Google, Triage, and Support Requests from End Users
September 7, 2009
On September 2, 2009, Google’s Code Blog published a short list of the top ten most used features of Google Project Hosting. (If you are not familiar with Project Hosting, you can get started on the Google Code page for the service. The Google blog post to which I refer is “Heavy Duty: What Project Hosting Users Are Doing”. What I found interesting is that writing documentation and supporting requests from end users ranked ninth and 10th respectively. I was surprised both issues made the list in the first place. The programming goslings here at Beyond Search ignore my requests for new features and are deaf to the bleats from end users. Perhaps Google will push that customer support function up the list. One can hope.
Stephen Arnold, September 7, 2009
Microsoft on Truth in Search Marketing
September 6, 2009
I got a kick out of the article “Coping with Hype in Enterprise Search Marketing” which appeared in early August 2009. I have to confess that the posts are few and far between, and I haven’t been dutiful in keeping up with the snail like pace of Microsoft Fast ESP. The author of the article identifies some issues with enterprise search marketing. You will have to visit the site and gobble up the observations yourself. One of the segments struck me as quite interesting. The blog post stated: “Infinite Scalability” which really means:
To get to very large volumes of content and queries, you may have to buy a lot of hardware and data center space.
Yep, big data centers just like the ones Microsoft built in San Antonio, Chicago, and other locations until the company chopped back on capital expenditures. What I found interesting is that for each of the identified exaggerations, I have in my files examples of these in presentations delivered by a certain Norwegian software company prior to its purchase by a large US firm in early 2009.
The write up has the ring of truth. I think it strikes close to Redmond and Oslo. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, September 6, 2009
Google Books and Lousy Indexing
September 6, 2009
Thomas Claburn’s “Google Books Metadata Includes Millions of Errors” disclosed some dirty meta data laundry from the Google Books project. Mr. Claburn reported:
A metadata provider gave Google a large number of book records from Brazil that list 1899 as a default publication date, resulting in about 250,000 misdated books from this one source.
Mr. Claburn rounded up additional information that suggests the error problem is orders of magnitude larger than some expect. The good news is that Google is working to correct errors. The bad news is that Google, like other commercial database producers, generates products and services that users perceive to be “right”. In reality, there are quite a few flaws in electronic products. Mistakes in print can be seen and easily shared with others. Electronic mistakes often behave differently and in many cases will go uncorrected for a long time, maybe forever, without anyone knowing what’s amiss or what the impact of the mistake is when smart software sucks up errors as fact. Whizzy new systems that generate reliability and provenance “tags” can be easily fooled. The repercussions of these types of propagated errors are going to be interesting to understand.
Stephen Arnold, September 6, 2009
Mudoch’s Vision Gets a Poke in the Eye
September 6, 2009
The International Business Times ran a story that poked Rupert Murdoch’s plan to charge for news square in the eye. The story you may want to read is “Charging for Web Content No Panacea for Newspapers” suggests that charging for content may not solve the woes of the traditional newspaper industry. The IBT writer marshals some interesting information. For me the most important comment was from a small consulting firm:
Ken Doctor, who leads Outsell’s news publishing research, says publishers need to be more imaginative about how to make money out of news. “The news industry has this myth … that there’s no money online,” he says. Doctor says online ads targeted at particular audiences, which offer better value to advertisers than traditional display ads, still have a long way to go in generating revenue. Better intelligence about consumers’ habits on the Web — while it can be controversial to gather — can lead to far more relevant and powerful advertising campaigns. And rather than asking readers to pay for content, publishers should consider extra-value services like membership schemes, something the Guardian is looking at, he says. “The smart play here is to go with human psychology and not against it, and that is convenience, access, sharing, better social networking connections,” he says. “And you’re forging a deeper relationship with your readers.” Doctor cites as examples of companies that learned early how to make money online Elsevier scientific publishing and Google – the bogeyman of the news industry.
Let’s think about several of these points.
First, the money online requires competencies that the newspaper has not evidenced recently; namely, technical capabilities and financial wizardry. Google’s magical recipe for online revenue leaves other online vendors in the dust. Newspapers have a different definition of technology than an outfit like Google. And Google’s money making method is based on traffic, math, and timing. The consulting firm’s expert is saying words that sound okay, but the gap between what a newspaper can do and making sufficient revenue to return the newspaper industry to its hay days is wide indeed.
Second, the idea of using information about readers is an interesting one. First, the newspaper has to collect useful, high value information. Circulation databases are described as “crown jewels” and the ones with which I am familiar are more like the cubic Zirconias for sale on Fisherman’s Wharf from a street vendor. The high value data requires the core competencies referenced in the preceding paragraph. Without these competencies, the likelihood of doing much beyond the status quo with subscribed data is going to be tough.
Finally, monetizing “convenience, access, sharing and better social networking” sounds great, almost like the silly McKinsey report I wrote about a few days ago. Here’s the problem. “Convenience, access, sharing and better social networking” are already available and becoming more convenient and better by the day. Companies with these types of systems – Murdoch’s own MySpace.com, Facebook.com, and Twitter.com to name three – have to find ways to generate big time revenue. No one has cracked revenue from certain types of online services that is demonstrably sustainable. Instead, social systems seem to wax and wane. Maybe the solution is a giant Microsoft of Google system. But if that takes place, will the newspapers be much more than marginal players? I don’t think they will be much of a player at all. In the area of local information, it sure looks to me as if Craigslist.org and Yelp.com have stomped the traditional newspaper into the dirt.
What I find amazing is that the baloney from blue chip and azure chip consultants never ends. The cherry on top the cupcake of baloney in the consultant’s comments was the reference to Elsevier. Perhaps Elsevier looks healthy because it is a private company and not required to disclose its financial details. A better example would have made this addled goose quack happily. As the consultant’s analysis stands, the addled goose says, “Honk.”
Stephen Arnold, September 5, 2009
Google, Prediction, and Privacy
September 6, 2009
Google is pretty good with predictive mathematics. When I read “Google Urges Support for Proposed Books Settlement,” I was confused. Then I remembered that some Google attorneys work in temporary trailers about a mile from the nerve center next to the employee car wash. The math and physics folks are in the Googleplex. The lawyers are around, just not sprinkled among the wizards. Not surprisingly, the firm’s predictive expertise flags when dealing with matters such as privacy. For example, consider this statement from the article cited in this blog post:
“As we noted in our letter to the FTC, because the settlement agreement has not yet been approved by the court, and the services authorized by the agreement have not been built or even designed yet, it’s not possible to draft a final privacy policy that covers details of the settlement’s anticipated services and features,” Horvath said. “Our privacy policies are usually based on detailed review of a final product — and on weeks, months or years of careful work engineering the product itself to protect privacy,” she said. “In this case, we’ve planned in advance for the protections that will later be built, and we’ve described some of those in the Google Books policy.”
I think I understand. No predictions and “usually”. Maybe the math folks should help out the law folks.
Stephen Arnold, September 6, 2009
Bing Ping Coming
September 5, 2009
ITWire.com reported an enhancement to Bing.com is coming. “Microsoft to Add Bing Ping Thing” reported, “Bing & Ping will let users immediately share their search results via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.” What I found interesting was this statement: “One example offered is of taunting a friend by tweeting his favorite sports team’s most recent loss.” The addled goose is delighted with the sophistication of the Bing Ping Thing. I await its arrival in SharePoint. One question, “Will Microsoft Fast ESP capture metadata so a security officer can find out who taunts in the enterprise?”
Stephen Arnold, September 5, 2009
Gartner Group Swings for the Fences, Breaks Bat
September 5, 2009
ZDNet’s “Enterprise Architecture Pitfalls: The Obvious, and Beyond the Obvious” makes the posturing of azure chip consultant Gartner clear and somewhat painful to read. Yikes, the article stated, “Ho-hum.. You get the picture. Gartner’s suggestions are blindingly obvious.” The addled goose is startled. The best part of the write up, however, was not the umpire’s calling Gartner out. Readers provides some useful comments about the miserable track record some organizations have with “enterprise architecture.” My favorite was “Example EA pitfall – developers persuade stakeholders that EA guidelines are unnecessary red tape”. Almost right. Consultants also contribute to the persuasion.
Stephen Arnold, September 5, 2009
The Internet Is a Serial Killer
September 5, 2009
I enjoy British newspaper writing. I hope the traditional publishers stick around. Where else would I find an article with the enticing title “50 Things That Are Being Killed by the Internet”. I did not know that the two high speed connections coming into my goose pond could kill. I learned something new from the Daily Telegraph’s Matthew Moore. I scanned the list of “things” that the Internet is killing. One of the most interesting was item number 34, “Mainstream media.” Only number 34. I would have put those outfits at the top of the list. Mildly amusing, certainly not Onion grade.
Stephen Arnold, September 6, 2009
Oracle Search: Fact or Fanciful Diagram?
September 5, 2009
A reader sent me a link to Flickr. The photograph depicts an Oracle business intelligence and search decision tree. The addled goose is not certain if there is some tongue in the chic. You can judge for yourself.
Stephen Arnold, September 5, 2009
The SAP Rating, Bigger Surprise than RIM as Number One in 2009
September 5, 2009
My RSS reader (not yet dead) delivered two stories to me this afternoon. The first carries a Forbes.com tag and the second is a PR Newswire “news” release. The Forbes.com “story” is like stories in Beyond Search, conference speakers for companies with giant exhibits, and blow in white papers in magazines. The idea is to convert readership into money. The SAP story originates from SAP in Waldorf, Germany. The headline is arresting: “SAP Named Highest Ranked Software Company in 2009 Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.” There is a brief explanation of the index, but the key point is that it applies to or derives from 34 software companies. That’s a modest sample, but I assume these are publicly traded firms. The key passage for me was:
Compared with the 2008 rankings, SAP improved in all three aspects and had sector-leading scores in 12 of the 20 key dimensions, including operational eco-efficiency (where it scored 100 percent), brand management, human capital development, corporate citizenship and codes of conduct. SAP also received a 100 percent rating for its environmental reporting, driven by its innovative and interactive online sustainability report.
My click to the second news item on MSN MoneyCentral revealed that the story here was the same as Forbes’s.
When I thought about this news release, several thoughts crossed my mind:
First, SAP has been the center of a mini tempest with regard to fees. My recollection is that customers are grousing. Perhaps customer satisfaction should be given more weight.
Second, I think the notion of an on premises software system being “sustainable” strikes my as out of step with where newer software companies are going. The “out” is sustainability, which I think means annuity revenue from license and support services. I would define “sustainability” somewhat differently.
Third, the financial whack delivered to publicly traded software companies has been a spur to some companies to find ways to slash costs and boost revenues. If enough bones are chopped away, the structure sags. I wonder if this aspect of SAP’s performance has helped the firm’s rating.
I don’t think of SAP as sustainable. I think of SAP as a company to watch because it manifests traditional approaches to enterprise software. SAP is trying to adapt. To me, the struggle for growth makes SAP interesting.
Stephen Arnold, September 5, 2009
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