Morgan Stanley Wants You to Churn Your Investments
June 13, 2010
Short honk: The excitement is back. Forget the fire fights among Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others. Forget the lousy economic outlook. Forget the oil spill. Remember the good old pre crash days. To document this moment in time, navigate to “Mary Meeker’s Amazing Internet Presentation.” You can view the great news here. Churn those holdings of your now. Yes, right now. Those data are hot, objective, and darn near as solid as anything Wall Street has to offer its partners. Amazing for sure.
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2010
Freebie which is a word that Morgan Stanley does not use with high frequency.
Google Wi Fi Security Audit
June 13, 2010
I am interested in naval gazing. I can’t see my naval due to the plump body I possess and its particular curvature. However, one can get a glimpse of the Google’s naval by reading its security audit. The prompt for this exercise was the dust up a “lone engineer” caused by sniffing certain Wi Fi packets. To snag the document, you need only click here. I cannot guarantee how long the document will be available, so hurry.
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2010
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The UK and Information Technology
June 13, 2010
Let’s face it. Law enforcement is not exactly the cocktail party chatter than brings smiles to faces. The problem is that money is short. This means that staffing is constrained but management may be an issue. To get an idea of the problems the lousy economic climate creates for law enforcement agencies, take a look at “Clunky’ IT Systems Hamper Police Work.” The write up said:
National police IT systems are hampered by the insularity of individual police forces and the desire of chief information officers (CIOs) to protect their turf, argued Berry. “One of the biggest problems is the vested interests of CIOs,” she said. “Forces agree on national standards, then go away and do their own thing.”
What can search and content processing vendors do to help the UK and other enforcement entities. One idea is to explain how “umbrella” systems can integrate separate systems. Entities can do their own thing, but the tools and methods to create a “360 degree view” are now available. Is this an educational issue? Is it a political issue? Is it a result of well known vendors going for the low hanging fruit?
The situation is not unique to the UK and I see the problem spreading. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2010
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Quote to Note: Management Excellence at AOL and Time Warner
June 13, 2010
This quote to note appeared in the Daily Telegraph’s “Yahoo! Shakes on a New Type of Partnership.” If an accurate statement, it helps me understand the AOL and Time Warner way:
Here’s the passage that made me honk:
A former AOL executive said the best line to me this week – which summed up the crazy technology acquisition culture perfectly: “Every business we [AOL] ever bought we destroyed – until we bought Time Warner and they destroyed us.”
The write up provides some insight into Yahoo, but Yahoo’s track record in acquisitions is notable for the number of business school analyses each has triggered in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2010
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Google Faces Chinese Bureaucracy
June 12, 2010
Short honk: I lived in Brazil for a spell when I was in the weird grade school – high school age. I was old enough to know what was going on but too young to drive. I do recall one incident in the state office in which we lived. My father had to renew a license. There was a yellow and green government office which could have been transported from a government building in Washington, DC. There were windows with the old Department of Justice style pay windows along the wall. There were benches. There were lots of people. My father wanted to pay the fee, get a couple of thump thumps from the rubber stamp collection, and get on with his job of bulldozing the rain forest.
Didn’t happen.
My father had me stand in line. We did take turns that day, but my recollection is that we were in that hot, crowded office a long time. When we did get to the window, my father submitted his forms and the clerk looked sad. My father then dropped a paper into the tray in front of the window. The clerk looked at the paper, picked it up, smiled, and thump thumped the rubber stamp. Mission accomplished.
Source: http://saysomethingfunny.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/red-tape.jpg
I asked my father, “What was the paper?” He said, “It was part of an envelope with a conto in it.” In the lingo of Brazil in the 1950s, a conto was a bill with a lot of zeros. My father added, “Next time, we won’t have to wait in line.”
Lesson: some countries operate in a manner different from the US of A. Brazil is probably very different today. The lesson stuck in my mind.
The story “Google’s Challenges Mount in China” reminded me of what happens when a bureaucracy functions by rules different from those in America. Here’s the passage that reminded me of the potential delays and methods a decidedly non-US bureaucracy can deliver to an impatient supplicant:
To receive a license, companies must guarantee that their maps do not disclose sensitive military and government sites and that borders are labeled in accordance with Chinese law, including disputed areas such as Tibet and Taiwan. Some companies are considered a lock to receive a license, such as Baidu. It cooperates with NavInfo on its mapping service, and NavInfo was the early brainchild of the SBSM. For Google, on the other hand, guaranteeing that it can play by the rules could prove difficult because it permits users to post on its maps. An insider noted that Google has already applied for the license. But even if Google does meet all the requirements, there is no guarantee it will be granted. As a foreign company, Google will also have to gain approval from other government agencies. China’s security apparatus is known to be wary of maps — once considered a national secret — and rapid growth in the popularity of online mapping has drawn the government’s attention.
Maybe the Chinese bureaucracy will work as smoothly as auto registration here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. On the other hand, it might not. If short cuts are sought, those might be frowned upon. My father ran a risk. Would a large company?
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2010
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GM and Google Goofiness
June 12, 2010
GM does not want people to refer to a Chevrolet automobile as a Chevy. I know that GM means “government motors”, but pontificating about how a proper name like Chevrolet morphs in the gritty world of drag and NASCAR racing is goofy. Google, however, found a way to one-up Government Motors. Yesterday I clicked on my Google icon to get a map to the Seed2020 meet up and what did I see. A big, dorky graphic. Well, enough of that. I added “/ig” to the url and saw a relatively uncluttered Individualized Google page. Google apparently had a “Government Motors” moment and removed the annoying graphic. Oh, at about the same time, Government Motors was explaining that I could use the word “Chevy” when talking to my pal, Joe Roberts, an ace mechanic who maintains my collector Pontiac. Joe is a fan of juiced up Chevelles, and he talks about his “Chevy” when I point out that my two ton, 455 cubic inch Pontiac Grandville is a better car than his loser Chevy. Joe is in his late 60s, and has a couple of years on me. Guess what, goofiness from Government Motors and Google reminds me of what happens when Harvard, Stanford, and Yale superstars use make decisions by nattering with their Facebook friends. GM, it is a Chevy. Live with it. Google, let me decide what I want to see when I run a query. Here’s a better idea? Why don’t you two outfits engineer more of your market savvy into the “intelligent” auto systems your engineers are working on? In my opinion, your respective firms are doing a bang on job with international relations, labor relations, financial management, and marketing. By the way, how are those management decisions working out for you today?
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2010
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Web Search Traffic Outlook, Cloudy, Not Much Change
June 12, 2010
The Web league tables are less interesting than those for other sports. I don’t subscribe to any paid services. I learned several years ago that the companies cranking out these data often report numbers that do not match the data in some vendors’ search logs. The variance can be significant. I looked at the data in the TechCrunch write up “comScore Says Bing And Yahoo Gained Market Share In May. Or Have They?” The data suggest that Bing and Yahoo are up and Google is down. The reality is that each of these vendors is doing many different things to build traffic. The most important factoid in the write up is contained in the comment about “adjusting for the impact of user interface changes.” Add to that the smoothing that occurs when data are sampled and crunched. What’s clear is that Google’s dominant position in Web search gives it an advantage which seems to be holding up despite exogenous factors and management actions. Is the 66.4 percent market share number for Google accurate. Nope. Google’s share is north of this figure if my understanding of the situation is correct. Regardless of the number, Google’s search share like the dominance of Microsoft Word, is not likely to change dramatically in the short term. Over the longer term, there is uncertainty about Google’s footprint that did not exist in 2006 in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2010
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Collecta Nets a $5 Million Series B
June 11, 2010
Collecta.com has been one of the go-to services for me. We tested the service in the demonstration site at http://ssnblog.com and found it useful and reliable. We learned today (June 10, 2010) that Dace Ventures has provided about $5 million in Series B funding to the the company. With the cash injection, we anticipate that the company will step up its marketing and add additional features. Mashable quoted the company’s CEO Gerry Campbell as saying:
This funding is a great validation of both Collecta’s technology, as well as the company’s core vision that real-time data applications are fundamentally changing how we access information on the Internet.
RedWriteWeb reported that the company had an initial capital base of about $2 million.
If you have not explored the service, navigate to www.collecta.com. Similar services, which I tracked in my 2009 series of Information World Review columns, include www.itpints.com, www.topsy.com, and www.scoopler.com. In my SLA lecture, I will point out that the real time services from Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo lag the service provided by specialists like Collecta.com.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2010
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Free Stock Photo Search
June 11, 2010
Short honk: If you need free stock photos, check out Veezzle.com. We ran some test queries and found usable images. Getting permission or licensing an image is essential for commercial work. We bookmarked the site. Some categories have few images; for example, boxer dog. We found a keeper, however.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2010
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Is Vivisimo Preparing for an IPO, Maybe to Be Acquired?
June 11, 2010
Short honk: I learned something interesting in the wake of the Exalead deal. (Watch for my take on the purchase of this search based applications company on June 14, 2010. I will let the azure chip crowd beaver away for now.) Navigate to “Vivisimo Boosts Management Team with Addition of Patrick Williams, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Americas.”My take on this story is that none of the newer executives, include Mr Williams, is into search. The management team wants to find a way to convert Vivisimo into a pay day. There are a number of outfits looking for a way to end their search woes. And there are lots and lots of companies for sale. So what will happen? Not much for a while but the ice shelf may crack next spring.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2010
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