Google: Back to the Engineers
April 6, 2011
Can Google recapture the zip it had from 2002 to 2006? That’s a question of some interest to institutional investors and anyone without an engineering, technology, or computer science background at Google. With engineers ascendant under the stewardship of Larry Page, the art history and social studies types with MBAs may be shaking in their sneakers.
I read “Google’s Page Begins Major Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers in Charge.” Here in Harrod’s Creek, the fray is far away. We certainly don’t disagree with the Digital Daily’s write up. In fact, we found this one sentence as pregnant as a female Canadian goose overnighting on our pond:
Reimagined like this, Google would become an ambidextrous organization with more powerful unit line execs, mostly engineers, doing what needs to be done to succeed, less burdened by the need to vet every little effort through various managers of Google’s powerful operating committee.
Which of these four horse people of the Google-geddon is Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft? I see the hooded horseperson as Jeff Bezos. Your thoughts on the other three?
Is this an echo of Microsoft? It does not strike me as a return to the Google of yore. Three reasons:
- Google has more legal hassles than a Web search company deserves. These legal eagles may be as annoying as flies in Canberra in November, but the legal stakes are sufficiently high with notions of anti trust and monopoly floating around to distract even the most focused engineer. In the 2002 to 2006 period, the Google had few legal eagles messing up the day.
- Google is big. In fact, Google is sufficiently big that it has difficulty hiring the “A team” people that formed the foundation of Google 2011. The problem with adding C players to the A team is that one gets such stuff as Wave and Buzz and such non stuff as a response to Facebook or to Amazon. Big means slow and friction. Will Google fire lots of people to become agile? Nope. Will Google become agile? Nope, just more controlled or semi controlled chaos I opine.
- Google has some really serious competitors. In 1998, there was no competition in search. In 2002 to 2006, potential competitors were floundering. Now there are some formidable competitors with smart people. Facebook has a dose of Googlers which makes the Google Facebook duel particularly interesting. But one must add Apple to the line up of outfits who are doing well and without significant Google push back. What’s Google going to do? Ignore Amazon, Apple, and Facebook to name three tough customers? Now Google has to deal with a Microsoft largely indifferent to irony. Microsoft is pushing Google’s strong market position as an alleged monopoly. Chuckle.
Bottom line: great write up, interesting reorganization initiative, just too late to do much more than wave hands at some of these four horse people of the Google-geddon. Today’s competitors are different from the clumsy Hewlett Packard and its stewardship of AltaVista.com engineers and technology, the silly Yahoo, and the clueless portal pursuers. Today’s competitors are serious dudes and dudettes.
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2011
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Google Autocoder
April 6, 2011
Short honk. April Fool’s Day or not. I can’t resist. Navigate to this Autocoder job post. Need to nail the Google Labs Aptitude Test. Nope. Just have fast fingers:
Good typing skills (at least 32,000 WPM).
That’s the new GOOG.
Stephen E Arnold, April 6, 2011
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Penton Plunge?
April 6, 2011
Yesterday a former publishing executive asked me about my write up about traffic to enterprise search vendors’ Web sites. If you want to review those data, read “Enterprise Search Vendor Web Traffic.” The main point of the write up was that I used Compete.com data, which I viewed as indicative, not definitive. Across enterprise search vendors, the majority of the vendors’ Web sites get minimal traffic. Even the big dogs like Autonomy and Exalead are not pulling at the level of magnetism of some big blogs. Lady Gaga type traffic is just not happening.
The person with whom I was conversing expressed surprise that large companies were getting such lousy traffic. He asked, “How can that be?”
I told him that I would give this some thought and post my observations in Beyond Search. This write up captures the ideas that crossed my mind. I decided to focus on one publishing company, Penton in New York City, as my representative example. The company has a number of Web sites but the flagship is www.penton.com.
Compete reports this:
Traffic is less than 13,000 uniques per month. But more interesting is the alleged data’s indication that usage of the Penton Web site has dropped by 30 percent in the last couple of months.
The question becomes, “Why?”
First, I think that the data are in line with traffic to some other publishers’ Web sites. The information on the Web site is not compelling and, therefore, does not attract the MBA students, job seekers, or competitive intelligence professionals. Penton’s financial performance has been lackluster as well, so the Web site is in line with the overall performance of the company.
Second, I think that more and more company information is becoming harder and harder to find. Forget Google and the SEO marketers’ best excuse for lousy traffic. The Penton site is little more than brochure ware. The substantive information is lacking in my opinion. A quick look at the source code for the splash page shows that the company is using an open source tool, lots of tagging, and stuff like this:
Tidy code? This bloat can be addressed for major browsers, including Chrome, by making a change to the master page. Without the fix, you get this junk as a cookie workaround.
Third, Penton is not using its corporate Web site with intent. Whoever is the brains behind the Web site is walking in step to a different drummer than the goslings in Harrod’s Creek follow. Now I know that the slick New York crowd is with it, but in terms of creating an information service that ignites excitement, I see a typical big media Web presence.
Protected: Microsoft Office Joins the Cloud
April 6, 2011
Google an Alleged Tax Tightrope Artist
April 5, 2011
We have no idea if this write up is 100 percent spot on, but we found the mere existence of the article fascinating. With revelations from a “real” journalist’s book suggesting that Google had internal squabbles regarding China, we wanted to capture this article. One never knows when one must look up such Google adventures as Foundem and 1PlusV. (Some topics are really tough to find in Bing.com and Google.com in our opinion.)
The story in question is “How Google Shifts Profits to Bermuda to Shrink Taxes by Billions.” The original article had a cute touch. Instead of an “s”, the folks at ZDNet (creator of the PostPCMag.com idea) used a dollar sign. How original. We must try that here in Harrod’s Creek soon.
While I’m not surprised, I’m amazed by the dexterity Google shows in order to avoid paying high taxes. The article purports to explain how Google shelters taxes to put more money in executive pockets. Google has its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, which has a low corporate tax rate. But Googlers are clever. The Google wants an even lower rate, so the company allegedly shifts funds by charging an exorbitant administrative fee by its Bermuda subsidiary. In the end, Google ends up paying about 2.4 percent in corporate tax.
Hey, if Google can defy China, why not take a fresh look at tax rules?
The story makes another poignant remark about how communities want to have these large information technology firms in their towns to support local taxes. Obama is even pushing for these companies’ growth, considering them to be the economy’s saving grace. We noted this passage in the ZDNet story:
“That’s a highly optimistic view and one that’s not supported by the actions of those companies who seek the best deals they can get, and use every loophole to get out of paying a share of their profits to the communities where they live and work.”
Companies like Google are avoiding their social responsibilities, even though Google is a huge proponent of it. Ah, the allegedly clever, hypocritical Google. What’s not to like in a post PC world?
Whitney Grace, April 4, 2011
Freebie just like the legal and accounting advice that Google receives. Oh, lawyers and accountants charge money? My error.
One Point of Contrast between Baidu and Google
April 5, 2011
We are tired of writing about Google. Here’s a news item about Baidu, the big dog in Chinese Web search. There is a Google footnote, but that’s at the end of this post.
We read “Baidu Apologizes to Writers in Copyright Dispute.” If the story is spot on, more than 40 writers complained that Baidu was violating copyright by providing works as free downloads through their online library. Launched in 2009, the site allows users to share files. The snippet we noted was:
“All documents are uploaded by Internet users and as of November Baidu Wenku had stockpiled more than 10 million files and books, accounting for 70 percent of China’s online file-sharing market, according to the company’s figures.”
Along with making an apology to authors and publishers, the company agreed to delete the content in question.
Baidu has been criticized in the past for similar infractions in it’s MP3 search service. In fact, last month it landed on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s list of top marketplaces for pirated and counterfeit goods.
Given the company’s history, we have reason to doubt the sincerity of their contrition. But Google prefers to take an approach closer to that of ancient Sparta. China is at fault: Gmail hacks, tax allegations, etc. What does Baidu know that Google does not? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot.
Cynthia Murrell, April 5, 2011
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Bing Goes to the Mall with New Map App
April 5, 2011
Across America malls are the gathering place for morning power walkers, teenagers, and suburban shoppers. Malls are the brainchild of merchandisers, real estate developers, and retailers to have shops in a controlled, cosigned environment to generate profit. Malls have gotten bigger as they’ve grown out of their infancy to the point where they encompass areas big enough to need a Bing map app. “Bing Adds Venue Maps, Features 148 Malls,” describes how Bing has taken upon itself to document mall maps.
Nine of the biggest malls in America now have detailed floor plans outlined on Bing Maps. The Mall of America in Bloomington, MN and the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA top the list. One hundred forty-eight malls have been documented so far for this project. I found this passage interesting:
Go to Bing Maps, search for your local mall and zoom in. If your mall is one of the 148 Bing has, you will see detailed maps that includes stores, kiosks, ATM machines, restrooms, information kiosks, mall entrances. You can click on individual stores (or even kiosks and outparcel stores) to find out pertinent information including phone number and Web links.
This puts an entirely new spin on mall madness. Will stores TXT message frequent shoppers with limited time offers or sales if they are within vicinity of a store? Will stores that appeal to a shopper’s interest be suggested in another app? How about a GPS app to track wayward children in the mall? No excuse for getting lost anymore. Why didn’t Google think of this? Maybe Google folks don’t have time to shop with those volleyball games, the Odwalla drinking, and the Friday get togethers? Oh, and the coding and conceiving of China strategies. I don’t want to forget coding and China. Oh, also, Oracle litigation. Too busy for shopping for sure.
Whitney Grace, April 5, 2011
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Recorded Future in the Spotlight: An Interview with Christopher Ahlberg
April 5, 2011
It is big news when In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the US intelligence community, funds a company. It is really big news when Google funds a company. But when both of these tech-savvy organizations fund a company, Beyond Search has to take notice.
After some floundering around, ArnoldIT was able to secure a one-on-one interview with the founder of Recorded Future. The company is one of the next-generation cloud-centric analytics firms. What sets the company apart technically is, of course, the magnetism that pulled In-Q-Tel and Google to the Boston-based firm.
Mr. Ahlberg, one of the founders of Spotfire which was acquired by the hyper-smart TIBCO organization, has turned his attention to Web content and predictions. Using sophisticated numerical recipes, Recorded Future can make observations about trends. This is not fortune telling, but mathematics talking.
In my interview with Mr. Ahlberg, he said:
We set out to organize unstructured information at very large scale by events and time. A query might return a link to a document that says something like “Hu Jintao will tomorrow land in Paris for talks with Sarkozy” or “Apple will next week hold a product launch event in San Francisco”). We wanted to take this information and make insights available through a stunning user experiences and application programming interfaces. Our idea was that an API would allow others to tap into the richness and potential of Internet content in a new way.
When I probed for an example, he told me:
What we do is to tag information very, very carefully. For example, we add metatags that make explicit when we locate an item of data. We tag when that datum was published. We tag when we analyzed that datum. We also tag when we find it, when it was published, when we analyzed it, and what actual time point (past, present, future) to which the datum refers. The time precision is quite important. Time makes it possible for end users and modelers to deal with this important attribute. At this stage in our technology’s capabilities, we’re not trying to claim that we can beat someone like Reuters or Bloomberg at delivering a piece of news the fastest. But if you’re interested in monitoring, for example, the co-incidence of an insider trade with a product recall we can probably beat most at that.
To read the full text of the interview with Mr. Ahlberg click here. The interview is part of the Search Wizards Speak collection of first person narratives about search and content processing. Available without charge on the ArnoldIT.com Web site, the more than 50 interviews comprise the largest repository of first hand explanations of “findability” available.
If you want your search or content processing company featured in this interview series, write seaky2000 at yahoo dot com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2011
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The Arianna Model of Husqvarna Buzz Saw
April 5, 2011
I have never met Arianna Huffington. Here in Harrod’s Creek, media luminaries rarely visit. Since the death of Barry Bingham, even the big media moguls who turned up for one of Barry’s lunches at Melcombe don’t light up my radar. That’s okay. I like to watch New York media deal with what I call the Arianna buzz saw. A few weeks ago I pointed out that the Googler running AOL was going to have his hands full. Now I want to suggest that outfits like Forbes, which cut back on its in house library, may want to put on Kevlar jockey shorts. Bzzzzz. That’s the sound of the Arianna buzz saw chopping through some big media foliage.
This, gentle reader, is one of the more accurate depictions of Arianna Huffington. Ready for some chopping down to size?
Here’s a statement in “AOL Defector Blasts ‘Content Farming’ and ‘SEO Spam’” I found interesting and useful in understanding why the buzz saw is likely to chop through the deadwood in revenue, management, and New York tradition:
Huffington, since coming aboard, has made it clear the AOL Way is no longer the blueprint, but then her site has long engaged in its own forms of search-baiting and page view juicing.
I like that “page view juicing.” Maybe I will slip it into my next SEO sucks talk? Bzzzzzz. Ouch! Some one just suffered an amputation. Bzzzzzz. Ouch! Another one. Journalistic sequoias may become recreation room flooring.
Stephen E Arnold, April 4, 2011
Freebie unlike a year’s subscription to Forbes. Where did the founder’s big honkin’ Harley go?
Protected: SharePoint Joins Facebook
April 5, 2011
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