Social Search from Google to Accommodate Nineteen Languages
June 3, 2011
We are confused. The statement probably does not surprise you if you follow the observations and musings of the Harrod’s Creek goslings. But we were flummoxed when we read “Google Social Search Takes Facebook Fight Global.”
On May 19, 2011, Google announced that its Social Search would soon be available in 19 languages, effectively extending the software’s reach around the globe, where it will continue to rival the efforts of Facebook. A global social war. We were really excited. Addled geese enjoy the antics of bipedal humanoid wizard types.
The article described Google Social Search in this way:
Launched in 2010, Google Social Search is the company’s bid to personalize search by surfacing results of blog posts and other information generated by friends in a user’s social circle. “Social circle builds a bridge between users’ Google accounts and their Google profiles to surface users’ content in its results page. This circle includes users of social services Google users have listed in their Google profile, including Gmail, Twitter, Quora, Google Buzz, Facebook and Picasa.
Developers hope this personalization will lead to more information sharing and network building. Now, that can happen across the globe.
Facebook has reacted to Google’s efforts with underhanded tactics. They should consider transferring that energy to product improvement in order to better compete with this adversary.
Now the about face. Ubergizmo’s “Google Gets Rid of APIs for Translate and Other Services.” The reported that anyone depending on Google Translate’s API were out of luck. Service withdrawn, thank you. The story said:
Well, yesterday Google announced that a large number of popular APIs they have written will be unsupported and most of them will be shut down; including one of their most popular APIs – Google Translate. The reason for shutting it down? ‘Due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse’.
When we mulled over the two announcements we came up with a simple pair of hypotheses:
- Google wants to use its Translate system to further its agenda in fighting the Google-like Facebook empire. So, cut off the API and start thinking about other ways to batten the hatches at the Googleplex
- Google is looking for ways to close some Fukushima type cash and technical leakage. Easiest way to address these issues is to flip the switch to off.
Open becomes closed. Cash saved. Technical headaches and support issues resolved. Abuse issue? Fixed.
Brutal but if you were Googley, you would have already found another solution and not taken a poke in the eye.
Cynthia Murrell, June 3, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Protected: Microsoft Business Intelligence with SharePoint 2010
June 3, 2011
Endeca Enters the Mobile Search Ring
June 2, 2011
We’re a mobile society; the days of sitting at the desktop and spending hours researching information appear to be sliding away as fast as technology can keep up. There are data which suggest that mobile search is growing more rapidly than Web search. Whether the data are accurate is less important than the perception that the Web is yesterday, and mobile search is tomorrow.
Mobile searching is becoming increasingly popular and while it’s new, the heat is on to offer consumers the fastest, most relevant mobile search experience. Search vendors, in their search for Big Rock Candy Mountain revenue, are charging toward the alleged gold deposits.
Business Intelligence software company, Endeca also is a player in mobile search. EcontentMag’s “Creating a Recipe for Success: Mobile Search in Action,” reported:
…companies need to truly understand the context in which mobile users will search their content. Only then can they provide a search interface and tools that provide results that target those users’ specific queries.
Increasingly utilized as customers make healthcare decisions or automotive choices, mobile users don’t want to waste time searching. Typing in a couple keywords, mobile users want speed, accuracy, and the same information across all channels. Endeca is there seems to be one aspect of the eContent write up.
My view is that mobile search is going to be an interesting twist in the search tornado. Situational search, geographical search, and personalized search may come together to stretch the limits of today’s more traditional information retrieval methods. New form factors seem to invite fresh approaches to finding answers.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Ahoy, Some Pirates Wear Dresses
June 2, 2011
ReadWriteWeb reports, “Survey Finds E-Book Piracy Occurs Among a Surprising Demographic.” The Digital Entertainment Survey is conducted annually by Wiggin, a British law firm. According to it, one in eight female e-reader owners over 35 admits to downloading at least one illegal e-book copy. Quite a surprise from the older female demo!
The article observes,
“If copyright infringement is indeed becoming more popular among an age group that’s never really participated in digital piracy, that’s certainly bad news for publishers. . . . After all, it isn’t just women over 35 that are putting unlicensed content on their e-readers. Across all ages and both genders, some 29% of e-reader owners admitted that they pirate books. And for tablet owners, that number is even higher – 36%. It doesn’t stop there: 25% of these people said they planned to continue to download pirated material.
So women aren’t the only ones, but now we know many of them are indeed crooks. At least women crooks are nicer. And they read. In general, women pirates may be better dressed, more polite, and more skilled at negotiating than the average cut throat.
Cynthia Murrell, June 2, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Microsoft Search Blog Not Updated in Months
June 2, 2011
If you have not visited the Microsoft Search Blog, you may want to check it out. We think it is a good example of the commitment Microsoft has to enterprise search. Oh, Microsoft still sells Fast Search, consulting, certifications, and add ons. However, the blog is not exactly a pivot point.
It’s about relevance, it’s about speed and it’s all about competition…ya snooze, ya lose, right?
We’re a little confused then, by the search results we got from Google recently when queried “enterprise search.”
Our queries for content and visits to the site over a week or so revealed that the last update seems to have been about ten months ago.
My hunch is that somewhere, in some small, cubby in Redmond, there’s a person who’s supposed to be searching and updating the enterprise blog.
We try to monitor the SharePoint search world, and we are finding that the information about SharePoint search is mostly about getting a SharePoint system under control, back on track, and delivering specific functionality. You can track our SharePoint coverage at www.sharepointsemantics.com. We also cover SharePoint in Beyond Search. Just search for the category SharePoint in the search box on the blog’s splash page.
The goslings and I will try to “mind the gap”.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Tough to Be Open When You Are Closed
June 2, 2011
“Fate of Data.gov Revealed; US Gov Almost Completely Drops the Ball,” proclaims ReadWriteWeb. Federal budget cutting has claimed the crucial Data.gov as a victim, slashing its funding by 75%. About that open data for transparency purposes. . . .
The site, a platform intended to support public access data and analytics, currently just holds publicly available data. Now, though that information will remain accessible, no further development will be done for the foreseeable future. The inclusion of new data will slow to a crawl. This is the equivalent of a skylight covered with film and leaves. Translucent, at best.
Observes writer Marshall Kirkpatrick,
It’s amazing that a time when the private sector is growing fully aware of the huge potential in Big Data, the US Federal Government can barely maintain its own minimal projects on the topic. . . .It’s heartbreaking that the Federal Government’s engagement with this historic meta-opportunity appears to be waning already.
Yep, it is easy to yip yap about transparency and openness. But the reality is that control is cheaper and easier. Does anyone know what is not online relative to such activities as MICs? Let us know.
Cynthia Murrell, June 2, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Protected: Indexing SharePoint Content through Northern Light
June 2, 2011
Exalead Makes a Sage Move
June 1, 2011
We have no qualms over recurrent expressions of our appreciation and enthusiasm for the Exalead brand.
A long time leader in the field of search enabled applications and data management software, the company continues to prove itself relevant in a landscape that shifts more frequently than the iTunes’ Recent Hits page.
The most recent news we saw about Exalead, a unit of Dassault Systèmes, comes in the form of a deal with the Sage Group. Sage is one of the leaders in enterprise resource planning (ERP). Sage will use Exalead’s technology in the Sage ERP X3 system.
The write up “Sage Innovates with Exalead CloudView to Enhance Its ERP User Experience” said:
CloudView brings the speed and simplicity of consumer Web search to the Sage ERP X3 user experience, offering flexible natural language search across all Sage database content, including both data and metadata. Offered as a simple drag-and-drop Gadget in the Sage portal, CloudView-powered Sage Search enables users to locate information anywhere in the system using a single text box: no training, complex forms or SQL queries required. Moreover, fuzzy matching and flexible search refinement by dynamic results categories help ensure search success even when a user’s query is incomplete, misspelled or imprecise.
CloudView may give Sage a turbo boost. With this deal, Sage and Exalead jump up the enterprise charts to super group status.
Micheal Cory, June 1, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Brainware: Another Back Office Win
June 1, 2011
Brainware has shifted from eDiscovery, search, and business intelligence to a back office business process system. The company has robust data capture and paper-to-digital conversion solutions.
The news of another back office deal is not much of a surprise. According to the PR Newswire article “Kansas City Southern Clears the Tracks in Accounts Payable With Brainware Distiller” the transportation holding company Kansas City Southern recently chose Brainware Distiller to handle its account payable automation process.
Brainware provides intelligent data and enterprise search solutions to large companies to help them process and retrieve their data from throughout their enterprise. The Brainware announcement stated:
Brainware Distiller offers customers a simple, powerful technology that can interface with any number of ERP and ECM applications to reduce overhead and drive value to the bottom line,” said Carl Mergele, Chief Executive Officer at Brainware. “Distiller’s superior field extraction will translate to immense gains in processing efficiency and visibility, and we are proud to serve Kansas City Southern’s automation needs.”
Seems like Brainware’s back office organizer solutions are quickly becoming a customer favorite. Other search vendors are chasing customer support, sentiment analysis, and business intelligence. Has Brainware focused on an unexciting, unsolved problem to find itself without significant competition from me-too search vendors?
April Holmes, June 1, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
EMC: Lots of Initiatives and Now an Appliance
June 1, 2011
EMC has been busy. The company has announced a wide range of initiatives. The flow of announcements has been overwhelming. We did notice “SAS Will Be Available On A Database Appliance From EMC,” SAS has announced that it will begin to offer SAS High Performance Analytics. The system will be available on an EMC database appliance.
The blog asserted:
This new offering from SAS on the EMC Greenplum Data Computing Appliance will provide an environment for customers to perform analytical exploration and development on all data to complement their regular analytic operations.
Clients will be able to form models that take into account their data from each department and showcase all the possible scenarios. Being able to see the whole picture definitely gives customers a more accurate picture to enable to them to make better decisions. In addition when compared to current technology, SAS High-performance Analytics blows the competition out the water and solves problems in seconds rather than hours. This appliance could be in the running for best in class.
However, with appliances proliferating in some organizations, management of yet another toaster is, in our experience, beginning to generate some pushback.
April Holmes, June 1, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
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