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SEO Takes Liver Punch from the Google

Google needs people to create Web sites that contain content. Google needs Web sites that do not have coding errors. Google needs people to improve their Web sites in order to keep the gerbil wheel spinning. What Google does not need, according to Google itself, are gratuitous metatags. A “metatag” is shorthand for index terms inserted in the code behind a Web page. In fact, Matt Cutts—one of Google’s wizards—reported in the Google Webmaster Central Blog that Google does not use metatags. Search engine optimization experts have sometimes made a big deal about metatags. Google has pulled the plug on the metatag game. I can speculate about the reasons why, but the fact is that the SEO crowd seems to be in the slaughter pen, herded towards substantive content and well-crafted code. SEO conferences are like multi level marketing conventions. Pretty wild and crazy stuff. My speculation suggests that more constraints will be imposed on the SEO mavens. It is a step long overdue in the addled goose’s opinion. How about an SEO certification program, Mr. Cutts?

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

Two Additions to Euro Search Vendor List

Readers have continued to shoot buckshot at my list of European search vendors. I appreciate the input and I am adding two vendors to the list.

The first is Exorbyte. The second is Silobreaker.

Exorbyte, founded in 2000, is a privately-held company. The firm is based in Switzerland, not far from Zurich. The firm says that its search technology is focused on “high-performance approximate search and data matching solutions for online ecommerce, directories and data quality applications.” The company offers Web extraction functions as part of its technology suite. The search function complements the firm’s navigation features to support database, directory, and catalog search. More information is available from the firm’s Web site.

Silobreaker, a company I have written about in my studies and in this Web log, continues to gain features and functions. The firm’s search system is speedy, but what sets the company apart is its ability to generate relationship maps, display data on topics in actionable reports, and widgets that make it easy to add specific Silobreaker functions to third –party applications or customized implementations of the Silobreaker system. The company told me:

Silobreaker is a search service for news and current affairs that aims to provide more relevant results to the user than what traditional search and aggregation engines have been offering so far. Instead of returning just lists of articles matching a search query, Silobreaker finds people, companies, organizations, topics, places and keywords; understands how they relate to each other in the news flow, and puts them in context through graphical results in its intuitive user interface.

More information is available from the Silobreaker Web site.

The vendor table addition rows are:

Let me know of other vendors to include on this list.

Stephen Arnold, September 22, 2009

European Search Vendor Full List Update

Updated on October 1, 2009. Exorbyte is in Germany. SurfRay is worth a close look.

Instead of updating the table in the original WordPress article, I have updated the table and reproduced it below. Please, locate the most recent table by using the Blossom.com search function on the Beyond Search Web log. I will post this list on the ArnoldIT.com Web site once the list seems to stabilize. I am reevaluating several vendors at this time. Watch for an update on SurfRay. The company provided one of my colleagues with some fresh information.

Any company on this list can sponsor a profile which I will put on the ArnoldIT.com Web site with a link from the entry in this table. For details, check the About link at the top of any page of this Web log. This Web log is not journalism, it is for marketing and my observations. PR people. Be aware. I am not your mother’s Web logger.

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

Autonomy One of the World’s Largest Software Vendors

The pre-financial report marketing blitz continues. I reported on the Goldman Sachs endorsement a couple of days ago. This morning I received information that Autonomy has been identified by Software Magazine as one of the world’s largest software companies. With Autonomy’s appetite for acquisition, the firm is on track to get closer to its target of $1 billion in revenue. You can read through the listing via one of those weird “just like on paper” services that present the contents of a publication online. The link I used was at QMags. You can find the write up a couple of places online. Reuters ran the story under the headline “Autonomy Ranked as One of the World’s Largest Software Companies by Software Magazine”. Will Autonomy’s earnings beat estimates? Early word I heard says, “Yes.” Is a potential buyer sniffing around? I have not heard anything about this rumor that was buoyed with the Goldman Sachs’s endorsement.

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

Upping the Ante in Real Time Open Source Monitoring

ReadWriteWeb’s ReadWriteStart ran a thought provoking profile on September 21, 2009, “Robo.to: They’re Watching the Social Web in Real Time – But Will It Pay?” You will need to read the original article. I want to highlight one segment of Jolie O’Dell’s write up and then offer a comment. Ms. O’Dell wrote:

Robo.to is an app that allows users to create soundless, 4-second video clips. These can be used as video avatars, sent as social-web calling cards, attached to all manner of links or geographical data, or simply updated with a line of text as one would update any other status-based message service. Of course, the videos and text can be automatically forwarded to the usual lineup of social networks. What the newly launched TV mode allows for is topic-based surfing of all Robo.to content. “It allows you to watch hashtags,” Flemings explained. “As bits of content bubble up, you can follow that along with the video posts. Users go into TV mode through search or by clicking on a topic. People tend to lost about half an hour when trying this out, because it’s fascinating to watch what people are doing.”

My view is that this type of content innovation is important for three reasons:

First, the volume of social content in video form is going to increase. Right now, accessing that information is a new challenge to innovators and entrepreneurs. Second, the fact that I love print is irrelevant. The mini-video format is going to be a big deal. I watch young people with a Flip or an iPhone 3GS making videos. The writing is on the wall and even I see it. Third, the current access tools have not been optimized for large flows of these video content objects. This means rapid evolution and opportunity.

Just my opinion which was triggered by Ms. O’Dell’s timely work. A happy quack to her.

Stephen Arnold, September 22, 2009

Google and Newspapers: Misclassifying Google Is Risky

I enjoy most of the GigaOM information. I found the write up “Google’s Plan to Become The Media Company” thought provoking but off the mark. My view is that classifying Google as a media company is one of those confident assertions that seem accurate but are only partially correct. In fact, the error is akin to classifying a tiger cub as a house pet. Sure, the young cub might learn some manners, but as Roy and Siegfried learned, the tiger often has a different idea about what it is; namely, a wild animal capable of ruining an act and a life. If you don’t remember, Roy and Siegfried, here is a useful reminder of the consequences of an erroneous classification. (Warning: not for the faint of heart.)

Google is an application platform, a point I made in my 2005 monograph, The Google Legacy. That research study is germane today. I amplified my analysis of Google’s technology in two subsequent studies, pointing out that Google’s technical open source information supported my assertion that Google was a disruptive force in such business sectors as enterprise software, financial services, and commercial publishing, among three or four other business sectors. The importance of this point was mocked openly by telecommunications executives when one of the consulting firms for which I work as an advisor trotted me around to review Google’s telephone inventions in 2006. I wonder how many of those executives are laughing now? Google is not just a disruptive force in the telco space, the company is in a position to give Apple a run for its money in the broader mobile device sector. This idea is probably not too amusing for Apple. In fact, Google teamed up with Sony to get some steroids in its distribution and content arm for the coming dust up.

Wild animal or pet? Source: http://www.wamajama.com/wamajama/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/siegfried_roy_tiger_1_r.jpg

Now back to the GigaOM write up.

Here’s the problem. I agree that Google will have even greater disruptive impacts on the media sector. But media is just one business sector that Google will jostle. The author believes that defining Google as a media company sums up that wild and crazy bunch of physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and smart folks. That’s a very big mistake. The reason is that a media company draws a ring around Google  and says, “Here  be the dragon.” Wrong. The circle identifies one of Google’s dragronettes. Seeing Google as a dragonette leads to the misperception of Google as a dragonette breeder. A person involved in online retail could take the media company definition to heart. That person might then overlook what the Google is doing with its financial back office system. Sure, Checkout is visible, but it’s a weak sister compared to eBay’s PayPal or the Amazon machine. Or, is it? Kevin Kelleher, like those telco executives, would not ask the question, “What is Google?” Heck, Google is a media company, maybe a next generation outfit like Hanna Barbera Studios or the Peoria Journal Star.

Get that classification wrong and you may — no, strike that – will be blindsided as Google uses its platform to probe, disrupt, and exploit a broader range of market sectors. In short, those who misclassify run the risk of seeing the tiger up close and personal as Roy and Siegfried did. The results may not be for the squeamish.

Stephen Arnold, September 22, 2009

SharePoint Expert Wants End Users to Change

Update: September 24, 2009. I found this article about users’ hatred of change germane to my September 21, 2009, article. Microsoft must have its own research to prove that users indeed love change and that end users think that learning new ways to do old tasks is the cat’s pajamas. See http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-09-24-n85.html.

Original post

I found “A Brief History of SharePoint (From a Relative Newcomer’s Perspective)” an amazing document. I think it provides considerable insight into how Microsoft Certified Professionals perceive the people in organizations—large and small. Google is an arrogant company, but the company does not do much more than put goodies in the wild. If people figure out how to use the technology, that’s fine. If the user doesn’t figure out Google technology, the company just goes about its business. Infuriating? Yes. Logical. Absolutely.

Read the “Brief History” and pay particular attention to this passage:

I think that SP 2010 is going to change the game a bit and it’s going to play out differently and in slow motion as companies roll out their SP 2010 solutions over 2010 and beyond.  In order to succeed, End Users will need to transform themselves and get a little IT religion.  They’ll need to learn a little bit about proper requirements analysis.  They will need some design documentation that clearly identifies business process workflow, for instance.  They need to understand fundamental concepts like CRUD (create, update and delete), dev/test/qa/prod environments and how to use that infrastructure to properly deploy solutions that live a nice long time and bend (not break) in response to changes in an organization.

I am not sure how end users in government agencies, non profit, mom and pop, consultancies, and other organizations are going to react to “need”, “learn”, and “properly deploy” computer solutions. In my opinion, the view is not arrogance. The impression I carry from this article is a weird inability to understand the reality of folks who have to use SharePoint. I do like the acronym CRUD. I could have used it as an adjective to describe the passage above. Just my opinion.

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

xx

Visual View of Search History

A happy quack to the team of readers who sent me a link to the Firefox add in, History Tree 1.1. Now these are sharp readers who know that my honks about visualization make clear that gratuitous interface elements ruffle my feathers. I loaded the History Tree and found that it provided a quick and easy way to locate specific Web pages I had visited.

The Firefox add in is available from the Firefox splash page for the software. You can get more information and a one click install button from Normansolomon.org. Useful, not gratuitous, and evidence that there is a better way to deal with history files. I also like it when two bright people tag team what I cover in this Web log. I bet both are pretty good at finding information and keeping addled geese like me in formation.

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

Former Intel Operative Tackles Real Time Search

I had a long talk with Robert Steele, OSS.net, the other day. He is going to deliver a hard hitting talk at the upcoming ‘Change 2010 Responding to Real Time Information, Open Systems and the Obama IT Vision’ seminar in Washington, DC, on September 23, 2009. As I understood his point of view, he wants to make clear the value of the flows of open source information that are now available. The challenge is to pipe some of this content into government agencies so that decision making is more informed. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but he wants to reference some important innovations from Europe that are not widely known in the US.

The venue for the program is the National Press Club. Other speakers on the program, sponsored by Somat Engineering (an 8A firm based in Detroit, Michigan) is the sponsor of the program. Somat’s Arpan Patel will talk about bridging the gap between government infrastructure and external information and services. He will showcase the Ripply software tool. The other speaker on the program is Jim Orris, one of the managing partners of Adhere Solutions. Adhere is a focal point for Google’s US government initiatives. Mr. Orris will talk about how the Google technology can be used as a mechanism to process real time content.

Representatives of the Executive Branch, Department of Defense, other government agencies, and consulting firms supporting government agencies will be in attendance. For more information, navigate to the registration page here. Members of the media may register by writing Pacific Dialogue.

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

Dilbert and Search’s Strategic Options

I was waiting for the exercise bike at the gym in Harrod’s Creek, and I flipped through the Sunday comics section. The Dilbert cartoon set forth three business trajectories:

• A long slide to oblivion
• A death spiral
• A cartoon figure getting sucked into a toilet.

Copyright, Scott Adams, 2009.

My instinct was to map search and content processing vendors to each of these Dilbert strategic options. I have to tell you my 10 fingers want to whip up a table and populate it with search vendors who, based on my research, fit into these categories. I hate talking to my attorney. He charges more per hour than I do, so I decided to go another direction.

I want to talk about broad sectors of the search marketplace. I have a nifty chart that shows the 14 major sectors. I have plugged companies’ products into the graphic, so one can tell at a glance what company is moving where. Another graphic shows what specific products compete in a particular sector. Quite a few interesting observations emerge when you look at the comparison of Endeca and Vivisimo in terms of Autonomy, for instance. Another learning emerges when one looks at customer support and the search vendors who are chasing that sector.

What seems semi-useful and reasonably attorney free is a look at sectors mapped to one of these Dilbert options.

One of my sectors is basic search. In general, basic search allows an organization to provide key word indexing and maybe some very basic point-and-click features. An example would be looking at a result list by date, file type, or author. This sector is “getting sucked into a toilet”, to use the Dilbert phraseology. The good news is that an organization can download an open source search system (Flax or Tesuji.eu), use what the vendor includes with some other software (MOSS), or use a credit card and buy one of the lower-cost search systems; for instance, Gaviri, which also offers more robust versions of its interesting technology. The challenge the vendors face is that free puts significant pricing pressure on organizations. The economy described on CNBC and by some wild and crazy economists is still struggling. With search at best a utility, price pressure and a general sense of “been there, done that” means that basic search in the aforementioned Dilbert mode.

Another sector is the real time business intelligence entering a death spiral. Here’s why. The purpose of most enterprise software and systems is to deliver actionable information. The notion that “business intelligence” is a separate operation manned by expensive experts goes counter to what users want; that is, answers. The problem is that the “search” does not deliver answers. The systems that promise to mash up structured and unstructured data are exactly what organizations do not want—yet another expensive and separate system. Quite a few vendors are communicating that their systems’ ability to take information from a database and unstructured and semi-structured information from public Web sites  amuse me. Transformation and query processing are complex for this type of system. The winner is this sector will probably come from an unrelated technical sector; for example, advertising.  I have quite a bit of skepticism when I hear the vendors in this sector promise “actionable intelligence.” Some systems are close, but others, no cigar.

The third sector is the long slide to oblivion. The giant database companies that include search with their products are a good example. I find it painful to use the quasi open source search system provided by IBM. I am confused with the poor performance and the slightly off kilter results I get when I run a query on the Oracle Web site. Companies doing search as an after thought are likely to find themselves taking that “long slide to oblivion”. In fact, most organizations with search as a “sort of” business are on the way down and out. Why? Search is more than an access method. Search is the core of the data management and work processes that are increasingly in evidence.

In retrospect, I wish I could prepare for this Web log a table putting vendors in a table like the European search vendors listing we cobbled together last week. That type of detail is not Web loggy in our business environment.

Stephen Arnold, September 21, 2009

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  Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.

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