Social Networks a Security Risk for Organizations
September 3, 2009
I think this is one of those “this is obvious” studies consulting and research firms generate during the dog days of summer. Based on my experience,any device that sends info outside of an organization is a security risk. I know the confident, chubby 20 somethings insist that I am wrong. Well, I am a confident, chubby 65 year old something, and I know that these gizmos are fraught with risk. If you want to read a consulting firm’s take on this matter, read “Social Networks Pose Security Risks for Enterprises”. The write up references an IDC study that seems to me to state the obvious.
Stephen Arnold, September 3, 2009
Real Time Search: Point of View Important
September 3, 2009
Author’s Note: I wrote a version of this essay for Incisive Media, the company that operates an international online meeting. This version of the write up includes some additional information.
Real-time search is shaping up like a series of hurricanes forming off the coast of Florida. As soon as one crashes ashore, scattering Floridians like dry leaves, another hurricane revs up. Real-time search shares some similarities with individual hurricanes and the larger weather systems that create the conditions for hurricanes.
This is a local-global or micro-macro phenomenon. What real time search is and is becoming depends on where one observes the hurricane.
Look at the two pictures below. One shows you a local weather station. Most people check their local weather forecast and make important decisions on the data captured. I don’t walk my dogs when there is a local thunderstorm. Tyson, my former show ring boxer, is afraid of thunder.
Caption: The Local Weather: Easy to Monitor, Good for a Picnic
Image source: http://www.usa.gov
The other picture taken from an earth orbit shows a very different view of a weather system. Most people don’t pay much attention to global weather systems unless they disrupt life with hurricanes or blizzards.
Local weather may be okay for walking a dog. Global weather may suggest that I need to prepare for a larger, more significant weather event.
The Weather from the International Space Station
Image source: http://www.usa.gov
I want to identify these two storms and put each in the context of a larger shift in the information ecosystem perturbed by real time search. The first change in online is the momentum within the struggling traditional newspaper business to charge for content. Two traditional media oligopolies appear to be shifting from the horse latitudes of declining revenue, shrinking profit, and technology change. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation wants to charge for quality journalism which is expensive. I am paraphrasing his views which have been widely reported.
The Financial Times–confident with its experiments using information processing technology from Endeca (www.endeca.com) and Lexalytics (www.lexalytics.com)–continues to move forward with its “pay for content” approach to its information. The fact that the Financial Times has been struggling to find a winning formula for online almost as long as the Wall Street Journal has not diminished the newspaper’s appetite for online success. The notion of paying for content is gaining momentum among organizations that have to find a way to produce money to cover their baseline costs. Charging me for information seems to be the logical solution to these companies.
With these two international giants making a commitment to charge customers to access online content, this local storm system is easy to chart. I think it will be interesting to see how this shift in a newspaper’s traditional business model transfers to online. In a broader context, the challenge extends to book, magazine, and specialist publishers. No traditional print-on-paper company is exempt from inclement financial weather.
One cannot step into the same river twice, so I am reluctant to point out that both News Corporation and the Pearson company have struggled with online in various incarnations. News Corporation has watched as Facebook.com reached 350 users as MySpace.com has shriveled. Not even the tie for advertising with Google has been sufficient to give MySpace.com a turbo boost. The Wall Street Journal has embraced marketing with a vengeance. I have documented in my Web log (www.arnoldit.com/wordpress) how the Wall Street Journal spams paying subscribers to buy additional subscriptions. You may have noticed the innovation section of the Wall Street Journal that featured some information and quite a bit of marketing for a seminar series sponsored by a prestigious US university. I was not sure where “quality journalism” began and where the Madison Avenue slickness ended.
App Store Query by Third Party, but for How Long
September 3, 2009
I find the search function in iTunes pretty bad. I know that some of my readers are Macaholics, but the iTunes’s search system is useless. But if I thought the the iPhone / iTouch App Store finding methods are in my opinion even less functional. You can try the new App Store search engine Uquery.com. I ran some tests and found it more suitable to my search needs. Type a query and the system drops down a list of suggested search phrases. I don’t use this feature, but I know from my research that some users love the training wheels. I ran one of my test queries for card games. Here’s the result list, and I want to say that I was pleased with the useful touches like price clustering and the right hand rail’s list of recent applications.
My question, “Will Apple cut this service off at the knees?” An outfit that nukes Google Voice is one that can move in unexpected directions.
Stephen Arnold, September 3, 2009
Wall Street Journal Spam Campaign
September 2, 2009
Short honk: The Wall Street Journal’s desperate and confused marketing mavens have resumed their spam attack on me. I received another spam email urging me (already a subscriber) to sign up for two free weeks so I will become a double subscriber. As I have reported, the fragile publishing sector is struggling to find a way to generate enough revenue to pay for the 16th century business processes that abound in book, newspaper and magazine companies. Spam is the life preserver at hand. I wonder if the Wall Street Journal crowd has looked into the production companies cranking out the Viagra ads on late night television? Perhaps that is next?
In case you have not seen this bold spam message, here’s what I received this morning (September 1, 2009):
Lovely indeed. I am certain it is highly effective when sent to those who are already customers. I wonder what the WSJ sends to those who are * not * customers. The thought frightens me. I don’t see “red”. I see failure and I think of “red ink”. Publishing companies have quite a bit of that flowing through their books I suppose.
Well, for now I must report that my calls, my letters, and my emails have been ignored by the Wall Street Journal. If I were a real journalist, I suppose I could approach an executive at one of those upscale clubs and just ask to be spared the endless “Two weeks free” emails. Alas, the addled goose will have to document the plight of the publishing companies in this modest Web log.
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
Android App Store Disappoints Humans
September 2, 2009
Short honk: I use a mobile phone as a phone. Sure, I check email, but I am not a 20 something with nimble thumbs and keen vision. I did find TechCrunch’s “Top Developer Reveals Android Market’s Meager Sales” revelatory. Not only is the market small and the interface clunky, a “top developer” could make more money as a Wal*Mart greeter than a seller of Android software. For me, the most interesting comment in Jason Kincaid’s write up was:
Hall also writes that the rumored
Android market size of $5 million a month (which still pales in comparison to the App Store’s) is likely an overestimate.
Androids are supposed to dream of electric sheep, not dream of being sheared, then rendered for their hooves. Do I smell failure near the Android processing center?
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
Google vs. Microsoft, July 2008 Web Traffic
September 2, 2009
Short honk: You can get the full table of usage data from Cnet’s “Search: Google Rules, Europeans Do It More”. For me the key figure is the difference between Google’s and Microsoft’s search traffic. If the data reported by Cnet are accurate, Google had in July 2009 23 times the traffic of Microsoft. In 2008 the gap was 21 times the traffic of Microsoft. That’s a gap and Microsoft is not closing it. Could the gap be growing? Buying Yahoo will help, but in my opinion, Microsoft is chasing what Google was, not what Google is.
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
A French Publisher Now Understands the Disruptive Force of eBooks
September 2, 2009
This Web log does not do news. I have hinted that publishers are in a flow that leads over Niagara Falls. Happily a “real journalist” has published a “real” article on this situation. “Book Publisher: e-Books Will Be Our Downfall”. Jordan Golsan is recycling some information, but that is the way in which information moves around the datasphere. For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
Regardless, Nourry [French publishing executive] has a point. He claims that retailers like Amazon are paying more than $9.99 for each e-book, thus selling them at a loss. He goes on: “That cannot last…Amazon is not in the business of losing money. So, one day, they are going to come to the publishers and say: By the way, we are cutting the price we pay. If that happens, after paying the authors, there will be nothing left for the publishers.” It’s not clear if that is true or not, but we do know that Amazon takes 70 percent of newspaper and blog subscriptions on the Kindle, with only 30 percent going to the content maker. Further, is it really a bad thing if the publisher is left out in the cold? Reading the rejection letters of hit authors makes one wonder what need there is for publishing houses at all, in the age of the Internet. That’s what Mr. Nourry is so worried about. He is terrified that authors (and Amazon) will realize that they don’t really need his industry to get things done.
In my opinion, the river of red ink is rushing forward. I wonder what global company offers a full service “digital Gutenberg” for authors to use—no traditional publisher required, of course?
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
Microsoft Pundit Explains that Decision Engine Means Shopping Engine
September 2, 2009
I don’t have too much to say about this Mary Jo Foley article “Bing: Decision Engine = Shopping Engine”. The headline summarizes the author’s insight. The killer passage for me was:
In using Bing, I felt any kind of shopping-focused search worked well. When I was looking for restaurant information or airfares or the cheapest place to buy a blender, Bing worked like a champ. But when I used Bing to find specific articles I had written, or information about a particular product (not one I intended to buy), its results were fair to poor. When Microsoft rolled out Bing this spring and called it a “decision engine,” many of us pooh-poohed the Redmondians’ attempt to create a new niche in the search world that wasn’t already dominated by Google. But now I understand better why Microsoft characterized Bing this way: Microsoft consciously tweaked Bing to be a great shopping engine. “Decision engine” was a euphemism for shopping engine.
When I need to shop, I check out the Google’s product listings. If I strike out, I bop over to Amazon. I sometimes scout the deal listings. I have never used Bing.com to buy the type of gear I need. Maybe I should use Bing.com for products. I am not using it for any other type of information at this time. I rely on my Overflight service and the newer real time search engines, which I describe in a forthcoming Online Magazine article. When Ms. Foley balks, I don’t feel too uncomfortable with my light use of Bing.com.
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
YAGG: Gmail Glitch
September 2, 2009
Short honk: Yet another Google glitch and big news for some bloggers. Gmail went south. You can read the official explanation in the Google blog post “Today’s Gmail Problems”. Short version: We don’t know what happened. Complexity begets complexity. At some point, even the smartest people in the world have to say, “No clue.” Not too reassuring for organizations looking to the cloud to resolve technology problems in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
Browser Add In Delivers Faceted Search Results
September 2, 2009
Faceted search is now available for add-in to Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers. DeeperWeb.com offers an add in that generates a tag-cloud from search results. The cloud appears adjacent the laundry list of search results. You can skim one- and two-word tags to drill-down through results more quickly. For example: A search on “Cincinnati Reds” gave me a list starting with their home page, then the Wikipedia entry, ESPN, the Cincinnati newspaper, etc. All general sites with varied information. The classified facets turned up in the tag cloud next to the list and included “american, apparel, baseball, league, mlb, news, ohio, roster, schedule,” etc. So I could go straight to “schedule,” and when the results list reloaded, a direct link to the schedule was top of the list. And here’s a neat little feature: if a tag shows up you think isn’t related, you can exclude it with a single click and the facets are re-classified. Check it out at DeeperWeb.com–it’s free–but keep in mind it only works with Google. Will vendors of high end faceting tools sense a probe from lower cost software developers? Will Google release its faceting technology soon? Interesting questions in my opinion.
Jessica Bratcher, September 2, 2009
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