Browsys Twoogle
May 18, 2009
Curious about what the differences are between Googzilla’s search system and the pesky bird, Twitter. Twoogle makes it dead easy to compare results. Click here and enter the query “Wolfram Alpha”. You see a side by side display of search results from Twitter and Google.
The company said:
Twoogle aims to make easier for people to get the best of two worlds: The real-time web powered by Twitter and the most prominent sites, powered by Google. Twoogle also provides the “Tweet this search” functionality, making it easy for users to post their queries to Twitter with just one click. Twoogle is a free service, and is not responsible for the terms of service, privacy policies and practices of neither Twitter or Google.
How different are the services? Google’s results are more library like. The Twitter results have life. I fiddled with links on both services and found that there was an advantage to using both services. Here’s the result screen I saw on May 16, 2009:
Browsys Labs makes a number of products, including virtual folders here. My records suggest that Juan Sosa is the CEO.
Stephen Arnold, May 18, 2009
Google Cannot Fit through Some Information Doors
May 17, 2009
Is Google to chubby to fit through some information doors? That’s the question this article on the CNN.com Web site sparked in my mind. The story “New search engines aspire to supplement Google” here provided me with a chuckle whilst sitting on the marge of the duck pond in Harrod’s Creek. The writer, John D. Sutter, said:
We may be coming upon a new era for the Internet search.
Yep, Google defines search, but that’s not new. What’s new is the survival method for start ups in a Google-centric world. And the story scampers through some assumptions that warrant a bit of back up, but I don’t have the energy to point out that the four systems highlighted in this story are in varying stages of development. For example, I am not sure what the financial status of Twine, Hakia, and Searchme are at this time. Kosmix has, I heard last week in San Francisco, some cash in its ATM account. The others? I’m not sure. Scoopier is too new. TweetMeme is one of a large number of Twitter-centric tools, and I have tough time reading some logos because of the obligatory use of faded blue type.
There’s the obligatory paragraph about Wolfram Alpha, which one pundit described as a search system for resident of Niche Ville, not a search system for the masses living in Chicago or Houston.
But the home run comment for me was this one:
Google, of course, remains the search king. Recent efforts to revolutionize Web searching have failed to unseat the dominant California company, which captures nearly 64 percent of U.S. online searches, according to comScore.
In my opinion, this is a pretty important comment for these reasons:
- Google has an “as is” presence and market share; other search vendors must adapt to the Google ecosystem
- The notion of supplementing Google is the only way open for most search vendors. Google is the search environment, so “surfing on Google” is a survival strategy and one that some venture firms may believe possible
- Google can’t fit through some information doors because the information doors are often “within” the Google ecosystem. Facebook and Twitter to some extent are “outside” of the Google ecosystem, but the GOOG seems to be muddling forward to “wrap” services around these data bunions.
I knew there was a reason to get my news from multiple sources and not rely on CNN for what I need in the way of information about search and content processing. Honk.
Stephen Arnold, May 17, 2009
Autonomy Expands into Marketing
May 17, 2009
Attensity has been moving into marketing and marketing-related search applications. Autonomy has offered tools that provide insights into market behavior announced at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit a deal that indicates Autonomy is serious about this application of its search technology. Autonomy announced that the Optimost Adaptive Targeting is now powered by Autonomy’s Meaning Based Marketing engine. Autonomy is showing agility in its leveraging of its Interwoven acquisition. The company said here:
Optimost Adaptive Targeting mines all major types of customer attributes to create customer segments, including context (how the visitor arrives at the Website, e.g. search keyword), geography, time of day, and demographic, behavior, and account profile information. Once customer segments are created, multivariate tests are conducted on an unlimited number of copy ideas, offers, and layouts to determine the best solution for each audience segment. By adding the Meaning Based Computing capabilities of IDOL to Adaptive Targeting, marketers gain a unique ability to understand and effectively serve their customers. By leveraging IDOL, Optimost Adaptive Targeting now includes unique keyword clustering capabilities that automatically identifies
concepts and patterns as they are emerging on the web. For instance, an online pet store might discover that an unusually high number of “long-tail” searches relate to vacationing with pets. The solution could then automatically serve up more content and special offers around travel tote bags and kits.
The addled goose predicts that other vendors of search and content processing technology will increase their efforts to blend search and content processing with online and traditional marketing functions. Google is active in online marketing, and could increase its presence in this sector quickly and without warning. A stampede may be forming on the search prairie.
Stephen Arnold, May 17, 2009
Marketing Baloney: IBM Gets Social
May 17, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to DQ Week’s story “IBM Intros Networking and Collaboration Services” here. I don’t think too much about IBM unless it is in the context of a wizard who jumps from Big Blue into the paws of Googzilla. My tracking Ramanathan Guha of programmable search engine fame is one example of the IBM contribution to the GOOG. The passage that caught my attention was this segment of the news story:
“There has never been a better time to harness social technology and drive some of the world’s most important transformations-from energy to healthcare,” said Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager-Academic Initiative, Developer Works and Globalization, IBM India. “IBM is the only vendor that can bring collaboration technology and content together to help developers maximize their productivity and tackle new IT challenges by quickly establishing a worldwide network of peers.”
First, I am not sure the present economic climate is the “better time” for me to buy stuff from IBM. Second, I just think it is silly to assert that IBM is the “only vendor that can bring collaboration technology and content together”. Categorical affirmatives! Give me a break. Finally, “tackle new IT challenges?” How about resolving the old IT challenges.
At the Mark Logic user conference last week I overhead a conversation about the inability of one large customer in the publishing world to shake free quickly and economically from the shackles of its IBM mainframe past. IBM jumps from trend to trend in an effort to use consulting firm hot insight type marketing with the slogging of services, software, and hardware. The big companies used to gulp this concoction down without a thought.
Now, I am not so sure. As a result, IBM turns up the hyperbole generator. The one thing that this quote tells me is that search is not number one. Collaboration is. Gee, I wonder if IBM remembers Lotus Notes? What about those forms that allow me to input content into a DB2 data system? I thought I saw an annotation feature running on the Omnifind search system last year as well? Those “innovations” apparently don’t sell today as well as “transformation”.
Stephen Arnold, May 17, 2009
Actionable Search Jargon
May 17, 2009
I recall interviewing Ali Riaz in my Search Wizards Speak series here. He founded a company called Attivio, and as I recall, Attivio is derived from the Italian word “attivo” which means “active”. Imagine my surprise when I read “Actionable Search – From What to Why?” here. The Microsoft Enterprise Search Blog has in my opinion inadvertently given Attivio a bit of a PR boost. Actionable search is not too far from what Attivio’s team has been selling in the last year or so.
The Microsoft spin on “actionable search” is interesting in three other ways.
First, the idea is that “no frills” search is not what folks want. Considering that two thirds of the users of existing search systems are not too happy with those systems, I am not sure “no frills” is sufficiently broad to handle the wide range of use cases the research for Martin White’s and my Successful Enterprise Search Management revealed. There are many types of search, and not all of them are “actionable”. Some are pretty important, if mind numbingly dull research tasks, such as looking through email for a smoking gun in an eDiscovery process.
Second, the notion of “directly” is interesting to me. For example, a client wanted me to provide some information about the growth of digital content in a typical organization. One company presenting at the MarkLogic user conference which attracted about 430 people compared to the 90 or so at the search summit held at the same time experienced a 4X growth in digital information in a single year. In this presentation I learned that search and finding were hooked into many core processes; for example, one system automatically needed information from another system to update information in case that data might be needed. I suppose one can stretch this notion of interprocess XML exchange to “direct” but I prefer to think of these types of “search” functions as more fine grained. Rock hammers don’t do the job when it comes to electronic information.
Third, the notion of actionable information by itself and without context is in my mind more closely linked to business intelligence reports. Search may be an action free as learning in order to be confident in one’s knowledge. I suppose language is sufficiently malleable to permit stretching a notion to embrace Wrigley Field but that might not be too helpful to me. I want to know something for its own sake, not for its utility; for example, Nero ordered his mother to be put to death, according to Arthur Weigall in Nero: The Singing Emperor of Rome (GP Putnam: London, 1930). Agrippina, Nero’s mother, was not too popular. The Senate sent congratulations to Nero for his deed. Not much use to me but a neat anecdote about family harmony. See page 209.
In short, I struggle with the notion of simplifying and abstracting information retrieval and text processing. The need for precision has never been greater. In my view, the problem with most enterprise search deployments pivots on this notion of precision. Muddy thinking and the belief in silver bullets leads to mutli million dollar costs and may, in today’s economic climate, contribute to the failure of an undertaking, not help ensure its success.
Simple is good. Simplicity without precision is not too useful to this addled goose.
Stephen Arnold, May 17, 2009
Wolfram Alpha and Niche Ville
May 17, 2009
I have been grabbing quick looks at the write ups about the Wolfram Alpha search system. One of the more interesting essays is by Larry Dignan. You can read “Wolfram Alpha Launches: Can It Break Out of Niche Ville?” here. I liked the idea of a “Niche Ville”. The phrase connoted a small town which may be interesting, but it is not likely to suck MBAs into its maw the way Manhattan does. Aside from the suggestion that Wolfram Alpha was a “hamburger and fries” type of search and content processing system, I found this comment quite suggestive:
Overall, Wolfram/Alpha reads like an encyclopedia. It’s handy at times, but the big question is whether the search engine can break out of niche-ville. Sure, geeks like the presentation and it Wolfram/Alpha can be handy for deep dives, but the average person will want some sort of results every time. In that regard, Wolfram/Alpha may be a disappointment.
My thought was, “Wolfram Alpha is like other question answering systems. It’s a bit like an advanced search function because the user has to do more thinking than typing pizza into a Google Map. As a result, a small percentage of Web users may have the mental energy to tackle these systems.” Niche is a useful term.
Stephen Arnold, May 17, 2009
Google and Its Facebook Twitter Challenge
May 16, 2009
Mark Cuban’s “How Twitter and Facebook Now Compete with Google” here provides a preview of what will be thousands of Web log posts. The high-profile Blog Maverick caught my attention when he predicted that YouTube.com would be a problem for Google. Right now, he seems more correct than some of the azure chip consultants who comment about things Google. Now he’s trained his intellect on the social microblogging phenoms Facebook and Twitter. He wrote:
From a business perspective, I’m sure I’m not alone in getting more referrals from Twitter than Google Search. That’s money in the bank for Twitter and FB for commercial accounts. There is no reason why a big or small company, say Charmim selling toilet paper, cant set up a twitter account and do whatever marketing they can to build the largest number of followers possible. From there, Twitter could charge them on a cost per referral click originating from their followers. As long as they cost per click is lower than competing options, why wouldn’t they do it ? Things change. We are seeing a change in our referral logs right now. That could translate into systemic change in user behavior and business opportunity.
My hunch is that he is more than half right. With the half life of technology decreasing, today’s giant may be tomorrow’s leaden mass. Google’s huge lead in Web search becomes a less interesting variant of Pb; that is, lead feet.
Stephen Arnold, May 16, 2009
Google: Growth and Grimness
May 16, 2009
Search Engine Guide here has a video about Google’s market share. The video is a reaction to the Marketing Vox summary of Hitwise’s search market share data for the four weeks ending April 25, 2009. You can read the “Google Creeps toward 73 percent of US Search in April” here. To highlight the risks of a monoculture, you will want to peruse the San Francisco Chronicle’s story “Frustration, Distress over Google Outage” here. Seems that as Google’s rivals fall farther behind, the Google’s technical weaknesses, what I call YAGG (yet another Google glitch) become more of an issue for lots of Google dependents. Little wonder that every new search engine is labeled as “a Google killer”. Too late, lads and lassies. Too late.
Stephen Arnold, May 16, 2009
SAP and Business by Design
May 16, 2009
SAP, Europe’s largest software company, continues to intrigue me. The company’s roots are deep in the on premises hydroponic tanks of its customers. The writing is on the wall, however. SAP customers are pushing back on costs, long deployment times, and complexity with each passing month. I read Michael Krigsman’s “Understanding SAP’s Business by Design SaaS Strategy” with interest. You can find that article here.
When I copied the url for this link I notice that the subdirectory was “project failures”, which is by itself an interesting bit of information. The article is based on conversations Mr. Krigsman had with a panoply of SAP luminaries. For me the most important passage in the article was:
The Business byDesign initiative presents two broad strategic challenges to SAP. First, from a Board-level perspective, the company must decide, on an ongoing basis, how much to invest in this product, which has long-term potential but is expensive in the present. The relatively slow rollout reflects the Board’s measured and carefully paced level of investment. Second, Business byDesign reflects a new way of managing and delivering software for SAP, a company with deep on-premise roots. As SAP has learned, on-premise vendors face formidable challenges and a steep learning curve during the transition to SaaS deployment. SAP obviously underestimated these obstacles.
In my opinion, on premises business models will be cannibalized a nibble at a time by software as a service and other ways of delivering enterprise software. In short, SAP may be a lab experiment that provides useful data on the fate of other on premises giants. You can’t make up the consulting revenue, long deployment times, and high license fees on volume in my opinion. Again, nary a word about search. SAP seems to be drifting.
Stephen Arnold, May 16, 2009
Wolfram Alpha Goes to R Systems for Horsepower
May 16, 2009
CNet’s Stephen Shankland wrote “Wolfram Alpha Gets Supercomputer Boost” here, and I think the story will super-boost the hopes that Wolfram Alpha’s search system will crush the Google. Rooting for a Google smasher is a bit of a pundit trend these days. With Wolfram Alpha supposed to be officially alive as I write this, I think the notion of the world’s 66th fastest supercomputer can make those Google haters experience an adrenaline rush. Mr. Shankland provides a link to the November 2008 list of supercomputers, and when I looked at the list I did not see the Google listed. The reason? Supercomputers are indeed fast, but they by themselves are not exactly what’s required to declaw Googzilla. Search and content processing is an interesting technical challenge and raw speed does not frighten to death the opposition. I learned from Mr. Shankland:
The system, called R Smarr, has 4,608 processor cores using 576 quad-core “Harpertown” Xeon machines, 65,536GB of memory, and high-speed InfiniBand data-transfer connections, according to the Top500 site and a Dell case study on the system (PDF). It also uses both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows HPC Server operating systems, according to the Dell paper. Alpha requests will be served from five co-location facilities, Wolfram Research said. There actually are two supercomputers in the project, with nearly 10,000 processor cores total and hundreds of terabytes of hard drives.
I wonder if this commercial for Dell servers and Intel CPUs will indeed humble the arrogant Googlers? I have to keep reminding myself that dear old Google has been chipping away at the technical problems that keep most competitors from chewing into Google’s share of the Web search market. So what is it now? A decade for Google’s search effort? Wolfram Alpha has been in the search game for what now, a couple of years?
Should be interesting to see if the newcomer can do what Fast Search & Transfer, Microsoft, and Yahoo, among others, have been unable to do. If I were a betting man, I think Wolfram Alpha comes out of the gate with long odds.
Why?
CNet’s Tom Krazit reported here “Wolfram Alpha’s Launch Delayed Amid Glitches”. Hmmm.
Stephen Arnold, May 16, 2009
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