Farewell, Google. Hello, LinkedIn
December 21, 2010
Former Endeca co-founder and chief scientist, Daniel Tunkelang, who jumped ship to Google, protesting that he was not working on its ecommerce technology has left and gone to work on the data science team at LinkedIn, a social networking outfit using Lucene for search and retrieval.
In a recent Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal article, “Another Google Exec Leaves for LinkedIn”. ), Tunkelang said “the decision to leave Google was agonizing, but that he was excited to work with a data set he had coveted for years.”
Those social content and services companies exert a powerful magnetism on Xooglers it seems.
Christina Sheley, December 21, 2010
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Enterprise Search: Baloney Six Ways, like Herring
December 21, 2010
When my team and I discussed my write up about the shift of some vendors from search to business intelligence, quite a bit of discussion ensued.
The idea that a struggling vendor of search—most often an outfit with older technology—“reinvents” itself as a purveyor of business intelligence systems—is common evoked some strong reactions.
One side of the argument was that an established set of methods for indexing unstructured content could be extended. The words used to describe this digital alchemy were Web services, connectors, widgets, and federated content. Now these are or were useful terms. But what happens is that the synthetic nature of English makes it easy to use familiar sounding words in a way to perform an end run around the casual listener’s mental filters. It is just not polite to ask a vendor to define a phrase like business intelligence. The way people react is to nod in a knowing manner and say “for sure” or “I’ve got it.”
Have you taken steps to see through the baloney passed off as enterprise search, business intelligence, and knowledge management?
The other side of the argument was that companies are no longer will to pay big money for key word retrieval. The information challenge requires a rethink of what information is available within and to an organization. Then a system developed to “unlock the nuggets” in that treasure trove is needed. This side of the argument points to the use of systems developed for certain government agencies. The idea is that a person wanting to know which supplier delivers the components with the fewest defects needs an entirely different type of system. I understand this side of the argument. I am not sure that I agree but I have heard this case so often, the USB with the MP3 of the business intelligence sound file just runs.
As we approach 2011, I think a different way to look at the information access options is needed. To that end, I have created a tabular representation of information access. I call the table and its content “The Baloney Scorecard, 2011.”
Two Interesting Signs for Google in 2011
December 20, 2010
I am perched in an airport ready to head south. Way south for some work and relaxation. In the secure area of the terminal, I noted two news stories that the poobahs see as unrelated events. Some pundits may sense these events which I shall document are connected but “real” journalists often leave dots as Donne-like islands. I am enjoy connecting dots, a privilege for those over 65 and mostly unemployed and ignored like other senior citizens.
Dot one: “Mark Zuckerberg’s Beijing Adventure.” The story in Gawker points out that Facebook’s wizard is going to visit Baidu, the number one search system in China. My take: If these two outfits find common ground, the relationship will have some repercussions for the Google. A Facebook – Baidu chat is interesting to me.
Dot two: “Google TV Faces Delays as CES Turns into a No-Show for New Products.” This story makes clear that Google’s TV play is not ready for prime time. Great dot, and you can see one possible reason by reading the draft chapter for a monograph I am sitting on until the TV dust settles. Google needed technology from a company with pretty good tie ups in the media world. The deal did not happen, and it is one reason why other services are scoring lay ups and the Google is tossing in shots from the parking lot. Here’s the link and the info is offered as is in rough draft form. Google has made a series of significant investments in rich media and, well, the linked story provides some color on the “no show” angle.
How does a 66 year old connect these two. Straightedge, pencil and an infinitely Euclidean long line pointing to Trouble Lane in Orangeburg, SC, not a place many Googlers want to be in 2011. I don’t recall Orangeburg as a hot bed of social and rich media activity for Google. Maybe I am wrong? Heading out.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2010
Freebie unlike this airplane ticket
SAS Juices Up Text Mining
December 20, 2010
SAS has updated their Predictive Analytics & Data Mining page, and of particular note is their updated version of SAS Text Miner, which can be used to grasp trends from unstructured text without the user having to be familiar with the contents.
Text Miner “provides complete views and meaningful insights within an integrated predictive modeling environment. Automating manual comprehension of the textual data sources, incorporating interactive drill-down reporting, and delivering algorithms for rigorous advanced analyses make it possible to grasp future trends and act on new opportunities more efficiently and with less risk.“ The 4.2 version includes not only a high-performance search capability, but also enhanced spell-check and the processing of multiple topics for each document and includes new text parsing, topic, and filter nodes.
The difference of SAS Text Miner versus any other text mining solution is that SAS has the best data mining algorithms and the simplest interface for managing and importing data, and SAS integrates its text mining capabilities into its data mining solution better than anyone else.
Alice Wasielewski, December 20, 2010
Gepi: The Open Source Graphing Tool
December 20, 2010
A New Year’s Day treat!
Want to create open source graphs with lots of pretty colors? The O’Reilly Radar recommends “Strata Gems: Explore and Visualize Graphs with Gephi.” This program allows you to turn any form of data into a graph. Gepi is an open source project great to analyze networks and data. It can be used on all the major operating systems is described as a “Photoshop for data.”
“Graphs can be loaded and created using many common graph file formats, and explored interactively. Hierarchical graphs such as social networks can be clustered in order to extract meaning. Gephi’s layout algorithms automatically give shape to a graph to help exploration, and you can tinker with the colors and layout parameters to improve communication and appearance.”
Another great feature Gephi offers is that it is extensible through plugins. These will allow you to export and publish the data on the web and experiment with other layouts. Gephi appears to be a quick and easy way to study data, plus the color options will keep your artistic side happy. Get Gephi at http://gephi.org/.
Whitney Grace, December 20, 2010
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Webinar Finder from Peelon
December 20, 2010
We’ve recently stumbled upon a promising new resource at Peelon.com. To put it in their own words, Peelon.com “is a webinar directory and can be used as a webinar search engine” AND it is absolutely free of charge, not to mention free of advertising. Peelon vows to do just two things: help find a webinar, or help promote a webinar. After only having investigated the site for minutes, the straightforward, no frills functionality was easily harnessed.
The querying capability is there, allowing the user to sort all available records by date or time, industry and type of webinar. It wouldn’t be surprising to see these initial option categories expanding with increased traffic. But for now, if those options are not sufficient to pinpoint the e-lecture of choice, there is a search box to enter any relevant words or phrase. The results can be filtered by date, comments or even popularity.
Click on any webinar and one will find all the pertinent details spelled out: date, time, description etc. Curiosity led me to check out the “Add new webinar” link which prompted a page of empty webinar details waiting for user input. By the looks of it, the process to post a webinar can’t take longer than five minutes and even that includes one coffee break.
All in all, this site is free of clutter, hassle and just plain free. You won’t hear any complaining here!
Sarah Rogers, December 20, 2010
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Salesforce and Chatter
December 20, 2010
I was surprised when Salesforce hired a former journalist to push collaboration and attention to Salesforce staff and clients. I was interested in ZDNet’s alliterative touch in Chatter Free in “With Free Version, Salesforce Chatter Changes Collaboration, Communication Processes for Companies.” Chatter Free premiered at the Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference. It is a free social messaging platform that can be used by any employee within a company. It has features similar to Twitter and Facebook and endeavors to be used in atypical environments. More than 60,000 professional companies use Chatter at the moment.
“What was especially interesting was to hear the customers talk about the significance of Chatter when it comes to collaboration within the organization. Some spoke of launching Chatter as an experimental service and getting immediate feedback from employees who were worried that the experiment would end. Others suggested that an employee without access to Chatter is like having an employee without access to e-mail – unable to communicate and collaborate in real-time.”
Employees have found they are e-mailing less and Chatter has increased work productivity. To many, Chatter is becoming the preferred method of communication in business organizations. However, information sharing in the Intel community may be moving in the opposite direction. Just a reminder that point of view is important. And what’s that old adage, “Loose lips sink ships”? What could leak from an enterprise social cloud service? Nothing.
Whitney Grace, December 20, 2010
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Click Fraud: It Is Back as an Issue
December 20, 2010
Short honk: Where there are humans, there will be excitement. Click fraud is one topic that lots of folks want to keep out of the “real” media and blogs like this one. “Click Fraud: What Is Your Ad Network Doing About It?” flips over the rock. Any hard evidence? Sort of. Our view is that click fraud is as prevalent as other types of computer misbehavior. We are going to let you figure out whether those ad dollars are working for you. The goose does not advertise. You may. How is that investment working out for you?
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2010
Freebie unlike online advertising
Arnold Comments about Exalead
December 20, 2010
A couple of times a year, I make a swing through Europe. I visit vendors, get demos, and talk with engineers about the future of search. In Paris on November 30, 2010, I answered questions about my views of Exalead. As you know, Exalead is a unit of Dassault Systems, one of the most sophisticated engineering firms in the world. You can get my view of Exalead by navigating to this link. Here’s an example of the observations I made:
“Exalead delivers applications that fit seamlessly and smoothly into customer workflows,” said Arnold. “When I spoke with Exalead customers I heard only: ‘This system works,’ ‘It’s easy to use,’ ‘It’s stable,’ and ‘I don’t have to chase around.”
In the interview, I point out that Exalead’s engineering makes it possible to embed search and information access in applications. Instead of using key words to unlock the information in a traditional search and retrieval system, Exalead makes the needed information available within existing work flows and applications. Access extends across a full range of content types and devices, including smart phones.
I have tracked Exalead for a number of years, and it continues to distinguish itself in information access by going “Beyond Search.” Here at Beyond Search we use the Exalead platform for our Overflight service.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2010
The Exalead engineering team bought me lunch, a plus in Paris. Too bad about the snow and ice, though.
Diseases: Cash Cowitis Stikes GOOG and MSFT
December 19, 2010
Short honk: Enjoyable write up about the cash cow disease here. Definitely worth a look. The analysis, in my opinion, is on target. My view is that the problem, however, alter the DNA of the affected entity. Progeny manifest symptoms in their subsequent actions. So far. No known cure.
Stephen E Arnold, December 19, 2010
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