Polyspot: Version 4.8 Released
July 2, 2009
Speed is the name of the game in search, and Polyspot, is keeping its hand in the pot. The French company just released an update of their enterprise search product, V4.8. The new version “speeds faceted search and navigation” and is designed to accurately retrieve relevant information intuitively. Polyspot works by extracting information/metadata/tags/etc. while indexing data repositories, and then it accesses those indexes to speed the search process. The product allows parametric search and faceted navigation while fine tuning results through widgets and tag clouds. There are also filters to allow for combinations of search terms. V4.8 also has an Administrative Console that facilitates facet definition, calibration of a host of widgets, and display options. You can check out the product here.
Jessica Bratcher, July 2, 2009
Great Google Quote
July 2, 2009
Short honk: The Christian Science Monitor snagged a great Google quote from the lips of Eric Schmidt. The quote appeared in “Bing Nothing to Worry about, Yet” here.
Mr. Schmidt allegedly said:
“Google is about getting all the information and organizing it,” he said. “Yahoo has a different strategy. We think ultimately Bing will evolve to a different strategy as well.
Let’s see. If Google gets “all” information, what’s left for the Redmond crowd and the Yahooligans. Logically, the addled goose thinks, nothing.
Stephen Arnold, June 14, 2009
Monitoring, Snooping, and Search
July 2, 2009
Every time I mention to an audience of information professionals the value of monitoring information flow, I see lots of rolling eyes and disgusted looks. Too bad. Snooping, monitoring, and search are fast friends. Don’t believe it? Click here and read “IT Staff Snooping on Colleagues on Rise: Survey”. Tarmo Virki summarized a number of data points. Among those that I found interesting was this factoid: One third of IT professionals abuse administrative passwords.The findings of the Cyber Ark study are almost identical to a study run in 2008. The passage that jumped out at me was:
Cyber-Ark said the most common areas respondents indicated they access are HR records, followed by customer databases, M&A plans, layoff lists and lastly, marketing information.
Troubled? Concerned? More information appeared in the original article. Accurate? A spoof?
Stephen Arnold, June 14, 2009
How to Avoid Enterprise Social Network Sin
July 2, 2009
Network World’s “Seven Deadly Sins of Social Networking Security” reminded me of the assurances about the security of social networks for the enterprise. I did not believe their assurances, and after reviewing Bill Brenner’s article, I wonder how long it will be before the hyperbolists accept some grim realities. One of these is that where humans are involved, security is actually up in the air, maybe non existent.
Mr. Bremmer wrote:
By sharing too much about your employer’s intellectual property, you threaten to put it out of business by tipping off a competitor who could then find a way to duplicate the effort or find a way to spoil what they can’t have by hiring a hacker to penetrate the network or by sneaking a spy into the building.
Yep, humans. His two page article runs through a number of actions that individuals can take to button up security loopholes.
My take: social networks in the enterprise can create some exciting situations. He does not dig into the legal and life threatening issues, preferring the more tame world of legal liability. Not me. I think that social networks can create a world of excitement for pharma companies and intelligence professionals. I don’t have an answer. The 20 somethings just point out that I am an old addled goose and the vulnerabilities multiple like gerbils.
The notion of real time search of posted social comments fresh from Intranets is quite interesting, however.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Search and an Asteroid Hit
July 1, 2009
I had two separate conversations this week. I can’t reveal the names of the people with whom I spoke or the companies with which the firms were affiliated. I am also going to refrain from identifying the search vendors. In short, this is a toothless post. If you don’t like gums, navigate away.
Debt, Search, and an Name Brand
A financial roll up owns an online service. The service is long in the tooth, expensive to operate, and based on software written when I was still able to see my toes. The conference call made clear that this outfit was going with a name brand search system. The procurement team bought the marketing pitch hook, line, and sinker. The head of the procurement team has an extra dollop of pride on top of a giant scoop of ego. In short, the financial roll up is buying into costs of which it believes it understands. The decision is likely to bankrupt the company. One person asked me, “How can we communicate that this decision will go wrong.” My reply was curt, “You can’t.”
In my experience, there is a certain type of self assured business professional who explains that he or she is good at technology but is really more skilled in business analysis. So the SABP (self assured business professional) assumes that he or she understands the cost issues associated with a large scale search system and simply refuses to listen. I have noticed that a remarkable number of IT professionals have perfected this skill.
The result is a seven figure deal for a name brand vendor and a significant risk of financial collapse for the licensee. Mark my words. The wizards at this outfit will rationalize the problems in dulcet tones. Jobs will be lost. The financial backers will be ruined. Pride and ego get in the way of admitting that more research and analysis have to be supplemented with tests and clear eyed analysis.
Amazing situation. I walked away from this project. When the cost overruns explore, I want to be in Harrod’s Creek and uninvolved.
Free Software and MBAs Who Can Use Google
The estimates of the size of the search sector are pretty miserable. First, most analysts discard Google because at $22 billion, it is easier to explain that it is an ad agency and, therefore, can be tossed out. Yikes. Then, the figures generated by analysts are essential created the way my mother used to back into a parking space at the mall. Trial and error, lots of guestimates, and considerable fretting until the vehicle was inserted at an angle. Close enough for horseshoes, she used to say. So, when a manager responsible for search at a European company spouts numbers, explains that he or she has limited knowledge of technology, and believes that low cost search is the way to search happiness, I clam up.
What’s going on here is that some companies just want to slap in a cheap search system as an component in “more important” software. Now “more important” means worth more than lowly search. As a result, this particular organization and its search boss want to generate revenue. The fact that the search system sucks is irrelevant.
When I brought up the point about meeting user needs, the bright eyed entitlement child said, “We believe that value comes from aggregating components.” Yeah, but if a core component doesn’t work, then what? My question was ignored. I was a person who lived somewhere in Kentucky of all places.
The result is that this outfit is using non functional search and retrieval software, assuming that the suite will make the customers’ problems with information retrieval become irrelevant. Wrong.
Observations
The need for effective information retrieval is going up. Half baked rationalizations, generalization, and just plain baloney will exacerbate financial issues. What concerns me is that these behaviors are flourishing. Search is cruisin’ for a bruisin’, and the pain will be felt by many.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Bing.com Search Share
July 1, 2009
Short honk: I relished the write up in Digital Trends about Microsoft’s share of the Web search market. The title of the article was “Bing Boosts Microsoft Search Share One Percent.” The data were interesting, but the segment I liked was:
Globally, Microsoft also saw gains from Bing’s debut, seeing its share of global Internet search jump from 3.08 percent in April to 3.30 percent in June; however, most of that gain appears to have come at Yahoo’s expense, which saw its global share decline from 5.48 percent to 5.15 percent over the same period. Google almost completely dominates the global search market, with a share of 89.80 percent.
Progress but the “dominates” was amusing.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Beyond Search Story Flow
July 1, 2009
Short honk: The big, addled goose will be in Europe for a week or so. Stories for Beyond Search have been prepared and three or four will run each day. When I get connectivity, I will process breaking news from the goslings. You may notice that some stories seem to refer to events that took place in June. Yep, that’s when we wrote our brand of search, content processing, and information-centric items. We tried to be reasonably timeless and retain the controversial angle we take. Keep in mind we are neither journalists, pundits, mavens, wizards, or azure chip consultants. We are not newly minted experts. Heck, we’re not even experts. This Web log is 100 percent pure marketing. We don’t spam, and we don’t think too much about how many readers it attracts. We conform to our editorial polity stated on our About pages and proudly honk, “Beyond Search, written by addled geese for those with a penchant for recycled information.” Just a beak up, gentle reader. Honk.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Google and Transit Search
July 1, 2009
In one of my KMWorld columns I reported that New Jersey had embraced Google’s transportation routing system. No one really cared. Now Google, according to Philly.com, has inked a deal with SEPTA. You can get the details by reading “SEPTA to Partner with Google.” What is a vendor of search and ads doing with mass transit routing? Surround and seep dribbles forward. First, the routing, then the search, and finally the ads. What better place to get bus and shuttle timetable information. SEPTA joins New Jersey and Maryland as customers of this Google service.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
WSJ: Now Upgraded to Viagra Class Spammer
July 1, 2009
Short honk: Yep, 7 56 am the Wall Street Journal began spamming me to become a subscriber. Well, the newspaper achieved one objective. I have suspended my Wall Street Journal subscription. I did enjoy this type of information about the proud, oh, so proud New Jersey publication. I wrote. I called customer support. I posted two previous stories about this company’s spamming of existing customers. Now there is one less customer and my legal eagle is writing the consumer complaint entities in the great state of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. One person asked me not to describe newspapers as the “dead tree” crowd. Sorry. When a paying customer gets spammed, not only is the organization a fully fledged dead tree publisher, it has achieved the rank of Viagra class spammer. As an observer, I can be critical. As a customer, I can be miffed. The spammer—Rupert, are you listening?—has lost one real, live, paying customer. How many more will your silly marketing methods drive away. Oh, I know. The Wall Street Journal is too important, too big to fail. Gee, I hear an echo.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Microsoft Vision of a Fast Follower
July 1, 2009
I wondered how a once-nimble company like Microsoft would find a way to make lemonade from the lemons in its financial and product orchard. I learned a bit about how Microsoft will spin its corporate story as it tries to move its shareprice from value stock land to the country club that Wall Street desperately needs.
You can get some insight by reading Don Dodge’s “Why Do Fast Followers Often Beat the First Mover Innovators?” on Microsoft’s Start Up Zone blog for entrepreneurs. I don’t know information worker productivity person Don Dodge, but he provides some info about his background. He workd at Digital Equipment Corp. and five start ups over the “next 12 years”. Experience is definitely good as long as the same errors are not repeated each year.
The part of the write up that interested me was the use of Alta Vista as the first mover and Google as the fast follower. Not only do I think that this example (which is only one of 12 in the write up, I think it underscores what search is so confusing and ultimately dissatisfying for most users.
First, Alta Vista was not a first mover. The notion of Web search stretches back to approaches either forgotton (Aliweb, JumpStation) or repositioned before Google rolled out (Northern Light) or drifted into oblivion (Inktomi, Excite). If we set aside Web search, anyone remember STAIRS and InQuire with its famous forward truncation? Verona or Very Easy Rodent Oreiented Netwide Index to Computer Archives or something along those lines. Alta Vista was important but it was a demo, and its real contribution was to provide Google with a gaggle of wizards who arrived with years of research into the special problems high volume indexing via Internet. I am not sure AltaVista.com is a precursor to Google. In my research, I think of Google hiring AltaVista.com wizards and just doing what AltaVista.com had started but without the craziness of the DEC sale to Compaq, the HP buy out of Compaq, and the orphaning of a demo for the Alpha chip. AltaVista.com was more like a roll up of other search engines’ ideas and Google just pumped in more dough and included the PageRank gizmo.
Second, implicit in “fast follower” is the idea of standing on the shoulders of giants or what I call “me too” invention. By making incremental improvements, a company can find a way to use modest technology enhancements and Grand Canyon marketing to make sales. The notion that marketing is more important than technology applies to many “fast follower” products. In short, marketers can’t invent much, but they can sell candy to moms who want their kids to stop whining. Does this sound like the addled goose is disenchanted with 21st centruy marketing? It should. Marketing for the purpose of inventing a needing and pumping up a fuzzy idea like value has made some remarkable contributions to US economic life. Bernie Madoff is an example of influence marketing in a “fast follower” setting. Come to think of it the police action underway in Norway concerns Fast Search & Transfer falls into a similar category. “Me too” leads to some interesting business actions it seems.
Third, the “fast follower” notion is not innovation in the scheme of Harrod’s Creek and the goose pond. Incremental improvements are essential, but anyone who looks at how American icon Tom Edison worked comes away with a sense that judgment, business ethics, and integrity can become road kill on this path. Are not the ideas of Friedrich Hayek and his pals exciting?
For me the most interesting information in the write up was a series of five dot points. I can’t reproduce each of these but I can comment on one dot point and urge you to read and reflect on the other four. Dot point three underscores the fallacy of the “fast follower” approach to business success. The bullet said:
Value sales and marketing talent as much as technical talent.
That is the mantra of modern business and innovation today. The user car salesman and the technical expert. Which is able to deliver more value? Which benefits society more? Technology can only be managed with more technology. Sales begets a need for more sales.
In short, the “fast follower” method adds another burden of meaning to the fictional Willy Loman. “Low man” – get it. How low. Read Gawker’s take.
Stephen Arnold, June 30, 2009
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