Endeca Powered Borders.com Site Analyzed
June 9, 2009
I have not been keeping up with the changes on the Borders.com Web site. I had saved “Why the New Borders.com Will Fail” here. I finally got around to reading the story by Barry Graubart. I thought this was a useful write up and I urge you to read the full write up. Several points jumped out for me; namely:
- Borders.com is an Endeca powered site. You can give the system and its Guided Navigation a try here.
- The site allows a user to order online and then pick up the item at a real Borders store.
- A recommendation engine is included.
For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
While I’m an atypical shopper (probably more than 90% of my durable good purchases are made online), I’m a reasonable candidate for Borders, primarily because the ground floor of my office building (100 Broadway in NYC) houses a Borders store. At various times, I’ve gone to Borders to buy a book only to find that it’s selling for 20-30% more than via Amazon. If Borders can’t be competitive on price, it doesn’t matter what neat features they can add. No one will be there to find out. And that’s why I believe that the new Borders.com will fail.
When I read this, I thought, “If Mr. Graubert is right, a search engine cannot save a sinking ship.” What then is the value of a search system if it cannot overcome the licensee’s own weaknesses? With the value of a search system becoming more important, Mr. Graubert’s observations are food for thought.
Stephen Arnold, June 9, 2009
Data.gov Squeezes Two Search Govs
June 9, 2009
What a battle of governmental initiatives. In one corner is the federating champ, USA.gov with its second Science.gov. In the other corner is the Data.gov contender. A citizen or other interested party can sit back and watch the political slug fest. Unlike a traditional kick boxing match, this one is going to rage for years with each round roughly the length of the Federal fiscal year.
Here’s a run down of the combatants:
- USA.gov (weighing in at about $22 million per year) with software implants from Microsoft and Vivisimo. The service (originally FirstGov.gov) has gained some Tyson like body mass without generating the type of online traffic one expects of a long reigning champ. USA.gov provides a “portal” to Federal information, and it is a bit like a blend of traditional search, a portal, and link farm. I use it but find the limit on documents accessible annoying. I rely on Google’s Uncle Sam service, but I am an addled goose looking for depth, not a partial results list or undisplayable images.
- Science.gov, supported by Deep Web Technologies, works in apparent harmony with USA.gov. Science.gov focuses on tech content, which I assumed would also be in the USA.gov index. With funds from different sources, Science.gov is a variant of USA.gov.
- Data.gov, supported by the White House, is a collection of data, not text. Next week (sometime after June 8), Data.gov gets an infusion of tens of thousands government data sets. You can read more about the expansion of the service in this PC World story, “U.S. Government Records Go Online in Volume” here.
I am not going to try and sort out individual agency Web sites, the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, and other assorted information repositories. I could not figure them out in Year 2000 when I dabbled in the FirstGov.gov planning activities. I sure as heck can’t make sense of them from Harrod’s Creek today.
The question in my mind is, “What citizen user knows where to look for US government information?” My solution, as noted, is Google, and I am curious about Wolfram Alpha’s appetite for these data. I wonder if the USDA Economic Research Service will be available? Lots of mystery and excitement surround this epic battle. I think every agency will win because the “silo method” is alive and well in the Federal government.
New Social Search Service from Goebel Group
June 9, 2009
Search engine optimization advisor Goebel Group made available its free social search service On June 8, 2009, according to dBusiness News here. The dBusiness story said:
This Custom Search Engine allows users to see what others are saying about them, their products, their brand, and more. Available at www.mysocialmediasearchengine.com.
We ran several test queries and found the results useful. The connection to SEO was not obvious to this addled goose. Too old. Blind to the beauties of SEO too.
Stephen Arnold, June 9, 2009
Every Cloud Has a Tin Lining
June 9, 2009
I found the article “Microsoft Exec Sees Lower Margins from “Cloud” suggestive. You can read the article here (I hope), because this is the type of document that can come back and nibble at one’s ankles. The idea is that selling cloud services yields less revenue than selling shrink wrapped software. The article reported:
Microsoft Corp’s chief software architect said on Thursday the profit margins on providing online services — broadly known as cloud computing — would likely yield a lower profit margin than the company’s existing software business. “The margins on services are not like the margins on software, so it (cloud computing) will increase our profit and it will increase our revenue, but you won’t have that margin,” said Ray Ozzie on Thursday at a Silicon Valley technology event.
Several observations:
- If Microsoft deploys a cloud based enterprise search solution, the payback on the $1.2 billion purchase price, the engineering rework, and the marketing of the Fast ESP system may take a longer time to get into the black
- Stakeholders looking for a jet boost to the MSFT share price gets their feet placed in a bucket of ice water
- If the MSFT assertion is accurate, cost control becomes a much more significant for MSFT going forward in a lousy economy.
Stephen Arnold, June 8, 2009
Bing Gets Converted to Apple
June 9, 2009
I was caught by surprise when I read the Cnet story “New Microsoft Bing Ads Fall Short of Appleness” here. Microsoft Bing is aimed at Google. Apple doesn’t figure in the Bing ads in my opinion. Chris Matyszczyk wrote:
In the attempt to make Google seem like the old, nasty, hairy-nostriled IBM to Bing’s cute little Granny Smith, the Bingers mislaid the one thing that made Apple’s communication so powerful: the simplicity. Oh, come on, you didn’t know that Bing is trying to be the Apple of search? No one told you? It’s there in the ads. You just have to search a little.
I must admit that the hooking of Apple into the anti Google ads from Bing had not crossed my mind. If consumers muddle Bing, Apple, and the GOOG, the brand message may be even harder to get across. Mr. Matyszczyk provides links to the Bing ads, which is useful.
Stephen Arnold, June 8, 2009
Blind Search
June 9, 2009
Short honk: Take the digital Coke Pepsi test here. Enter a query, vote for the result set you find most useful. The percents at the top of the page report which search system is the “winner”. Notice the similarity in scores. Search still leaves a bit to be desired, right? Two thirds seem dissatisfied with each engine, right?
Stephen Arnold, June 8, 2009
Similar Sites Is Darn Useful
June 8, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to SimilarSites.com. I enter a url that interests me and the system generates a list of similar sites. Try it here. The service is free and works quite well. There is a service called SimilarSites.net, but I am describing the Dot Com version. The company was founded in 2007 by “Web veterans” and I will poke into the outfit because I find the service helpful and not annoying. Who wants three clicks to execute a task? Not me. The company offers a browser add on which is described in somewhat wacky Web words:
an intelligent browser Add-On that dynamically provides easy access to relevant websites and content. Wherever you go on the web, our technology will work behind the scenes to discover valuable common content and present it to you in a useful way. Built on sophisticated algorithms that scout the internet and taking into account user opinions. It matters not if the user is looking at a major portal or a website of some unknown artist, SimilarWeb provides accurate results for rare sites as well as highly ranked ones, the technology excels in the long tail of the web.
Verbiage aside, worth a look. I put this puppy on my quick links list, moving Similicio.us and Tagomatic.com to my bookmarks. The tagline is particularly good for SimilarSites.com: “Discover without searching.” Dead on in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 8, 2009
CNN: The Coming Cost Cataclysm
June 8, 2009
I found myself in Atlanta, stranded because of modern air travel. What to do with a few spare hours? The Atlanta Dot Net Web site had one suggestion. Tour CNN Headquarters. I navigated to this link and read here:
Ever wondered what the inside of a news studio looks like? Take the Inside CNN Studio Tour in Atlanta and view for yourself. Guests can take a 50-minute CNN studio tour featuring the Control Room Theater, Special Effects studio and Interactive News Desk section.
As a senior, I qualified for a $12 admission. My impressions:
- The CNN studios in Atlanta occupied a building that once housed an amusement park. The cavernous atrium was a reminder of wasted money. The area sucked energy, heat in the winter and A/C in the summer. I tried to calculate the cost per square foot but I got a headache and the tour guide did not know how to respond to my question, “What is the total cubic feet of this atrium?” He smiled a lot and pointed out that CNN was the first 24 hour video news outlet.
- There were a lot of people in the usable space in the gargantuan structure. There were security guards at every stairwell. There were security guards at the metal detector which I set off thus triggering a pat down. I had no contraband, and I did enjoy the frisk, quite up close and personal.
- The guide pointed out that 20 percent of the staff were engaged in information technology. He pointed out cameras that were run from a control room, obviating the need for a human to keep the red eye in front of the talent. There were dozens of people performing work flow functions like research, writing, editing, and directing. The talent read stories that floated in front of their eyes so “eye contact was intimate”.
Stepping back after the tour, I reflected on my impressions and the three observations I summarized in the dot points above. I thought about the Google Wave technology. At some point in the future, I envisioned moving the CNN news process to the Wave system. I also thought about the one person television network that Leo LaPorte has built in Petaluma, California. I thought about the number of people on the tour who took pictures and made videos with mobile phones. I thought about the billboard ad I saw whilst riding Atlanta’s truncated mass transit system for high speed wireless networks. I through about the young man on the tour who sent SMS messages to his pals who were apparently interested in what he had to say about the inner sanctum of CNN.
Bottom-line: CNN is on track for a cost cataclysm. In my opinion, software can reduce the friction in the CNN process. By pushing news down to those with mobile devices and out to the fringes of civilization, a software based company can offer good enough video news without the punishing cost burden CNN as well as Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters must bear.
CNN sits on a San Andreas fault of costs. The earthquake can come at any time.
If this analysis sounds familiar, it is the same theme that has been running through some of the business commentaries about the problems traditional newspapers face. Upstarts using technology have sucked ad revenue and content from the custodial embrace of traditional publishing companies. The result has been a divorce of information methods and revenue. The traditional approach finds itself bleeding from many tiny wounds which sap its ability to leapfrog from where the organizations are today and where they have to be tomorrow.
The young people whom I know (few in number and quite strange to me) love video info. In fact, I note with some horror the dependence Google has upon videos to explain complex processes. I think the trend is locked in because when one writes, there is a formalism imposed. Even an addled goose like me has to plan what’s up. With a video, the rhetoric is that of the demo, a conversation, or a YouTube.com “insider” video. If the message is garbled, just do another video. Easy and without boundaries. The approach is just right for those decades younger than I.
How does this create trouble for a “too big too fail” television news operation?
Analysis of Google Wave
June 8, 2009
Radovan Seman?ík’s Weblog published “Storm Alert”, a quite interesting discussion of Google Wave. You must read his write up here. Among the points I noted were:
- Lack of security
- Inconsistent nomenclature
- Assumptions about performance when there are large numbers of users.
For me, the most telling comment in this article was:
Google Wave architecture does not adhere to architectural best practice. It is not minimal. The robots are described to communicate with Wave by HTTP/JSONRPC (robot is server), Client apparently communicates by HTTP (as AJAX application?) , while the wave federation protocol is described as XMPP-based. Why do we need so many protocols? Is there any reason why robot protocol and client-server protocol needs to be different? The non-minimalistic approach can be seen in the OT operations as well. The antidocumentelementstart and endantidocumentelementstart operations seems redundant to me. If they are not redundant, their existence should be explained in the architectural documents.
Highly recommended. In my opinion, Wave is a variant of the dataspace technologies. Like the first Searchology, I think Google built a demo and rushed it out the door in order to blunt the PR impact of Microsoft Bing.com’s roll out.
Stephen Arnold, June 8, 2009
Yahoo Signals a Turn Inward
June 8, 2009
The Times of Oman reported here that Yahoo wants to build traffic and may not need a life saver from Redmond to thrive. “Yahoo! Doesn’t Need Microsoft Deal: CEO” reported:
“Yahoo! doesn’t have to do anything with Microsoft about anything,” Bartz said at a conference here of technology analysts. “Yahoo! actually has a bright, bright future, probably cleaner and simpler future without thinking there’s any Microsoft connection,” she said. “We’d be better off if we’d never heard the word Microsoft. “Forget about the Microsoft stuff, it’s honestly not that relevant,” she said.
With the release of Bing.com and the PR blitz, Microsoft may want to paddle up the search rapids without the Yahoo technical anchor snagging rocks and limbs. On the other hand, Yahoo is long in the tooth. Search is so-so, but until Bing.com what were the alternatives? My thought is that one should not spurn money when the costs of the present operation threaten to be tough to control.
Negotiating ploy or bold new vision? Clarity by the end of the year in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 7, 2009
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