brands to adapt and diversify their marketing approaches in response to evolving AI technology landscapes
14:43
Now, not last week, but a few weeks ago, we had Terrence on the show
14:47
along with Connor. And we also were discussing about how advertising money that's going into search is increasing
14:56
Right. So the money is going back into the industry. It's just clearly now there are different directions that that traffic is going to
15:06
Therefore, the money is going to be dispersed differently. Right. Is this something that you're starting to see more and more as like you're working with publishers
15:14
Or is it something that's like it's kind of been a slow
15:18
Yeah, I think it's going to be more of a slow. I mean, we, again, we go back to user behavior
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And I think, yes, there's maybe interest in AI generative results. But for what things, I think there's certain aspects of search that AI would be really helpful for
15:36
I think there's others that it's almost trying to get too cute
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like some people do just want to go like find a video or you know find an article that answers their
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question it's not they don't necessarily want to talk to a chat bot or or have you know
15:54
google return as a i so i think that's it'll be yeah over time user behaviors will change but it's
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i don't think it's anything in the near future but the other thing that you kind of have to
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always remember with supply and demand i mean the the demand is coming and it and
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If supply is going to go down by 20%, well, you know, I would expect those that still get
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traffic to see an increase in their EPMV or their session revenue just because those eyeballs
16:24
are still very valuable. Definitely. And then to take something that Tyler has said in the past on this show, sometimes I don't
16:32
want the answer. Sometimes I want to find the answer. And I know that that kind of sounds like, well, I would want the answer right away, you
16:39
know, for the instant gratification. But let's say I'm working on a video project
16:42
I know that this is a tangent, but if I'm working on a video project, then I need to create a
16:47
certain effect or a certain animation, I could probably ask a chat bot to either, A, do it for me
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or B, explain to me in text how to do this, where to find something. But sometimes, like
16:59
I need a research. Right. I need to figure out why is the effect even working that way in after
17:04
effects? Why, you know, how do I get this expression to work properly? Right. So sometimes it's a matter of
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like I need to find somebody who is posting about this, publishing articles and content who
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know what they're talking about. And then that kind of feeds into the whole EEAT. So it's like
17:22
they have authority in the space. They are trustworthy. They clearly have the experience
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And through that experience, I lend learned. Right. Versus a chat GPT box is going to be like
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I need an expression to make an animation wiggle. And here's the expression that you're going to use
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Right. No explanation on why I need it. No explanation how it works. this is what it is. Yeah. So it's definitely like the value of having a a blog or a website where people can go find
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information is still there. Right. It's still there. Yeah. I think it's just that like short form
17:57
instant gratification answers, you know, like what are the ingredients in a hamburger? Right. Well
18:03
and the thing, I mean, for publishers on that, on that note, I mean, we've been seeing this for the last
18:08
five to 10 years. I mean, when I first started working here, there were a few websites that
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you know, got millions of visits and it was a time website. So it was just what's the time in
18:21
different places around the world? You go and type in like, you know, what's the time in Philippines
18:26
Google just puts it on the search results. You know, that traffic's been kind of like eating away
18:31
over time. And I, you know, I think this is just kind of the next evolution of getting those quick
18:36
answers. But yeah, it's definitely not going to take away from the authorities on a certain
18:41
subject. And maybe we elevate the level of like knowledge and across the board so you can have
18:49
100 people writing about it versus 10. But a lot of those people have not actually had the
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experiences. They haven't actually like done it. They're just regurgitating from AI. And that's not
19:01
that's not helpful. No, definitely not. And I mean, we have a note here regarding
19:06
like since you kind of work with a lot of the sites that get approved at a zoic
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You can't really just feed into a get rich quick scheme. No
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You can't just spin something up or be writing for keywords. Right, right. It's about the quality
19:18
Yeah. And over the last year, we've seen a huge boom and, you know, sites make money online or, you know, a lot of about insurance or about lawyers
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And it's kind of, oh, well, I've created 10 articles about it. And they're looking at what are the highest paying key
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can I throw all this on a website, you're just becoming more and more of like the same as
19:43
everyone else if you're taking that approach. So yeah, it's easy for you, but it's easy for
19:49
every other person out there to do the exact same thing you're doing unless you're taking
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your own personal approach and have that idea that separates you from the rest of the people
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out there creating content. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And then we'll just get right into the last
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story of the day here too. And this is coming out of the Wall Street Journal so you know that they do extra research
20:10
when they write their articles. Traditional search engines face a growing challenge from AI-powered answer machines
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That provided direct responses to user queries, potentially diminishing the need for traditional
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search methods. This shift is evidenced by the emergence of platforms like ARC search, which offers succinct
20:32
summaries that could lead to the reduction of website traffic. The proliferary of
20:38
AI generated content often of questionable quality further complicates the effectiveness of conventional search raising concerns about the credibility and usability of online information The impact of publishers business models is significant with potential revenue losses as AI
20:57
bypasses traditional website visits. High-profile cases such as the New York Times lawsuit
21:03
against Microsoft and Open AI underscore the legal and financial stakes involved
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Additionally, the evolution of AI search capabilities could extend to social media and beyond
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challenging established players like Google's to innovate and adapt. So this is clearly a big problem that's been happening with websites
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We're starting to see traffic being rerouted. Is there any way that a publisher could potentially try to get ahead of something like this
21:36
Like to set themselves up for success to make sure that they have everything, you know, ready to go
21:41
Yeah, I mean, it's hard. I wish I had like a perfect answer on this
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It's a very gray area. It's not black and white. It's gray and it's, yeah, I think in some ways, like I said before, I think this is going
21:54
to help clean up the internet a little bit. I mean, you're going to have more and more sites, but Google's in a really tough position
22:03
right now. I think I see a lot of people like, oh, what you search for. Like you're not getting good information
22:08
It's hard for them to differentiate AI versus. is regular content or stuff that's not helpful. I do think that will get better over time
22:18
You know, everybody has to adapt to this, not just the publishers, but also search engines
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and stuff. So, but I do think it's, you know, it's about still creating a good experience for
22:31
people coming to your website. So if that's making sure that the site is fast, you know
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passing Core WebVitals, loading the, you know, the most important ads. aspects of the website, that's going to be important
22:43
And then, yeah, just, you know, I think what we talked about right before
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it's people are still going to want to learn and understand from people that are
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authorities in it. So it's don't, you know, don't go work on a website where you don't really know anything
23:02
about it. You need to be like, what is something I'm passionate about? What is something that I actually know a lot about and can speak confidently about
23:10
and kind of show that in my own in my own tone. And I think what you say carries so much merit to because if let's say if I'm writing
23:18
about, I don't know, automobiles, I don't know anything about cars or how to drive
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Right. So if I'm writing about that, but I have no prior knowledge to it, but just because it's one of those
23:27
high-ranking keywords, right, like I'm not going to add anything to the content
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It's all going to be very dependent on the AI versus if I write something about like video
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production, which I have expertise. Right. doing it for decades. It's very much like I feel like I can then contribute, like give anecdotes in the story
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explain use cases and case studies in which I use something like that. But it's going to be very reliant on how much someone focuses in and takes that first draft
23:56
from AI and then is able to then rework it to make it something completely new
24:01
something completely valuable. Yeah. And I was going to say, like for me, I'm a huge sports fan
24:05
So whenever I think about what website was. I create, it's always like, oh, maybe a sports website, but I'm also the first to admit
24:12
I am not the in-depth ysis about a lot of this stuff. So it's, you know, what I would put out
24:18
there, like, probably would be a commodity versus like, hey, I have these insights that I've
24:24
spent time kind of looking at and kind of creating my own opinion. I think, you know, that's just
24:30
one example, kind of like you're with video production. But yeah, it's about how do you, it's
24:37
all about how you differentiate yourself from other publishers and the, you know
24:41
it's the best practices with SEO and everything is, is important too. But I think at the end of
24:48
the day, it's just, yeah, how do I create really good engaging content? And I know Google's always said
24:52
that. I think things have, people are annoyed because it seems like the algorithms have gotten
24:59
away from just really good content. But I, you know, I think it'll go back that direction. And it's
25:05
it's really something people should pay attention to and, you know, not put half-baked stuff out there, you know, for a lack of better term
25:14
And I mean, speaking on that same half-baked terminology, it's like another thing that we should really talk about that I feel like doesn't get talked about a lot with AI
25:22
I hear it sprinkled here and there often, but hallucinations are actually a big problem
25:28
Absolutely. We didn't include it on the docket this week, but there was a story that came out that was Air Canada lost a lawsuit
25:35
because they were using AI to publish their policies, or they had an AI chat bot
25:40
It was sitting along those lines. And when people were talking with the AI chatbot
25:45
it kept hallucinating policies that weren't real. Right. So they ended up having a lot of issues
25:51
and ultimately got sued for that. So that's another thing that if you're using AI
25:56
to create your content, please, please review it. Please review it because you could get yourself
26:03
into a sticky situation, or even worse. Like it could potentially affect the quality of your site
26:09
It could be the reason that maybe perhaps your core web vitals are getting thrown off
26:12
Who knows? Yeah. And again, I think it's all just like, you know, have a plan and have a methodical approach to
26:19
to, you know, whether it's creating content or, you know, creating your own chat bot for your website
26:25
for visitors. You know, having a plan, not just, oh, here's 10 things from AI that are really cool
26:32
Let's throw them on the website. Like, a lot of these ideas are new and there's really, really creative ways that people are
26:38
finding to use the AI, but I don't think it's just a plug-in play and you're good to go
26:45
Awesome. Well, I want to say thanks for being on the show with me this week
26:50
Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, it's been great. We'd love to have you back. I think, you know, sign me up
26:55
I'll come back whenever you guys need me. We got them. We got them. It's recorded, so now you're legally obliged to be on the show again
27:02
But yeah, it was great having you this week. If any publishers out there have any questions for Jan
27:09
I know I'm sure he'd love to hear him next time we have them on the show. I'd love to know how everyone is using AI or if there are any precautions that you guys may have
27:20
But aside from that, make sure to check out all of our stuff
27:24
We have a great accompanying blog to this called The Publishing Pulse. You can find everything on publisherlap.org
27:32
You could also check everything out all of our products on Azoic.com
27:36
But for Jan Kreidenberg, my name is Mandy Ramos. See you next time
27:41
Thanks, guys

Changes to Web Search & How AI is Shaping Publishers' Strategies | Publisher Lab Ep. 55

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Changes to Web Search & How AI is Shaping Publishers' Strategies | Publisher Lab Ep. 55

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