Controlling SharePoint Craziness
November 28, 2010
Windows IT Pro’s article “When and How to Include End Users in SharePoint Migration Planning” explains that SharePoint end users avoid the program because their input is ignored by developers. The article says,
The problem with this view is that your end users know their requirements, essential business processes, and data better than you do. Input from the staff and managers who are responsible for the artifacts managed within SharePoint is a critical factor for a successful migration.
You can learn a bit about how to use a migration plan to integrate end user feedback into SharePoint. The Rational Unified Process is recommended to guide the process. It is initiated by gathering feedback from end users. After the feedback is gathered, the mitigation team needs to document all aspects of the system to understand its current state. Use cases are then created to evaluate new ideas and determine what will work best for the future-state environment. To guarantee a successful SharePoint migration, prototypes and testing are necessary. The most important aspect is to include the end user at every part of the process, otherwise the migration plan won’t work.
I like the “won’t work” part. Exclusion of end users is a common practice, particularly with regards to search and content processing. End users are so annoying and some complain about SharePoint too.
Whitney Grace, November 28, 2010
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Facebook Flexes its Facial Muscles
November 27, 2010
“Facebook Comprises Nearly 25% of Page Views in the US” reports Read Write Web, a rather shocking figure. The article states: “According to Hitwise stats, for the week ending November 13, 24.27 percent of page views were to Facebook, almost four times the volume of the site ranked number two – YouTube, with “only” 6.93 percent of all page views. Even YouTube plus Google’s search combined only comprise around 12 percent of page views.” Of course, counting page views is not quite the same as counting unique visitors and mobile views weren’t counted at all. Still, this is one more piece of evidence that Facebook continues to dominate the web, with no end in sight.
Alice Wasielewski, November 27, 2010
Indexing and Content Superficialities
November 27, 2010
“Understanding Content Collection and Indexing” provides a collection of definitions and generalizations which makes clear why so many indexing efforts by eager twenty-somethings with degrees in Home Economics and Eighteenth Century Literature go off the rails: it takes more than learning a list of definitions to create a truly useful indexing system. In our opinion, the process should be about solving problems. As the article states:
The ability to find information is important for myriad reasons. Spending too much time looking for information means we’re unable to spend time on other tasks. An inability to find information might force us to make an uninformed or incorrect decision. In worse scenarios, inability to locate can cause regulatory problems, or, in in a hospital, lead to a fatal mistake.
This list is a place to start. It does describe the very basics of content collection, indexing, language processing, classification, metasearch, and document warehousing. We have to ask, though- is this analysis inspired by Associated Content or Demand Media?
For the real deal on indexing, navigate to www.taxodiary.com.
Cynthia Murrell, November 27, 2010
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Another Band-aid for SharePoint?
November 26, 2010
PR-inside.com has published an announcement of Metalogix and Microsoft’s team effort in the production and release of a free migration accelerating tool dubbed “Search First”. This application will aid organizations in unlocking some new SharePoint 2010 tricks within their existing SharePoint 2007 systems including more accurate and relevant search results, improved performance and increased customization.
Per the referenced post, says Metalogix CTO Julien Sellgren:
Metalogix prides itself on providing easy to use tools and solutions for customers to leverage the robust features SharePoint has to offer. We were thrilled at the opportunity to work with Microsoft and help existing SharePoint 2007 customers to leverage new SharePoint 2010 search capabilities. This will help them better manage their SharePoint data and prepare for a move to SharePoint 2010 in the future.
Sounds good, right? Perhaps, but several things strike me about this passage. Forgive me, but I’m all questions. Isn’t it troubling that one cannot leverage SharePoint’s robust features with SharePoint alone? No offense to Metalogix, but rather than ensure SharePoint is itself fully functional, Microsoft instead endorses a third party to do the job for them? And, Microsoft can’t help users with the transition from the 2007 to the 2010 versions of its own product within its own product?
Most responsible consumers learn early on that free products are generally too good to be true. Based on the v2010 features that are being extended to v2007, is there an ulterior motive to this complimentary offering? It sounds as though the real function of Search First is to patch the sub-par features of SharePoint 2007 without divulging to existing users that Microsoft’s software had some issues.
Sarah Rogers, November 26, 2010
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Which Is Better? Abstract or Full Text Search?
November 26, 2010
Please bear with us while we present a short lesson in the obvious: “Users searching full text are more likely to find relevant articles than searching only abstracts.” A recent BMC Bioinformatics research article written by Jimmy Lin titled “Is Searching Full Text More Effective than Searching Abstracts?” explores exactly that.
So maybe we opened with the conclusion, but here is some background information. Since it is no longer an anomaly to view a full-text article online, the author set out to determine if it would be more effective to search full-text versus only the short but direct text of an abstract. The results:
“Experiments show that treating an entire article as an indexing unit does not consistently yield higher effectiveness compared to abstract-only search. However, retrieval based on spans, or paragraphs-sized segments of full-text articles, consistently outperforms abstract-only search. Results suggest that highest overall effectiveness may be achieved by combining evidence from spans and full articles.”
Yep, at the end of the day, searching from a bank of more words will in fact increase your likeliness of a hit. The extension here is the future must bring with it some solutions. Due to the longer length of the full-text articles and the growing digital archive waiting to be tamed, Lin predicts that multiple machines in a cluster as well as distributed text retrieval algorithms will be necessary to effectively handle the search requirements. Wonder who will be first in line to provide these services…
Sarah Rogers, November 26, 2010
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Search Hooks for Shopping Tuna
November 26, 2010
The outcome of a new survey presented in “More than half of top e-retailers personalize search results” details that 55% of the top e-retailers polled use technologies such as natural language processing, web analytics, mixed media searches, relevance ranking and segmentation tools to provide customers with more relevant search results. These e-retailers are dubbed ‘best-in-class’ in contrast to their peers, who fall into either an ‘average’ or ‘laggard’ category based on key performance indicators like net profit margin.
It isn’t headline news that employing more advanced search functions will aid in increased business. Notice that while 55 percent of the top e-retailers are using said technologies, the survey also shows that “44 percent of average performers and 15 percent of laggards personalize search results based on customer or customer segment purchase history.” With only a 10 percent difference between the top and average performers, could there be a stronger relationship in the results?
The article goes on to say:
“Top-performing e-retailers also do more with the search information they get. 73% have a process to disseminate results from search to relevant departments throughout the organization, such as marketing and merchandising. 32% of all other retailers surveyed had such a process in place.”
I’m inclined to believe that while offering a satisfactory shopping experience chock full of search bells-and-whistles will never hurt, the stats allude to a win for the marketing department, not the IT department.
Sarah Rogers, November 26, 2010
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Extractiv Rolls Out New Release
November 25, 2010
Extractiv, a joint venture between 80legs and Language Computer Corporation, announced Monday they would be taking their Semantic Web Crawling and On-Demand Document Conversion software public. What will the combination of high-powered web crawling and natural language processing technologies mean for consumers in search of gross information analysis? The claim is the service will allow straightforward access to millions of web pages and the subsequent conversion of unstructured content into semantic data, all at affordable prices.
In an article published on Benzinga.com, Extractiv CEO Shion Deysarkar said “Extractiv will be where the semantic web begins.” The company offers three account styles, beginning with free trial access through Extractiv Basic. Customers will find increased capacity for analysis and connection to APIs for $99 a month in Extractiv Plus. At $299, the Premium plan boasts up to 10,000,000 URLs per web crawl, excess job queuing and 14 day storage of the fruits of its labors.
Sarah Rogers, November 25, 2010
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Novell in Open Source Squeeze Play?
November 25, 2010
I don’t know much about open source. I know that quite a few developers are excited about various open source systems and software. “Microsoft’s Hand in Novell Deal Bodes Ill for Linux” struck me as jarring. Network World has been covering open source, but this write up seemed to be a warning flare. Here’s one of the passages that caught my attention:
…what better solution for Microsoft than to buy up a bunch of Novell’s assets instead? More ominously, what better tool to begin making Linux vendors an offer they can’t refuse? This seems an especially likely scenario in light of Linux’s new prominence and Windows’ shrinking role in large companies’ purchasing plans. ‘Embrace, Extend, Extinguish’ Microsoft is infamous for its tendency to embrace open source software with one hand while bashing it with the other- -witness its latest FUD video targeting OpenOffice.org, for example. So if it does end up with some of Novell’s Linux assets, it’s not going to be a good thing. No matter what it might say, Microsoft’s history of patent litigation and its repeatedly used “embrace, extend and extinguish” strategy proves that it is no friend of open source software.
Oracle is showing some hostility toward open source in my opinion. IBM makes a big deal about its open source approach, but I heard some rumblings about Eclipse, at which IBM has blown kisses in the past. Now Novell’s acquisition may allow the lads in Redmond to make life interesting for the “community”.
Worth monitoring.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2010
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How Search Derails IT Immutable Laws
November 25, 2010
Immutable. Milton went down this path in Paradise Lost, and know that worked out for Beelzebub and his boss Lucifer, whom by his street name is known as Satan. Remember this:
That practis’d falsehood under saintly shew,
Deep malice to conceal, couch’d with revenge. IV, 22
Navigate to “The Six Immutable Laws for Troubleshooting IT.” Read the original. Here’s how search and content processing vendors react: “Long is the way / And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.” II, 432.
The write up says in column A and vendors deliver in column B:
| 1 | Modify other machines | Undocumented dependencies will bite you every time |
| 2 | Have a way back | Forced upgrades may offer no way back. Reinstall and reindex |
| 3 | Document | Sounds good but you don’t know what happened |
| 4 | Luck | Not in restoring indexes. Reindex, gentle reader. Reindex. |
| 5 | Back up config files | If you can locate them |
| 6 | Monitor | Tough to monitor what the vendor does not disclose |
Search is different.Immutable laws are easy to articulate. Just keep Satan in mind.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2010
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Google Chapter and Face Book Metaphor
November 24, 2010
I read “For Google, Social Networking Is Just One Chapter of the Book.” I was confused. The article summarizes alleged comments by Google’s top bean counter, Patrick Pichette. I understand the soft shoe around “don’t be evil.” Google has managed to trigger legal push back on every continent. I understand the cheerleading about Android, which is not a Google grassroots development. A solid acquisition for sure. But Android has to deal with the fragmentation issue, various telecommunications companies with Bell head DNA, and the problem of the “app”. In my opinion, Android doesn’t yet have a killer app and Verizon has bumped Google Search for the somewhat disappointing Bing.com search service.
The baffler was “chapter.” I found this passage difficult to decode:
“The digital world is exploding and it has so many chapters — it has cloud computing, it has mobile, it does have social, it has searches, it has so many elements. (…) Yes, absolutely it will be part of our strategy, yes it will be embedded in many of our products. But at the same time remember it’s one chapter of an entire book,” said Google’s chief financial officer Patrick Pichette to Australian public television on Sunday.
Google is a search system with ads. Like a young novelists first book, Google harvested deep consideration of search. By chance, Hewlett Packard fumbled AltaVista.com and Google got a jump start from some former DEC engineers. Then the Google “don’t be evil” crowd sought artistic inspiration from GoTo.com/Overture.com which were part of Yahoo. The legal matter was made to go away, and Google became the “go to” company for search.
The company’s efforts outside of search have been met with mixed results. The big new thing is the social craziness, and Google has managed to flub its opportunities. First, there was Orkut, then Wave, and then Buzz. I heard that Google is not building a Facebook killer. I understand that. Facebook is different from Google, and Google is trotting out “chapter” metaphors.
Wrong. Facebook is a new book. Different author, different audience, and different utility—there is no chapter at Google’s wordsmithing operation for Facebook. The name “Facebook” is apt. Google does search and wrote that book. It was a best seller. New “book” and a new bestseller is here. Wrong metaphor. Google can do knock offs, but it did not write the Facebook. Hey, Google is the math club, not a poetry club like so many fawning mid tier consulting firms.
Google is not in the Face Book. Maybe Google is a chapter in the Digital Domesday Book?
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2010
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