For the Millions of Cloud Computing Ontology Lovers
March 29, 2009
I love ontologies, particularly those created for some of the one day seminars that are available. I love cloud computing analyses, particularly those created by the azure chip consultants who would not walk past, let alone paddle, in the addled goose’s pond. I loved the write up by Kevin Jackson in CloudComputing.com’s “A Tactical Cloud Computing Ontology.” You must read the article here. Mr. Jackson tackled the job of taming two of the most widely used buzzwords at information technology conferences today–cloud computing and ontology.
He presents several diagrams that put the cloud computing idea into a framework. the diagrams are useful, but they do contain some terms that I am not exactly sure how to define. Nevertheless, the distance between cloud computing and its ontology is narrowed. He outlined three actions and considerations the reader may wish to consider. I can’t quote this complete sequence, but I can identify broadly the ideas:
- Merge the cloud and on premises experience so the user doesn’t see much of change
- There will be some differences when using the proposed framework
- Something I don’t fully understand well enough to summarize: “As a way to organize an enterprise’s body of knowledge (architecture) about its activities (processes), people, and things within a defined context and current/future environment.
I am still thinking about how this framework applies to search across secure and open content sources in a regulated environment with known network bottlenecks. My hunch is that others will be thinking about these issues before embarking on a composite architecture. No harm from thinking either.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
Simploos Search
March 29, 2009
I learned about a new search system the other day. I don’t have too much data, but I wanted to mention it to my two or three readers. No point in sitting on what may be the first Chrome-centric rendering engine I have come across. The company offering the new service is Simploos.com here. If you get an error message, just click on continue. The system should work. We think this is a Flash related issue, but I haven’t heard back from the company yet. The figure below shows the interface for a query on my favorite subject, “Beyond Search”.
© Simploos 2009
My files suggest that the thumb nail preview was a feature introduced by the company Girafa. I wrote about it in my original Technology from Harrod’s Creek column for Information World Review in the 1998-1999 time frame. Girafa is still around, and you can see what the company is now doing by clicking here.
You see the thumbnails of the top hits from either a Google or Yahoo search. When you click on a thumbnail, the system displays the splash page of the site. The first hit on Googzilla for the phrase “beyond search” is this Web log. You can set various options and use either Google or Yahoo search results.
Our working hypothesis is that the Google-centric implementation uses Chrome under the covers. Yahoo appears to be using Yahoo’s technology.
The young goslings found the approach fresh and interesting. The older goslings found the screen refresh during scrolling somewhat distracting. For some types of queries, the graphic approach is useful. You can limit the results to those in Spanish which is a nice touch. There’s an advanced search section which is interesting to use as well. Give it a test drive and keep in mind that this implementation is a beta. We’ve noticed minor changes as we used the system over a span of three days. The addled goose emits a gentle, happy quack. A big honk to the person who alerted us to this system as well.
Stephen Arnold,
Learning from the Cloud Manifesto
March 29, 2009
I ignored the cloud manifesto, pointing out that secrecy is useful. Obviously the document was not intended to be kept under wraps, so a mini-microblogging storm raged. CNet’s The Wisdom of Crowds ran James Urqhart’s article “Cloud Computing: What We Learned from Manifestogate”. You can read this write up here. The article includes links, an itemized list of the four ways to perceive the cloud manifesto, and a conclusion that strikes a positive note: “open is good.”
In my experience, the clouds owned and operated by commercial enterprises will behave the same way opposing forces have behaved since stone age tribes split into factions and promptly embarked on chatter and warfare. The crazy idea that the cloud operating environments will behave in a way different from other technology battles is off base and not in line with what is now going on among the Apple, Microsoft, and Google camps in mobile services. I am omitting the other players because I don’t want to trot out too many examples, which are legion.
Amazon’s cloud may communicate under circumstances determined by the world’s smartest man who is now working as an order fulfillment clerk about 45 minutes from where I am writing this post. Google will play ball as long as those folks follow the Google rules. Microsoft is going to do what Microsoft has done since its inception and make an effort to enforce its agenda.
Each of these companies will yap about open standards. Each of these companies will put their pet open source wizards on display. Each of these companies will attempt to capture as much of the market as users, competitors and regulators allow.
At some point in the future, the agendas will shift from the cloud to the next big thing. At that point, a big dog will be in the yard and the other dogs will cooperate or get their necks broken. I appreciate Mr. Urqhart’s view. I think we’re in line for a good old fashioned standards battle. Forget cannon fodder. Think column fodder. CNet will be in seventh heaven.
Stephen Arnold, March 29, 2009
Online Economics, Ads, and Crash Landings
March 29, 2009
A number of articles have been sent to us here in the mind drainage choked goose pond in the last couple of weeks on the subject of monetizing electronic information. Our official view is that getting cash for online content requires a rethink of the available business models. The pay by the drink approach and the subscription approach don’t work very well in our experience. You can make these work if you have high value, scarce, hard to get information. Other types of information don’t have magnetic appeal so the connection between the user’s credit card and the vendor’s bank account doesn’t stick.
For a case example of how this fails as a business model, you may want to read and save Joseph Tartakoff’s “Tracking The Online-Only Seattle P-I: Traffic Down 20 Percent” here. What struck me was that without the hard copy paper acting as a sales flier, users are not going to the dead tree outfit’s online only service. Without traffic, online advertising becomes less attractive. Over time, the Seattle Post Intelligencer will realize that its online play won’t pay the bills. Without the cash to create the hard copy version, the marketing of the Web site becomes job one. The problem is that marketing is expensive. Ergo: the business models in use at this moment can be tracked casually by anyone with a yen to read news about the Seattle P-I revenue adventure.
I don’t want to quack harshly, but the glib words about online revenue underscore the lack of understanding about how online economics work in the real world. Google borrowed a useful model and now provides an example–or as the entitlement crowd of azure chip consultants likes to say–or a use case. Whatever lingo you prefer is fine, but the fact is that declining traffic means that ad and subscription models are not likely to pull this site out of a steep nose dive. Fasten your seat belts.
Stephen Arnold, March 29, 2009
Gun Shots and Knives: Wizard Suggests the Google Is Dangerous
March 28, 2009
As an addled goose, I ask quite a few questions about the articles I read. I try to be frisky, or as frisky as a fat, dumb, half deaf, poor sighted addled goose can be. I let out a bewildered honk when I read “How Google Shot Microsoft after It Took a Knight to a Gunfight” here. The headline interested me. I noticed the “it”, and I was not sure which antecedent applied. Next I remarked on the use of words routinely filtered by some of my more interesting customers; specifically, “knife” and “gun fight”. Needless to say, I paddled over to the article and dipped my beak.
The story pivots around the behavior of Google and its softened nemesis Microsoft. A Microsoft executive pointed out that the GOOG, as it ages, loses some agility. I too have remarked on the Google’s somewhat tame response to Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter. I am not Microsoft, so Google’s sleek and savvy wizards ignore me the way I overlook plastic bottles floating in this addled goose’s mine drainage filled pond.
The Google did notice Microsoft’s jab. And Googzilla roared. The article summarizes what the GOOG did and offered other examples of what was described as poking
at Google with a stick, and in short order, Google took a baseball bat to Microsoft’s head. But as I keep saying, this is a search war that Microsoft is involved with. It’s deadly serious. If Ballmer it going to talk about “advantages” he thinks his company has over Google in search, he needs to be damn sure they really are advantages. Otherwise, he can expect to have more cans of whoopass opened up on him by Google.
I find this quite exciting. Several reasons:
- A live and ambient pundit is documenting Google’s approach to public relations
- The metaphors used to describe the interaction of Google and Microsoft are escalating to images that suggest life and death
- The article makes it clear that those engaged in other aspects of search and content processing now recognize that the world has changed.
Knives, gun shots, and life and deadly serious are terms to notice. I am delighted that the behavior which I thought I had documented in my 2003 to 2005 work is this day news. Not Twitter speed but good enough for the newer version of the Hatfield and the McCoys of search.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
Software Economics Thought Starter
March 28, 2009
I am skeptical of economics. We Kentucky geese are skeptical of store bought liquor and revenue agents too. Each of these things can put a world of hurt on an undisciplined goose. If you like economics, you will want to read “Software Economics – Public Goods” here. Author David Welton has spent quite a bit of time rounding up and herding economic doggies in this essay. You will get a snapshot of pricing options and some interesting comments from readers. For me, the write up frames a particular approach to software economics. My concern is that economists may be lagging what is happening in the post Google world. The Google business model marginalizes some of the options presented in the paper. Once this happens, the cost of closing the gap becomes too great. Yikes. Trouble looms for software outfits just as the dead tree publishers are starting to fall.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
Library of Congress Makes Citizens as Fish Splash
March 28, 2009
For me, the Library of Congress is more of a museum than a research facility. Even Google looks like a limping dog when compared to the zippy content flashing across the Twitter spam machine. The Library of Congress, according to TechWhack here, is going to put some of its info on YouTube.com and Apple iTunes. Okay. But the best part of the TechWhack write up was this statement, a true classic in my opinion:
Matt Raymond, the library’s director of communications spoke about the new developments: “Our broad strategy is to ‘fish where the fish are,’ and to use the sites that give our content added value — in the case of iTunes, ubiquity, portability, etc.”.
I do like that citizens, users, customers, whatever as “fish”. Good stuff.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
Textbook Publishers under Siege
March 28, 2009
First, it was the YouTube education “collection.” If you missed that story, you can catch up here. Most of the blog pundits skip dull stuff like educational videos for good reason. Pretty dull. But if you are in the text book publishing business, the GOOG in education is an item of interest. Since I cover this topic in my new for fee study, I want to mention another force lining up to take on the dead tree crowd and its $100 plus textbooks–open source texts. TechDirt’s “Open Source Text Book Company Flat World Knowledge Gets Funded” tells the story. You can read the article here. What happens when you sweep into a mixture the Apple iTunes educational videos and podcasts and MIT’s decision to make its educational content like professors’ articles into a pile. The mixture blows up the traditional textbook business. Oh, the mixture is volatile. I hated paying big prices for my econ book which I thought was almost worthless. I learned years after Economics 101 that that book and its pricing kept one publishing company solvent for decades. Boom. Good bye.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
BlackBerry and Google Voice Search
March 28, 2009
Extreme Tech’s “Google Adds Voice Activated Search for BlackBerry” here identified a Google boost to RIM. The service adds a voice activation feature. Google supports GPS, so the user’s location gets added to the mix. You can download the code snippet here. Last year a RIM executive suggested that my criticism of the lame search function in BlackBerry devices was unwarranted. I think the RIM Xobni deal and this Google action makes clear that RIM had poor search functionality. I am not confident that the problems with locating email and attachments will be resolved by either or both of the Google, Xobni steps. The iPhone has changed the smart phone balance of power. RIM and Google have been hit in the liver.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
Business Intelligence Dies, Business Analytics Lives
March 28, 2009
The SAS marketing and public relations machine shifted into high gear in the last two weeks. I received some news releases, and I have seen references to various new SAS initiatives, including the almost obligatory shift to a cloud option for SAS customers. The cloud and Software as a Service are positive steps for vendors of certain types of complex software. Licensees of some complicated systems can’t afford the headcount needed to configure and maintain these brain busters.
The most interesting article I saw referencing SAS was Kathleen Lau’s “Analytics Versus Intelligence” here. The key point in this SAS-centric write up is that business intelligence is a gone goose (no reference to the goslings here in Harrod’s Creek). The future belongs to business analytics. The statement in the write up that bolstered this assertion in wordsmithing was:
Gaurav Verma, global marketing manager for business analytics with SAS, said customers have to deal with ever-diverse and complex business issues, and are demanding tools with a short return on investment that enable “proactive, predictive, and fact-based decision-making.” Using the word “framework” and not “platform,” said Davis, reflects the fact that the latter implies two to three years of implementation and an over-shot budget, a scenario that organizations must avoid. But a framework “implies an iterative approach” that renders a faster return on investment. “The reality is, the framework becomes the platform over time,” said Davis, referring to a company’s ability to leverage existing investments.
Okay, I think I see the difference, but will customers? More important to me is that I have found that organizations are pushing back against hugely complex systems that are tough to understand and even more difficult to measure in concrete financial payback.
My hunch is that SAS may be on the front edge of traditional number crunching software vendors who find that the old formula no longer works. Business analytics, if I read Ms. Lau’s article correctly, may be the new wonder drug, designed to cure revenue and competitive pains.
Stephen Arnold, March 28, 2009
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