[erickj]

it seems like the better question is:

"is it a good idea to build a business around trivia answers?"

if your entire business model could be upended by a collection of 1 line wikipedia edits, then it seems like the problem is in the inability to forecast.

[tyingq]

That's one space that Google is gobbling up with this sort of thing. It's not the only one.

Try: status flight 111 american airlines

That used to result in a visit to aa.com

Now they are way below the fold at around #6 or so.

Google isn't planning just to eat up traffic for trivia sites.

[bpicolo]

That looks to be a result of those flight radar sites doing heavy SEO for the terms vs aa.com =/

[tyingq]

That explains #6, but the "below the fold" is because Google injects their widget: http://imgur.com/a/tr5cs

It's handy, sure. But it does take away a customer interaction that AA used to get.

[richardwhiuk]

how is protecting AA's customer interactions Google's responsibility?

from my perspective as a consumer, Google is providing the information I asked for, in a clear simple straightforward manner.

[mytherin]

It isn't, but it is Google's responsibility not to infringe on the copyright of other people/companies. Google is not displaying their own content in those snippets. They are taking content from other websites, reformatting it and putting it on their own website. By stealing that content and displaying it to the user, the user now no longer needs to visit the website from which the content originated. They are directly taking away potential customers/revenue from these companies. It seems pretty clear that that's not entirely kosher.

[Animats]

Facts aren't copyrightable in the US. See Feist vs. Rural Telephone. If it's a pure fact and exposed to public view, Google can take the data and repurpose it.

[tyingq]

Reading the below with that context is amusing.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2721312?hl=en

[tyingq]

Didn't say it was. What I was getting at is that as a website owner, you aren't safe from Google taking away your traffic, solely by focusing on things that aren't trivia.

You seem to agree.

[ominous]

No, from your perspective as a consumer Google is making it harder to go to the source. And if you learn to trust the snippets, Google is making it pointless for sources to cater to customers, rather than to please Google.

Then you will just talk to Google, the gatekeeper.

[r3bl]

You need to get that data from somewhere in order for it to appear to Wikipedia. You need to analyze it. And Wikipedia would give you credit if you do the analysis yourself.

[gdulli]

If a business that carefully curates and delivers quality data can be replaced by an algorithm that delivers incorrect data, the problem from society's point of view is on a whole different plane than forecasting.

[hyperpape]

I don't know how credible celebrity net worth is, but Wikipedia can't provide the best estimates. It doesn't have the organizational structure to ensure that they're present for all celebrities, or that they stay up to date, and its policy on citations means it can't engage in well informed speculation.

The best Wikipedia could do is (manually or automatically) scrape a site like celebrity net worth for information, linking to its estimates, if wikipedia editors decided that it was a notable/reputable source.