Mobile Factoid: Bad News for the Moderate
July 4, 2010
Point your browserooni at “50% of All Mobile Data Is Consumed by 6% of Users.” Some interesting factoids reside within the write up. Too bad there is an annoying and fatuous “all” because the data are decidedly narrow. Here’s the passage I noted:
Even for those who have a plan, the majority are paying for a service that they’re not even really using. “About 20 million current smartphone users are hardly using data,” said Nielsen SVP Roger Entner in an Information Week story. Entner [azure chip expert] said that the 6% of smartphone owners who use the most mobile data are using 50% of all mobile data.
The azure chip crowd loves these type of data, however. My view is that telcos will fiddle the numbers and possibly move along this dotted line:
- Heavy data users will pay lots for their habit
- The tiering can extract more money from the mid tier users
- The base rate can go up justified by the heavy data users of the addicts.
In short, save your pennies.
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2010
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India Wants to Tame Data Dervishes
July 4, 2010
Okay, a little 4th of July reality. Some high profile outfits get to demonstrate their plasticity. Which outfit will bend, break, or resist pressure best? Point your browser to “Reports: BlackBerry, Skype, Google Face India Data Demand.” If accurate, India wants to know who does what. Here’s the passage I noted:
Skype and the BlackBerry service could face a ban in India if they do not comply within 15 days, according to reports in The Economic Times, and The Hindu Business Line. A similar notice is also being sent to Google asking it to provide access to content on Gmail in a readable format.
My position is that companies are not nation states. If an organization wants to do business within national borders, those organizations have to follow the rules for that country.
I hear chatter about privacy and security. Interesting stuff, but if an organization breaks the rules within a nation state, I think one should keep in mind that nation states have police, intelligence agencies, and bureaucrats ready, willing and able to enforce the nation’s laws.
Laws are not consistent, clear, or even rational. Companies who operate above the law could be creating untenable situations for employees and contractors who happen to live, work, or visit within the boundaries of a nation state fed up with companies acting like superior entities. A year in prison might be just what’s needed to make the relative balance of power more understandable. What about having offices shuttered? What about not getting a broken sewer repaired? Odd things happen when countries get annoyed at companies and their executives.
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2010
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Baidu Seeks Silicon Valley Wizards
July 4, 2010
Annoying governments can be exciting. Annoying governments can produce some unexpected consequences. I thought about this quirk of bureaucrats when I read “China’s Baidu To Hire 30 Software Engineers On ‘Google Territory’”. Yikes. How many Chinese engineers might want to go home to real home cooking? Here’s the passage I noted:
While Google awaits to find out whether the Chinese government is giving it the green light for the renewal of its Internet content provider (ICP) license, its local competitor, China’s largest search engine Baidu is touting its intention to hire up to 30 engineers in July, directly from ‘Google territory,’ i.e. the Silicon Valley, to help it expand overseas.
With Google’s stock panting a bit, what happens if some of Google non Chinese engineers think working within striking distance of the Great Wall might be great fun? And what about that Google license to operate in China? Get in line seems to be the order of the day.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2010
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Google News and Its Next of Kin
July 3, 2010
Am I the only goose in the pond wondering if Google has become Microsoft. There was the Bing envy. Earlier this year the Buzz gaffe. Now, hard on the heels of the Microsoft bunny muff with the Kin mobile device, Google has grabbed the attention of the blog readers. How did the PR challenged Google manage this? Easy. Google changed its presentation of Google News. Navigate to “Is the Google News Redesign a Repeat of the New Coke Disaster?” I think the reference to Coca Cola’s screw up is incorrect at best? In my view, Google has become careless, a far more interesting development for the company. What’s next? How about telling another country what to do? How about advising publishers to embrace technology? How about emulating the iPhone? Oh, sorry. Google has already done that. The pivotal year for Google was 2006. Since then, downhill slide started. Is its velocity increasing? Don’t look for elucidation in Google Groups. If you want a semblance of the “old” Google News, try this. Go to Google.com/ig. Add the news gadget. Close enough for the goose. Keep in mind, however, that you must be logged in to the GOOG.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2010
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Quote to Note: The Price of Success Is Death
July 3, 2010
Quote to note: A classic popped out of “Google chief: Nexus One Was ‘So Successful, We Killed It’. What a Load of Schmidt.” No, that is not the quote. The “load of Schmidt” is part of the source’s headline.
Here’s the quote:
It [the Google Nexus One phone] was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticized us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: ‘Ok, it worked. Congratulations – we’re stopping’. We like that flexibility, we think that flexibility is characteristic of nimbleness at our scale.” His words are even further removed than an earlier explanation from Android project lead Andy Rubin, who said the company killed its Googlephone webstore because running the thing was just too complicated.
A keeper.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2010
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The Official Airlines Guide on Steroids
July 3, 2010
No reference to my Google: The Digital Gutenberg in this post. I do want to suggest you read “Google Buys ITA for $700M to Boost Travel Search.” Forget Expedia, Orbitz, Farecast, and the rest of the crowd. Go find an old person who traveled a lot in the 1970s and ask about the Official Airlines Guide Pocket Edition, once the proud captive of maybe an outfit like Bowker. I can’t remember but I recall that a subscription cost a lot of money. Airlines have been clueless about the needs of the professional who travels for a while. The point is that the OAG pocket thing which was too tall and fat for any of my pockets was yesterday’s iPhone travel app. The Google is now in this business. Is Google a publisher? Of course not.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2010
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Google and Microsoft: Similar Problems, Different Reasons
July 3, 2010
Lots of blogtastic action today. Microsoft is taking a beating over the Kin. Wow. Killing kin. Scary even if you are a hardware device. I liked the write up “Kin: More Proof that Warring Fiefdoms Rule at Microsoft.” I was in a meeting years ago when one wit said, “Microsoft is like 10,000 sail boats going sort of in the same direction.” The ZDNet blog write up puts it this way:
In the early days of its development, Kin (then known as Pink), was going to share the same core as Windows Mobile 7. But Microsoft decided to do a Longhorn-style reset and scrapped the WM 7 project. One result was a delay in the delivery of its next mobile operating system. In fact, neither the Windows Embedded Compact 7 core, nor the Windows Phone 7 operating system has been released to manufacturing yet. That meant the Kin team couldn’t use these components; they had to use an older version of the Windows Embedded Compact operating system.
The planning reminds me of my freshman year in college when a bunch of guys sat around and asked, “So what are we going to do?” The method was hit and miss then, and it sure seems to be hit and miss now.
And the Google?
The fancy dancing with China continues, but the big news is the new Facebook killer. I thought Google tried that with Buzz, the Buzz redo, and the Wave integration thing. Guess not. Navigate to “Google CEO Schmidt Gives Crafty Non-Denial on Forthcoming Social Network.” Here’s the passage I noted:
In the last two years, Google has started to take social networking seriously after considering it an afterthought for much of its early history. The company launched an e-mail based social sharing network called Google Buzz earlier this year, but it hasn’t dented the traction of rival products like Twitter and Facebook.
My interpretation? Google tried with Orkut and did not make much progress in particularly positive ways. Now Google is pre announcing a Facebook type service coming—soon.
Why do I see similarities between these two firms?
First, both companies’ actions make it clear that getting something done is pretty darn difficult. That’s a management problem or what the azure chip crowd calls governance. Whatever.
Second, both companies are getting killed in the time department. Microsoft is sufficiently slow on the trigger to make catch up in phones quite hard and really expensive. Google has gone to the plate and struck out several times as Facebook despite its crazy behaviors swell from 150 million members to 500 million. Google has been sufficiently clumsy to make catch up in social media quite hard and really expensive. Yep, repetitive, isn’t it?
Third, there are some serious changes taking place in the market. These range from open source plays like Hadoop and Lucene/Solr to fast growing services that make zero sense to me like Groupon.com. Yes, I know what it is. No, I don’t care about coupons and discounts.
Bottom-line is that we have one of those moments in time when some exciting change will take place. Today’s winners may be tomorrow’s idle rich, unemployed idle rich perhaps? The off the radar outfits might rework the information landscape. I would send a text message but the iPhone 4 keeps dropping its signal..
Sigh.
Stephen E Arnold, July 3, 2010
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The SAP Foundation: Will Open Source Termites Swarm?
July 2, 2010
SAP, which as you may know, is an outfit I try to watch. As an addled goose, I check up on the IBM-esque outfit every couple of months. My next scheduled peek is September. Alas, I read “CoreMedia Web CMS Readies to Woo SAP Portal Users” and noted this passage:
…many of SAP’s known features — such as collaboration and KM (Knowledge Management) — CoreMedia [an open source content management system shop] chose not to support — focusing mainly on the infrastructure/delivery capabilities — citing the fact that they wanted to avoid any “dependencies” on those features based on what they heard about SAP not developing those capabilities in the future. And not to mention that CoreMedia already has a separate, existing portal product — CoreMedia Open Portal — that allows to manage apps like content, be in compliance with JSR-286, and support mash up technologies among other things. But all in a different UI than those of CoreMedia CMS or the SAP portal module. The question is why go after the portal technology, when there’re so many things that can be done on the core WCM side of the CoreMedia house. Yet, if you use SAP NetWeaver as your PMS (and we do love three-letter acronyms, this one stands for Presentation Management System), a module like this one might be for you. It will be available around September 2010.
SAP. Wooden foundation. Open source termites? Could there be a chow down coming? The bigger question is, “If CoreMedia’s method works on the SAP foundation, will other open source vendors follow suit? That may be a digital termite swarm.
Stephen E Arnold, July 2, 2010
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Sentiment in an Unsentimental Manner
July 2, 2010
Sentiment analysis is one of those feeder streams in content processing that now are swelling into a torrent. Seth Grimes, a fellow who actually took one dollar from me and then gave it back, has written a useful write up, “My Feelings About Sentiment Analysis.” The format is an interview with Mr. Grimes as the subject. Here’s a comment I noted and tucked in my “recycle this insight in one of my talks” folder:
How organic is it [sentiment analysis]? Does it need to be managed in real time?
Smart, responsive enterprises have effectively been doing sentiment analysis for years: they’ve been listening to customers and the market. The natural next step is to automate analyses, to take advantage of computers’ speed and power in order to build out and systematizes efforts. Technologies are definitely starting to operate in real-time… and beyond. They can not only analyze and automate response to opportunities and threats as they emerge; via predictive modeling, they can drive pro-active steps that create opportunities and close vulnerabilities. This said, I’ll reemphasize that organizations can work their way up from basic monitoring and engagement to full-blown, predictive analytics at a pace that makes sense given needs and budgets.
Good stuff.
Stephen E Arnold, July 2, 2010
Freebie but maybe I will get asked to give a talk at one of Mr. Grimes’ high profile conferences. Beg, beg, whine. Repeat.
Google from Won to Can Win
July 2, 2010
Nope, I am not writing about Google and China. Tired that about face, iterative approach to governments with armies, secret agencies, and weaponized bureacracies. Silly.
I want to point to the article “From Search to Share: How Google Can Win in the Social Age” which highlights the change in Google’s fortunes. It is heretical to suggest that a company that kicked Viacom to the curb, trampled hapless Yahoo, and driven Microsoft into a state of apoplexy could fail. But failure is the point of the “From Search to Share.” Google dominates search. Google is not repeating its previous success with social content. The article from Smart Data Collective said:
But Google’s revenue model is under threat in the age of Social Media. Facebook recently surpassed Google in the US to become the most visited website… But this strategy of indexing web content and displaying most relevant search results will no longer work in Social Age as users rely more on Social Media channels and less on search engines to get relevant information. Google should shift its strategy from Search to Share, to continue its dominance in the Social Age as people are more likely to pay attention to content from those they trust rather than ones suggested by search engines.
When I completed work on Google Version 2.0, there were early signals of some diffusion. Google was moving slowly with some of the innovations I summarized in that monograph. The company’s context server is one example. In 2007, Facebook was growing but certainly was not a big deal in comparison with the Google revenues.
Today, Google is a company described with the phrase “How Google Can Win.” I must admit I have been surprised that Google seems to have caught Microsoftitus. I don’t think it is fatal, but Facebook at this time seems to be like one of those healthy, happy people carting bodies from central London during the Black Death.
Stephen E Arnold, July 2, 2010
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