US Search Start Ups May Struggle for Funding
July 17, 2010
“Venture Capitalists Not Finding Funding Either” may mean good news for pharmacies selling Pepto-Bismol but bad news for search start ups. The write up said:
According to Thomson Reuters and the NVCA today, thirty-eight U.S. venture capital firms raised $1.9 billion in the second quarter of 2010, down 49 percent compared to Q1 this year, when 38 funds raised $3.7 billion. Thomson Reuters and the NVCA said that the quarter is the lowest–based on dollar commitments–since the third quarter of 2003.
I have heard that a number of search and content processing vendors are gasping for air. There’s an outfit in Chicago looking for funds or a buyer. There’s a vendor out west sweating bullets. There have been some rumors of trouble at one high profile outfit.
Without friendly VCs looking to fund the next Google, search start ups may struggle for funding.
Stephen E Arnold, July 17, 2010
Barn Burns, Horse Gone: Google and Regulation
July 16, 2010
Wow, the Danny Sullivan, the Google Public Policy Blog, the Silicon Valley Watcher, and the New York Times (you may face a dead link and have to pay). That’s a link fest. What’s the topic of this click-a-rrific moment?
Regulating Google.
The addled goose is a bit jaded with the “look at Google now” crowd. In 2002, when a client asked me to flip through Google’s technical papers and patent applications (note, not patents) and report on any interesting developments, I unearthed some interesting factoids. I have documented these in detail in my three Google monographs published by Infonortics, a new chunk in the Beyond Search study published by Gilbane, and in Success Enterprise Search Management. The span of these monographs is from 2004 to 2009. When people stop paying me to do stuff for them, I hope to push my most recent study Google Beyond Text out the door.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane:
- By 2002, Google was beavering away on making money using the one revenue model that was working at the time: slapping ads into search results. Seems easy, but Google had to get technology from Applied Semantics and other places plus re-engineering what struck Yahoo as a system that was similar to Yahoo’s. I will leave it to you to check out the pre IPO settlement with Yahoo to make this “issue” go away. The point is that the “evil” motto, although cute, seemed to be particularly elastic.
- By 2004, Google had fired up or turned loose researchers to work on projects spanning seven different business sectors. I won’t repeat those in this bullet point, but I bet you will resonate with telephony. You know, the Google Android, the wireless stuff, and spectrum gambit.
- By 2006, the present day Google was discernable, including the company’s push into rich media. I know that folks are fixated on YouTube.com, but the technical reports and patent applications suggest that YouTube.com is a single instance, not the comprehensive rich media system Google’s engineers have commented upon and disclosed in open source writings.
What’s this mean?
Well, with the realization that Google dominates Web search, has put pressure on a number of business sectors not related to search and retrieval, and is throwing its weight around, folks are now waking up to Google.
Okay, good morning, Rip Van Winkle.
Source: http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Politics/Images/rip-van-winkle.jpg
The problem is that Google has been operating in the same manner for about a decade.
Ever hear the story about the barn burning down and the horses fleeing? In order to take meaningful action related to Google, several things have to happen?
First, competitors have to actually compete. Right now Apple (limping with a bullet in its iPhone holding hand), Facebook, and maybe Twitter have a shot. But if these outfits stumble, the Google will keep on truckin’, as we say in Harrod’s Creek.
Second, governments must do more than “study” Google. In the US, pressure centric politics ensures that the Google’s lawyers will neuter even the testosterone charged folks at an outfit like Viacom. But in other countries, the opportunity to take action may have different rhythms.
Third, Google itself has to avoid what I have variously called the Icarus problem, the Math Club behavior, or – my personal favorite – the Googzille effect. Yep, Google’s fatal flaw may be its management methods. The culture of a start up is tough to make work when you have 19,000 high IQ folks running around believing everything mom told them about how wonderful each was.
Fourth, the economic climate may be a problem. Forget global warming. Think about a chill in a double dip recession. With one source of cash – advertising – Google’s monoculture could face some problems in a climate change.
Bottomline. Read this passage from “Google Responds to Calls for Search Neutrality”:
Google is under more and more pressure from more and more groups concerned with its size. Google dominates the search market, in some countries by huge margins, and, subsequently, the online advertising market. It also has countless web products, Maps, Gmail, Docs. More and more, a call for ‘search neutrality’ is being made calling for regulation, government oversight or opening up search algorithm. It’s one thing for unheard of companies and people seeking attention to do it, it’s another when a respected news organization does it.
The only problem is that the comments were dated July 16, 2010, just a decade too late.
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2010
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Google Android, Froyo and Security
July 16, 2010
There have been reports that as many as 40,000 impatient hackers have gotten their Android updates a little early by going the hacker route. Presently, the only phone to get the proper update was the Nexus one. Google designed this one and take what you will from this bit of information, but it’s one of the worst selling phones.
So hackers with other versions decided to get theirs, according to a published report in tgdaily.com. Although the download site is no longer valid, it appears that up to 37,000 people clicked through the package.
If all this is true, these impatient android hackers getting Froyo brings up some interesting issues for Google. Privacy and security are important and Google needs to maintain their forward momentum here.
Rob Starr, July 16, 2010
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Google or China: Which Is More Powerful?
July 16, 2010
Public relations and marketing hoo-hah aside. Companies that tangle with countries learn three things not taught in computer science 101. First, countries have hard and soft force. You can stand in line for hours and not get a driver’s license. You can find yourself stopped on the street, searched, handcuffed, and jailed. No “please” or “may I”. Second, countries have the ability to make laws and enforce them. The enforcement can be indirect, requiring a person to spend hours in a waiting room for an appointment to find out what form has to be submitted. Or, the enforcement can be seizure of hardware, software, and information as the Norwegian authorities did in October 2008 to Fast Search & Transfer SA. Third, countries have lots of friends who understand the value of favors. I am not suggesting that a government might say, “Hey, how’s your mom now that she has lost her spot in the oncology ward?”, but friends operate in interesting ways.
Which is more powerful. The finger of the state or the ant entity? Image source: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/the_ant_bully.jpg
Navigate to a story “China: Google Backed Down over Censorship Laws”, which may or may not be true. My hunch is that one or more of the three things not taught in CS 101 may have been operating. The story reported:
Beijing’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced that license approval and renewal had been granted to Google China after the company had agreed to respect Chinese laws. If true, this would amount to a climb-down and major humiliation for the company, which announced in January that it would no longer agree to censorship of its content in China.
Let’s assume the story is false; that is, disinformation. Google looks pretty dorky. After its Julius Caesar moment, the Chinese PR people took advantage of an opportunity to make really smart Google look really slow at basic addition.
Let’s assume the story is true; that is, valid information. Google looks pretty dorky. After its Julius Caesar moment, the resolution of the Google China dust up makes it clear that China is a pretty powerful force and Google had to find a way to regain a shot at the world’s largest market. Shareholders have a right to get a management team that works for the shareholders, not for some quasi-epistemological Zen event.
Either way, what have we learned about the risks of a single company acting as if it were a country? Alas, probably not too much. Maybe Australia or Germany will help the Chinese lesson take hold?
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2010
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The Flux in Free Search
July 16, 2010
I liked the good old days when the azure chip crowd and the data satraps would point out that Google was number one in Web search. For most people, the idea that Google.com was the number one place to go when looking for information was okay. Life was simple and the PageRank method generated useful results for most queries. Something was working if two thirds of the search traffic went to the Mountain View outfit, right?
Now something is changing, and I am not sure I like the shift.
First, I read Fast Company’s article “Twitter Now the World’s Fastest Growing Search Engine.” The key factoid comes from Biz Stone (great name for sure). He suggested that Twitter fields 800 million search questions per day or 24 billion queries per month. Google, according to my addled estimates is in the billions per day. The key point is that Twitter continues to gain search traction. Twitter is an information utility. Each time the addled goose writes a goose-based post like this one, we fire it out to Twitter. Believe it or not, people tweet about our articles. Yesterday our Yahoo story was fired around. I am not sure if that helps or hurts Beyond Search, but it is interesting to me.
Second, I read the New York Times’s “Friending the World” article in my hard copy paper on page B-1 and B 8. You may be able to snag a peak at this url under the article title “Facebook Makes Headway Around the World”. Don’t honk at me if you have to pay. The point of the write up is that Facebook is getting big and fast. In India, where Google’s Orkut was the big dog, Facebook is sniffing at Google’s chicken korma. What happens if Facebook’s search starts gaining traction?
My view is that Google may find itself having to work hard as it did in the 1998 to 2003 period. With free search appearing to be in flux, Google may have to take prompt action to deal with the upstarts Facebook and Twitter. My hunch is that these two services continue to grow because people like the addled goose figured neither had much of a change in a Googley world. As I say on my About page, I am often wrong. Perhaps this is an instance of how the addled goose cannot see the 20 somethings accurately?
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2010
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Quote to Note: Google, Android, iPhone, and Time
July 16, 2010
Quote to note: Today’s quote to note appeared in “Google: ‘We Did Not Follow Apple into Phone Market.’” The addled goose has no position on this issue. The reason has to do with the meaning of “market”. Google’s patent applications prior to 2008 include what the Colbert Report might call “phone-iness.” However, “market” can mean available to anyone able to reach the counter in an ATT or Apple store and push a pile of money toward the ever efficient clerks. Anyway here’s the quote to note:
“We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace. I think that [Steve Jobs’] characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable.”
Now what’s reasonable mean? Telling a country what to do? Rewriting history the way a certain famous Georgian did? Interpreting research as being in a market? See why the goose was such a lousy student. Maybe Apple’s Board of Directors learned about phones from a certain Board member? I just thought it was a “me too” play.
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2010
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Lucene Revolution Conference Details
July 15, 2010
The Beyond Search team received an interesting news release from a reader in San Francisco. We think the information reveals the momentum that is building for open source search. Here’s the story as we received it:
San Mateo, Calif. – July 14, 2010 – Lucid Imagination, the commercial company for Apache Lucene and Solr open source search technologies, is pleased to announce speakers for Lucene Revolution, the first-ever conference [EV1] in the US devoted to open source search. The conference will take place October 7-8, 2010 at the Hyatt Harborside, Boston, Massachusetts. Lucene Revolution is a groundbreaking event that drives broad participation in open source enterprise search , creating opportunities for developers, technologists and business leaders to explore the disruptive new benefits that open source enterprise search makes possible, in a fresh, energetic and forward thinking format.
The diverse and widespread adoption of Lucene/Solr for enterprise search applications is reflected by the broad range of speakers at the event, such as:
- Cisco Systems: Satish Gannu
- eHarmony: Joshua Tuberville
- LinkedIn: John Wang
- Sears: David Oliver
- The McClatchy Company: Martin Streicher
- The Smithsonian: Ching-Hsien Wang
- Twitter: Michael Busch
Conference speakers represent a cross-section of Lucene/Solr adoption – including new media, ecommerce, embedded search applications, content management, social media, and security and intelligence – spanning the broad spectrum of production-class enterprise search implementations, all of whom leverage the power and economics of Lucene/Solr innovation.
Other industry thought leaders participating and sharing their insights into open source enterprise search include Hadley Reynolds (Research Director, Search & Digital Marketplace Technologies, IDC) and Stephen E. Arnold (Beyond Search; Managing Partner, ArnoldIT).
Over the two days of the conference there are over 30 sessions scheduled in a variety of different formats: technical presentations, use cases, panel discussions, and Q&A sessions. In addition there will be an “un-conference” the evening of October 7, where attendees can present lightning talks and take part in hands-on community coding efforts.
Registration for Lucene Revolution is now open for the conference at: http://www.lucenerevolution.com/register. A full list of speakers, along with a complete conference agenda, is available at http://www.lucenerevolution.com/agenda.
If you are not familiar with Lucid, here’s a snapshot:
Lucid Imagination is the commercial company dedicated to Apache Lucene technology. The company provides value-added software, documentation, commercial-grade support, training, high-level consulting, and free certified distributions, for Lucene and Solr. Lucid Imagination’s goal is to serve as a central resource for the entire Lucene community and search marketplace, to make enterprise search application developers more productive. Customers include AT&T, Sears, Ford, Verizon, Elsevier, Zappos, The Motley Fool, Macy’s, Cisco, HP, The Guardian and many other household names. Lucid Imagination is a privately held venture-funded company. Investors include Granite Ventures, Walden International, In-Q-Tel and Shasta Ventures. To learn more please visit www.lucidimagination.com.
Goslings Constance Ard and Dr. Tyra Oldham will be attending. Should be useful. Certainly more timely than the plethora of SharePoint and gasping one-size-fits-all programs. Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2010
Sponsored post.
Camelot to Go Viral
July 15, 2010
A Cambridge based search applications firm has been chosen by the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation to help provide a search engine experience to go with the late president’s digitized archives.
Endeca Technologies has been hired to work on the project that will launch on January 20, 2011, which will be the 50th anniversary of the inauguration. The idea behind digitizing Camelot is to make the whole array of the JFK archives available to everyone from historians to schoolchildren.
Endeca’s information access solutions have long been helping people and business to explore, analyze, and understand information in a variety of different ways. Their solutions cover a wide variety of areas from retail to media and publishing.
Rob Starr, July 15, 2010
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Ontoprise Bids to Stay on Top of Semantic Web Technologies
July 15, 2010
Ontoprise GmbH from Germany is looking to increase their already impressive line of Semantic Web infrastructure products with OntoBroker 6.0 and OntoStudio 3.0.
The company is constantly looking to improve its web services and to that end that have developed ways to interface existing technologies into their OntoBroker web-services. Along with an overall promise to improve performance there are a few specific areas that this company has highlighted including:
- A collaboration server that has extended rights management
- Ontology optimizing tools that are integrated
- Improved handling of very large ontologies
When it comes to the most reliable and technologically advanced semantic web technologies and products, Ontoprise has been an industry leader in delivering key elements for the upcoming advancements in semantic Web.
Rob Starr, July 16, 2010
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Google, Social Media, and a Trail of Tears
July 15, 2010
In university, I had a professor who talked about long marches that did not work out exactly as planned. I recall the Napoleon thing, the Trail of Tears thing, and the Mao march. When I looked at “Google’s Long History of Social Media Attempts,” I wondered, “Does history repeat itself?”
Source: Edward Tufte via http://www.wayfind.com/images/napoleonMinardFull.jpg
Google, according to the write up, began its journey in social media in February 2003. I think Google is supposed to reach Xanadu in late 2010 or possibly early 2011. That’s an eight year slog and Google is confident that it will arrive fresh as a daisy. How did that Napoleon thing in Russia work out when the lads returned home? Attrition was the word required to get an A in that history class. Happens to the most powerful.
Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2010
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