Chrome and the Notion of Growing the Web
June 18, 2009
“We Want Chrome to Grow the Web” is the title of an interesting essay by Matt Asay. The “we” is Google. No surprise there. The article points out that Google has been “a good partner” for Mozilla. In my mind, the thought that surfaced was, “Yes, but not good enough to keep us from rolling out a competitive product.”
Mr. Asay wrote:
Google doesn’t expect to be the source of all browser innovation. It wants to continue working with Firefox, for example, helping prod the market forward. As Mozilla CEO John Lilly has said, increased competition in the browser market can spark innovation. Competition isn’t comfortable, but because it pushes vendors to do their best work and “often results in innovation of one sort or another,” it’s ultimately good for customers and competitors. This is why we should be cheering Google’s entry into the browser market–even if we ultimately want Firefox to win. Perhaps especially if we want Firefox to win.
I think I agree with Mr. Asay with regard to competition. My concern is that I am not sure that Google likes the idea quite as much. Google dominates Web search and is well on the way to having a big paw on some other juicy business sectors; for example, video.
With regard to Chrome, I think it is a component, not a browser. I think the word “browser” understates with the Chrome component of the Google platform can support, enable, and do. Browsing is a subset of a larger set of capabilities.
Stephen Arnold, June 18, 2009
The Future of Search: Capturing Paper and Digital Records
June 18, 2009
Short honk: I read Pharmaceutical Business Review’s “Autonomy GCB to Safely Capture, Manage Patients Records”. (The split infinitive and the possessive error are not mine, folks.) The point of the article is that Autonomy has landed a big contract with Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services.” What strikes me as interesting is that Brainware, ZyLAB, and now Autonomy are starting to look a great deal like the original Excalibur Technologies’ business of a decade ago. Sure, there are some differences, but I think that this end-to-end content processing service is bringing search back to its roots. I am not sure of the ramifications of this “blast from the past” approach to information, but I wanted to note my observation about this retrenchment or rediscovery of the roots of information management as a process within an organization’s work flows.
Stephen Arnold, June 17, 2009
Microsoft Fast, Dagens IT, and Deloitte Accounting
June 17, 2009
Dagens IT is a Norwegian information service (Dagens Næringsliv). On Wednesday, June 17, 2009, the article “Føler seg lurt av Fast” appeared here. My Norwegian is not too good, but I have the source story and a comment from a reader in Scandinavia.
From my vantage point in rural Kentucky, the gist of the Dagens IT write up is that an allegation has arisen that Fast Search & Transfer recorded sales that were possibly not solid sales. I think this means that revenue booked may have been false.
The firm’s auditor at the time was Deloitte. The story seems to suggest that the accountants from Deloitte were somehow fooled or in some other way unable to ferret out the real money from the phantom money reported by Fast Search & Transfer.
I ran the Dagens IT story through Google Translate, and I received a rendering of what struck me as a key paragraph:
The reason is that Fast Search & Transfer 2006-manipulating accounts. Contracts for over 100 million turned out to not be real. At the same time was over 30 million paid to directors in the Fixed-system via straw companies.
The authorities in Norway are exploring this allegation. One of those of interest is the present head of the “new” Microsoft Fast unit in Norway. Dagens IT said:
Neither the CEO of Fast, Bjørn Olstad or former CEO, John Markus Lervik, answered yesterday the DNS [official inquiry body] requests.
Deloitte, the accounting firm, seems to be one organization who had access to the company’s financial information. Microsoft, as part of its due diligence, may have had access to similar information. Given the type of issues involved with phantom sales, how thorough were the reviews of Fast Search’s financials.
Microsoft paid about $1.2 billion for a company that, if these allegations are true, may have been smaller than the financial statements issued prior to the buy out suggested. The next question is, “Why would a company with a blue chip client list and strong PR face charges of inventing revenue?”
Maybe the Fast ESP technology, not just the Fast Search management, deserves a closer look? Another question I have is, “What did Microsoft know at the time it paid a premium for Fast Search & Transfer?”
Stephen Arnold, June 17, 2009
Another Future-of-Search Write Up
June 17, 2009
One of the goslings pointed me to Web Pro News and Mike McDonald’s “What’s the Future of Search?” and the subhead “Good News Is, There Is One. Bad News Is, Robot Overlords”. I jumped right to it. I love prognostications. As a failed prognosticator, I am looking for tips and clues to make my own addled goose analyses more on target.
Mr. McDonald’s not really doing the crystal ball gazing. That task fell to Rebecca Lieb “vice president for eConsultancy”. The article summarizes Ms. Lieb’s views. I don’t know Ms. Lieb but I will go with the flow on this.
Let me jump to the part where the hunters have cornered the fox. Mr. McDonald wrote”
All of this data we are feeding the machines about ourselves is going to make the machines exponentially better at interpreting what we ‘mean’ when we type in a query. Pretty soon, who knows? They may know more about what we want than we do. Won’t that be nice? Instead of typing queries into search bars, we can just request optimal instructions. Be a big time saver… Gives the ‘Feeling Lucky’ button a whole other slant too, doesn’t it?
The wrap up for the article asserted:
Search, as Rebecca points out is becoming more and more of a 2 way street. Your clients are informing your market strategies already now more than they ever have. This influence is only going to grow. If you are thinking about your Search strategy and have another group in your organization working on your Social strategy…. you guys need to hang out more. A lot more. Go to lunch, have drinks after work, become room mates (if you are management, consider handcuffing these people together) – whatever it takes. Social and search get a little closer every day. If search is vital to your business, then social is vital to your business, you may just not know it yet… But it’s coming.
My view of this view of search is generally on a similar track. I work the dirt highways and Ms. Lieb is focused more on the smart highways of the future. My observations are:
- Search vendors are under significant pressure inside their organizations and in the real world where humans dwell. The trajectory of smart software is one thing. The behavior of users is another.
- Smart search is rampant within Google and now Bing.com if I accept the marketing hoo ha at face value. Vendors don’t have much choice in this matter. The reason is that the volume of data and the vagaries of language require different types of content processing and query analysis services. Where these innovations will lead is unclear to me.
- “Social” is little more than communications with fewer syllables. The notion of putting communications, information, and metadata in a digital plastic baggy is a really big innovation. I am not sure it is “search” or if it is “robotic”. I do know that the terminology for this innovation is closer to dataspaces, than the current jargon.
I will have to check out Ms. Lieb’s hit rate in a year or two. Some of her ideas sound good.
Stephen Arnold, June 17, 2009
Microsoft and Video
June 17, 2009
Dark days in Redmond for its YouTube.com killer Soapbox. Ina Fried’s “Microsoft Gives Up YouTube Chase” alerted me to this development. Ms. Fried wrote:
In an interview on Tuesday, Microsoft Vice President Erik Jorgensen said Soapbox is one of the areas that Microsoft is pulling back on in the wake of a tough economic environment. His unit also recently pulled the plug on Microsoft Money, the company’s personal finance software product.
Maybe the video preview function on Bing.com will carry the freight. Ms. Fried noted:
While Microsoft will focus on such content, it’s still unclear whether it will continue to allow users to freely upload their videos or if it will require some sort of editorial selection of the movies before they make it onto the site.
With HTML 5 nosing into view, Silverlight may have another Google probe pushing in as well. Keep in mind that the Google has rolled out a client side Exchange escape trick. Interesting.
Stephen Arnold, June 17, 2009
Bing Rings the Gong
June 17, 2009
Search Engine Watch, a publication that covers the whizzy world of search engine optimization, ran a useful article by Nathania Johnson. The article consisted of three charts. The first showed the Google with 63 percent of the search tallied by Nielsen MegaView Search. (Quite a service, MegaView.) Microsoft’s share for the May 2009 data pegged them at a 10 percent share.
The other two charts showed a bump for Bing.com in June 2009’s partial data. Ms. Johnson wrote, “But Bing’s early June launch shows early promise for Microsoft’s new “decision engine.” When I looked at the chart, I saw some upward lift but the share was modest. The third chart didn’t speak to me. I kept looking at the big gray block that represented the Google. The other blocks looked modest.
Anyway, Search Engine Watch gives Bing.com a positive spin with the MegaView data. My opinion is that a bump early in a product release is to be expected. I want to see data in six months. But I am an addled goose and not a whizzy Search Engine Watch type.
Stephen Arnold, June 17, 2009
Google Trilogy Now Available
June 17, 2009
Infonortics Ltd., a publisher in the United Kingdom, has announced “The Google Trilogy”. Stephen E. Arnold’s three monographs, said Harry Collier, Managing Director, Infonortics in Tetbury, Glos.:
comprise a comprehensive review of the Californian web behemoth. The first volume — The Google Legacy — concentrated on an overview of Google and of its technology. The second volume — Google Version 2.0 — drilled down into Google’s technology as revealed or suggested by its patents. The third and final volume — Google: The Digital Gutenberg — looked in depth at Google’s potential outside of its classic and traditional search origins.
The Google Legacy provides a look at the foundation technologies and their use within Google and at such core Google services as maps, search, and data management.
Google Version 2.0 describes key Google technical innovations developed between 2005 and 2007, a period that Mr. Arnold describes as the thrusters for Google’s current line up of products and services.
Google: The Digital Gutenberg explains how a publisher, developer, or innovator can use Google to build a business that “surfs on Google”. The reference to Google’s Wave is not an accident, because “Wave” is the first of the digital bundling services that Google will deploy.
Portions of these studies have been published by such organizations as BearStearns and IDC, the Boston consultancy. The trilogy comprises about 500 pages of text, technical diagrams, and tabular material. Unique in these monographs is the analysis of Google’s patent documents and technical papers spanning the period from 1998 to 2009.
A person interested in knowing how Google delivers its products and services will find these monographs an essential guide. For a competitor, these monographs provide a long view of Google’s scope and impact. For a person wanting to make money using Google as a platform, these studies provide a forward looking, informed view of what Mr. Arnold calls a “new type of company.”
The cost of the three books in PDF download versions only is US$650 / €490. Site licenses on application to harry.collier [at] Infonortics.com.
Stuart Schram IV, June 17, 2009
Google and the Librarians
June 17, 2009
Time Magazine, now freed of AOL, continues to probe the online world with a friskiness that I find illuminating. The most recent effort is by Janet Morrissey. Her article “Librarians Fighting Google’s Book Deal” makes it clear to me that Time Magazine is not leaning toward Google in the Great Google Book matter. “Matter” is a legal eagle word because that’s how the Google Book deal is going to be worked out. Journalists, mavens, and pundits won’t have much impact if the hassle between Google and parties to its deal with publishers continues to escalate.
Ms. Morrissey said:
In a complex settlement agreement, which took three years to hammer out and spans 135 pages excluding attachments, Google will be allowed to show up to 20% of the books’ text online at no charge to Web surfers. But the part of the settlement that deals with so-called orphan books — which refers to out-of-print books whose authors and publishers are unknown — is what’s ruffling the most feathers in the literary henhouse. The deal gives Google an exclusive license to publish and profit from these orphans, which means it won’t face legal action if an author or owner comes forward later. This, critics contend, gives it a competitive edge over any rival that wants to set up a competing digital library. And without competition, opponents fear Google will start charging exorbitant fees to academic libraries and others who want full access to its digital library.
The wrap up to the story does little to reassure the goslings about Time’s view of this issue:
The library community recalls with horror the pricing fiasco that occurred when industry consolidation left academic journals in the hands of five publishing companies. The firms hiked subscription prices 227% over a 14-year period, between 1986 and 2002, forcing cash-strapped libraries to drop many subscriptions, according to Van Orsdel. “The chance of the price being driven up in a similar way (in the Google deal) is really very real,” he says.
I would have liked to see some views from front line librarians, in-the-fray information professionals included in the write up. The Special Library Association is meeting in Washington, DC, this week. I wonder what the view from that group is? I will have to make some phone calls, but a sentence or two in Time would have been helpful to me.
Stephen Arnold, June 17, 2009
CIA Investment Arm Taps Open Source Search
June 16, 2009
In Washington, DC, yesterday (June 15, 2009), I learned that In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the US intelligence community, has given a salute to open source. Lucid Imagination, a commercial open source company dedicated to supporting Apache Lucene and SOLR search technologies, received a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel.
With the investment, Lucid Imagination will support the US intel community by providing advanced access to Lucene and SOLR search solutions.
I learned that this partnership will further accelerate Lucid Imagination’s efforts towards facilitating and broadening the adoption of Lucene/Solr technology within the U.S. Intelligence Community, in addition to the commercial market. Lucid Imagination is proud to be a part of IQT’s efforts at bringing innovative technologies to the U.S. intelligence community.
Lucene/SOLR-based search has become one of the fastest-growing segments in the enterprise search market over the past three years, with more than 9,000 downloads per day and over 4,000 organizations using the open source software for some of industry’s most intensive search needs. Many organizations are replacing costly proprietary licensed search software products with Lucene and Solr because, in addition to lower TCO, it offers the most flexible and scalable architecture for developing highly sophisticated full-text search applications.
Previously, companies using Lucene/Solr relied primarily on the open source community for training, documentation and technical support, a fact that kept many others from using or considering the technology. With Lucid imagination, a well-funded commercial entity offering certified distributions of Lucene and Solr, SLA-based support subscriptions, training, high-level consulting and value-added software, both new and existing users now have access to enterprise-grade support and services to optimize their enterprise search efforts. Lucid Imagination’s Web site is designed to serve as a “knowledge portal” for the Lucene/Solr user community, with information and resources to help application developers build and deploy Lucene/Solr-based solutions in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.
In my view, the In-Q-Tel investment has several interesting aspects.
First, the US government appears to perceive significant potential for Lucene/Solr adoption within its government partners. Several of these entities have already been using the technology and require more reliable, predictable support and services for better risk management. Lucid Imagination provides the commercial backing IQT’s partners need to deploy Lucene/SOLR in mission-critical applications.
Second, in today’s business climate, open source solutions provide one way to tap into a broad community and its programming expertise. Important innovations often bubble up from open source, thus reducing the time between a good idea and a concrete implementation of a function or feature. Some proprietary systems impose a “time friction” on licensees.
Third, open source allows some applications to reduce or eliminate what I call the “one way street” that commercial software often requires of licensees. Flexibility can deliver both financial and technical advantages in my opinion. In my experience, it can be time consuming and expensive to “get information out” of some commercial systems or expensive to figure out how to tap or repurpose a proprietary content processing system’s outputs.
Lucid Imagination is a commercial company dedicated to Apache Lucene technology. The company provides free certified distributions, commercial-grade support, training, high-level consulting and value-added software for Lucene and Solr. Lucid Imagination’s goal is to serve as a central resource for the entire Lucene community and make them more productive. Lucid Imagination is a privately held venture-funded company. Investors in Lucid include Granite Ventures and Walden International. More information is available at www.lucidimagination.com.
Stephen Arnold, June 16, 2009
Overflight on Treatment Centers
June 16, 2009
The Overflight intelligence service provides drug rehabilitation information for Treatment Centers. Treatment Centers is an information service for health care providers and families looking for actionable information about a dependency condition. The new service provides access to selected information from the Treatment Centers database as well as information that is refreshed in real time from a range of sources. Included is information from Web logs, major news services, and Twitter. Stephen E. Arnold, provider of the Overflight service, said:
The Twitter information was a surprise. We ran several tests and found that Twitter messages provided useful links as well as specific recommendations about what resources were found to be useful. The Twitter information is filtered, eliminating the need to run key word queries, so real time content is available without the need to visit the search box. The combination of original information from the Treatment Center professionals and the real time information creates a useful resource available with a single mouse click.
There is no charge for the service at http://www.treatment-centers.net/drug-rehab.html. If you want an Overflight service for your Web site, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com and put “Overflight” in the subject field. Users find auto generated reports useful because information is available at a glance without the need to create a key word query to unlock the needed information.
Stuart Schram IV, June 16, 2009
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