Useful Search Comparison Tools
June 13, 2011
Makeuseof gives us “3 Useful Tools To See & Compare Search Results Side By Side.” It presents three tools that it deems to be the most useful of the available search comparison tools.
Each entry allows you to view results in side-by-side panels. 2lingual allows you to search in two languages, while Googawho and SearchBoth each have their own pluses.
Makeuseof‘s Anne Smarty likes Googawho’s ability to switch between engines quickly:
Just type your query, get the initial columns of results and click through search engines in the header to switch between the engines.
SearchBoth excels at switching between vertical searches, such as images or video, shopping, or news. Another nice feature:
Navigate through various local tool versions to combine and compare search engines from your country.
These tools are useful and can be interesting for test queries. See what you think. Worth bookmarking.
Cynthia Murrell June 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Saplo Releases Semantic Technology Platform
June 13, 2011
We noted the story “Better Text Analysis With Saplo’s New API. Regarding this open source resource, the article explains,
The Swedish startup Saplo has released a new text analysis API today that should help developers build tools to tap into the company’s semantic technology platform. This should allow people to build their own personalization or recommendation apps based on contextual meaning rather than solely on tags or keywords.
The API (Application Programming Interface) can be set up to work with different languages; right now English and Swedish are in the works. Improvements have also been made to documentation and libraries.
Definitely worth a look. The Web site is at www.saplo.com.
Cynthia Murrell June 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Another View of the Google Management Shuffle
June 13, 2011
Search Engine Journal examines “Google’s Re-Focus, Its Meaning, and Its Risks.” We agree with writer Rob Young: Google is taking a risky step.
The changes began with the CEO swap from Eric Schmidt back to founder Larry Page. For one thing, there have been shifts in management personnel. What interests us, though, is the narrowing product focus.
Seeming to apply the adage that it is better to do fewer things well, Google is shutting down or consolidating several projects, like Newspaper Archives, the tablet versions of Android OS 3.x, and many developer APIs. Young predicts that these newly released resources will be applied in the social networking realm. That’s a valid conjecture, considering both Google’s recent overtures in that direction and the continuing rise of all things social.
Young summarizes:
But what is Google sacrificing to narrow their efforts? Sure, the company is dropping a lot of dead weight, but they’re also dropping several profitable projects. As Google continues in its minimalist cleansing, it’s possible that they’ll lose some flexibility in innovation, one of the strengths that previously defined the company, and may upset developers in the process. Considering the importance of web and mobile app developers to core Google projects (especially Android, Chrome, and Chrome OS), Google must proceed with caution.
Change can be good, but it can also sour very quickly. Is Google becoming its own worst enemy. The most recent problem is the price tag Oracle has slapped on the alleged Java patent legal matter. Will Android revenue flow to Oracle? Management has legal, financial, technical, and market challenges with which to deal. Risky indeed.
Cynthia Murrell June 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
AT&T Shifts into Genghis Kahn Mode
June 13, 2011
I remember learning about warriors riding horses 24 hours a day. Instead of hitting the Mongolian equivalent of a convenience store, the rider open a vein on his horse’s neck and took a swig. Efficient.
Now AT&T wants to break in to the online coupon market according to Bloomberg’s article ” AT&T Takes on Groupon with $10 Promotion for Daily Deal Site.”
The new-old Ma Bell has revealed her plans to open a “Grouponesque” type of Web site for consumers through YellowPages.com.
Daily deals are the latest consumer shopping trend and have taken off in the wake of the slowing economy. Why pay full price when you can pay one half or one third of the full price?
AT&T will have to compete with veterans like Groupon, Facebook, and the such newspapers as the New York Times. AT&T believes it can be competitive by using larger discounts and making their site more amenable to the mobile deal hunter.
Pundits and assorted consulting firms anticipate that sales at restaurants, clothing stores and hair and nail salons will reach $6.1 billion by 2015 making the internet discount business potentially, extremely lucrative. The article said:
Market leader Groupon, based in Chicago, is planning an initial public offering later this year that would value the company at between $15 billion and $25 billion, two people familiar with the plans said last month.
I’m not entirely sure what my colleagues believe, but if ATT can truly capitalize on its “no search” couponing idea, may have an edge on their competitors. Could AT&T have a consumer market winner? With more than 90 million users AT&T is going to have a running start in this hot new segment.
Leslie Radcliff, June 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Protected: Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and SharePoint
June 13, 2011
Freeze That Page before It Goes Dark
June 12, 2011
Have you ever wondered how social media websites meet the regulatory record keeping requirements put into place by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)?
Yeah…me neither.
Oh well, we’re all going to find out. In TMCnet.com’s article “PageFreezer offers FINRA-Compliant Social Media Archiving” we get to learn about the software that helps them to do that.
PageFreezer is a global provider of media archiving and offers regulations compliancy solutions as well as litigation protection. We learned:
It’s not just the large financial companies and institutions that need to consider their social networking activity from a compliance standpoint,” noted Riedyk. “The individuals in the financial sector — investment advisors and the like – must comply with their firms retention policies. PageFreezer is a solution and it gets the job done perfectly.
PageFreezer.com is the solution for preserving Web content. It is important that archives be able to be reproduced quickly and kept in a format that will allow said reproduction because the archives must be kept for up to seven years and they must be tamper proof. It can create a lot of mess and backlog if done improperly. PageFreezer creates a tamper proof system by stamping each page with a signature and a timestamp then filing it in a fault proof database.
Leslie Radcliff, June 12, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Taming the Wild West Vodaphone Style
June 12, 2011
The good old Internet is going the way of Marshall Dillon’s days at a marathon athlete.
Techradar.com reports, “The Internet Needs Tougher Policing, Says Vodafone CEO.” Self-regulation isn’t working, says Vittorio Colao, and regulations are needed to help the Internet best serve society.
Unlike those powers wishing to squash citizen dissent, Colao’s words reflect a business perspective. A sample:
If electronic commerce is to flourish and more jobs are to be created, we all need to feel that we can trust those we deal with and that the law will protect our trust. We need to feel that our privacy will be safeguarded and that personal data will be secure. We need to be confident that our children will be safe. Owners of content need to know that their copyright will be respected.
His intentions are good. We all know about the risk of cyber-attacks and how tech savvy folks in Cairo can foment a revolution. However, there’s no guarantee that government oversight would not morph from protecting citizens to controlling them. It would be tough to search if content is not there or if someone monitors one’s search terms. Ooops. Sorry. We already have that filtering in place.
Cynthia Murrell June 11, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Change for Sure. Scale? Nope. Facebook? Yep.
June 12, 2011
Quote to note: I was clicking around and came across a four page encomium to Google. You will want to read “Google: Scale Changes Everything” and try to identify the puffery from the facts. I am too tired after a tough day of paddling in the goose pond to do much of the Google thing. However, three was a juicy quote I want to note in the text of this source document from the business cat’s paw Forbes Magazine blogs:
Google is very secretive about how it does search — it has developed specialized chips it won’t patent, because it doesn’t want to show design ideas — but Coughran says they system is completely overhauled every couple of years. “You can tweak a system to handle data two or 10 times faster, but with this growth we have to do it 1000 times faster.”
Great stuff. Secret chips. Astounding performance.
Just one thing. I think the story should have been “Facebook: Competition Changes Everything.” Now that’s news, not secret chips and the wonders of 24,000 smart folks who are lagging Amazon, Apple, and Facebook.
Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, June 12, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Odd Spat: Academic Publishers vs. Universities
June 11, 2011
With the transition of formerly printed content to digital formats in academia, publishers of these academic materials are experiencing severe reductions to their revenue stream. Professors often put course materials on e-reserves, making it so students can access a single copy without having to pay for individual copies.
“Academic Publishers Attempting To Eliminate Fair Use At Universities [Updated]” from TechDirt.com delves into this issue and mentions specific entities in this ongoing battle. In one instance, “Cambridge, Oxford, & Sage publishers are filing against Georgia State University and asking the court to issue one of the all-time-detrimental-to-education injunctions in the modern era.”
This is clearly a heated debate and has been for some time. The write up said:
In 1994 publishers sought to deal with e-reserves at the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU), but the issue proved so contentious that the participants could not agree on a recommendation for the final report. Since then, the threat of litigation has loomed over a number of universities concerning their e-reserves, as publishers’ reproduction revenues dipped.
This demonstrates publishers’ inability to adapt to the current environment. Everything has been going digital for a while now and an industry that relies so heavily on paper printing should have been prepared for this. The film and music industries have adapted to this climate, even books are popular in digital format; academic publishers need to board the train.
Our understanding is that academic publishers depend on university professors and those hard working graduate students to craft the content academic publishers publish.
Universities have found benefit from student loans. Perhaps academic publishers should explore some creative options as well.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
A Sherpa Suffers Oxygen Starvation
June 11, 2011
“Is Social Media Giving You a 95 Percent ROI?” We think not but a marketing sherpa, who may be suffering from oxygen starvation, believes that this astounding ROI is on the money.
These are pretty impressive and almost unbelievable numbers. But according to a survey conducted by MarketingSherpa 2011, the average ROI number was reported at the rarified height of 95 percent.
Although the way ROI is measured can be achieved in a variety of ways, “Need to Sell Your Boss on Social Media Investment? Use This Graphic“ “caution is advised,” says Mike Ohghai, a financial advisor. He suggests using an impartial source for such important profit measuring information – not clip art graphics that can be confusing.
Our view is that crazy numbers generate some excitement among the fact starved and validation indifferent marketers. For the Beyond Search team, we think verification and common sense are necessary.
Social media is useful, but it is easy to inject noise into the system. Those who confuse noise with facts are likely to find themselves trying to explain to a CFO hired by the investors to determine whom to keep and whom to fire.
Well, there’s a need for mountain guides in Utah I have heard.
Stephen E Arnold, June 11, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
