Google and Peril: Social Blind Spot, Not a Scaling Problem
November 17, 2010
Information Arbitrage ran on November 14, 2010, the story “The Challenge of Being Google.” The description of Google’s number one problem makes sense. The author uses the buzzword “scale” to pivot Google from superstar to “just another big company.” The examples are ones that most MBAs will find spot on. Who can quibble with Xerox’s inability to do much with its myriad innovations. The business was—and still is—mostly about making copies of stuff. Microsoft is another touchstone. The company makes money, but it is not exciting. I don’t have a Windows phone, nor do I use to many of Microsoft’s products but millions do. Microsoft is a company that will provide case studies for future generations of executives-to-be at Wharton, Harvard, and the University of Chicago.
The problem Google faces is easy to pinpoint. My research suggests that Google ran into trouble with what I put under the admittedly fuzzy umbrella term “social.” The company was on an absolute technical and revenue tear from 2002 until 2006. Sometime between 2006 and 2007, I noted three significant changes. In my opinion, each of these illuminates a different connotation of my “social” terminology.
Google Books has this scanned. Would it be useful in a social context? Probably not. Dale wasn’t particularly good at the math for dynamical systems and differential equations. He was a salesperson. Social too.
First, Google was not able to do much with Orkut. I heard many reasons. These ranged from the legal with inquiries from various parties about the service itself to the type of information that was flowing among the users, particularly users in Brazil. Whether the legal rumors or the significance of social software as a successor to the brute force use of the Internet is irrelevant. By 2007, Google was not able to respond to the Orkut opportunity and was essentially indifferent or unaware of the Facebook threat. In 2008, Google was talking about social centric innovations, particularly in technical presentations and patent applications, but nothing seemed to grab the market. When Buzz rolled out, Google did not handle the launch well. The company triggered howls from its customers/users and had to back up. A legal dust up followed and Google had to write a check to make the buzz die down. To recap, Google knew social was hot but was not able to manage the development of the technology or the servicer itself. Now, Facebook is worth more than eBay and a real problem for Google. The first sense of “social” is that the company could not pull off what Facebook has and is doing.
Second, in the period between 2003 in the run up to the IPO and 2007, Google allowed its “controlled chaos” approach to management annoy many different constituencies. The behavior created a sense that Google was “just right.” Google professionals would tell people what to do. Whether it was the famous T shirt and sneaker visit to the House and Senate or the approach to scanning books, Google just did what it wanted to do. As a result, the company developed a reputation as being chock full of smart people who were, in the words of one of my mentors, “bright but uninformed.” To recap, Google’s approach to anyone not an employee or consultant to Google put teeth on edge. A little vinegar enhances, a stream of vinegar is less desirable. The second sense of “social” is fitting into the way various institutional processes work. Even today, Google wants procurements to work its way. To make the point, Google is suing the Department of the Interior. Enough said about Google’s legal activities.
Third, the core of Google is based on brute force solutions to engineering problems that broke the financial backs of other competitors. When Google absorbed the learnings of the GoTo.com/Overture/Yahoo approach to online advertising, the company produced a stream of money that put a turbocharged on Google engineering. With lots of money, the brute force needed to solve the problems of old-style brute force content processing problems were solvable. Google built an infrastructure stuffed with technology that could index content, match ads, track and analyze user behavior, and rework data to create new information. The information perpetual motion machine was almost in reach. The problem, however, was that by 2007, the notion of using curators to provide clues to importance was becoming better understood. To recap, Google built a huge operation to handle brute force problems but new competitors found ways to offer alternatives at lower cost using such methods and user curated content and user cues. Google does this, of course, but not as well as Facebook, to cite one example. The third sense of “social”, then, is that Google has not been able to use the social inputs as effectively as other firms.
I know that by focusing on “social” I am simplifying, just as the author of “The Challenge of Being Google” has streamlined his argument. I think there is value in identifying one factor and looking at Google through that filter. My present view is that Google has a social problem, and I don’t see a quick, easy, or sure-fire way to address this issue.
Stephen E Arnold, November 17, 2010
Freebie
Can You Digg It?
November 17, 2010
Automated systems with user generated content operate by rules different from those of traditional newspapers and magazines. Crowds can become mobs. Publishers prefer more genteel behaviors.
Digg, once your typical social information service, has now taken a vital step to become a market for socialization and newsgathering.
The site recently added a breaking news module and community team to aggregate should-be front page stories in efforts to become a source of news, says “Digg Adds Editors to Break News Faster.”
In the past, stories that garnered the most votes from users were then posted as front page articles, often taking a few hours for breaking news to become appropriate headlines. In today’s terms of real-time breaking news, this lengthy process made Digg a less than ideal destination for news junkies.
But with the addition of a new editorial layer, breaking news will now be posted in a more timely fashion for the typical online news seekers.
As the article says, the editors’ decisions “won’t directly affect the content that appears on the front page, but their recommendations will surely influence the stories that the Digg community will vote for.”
Hmm… sounds awfully familiar to Slashdot.
We think Digg is cool but we’d like to see something different and more innovated. Something that doesn’t resemble the recent past. Something…. What’s the word? Oh yeah, “new”. With some erratic online performance and stories that are not on the cutting edge, can you dig the service?
Leah Moody November 17, 2010
Freebie
AOL Morphing into a Digital Publishing Company
November 17, 2010
Some publishing companies are trying to morph into mini-motion picture or video game companies. But AOL is an online company, and it is going a different direction.
The headlines about AOL’s financial performance are sobering: Heavy declines in search and display advertising caused AOL’s quarterly revenue to fall 26 percent.
“I would hope AOL is growing at industry advertising rates at the second half of 2011,” Tim Armstrong, AOL’ s Chief Executive(www.aol.com), said in “AOL Revenue Drops 26 percent on Slumping Ad Sales.”
Armstrong has been trying to turn AOL into a media and entertainment powerhouse instead of its typical and most known image as a dial-up Internet access business.
Will AOL find a pot of gold with its rich media and reinvention of traditional content?
The steep decline in revenue suggests that the company needs to find more advertisers who are willing to spend big bucks with AOL. Advertising revenue fell 27 percent from declines in search, display and third-party ads, totaling $292.8 million.
In addition, revenue fell to $563.5 million in comparison to the $557 million expected by analysts.
A warning from AOL to Yahoo: sell, sell, sell, or risk ending up as an online has-been. We predict a 50/50 chance that Yahoo’s next challenge will be similar to AOL’s advertising dilemma. AOL needs to find a path to the end of the rainbow. The company needs a pot of gold to cope with the presence of Facebook, Apple, and a couple of other “with it” companies.
Leah Moody November 17, 2010
Freebie
MaxxCAT Stresses Speed and Openness
November 17, 2010
MaxxCAT has released a new version of their enterprise search solution that allows developers and programmers to customize the platform for their own needs. The press release “MaxxCAT, the World’s Fastest Search Appliance, Now the Most Open Too” details the reasons why MaxxCAT took this step. According to the write up, “The MaxxCAT Lynx Connector framework is an open specification with dedicated kernel support on the appliance that will allow developers, integrators and connector foundries to tap into MaxxCAT’s extreme performance search hardware.”
Users have apparently been requesting this feature and MaxxCAT has launched this product to meet their needs. However, we are concerned at the proliferation of search appliances on the market. Developers have to babysit these appliances and constantly monitor them, taking precious time away from other vital activities. In addition, these appliances are expensive and it’s tough to keep up with the technology that each appliance uses.
We are cautious about hardware or software that is billed as the “fastest.” We are also careful about “open”. Oracle and Apple seem to be nibbling away at certain open software and some of developers’ assumptions. You can get more information about MaxxCAT at http://www.maxxcat.com/.
Laura Amos, November 17, 2010
Freebie
Ami Software Media Monitoring Available
November 16, 2010
Ami Software has recently rolled out a media monitoring service, the Ami News Monitor. When this blog last discussed Ami in January 2009, there was some confusion over whether Ami was still in business.
That confusion was cleared up shortly after the original post, and it’s clear that Ami is still a player in search and content processing. The Web site for the Ami News Monitor gives more detail on features of this new solution, including the ability to monitor news in real time, distribute custom newsletters, and utilize a personalized dashboard. Ami says that ease-of-use was the driving factor behind the News Monitor, “allowing subject specific monitoring and analysis to be established immediately with no requirement for specialist knowledge of media or search.” This product sounds promising, especially with the glut of information available that organizations have to wade through. Low profile Ami is on our radar again. Stay tuned.
Some European vendors have a low profile in the United States. The US is a tough market, and it takes more than a Web site and a news release or two to get the money machine cranking.
Laura Amos, November 16, 2010
Freebie
New York Times Wrestles with Online Fees
November 16, 2010
I still pay for daily home delivery of my local paper even though most of the content is available online. However, my local paper is a great deal cheaper than the New York Times, which is $14.80 per week if you’re not in New York. Felix Simon reports in “The NYT’s Subscription Strategy” that not only has the NYT’s subscription rate been rising much faster than inflation, but that its website makes it difficult to find exactly how much you’re paying. Simon asserts that “the NYT has been stealthily hiking rates for decades now, and has signally failed to get a bad reputation for doing so. Clearly, it’s going to continue doing this: it’s one of the few successful business strategies in the newspaper publishing industry, so it’s obvious that the NYT should adopt it.” He goes on to theorize that the New York Times will also attract subscribers to its online subscriptions with lower fees and then surreptitiously start charging more and more. Simon also points out that this is a strategy that only works with older subscribers. I wonder how successful a strategy this can be for the long-term. Not only will the subscriber base eventually age out, but with the economy as it is, how many people can continue glossing over the $769.60 a year on their credit card statements? With so much news, including much of the NYT, available free online, it seems to me that their audience will eventually reach a breaking point.
Alice Wasielewski, November 16, 2010
Freebie
Salesforce and Social
November 16, 2010
I learned a couple of months ago that Salesforce.com is adding collaborative features to its cloud services for businesses and professionals. The shift is logical. The person who alerted me to this social initiative suggested that Salesforce wanted to become the Facebook for business professionals. I am not sure I can see that playing out in the present line up of Salesforce services. But I can see how collaborative and social tools make sense for a group of professionals working for the same organization or working on on a joint project. IBM has the same idea.
When IBM released Cognos 10, they integrated Lotus Connections into their business intelligence solution to increase sharing and collaboration between users. Now Salesforce is launching a solution to compete with Lotus Connections. According to “Salesforce.com’s Chatter, Mobile Knowledge Management and Collaboration” in the new Chatter “the status of important projects and deals are automatically pushed to you” allowing users to stay in the loop. This new solution sounds promising, but can Salesforce hold out against IBM? In our opinion, the “I” in IBM doesn’t stand for innovation. IBM may have to consider acquiring or partnering with Salesforce in order to augment their current offerings and maximize their solutions for today’s needs.
Will Salesforce and IBM collide? Will IBM acquire Salesforce? Google seems to have let its love affair with Salesforce lie fallow. War or peace? We need a Tolstoy to sort out the high stakes games being played out today.
Laura Amos, November 16, 2010
Freebie
Google Tips
November 16, 2010
As a former college student I know how hard it can be to keep up. Through trial and error I’ve found that organization is key to keeping on top of things. This is where 100+Google Tips That Will Save You Time In School comes in. Utilizing Google features like Google Calendar, Google Search, and Google Scholar, takes the guesswork out of class. Written for students, we found some of the tips quite useful; for example:
Find a term in a URL. This handy trick is especially useful when searching blogs, where dates are frequently used in the URL. If you want to know about a topic for that year only and not any other year, type “inurl:2009? and your keyword to find results with your keyword in URLs with 2009 in them.
There are tips for Gmail and other Google services. A happy quack to the Enternalcode crowd.
Stephen E Arnold and Leslie Radcliff, November 13, 2010
Freebie
Mid Tier Consulting Firm Makes Some Wild Email Claims
November 16, 2010
I know it is a drag having to be a thought leader able to sell work. But with each passing month, I see wilder and wilder prognostications about the future. I am waiting for the Patriots Steelers game to begin and thinking about our new Intel Stream podcast, which complements our experimental IntelTrax Web log. Neither of these trial services does much speculation. We focus on what’s going on now.
A case in point is the lousy state of snail mail and email. I get quite a bit of both types, and frankly most of what I receive is crazy junk, wacky missives from art history majors who landed a job at dad’s public relations firm, or a handful of people who think I will revert back to my 25 year old, fun loving, 18 hour a day self.
I stumbled across this write up by tapping links in my iPad: “Social-Networking Services to Replace E-mail as Primary Vehicle for Interpersonal Communications for 20% of Business Users by 2014, says Gartner.” Gartner is one of the mid tier consulting firms that explains the world in unusual ways. The firm relies on a knock off or clone of the old dog-star-cash cow-question mark matrix. When I worked at Booz, Allen, I recall some of the partners’ envy of this nifty way to communicate with often-beleaguered executives at client firms.
A blue suit, white shirt, and discreet tie do not a Bain, BCG, Booz, Allen, or McKinsey consultant make. Underneath the costume — just everyday pretenders. Trick or treat is fun for kids, but maybe not so much fun for those paying for ill considered advice and prognostications built on partial or flawed data, assumptions and facts.
The company, it seems to me, appears to be increasing its handicapping of certain technologies and business trends. A good example is the idea that social networking will “replace” email. Hold on, Harpo. I still get a printed Yellow Pages, a newspaper on paper, and snail mail. New methods of communication complement other methods. In 48 months, my hunch is that messaging will follow the path of Twitter, Facebook, and RockMelt (the social browser built on Chrome). Even the young workers who are lucky enough to get jobs will be using a range of communication methods. Among them will be embedded social communication techniques, but the “replace” is rather stark and unsupported. As a wild and crazy statement, I think it ranks right up there with Google’s clever “move if you don’t like Street View” quip.
Autonomy Outflanks Rivals with Push into Healthcare
November 15, 2010
A Beyond Search Exclusive: Interview with Fernando Lucini
The news in Harrods Creek arrives a day late and a dollar short. We heard that Autonomy, the search and content processing outfit with nearly $1 billion in annual revenues and more than 20,000 customers, has rolled out a new service.
Auminence delivers a vertical solution for the global healthcare industry. Like other Autonomy’s products and services, the solution’s heart is IDOL or what Autonomy calls an “integrated data operating layer.” I think of IDOL as a platform upon which solutions are constructed. Search is one use case for IDOL, which relies on smart numerical recipes. Autonomy IDOL now dispatches problems in video search, fraud detection, big data analytics, and business intelligence.
The firm’s Auminence offering is a vertical play, and it comes at a time when the US healthcare industry is being forced to look for new methods, new systems, and new ways of handling health, medical, wellness, and administrative challenges. Timing is one of Autonomy’s core competencies. The firm’s new healthcare service is as prescient as Autonomy’s move into eDiscovery and collaborative services.
Not surprisingly, Auminence delivers actionable information. The chief architect of the system is Fernando Lucini, an engineer with deep experience in delivering systems that crack tough “big data” problems. He told me:
Think of Autonomy Auminence as a powerful point-of-care analysis dashboard, designed to help the provider make better quality, data-driven, evidence-based, diagnosis decisions. Auminence allows a healthcare professional to combine his or her personal knowledge with the wealth of knowledge that exists on the patient and their symptoms, clinical features, and related diseases – contained in the vast volumes of “human-friendly” information that make up healthcare data.
The user does not require training to use the system. Instead of a laundry list Google-style, Autonomy presents the information in a dashboard and report format. Mr. Lucini said, “We want to reduce the time and cost of tapping into the needed information. We want to help a person rushing to solve a medical problem to maybe save a life. Who wants to work through a list of links. That’s more work. We want to provide answers. Fast.”
Another innovation is Autonomy’s implementation of the service in the cloud. Since the firm acquired Zantaz, Autonomy been advancing its cloud-based services and features at a steady pace. However, what struck me as particularly important was Mr. Lucini’s statement that the service, which is available now (November 15, 2010) supports mobile devices like the Apple iPad and Android phones and tablets.
You can read the full text of the exclusive interview with Mr. Lucini in the ArnoldIT.com Search Wizards Speak collection at this link. One thing is certain: other vendors will have to react and quickly to Autonomy’s well-timed move in the health vertical. For more information about this service, navigate to www.autonomyhealth.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2010
Freebie, but Autonomy promised me a cup of tea when I visit the international online show in December 2010.
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
