Web Search Data: Maybe Right, Maybe Wrong but the Trend–Spot On
June 10, 2008
I just received in my trusty RSS feed the news that Hitwise has released its Web search market share data for May 2008. You should take a look at the data table here. I don’t think for a Kentucky minute that these numbers are dead accurate. I do think the data, generated with various mathematical voodoo and data from some cooperative folks, show trends.
Here’s what I mean. Google’s market share of Web searches in the sampled area which means the United States has risen over the last three years. Cross referencing my data, Google’s share of Web search has risen for a decade, and that’s not news. In May 2008, Google, says Hitwise number crunchers, accounted for 68 percent of Web search traffic.
Nope. The big insights from my point view are these:
- Microsoft’s market share has declined from 7.6 percent in May 2007 to 5.9 percent in May 2008. Limping aardvark Ask.com tallied a May 2008 share of 4.2 percent.
- Yahoo, despite the search announcement fusillades, lost share, dropping below 21 percent of Web search traffic in May 2007 to 19 percent in May 2008.
What are the trends? I’m not sure you will agree with my analysis, but this is a Web log, and it’s free.
First, Google keeps on increasing its share. The line goes up. I’m not even interested in whether Hitwise’s data are accurate. Over the time line I track, Google has yet to meet a competitor who can hobble Googzilla. I’m not sure Google is that great a search engine. What I do know is that the competitors’ systems are not able to convince users that their systems are better.
Second, Microsoft has been unable to crack the code for Web search. Maybe financial incentives and advertising will work. I think there’s more to search than $650 million data centers running Windows Servers with peer-to-peer technologies moving data from one behemoth to another. The trend line is nosing down–closing in on Ask.com territory.
Third, Yahoo’s innovation engine isn’t firing on all cylinders. Social this, open that–the search is still leaving users cold. Now it’s drift down appears to be accelerating. I recall Yahoo’s chief technical wizard telling me in 2007, “We have some tricks that Google doesn’t have.” Maybe in their dreams. The reality, if the Hitwise data are accurate, is that Yahoo is slipping. In my files, I have a reference to Yahoo’s share of the search market in 2001 as 50 percent. Looks like a dip to me.
Agree? Disagree? Use the comments section to let me know if you have data that refute the start fact that the GOOG is running free, without meaningful competition, and frolicking in growth as Microsoft and Yahoo struggle to reverse their losses.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
A Google Amazon Balancing Act
June 10, 2008
CNet featured an essay by Charles Cooper. You can read it here. Click the link quickly. I continue to receive emails from people telling me my links are dead. Some sites move stories around; others just delete them. The title–“Google’s Right but Cloud Computing Timeline Isn’t So Clear–is the type that catches my attention, but the core information really hooked me.
Mr. Cooper references a talk by Googler Rishi Chandra at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. You can read the CNet write up of Mr. Chandra’s presentation here. The main point of the Googler’s remarks is that cloud computing is the future. That’s an old message, but in the spring and summer Google transparency offensive of 2008, it’s becoming clear that Google believes in network computing. Okay. Maybe this is old news. The implication is that Google is serious about the enterprise market. Okay. Also old news. Mr. Cooper describes Mr. Chandra’s revelations and insights in an objective manner. I don’t think I could have done that were I reporting on the Googler’s talk.
Mr. Cooper does an excellent job of summarizing the Google “game plan”, and I won’t attempt to summarize his clear, tight writing.
But the payload of this must-read article is that Mr. Chandra made a gentle reference to the reliability of certain cloud-based services. When I saw this, my radar lit up. After years of ignoring Amazon’s push into services and features that are easy for Google to deliver, Google seems to be jerking its Googzilla-sized self into action. Amazon is making an effort to out Google Google at a fraction of the amount that Google spends on technology. Amazon, based on my research, is doing cloud computing on a very abstemious sum that is about one fifth of Google’s. My accountant father would be proud of Mr. Bezos’ penny pinching. I’m from a different generation, and I learned in the nuclear power work I did in the early 1970s that it pays to engineer certain functions without cutting corners. A flawed infrastructure is bad news in a BWR (boiling water reactor) and not-so-good news in a cloud-computing system.
For me, this single passing reference translates to increased pressure from the Google enterprise team. In the column I submitted to KMWorld which will run in either July or August 2008, I describe how “Google physics” work. Imagine my delight when Mr. Cooper provided additional information to buttress my analysis. I’m not going to explain “Google physics” in this post. You will have to wait until the KMWorld publication becomes available, but you can deduce that when the pressure goes up, the competitive arena behaves differently. The GOOG may be cranking up the heat now.
Kudos, Mr. Cooper. I appreciate a thorough reporting job.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
Mobile Search
June 10, 2008
I try to steer clear of mobile search. The notion is broad and like most terms used to describe information retrieval the phrase mobile search is frequently undefined. The idea, I assume, is that everyone knows what mobile search is.
I asked my neighbor what mobile search was, and he said, “I just use my phone for calls.” Functions like sending a query to Yahoo’s mobile service aren’t used very often by me, not at all by him, and probably not by you, gentle reader, either.
But if you you get text or graphic information on a mobile device, it’s mobile search. Most pundits feel that this definition is close enough for horse shoes. The problem is that it is the equivalent of cutting a cherry pie with a Husqvarna 455 Rancher chain saw, a popular model here in the hills of Kentucky.
This is a photograph of a Beyond Search programmer expressing dissatisfaction with the mobile search function on an Apple iPhone and a Treo 650. “Both are terrible,” says ArnoldIT.com’s chief technical officer.
The USA Today business section ran this front page story on June 10, 2008: “Are Google, Yahoo the Next Dinosaurs?” I couldn’t find the story on USAToday’s Web site. If it does appear online, I think this is the link that will display it for you. If you can’t locate this story online, you may have to hunt for a tree-unfriendly printed version.
The story, written by Leslie Cauley, is that “many [vendors are] on the hunt for a way to cash in on wireless search.” The idea is that no one, not even Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo have cracked the code for mobile search. The “dinosaur” part is a bit of color. The notion is that because neither Google nor Yahoo have cracked the code for mobile search, these two firms could be left in the dust by younger, more hip innovators. Ergo: Google and Yahoo become the brontosauri of online with regard to mobile search. Ms. Cauley mentions an up-and-coming company called Medio, careful to explain that this is just one interesting company among many. You can read more about Medio here. Could Medio be the next Google?
Because mobile devices are more plentiful than other types of computers, whoever cracks the code can make boat loads of cash selling ads to mobile phone device users running search. I’m not going to cite USAToday’s statistics. I have heard that Gannett takes a dim view of old researchers tapping into their high-value statistical data captured in bar charts without data tables.
I urge you buy “America’s newspaper”; make Gannett’s accountants happy.
The challenges of mobile search are formidable. There are established business models ossified in the American telecommunications industry. There are device issues; namely, screens smaller than the 48 inches of flat panel I have in front of me at this moment, lousy keyboards, and users who aren’t too keen on taking time to paw through a laundry lists of results.
Verity Founder Interview Now Available
June 10, 2008
As part of the Search Wizards Speak series on the ArnoldIT.com Web site, an interview with Abe Lederman, one of the founders of Verity is now available. You can read the full-text of the interview here. Mr. Lederman reveals his view of a weakness in the Google Forms’ approach to deep Web indexing. His view is based on his firm’s “deep Web technology.” The interview is here.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
Open Source: Another Pre-Quake Tremor
June 10, 2008
Dzone (Javalobby department) has an excellent interview that suggests an unexpected open source casuality–software tools. The Web log post is chock full of useful information plus some revelatory screen shots. This is a four-page interview, links, and comments. The subject of the interview is John De Goes, president of N-Brain, a firm that creates UNA, a source code editor. UNA at this time is free. The idea is that a better mousetrap is free, and it may put increasing pressure on the companies in the tools business.
Another key in this nice piece of work is a comment from a user of the open source tool UNA:
UNA is a special platform. Anyone who knows how I code and run projects understand[s] how bold a statement that is for me. Why? I very much believe in the solo hacking til it works. UNA is about group – real time collab. I usually hate group collab on code and design because the communication and miscommunication gets in the way. UNA is different because the collaboration is weirdly seamless and actually real time – you all see the same things, you chat inline, code completion just works, everything is tracked, and never once does the group feature take precedence over just coding. …I sure hope the Visual Studio, Netbeans, Eclipse, Zend, Codeworks, and Nusphere folks pay attention to this and either integrate or buy N-brain[‘s technology]. Seriously, the system is that cool.
I interpreted the interview and this biting observation as meaning that open source programming tools are likely to take increasingly large bites of the proprietary software tools market. Why’s this important? Lucene, Nutch, FLAX, and other open source search systems are likely to have a similar impact over time. Read this interview, please.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
Amazon and Cloud Computing
June 10, 2008
Intelligent Enterprise’s very good journalist Doug Henschen has an excellent interview with Amazon’s Adam Selipsky here. The interview is meaty, running to three sections. (Snag this now. Content can be tricky to find after a day or two.) Mr. Henschen has made an effort to capture the detail that many editors deem irrelevant. This interview is a keeper if you are a collector of Amazon business thought.
Two key points struck me as I was reading Amazon’s VP of product management’s answers to Mr. Henschen’s questions. Let me highlight these two points and then offer several observations.
The first point is this comment by Mr. Selipsky:
I’d also say that part of the whole point of computing in the cloud is that you don’t have to worry about where the resources are. If you decide to do enterprise backup in S3 — which is a great application that we’re seeing more and more of, by the way — do you really need to know exactly where and when those copies are replicated and how our replication works? That’s time you could be spending on something else. What you want to know is that we’re never going to lose the data, that your people are going to be able to access the data whenever they want, and that it’s secure.
As I understand this comment, Mr. Selipsky wants to shift a customer’s concern from the physical location of data to comfort that “we’re never going to lose the data.” I recall that one of my college professors explained the notion of categorical affirmatives and categorical negatives. In my aging Kentucky brain I have boiled down that learning to one precept: Never say never. I think Mr. Selipsky is saying “never”.
The second point is this exchange between Mr. Henschen and Mr. Selipsky. I have marked Mr. Henschen’s question with the label “question” and Mr. Selipsky’s response as “answer”:
Question: Would you say that Internet-based, customer-facing businesses like Amazon are at the center of the target and that enterprises business might be ceded, one day, to cloud vendors that specialize in enterprise services?
Answer: I would absolutely not say that. We had Fortune 500 companies using Amazon Web Services literally from the day we launched S3. It’s true that the majority of our early usage was from smaller companies and startups because they tend to be a little more risk tolerant. We thought it would take several years to get to the enterprise stage in a meaningful way, but we’ve actually been rather surprised at how quickly enterprise adoption and interest have accelerated.
As I understand Mr. Selipsky’s remark, Amazon is prepared to compete with firms yet to enter the cloud computing arena. For example, there’s the loose tie up between Google and Salesforce.com. There’s the rumor of interest in utility services from Verizon, AT&T, and other telecommunications companies. I’ve heard chatter that Cisco and Intel as unlikely as this seems to me are thinking about cloud computing. Most of these companies have the potential to make a monopoly play in cloud computing. Also, I think I see another categorical in Mr. Selipsky’s remark: “absolutely”. I find this an interesting word choice in a market sector that is in its infancy.
Observations
Let me wrap up with several unasked for remarks:
- I find that categorical affirmatives and negatives jejune. Maybe the word choice is colloquial and unintentional, but I think it shows the shallowness of Amazon’s positioning of its Web services. It’s tough for me to accept absolutes and categoricals when so much is uncertain in this cloud computing space.
- My recollection is that Amazon’s core service suffered service outages on Friday, June 6, 2008, and then again on Monday, June 9, 2008. The information about the problem has been sparse. Regardless of the cause, these recent problems suggest that Amazon’s engineering has some details to which it must attend.
- Certain services naturally tend toward monopolies. For example, I don’t buy my electric power in rural Kentucky from the cheapest vendor. I use the only vendor, a non-US outfit with control of the local power company. I think cloud computing may share some DNA with the pre-break up AT&T; that is, it will make economic sense for one company to control the market. Because cloud computing is an engineering problem, I think the winner will be a company that can do great engineering economically. A system failure doesn’t translate in my mind to great engineering.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know. Use the comments section to push back or provide additional insight. This is a Web log, so weigh in.
Report about Amazon technical issue from Network World is here.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
Google Economics: Innovation + Scalabilty = Success
June 10, 2008
Eric Schmidt’s talk at the tony Economic Club of Washington caught the attention of journalists, Web log authors, and assorted pundits. You can find a plethora of links and news stories on Google News, Topix.net, and NewsNow.co.uk. The write up that caught my eye is the one in the Los Angeles Times’s Web log. An essay written by Jim Puzzanghera, whom I don’t know, struck me as the pick of the litter. The write up is quite long, and I urge you to download it here and read it. (My experience with the search functions on traditional media’s Web sites is generally negative. If the link goes dead, that’s par for the course.)
Two points in the article caught my attention. Let me highlight each and then offer several observations. Now, the hot stuff in the article by Mr. Puzzanghera.
First, Mr. Puzzanghera quotes Mr. Schmidt as saying:
It is possible to build a culture around innovation. It is possible to build a culture around leadership. And it is possible to build a culture around optimism. Google is an example, but by no means the only example, of a culture that can be built based on relatively scalable principles. We could run our country this way. We could run the world this way.
My understanding of this statement is that Google is an innovator interested in “scalable principles”. A “scalable principle” as I understand it means that something can get big and then bigger. Knitting together the notions of innovation and scaling, we get a mathematician’s view of how to run the railroad. The only downside to fusing these two ideas is that there’s not much room for folks who don’t want to innovate (most businesses and the US government to cite two examples) or scale (people fearful of getting too big because that’s a lot of work). I can see the audience attendees shifting in their chairs and looking at one another as if to ask, “What’s this fellow talking about?” Mr. Schmidt is providing a clear statement of what makes Google tick. The problem is that most Economic Club members don’t understand Google as anything other than a Web search company and ad company.
The second point is the last sentence of Mr. Puzzanghera’s article. In reference to Mr. Schmidt’s statement “Let’s be revolutionaries”, Mr. Puzzanghera writes in reference to this comment by Mr. Schmidt:
Those sound like the words of someone who might be considering a run for higher office one day, assuming Google isn’t running everything by then.
What struck me about this comment is that Google’s senior manager is using the lingo of a diplomat as shaped by a speech advisor schooled who wants to leave an audience with a call to action. The “Let’s be revolutionaries” line is a new twist to Google’s public persona. Mr. Puzzanghera nails it. Google is positioning itself and maybe its management team to take a more proactive leadership role. If I’m right, Google is going to be doing more talking about its technology, its implications, and its way of doing business.
Observations
Google’s spring transparency offensive continues into early summer. Googlers–previously a secretive cabal–are turning up on podcasts (Steve Gillmor landed the big Google API fish Mark Lucovsky), Web logs (Datawocky’s Anand Rajaraman shared some Googley insights from artificial intelligence guru Peter Norvig), and an associate in Israel spotted Sergey Brin chatting about green energy and data here. Even this goose’s Web log received a comment from an alleged Googler about the company’s transparency here.
Several other thoughts triggered by Mr. Puzzanghera’s write up are warranted:
- Google is talking more, and I think as this information becomes more widely available, public perception of Google may evolve–and quickly. The one-dimensional view of Google as a search company in the business of selling online ads may give way to a multi-dimensional view of the GOOG
- The leadership message is a signal to me that Google wants to move from the shadows into the mainstream of business and political influence. After the missteps in Washington when one of the Googlers visited senators and congressmen in a sparkly T-shirt and sneakers, Google is starting to understand how the non-mathematical world works. That’s a big shift in the last three years.
- The greater openness leaves the company open to charges of doing too many things. Microsoft may be the beneficiary of Google’s chattiness. Assume Google continues to explain its view of business, leadership, economics as a blend of innovation and scalability. Google becomes more vulnerable to criticism.
How will Google deal with the consequences of talking more? Let me know your thoughts.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
Panorama: A Google Surfer
June 9, 2008
A colleague in the UK sent me the text of a Datamonitor Computerwire with the title “Google Sparks Analytics as a Service Push”. I tracked down a version of the item sent me here. I have a sneaking suspicion that the news item will not be available online very long. Companies with eight syllables in their names charge for their information.
The key point in the write up from my point of view is:
Google partner Panorama Software in March unveiled a set of analytics gadgets for Google Docs, Google’s personal productivity and collaboration tools that are offered on a software-as-a-service model. On the back of that development will soon come Panorama’s PowerApps, an analytical engine for the web or OLAP 2.0, which when released later this year will enable ISVs and software developers to build and extend analytical applications using the power of cloud computing. The platform will offer APIs to create OLAP cubes as well as deliver and create customized reports from within Google applications.
Panorama Software is one of a large number of vendors in the analytics business. Unlike many of those firms, Panorama has embraced Googzilla. In my opinion, Panorama’s management has figured out what wave to ride, particularly when it comes to enterprise applications delivered from the cloud.
One interesting fact about Panorama is that it sold its OLAP technology to Microsoft in 1996. You can obtain Panorama’s system as SQL Server Analysis Services, which is integrated into the SQL Server database platform. The company’s embrace of Google suggests that Panorama’s management has found another perfect wave. Google seems content to let companies that “get it” surf the Google-generated opportunities at least for now. You can learn about Panorama’s services here.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
More Funny Numbers: Enterprise 2.0
June 9, 2008
The Industry Standard’s article “Momentum, Some Confusion Mark Enterprise 2.0” does a good job explaining why buzz words are dragging information technology managers into a quagmire. You can find the very good article here. A number of points jumped out at me. I want to highlight two that struck me as particularly important and offer one observation.
The first point is this comment bit of information in the middle of the write up:
A recent study by the research firm AIIM found that while nearly half of respondents said Enterprise 2.0 is “imperative or significant to corporate goals and objectives,” 74 percent said they have “only a vague familiarity or no clear understanding” of the concept.
I found this downright amazing.
The second point is this fact about a market that people have “only a vague familiarity or no clear understanding” of:
And one prediction has the space ready to explode. Forrester Research recently said that enterprise spending on technologies such as social-networking platforms and RSS feeds will grow to US$4.6 billion by 2013, from $764 million in 2008.
That’s a lot of revenue from a concept most people, including this rural Kentucky boy, don’t understand.
My observation: economic pressures are forcing conference organizers to go to great lengths to create buzz. In a deteriorating economic climate, I think it is attendees zero. Conference marketers 2.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
Exalead: Enterprise Search Heats Up
June 9, 2008
Exalead, founded by former AltaVista.com guru, François Bourdoncle named a US president for the privately-held search and content processing company. Paul Doscher will work from Exalead’s San Francisco office. Mr. Doscher is an experienced executive. He will tackle Exalead’s OEM strategy, assist the online business market launch, and consolidate the firm’s activities in in business-to-business markets.
Mr. Doscher joins Exalead from Jaspersoft, which under his management became the worldwide leader in the open source business intelligence market. This expertise combined with nearly thirty years experience in the IT industry at companies including VMware and Oracle, adds muscle to the fast-growing Exalead.
Exalead has been growing at double-digit rates for the last two years. Offering its platform exalead one:search; software which scales from desktop to data center entry level points, Exalead enables industrial informational access which incorporates structured and unstructured data as well as internal and external content for individuals and organizations alike to retrieve and utilize effectively.
The firm has a platform that shares many of the characteristics of low-cost scaling and high performance with Google. You can find more information about Exalead here. In my April 2008 study for the Gilbane Group, Exalead was named a “company to watch”.
Stephen Arnold, June 10, 2008
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