SEO the AP Way
November 14, 2009
I thought another addled goose wrote “AP to Ask Google for a Better Search Ranking.” I blinked and reread the article. Sure looked legitimate to me, but in this era of instant disinformation, one cannot be too sure. Read the story yourself and make up your own mind. Two or three years ago, I rolled out my mantra for some AP folks. I gave a talk and concluded, “Surf on Google.” The idea I have been suggesting since mid 2006 is that Google had the same potential energy as a big boulder perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a narrow defile. The guy with the lever at the top of the cliff need exert a tiny force to launch the rock on the folks in the defile. Worked when Alexander was getting cute thousands of years ago, and the tactic will work today.
Google dominates Web search. The company has several options in my opinion.
First, Google can do nothing different. In effect, Google will not answer the AP’s phone calls. Time is on Google’s side. Litigation is time consuming, which favors the Google.
Second, Google can cut a deal with the AP. In the spirit of compromise, Google takes a baby step. The AP seems okay with the Great Compromiser’s approach. The AP continues to move forward in a very different world from the one that gave birth to the AP many years ago.
Third, Google just buys up the AP content. With one bold dump truck of cash, Google neuters Bing.com in terms of AP content and makes the constant grouching irrelevant.
Are there other options? Sure, but this is a free marketing oriented Web log. The interesting point in this news story is that AP is dealing with the problem of traffic. Most outfits hire search engine optimization wizards like Tess (pictured on the splash page of this blog) and hope for the best. The AP wants to get traffic, jump into social content (maybe non journalists who post stuff on the Web), and monetize its information services. Great idea, but I don’t think it will work.
The AP has monetized its content by selling it back to those who formed the outfit in the first place. Other markets have been interested but not willing to deliver piles of cash to the AP. Even the US government is watching its information pennies these days. At some point in time, the triple dipping of licensing the same content to multiple government agencies will run into trouble. Google has been monetizing its big Googzilla heart since it was inspired by the Overture model. The AP did not act then, and now it may be too late.
Will Google be indifferent? Will Google cut a deal? Will Google just write a check? I bet the AP would like to get a big fat check from Google and be number one with a bullet in the Google results lists. I am good for a nickel. Any takers?
Interesting days ahead in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 14, 2009
I am in an independent living facility. I had to pay to use the computer to write this essay. I had to pay for an orange juice. I don’t think I need to alert the Illinois State Police that this is a freebie. Maybe to be on the safe side of the Illinois law? Nah. Not necessary. Illinois has its legal and financial hands full. I might have to pay to report.
WolframAlpha Makes It to Popular Science
November 14, 2009
Popular Science, like Mechanix Illustrated, are interesting but increasingly slim publications. I remember the good old days of big fat magazines, stuffed with interesting articles. My interest in science began with Popular Science and a weekly called Science News. My memory is not too good when I push back 45 years. I have not thought much about either publication, but Popular Science hit my radar screen when I read an email from WolframAlpha that pointed me to this blog post: http://url.wolfram.com/cJY71Ik/
The Popular Science editorial team has, according the unsolicited email from a WolframAlpha PR person who must think I am a journalist said:
We are delighted to announce that Popular Science, the world’s largest science and technology magazine, has released its 22nd annual list of the best 100 innovations, and named Wolfram|Alpha as the “Best of What’s New” Grand Award winner in the category of computing. Popular Science states that all 100 innovations must “push past what we thought was possible,” and we are honored by that recognition.
First a deal with Bing.com, then recognition from Popular Science. Heady stuff indeed. Now if I could only figure out how to get consistent results….
Stephen Arnold, November 14, 2009
A freebie, but at the assisted living facility I saw an old copy of Popular Science. Well read I might add. No one paid me to point out that Popular Science is a slim publication. No need to alert the Illinois State Police is there?
Clop Cloppity Clop Clop: The Sound of Google in Education
November 14, 2009
I don’t want to belabor the obvious, but educational publishers may want to keep a close eye on the Google. The firm has been gaining traction in education at an increasingly rapid pace since 2006, the pivotal year in case you have been following my analyses of Google. If you are unaware of the Google as a one stop shop for education, you may want to read “Gone Google at Educause 2009”. A key passage in this write up was in my opinion:
Lots has happened over the past year especially: more than 100 new features have rolled out in Google Apps, we’ve engaged well over six million students and faculty (a 400% increase since this time last year), launched free Google Message Security for K-12 schools and have integrated with other learning services such as Blackboard and Moodle. These developments are just the beginning. According to the newly-released 2009 Campus Computing survey statistics, 44% of colleges and universities have converted to a hosted student email solution, while another 37% are currently evaluating the move. Of those that have migrated, over half — 56% precisely — are going Google.
Course materials? Coming in saddle bags strapped to Googzilla. Clop Cloppity Clop Clop—One of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse heading your way?
Stephen Arnold, November 14, 2009
I wish to report to the Defense Commissary Agency that I was fed one donut at my father’s assisted living facility. However, writing this article and the payment of a small donut are in no way related. The donut was better than the one at got at McDill too.
Hosted Search and Data Center Basics
November 13, 2009
Hosted search is tough enough to sell without dragging the vendor’s data center into the deal. The best hosted services are picky about their data center tie ups. More casual vendors of hosted search are somewhat more casual. If you don’t know about the wild and exciting world of data centers, you will want to read and save “Questions Data Center Operators Don’t Want You to Ask”. The article provides a wealth of useful information. For me, the most interesting segment in the five meaty segments was:
“The SAS70 audit should include all the following sections:
• Security
• Security Company profile
• Key inventories
• Access management
• Badges
• Biometrics
• Staff selection criteria
• Materials control
• Confirmation each security guard has completed a background check
• Security equipment is routinely inspected/tested
• Security “rounds” are recorded and confirmed
• Security camera images and access logs are kept for a minimum 60 days, longer is preferred
• Maintenance/CMMS
• Comprehensive preventive maintenance/testing schedule for ALL mechanical and electrical equipment
• UPS
• Emergency generators
• Rectifiers/DC Plant
• ATS
• Switchgear
• Complete semi-annual (or more frequent) infrared scan
• Breaker audit for NEC compliance (or automated view via current transformers)
• Service level agreements
• Emergency call out for all critical M&E equipment
• Diesel refueling during emergencies or extended operation
• Human Resources
• Staffing process
• Background checks
• Certifications
• Termination management
• Operations
• Recurring training
• Recurring staff meetings
• Business continuity and disaster recovery plans
• Daily site verifications
• Escalation process.”
Useful indeed. Lots more information in the original article.
Stephen Arnold, November 13, 2009
I wish that the author of this nice article would pay men. He did not. I suppose will have to disclose to the Dunlop, Illinois, sheriff that I am working without any money. Maybe I should go back to raising Poland Chinas.
Search Vendor Partner Tie Ups Reconsidered
November 13, 2009
I read a post by Rajan Chandras called “Informatica Scores Big with New Release Yet…”. The article triggered my memory about an October 26, 2009, article called “Endeca, Informatica Partner to View Enterprise Data”. Both of these source documents have wild and crazy urls, so the links may be dead if you are reading this after November 13, 2009.
I am delighted that Endeca, a vendor of high end search solutions, and Informatica, a data integration vendor, have hooked up. Search requires content transformation, which as many licensees of enterprise search systems discover, can be a expensive proposition. I have referenced data that suggests that as much as one third of an information technology department’s budget can be consumed with transformation costs. I won’t go into the importance of having filters, connectors, and transformers that work without stuffing the exception folder full of files that may require manual inspection. I will leave that to the simplicity seeking 20 somethings who often don’t know what they don’t know about enterprise search systems.
I did notice one comment in Mr. Chandras’ article that was particularly interesting to me:
Even with this stellar performance from Informatica, I expect more. Added data quality to data integration? Should have been done a long time ago. B2B data exchange? One (or even a few) verticals does not even dent the business requirement for data exchanges -– how far will Informatica keep trudging down this path into other verticals? Application lifecycle management? Need to know more about how Informatica will exploit the shared boundaries between ALM and ETL. CEP? Same thing. Cloud computing? See my previous post about cloud competitor SnapLogic. Informatica’s steadfast progress is great news, really, but quite frankly I am looking for more leadership from Informatica.
If Mr. Chandras is correct, Informatica may be under considerable competitive pressure. In this context, is the tie up with a search vendor a move that will address these competitive pressures. In my opinion, the tie up could benefit both firms. However, if the competition triggers a price and feature war with a pivot point ease of use, fast deployment, and acceptable performance, the deal might not address Mr. Chandras’ concerns.
Enterprise search and content processing is a volatile sector. The forces against which search and content companies compete range from database administrators who want something familiar based on IBM, Microsoft, or Oracle technology—whether the system works all that well or not. Other companies are on the rebound after having been burned by the hot fires of engineering and support costs. More organizations are taking a hard look at open source systems such as Lemur Consulting’s FLAX or the Lucene system. I prepared a list of almost two dozen European vendors with some really attractive systems on offer; for example, Exalead, an outfit that knocks me out with their implementations and a dinner at a good French restaurant.
Measuring Information Technology Payoffs
November 13, 2009
A reader wrote me twice about “Why IT Can’t Seem to Deliver Measurable Productivity”. Since I don’t have “customers,” I don’t fool around with customer service. But I have two or three readers, so I have now heard from 33 percent of my readership twice. Let me comment about this article.
The author is Joe McKendrick. He writes for the ZDNet combine. This essay or opinion piece tackles a question that I thought was dead and buried long ago. He asks (maybe the editor who plugged in the subhead asks), “Are your investments in IT bearing measurable results?” In my experience, IT investments do not get measured accurately. Every bean counter I have met asserts that IT costs and payoffs are in the numbers. The reality is that IT costs are not carefully tracked and in some government entities, the costs are captured in such a way that even adding up the direct costs is next to impossible. The indirects? Forget that. Not many managers in my experience know what to do with the hockey stick expenditures that pepper the IT landscape. At one Fortune 500 firm, the president set a cap on IT expenditures. When the money was gone, IT had to make do. Period. Well, that’s one, if somewhat crazy, way to run a Fortune 500 company.
Mr. McKendrick writes:
Janne quotes MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson, who in 1993 published a landmark paper on why the productivity impacts of IT is so hard to measure: 1) measurement error due to use of conventional productivity-measurement approaches; 2) time lags in IT payoffs; 3) localized optimization; and 4) lack of explicit measures of the value of information.
Okay, someone figured out 30 years after computers started making their way into organizations that cost tracking was tough. Payoff from those IT investments were even tougher to track. That is why I don’t pay much attention to write ups about IT costs whether in the wild and crazy world of the Harvard Business Review or the quilt-like landscape of ZDNet blogs.
Consider this comment by Mr. McKendrick:
The bottom line is that there has never been an expectation that IT would be solely responsible for a company’s rise or fall. Adroit management, supported by the right IT tools, makes the difference. A company that smartly and innovatively leverages its IT in new and creative ways will move to the head of the pack. And, thanks to IT, you don’t need a workforce of thousands to do so. And we need to measure these changes in more holistic ways.
Well, that’s a positive stroke for the IT crowd. In my opinion. No one wants to know what information technology * really * costs. The reason is that few understand why the numbers just get crazier and crazier and the systems continue to bedevil users. When I was younger, I used to track IT costs for clients. When I * did * get a handle on directs and indirects, tie the costs to a specific line of business, and crank out an ROI number, no one believed the data. Why? IT is expensive. Users are rarely happy. Costs cannot be controlled without Draconian measures. Vendors pitch fog and cotton candy.
As a result, I have learned my cost lessons. Obviously lots of folks haven’t and may never figure out that information technology is little more than a part of business overhead. Cost estimates just have to be close enough for horseshoes and modest enough to be hidden in some other budget pocket. Everyone involved pretends that the “costs” are accurate. Life goes on in finance land.
Stephen Arnold, November 13, 2009
This is an overhead article. No one pays me to spell out my view of the IT economic reality. Would you? If in doubt, alert the Marine Mammal Commission. Bean counters are mammals too, you know.
Search Business Called into Question
November 13, 2009
I noted an article on the 247WallSt.com Web site. “Maybe the Search Engine Business Isn’t So Great” raises some interesting questions. Keep in mind that search and retrieval have been around in digital form for decades, but I suppose it is never too late for a canny analyst to revisit ancient history.
The article begins by revisiting the history of Microsoft’s efforts in search. Short take: Microsoft has spent lots of money and lags behind Google in Web search.
For me, the most interesting comment in the article by Douglas A. McIntryre was:
Microsoft says that search is a “strategic” business, a weapon of sorts against Google and other competitors. It is not entirely clear why that is true. Perhaps it is because Google has something that Microsoft does not, but the Google’s leverage from that, beyond making a lot of money, is not clear. Search does not appear to be critical to Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL) or SAP (NYSE:SAP), the two largest enterprise software companies in the world. Microsoft must be a special situation, but it has not necessarily made a powerful case of why.
Ouch!
Stephen Arnold, November 13, 2009
No one paid me for this insight, ouch. I want to alert the Housing and Urban Development Department that this intellectual real estate involved neither cash nor loan, deflated or subsidized, in any negotiable paper in the United States of America. Wow, I am glad I am transparent. I feel better.
Guardian Searches Beyond Google
November 13, 2009
I love that “beyond” phrasing. The Guardian, an outfit facing some rough financial seas when it comes to online revenue, published “Why I’m Searching Beyond Google” on November 11, 2009. I think the Guardian is showing that some of its editors are somewhat obsessive about electronic information. Victor Keegan wrote:
Google’s power is no longer as a good search engine but as a brand and an increasingly pervasive one. Google hasn’t been my default search for ages but I am irresistibly drawn to it because it is embedded on virtually every page I go to and, as a big user of other Google services (documents, videos, Reader, maps), I don’t navigate to Google search, it navigates to me.
I am confused. Mr. Keegan no longer makes Google his first choice in search yet he is drawn to it. I wonder if there is a bit of conflict involved when one resists, yet is “irresistibly drawn” to something. In Harrods Creek, I know some folks who have this type of personality. Let me tell you that I find that push-pull quite interesting.
He provided useful links to lists of the top Web sites. He said,
If you want to test other websites try http://bit.ly/vicsearch3 for the top 25 niche engines or http://bit.ly/vicsearch4 for the top 100. Even though Google’s brand dominance doesn’t yet look under threat, competition not only provides choice for ourselves but will keep Google and the others on their toes.
My opinion is that Google has an 80 to 85 percent share of the Web search market. Microsoft and Yahoo make up most of the remaining share. These other systems have a challenging trail to hike. I don’t know if users or the stakeholders in most of the Web search engines have what it takes to continue the journey over a long period of time. Google’s “market share” has been 11 years in the making. Train has left the station in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, November 13, 2009
A public service posting for the publishing industry. I will report the no-fee nature of this article to Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation in honor of the “buck stops here” president.
Bing Two Is Delivering Search Applets
November 12, 2009
I read several of the write ups about Bing.com’s new features. The impression the features made upon me is that Bing.com is shifting from search to presenting information via search applets. The queries for travel generate a page that is less about relevant information and more about an interactive travel application. I can see how the service would be useful to someone who did not travel. For me, training wheels get in my way. I want a lean, mean search machine, not features and functions that can shift me off point.
There’s a useful summary of the new features in the ITWire story “Microsoft Launches Bing’s ‘Next Chapter‘”. With my discovery, reported on Sunday, November 8, 2009, that the Microsoft Fast search interface is essentially the Bing interface, I think that the idea of search results as search apps will give some vendors pause. However, the engineering work necessary to take Intranet content and make that information behave like Bing 2.0 may get customers into the sauna. If too hot, those customers will head for a more comfortable place.
My hunch is that Microsoft’s Bing-ified Fast ESP will capture market share. Eye candy and price may give Microsoft an edge in the Intranet search market. Once the product is up and running, those users may start looking for less cotton candy and more search beef.
I am looking forward to the “new” Fast ESP and the push and pull in the search marketplace in 2010. Will search apps triumph? Will systems that deliver relevant results without a hassle triumph? Tough call for me.
Stephen Arnold, November 11, 2009
The Trustee Program at Justice is waiting for me to disclose that no one gave me money to point out that technical eye candy may not do the search bailiff’s job.
Google and Structured Content
November 12, 2009
Oh, my. Some of the folks who are cheering the tie up of Microsoft Bing.com and WolframAlpha.com have something to consider. Google is not partnering for technology; the Google is going direct to data providers and merging the information in search results. You can read “World Bank Data Now in Google Search Results” and get a sense of the direction in which Google is taking baby steps. The World Bank’s Web site is a pretty exciting service, so bring a beverage and maybe something to read. For me, the most important point in the write up was:
a special Google public data search feature will show numeric results for 17 World Development Indicators (WDI) reliably sourced to the World Bank, with a link to Google’s public data graphing tool. Google’s feature lets users see and compare country-by-country statistics and offers customized graphs with a ‘link’ or web address that can be easily embedded and shared in other websites. From the Google Public Data graphing tool, users can learn more about the data on the new World Bank Data Finder, which allows them to access indicator definitions, quick facts, interactive maps, and additional World Bank related resources. All of these features can be easily exported and installed on other websites. Data Finder also provides customizable maps and concise analysis to inspire user data comparisons and ‘mash-ups’ or combinations with other Bank reports. Under the population growth indicator, for example, the site generates the following statistic, “8 of the world’s 9 billion people will be in the developing world by 2050.” Data Finder is filled with other compelling quick facts from the Bank’s extensive global databases of global knowledge on development.
You can read more about Google’s content capabilities in my Google: The Digital Gutenberg. I wonder, “Isn’t the World Bank an author?” What happens if Google goes directly to people who write books and monographs? Think about the implications? I did when I realized that the Google was morphing into something new, what I describe as a “digital Gutenberg”. In depth briefings are available if you want to know more. With these data and individualized Google, what does Google deliver? Maybe personalized magazines? Interesting.
Stephen Arnold, November 11, 2009
I want to alert the local Animal Control Officer that I was not paid to write an article that suggests Google is more of a threat in certain business sectors that some pundits assume.
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
