Google Directory: R.I.P.
August 4, 2011
“Google Directory Has Been Shut Down,” announces Search Engine Watch. A tool for organizing and publicizing websites, the year 2000 project had simply lost its usefulness. Other directories, like Yahoo!’s and Dmoz still function, but for how long?
Writer Rob D. Young explains:
“With search now dominating our web navigation, directories are seen primarily for their link juice value. For that reason, Google has been slowing support on Google Directory for a while; at the end of last year, Google stopped supporting directory search. Now the Google Directory is just gone: Visiting its former location gives you a message that Google just thinks you should use their search engine instead.”
This message is the only notice; no announcement was made about the discontinuation.
This isn’t the only outdated product Google has shuttered as it pursues new projects. Support for the Firefox Google Toolbar, multiple APIs, Google PowerMeter, Google Health, and Google Labs have all met the chopping block.
Out with the old, in with the new. Google+, anyone?
Cynthia Murrell, August 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Protected: AIS Network Moves SharePoint to the Cloud
August 4, 2011
Google and the Bullies Who Are Not Googley
August 3, 2011
I am tired, in a weird time zone, and in a place that looks like the moon. I took time out from some exciting meetings to read “When Patents Attack Android”. I would have made “android” plural, that’s why I am in the middle of nowhere and Google is sitting on top of the mobile world. Well, not exactly on top because of the pesky Apple, but Google is within striking distance. In one of the many, many Google blogs, Googlers make pithy statements about technology, the world, and getting picked on by uncouth bullies. I am sympathetic. No, I really am. If you were to aim an Attensity or Lexalytics super duper sentiment scooper at me, I would be teary, snuffling, and plagued with hot flashes. I empathize. I really, really do. Here’s the passage that tugged at my frontal cortex empathy
…[Google competitors are] doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rock star” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Mobile; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.
When I read this, I thought about Foundem and the other companies who have found Google so sympathetic. I recall meeting Google Search Appliance licensees thrilled with the prompt, helpful, 24X7 customer support. I recall remarks by Web sites whose traffic dropped after Panda strolled through town telling me that their Google representatives were able to answer questions, provide suggested remedies, and volunteering to speak with the keepers of the Page Ran algorithm.
How unjust that competitors are taking action against Google. Ah, ingratitude thy names are plentiful as the monikers of he who rules. I must weep like a guitar purchased from iTunes. I must read about ingratitude in a book from Amazon. I must consult a higher power, an oracle with a mug of Java with unfounded allegations of impropriety by helpless Googlers. Cease. Bully not the Google.
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publisher of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Google Beefs Up Its IP IQ
August 3, 2011
To a confused goose in rural Kentucky, the patent “thing” is great theatre. Watching the antics of giant companies focused on dominating specific markets and making as much money as possible is interesting. I do have a mobile phone and its seems pretty much like the clunky Treo I had for years. For a short time, I had a crazy phone gizmo with a foil umbrella. My point is that most phones are phones. Over the years, those entranced by miniaturization have grafted on to the basic mobile phone a desktop computer, a touchscreen like the ones used in airports so I could in theory summon a shuttle, and a television set, a stereo, and a rescue beacon like the one I wore on a helicopter flight decades ago.
Now I find today’s modern phone—properly called a smart phone—something a step beyond what I typically require when waddling across the meadow in search of shade in Harrod’s Creek. In fact, to my untrained eye, the smartphone is less an innovation or even an invention. The smartphone is a little red wagon filled with stuff that entertain and inform those with more snap in their synapses than I have.
Nevertheless, I heard that a couple of my goslings have created a patent information service. Rumor has it that the service will be officially released the week of August 8. I know from the tentative explanations my goslings give me that the service is a beta, maybe a pre alpha. I took a look at the service at www.patentpoints.com and three points jumped out at me:
First, the goslings are trying to bring some order to the flood of information about patents.
Second, most of the citations—the content is more like a library vertical file than a news service—addresses some of the business implications of patents. Lawyers are usually okay business people and run many companies. But the coverage of patent jollities often focuses on one slice of a vary large wheel of cheddar, not the cheddar warehouse.
Third, the writing is reasonably clear. The editing is certainly not my doing because I have a tough time getting my dog Max to sit, let alone get him to perform a more advanced command like “come here”.
A good example of the patent related information that just floats without context is the article “Google Says It Hires FTC Intellectual Property Expert Michel.” We learn that Google, the search and ad giant, has hired a former Federal Trade Commission professional. Suzanne Michel “worked for more than 11 years on patent antitrust issues and patent policy.” Google did not say why she was hired. No problem. Big companies do not have to explain why a person from the FTC with expertise in antitrust and patent policy are being hired. Maybe her bonus will be tied to her contributions to Google’s social networking products?
The write up included this passage which I found interesting:
Google, based in Mountain View, California, faces a growing threat from intellectual-property lawsuits and is seeking to buy patents that potentially could be used in counterattacks to create what its General Counsel Kent Walker has called a “disincentive” to sue the company.
Is it possible Ms. Michel will work on behalf of Google to help Google with some of its legal challenges? Will Ms. Michel be able to identify possible upsides and downsides of Google’s intellectual property activities? Will Ms. Michel remember who does what at the FTC and share those contacts with her fellow Googlers? I don’t know the answers to these questions.
What I hope Patent Points will do is offer some critical commentary about such activities? For example, I would hope that a document in the alpha service www.patentpoints.com would say something like:
Google is, after more than a decade of being idiosyncratic, is now following the well worn path in Washington. Like the blue chip consulting firms and other power entities, Google is hiring insiders in what looks like an attempt to exert a gravitational pull on certain activities. How well does this work? Well, just check out the various lobbying success stories like health care, pharmaceuticals, highway construction, and other industry centric activities. The big question is, “Will Google’s more aggressive and visible approach work?” We think it will. That says something about how intellectual property really works in today’s political-business environment.
I don’t think this type of commentary will surface in Patent Points, and I don’t think it will pop up in the mainstream media. After the dust settles, an analysis will appear in an academic journal or some similar publication. In the meantime, the lowly mobile phone will be blended with other functionality until another new thing comes along.
Innovative? Inventive? Nah, obvious and clever. Now I just wish the sound quality on the phone was better. I don’t care about video, streaming podcasts, playing games, or broadcasting like a stranded pilot. I just want to make a call once in a while and nestle beneath the forsythia next to the pond filled with mine run off. Thank heavens for the Environmental Protection Agency, a sister to the Federal Trade Commission too. I am reminded of Ionesco’s Macbett.
Stephen E Arnold, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.
Another Googler Shares Google Insights
August 3, 2011
“Former Google CIO Says Business Misses Key People Marks,” reports ITworld. The problem, says Douglas Merrill, lies in outdated management practices. Dr. Merrill was speaking at this year’s CA Expo in Sydney when he praised the environment at his former company for its innovative atmosphere. He stated:
“Don’t be afraid to do dumb things. [Google cofounders] Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] developed a search product called ‘Backrub’ – don’t ask me how they got that – and shortly after that launched Google as part of the Stanford domain. Most of the early Google hardware was stolen from trash and as the stuff they stole broke all the time they built a reliable software system. Everyone knew we shouldn’t build our own hardware as it was ‘dumb’, but everyone was wrong. Sometimes being dumb changes the game.
Besides embracing “dumb” choices, Merrill advocates a couple other tactics. For one, don’t listen to your customers, at least not exclusively. They might not know they want something until you offer it. Also, hire lots of different types of people. Ones who annoy you are especially promising. Finally, unless it involves IT security or HR files, don’t keep secrets.
So, keep an open mind, be flexible, and try out some of those dumb ideas. Then your business might just be the next Google. We have finished reading I’m Feeling Lucky by Douglas Edwards. Look for some quotes to note from this book.
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Why Open Source?
August 3, 2011
ITworld’s interview provides some insight into the man behind Hadoop in “Doug Cutting talks about Hadoop, and Open Source.”
Writer Bob Reselman asked some questions on programming languages and coding that I’m not going to get into here (but do see the article if you’re interested in specifics.) More interesting to me are Cutting’s comments about his approach to open source:
“Open Source seemed to offer the option to have the software that I’d written, this particular one, Lucene, live on and have the opportunity for people to use it. Maybe somehow there would be some revenue for me, although frankly when I first got into it, that wasn’t at all an interest. I had no business aspirations around Lucene at all. I just wanted to see this software written and not go to waste.”
Cutting’s desire to share is inspiring, as is his interest in collaborating. We’d like to see such attitudes expand.
Given recent trends, though, we have to wonder whether the open source community is built to last. Our question: Will open source just morph into a commercial service? Or can it be saved from that fate by developers willing to contribute to the greater good?
Stephen E Arnold’s forthcoming Online Magazine column “Open Source Search: A Digital Technicolor Dream Coat” takes a look at how some vendors are using the phrase “open source” as a way to squeeze some marketing juice from the growing interest in FOSS, free and open source software. The Online Column was prompted by the complaint that Squiz’s use of “open source” on its splash page was not an indication that the company is in the open source software business. I wonder what Bill Clinton would define “open source” to mean? You can read about “supported open source” in “Squiz and Funnelback: Supported Open Source.”
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Web 3.0: What about Search?
August 3, 2011
Consulting firm Booz & Company has published a new whitepaper, “Designing the Transcendent Web: The Power of Web 3.0.” A treatise on where we are headed online, the paper maps the contours of the road ahead.
Booze describes this new landscape:
“Imagine a world in which a movie search on your smartphone turns up only the kind of movies you like, and only those playing in your neighborhood. In which your behavior, inputs, and interactions on social networks automatically produce lists of recommendations, potential friends, even job offers. In which searching and browsing the Web becomes vastly more interesting and efficient, with results and link suggestions tailored specifically to your interests, and in which your ‘virtual representative,’ a kind of online personal assistant, keeps working to find you the best information even when you’re offline.”
Promising that this “transcendent Web” will drastically change the way we live and work, the paper is full of details. First, it examines the developments that led to this place. Next, it describes its key elements, how Web 3.0 is becoming a reality, and the impact they expect it will have. Finally, the work tells us how businesses can prepare to take advantage of the technology.
As with any piece produced by a consulting firm, our caveat is that these companies do create stuff to generate business. That being said, we recommend you check out this informative whitepaper.
However, keep in mind:
- Search is given little attention
- Consulting firms generate “output” in order to make sales, so the information may be appropriate to a consulting firm objective, not the reader’s
- The current Web seems to be shaping up to be a landscape filled with walled gardens, not the wide open information prairie of the Internet’s frontier days.
As we work through these white papers and position papers, we are starting to accept that search is little more than a utility. Search is not the main focus of consultants and, we think, of those with information problems.
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Blue Sky Time at Google Trimmed
August 3, 2011
Google recently announced via its official blog they’re closing down Google Labs, the website playground for demonstrating and testing new technologies that spawned successful projects like Gmail and Google Calendar. Bummer. (You can read Beyond Search’s “semi official” view at this link.)
Google explains in the blog post they’re prioritizing product efforts and that many Labs experiments will end or be incorporated into different product areas, and the site will remain open as a source for news updates.
Ted Samson examines Google’s move in, “Google Sacrifices Google Labs to ‘Product Focus:’”
The news inevitably raises questions as to how this shift will affect future innovation from Google. On the one hand, the announcement does signal potentially greater business maturity at Google…One must wonder, though, if the closure will result in hampering the type of creation and innovation for which Google is known.
Will the move stifle Google employees’ innovative and experimental play in the Labs? The prospect of side-projects in the Labs has also long been a draw for wannabe Googlers. Will the product managers encourage innovation not related to social applications and services? We think not. We think it is simple cost management. Who wants to work in Google Labs on a blue sky project when a bonus is directly tied to contributions to Google’s social media push against the evil Darth Sucker?
Philip West, August 3, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Protected: Tips for Your SharePoint Deployment
August 3, 2011
The Feivi Arnstein Interview: Founder of SearchLion
August 2, 2011
On August 1, 2011, I had an opportunity to talk with Feivi Arnstein, founder of SearchLion. SearchLion provides a browser-based interface that looks like a Google-influenced Web search system. The home page for SearchLion presents an interesting description: The new way to search. Welcome to the 21st century Web search.” The system makes it easy to narrow a query on specific types of content; for example, Web content, images, news, blogs, and Twitter messages.
SearchLion reflects a different approach from the keyword method that is quite different from the brute force approach used by the early Web search systems. In fact, the tagline for the service is “The New Way to Search.” To make certain a user understands the new direction the company is taking, the splash page offers the greeting, “Welcome to 21st century Web search.”
I ran queries on the system, which offers relevance ranked search results from Google and Yahoo. I found the output useful. When I clicked on the Open button next to an entry in the results list, the system displayed in the browser a preview of the Web page. IN addition, other hits are listed in the right hand column of the display which are related to the result I “opened”.
Source: www.searchlion.com
When I spoke with Mr. Arnstein, I was curious about the inspiration for the interface, which puts the focus on content, not ads. The idea for the content centric interface was, according to Mr. Arnstein, a result of his work in the financial services sector. Screens for traders, for example, are filled with information important to the task at hand. He said:
My first professional background was as a Technical Futures trader. I spent several years making a living day trading equity futures from my own private office. When you trade equities, you use software which makes use of every inch of screen space. So, for example, you can have a screen which is evenly split into four equity charts. The concept is simple: the more data you can access on the screen, the more productive you will be. I was accustomed to the efficiency of trading software. I realized that when searching and browsing the web, there were big parts of the screen going to waste. So I sought to find ways to use the available screen space to give the user more data.
He noted:
We think this fosters switching back and forth which is time consuming and can be confusing to many users. If you can have results and the source both on the same screen, our research suggests that users can find what they looking for much more quickly. In addition to opening the live sites, you can also save your searches together with the live sites. When you then load a search from your saved list, the live sites open automatically. We’ve used the same concepts without our MultiView features. Instead of the live Web site, MultiView uses the blank areas of the page to show you a different type of search result; for example, images, news, videos, etc.
The technical challenges were “interesting”, according to Mr. Arnstein. He added:
When showing more information, your browser will be using more resources. It took a lot of work and innovation to make sure the user gets his additional information, whether the live sites or the various types of results and still be extremely fast.
You can read the full interview with Mr. Arnstein on the ArnoldIT.com subsite, Search Wizards Speak. The Search Lion site is at http://www.searchlion.com.
Stephen E Arnold, August 2, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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