Baidu: Asked to Pay and Baidu Rolls Over
April 7, 2011
Call it common sense, pragmatism, or a desire to eliminate expensive legal hassles.
First, Tim Geigner at techdirt posted “Recording Industry to Baidu: Look, We Know You Beat Us in Court, but Just Do What We Want Anyway, Mmkay?” Since losing their copyright infringement case in Beijing last year, the recording industry is trying the pretty- please approach. The labels sent a letter through the Financial Times asking that Baidu comply with their copyright demands.
The court decision hinged on the fact that Baidu linked to MP3 files instead of hosting them itself. Recording execs are asking the site to filter audio files out of search results. Geigner thinks the recording industry is being a sore looser, and uses a story about the his brother and the last eclair to make his point.
More pertinently, the writer mentions certain differences between China and the U.S.:
“Never mind the cultural differences that may be coming into play here. Never mind that the nominal GDP for the United States is some thirteen times that of China. We want the Chinese to pay as much for their music as Americans, d**n it, and the way to do that is to get Baidu to voluntarily limit their own search results. . . . So, you see, if Baidu would just filter out the infringing content, relatively poor Chinese citizens would suddenly spend big bucks for music.”
Second, we learned that Baidu was a well behaved giant in “China’s Baidu to Compensate Songwriters for Music Downloads.” In my opinion, the key point in that write up was:
Baidu announced that it had made an agreement with the Music Copyright Society of China to establish a partnership to protect legal digital music, and will pay copyright holders to use their music. This will encompass any song that is downloaded from Baidu’s music search site, said company spokesman Kaiser Kuo.
It’s been said before, but the recording industry would be better served by seeking a way to profit from the new reality rather than fighting it at every turn. Baidu, regardless of motivation, avoided some of the legal hassles that have plagued other online services.
Cynthia Murrell April 7, 2011
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Will Oracle Conspire to Cause Cloud to Pelt Hail?
April 7, 2011
Since Oracle‘s large sales increase last quarter, driven in part by cloud computing demands, ReadWrite Cloud ponders: “Oracle Had a Killer Quarter- What Does That Mean for Open Source in the Cloud?”
Oracle’s success may be a hindrance for open source cloud applications. Because so many companies already use Oracle’s database management software, and because migrating from it can be costly and difficult, many choose to stick with Oracle rather than seeking choices.
Ed Boyahjian, CEO of support and management tool provider EnterpriseDB, has hope for open source:
‘We’re engaged with every major cloud provider today on how they can have an open source database alternative,’ he says. Boyajian says a lot of customers are tired of being locked into Oracle’s databases and are looking for an alternative.”
I hope he’s right. It would be a shame to see Oracle’s lock on our databases dwindle the opportunity for more open source solutions.
Cynthia Murrell, April 7, 2011
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CopyPDF.com Finds Information Across the Web
April 7, 2011
KillerStartups reports on a PDF search engine and viewer in “CopyPDF.com- find Rare PDF’s”. CopyPDF.com searches the Web for your information and brings it to you in PDF form:
“It has all the features and options that one would expect to see in a site of this nature, and just nothing that could hinder or compromise its overall usability.”
The author was impressed by the ease of use, as well as by the handy toolbar. Their only question: in which browser(s) will the toolbar function? My only question: will the company run into copyright issues?
Cynthia Murrell April 7, 2011
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Google Secures Gosling
April 7, 2011
The Web is abuzz with news of James Gosling’s new position at Google. For example, The Register posted “Java daddy borged by Google,” and the Inquirer announced simply “James Gosling joins Google.” Gosling’s blog is here.
Hiring the “father of Java” while being sued by Oracle for Java copyright/ patent infringement? Well, that is one way to deal with the issue. Well played, Google. The Inquirer suspects Gosling is looking forward to working on the development of Android, as well as helping to mount the defense against Oracle. The Register reminds us that Gosling wasn’t in favor of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun, Java’s original home, in the first place:
“When Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems last year, Gosling did not join Larry Ellison and company, and he has openly voiced his disdain for the operation, referring to Ellison as ‘LPOD’, short for ‘Larry, Prince of Darkness’. ” ‘Ethics and consistency aren’t exactly the LPOD’s reputation. . . .’ Gosling wrote in August, arguing that Oracle had no intention of honoring its December 2007 resolution for the Java Community Process to become an open, independent, and vendor-neutral standards organization.”
Good call. The Register also mentions that Gosling has been critical about Google’s use of Java in Android. It will be interesting to see how this goes. Our view is that this “gosling” will be fraternizing with legal eagles…lots of legal eagles.
Cynthia Murrell, April 7, 2011
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Former Autodesk Exec Takes Charge at MarkLogic
April 7, 2011
We learned via BusinessWire that “Ken Bado Joins MarkLogic as Chief Executive Officer.” We love MarkLogic, a key player in the expanding smart content and big data arenas, and we’re happy to see them place such a proven leader at the helm.
Bado led Autodesk to success as Executive Vice President of Sales & Services, with revenue increasing on his watch from $800 million to over $2.3 billion and the company’s share price increasing by over 800 percent. Few search and content processing vendors have an executive with this track record.
The article asserted:
‘MarkLogic has the foundation, the technology, and the people to be a multi-billion dollar company. In a relatively short time, the company has experienced tremendous growth and now it is my job to multiply it ten times over,’ said Bado. ‘The technology is groundbreaking, [and] the people at this company are by far some of the smartest in Silicon Valley.
Perhaps the key to Bado’s success is his focus on the people he works with. All the technology in the world won’t make up for an unmotivated, unskilled, or mismatched team. A happy quack to MarkLogic and Ken Bado good luck- we’re sure they’ll do great things together. MarkLogic has grown rapidly and it has smart money behind it. Oracle is already on notice that the MarkLogic technology leaves the more traditional RDBMS technology in the dust.
Cynthia Murrell April 7, 2011
Protected: SharePoint: A Limited Collaboration Tool
April 7, 2011
Google and Its New Management Method: Employee Attrition
April 6, 2011
Years ago the interesting White House advisor made a remark about how to get employees’ hearts and minds to align. The method did not use money. Money, according to silly management chestnuts, does not by itself work. I read Google Said To Have High Level Mole At Twitter, Makes Massive Counteroffers To Retain Employees with interest. I thought, “Ah, the new management approach at Google is to pay employees to stay at work, to be loyal.” What does a 66 year old in Harrod’s Creek know? Not much.
Here’s the passage in the write up, which I liked, that caught my attention:
There’s lots to say about the statement Google is making with these counteroffers. “Don’t mess with us,” comes to mind. As well as “If you’re a Google employee and you aren’t out interviewing at Facebook, Twitter or Zynga you are a moron.” Regardless, the fact that large fortunes are being handed out to mid level technical managers is somewhat of a red flag in general. That kind of money is usually reserved for founders of companies that make it to IPO. Actually, most IPO founders make substantially less than that. What’s more fascinating is this. In at least one of the cases Google is said to have made a counteroffer before the employee even told Google they were considering an offer from Twitter.
The question is, “Why are employees leaving?” Money does not solve such challenges as those outlined by that silly old goose Peter Drucker. Don’t believe me? No problem. Throwing money at a problem is a symptom found in various government agencies, and we know how well that works.
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2011
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Ehcache Revs its Search Engines
April 6, 2011
The ability to search with speed and efficiency is paramount to success on the current crowded commercial racetrack. As more business is conducted online, those two words are scrawled in green ink around the winner’s circle. Databases that bypass the standard relational format appear to be the vehicles of choice for future competitors, due to apparently sound reasons. A recent posting subtitled “Java for the NoSQL generation” by The Register’s Gavin Clarke explored the topic in detail.
NoSQL is proving itself swifter and more compatible with web applications which depend on a DB’s ability to execute tasks without the assistance of progressive characteristics common in relational systems. Terracotta, the California based software manufacturer, who purchased Ehcache in 2009 has just launched the 2.4 version of the open source Java cache library. One modification is a broadening of its API, allowing object-level searches of stored memory. It also syncs retroactively so those with dated versions can play. The API expansion allows users to circumvent congestion due to massive processing actions, as well as forgo costly equipment upgrades.
According to the company, their focus is honed on users processing smaller bundled terabytes of information, allowing search speeds to be clocked at under half a second. These searches can be constructed using Java, and Terracotta claims Ehcache is already applied in roughly three quarters of Java caching. A broad swatch of users already employs a variety of non-traditional language systems to process information due to increased speed and scalability. As the desire to mine new styles of data (personal updates, Twitter feeds) shifts, so will the design of the implements necessary to accomplish them.
Sarah Rogers, April 6, 2011
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What Is Your Social Business IQ?
April 6, 2011
Ours is dull normal.
It seems that since the advent of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, that companies have found a new way to push products and make a profit. The new more popular way to do this is to market “social business intelligence” as a way to help consumers take advantage of the social marketing realm. The article “Social Business Intelligence – What Is It, and Do You Need It?” asserts:
“In many ways, social BI is still a forward- or future-looking approach. Most BI in the world is not social, but rather pulls the data from a data warehouse, as opposed to enabling person-to-person knowledge sharing. There is already some implementation of social BI because collaboration functionality is already incorporated into some of the leading BI tools.”
Basically they teach you how to use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to track consumer trends for example the release of the new iPhone 4, every person who Tweeted about or from a iPhone 4 was counted and put into a graph that marks trend patterns from speech in order to see what people are talking about and to what audience they need to focus the marketing campaigns toward.
The really funny thing is that you don’t need a company to sell you integrated software in order to track trends in your goods. If you are a business or have a fan page on Facebook or Twitter, the heavy work is already done for you, all you have to do is read the fine print and click on the “tracking” tab, they have charts and everything.
Cynthia Murrell, April 7, 2011
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SEO Experts and Content Farmers Face Pandapocalypse
April 6, 2011
Stephen E Arnold, managing director of ArnoldIT.com and this writer’s nominal taskmaster, annoyed some of the SEO poobahs in Manhattan on Wednesday, March 30. Now Mr. Arnold is an old goose and has avoided becoming a Thanksgiving dinner for more than six decades. A little roasting in the Big Apple does not trouble the chief goose.
In his debrief, what was interesting was the reluctance of the Manhattan search engine optimization crowd to realize that the game of metatagging, backlink fiddling, and other SEO “secret methods” are going to continue to loose effectiveness. The shift has a number of contributing factors. These range from Google’s fear of losing online advertising traction to the younger crowd’s penchant for asking Facebook “friends” where to buy a pizza. Google for Facebook revenues. Not so hot for the Google which is in the midst of a giant wood burning stove. (Wood burning stoves frighten the feathered Mr. Arnold.)
We wanted to throw a small life preserver to the SEO experts who were so agitated at Mr. Arnold’s suggestion that SEO was in a heap of sticky tar. Search Engine Watch has published a round up of trick to fool the Google Panda. We love it when SEO articles include the word “tricks”. We prefer phrases like “money burners,” “tom foolery”, and “questionable practices.” But “Pandapocalypse” it is.
As you may know if you were one of the 25 percent of Web sites down checked by the Google Panda algorithm change, Google launched its new pet Panda to curtail content farms and improve its accuracy algorithm. Some web sites are experiencing a loss of Google rankings and traffic, but “Is the Google Pandapocalypse Near for the UK and Beyond?” offers insights to avoid the Panda’s wraith. The most sites affected by the Panda launch were content, health, and e-commerce. In response, Google suggests that companies focus on brand advertisement than relying solely on the search engine to generate traffic.
From this angle, web site proprietors should consider using a paid search, social media, newsletters, videos, and Google news/images. When applied carefully and effectively, each suggestion will bring more visitors to a page. Here’s a snippet for the SEO folks who are trying to explain why those SEO fees produced a negative drift for their increasingly curious clientele:
“One of the big ideas at SES New York was “content optimization.” Google and Bing are looking for quality content. Basically, consider Google a teacher, and your site the student. The Panda algorithm is a brand new grading system, so you must aim to make your site an A, rather than a B or C+. And as with any teacher, some students may not be graded in the same way as others for whatever reason.”
Take a look at your web site and see how it can be improved. Check the spelling and grammar, tone down the ads, minimize duplicate content and links from low quality web sites, fix broken links, and clean up your source code. Following these suggestions will help you overcome Panda and will definitely improve your web site’s quality.
A trick may work, just not consistently. Unfortunately, clients of SEO companies are asked to pay SEO invoices consistently. There is going to be dissonance going forward.
Whitney Grace, April 6, 2011
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