Isys: Eliminating Search Speed Bumps
December 15, 2011
I thought speed bumps were sleeping policemen. ISYS Search tackles them. Thump. Squish. Navigate to “Isys Tackles Enterprise Search Speed Bumps.” The idea is that Isys can make a problematic findability problem a non issue. According to the write up:
The new version features ISYS 1-Click File Finder indexing, analytics and search technology, as well there are seven major new application features. ISYS Research Accelerator is a customizable interface that lets business users search and refine the results the way they want – and make the information easily available and actionable for others. ISYS Information Map offers an advanced visual navigation tool that lets business users see and explore the links between pieces of information. The new Timeline Refinement Bar makes large results sets easy to navigate and ensures users know they’re getting to the most accurate and recent versions of documents. ISYS Enterprise 10.0 introduces Multi-core Indexing, which promises to significantly improve indexing speed and robustness, with multiple ‘worker tasks’ able to handle unlimited filename lengths and unlimited document container depths. Users can now view common document formats (like MS Office, Adobe PDF) the way they were intended, with full layout, fonts, images and hit-highlighting. ISYS Enterprise 10.0 can search by document type extension across 400+ document, file and email types. Also, there are native 32-bit and 64-bit Server Versions to allow organizations to make use of their existing hardware.
The write up did not include information about license fees, visualization, extensibility, application programming interfaces, and customer support options. You may want to contact the company for these details. I did not include Isys in my “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.” The company hit my radar with its connector licensing strategy, which struck me as an interesting idea. This new release reminds me that Isys is in the enterprise search market. That sector is in flux with other vendors repositioning themselves, throwing around buzzwords, and reinventing themselves as big data analytics companies. Isys is using the the lingo of a more traditional, pre mobile app approach to enterprise search. You can get more information at the Isys Information Center. One question: Will I get a ticket for speeding down the enterprise information highway with the goddess of he goddess of motherhood, magic and fertility? Kentucky is a pretty conservative place.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Search: Down the Funnel
December 15, 2011
Here I am in a rat hole of a hotel on my way to a meeting in the pre dawn hours. I click on a headline “Using Search and Social Strategically to Win New Business.” It is one of those odd ball Forbes Magazine articles. I am not sure if the write up is an ad, an editorial, a feature, or a crazy PR move designed to give me an upset tummy.
The idea is that a big company called Siemens figured out how to use search and social media to drive people “down the funnel.” I was baffled. I get the metaphor of a funnel. Dump oil in the big part of the funnel and put the little part in the motorcycle’s dipstick thing. Quit when the crankcase is full. Well, sort of. Here’s the passage that explains Siemens’ method:
o put this idea into action, Siemens Enterprise Communications turned to the experts at gyro to develop and execute the plan to push search and social “down the funnel” and align it against supporting an identified opportunity. Instead of focusing on getting in the consideration set, we set our sights on developing a program to help influence decision-makers at the point of purchase.
Wow.
The idea was to buy ads and post messages on social networks. The “secret” is explained in this segment:
So here’s where the fun started: We used geotargeting to place ads within a 50-mile radius of the city that housed our prospects, influencers and key decision-makers. Then we used social platforms—Facebook and LinkedIn—to segment prospects and deliver employer-specific ad copy. Our social tactics also helped ensure that our competitor (who could outspend us if they so chose) didn’t see our campaign; essentially, we needed to stay under their radar. In the event that our prospect did not take a desired search action, we used remarketing to continue interacting with customers across the Web through other online content platforms, such as regional news sites and ESPN.com.
But if one is under the radar, won’t other people miss the program as well? Minor point.
Three observations:
First, search does not mean information retrieval. Search means something different from my understanding of finding information. This is the search engine marketing type of search. SEO is under pressure and my Overflight system is easily confused with articles about sales, not about locating on point information. Grrr.
Second, there is some sort of tie up going on among the company providing the services (Gyro, an advisor to Forbes) and the article itself. I am not sure what’s what, but this type of case study is what real journalists produce, I am glad I got kicked out of a business class and was forced to study Anglo Saxon.
Third, the notion of using social networks to fool competitors tells me quite a lot about the acumen of the competitors. How can one be confident that a competitor was not participating in the “conversation” and playing mind games with the wizards who cooked up the program.
“Down the funnel” has an intriguing graphic too. I want to stay out of the funnel. Too bad about the meaning of the word “search”. I would suggest that search has gone “down the toilet” but that may be too harsh. How about “down the drain”? Fun.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
SharePoint Forces Organizational Culture Shock
December 15, 2011
- “Structural Change. This type of change looks at the organization as a set of functional parts that need to be restructured. The parts are re-configured (re-organized) to achieve greater overall performance. Mergers and acquisitions are two examples of structural change.
- Cost Cutting. This type of change focuses on the elimination of nonessential activities or on other methods of squeezing costs out of operations.
- Process Change. This type of change focuses on altering how tasks and activities are accomplished. Examples include re-engineering processes or implementing a new decision-making framework. The introduction of new software products onto the desktop clearly falls into this type of change.
- Cultural Change. This type of change focuses on the human side of the organization, such as a company’s general approach to doing business or the relationship between its management and employees. Cultural change nearly always involves relational change. Since relationships are built on personal interaction, how people communicate and interact with each other helps build the culture. Introducing SharePoint Products and Technologies into your environment introduces culture changes because SharePoint Products and Technologies introduce new communication paths and new ways of relating to co-workers, partners, vendors, and customers.”
Karmasphere and MapR Team Up on Hadoop Help
December 15, 2011
Karmasphere and MapR Technologies are working together to make Hadoop’s Big Data Analytics platform more accessible, announces Karmasphere in “Combination Offers Self-Service Big Data Analytics with Minimal IT Support.” Hadoop, of course is free as open source software. You can, however, purchase help in managing it.
Karmasphere Analytics is now available on MapR’s Hadoop distribution system. The write up notes:
‘Karmasphere’s graphical Big Data Analytics workspace is the perfect complement to MapR’s easy to use, dependable and fast platform,’ said Jack Norris, vice president of marketing, MapR. ‘With the availability of Karmasphere products on our distribution, data analysts can derive insights from their structured and unstructured data in Hadoop without developing MapReduce programs.’
Karmasphere helps its customers use Hadoop to extract patterns, relationships, and drivers from big data. The company boasts that its Analytics Engine is intuitive and simplifies data analysis.
MapR Technologies helps business users who don’t also happen to be IT pros efficiently manage their Hadoop implementation. It prides itself on making Hadoop more reliable and easier to use.
Cynthia Murrell, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Role of Enterprise Search within Product Lifecycle Management
December 15, 2011
…it is the fact that the PLM world is changing from databases towards networks. It is not about capturing all data inside one single system, but to be able to find the right information through a network of information carriers. This suits also very well with the new generation of workers (generation-Y) who also learned to live in this type of environments and collect information through their social networks.
Catherine Lamsfuss, December 12, 2011
Startups Challenge SharePoint
December 15, 2011
Enterprise 2.0 is a term being thrown around the blogosphere to indicate incorporation of social media functionality into workplace software. The leader in enterprise, Microsoft SharePoint, is quite clearly incapable of keeping up in any discussion of enterprise 2.0. Andy McLoughlin, co-leader of the enterprise 2.0 startup, Huddle, offers his insight in, “This 32-Year-Old Entrepreneur is Bent on Beating One of Microsoft’s Largest Businesses.”
McLoughin says,
There’s a huge amount of room to improve upon SharePoint as a content collaboration tool the enterprise. It’s sold as free software, yet any CIO who has tried (and failed) to implement it knows that it’s far too easy to spend many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars getting it ready for deployment. Users generally hate it and most licenses will never be deployed.
We agree. SharePoint at its best is simply a basic platform, or foundation, and functionality is only achieved through potentially costly add-ons for deployment. However, good third party solutions are out there. One is Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise user interface is based on Web 2.0 technology and combines simplicity with elegance. The operation is self-explanatory. Work just as you are used to. Access your data from anywhere. Also on smartphones and tablets. Elegant design, easy operation. With you wherever you are. Find and access your enterprise and cloud information straight away.
To set itself apart from the newer enterprise startups, Fabasoft has been an up-and-comer in the industry for ten years, having received the KM World Trendsetting Product of the Year four years running. With a track record of anticipation and innovation, Fabasoft Mindbreeze will continue to offer solutions that make sense in a changing technological culture. To fix today’s problems, and work toward tomorrow’s solutions, look at a smart installation like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Search Results to Degrade in 2012?
December 15, 2011
Can paid search become less useful? Maybe.
More on the death of precision and recall in public Web search: “Paid Search To Grow 15% In 2012,” declares Online Media Daily. Online video will largely drive the increase, according to a report from ZenithOptimedia. Mobile usage is also a factor; the average number of ads shown per app is 4.3, according to the study. It also found that smartphone users spend more time in their apps than Internet users spend online.
Oh, and political advertising should pick up between now and next November. Goody.
How much are advertisers paying for the privilege? Writer Laurie Sullivan enlightens us; we learned from the write up:
The ZenithOptimedia report puts placing a promoted trend on Twitter now costs $120,000 daily, up from between $25,000 and $30,000 when Twitter first launched in April 2010. Now brands will have an opportunity to place ads using a self-serve platform, which the study suggests could drive up prices not only for Twitter ads, but Google paid search ads, as well.
Web search is increasingly being bought, to the detriment of users. We should have realized the almighty dollar would triumph.
Cynthia Murrell, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Facebook Skiing Downhill to the Rest Home?
December 15, 2011
Is it possible that the most widely used Web site on the Internet is at the end of its time? Some seem to think so.
In September 2011, Facebook claimed 14.7 percent of total U.S. consumer Internet-usage minutes. This number is higher than any other Web site; the average Facebook user spent 410 minutes on the site during that same month. However, despite these numbers, some predict the Web site has peaked or is near its peak.
Ben Bajarin, director of consumer-technology analysis at Creative Strategies Inc., gives his outlook in the Time’s article, “The Beginning of the End for Facebook?”
When I survey the landscape and look at trends, which is one of my jobs as an industry analyst, I see declining usage of Facebook as a significant trend. Taking that into context and combining it with the unique new offerings coming up daily, you can see why I’m asking the question. Facebook may have run its course. Of course, it’s too early to tell, and Facebook can still innovate and, in essence, disrupt itself.
The author cites his own declining use of the site, as well as a poll of almost 500 high school students, as evidence for the imminent failure of Facebook. He calls it “Facebook fatigue” and believes people will slowly drift toward websites that put limits on your network or are based upon specific interests.
I disagree. Although people may find they are spending more time on other social networking sites, at the end of the day, the will return to Facebook. Why? Simply because everyone else is. With a network where everyone logs in everyday to post thoughts and pictures and events, it’s a catchall that will survive because it is seemingly limitless.
Andrea Hayden, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Library of Congress Is Atwitter
December 15, 2011
The Library of Congress triggers many trends. These range from mini conferences to poetry awards to spurring the House and Senate to create on site libraries.
Tweets as historical documents? Yep. Apparently that’s what they are these days.
Last year, the Library of Congress made an agreement with Twitter to archive every public tweet ever sent on the website. Only recently, however, has the announcement been discussed much by the public.
Infonary’s article, “Library of Congress to Store Tweets Based on Twitter Deal,” gives us more information on the thinking behind the deal. Bill Lefurgy, digital initiatives program manager at the library’s digital information infrastructure and preservation program, told Federal News Radio.com:
The archive contains ‘billions and billions of tweets’ and is ‘a unique record of our time,’ he said. ‘There have been studies involved with what are the moods of the public at various times of the day in reaction to certain kinds of news events,’ Lefurgy told the news organization. ‘There’s all these interesting kinds of mixing and matching that can be done using tweets as a big set of data.’
The tweets will be held by the library’s repository of historical documents and will only include tweets that were not marked protected or private.
I understand the potential importance of following Twitter trends on popular social topics or riveting news events, but to store every single tweet casted off into Twitterland seems ridiculous to me. The ramblings of emotionally supercharged teens and PR for Chas Bono will now not only be annoyingly posted on the social networking site, but will be available to scholars, researchers, and members of the House and Senate via the Library of Congress.
Andrea Hayden, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Sinequa Releases Business Search Version 8.0
December 15, 2011
Sinequa has just released the latest version of its enterprise search platform, as described in its “Version 8.0 of Sinequa Business Search becomes a Unified Information Access Platform.” A number of improvements have been made on 2009’s Version 7.
One unique feature: the new version is compatible with both Linux and Windows. It also sports new graphical elements; secure auto-completion with orthographic correction; and real-time computation of performance indicators. Furthermore, it now calculates relevance based in part on user actions.
There are also new Text Mining Agents. We learned from the write-up:
Tens of Text Mining Agents (TMA) are delivered as part of Version 8. In addition to the now classic ones like extractors of addresses, names of people or companies, the new version also includes extractors for email addresses, Facebook and Twitter links, and even bank account numbers and automobile number plates.
Another new focus is on collaborative and social business search. Labels allow users to influence the categorization of documents, while ratings let users assign each document a grade which will influence its ranking in response lists.
To learn more, check out the write ups at toolinux, silicon.fr, and artesi. (If you don’t read French, though, have handy your translation software of choice.)
Sinequa bases its context-sensitive Business Search on twenty five years of linguistic research. It combines semantic tools with statistical analysis, and has the capability to manage up to tens of thousands of users and billions of records. Perhaps best of all, it is built to integrate into most enterprise applications and data sources commonly used by businesses around the world.
Cynthia Murrell, December 15, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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