Semantics Where None Had Gone Before
December 20, 2008
My view of semantic technology is that it is plumbing. Users have other tasks to complete so making time to add tags is limited. Technology Review, the nerdy corollary to the Harvard Business Review, published a remarkable article here. “Semantic Sense for the Desktop” by Erica Naone reports that the Nepomuk Project will deliver to me a semantic desktop. Oh, goodie. The idea is that the
the software adds a lot of semantic information automatically and encourages users to add more by making annotated data more useful. It also provides an easy way to share tagged information with others.
No less a luminary than Nova Spivack says to Ms. Naone:
This might be the semantic desktop that actually survives,” says Nova Spivack, CEO and founder of Radar Networks, the company behind Twine, a semantic bookmarking and social-networking service. “There’s a lot of potential to build on what they’ve done.” Spivack notes that other efforts to bring semantic technology to the desktop haven’t succeeded in reaching end users. “Nepomuk is designed for real people and developers…”
Google’s approach, if I read Ramanathan Guha’s five patent documents accurately is that if user, software, and combinations can’t do the semantic tagging job, Google will. The Google does not say too much about semantics, but my inclination is that a system that keeps semantics away from the user may be the one that succeeds. In a race between Nepomuk and Googzilla on whom will you wager?
Stephen Arnold, December 20, 2008
Google Takes More Market Share
December 20, 2008
I got some flak for my assertion at the Enterprise Search Summit in September 2008. I stated bluntly that Google had won. Well, some folks did not like that remark. These wizards will want to skip the comScore ratings for November 2008. Don’t read the Houston Chronicle’s run down here. The newspaper’s Web site provide a detailed summary of what comScore’s report on the search horse race said. In a nutshell, the Google’s market share rose. Microsoft and Yahoo lost ground. I stand by my comment in San Jose. The attendance was, shall we say, somewhat disappointing. Nevertheless, the handful of search attendees heard it from me. “The GOOG has won Web search.” If you have other data to disprove my assertion, let me know. Conference organizers and attendees that don’t want to hear plain talk will want to skip the comScore league table as well. The ostrich approach works pretty well for traditional media, dead tree publishers, and those of similar ilk.
Stephen Arnold, December 20, 2008
The Pope Is Googley
December 20, 2008
SurfRay, the on again off again search vendor, was officially excommunicated. The Vatican, according to LifeSiteNews.com here has embraced Googzilla, scales, fangs, and claws. John Henry Westen wrote:
The immense archives on the Vatican site are now searchable through a dedicated Google interface. Between you, me and the gatepost, the Vatican Web site’s old search engine was notoriously hard to figure out.
Ouch. Pretty harsh words for Mondosoft. The Google is blessed, and Mondosoft is condemned to one of Dante’s most unpleasant regions, the Eighth Circle, where fasifiers suffer. Meanwhile the GOOG is in an exalted state. The big question in my mind is, “Who is the Beatrice?”
Stephen Arnold, December 20, 2008
Business Week Throws a Holiday Gift to Google
December 20, 2008
I am preparing to go to a meeting to talk about a legal online service. My newsreader spit out a link with the headline “Why Your Office Isn’t Like Google’s” by Jack and Suzy Welch here. Yes, that Jack, the neutron variety, and that Suzy, a mega publisher / editor. I put down my Odd Lots bag, pulled up my Office Depot chair, and looked at my 15 inch fuzzy CRT.
Yes, my office is not like Google’s. I agree.
I dived into the story to learn that normal companies are not like Google.
A bolt from the blue. Just like Jonathan Edwards, 17th century theologian, a sudden revelation.
I did not know that Google was not like ArnoldIT in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
I thought that GE (exiting its financial business and tightening its belt) and GM (floundering toward mega failure) were normal today. Google, on the other hand, seems to be making money and innovating. Well, the secret is that people at Google are empowered.
Was, I asked myself, Bernard L. Madoff was empowered. Jack and Suzy Welch’s connotation for empowerment pushed my understanding in a new direction. One point that jumped out at me was:
“Empowerment is less likely to happen in bigger companies, which is the opposite of how it should be.”
Anyone with an Odd Lots bag should know what “it” is, but I have to admit. I don’t know. Maybe the “it” is the magical quality of the “It” girl. Or, the older lingo for the “X factor”. Or, maybe it means “normal business practices”. Hmm.
Whatever “it” is, Google has “it”, said Jack and Suzy Welch, “Google… is still enjoying the fruits of its innovation and judos to its leaders for that.”
Quite a holiday gift for Google. I don’t think this Business Week essay is an advertorial. But what do you think? Is your company on Jack and Suzy Welch’s A list like Google? Is your company like mine, buying chairs at Office Depot? Let me know.
Stephen Arnold, December 19, 2008
Google’s Crazy Cool Idea: Native Client
December 19, 2008
You will want to click here and read Neil McAllister’s “Native Client: Google’s Craziest Idea Yet”. The title appeared to suggest to me that Google made a fatal exception with Native Client. I think Mr. McAllister gives Native Code a fighting chance. If he’s right, there is trouble looming for some enterprise and Web outfits. Native Code is, said Mr. McAllister:
Google Native Client</a> is a new set of components that allows Web browsers to download and execute native x86 code. It’s not an emulator, and it’s not a virtual machine. The code runs on the actual processor with access to memory and system resources and negligible loss of performance. It even gives browser-based apps access to modern, accelerated CPU instruction sets, such as SSE.
(InfoWorld enjoys tossing in acronyms. I guess the company is too busy booking ad revenue to make clear their “in” lingo. Anyway, SSE is an instruction set extension to the x86 architecture. The addled goose is not that lazy.)
What’s going on, Mr. McAllister continued:
A sand castle strong>Google claims that its Native Client improves upon any of these past technologies by building a “sandbox” security layer around native code downloaded from Web sites. You can think of it as a kind of “virtualization lite” — except that Native Client avoids the overhead of full-blown virtualization environments such as VMware by placing strict limitations on what kind of code is allowed to run.
So, it’s containers; that is, Google’s method for keeping the operating system on the computing device at bay so Google can deliver Googley applications within the “browser”. Interesting notion.
Stephen Arnold, December 19, 2008
Facebook Growth: Just Unbelievable
December 19, 2008
One of my friends is a banker, and he still has his job. Imagine that. More surprising is that he made the leap and signed up for a Facebook page. I recall that he was starting to see only old geese like me at his desk in the instant bank office in the mall, and he wanted young goslings to do banking with him.
Facebook, he asserted, was a happening thing for some of the younger loan officers at this financial institution. I know about Facebook, but like the other social networks, I am not too eager to have “friends”. Heck, I have made my way through life without friends. The one friend I had in Dr. William Gillis’ required world literature class hated me after I got the questions right on a multiple choice test and then aced the extra credit essay question. The one friend I had immediately hated me. His 80 curved out as a D as I recall. Sigh.
I was fascinated by the headline “Facebook Now Growing by over 600,000 Users a Day – And New Engagement Stats”. With a base of 140 million unverified users, that’s a heck of a growth rate. I find it unbelievable. You must read this post on Inside Facebook here.
Now let’s go back to that world literature class. One student broke the curve. Modestly, it was I. Social networks follow a different mathematical trajectory; that is, the numbers are fuzzy wuzzy. For example, what’s a user? Is a user a person who creates a page and does not maintain it? Is a user a 13 year old looking for more sophisticated page layouts than MySpace.com offers? Is a user a fan boy or fan girl who posts dog pictures, trivia, and photographs for college friends? Is a user my banking friend who put up a page, and will probably never update it? Is the user a law enforcement officer looking for untoward behavior?
In the world literature class, we had a known number of students; that is, 200. That was the number of seats in the lecture hall. On the test there were 200 people and one person scored more than 100 percent. The Facebook number of 600,000 in this story lacks the type of anchoring I just provided in my anecdote about the world literature class and the test score. This 600,000 number is without foundation. In fact, most Internet usage data is alfalfa and baloney. Google is an exception. That beastie can count every single event in its purview.
Let’s assume that the 600,000 number is correct. There are about 300 million people in the US. Facebook will run out of Americans so the growth will have to come from Canada. Nope. Won’t work. Only 30 million people there with 70 percent broadband, so Canada’s population is exhausted in a few weeks. Now we’re trucking in China and India. Hmmm. Might be a challenge because of language and culture. What about the European Community? It’s about the same size as the US? At the 600,000 per day rate, that’s about a 15 month period.
I grant that Facebook is growing. I am willing to accept that it has millions of users. What I don’t accept is that Facebook is an anomaly like my test score and Google. The social systems are fragile, not well understood, and morphing quickly. Facebook itself is trying to repair its engines while the airplane is flying. I think the company has a reasonable chance of surviving. But I want the following:
- Baseline data, with a date and time
- Deltas by month over a period of time; for example, 18 months will work for me
- A definition of a user. The percentage of dead pages, pages recreated because the genius creating a page “forget” his / her user name and password is important, and the number of users who, like the banker, slap up a placeholder with zero intention of making changes to the content.
- A source for the data. Now I’m not to thrilled with the azure-chipped consulting firms prancing around the information sector, but even their analysts know enough to provide some basic data about how the numbers were conjured from Starbuck’s lattes and wanna be McKinsey consultant dreams.
None of these points appears in the Inside Facebook write up. I can’t accept this statement from the article: “In other words, Facebook’s growth is speeding up and engagement is increasing.”
My hunch is that whoever whipped up these numbers–probably not Justin Smith–would have been in the lower quartile of those taking the miserable world literature test as well.
Rigor, lads and lasses, rigor.
Okay, gentle readers, provide me with substance for Mr. Smith’s unbelievable data. Remind me that I am an addled goose. Remember, employers, investigators, and others look at Facebook pages. I wonder if these folks have pages and the 600,000 new users are mostly parents, government officials, and private investigators. Now that’s a subset of data I would like to see and verify.
Stephen Arnold, December 20, 2008
Google Search Appliance Speaks Money
December 19, 2008
Translating documents from a language most Americans don’t understand to one some Americans understand is big business. For many years, translation specialists made serious money with software that could ingest a document in Spanish and output a sort of English document. AltaVista.com, a company whose DNA exists within the Google, offered “free” online translation. When HP muffed the bunny with AltaVista.com, Google was a safety net, and translation became part of big Google. CNet picked up on Google’s Official Enterprise Blog authored by none other than Cyrus Mistry. Yes, the very Cyrus who accused me of Photoshopping an image of Google’s dossier function. The only problem was that the lousy image came from a Google patent document. Oh, well, Mr. Mistry was uninformed but trying to protect the good name of Googzilla. Anyway, he wrote here:
Now users can search in their native language, but find every document within the enterprise on the topic. In addition, you can choose to have the results come back in any language and you can even translate the search result snippets (or documents themselves) into any language! Owners of a Google Mini or Google Search Appliance can try Cross-Language Enterprise Search today by visiting Google Enterprise Labs.
The CNet story here adds a much tighter summary of Mr. Mistry’s post. Go for that version. I wonder if I should assert that Google Photoshopped AltaVista.com’s translation feature? Nah, the GOOG is going to add more languages and functionality to the GSA going forward. This is a slam dunk feature that will ding some of the translation tool vendors. And, on a related note, the pricing schedule for the GSA 2009 offers a deal when you upgrade your GB 1001. More documents and translations. Quite a deal if one doesn’t dig too deeply into the GSA pricing schedule.
Stephen Arnold, December 19, 2008
Larry Ellison May Not Understand Cloud Computing but Oracle Is Doing It
December 19, 2008
Not long ago, Larry Ellison, the wizard who built Oracle to a multi-billion dollar colossus said he didn’t understand cloud computing. I don’t understand it either. I think the idea of a data center and a network connection is old hat. But today’s Brown University graduates enjoy coining new phrases to put lipstick on a very old pig. I liked the IBM data center. I got paid to terrorize people who needed their punch card decks run. What a power trip.
Now, AT&T and Oracle have fallen in love and will be offering a cloud-based subscription to that nifty enterprise system, PeopleSoft. You can read the TMCnet.com story “AT&T and Oracle Team for Subscription-Based PeopleSoft Solution for Midsize Businesses” here. The comment I found glinting like a diamond amidst the gray prose was:
Keith Block, executive vice president, Oracle North America Sales, said: “We are excited to work with AT&T to address the need for a cost-effective, predictably priced human resource service for companies that prefer to focus their efforts on their core differentiators. This is especially true in today’s uncertain economic climate where companies of all sizes are looking for ways to reduce costs, increase flexibility and decrease business risk.”
With a snappy description like this, maybe Mr. Ellison could not figure out that this was a cloud computing play. AT&T and Oracle have the Midas touch when it comes to making money. This venture might be the home run both companies need to make 2009 a banner year. However, both companies have to become agile, deal with latency, and deliver a service that outshines similar services already in the market. AT&T. Oracle. Agile? Absolutely. These companies can turn on a dime and their executives often work weekends at Cirque du Soleil. Such versatility is the norm. I wonder of Secure Enterprise Search 10g is part of the package? If you know, use the comments section to share your knowledge.
Stephen Arnold, December 19, 2008
Google’s Demographic Bet
December 19, 2008
I recall having an email exchange about the revenue Google books for its enterprise business unit. I pointed out that Google, like most big public companies, doesn’t provide detailed breakdowns. Why make life easy for the Wall Street Excel jockeys? Most people don’t pay much attention to Google’s activities in schools, colleges, and universities. The ignorance will be punished when the students who emerge from the hallowed halls and want to use Google, not what their employer wants them to use. To see the strategy in action, read the Washington Post’s “In Their Search for Help, Fairfax Schools Find Google” here. The key comment in the article was this passage:
The Internet giant, with a new presence to bolster its effort to gain government business, said it plans to outfit schools with software to help students learn geography. The deal is one of 300 partnerships the county school system has with businesses, a number the schools would like to increase as the economy sours.
My thought is that there will be quite a few Googlers moving through the educational pipeline. Where’s Apple? Where’s Microsoft? Where’s Yahoo? I see Googzilla. What do you see?
Stephen Arnold, December 19, 2008
Microsoft Gets Dinged for Windows Live Customer Service or Lack of It
December 19, 2008
I am getting burned out with executive revolving doors and complaints about Microsoft. I was going to delete the ZDNet article “Windows Live Drops the Ball on Support” which you can find here. But Ed Bott does a good job, so I read the story. The problem with Microsoft customer service is that it is tough to get. I find that companies talk about customer service and then force me to jump though hoops. Mr. Bott reports a similar experience. For me, the most important comment in his article was:
What baffles me is that Windows Live Wave 3 has been under development for … well, it seems like forever. The software side has run exceptionally well, hitting its dates and delivering a generally excellent product. So what happened to customer support? From this vantage point, it looks like management treated support as an afterthought and is only now beginning to build the support resources it should have had in place months ago.
Microsoft seems to have what William James called “a certain blindness.” Not only is customer support an issue, what about the security problems with Internet Explorer? Anyone want to get some customer support when a bad person sucks your PC’s brain?
Stephen Arnold, December 19, 2008
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