Amazon, Google, and eBooks: Retail vs Search
January 9, 2011
I read “3 Ways Google Can Succeed in E-Books.” Interesting. I sat on the write up and my initial ideas until I had more information from the Consumer Electronics Show. CES was, I hoped, going to provide me concrete information about Android-based tablets. Well, there were tablets. My hunch is that the success of the Android tablet may have something to do with the success of Google’s e-book initiative.
Based on our research into Google’s machinations disclosed in open sources, we think Google may have a steep hill to climb. Think of a 12 year old slogging up Mt. Kilimanjaro. The “climb” is a walk, and if you are not in reasonable shape, you will not make it to the summit with your collected works of Ernest Hemmingway.
First, the notion that Google must win over, cater to, or somehow leverage independent bookstores is a great idea—just one of those anachronisms like the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Bookstores are in deep doo doo, and I am not sure how one wins over, caters to, or leverages the moribund. Not far from Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, we have one independent bookstore. The goslings and I shop there in order to help the shop out. I see more knick nacks which is a sign post saying, “The margins for books suck. Buy an expensive book light.” Good luck to any analyst who wants to build a hedge fund on book stores.
Second, Google has lots of hardware partners. The challenge is to find a way to get those folks to behave like fire ants on the way to a meal. With Andoid 2.3 available as open source, the hardware folks may say, “Thanks. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” Think forks, fragmentation, and proprietary behavior. Maybe not today, but I see these clouds on the horizon. Amazon and Sony have at this time been aced by Apple in the hardware department, and Google has to find a way to deal with the reality of consumer electronics that generates substantive revenues. I suppose Google can start reporting in Amazon fuzzy units. Victory is for Google indeed possible, but online behaves in mysterious ways. Cheaper definitely does not work. Better maybe if style and cachet are the key factors. Faster. Faster may be out of the hands of the Google. Faster has been a mantra for a while, and, frankly, I don’t think I know what faster means. Some of Google’s nifty new services seem sluggish to us.
Third, online commerce was supposed to be a slam dunk for Froogle, now, Google Shopping. I use Checkout, but only after I check to see if Amazon has a better offer. The dust up over Google’s app stores and their functionality may be over, but there are some payment methods in place that work reasonably well and some of the payment schemes workwell and have a strong position; examples include Amazon, Apple, and the on again off again PayPal. Can Google become the go-to payment system? The go to shopping system for mobile users? The go to price look up system? The go to deal system for the Groupon crazed crowd? Lots of opportunities. How many have slipped away from the ageing GOOG.
Fourth, Google is late to the party. Now I know that The Art of War talks about sitting back and striking when the enemy is listening to iPod music after dinner around the apple wood camp fire. What better time to show up and slaughter the winners? Our interpretation of our research data suggests that Google is no longer very good in the 100 yard dash. Heck, when it comes to social media, Google is challenged getting up the front stairs to Frye’s in Palo Alto. I hear the heavy breathing and the chuckles from the Xooglers at Facebook. Google is 12 and slowing down. Examples of Google’s agility are welcome. Plug them into the comments form on this blog. Maybe Google’s new entrepreneurial organizational set up will toss faerie dust around? We hope so.
Fifth, lock in and habitual behavior are challenges for Google and its partners. Once habits are formed in online, those bowling ball gutters are tough to change. Google’s dominance in search is one example. Other examples include Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon in eBooks. Google can change habits by 10 step programs and rehab.
The question is, “Can Google take the right actions at the right time?”This question has greater urgency now because Amazon has opened its own Android store. I wonder if Mr. Bezos wants to be positioned to deal with this retail opportunity than a search-and-advertising specialist.
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2010
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Google Rebounds after Groupon Rejection
January 9, 2011
Now that Groupon, the daily deal/coupon provider, has rebuffed their acquisition advances, it looks like Google is on the rebound with thoughts of starting a coupon service of their own. Groupon uses technology but the company relies on old fashioned humans to make sales. Thus, Groupon is a different type of organization from some of those Google has courted.
The WebNewser article “Marissa Mayer on Google’s Failed Groupon Bid” provides the following quote from Ms. Mayer, Google VP of customer products. “When you look at our overall suite of services, especially around our advertising, we already have some things that are like [Groupon]. We have things like coupons and offer-extension ads that allow merchants to basically make offers to our users. And, so we’re looking at how can we take that technology and put it to use especially in the location space.”
If this is the case, why romance Groupon in the first place? In my opinion, talk of a new venture is Google’s jilted comeback of “I didn’t really like you that much anyway.”
A larger question is, “Has Google missed the social media train?” The idea that another train will be coming along shortly works for travelers in Switzerland. Will the same expectation work for social media, social content, and social search?
Christina Sheley, January 9, 2011
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Booz, Allen: Azure Chip Status Validated
January 9, 2011
The split of the “old” Booz, Allen & Hamilton was a Yogi Berra déjà vu moment. Booz, Allen & Hamilton tried the public company route 40 years ago. The step was reversed and BAH became a privately held firm once the money tree had been shaken. In 2010, BAH, once in the same league as McKinsey and Bain, split into two parts: Booz in New York and Booz Allen Hamilton in Washington, DC. My view is that consulting firms are difficult companies to manage, not impossible, of course, just tough. One of the challenges for publicly-traded consulting companies is the hassle of conforming to the 12 week lockstep of the SEC. Another annoyance is the fact that outsiders can review the financial data, plug them into one of those MBA spreadsheets, and generate more ratios than anyone has time to review. When an oddity surfaces, then the excitement begins.
Navigate to “Shares of Booz Allen Hamilton Rank the Highest in terms of Debt To Equity Ratio in the IT Consulting & Other Services Industry” and you will see an example of the types of insight such scrutiny delivers. The main point of the write up is, in my opinion:
Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE:BAH) has a Debt/Equity ratio of 2.45x based on total debt of $1.5 billion. Gartner (NYSE:IT) has a Debt/Equity ratio of 1.95x based on total debt of $300 million.
International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) has a Debt/Equity ratio of 1.23x based on total debt of $27.5 billion.
What this means is that the publicly traded chunk of BAH is performing less well than the azure chip outfit, Gartner Group. If the data are accurate, it means that the publicly traded BAH is now a verified azure chip consulting firm.
Gartner, as you may know, opines about the future of search and other types of technology. The staff is hard working and focused on making sales. Closing deals is a great skill. BAH is going to be focused on explaining why a once blue-chip outfit is dragging around a big chunk of debt. Sure, the debt can be explained just like the old BAH Minerva search effort and BAH’s missing out on a couple of big procurements in FY2010. Consulting firms unable to manage their own finances may not be the consulting firms prospects looking for guidance that works hire.
Welcome, BAH to the azure chip ranks. Now the firm needs to hire more English majors, unemployed journalists, and failed Web masters. Profitability and debt reduction await once those staff costs are cut and reported in a 10-K. Just my view, of course.
Stephen E Arnold, January 9, 2011
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Living Google, Loving It
January 8, 2011
I don’t know much about Mark Cuban. I am familiar with his name, and I think he owns an outfit doing metasearch called Ice Rocket. Don’t bet on my memory, however. I read an interesting write up that was part fact, part jab at the Google. Navigate to “Am I Living the Google Lifestyle? You will find some interesting comments about Google’s products and services, but one passage struck me as quite interesting. Here it is:
YouTube’s fundamental business problem is that they are in business of subsidizing ALL/100pct of the bandwidth and hosting costs of consumer and small to medium size business video. That is a huge problem. Our ability to capture ever-increasing amounts of video at ever-increasing bit rates is growing exponentially. How happy are companies like Cisco knowing that the better they make their FLip cameras , with more storage and better resolution, the more money Google/YouTube has to spend as people host it on their servers and use their bandwidth to show to their friends and family. Of course it’s also costing Facebook more and more money. Which has created an interesting dynamic as both compete to host video.
I think this is ambiguous. On the surface, it is a useful insight into Google’s attracting customers with free (subsidized) services. However, the other angle suggests to me that Google can enjoy the steady increase in costs required to make video free.
My view is that Google has lots of cash coming in. Subsidizing works. Just ask Mr. Cuban.
Stephen E Arnold, January 8, 2011
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A Theory of Android Stickiness
January 8, 2011
Can mathematics, specifically Metcalfe’s Law, be used to explain the assumption that mobile phone users will stick with a particular platform like Android for a lifetime? The recent Asymco.com blog post “How Sticky is the Android” makes this attempt.
After a lengthy explanation, author Horace Dediu surmises that mathematically, stickiness can be derived from the equation “value of a platform is K n log(n), where K is the stickiness of sunk costs.” He goes on to say that “in the end it’s not just about how big the user base n is (which is the only thing that is measurable), it’s how contiguous n is and how compelling the content,” making these important factors in keeping individual’s engaged with a particular platform.
A must read for those interested in more theoretical explanation of consumer behavior. There have been anecdotes about the “value” of the iPhone to AT&T. These rumors pivot on the data consumption of an iPhone user compared to a user of a BlackBerry or other mobile device. Stickiness may be partly defined by data consumption. Will a fast and efficient search service reduce stickiness or increase it? There’s more work to be done on the subject of stickiness.
Christina Sheley, January 8, 2011
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Will DuckDuckGo Ruffle Feathers?
January 8, 2011
Search engine DuckDuckGo’s new marketing campaign, summarized in Search Engine Journal’s “DuckDuckGo Pitches Private Search” ) says that what differentiates them from Google is privacy—they don’t store personal Internet data or associate it with a user account.
The heavy-handed marketing maneuver is being touted by DuckDuckGo founder and sole employee Gabriel Weinberg in a Search Engine Land report as an educational tactic. “I am trying to make the privacy aspects of search engines understandable to the average person who doesn’t have a lot of background knowledge on the more technical aspects.”
We are interested to see if Weinberg’s approach ruffles the feathers of the average searcher. Will they sit up and take notice of the privacy issue or does the attempt fly south?
Christina Sheley, January 8, 2011
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Wikileaks and Metadata
January 7, 2011
ITReseller’s “Working to Prevent Being the Next Wikileak? Don’t Forget the Metadata.” is worth a look. The write up calls attention to indexing as part of an organization’s buttoning up its document access procedures.
ITReseller says this about metadata:
A key part of the solution is metadata – data about data (or information about information) – and the technology needed to leverage it. When it comes to identifying sensitive data and protecting access to it, a number of types of metadata are relevant: user and group information, permissions information, access activity, and sensitive content indicators. A key benefit to leveraging metadata for preventing data loss is that it can be used to focus and accelerate the data classification process.. In many instances the ability to leverage metadata can speed up the process by up to 90 percent, providing a shortlist of where an organisation’s most sensitive data is, where it is most at risk, who has access to it and who shouldn’t. Each file and folder, and user or group, has many metadata elements associated with it at any given point in time – permissions, timestamps, location in the file system, etc. – and the constantly changing files and folders generate streams of metadata, especially when combined with access activity. These combined metadata streams become a torrent of critical metadata. To capture, analyze, store and understand so much metadata requires metadata framework technology specifically designed for this purpose.
Some good points here, but what raised our eyebrows was the thought that organizations have not yet figured out how to “index”. Automation is a wonderful thing; however, the uses of metadata are often anchored in humans. One can argue that humans need play no part in indexing or metadata.
We don’t agree. Maybe organizations will take a fresh look at adding trained staff to tackle metadata. By closing in house libraries, many organizations lost the expertise needed to deal with some of the indexing issues touched upon in the article.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2011
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Is Google Chasing Dessert and Ignoring the Main Course?
January 7, 2011
We love the Google in Harrod’s Creek? The Street View picture of our office is now a bush. Our listing is in “review” and has been for months. The goose finds these actions amusing.
“Google’s Decreasingly Useful, Spam-Filled Web Search” keeps an earlier write up’s points alive despite the gingerbread. (You can read the source of the Marco.org information at this link.) Among the points, the subject of “spam” is the most interesting in our opinion.
One person’s spam may be another person’s dinner on a cruise ship. Our view is that a Google query is a useful adjunct to other research actions.
Is Google increasingly becoming an outsider for certain types of online research?
For example, yesterday we had to dig up quickly some information from our Overflight archive about a “relaxed SQL” search vendor. Here’s what we did to locate the items of information:
First, we ran the general query on Exalead’s search at www.exalead.com/search. This index is not distorted by advertisements and has more than 10 billion pages in its index. We also use the Exalead engine for Overflight. We then did the query on Blekko.com (www.blekko.com) and plucked specific results before navigating to Web sites. Yep, old fashioned pre-retrieval vetting. Still works at ArnoldIT.
Second, we ran queries for the company’s founder, who is in indexes under several spelling variants. We think spelling variants are quite interesting, particularly when the vendor is involved in licensing technology to what seem to be “dating” or “meeting people” services. The systems we used were:
- Cluuz.com at www.cluuz.com. This appears to be a Yahoo BOSS service implemented on content in the Bing.com/Yahoo.com index
- The Google News Archive at http://news.google.com/archivesearch, using the advanced search functions to get the string variants
- Icerocket at http://www.icerocket.com/
- Collecta at http://www.collecta.com
Third, we did our patent searching using my favorite site, the USPTO at www.uspto.gov.
Notice that we did not use the general Google Web index. There were four reasons:
- Relevancy, unless the advanced search features are used for the query, is focused on the person looking for Lady Gaga, not “relaxed SQL”
- The date of documents is important to us and we find that figuring out the date of an item and the freshness of the Google index a bit of a challenge and frankly not worth the effort
- The automatic truncation and spelling correction functions override what’s stipulated in certain situations. When looking for proper name variants, I don’t want automatic anything. I want to see what I typed in the search query string
- The 32 billion Web pages, the ads, and the other stuff jammed into a Google results display are mental clutter for me. I now avoid trying to figure out what’s what by using other services.
How did we do? We learned from the outfit asking us to perform the research that we surfaced information that directly supported what the company developing “relaxed SQL” was saying in briefings.
Mission accomplished using Google as one component in a secondary process. That’s quite a change from our original dependence on Google in 2002.
My hunch is that Google is nearly perfect and the change in our Web search method is a result of mental degradation here in Harrod’s Creek. If you are dependent on Google, good for you.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2011
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Oracle Documentation for SES11g
January 7, 2011
On a phone call yesterday (January 5, 2011), we learned that Oracle has a public documentation page at this location. The point made during the conversation was that this Oracle documentation page does not include an explicit link to either Oracle Text or Oracle’s enterprise search systems, Oracle SES10g and SES11g.
Frankly, we did not believe this statement. We took a look.
We found that the person telling us about this omission was partially correct. If you download the documentation for the Oracle Database, there are references to Oracle Text. We did not spot a direct link on this Oracle page to the company’s enterprise search system.
You cannot locate the documentation by running the query “SES11g” from this link.
So what do you do if you want SES11g documentation?
Well, you have to do some scouting around. If you click, this link, you will get the PDF of “Oracle Universal Content Management.” The document was dated May 2010, and the information in that file will get you rolling.
We had in our bookmarks a link to a Web page on the Oracle site called “Oracle Secure Enterprise Search”. You can get what appears to be reasonably complete installation information at this link. If you are working with SES11g, you may already have this page bookmarked. If you want to know more about SES11g, this Installation and Upgrade Guide will be useful at some point.
You may find the mini-access page called Tahiti helpful as well: http://tahiti.oracle.com/
What’s this exercise suggest about Oracle’s commitment to search and retrieval? We were surprised to say the least. Adding and explicit link to the Oracle documentation page seems easy from our vantage point in Harrod’s Creek.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2011
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Lucid Imagination Moves to the Enterprise
January 7, 2011
“Has Lucid Imagination Found the Open Source Solution for Enterprise Search?” asks if, like the Star Trek Enterprise, Lucid Imagination has done what no other open source search engine has done before and created a product worth paying for. Why not just use Apache Solr/Lucene?
The article points out that without Lucid you can’t just index and search a set of documents, you have to create each connection type, and, most importantly, there is no security. It’s also easy to change over to Lucid since it’s built on top of the Apache engine without any significant alterations. To sum up:
Lucid Imagination reduces the technical complexity of leveraging Solr by providing an automated installer, configurable data connectors and a web-based administration interface. In addition to the add-on to Solr/Lucene users can easily observe, multiple enhancements were made to make the solution easier to deploy to the cloud.
If you’re interested in trying it out, the annual fees are straightforward too.
Alice Wasielewski, January 7, 2011
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