Social Software Failures
December 7, 2008
On the flight from London to lovely Kentucky, I reflected on the “big buzz” at the International Online Conference. Delegates seemed fascinated by “social” software companies, features, applications, and technology. From the keynote to the endnote, social was the cat’s pajamas.
You will want to read J.W. Crump’s “A Look at Failed Social Networks”. You can find the article at BivingsReport.com here. The write up presents two cases in sufficient detail to provide useful insights into the use of “crowdsourcing” to provide various features and benefits to users. His analysis of Wal*Mart’s The Hub reveals that the service did not allow its users sufficient freedom.
The second case was VitalSkate, a site for those who enjoy ice skating. The lesson extracted from this social software service was the operator did not understand the users of the site.
The third case was iYomu, which was a social software site for folks like me who are older. Among the reasons this site failed was it was its lack of purpose.
For me, the most interesting chunk of information was the inclusion of a timeline prepared by Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison. Scanning the list is an easy way to identify the major players and the steady increase in these types of Web sites.
The thoughts that struck me as I reviewed Mr. Crump’s article were:
- Social networks seem to require purpose. entertainment, and keen understanding of the needs of the site’s users.
- Social software appeals to those who are young in heart or who a significant need and find that requirement satisfied by a service that is appropriate and fun to use.
- Social software and its attendant services are not a slam dunk. Despite the excitement MySpace.com and Facebook.com seem to offer services with wide appeal to a youthful demographic.
When the social “big buzz” is transported to an organization, a number of questions may require some consideration before deploying one of the zippy new services I saw demonstrated at the International Online Show; for example:
- A small organization may not have the number of employees and authorized users to make a social site generate sufficient traffic and information to warrant keeping the service online
- The cost of implementing and verifying a workable security system may be too onerous for most organizations. With a slap dash approach, the security and privacy methods may leave the organization exposed
- Are employees in an organization willing to participate in social software services? If the financial pressures are increasing, employees may be unwilling to allocate the time necessary to participate in meaningful ways.
I understand the interest in social software and the functions it makes available. The question is, “Will these services offer up enough tangible benefits to make the investment worthwhile?”
For me, the answer to the question is, “It depends.” Some governmental agencies and not-for-profit outfits may find social software helpful. In regulated businesses, I am skeptical.
Stephen Arnold, December 7, 2008
SQL Server Data Services
December 6, 2008
SQL Server Magazine has a Web log. The post “Report from PASS: Interview with Tom Casey: General Manager of Microsoft Business Intelligence” contained several interesting items about SQL Server. You can read the article here. Here’s what I found interesting:
- The Kilimanjaro release will scale better and support up to 256 logical processors
- The next release of SQL Server will offer an improved interface for business intelligence
- Most users rely on Excel and SQL Server will feature Microsoft Excel with Add-ins enabling BI data access and end-user collaboration
- A data warehouse appliance will be rolled out as well.
My take away from the Web log post was that Microsoft is addressing some long standing issues of interoperability among its products. Will the upgrade end Excel hell; that is, no mechanism for managing Excel workbooks? No. Will SQL Server’s scaling issues be resolved? Maybe. Will the data warehouse appliance become a must have component? No, because it seems to be a placeholder product, not a solution. In my opinion, Microsoft will have to do more to match other vendors with business intelligence systems and data management tools. The upgrade is not likely to pull Microsoft closer to Aster Data, for example.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2008
PolySpot Lands Frost & Sullivan Deal
December 6, 2008
In London, I spoke with a representative of PolySpot, a Paris-based vendor of enterprise search systems. The company announced on November 20, 2008, that it licensed the PolySpot search system Frost & Sullivan, an America research firm. I learned that PolySpot won its deal because of its search technology and the system’s work flow capabilities. PolySpot’s system can index information, and the work flow component allow a licensee to route information to specific individuals. Publishers are often reluctant to abandon processes which have served them sell; however, according to one PolySpot professional:
More publishing companies and research firms need a way to provide access to information and the ability to make reuse of the information easy. The combination of the search system, the PolySpot interface, and its work flow tools allowed up to win this procurement.
Based on informal reports about this procurement, a number of high profile firms were competing for the Frost & Sullivan account. PolySpot prevailed. More information about PolySpot is here.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2008
Leximancer Polecat: Polecatting Text Analytics
December 6, 2008
Polecat (www.polecatting.com) offers a reputation analysis solution. The company has inked a deal with Leximancer, a UK based text analytics company. Leximancer’s system allows customer satisfaction, brand management and competitive intelligence professionals to automatically extract the root causes of customer attitudes from Internet communications such as blogs, Web sites and social media, as well as e-mails, service notes, call center notes, voice transcripts and survey feedback. Polecat’s MeaningMine draws strategic marketing insight from external and internal data sources, including intranets, blogs, customer feedback, audio and video, and analyst reports. The combined platform will derive actionable customer insight from unstructured data and provide key insights for customer service, brand management and customer intelligence professionals. The deal if a revenue-sharing agreement allows Polecat to integrate with Leximancer’s Web service interface—operating the Leximancer platform seamlessly in the Polecat SaaS-based solution. Polecat will market the enhanced solution under its own brand.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2008
Autonomy and Big Data
December 6, 2008
Earthtimes.org reported that Autonomy’s technology manages more than seven petabytes of data. “Autonomy Reaches New Benchmark for Managing World’s Largest Data Archive” here said that the Autonomy Digital Safe “archives three million files an hour, which works out the more than 830 files a second. The Earthtimes’ report said:
Autonomy Digital Safe is a massively scalable, hosted archive service
that enables customers to outsource the storage and management of their email
messages, rich-media files, instant messages (IMs), unified communications
content and content from over 400 repositories to a trusted, proven
third-party.
More information about the system is available on the Autonomy Web site here. If you have an axe to gring with Autonomy, please, contact them. I am linking to a story, not writing the story.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2008
Microsoft Yahoo: Not Interested Becomes Interested
December 6, 2008
After a fun-filled 10 hour flight from England to cold Kentucky, I chuckled at “Ballmer Says Yahoo Search Deal Better Sooner than Later” by Dawn Kawamoto here. The London Times got a piece of the story but Microsoft and others disavowed any interest in Yahoo. After hiring Yahoo search expert Qi Lu, Ms. Kawamoto snagged this comment from Mr. Ballmer:
I think a search deal makes great sense for Microsoft, and Yahoo, and I think I’ve been very open about that…Our focus on portal and search is super-strong, and even if we never do a Yahoo deal or anything else, I wanted to have Qi come on board. It is kind of a bonus that if something happened with Yahoo I’m sure it’s somewhat simpler.
The renewed interest is fascinating to me. Microsoft will face some challenges because it will have Live.com search, Fast Search & Transfer, its own SharePoint search, and Powerset. I don’t think search is what Microsoft needs. My hunch is that Yahoo search is seen as an eyeball deal. In my opinion, it will be interesting to see if the deal goes through. Then will a tie up with Yahoo deliver more eyeballs or will those eyeballs deduplicate themselves. What happens if the combined Web site search traffic flat lines or declines relative to Google. Microsoft is buying clicks with its cash back program. I think there are some assumptions about traffic that will become clearer if the deal goes through.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2008
Google Needs Ideas, Says the Independent
December 5, 2008
After the London Times muffed the ball with its Microsoft Yahoo deal, the Independent is reporting that Google needs ideas. You can read the full text of the story here. According to “Google Staff Searching for Fresh Ideas” by Steve Foley, Google’s engineers have to spend less time of personal projects and more time to find ways to squeeze more juice from the Google data farm. For me the most important comment reminded me how dependent on advertising Google remains after such high profile revenue initiatives as enterprise search sales. Here’s what Mr. Foley said:
Google’s ad revenues are still growing at a rate of one-third a year, but just three years ago they were doubling annually, and analysts are forecasting the online advertising market will be little better than flat this year. Google makes effectively all its money selling ads next to its search results.
Do I believe that Google is indeed making big moves to remain in front of the tidal wave of financial misfortune? Nope. Not for a New York minute. I think Google is taking advantage of the present economic crisis to chop away some of the excesses of Google’s early hubris and unusual business decisions. The GOOG is in a much better position than some other companies. Google has many ways to turn on nrew revenue streams, and it has a significant lead in infrastructure. I think Google is like one of those mixed martial arts fight clubs. The weaker members of the team and some distractions are being eliminated.
Stephen Arnold, December 5, 2008
Microsoft Emulates Henry Ford’s Approach to Assembly
December 5, 2008
InfoWorld’s “Microsoft Applies Model T Factory Methods to Data Centers” caught my attention. The article by James Niccolai is here. One of the useful items in the article was the link to a Web log post about Microsoft’s data centers here. Let me capture the points that I noted:
- One of the Microsoft executives responsible for the Redmond giant’s data centers is Michael Manos; others include Daniel Costello, Data Center Research and Engineering and Christian Belady, principal power and cooling architect
- Microsoft is asking equipment makers to construct systems to Microsoft’s specifications
- The data centers use the type of container approach available from Sun Microsystems and allegedly used by Google
- The approach and systems appear to have a five-year life
- Microsoft has more than 240 products and services it will deliver from these data centers
- The containerized approach is to “reduce capital costs by 20%-40% or greater depending upon class.”
I found this statement from theWeb log post written by Mr. Manos and his colleagues quite thought provoking:
Gen 4 will move data centers from a custom design and build model to a commoditized manufacturing approach. We intend to have our components built in factories and then assemble them in one location (the data center site) very quickly. Think about how a computer, car or plane is built today. Components are manufactured by different companies all over the world to a predefined spec and then integrated in one location based on demands and feature requirements. And just like Henry Ford’s assembly line drove the cost of building and the time-to-market down dramatically for the automobile industry, we expect Gen 4 to do the same for data centers. Everything will be pre-manufactured and assembled on the pad.
In short, Microsoft sees its approach as “a game changer.”
I am convinced that Microsoft has thrown the full weight of its data center engineering team behind these new data centers. The diagrams in the Web log post make it clear that Microsoft wants to raise the bar in data center design.
As I reread the InfoWorld story and Mr. Manos’ Web log article, several thoughts danced through my mind. First, Microsoft is working hard to catch up with Google, a company that has been investing in its infrastructure for a decade. One presumes that Google’s engineers continue to upgrade their hardware and network infrastructure without the urgency and additional cost of fast cycle engineering. Google has been a slow and steady data center investor, and I think that it may have–if my research data are accurate–a significant lead in data center build outs. Second, the key to a data center is the software and the internal systems engineering. A data center is an empty office building in a manner of speaking. The software and the methods used to handle routine data center operations and the inevitable glitches are more important than the physical plant. When extra capacity is required, companies can get more capacity. Google relied on Akamai for a recent live YouTube.com concert. The systems engineering that makes seamless operation across a company’s own data centers and a third party’s data centers is where the mouseball meets the mouse pad. Third, the known bottlenecks within systems within data centers have the greatest impact on the data center’s budget. It’s important to manage costs, but when routers running on commodity servers have to be flanked by two or more support servers, I think the inefficiency of this type of approach will erode centain cost estimates. Throwing hardware at a known problem instead of engineering a solution will affect performance and budgets. Google has been chipping away at certain problems such as the inappropriateness of traditioinal relational database tables for certain operations. Microsoft is making progress in the physical building and layout of the data center itself, but I think considerable work must be done to match Google’s payoff from significant investments in addressing read write bottlenecks, file locking and unlocking, fail indifference, and getting data from communication pipes into the servers in the data center.
To sum up, Google may start feeling the heat from Microsoft’s effort, but with the recent meltdown of Micrsoft’s cash for searching scheme on Black Friday, the company has some engineering issues to resolve. At least Microsoft has a horse in the race after giving Google a 10 year head start out of the cloud services gate.
One final thought: the financial meltdown of the Ford Motor Company hit me as a reminder that using old technical models for tomorrow’s challenges may be a very risky way to catch up with Google. What do you think? Ford Pantera or Ford Pinto?
Stephen Arnold, December 5, 2008
New Open Source Search Vendor
December 5, 2008
Hans-Christian Brockmann, founder of brox, an open source search and content processing company, reveals his vision for his company here. Mr. Brockmann wants to provide organizations with an alternative to proprietary search systems. In an exclusive interview with ArnoldIT.com, a management consulting firm founded by Stephen E. Arnold, Mr. Brockmann said:
Having spent 10 years catering to enterprise customers, we are very much aware of the strategic and political aspects of deploying IT-infrastructures to large organizations. Our project SMILA (SeMantic Information Logistics Architecture) surely can be considered an infrastructure project which embraces open source search within it. Open source solutions are being absorbed in the enterprise, as evidenced by Lucene interest.
The statistical significance of the 180,000 Lucene projects is it underscores the sheer amount of “do it yourself” projects out there, actually massively more than there are professional commercial search implementations.
We want to provide these “do it yourself” search projects with the tools they all are missing..
Having spent 10 years catering to enterprise customers, we are very much aware of the strategic and political aspects of deploying IT-infrastructures to large organizations. Our project SMILA (SeMantic Information Logistics Architecture) surely can be considered an infrastructure project which embraces open source search within it. Open source solutions are being absorbed in the enterprise, as evidenced by Lucene interest. The statistical significance of the 180,000 Lucene projects is it underscores the sheer amount of “do it yourself” projects out there, actually massively more than there are professional commercial search implementations. We want to provide these “do it yourself” search projects with the tools they all are missing.Having spent 10 years catering to enterprise customers, we are very much aware of the strategic and political aspects of deploying IT-infrastructures to large organizations. Our project SMILA (SeMantic Information Logistics Architecture) surely can be considered an infrastructure project which embraces open source search within it. Open source solutions are being absorbed in the enterprise, as evidenced by Lucene interest.
Mr. Brockmann’s estimate of the number of Lucene installations is one of the first ArnoldIT.com has been able to obtain.
Mr. Brockmann added:
Putting in the plumbing for the next generation of semantic applications is something every organization will have to do in order to remain competitive. In the course of this they will more or less all stumble across the same issues. To name a few: Security, scalability, connectivity, longevity and of course, maintenance and support for such a large infrastructure. We suggest it is best to share the cost of implementing and maintaining the infrastructure – which is not part of the strategic competencies of any company – on a shared basis. If you look at the top 1000 companies globally and ask them to deliver a list of application software they are using,the lists will be almost identical. The breadth and depth of use of certain products may be different, but basically the tools are similar.
More information about brox, the company Mr. Brockmann founded is here. You can read the full text of the interview here.
Stephen Arnold, December 5, 2008
Information 2009: Challenges and Trends
December 4, 2008
Before I was once again sent back to Kentucky by President Bush’s appointees, I recall sitting in a meeting when an administration official said, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” When we think about search, content processing, assisted navigation, and text mining, that catchphrase rings true.
Successes
But we are learning how to deliver some notable successes. Let me begin by highlighting several.
Paginas Amarillas is the leading online business directory in Columbia. The company has built a new systems using technology from a search and content processing company called Intelligenx. Similar success stories and be identified for Autonomy, Coveo, Exalead, and ISYS Search Software. Exalead has deployed a successful logistics information system which has made customers’ and employees’ information lives easier. According to my sources, the company’s chief financial officer is pleased as well because certain time consuming tasks have been accelerated which reduces operating costs. Autonomy has enjoyed similar success at the US Department of Energy.
Newcomers such as Attivio and Perfect Search also have satisfied customers. Open source companies can also point to notable successes; for example, Lemur Consulting’s use of Flax for a popular UK home furnishing Web site. In Web search, how many of you use Google? I can conclude that most of you are reasonably satisfied with ad-supported Web search.
Progress Evident
These companies underscore the progress that has been made in search and content processing. But there are some significant challenges. Let me mention several which trouble me.
These range from legal inquiries into financial improprieties at Fast Search & Transfer, now part of Microsoft to open Web squabbles about the financial stability of a Danish company which owns Mondosoft, Ontolica, and Speed of Mind. Other companies have shut their doors; for example, Alexa Web search, Delphes, and Lycos Europe. Some firms such as one vendor in Los Angeles has had to slash its staff to three employees and take steps to sell the firm’s intellectual property which rightly concerns some of the company’s clients.
User Concerns
Another warning may be found in the results from surveys such as the one I conducted for a US government agency in 2007 that found dissatisfaction with existing search systems in the 65 percent range. AIIM, a US trade group, 
reported slightly lower levels of dissatisfaction. Jane McConnell’s recently released study in Paris reports data in line with my findings. We need to be mindful that user expectations are changing in two different ways.
First, most people today know how to search with Google and get useful information most of the time. The fact that Google is search for upwards of 65 percent of North American users and almost 75 percent of European Union users means that Google is the search system by which users measure other types of information access. Google’s influence has been essentially unchecked by meaningful competition for 10 years. In my Web log, I have invested some time in describing Microsoft’s cloud computing initiatives from 1999 to the present day.
For me and maybe many of you, Google has become an environmental factor, and it is disrupting, possibly warping, many information spaces, including search, content processing, data management, applications like word processing, mapping, and others.
Microsoft is working to counter Google, and its strategy is a combination of software and low adoption costs. I believe that Microsoft’s SharePoint has become the dominant content management, collaboration, and search platform with 100 million licenses in organizations. SharePoint, however, is not well understood as technically complex and a work in progress. Anyone who asserts that SharePoint is simple or easy is misrepresenting the system. Here’s a diagram from a Microsoft Certified Gold vendor in New Zealand. Simple this is not.
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