Protected: Straighten Up Your SharePoint Web Parts Tables
June 9, 2011
Landscape of Search Order Form Live
June 8, 2011
Pandia.com, the publisher of “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search”, has posted an information page and a link to an order form. This new study takes a frank, objective look at the market for enterprise search systems and six leading vendors. Unlike the “pay to play” studies and conferences, the 150 page report provides the detail procurement teams and business professionals need to decide which system best suits a particular findability problem.
The report answers a number of questions which are routinely overlooked, ignored, or unknown to some of the organizations writing “pay to play” reports about vendors; for example:
- What was the status of the rewrite of Fast ESP prior to the purchase of the company by Microsoft in 2008?
- What technical methods cause certain scaling challenges in some Endeca and Vivisimo implementations?
- How do the platforms of Autonomy and Exalead compare in multi content deployments for enterprise applications?
- Why are most procurements won by a small number of vendors despite dozens, if not hundreds of lower cost options?
- What are the cost implications of Google’s GSA pricing method for the GB 7007 and GB 9009?
- What’s the outlook for search innovation in the next nine to 12 months?
This report goes beyond Stephen E Arnold’s 2008 report on content processing for the Gilbane Group, the Successful Enterprise Search Management monograph for Galatea in 2009, and his three studies of Google’s now-ageing search technology in the Google trilogy, published by Infonortics. Significant additional investigation via interviews and hands on involvement with search technology propel this report well beyond his first three editions of the Enterprise Search Report, 2004 to 2007.
If you are involved in enterprise search, you will want to get a copy of this report which discusses search solutions available from Autonomy, Endeca, Exalead, Google, Microsoft (Fast Search), and Vivisimo. The report includes a table providing brief facts about two dozen other systems, including open source options.
What sets the report apart is that the information in the new report does not duplicate the information which is available without charge in the Search Wizards Speak collection of more than 50 interviews with experts in search and retrieval or Mr. Arnold’s blogs about search and content processing: Beyond Search and Inteltrax.com
You can access the Pandia.com description of the report and the order form at http://www.pandia.com/enterprise-search/. The report costs $20 and is available as a PDF file.
Don Anderson, June 8, 2011
The post was sponsored by Stephen E Arnold
Baidu A Threat to Google?
June 8, 2011
“Baidu Eyes Huge Overseas Expansion” scratched an itch we have had since our trip to Hong Kong in March 2011. I picked up some information that savvy Web users knew how to negotiate around any filters on content. But I also learned that for some of the Chinese and Hong Kongese, Baidu was the go-to search system.
This story picked up the theme that the Chinese Web giant Baidu has recently revealed its intent to expand into foreign markets and become the number one search engine in the world, ousting Google from its throne. The company has
“already created a Japanese language search engine and is now mulling over which markets to attempt to move into next. It’s already setting up a multi-language platform in anticipation of further developments.”
Baidu is rumored to have sought help in meeting its goal by reaching out to other internet giants. “It has already been suggested that Baidu has been talking to Facebook and that is likely to put its main competitor both at home and abroad, Google, on the back foot. Furthermore Microsoft is thought to be cozying up to Baidu, which could be the beginnings of a threat to Google’s hegemony on a larger scale.”
Competition is always good for the consumer and this situation is no different. It is scary to think about how much better the current search engines could be, but like anything there is always room for improvement.
No wonder Google is cranky and eager to admit its missteps via its former CEO’s mea culpa. Few companies have to deal with Amazon, Apple, and Facebook as well as Baidu.com and Yandex.com, the Russian search bear.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
SAS Simplifies Text Analysis
June 8, 2011
Let’s face it, time is money. (Some former SEO Panda victims, assorted art history majors, and a few MBAs perceive time as opportunity to contemplate the magnitude of their student loans and monthly cash flows.)
Wading through archives to find the answers to your questions is labor intensive and more work than watching reruns on TV.
We found “New SAS Industry Taxonomy Rules Starter Kits Enhance the Speed to Value of Text Analytics” promises to be the answer to some of these problems. It can cut search time from months to weeks by creating a structured taxonomy. The story asserted:
Building taxonomies from scratch can be daunting. But with the new SAS Industry Taxonomy Rules starter kits, organizations get a jump start, and can move more quickly from document and text chaos to value and insight from their unstructured data.
However, the use of taxonomy isn’t anything new. Many businesses recognize the value of categorizing their archives in order to save time and in the end money.
The same thing goes for digital archives of electronic documents, SAS helps to organize the electronic and save valuable time and money by using the most effective integrated capabilities on the market today both in its ability to combine structured and unstructured data. It also utilizes predictive analytics to remember what documents or areas are searched most as well as allowing customers to customize their systems to fit individual needs.
Sounds like a win win.
Leslie Radcliff, June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
More on Google and Digital Music
June 8, 2011
I don’t get rich media. I find it fascinating that Google is working hard to develop street cred in rich media, which includes audio, video, and immersive representations like its newest map features.
“Google Was Ready To Pay $100 Million To Record Labels” contained an interesting statement:
Google is one of the most powerful and successful companies currently in existence. They have delved into nearly every facet of the internet and have been successful. Yet they have never attempted to enter the digital music world, or have they?
According to sources Google was prepared to pay $100 million to record labels to start its music service last December. This large number shows that any startup music web sites could not afford the initial fee it would take to get into the digital music market. According to Billboard, “talks broke down because some labels demanded that Google do more to eliminate pirated music sites from its search results. Google couldn’t agree to compromise its crown jewel, search, so instead it launched with an imperfect service.”
For now Google may have to settle with the current stranglehold they have on the world and allow Apple to continue to be top dog in digital music market. It is after all the search engine that makes Google such a successful company and any tinkering with that formula could spell trouble for Google.
We revisited this article after we saw Apple’s stock take a hit when Apple announced its cloud music service. Maybe lots of people don’t get the online music angle. Google is not alone.
Here’s a thought. Google generates most of its revenue from search. What if there is no “next big thing” for Google? What if the Apple cloud play flops?
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
RollingResearch.com: A New Vertical Finding Service for the Automobile Industry and Consumer
June 8, 2011
New Information Service about Sources of Automobile Information
ArnoldIT.com has developed another news service blog, this one about where to find automotive information on the Internet. Each article in the Web log provides a synopsis of a source, an example of the information available from it, and critical commentary about its value.
Despite the wide availability of Web indexes on Bing.com and Google.com, these services often make it difficult to locate high-value specific information. Vertical findability services such as Rolling Research provide more focused results than those of common Web indexes:
The audience we want to reach wants to get to high value sources of information without wading through a laundry list of search results. Our researchers examine the sources and prepare compact, information-packed descriptions of a source. We think that anyone seeking objective information about the automobile industry will find Rolling Research a useful resource,” said Stephen E. Arnold, publisher and owner of ArnoldIT.com, an independent consulting and engineering firm. “Too much of the available automotive information is advertising fluff. We want to be clear and direct in stories that are crisp and brief. Who wants to spend endless hours clicking on potentially irrelevant or inaccurate sources in a quest for facts?
The blog is sponsored by TheAutoChannel.com, a premier source of information about vehicles since 1994.
Rolling Research is produced by ArnoldIT.com, publishers of Beyond Search and Inteltrax, and publishes Monday through Friday. Current and archived stories are available without charge at http://www.rollingresearch.com. An RSS feed and new-story Twitter notifications are available.
The service includes articles, features, and links to important business information resources. The editorial team takes a critical stance, providing value added commentary about sources of information related to the automobile industry, hybrid vehicles, recreational vehicles, motor sports, and allied fields. Story ideas may be submitted to rollingresearch@yahoo.com
Cynthia Murrell June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Protected: Tips for Debugging SharePoint
June 8, 2011
Quote to Note: Dr. Phil Would Be Proud of Google and Its Sensitivity
June 7, 2011
Yep, tucked in one of Google’s crunchy blog posts was a keeper. Navigate to “Google Discontinues Its First Specialized Search Engines.” Ignore the baloney about Uncle Sam because the GOOG continues to be aced out of that juicy GSA plum pudding. Here’s the quote I noted:
We understand that some users were surprised by this change, so we apologize for not communicating more clearly in advance of redirecting these services to Google.com.
Why tell non-Googlers anything? Oh, I think I know. I think I know. (Wave hand like a Type A fifth grader.) The answer? “Everyone is busy criticizing China for being—well—China.
Rel=Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2011
Just joking, coders. Just joking. Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
The SIREn Call for Semi Structured Data
June 7, 2011
SIREn the new patch for Lucene has, according to its Web site found a way to better the large scale handling of semi-structured data. Commonly searching graph structured data, or RDF, was handled by using specific triplestores. However, triplestores don’t have the same scalability as the new SIREn patch, they fail to the more consumer friendly features that a typical web search engine would utilize.
Triplestores are inefficient when searching across fields and multi-valued fields cannot be handled properly. They can’t differentiate between entry terms and where the fields they belong in. We learned:
The content query operators are the only ones that access the term content of the table, and are orthogonal to the structure operators. They include extended Boolean operations such as Boolean operators (intersection, union, difference), proximity operators (phrase, near, before, after, etc.) and fuzzy or wildcard operators.These operations allow to express complex keyword queries for each cell of the table. Interestingly, it is possibly to apply these operators not only on literals, but also on URIs (subject, predicate and object).
SIREn offers the capability to search large semi- structured content collections like those with different schemas. Something the original Lucene retrieval system failed to do. However, with a patch Lucene can now index and search RDF and text based documents with less confusion and better results.
Leslie Radcliff, June 7, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Quote: The Two Types Complacency
June 7, 2011
Quote to note: Navigate to “Stephen Elop’s Nokia Adventure.” The subject is not about search and content processing, but it may apply to some of those in the market. Here’s the quote attributed to Juha Akra,a Nokia personnel professional. The context for the remark was Nokia’s failure to respond to Apple’s and Google’s incursion into mobile phones:
“It was an ignorant complacency, not an arrogant complacency.”
From the shareholders point of view, does the distinction make a difference?
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
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