Google and Media Channels: Google+ and the Football Demographic
November 27, 2011
I am not a TV type. My knowledge of Google+ is shallow. I watched the commercial using a link in the TechCrunch story “Google+ Gets A Thanksgiving Day TV Ad: “Sharing, But Like Real Life”. I could not watch the entire commercial because the phone rang, and I have the old fashioned type of attention deficit disorder. I do meaningful work first; I don’t watch stuff designed and delivered via boob tube marketing.
I have pieced together some thoughts, however.
First, as I recall Google is trying to create YouTube with “real” channels, which the “real” consultants explain thoroughly. These poobahs are probably more expert in couch surfing, the vast wasteland, and quips from Dancing with the Stars than I. The notion of advertising a Google service on a medium which Google is trying to supplant strikes me as interesting. I was tempted to use the word schizophrenic, but as a dinosaur type goose, I find psych-babble only slightly more confusing than TV advertisements. “How many people will watch the Thomson Reuters’ channel on YouTube?” I wonder.
Second, forget the cost of the time and the production. The notion of using a football game to pitch a social networking service is interesting. I thought the very core, the essence, the guts of social interaction was the viral function. My understanding, which as I have frequently noted, is flawed suggests to me that people fuel the take off of the hot social service. You know the “network effect,” the old n^n+1 network of fax machines argument. The signal flash in my braid suggested this question, “If Google+ is a social network, then it should be supported by itself.” Obviously an exogenous action was needed to jump start the viral effect. The issue for me is that TV ads may not trigger a viral effect. Unlike CNet’s “Google Takes on Facebook with Long Google+ TV Ad”, I did not think of this observation:
This Google+ thing, when it launched, seemed just a trifle more brainy. Now along comes this long disquisition that makes it seem, well, even brainier. Or at least, to the normal human being, not noticeably different from Facebook. Or, well, what is it?
Third, what online service has successfully advertised its way into my behavior patterns? GoDaddy? No, I remember the elephant killing thing, not the service. The grocery service. No, what grocery service? The pet thing? No, no, I buy dog food at the local pet store which does not advertise anywhere. The company has a sign, but it is next to the doc in a box, so I don’t pay much attention to ads.
What’s the “net net” as one of the financial experts for whom I used to do work used to say? My take on the net net is:
- Something has gone off the rails with Google+ usage when one advertisers on a holiday to football fans in the midst of some type of holiday function. At the Arnold’s this boils down to baking, booze, and bedlam. Embracing Google+ instead of giblets was not on the menu. For you, who knows?
- Google+ and its ability to self generate buzz is not doing the job against the arch enemy Facebook. Is the phrase “wave of failure” appropriate? I don’t think “buzz” will do the job. Google is a heck of a marketer, but is the challenge of boosting Google+ outside the capacity of Google’s own, formidable capabilities. Is there a place for old media in Google’s new world?
- Given the fact that Google is using old media (television) to promote a new media (social networking), has Google realized that it is just out of step with what is happening in the market. Why couldn’t YouTube or one of the other Google micro targeting services inject specific information about Google+ directly into the online experience of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of Google users? The thought that the reality is different from the perception of Google’s potency is interesting. Perhaps Google+ is a true consumer product just like contact lenses equipped with Terminator style displays?
Google is definitely a different company from the search oriented start up 13 years ago. I now say “hello” to the new Google which is its Google+ service, consumerization, and old media supporter.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Search Sound
November 26, 2011
Lockergnome reported on the evolution of search technology this week in the article “In Search Of Sound With MediaMined.”
As a way to continue to evolve search technology beyond searching for text and images, audio engineers at Imagine Research in San Francisco have been working on what they call “the world’s first sound object recognition Web service.”
The service is called MediaMined , and is driven by artificial intelligence that is able to “listen” to sound files — whether they’re properly labeled, mislabeled, or not labeled at all — and analyze what they actually are.
Writer Robert Glen Fogarty states:
??“Musicians, podcasters, radio broadcasters, and audio engineers would obviously benefit from this kind of technology, but some other unexpected applications could make use of it, as well. Mobile devices could use a MediaMined type of system to detect their surroundings and present new ways to interact with their users based on this incoming data (think augmented reality cranked up to 11). Medical professionals might be able to use this technology in order to gather data based on sounds made by patients — such as sneezing, snoring, coughing, and wheezing — to help with more keenly diagnosing their condition.”
Here at Beyond Search we believe that this new search technology is definitely a step in the right direction.
Jasmine Ashton, November 25, 2011
Google Offers Free Websites For New York Businesses?
November 26, 2011
Search Engine Watch reported this week on website services in the article “Websites are Now Free For New York Businesses.”
According to the article, as a way to promote Google’s services to New York businesses, Google is now offering free websites as part of a deal they have made with the website building firm Intuit http://websitebuilder.intuit.
Google’s Website states:
“Small businesses are vital to America’s economic future; the nation’s 27.5M small businesses comprise half the US GDP and create two-thirds of all new jobs. While 97% of Americans look online for local products and services, 52% of New York small businesses do not have a website. That’s a lot of small businesses that are virtually invisible to potential customers looking online.”
Since web hosting and domain names are cheap as it is, Google can make more money from selling ad space on these free websites. Both Google and small businesses can increase their profits through this deal. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Jasmine Ashton, November 26, 2011
Protected: SharePoint Teams Ignore the Information Professional’s Role
November 25, 2011
Content Management Best Practices
November 25, 2011
With the raging demand for content management systems, not all organizations know how to correctly implement such systems, such as the ubiquitous SharePoint. Specifically with SharePoint, an organization can’t just open the box and expect their content to be organized and retrievable. Patrick Sledz lays out some best practices when working with content in SharePoint in his blog entry, “5 Best Practices for Working with Documents and SharePoint.” In addition to advice about file naming, Sledz also addresses using SharePoint as a platform and not just a filing system.
“Use SharePoint as a Document Management Platform. And I mean Platform, not just a secondary file storage location. The file stored here is the ‘one version of the truth.’ This is your starting and ending point. DO NOT send this document to people, but send links to the document. This way you’ll keep just 1 version of the truth.”
Adding to the theme of organization and storage, Sledz recommends adding metadata. While the advice is good for SharePoint users, we have found third party solutions that offer intuitive applications incorporating these principles. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers a suite of solutions that when combined provide for every aspect of an organization’s information storage and retrieval needs. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise offers its own enterprise solution, or Fabasoft Mindbreeze Connector syncs up with an organization’s current SharePoint applications, increasing usability and retrieval.
“The Microsoft SharePoint Connector connects the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise and enables the search for documents stored in that application.”
Metadata is innate and intuitive with a solution like Mindbreeze. So while the above best practices are a good reminder for any organization using enterprise solutions, a smart enterprise solution will provide more answers and leave your organization with less questions. Check out Fabasoft Mindbreeze to see if their products can save you time and trouble.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 25, 2011
Sponsored by: Pandia.com
Unfriendly Wikipedia
November 25, 2011
Interesting write up—almost a polemic–about Wikipedia as a closed resource. The notion of free and open once again collides with donations and sort of open. Which path is correct? “The Closed, Unfriendly World Of Wikipedia” raised a point I had not considered—a free, user-generated encyclopedia as “unfriendly”.
“Unfriendly”, in this case, does not mean a lousy interface. Wikipedia is dowdy and Sergey Brin plopped down $500,000 to keep the encyclopedia alive. The timing was interesting. Google slit the throat of Knol in its effort trim the ad supported airship, USS Google. Such paradoxes are not unknown in the world of encyclopedia making.
My partner Chris Kitze suggested this type of encyclopedia in 1993. After some discussion, we came up with a Web site review and classification service called The Point. Let’s see. That was 18 years ago. Encyclopedias are either the work of a slightly demented writer (maybe Denis Diederot?) or folks who have horses with hobbies to ride, marketers disguised as experts, or Kentucky students with a penchant for fabrication. We ultimately rejected the idea of a user supported encyclopedia as requiring lots of fiddling to get the content in, reviewed, and updated. Wise decision or dumb decision? We thought it was a wise one.
I worked for a while as an advisor to K. Wayne Smith, formerly an aide to Henry Kissinger, a general, and the top dog at World Book Encyclopedia. I recall his grimacing when I asked about the economics of an encyclopedia. He did not say anything. I do remember the grimace. Tough business still, so wacky user supported services are what seem to be one way forward. By definition, these services are slightly wacky. See my reference to the interesting M. Diderot.
Now let us look at the key point in the “unfriendly” write up::
It’s insane. It really is. And with respect to the many hardworking people who have created a generally useful resource, it’s not a friendly resource. It doesn’t have systems, as far as I can tell, designed to help it improve. It has walls, walls you believe (with many good reasons) are designed to protect it from being vandalized. But those walls themselves are their own type of vandalization of the very resource you’re trying to protect…Bottom line — I’ve gotten no indication that anyone at Wikipedia actually cares what a subject expert has to say on, well, a subject they’re an expert in. Instead, you drown in a morass of bureaucracy. It shouldn’t be this way.
My view is a somewhat different.
First, what happened to Know. I thought it obviated these Wiki-esque methods? Oh, Knol is a gone goose. Question: Why did not Knol, assisted by “real” experts not survive? I don’t have an answer, but if Knol is a gone goose and we have the “unfriendly” Wikipedia, isn’t the market telling me something?
Second, encyclopedias have been a tough nut to crack. These compilations require a Samuel Johnson or enormous sums of money. The revenue from print encyclopedias had as much to do with the books on a shelf as with reading their contents. The set of reference books helped prove that a family valued education, learning, or a pretense thereto. Today, what have we got, an iPad and a flat panel TV?
Third, I find solace in Cervantes’ The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. One idea is that a rational man does veer into interesting behaviors. I won’t bring up the windmill thing. Trying to create a system which prevents a free, user supported encyclopedia from becoming a warehouse of misinformation, marketing baloney, and worse is difficult.
Encyclopedia have been reinvented. The new reference service is a mobile phone which tells you what an algorithm wants you to know. If you visit a Web page, chances are that you will experience low precision and low recall content. The reason? Search engine optimization, slick and smarmy “experts”, and outright disinformation either for mercantile ends or for socio-political ends.
I am okay with the windmill joust. But no encyclopedia in a traditional or slightly modernized form can deliver problem free content in the age of mobile and filtered, ad supported search. Governance is a fancy word that does little to cover the wrinkles and warts of editorial policy.
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Will Smarter AI Dumb Down the Humans?
November 25, 2011
Recently, Google’s Peter Norvig and Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz spoke jointly in Palo Alto about the future of artificial intelligence. Technology Review’s editor Tom Simonite interviewed the pair afterward, and published the results in “Google and Microsoft Talk Artificial Intelligence.”
The interview delves into challenges and advances in the field of AI, and is worth checking out if that’s your thing. It also notes that artificial intelligence is already ubiquitous; Simonite mentions the iPhone 4S’s Siri, for example. In a quote from Horvitz, we learned from the write up:
I think the idea that we can take leading-edge AI and develop a consumer device [Microsoft’s Kinect] that sold faster than any other before in history says something about the field of AI. Machine learning also plays a central role in Bing search, and I can only presume is also important in Google’s search offering. So, people searching the Web use AI in their daily lives.
Yes, AI is here and only growing. But does it seem to anyone else that Google and Microsoft want smart software, not smart, informed users? Is this a form of control?
My hunch is that “smart software” means more control for the large vendors. When people are accepting inputs as a reflex, the individuals may become more sheep like. Baa. Baa.
Cynthia Murrell, November 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Talking to a Mobile Phone: Who Did Artificial Intelligence First?
November 25, 2011
First, Google worked on its Android before Apple got in gear with its iPhone. Now, Microsoft did voice search on a phone before Apple. You can get the scoop in a serial content experience; that is, a video, referenced in Forbes’ “Microsoft’s Craig Mundie On Siri: Been There, Done That.” More and more frequently I marvel at the expertise of a commercial enterprise, public relations professionals, and “real” journalists to cook up scintillating insights. Here’s the passage which caught my attention on Turkey Day:
Mundie, in fact, contends that Apple has been stressing that feature on the new phone due to a lack of other truly novel improvements in the latest version of the phone.
I understand sour grapes. I mean the tablet thing must have annoyed some professionals at Microsoft. The only point I would mention is that Apple sells a modest number of mobile phones yet sucks in more than half of the money. Unlike Microsoft, Apple did not have to induce a mobile phone player to make phones. And unlike Android, Apple seems to have so far avoided the “what operating system version to I have” problem.
How does one address a slow news day when you are a “real” publication? Maybe do a video interview? Thank goodness Beyond Search is neither “real” journalism nor a “real” consulting firm. The goose is indeed unreal.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Offers Free Web Sites for New York Businesses
November 24, 2011
Search Engine Watch reported this week on website services in the article “Websites are Now Free For New York Businesses.”
According to the article, as a way to promote Google’s services to New York businesses, Google is now offering free websites as part of a deal they have made with the website building firm Intuit to get more local businesses online. In conjunction with the new product, Google is also holding events throughout the state to provide people with information about online marketing.
Google’s Website states:
“Small businesses are vital to America’s economic future; the nation’s 27.5M small businesses comprise half the US GDP and create two-thirds of all new jobs. While 97% of Americans look online for local products and services, 52% of New York small businesses do not have a website. That’s a lot of small businesses that are virtually invisible to potential customers looking online.”
Since web hosting and domain names are cheap as it is, Google can make more money from selling ad space on these free websites. Both Google and small businesses can increase their profits through this deal. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Jasmine Ashton, December 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: SharePoint is the Fastest Growing Content Tool
November 24, 2011
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