Google Adwords and Holiday Bouncies
December 4, 2010
I try to steer clear of the online advertising and search engine optimization baloney. For me, these two “disciplines” are a waste of what little time the 66 year old goose has left. Anyway, the problem is easily fixed by spending money for Google ads. Anyone who wants something for nothing from Google is going to get a quick whipping Math Club style. Sometimes I think I hear the scornful laughter, but it is my imagination from the city of over-hyped food, Paris.
To get an idea about how some pundits view Google’s manipulation of AdWords, you may want to read “Google Quality Score Problems Creating Havoc With Adwords.” For me, this was the juicy bit:
There is a conspiracy theory about changes Google seems to make just prior to the holiday season – major algorithm changes have been made in previous years just before shopping season. There have been changes and it does appear that Google profits from them, but as Michael Gray points out – everyone looks to put their best foot forward just before the shopping season and as a business so does Google.
Yep, coincidence.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2010
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Microsoft Media Madness: Bing Movie Search
December 4, 2010
Will Microsoft ace the Google in movie search? After watching a teen fiddle with the a Google TV in a big box store, that’s a tough question. Meh.
“Bing updates its movie search” on Cnet touts the Microsoft search engine’s revamped cinema page with its larger list of reviews and clips and driving distance to local theaters. With more prominent graphics, it’s much prettier than Google, I’ll give it that. However, in my city I get a much larger list of local theaters, right on the movie’s main page on Google, so I don’t have to click again. I know where the cinemas are in my town, and I usually have some idea of what I want to see, so for me the Google search works a little better.
Cnet’s argument is:
Bing’s revamped movie page is now similar to the one offered by Google.Searching for a movie at Google also shows you local show times, links to reviews, and a video of the movie’s trailer all in one spot. But Bing offers a greater variety and number of reviews and a wider selection of trailers and other clips.
Not really that exciting, in my book., but Bing does have that little extra oomph with the eye candy, which I’m sure many will find appealing.
Alice Wasielewski, December 4, 2010, 2010
Cisco Tandberg Open Source Dust Up
December 4, 2010
Cisco has been pushing, quite aggressively, into different markets. The company’s financial outlook needs a helper app. I listened to the Cisco open source talk about Lucene/Solr in October 2010 at the Lucene Revolution Conference. The information was interesting and did not equip me to determine if “Tandberg Illustrates Stupidity of Software Patent Policy” is accurate or not. The write up asserts that Tandberg, a unit of Cisco, has “invented” a video processing method. An open source developers suggests that Tandberg may have embraced open source with more familiarity than some expect.
I am really not concerned with this matter. What interests me is the possibility that other alleged open source friendly outfits will try to patent open source innovations. I keep having dreams about open source becoming the walled garden of tomorrow.
Worth watching in my opinion because Cisco Tandberg may be quite clever with the help of patent regulations of course.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2010
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Intentional Google Bias Forcing Web Traffic?
December 3, 2010
So much for objective search results. I was fascinated by Benjamin Edelman’s analysis of Google results in “Hard-Coding Bias in Google “Algorithmic” Search Results.”
Google has nearly always loudly and publicly proclaimed its objectivity in search results. Yet, through many examples, Edelman shows how Google tweaks results to put its own links at the very top. These results change dramatically with any variation in search phrasing, which indicates hard-coding. For example, “sore throat” or “acne” result in prominent Google Heath results whereas “a sore throat” or “stop acne” do not.
Even the argument that this may better serve users falls short, as much of this hard-coding doesn’t even save a click. Some of Google’s hard-coding is, in fact, decidedly detrimental to the search. Edelman gives the example of patent searching where a prominent link to Google Patents links to an error message when Google has no information about that patent. How much does this really affect web searching? Edelman says:
It is well-known that the top-most algorithmic link enjoys a large share of search traffic — 34%+ according to Chitika. Meanwhile, even the second link gets less than half as many clicks — less than 17%. If these figures apply equally to Google’s hard-coded links, then every time Google puts its own link first, it takes a third of all available clicks for itself — while cutting by half the traffic provided to the site that would otherwise be ranked first. But Google’s hard-coded links tend to be distinctive and graphic-rich (pictures in Health results, charts in Finance, etc.), so the actual effect is likely to be even larger.
Edelman also points out that Google often uses its algorithms as a defense against antitrust accusations, a defense full of holes with Edelman’s analysis. Should we agree with Edelman that Google needs to address these charges and change its ways or face the consequences.
Alice Wasielewski, December 3, 2010
Microsoft vs Google in the Government
December 3, 2010
I am sitting in snowy England. Chaucer did not document London in the grip of winter and pilgrimages to Tesco. I had some time to read “Microsoft Lashes at Google GSA Cloud Contract.” I am not sure who has what contract. I am pretty far removed from the US government’s procurement activities. What does interest me is this statement:
“There’s no doubt that businesses are talking to Google, and hearing their pitch,” Tom Rizzo, senior director of Microsoft Online Services, wrote in a Dec. 1 posting on the Why Microsoft blog, “but despite all the talk, Google can’t avoid the fact that [oftentimes] they cannot meet the basic requirements.” Rizzo then accused Google’s enterprise offerings of “inadequate product support, failure to provide a roadmap, poor interoperability with other [lines] of business applications and limited functionalities.” Large public-sector organizations, he added, “have consistently valued Microsoft’s cloud offerings not only because of our deep understanding of enterprise organizations, but also for their ease of use, security and privacy capabilities.”
Assume this is accurate. If so, then the rhetoric seems to be shifting from casual commenting to specific weaknesses. What this means is that the present economic climate is growing tiny shoots of hostility. I think a few of these will sprout into mighty oaks of anger. Should be entertaining and useful as a way to see how large firms compete today. What constitutes a “bad company”? A question I shall ponder.
Stephen E Arnold, December 3, 2010
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People Search: Potentially a Big Problem for Google
December 3, 2010
I am not much on the social thing. Geese flock, just not in Facebook. Geese land in Harrod’s Creek. We eat some bugs, honk at friends, and then move on. In “Social Media’s Interaction With Content More Trustworthy Than Google Search”, there is a different way to tap into information. Despite the reference to a graphic comic book, the guts of the idea seems sound. Humans curate comment better than Google’s algorithms in certain situations. What! People better than the Math Club’s numerical recipes? Here’s a heretical passage:
So whether you categorize LIKES as ‘social links’ or ‘peoplelinks,’ the Open Graph appears to be gaining traction over Google’s old school SERPs (search engine result pages). Since LIKES can be tied back to a specific user, searchers of content can now determine whether a link is vetted by people they follow and trust. However since Google and Facebook are rivals, and ‘don’t play nice together,’ it would take a lot for Google to gain access to Facebook’s social graph data to incorporate into their ranking algorithm. According to Clay, he thinks that “we’re going to see that LIKES and referrals and recommendations (will cause) a general shift towards ‘quality’ of sites (not quantity),” and that Google’s methodology will lose out to Facebook.
Potential trouble for the Google:
- Different demographic may embrace Facebook. Control of a demographic is a big deal.
- Advertisers may want the details about a specific membership centric demographic
- Facebook has screwed up and kept on going. Google has screwed up and seems to have another major ship on the rocks. I refer not to Street View or its staff retention problems. I refer to Google TV.
The Facebook Google thing is similar to the North Korea – South Korea thing. Fighting cousins.
Stephen E Arnold, December 5, 2010
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diaTM: A Search Changer?
December 3, 2010
Search Engine Watch reports new research into search with a technique called dialect topic modeling, or diaTM for short. “Could a New Technique Change How Search Engines Work?” explains that Georgia Tech researchers have come up with a new technique that uses, as SEW’s Frank Watson describes it, “a form of keyword or semantic latency to associate terms and long tail searches to provide better search results.” The search engine compares documents written at different levels of medical knowledge, from the vernacular to the highly technical, and the system learns which terms are associated, thereby shrinking the gap between language health consumers use and more technical medical language. The question remains, though, how well will this scale to other types of searches? The GA Tech researchers claim that their 25% improvement rate can be applied to any area, including texting language, but I’m skeptical. The initial results from medical searches are promising, but performance on a larger scale remains to be proven.
Alice Wasielewski, December 3, 2010
Facebook, the Pain of Change, and the Web
December 3, 2010
I have been thinking about the sky-is-falling message in Tim Berners-Lee analysis of Facebook. Widely reported, the “inventor of the Web” sees Facebook as a flea carrying bubonic evil in the fur of entrepreneurs. In short, Facebook represents a shift from the Wild Web Web to a walled garden with security cameras and listening devices.
You can get a breezy run down of the anti-change message in the current Scientific American essay.
I can visualize a scene around the campfire in what would become Kansas. The conversationalists don’t have Facebook pages but both work for an outfit paying them to ride a bunch of horses in serial like Christmas tree lights from one cow town to another.
Cowboy 1: What’cha think of that tel-ee-graph thing?
Cowboy 2: I think it’s-a goin’ to be less personal than us’ns takin’ the mail to folks we know.
Cowboy 1: Yep, I think it is the end of the mail delivery as we know it.
Cowboy 2: I would like to shoot the varmints that want to ruin a perfectly good way to communicate.
I think I could have heard a grousing clay tablet expert yammer about papyrus. The print dudes are struggling with twisted knickers over digital today.
What’s a-goin’ on today, partner?
First, the good old Web is already gone. Email is collateral damage. The mantra of Gordon Gekko has enchanted enough people to make information the equivalent of manipulated messages. So, the Web is dead and it is not coming back. Ever.
Second, the pace of change is accelerating. The reason is money, not what users need or think each needs. Greed is good and greed is transformative.
Third, walled gardens solve a lot of problems. Customers are chained to specific vendors. Captivity is what makes accountants happy. Captive customers behave in a predictable way and for budgeting purposes, that predictability is the chief good.
One can take different sides of the argument. That diversity is what passes for critical thinking today. Before grousing about Facebook, I think it is useful to look at the data. Facebook has stickiness, 650 million users, and a growing arsenal of features. Why go anywhere else?
Research has been changed. I like the word “devolve”. The Web is on a long hill with a street named decline. Remember the telephone and its early supporters’ idea that it would be used to disseminate important news. The phone today is the stuff that makes 12 years old have goose bumps. Change. Already accomplished.
Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, December 3, 2010
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What’s going on?
Modern Monopolies: Looking the Wrong Way
December 2, 2010
Far be it from me, an addled goose, pushing 70, living in rural Kentucky to disagree with super-poobahs. You can point your browser thing at “Should We Be Afraid of Apple, Google and Facebook?” and get a damning indictment and a rousing cheer for big business.
Neither the guru nor the professor are looking at the issue in the light of day. I am. Here’s the scoop. Familiarize yourself with Jacques Ellul, a dude of little or no interest to gurus or professors today. Dude Ellul was a Catholic priest, a Marxist, and generally pragmatic about technology and its alleged benefits.
His writings about technology are not what attract clicks on Reddit or Digg. There’s no Facebook page for Le bluff technologique. Paris: Hachette, 1988. Not too many tweets either.
Dude Ellul’s view is that technology triggers a chain of events. Some events have unexpected consequences. The really bad consequences get fixed by applying more technology. There you have it.
The company’s that the guru and the professor impugn cannot help themselves. The context in which each operates rewards their actions in many ways. Technology is now an end in itself.
Forget Skynet and other crazy robot-alien fantasies. The world is plugged in. Paraphrasing another professor who was mostly wrong is plugged in and ungovernable.
For search and content this means, in my opinion:
- Consumers cannot discern or filter content. Whatever is out there is okay for most folks. Think a different type of serfdom.
- Political entities lack the tools to operate in any other way than tactical response. A plan is almost guaranteed to go off the rails but you can “manage” with Pivotal Tracker, not share context.
- Companies are like hapless sharks who can never rest.
There are what look like monopolies. Monopolies are an illusion. We have an environment produced by technology and those who would use it for instrumental purposes.
Dude Ellul is more right than the guru and the professor in my opinion. I am glad I am old. Dude Ellul is probably glad he has leveled up.
Stephen E Arnold, December 2, 2010
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Pricing 2011
December 2, 2010
When you read this article, the deal train may have left the station. Beyond Search is not a news publication, much to the chagrin of the Buffies and Trents who work in the “real news” game. The information in “Big Sale: Get Intellexer Summarizer and Categorizer with 50% Discount” is of interest to us in Harrod’s Creek because it hints at pricing 2011. According to the write up:
Save up to 50% with special sale offer from EffectiveSoft by ordering Summarizer or Categorizer tools in this year…. Intellexer Summarizer and Categorizer are semantic solutions intended for knowledge retrieval and data management. Categorizer will automatically organize a large amount of text files, and Summarizer will spare you reading the entire document and save your time for leisure. EffectiveSoft’s products are based on semantic platform Intellexer SDK (a unique product released by R&D department for knowledge management). In addition to proprietary products development EffectiveSoft company enhances existing customer application with the power of semantic technologies.
EffectiveSoft is located in Minsk, Belarus and was founded in 2000. The company is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner. More information is available at http://www.effectivesoft.com/.
Translation, summarization, leveling up, and bird’s-eye views are spilling into and across market segments. Customer support, business intelligence, and eDiscovery vendors want to process multiple languages and perform a range of content “value adds”. You can learn more about this particular offer at:
http://summarizer.intellexer.com
http://categorizer.intellexer.com
The question we asked ourselves was, “Will a lower price expand the market for these types of content processing systems?”
We know that some of the vendors following the path blazed by i2 Ltd 20 years ago are charging hefty fees for their systems. Other useful products like Inxight’s ThingFinder have dropped completely off our radar. In short, there is feverish activity in advanced content processing.
Maybe even more drastic price cuts are a way to fame and fortune? The problem is that a clever lad or lass can push some interesting software via open source or a giant troll of a company can just give advanced text processing away to get the maintenance and engineering services business.
Worth watching this pricing trend.
Stephen E Arnold, December 2, 2010
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