Fancy Math Maybe Not Needed?
October 2, 2010
“Search Data ‘No More Informative’ Than Standard Analysis” seems to challenge the fancy math of outfits like Recorded Future, Palantir, and IBM SPSS. How can fancy math fail to wow the researchers? The VC crowd won’t be amused. Palantir scooped up $90 million and for what?
The article asserts:
Tracking web searches worked the best in predicting how a new video game would sell, Yahoo’s Sharad Goel and Jake Hofman said.
Ah, ha. Yahoo. The purple outfit with the revolving door this week.
The Yahooligans said:
“Given the attention that search-based predictions have received recently, it may seem surprising that search data are, at least in some cases, no more informative than traditional data sources…”
One point that jumped out at me was that using third party tabulations such as a list of top tunes worked better than fancy math.
Palantir has 90 million reasons to prove Yahoo somewhat incorrect. IBM may not care. Recorded Future has the support of the Google and In-Q-Tel. Well, Yahoo may have a better way.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2010
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Deconfusing Taxonomists and Ontologists
October 1, 2010
“Skills of a Classy Taxonomist” tackles a subject that some English majors turned search experts often sidestep. This article explains “taxonomists build hierarchies and ontologist determine classes or categories.” The key point is that “ontologies are neat and unambiguous and taxonomies are a bit messy.”
The most interesting part of the article asserts that a faceted taxonomy is more useful than a plain vanilla taxonomy. With a faceted taxonomy, the author asserts, some challenges are confronted and resolved; specifically:
- Clarify specific terms by situation or function
- Ease long-term maintenance issues
- Facilitate sharing and importing of taxonomies.
If you want to reduce your taxonomy hassles, you will want to navigate to “The Taxonomy Blog”. The product that delivers the benefits referenced is Top Quadrant. There are some other solutions that work as well; for example, Access Innovations’ system and, for the code savvy, some open source components.
My view is that most organizations talk about taxonomies and ontologies and then find that the cost and effort to sustain a project as language changes makes the effort expendable. That’s too bad, but economic realities often force “good enough” tagging on hapless users.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2010
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Reports Maestro
October 1, 2010
In the last few days, I have had several conversations about converting outputs of search systems into reports. There are high-end systems like Megaputer’s and then carrier-class systems from outfits like IBM SPSS and SAS. As we talked with people about tools, we learned about a Web report and chart builder that is quite interesting.
Display of chart types available.
The write up about the program in LearnXpress said:
With ReportsMaestro, no coding is required to convert those huge amounts of data into the interactive, professional-looking charts. The smart solution provides Web Charts Builder with 15+ chart types and styles, from popular pie and bar charts to sophisticated 3D diagrams. It also offers Query Builder to enhance the look of your database joining tables, grouping, sorting and filtering data.
You can work through an online demo and then, if it seems useful, buy it online. What’s appealing about the product is that it costs about $80. We use a tool from Swiff Chart in France. For those confused by Google Fusion, ReportsMaestro may be worth a look.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2010
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Budget Cuts Slam Government Data Fusion Operations
October 1, 2010
The dream is to sit down in front of one terminal or kick back and use an iPad to search government information. Most regular folks don’t know that the US government, working with state and local officials, has been trying to assemble data so it can be searched from one system. The buzz word for this effort is “fusion” and the conversion and normalization of data is handled at “fusion centers.”
“Fusion Centers Decry Lack of Dedicated Funding” reveals some interesting facts about the access, discover, and search initiative. According to the article:
The Government Accountability Office, for a report dated Sept. 29, interviewed officials from 14 of the 72 fusions centers spread across the country and found that most officials said that lack of a dedicated federal funding source is affecting their ability to plan for the long term.
The budget pinch in Washington is not likely to be resolved any time soon. The Department of Homeland Security is working on a nation-wide assessment of its fusion activities. You can read a report about this project in GAO document 10-972.
I flipped through the report. I am trying to steer clear of government work for a while. Enjoy. In the meantime, those looking for information will have to combine online and manual methods. Not agile, but it works.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2010
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Yahoo Became AOL, Now AOL Is Becoming Yahoo
October 1, 2010
Neither Yahoo nor AOL strike me as companies with a strong commitment to search. In fact, Yahoo worked hard to become a “free” version of AOL. The company acquired lots of promising outfits and then allowed these to coast along. Yahoo ran into a problem of integrating the different services. A notable example was Flickr and Yahoo Photos. Eventually the two service became Flickr, but the task was time consuming. In fact, a heterogeneous infrastructure coupled with acquisitions that operated as standalone properties contributed to the shift at Yahoo. A shift that is still underway.
AOL, on the other, sort of wobbled along. The big change came with hiring a manager from Google (could this be an oxymoron?) and becoming a separate company. In the last few days, there’s been quite a bit of activity at AOL, mostly related to acquisitions that deliver content. If AOL can integrate its new purchases – a popular blog and conference property TechCrunch and 5min Media (a company with a couple of hundred thousand videos), AOL will become more like today’s Yahoo.
Can AOL become a content company that generates sufficient revenue to fly high again? Would a union of AOL and Yahoo make sense to some deal starved investment firm? What happens if Facebook buys one of these outfits, a suggestion when I first heard struck me as a wild and crazy idea?
This is not a good or a bad thing. I find it fascinating that two established online companies seem to be doppelgängers. Yes, that includes search.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2010
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