Googzilla Gets Social
January 11, 2012
I scanned the “official” line of Google’s most recent social play. I flipped through the long list of comments, views, opinions, etc. My reaction? What’s the big surprise. Here’s an anchor post: “Antitrust+,” which appeared in Parislemon. The main idea seems to be that pundits recognize Google, an outfit I called Googzilla back in 2005, is doing the beaver thing. (The notion of Googzilla originated from my research which revealed that Google believed that its “system” would provide the underpinnings for most business processes. Therefore, search was the new infrastructure. When I used this reference in a talk in London, the Googler on the panel with me said, “Cool.” Googzilla is just a big beaver, doing its beaver thing.) You may recall the adage, “Beavers do what beavers do.” Put the beaver in the kitchen of the Cast Iron Grill in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, and the beaver starts building a dam. Why? That’s what beavers do. Easy to predict because beavers do their thing. Here’s evidence of the Google-beaver similarity:
Google is using Search to propel their social network. They might say it’s “not a social network, it’s a part of Google”, but no one is going to buy that. They were late to the game in social and this is the best catch-up strategy ever. Given that it’s opt-out, I’m just not sure that this is all that different from Microsoft bundling IE with Windows.
Google is doing the social thing, not because Google is social. Google is doing social in order to remain relevant to the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn users. In these systems, content from humans is perceived to be more accurate, less biased, and generally more useful than a list of results in which ads, content, red herrings, and even malware lurk. Hey, some users seem to think, the social information is just “better.” When the user is looking for a short cut, getting mis- or dis-information from a “friend” is probably a better bet than taking what a non-social system generates.
Beavers do what beavers do. Why does one expect the beaver to build a computer when beavers build dams.
My view is that most of the free content available on the Web is dicey stuff. Most users today—including recent library school graduates—lack the skills to determine accurate content in most topic areas, distorted content with bent or shaped “facts”, content with mixed semantic or sentiment coloring, and the most relevant document for a particular query.
In short, “beavers do what beavers do” applies to Google, but the adage also applies to users who take what systems give them because advertisers and other funding sources foot the bill. Ask yourself these questions:
- When I am looking for information, I consult multiple commercial databases, review a representative selection of the documents, and make judgments about which documents warrant further investigation?
- When consuming results from any free online system, do I routinely verify facts by looking for another source which can verify the data in which I have an interest?
- When accepting “hits” from predictive systems, I run the same query on another predictive system and evaluate the outputs?
I know from information gathered as recently as last week, that even among recent library school graduates that few, if any, perform these actions.
So Google is getting social because:
- Facebook and other “real” competitors are nibbling into Google’s revenue growth system. In 2006, Google had essentially zero competitors. Today, Google is in an uncomfortable position. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and even the once presumed terminal Microsoft are posing problems, big problems. Google’s management is responding with “me too” solutions in the hopes that sheer imitation will solve the competitive gap problem. The beaver is doing what the beaver does.
- Google’s gravity free run is now carrying the ballast of staff retention. With the big paydays coming to employees of pre-IPO companies, 13 year old outfits don’t have that old hiring magnetism any longer. As a result, Google cannot innovate and disrupt. Google is now in the imitate and disrupt mode in my opinion. Aging beavers do what aging beavers do; that is, look for short cuts.
- Google must push through increasing friction. The resistance is coming from regulators who can be “managed” but that takes time, mental resources, and effort. No problem but with legal hassles on every continent except Antarctica, Google finds the legal tar getting harder. Other factors bumping up the coefficient of friction at Google are the cut backs, the about faces, and the multi-front product and service wars the company is fighting. Even beavers grow careless. I saw a squashed on on the way to the post office yesterday.
Wow, I bet everyone using social media for information wishes that the traditional method of research were back in vogue. Online services reflect the user. In short, beavers do what beavers do, and today beavers don’t do “get your hands dirty” research. How inefficient! Let’s get social to find the “truth”. That works?
I find Google interesting and one can make its public search system deliver high value results. However, most online users just accept what the system outputs. When I was younger, I worried that commercial online services like Dialog and LexisNexis would manipulate results to suit their corporate purposes. As risky as placing trust in a commercial online service may be, Dialog and LexisNexis made no effort to filter the content generated by commercial database producers. In fact, the systems made it possible to run a query across multiple commercial files using the 411 command or to run comprehensive searches across a corpus of third party content. It took time and effort to grind through these outputs, but the effort would yield insights, suggestions for further research, and often make visible unintentional or factual errors. In our Business Dateline database, we went so far as to include post publication corrections to the full text article. The idea was to make it clear that even commercial publishers make mistakes, often really big ones.
Today, the online consumer is getting exactly what the online consumer wants. The content finding systems are not built to deliver accurate, unbiased results. The majority of online users want answers, not the time consuming, intellectually exhausting task of figuring out the provenance and accuracy of information. Who wants to do library research and mind numbing data analysis. I want the equivalent of ESPN Newscenter so I “know” what happened in sports. Who has time to watch the games? Why read “long form” content when one can snag information via Flipbook and Pulse?
So let’s knock off the worry about Google and its incursions into social. Put that effort into performing rigorous searching. When the users shift from taking spoon fed, baby food content to more substantive fare, then Google as well as other online services will adapt.
Perhaps this type of sign should be posted on search result pages from ad supported online research services? Image source: http://www.graphicshunt.com/funny/images/stupidity-13135.htm
Right now, Google is doing what beavers do. Users are doing what users do. Hard work, fact based analysis, and exercising judgment are not driving online. Distraction, ease of use, easy, fast, and fun information access is driving beavers into a frenzy.
Beavers do what beavers do. One can’t change Mother Nature. Complaining about Googzilla is pretty much a waste of energy which can be better spent with more rigorous research. Wow, that will be popular with today’s “average” user looking for pizza in all the wrong places.
Stephen E Arnold, January 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com, a Web site run by information professionals
Tools and Tips for Maximizing SharePoint Functionality
January 11, 2012
There is a large chunk of the IT blogosphere devoted to SharePoint and enterprise, and a sizeable percentage of that is carved out for tips and tools to increase functionality. It makes sense. Enterprise is becoming a requirement, not just an option. Enterprise solutions, especially SharePoint, are massive creatures, requiring a lot of time and energy. Therefore, any tip or trick to get the most out of the system is of interest. The SharePoint Engine blog weighs in with, “7 Ways to Use SharePoint 2010 Effectively.”
The author writes:
The immense landscape that is SharePoint functionality is easy to lose track of. As a result, even those who don’t make major mistakes can still fall well short of taking full advantage of the platform. To help you as you try to milk this magnificent Microsoft system for all it’s worth, here are 7 simple ways you can use SharePoint to better your business.
The advice ranges from setting up mobile access to centralizing task locations. All these customization tips are smart, and will likely increase efficiency and retrieval. However, we wonder if a smarter solution exists, one that automatically implements these intuitive customization features, without having to spend the time to do the customization. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers that type of enterprise solution. Read more about their enterprise solution.
Highly efficient enterprise search and specific connectors link together data sources in companies and organizations. They integrate the knowledge of different sections of a company into a uniform, linked whole . . . But an all-inclusive search is not everything. Creating relevant knowledge means processing data in a comprehensible form and utilizing relations between information objects. Data is sorted according to type and relevance.
SharePoint is created to be an infrastructure, a shell. Powerful, yes, but costly to customize. That’s why many organizations are turning to third party solutions, such as Mindbreeze, to bridge the gap with SharePoint. Mindbreeze in particular will serve as a standalone solution or as an addition to an already existing SharePoint infrastructure.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Master Data Management to Grow in 2012
January 11, 2012
The search is on for better organized and accessible product data. Some companies are turning to Master Data Management (MDM) for the solution. “Gartner Says Master Data Management Software Revenue to Grow 21 Percent This Year” with revenues reaching $1.9 billion in 2012 and $3.2 billion by 2015.
MDM focuses on both customer and product data. For customers, MDM allows companies to cross-promote, retain current client bases and provide high-quality customer service. As for product data, it provides organized master data, metadata, or both. Gartner research director, Colleen Graham, says that MDM is necessary to deal with the likes of social data and data in the cloud.
“The increased demand for more effective decision-making and a focus on improving the timeliness and accuracy of business decisions makes MDM paramount for organsations,” said Graham. “MDM supports these goals by ensuring the high quality of key data needed at the point of decision, removing uncertainly and increasing confidence.”
Companies should not stop at MDM. They should look beyond and if they do, they will find that Inforbix goes a step further by using semantic technology to find and infer relationships between disparate sources of structured and unstructured product data. This allows users to find, locate and access data quickly which gives manufacturers the organized and accessible product data they are looking for.
Jennifer Wensink, January 11, 2012
Big Data in 2012: Reliable Open-Source Software Required
January 11, 2012
Enthusiasm and optimism that Big Data as a concept is the next big thing. We are almost ready to board the Big Data bull dozer. The hoopla surrounding Big Data has not died down in 2012. Instead, the concept demonstrates the continuing environment of processing and analysis.
As businesses become aware that the Big Data trend is here to stay, publishers are looking for reliable support. The Apache Hadoop project develops open-source software for reliable, scalable, distributed computing. The company offers much in the way of dealing with unstructured data and is setting the pace for consolidation as well as personalization. I came across an interesting article, “State of the World IT: Big Data, An Offer That is Formed” (The original article is in French, but http://translate.google.com works well for this gosling). We learn:
As a recognition of the market in 2011, Hadoop has also attracted the top names in the IT industry who put this framework in the heart of their range of data processing volume. One reason: the cost mainly reminded us James Markarian, executive vice president and technical director of Informatica confirming that the framework ‘helped to change the economic model of the Big Data.’ Adding that flexibility… was as a criterion for adoption.
It is clear that the excess of data will only continue to grow by the minute. Generations of search, publishing, and consolidation will continue to emerge. I recommend staying informed of the products and the specific capabilities of each. However, Big Data which is filtered may pose some interesting problems; for example, will the outputs match the pre-filtered reality? Will predictive methods work when some data are no longer in the stream? So far the cheerleading is using chants from an older, pre-filtering era. Is this a good thing or a no-thing?
Andrea Hayden, January 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Digimind Develops Social Media Solution for the Enterprise
January 11, 2012
Social media has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, be it personal or professional. The fact that anyone can leave a negative comment and blast it around the world in mere seconds means that companies need to engage with those individuals in an online forum.
According to the recent PR Web news release “Digimind Launches Social Media Engagement Solution,” intelligence and web based monitoring solutions provider Digimind announced the launch of a new social media harnessing agent for the enterprise called Digimind Engagement.
According to the article, Digimind Engagement enables organizations to utilize the power of social media and manage their online communities. It allows community managers, PR professionals and intelligence practitioners to track, measure and engage on blogs, forums, discussion boards and social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Patrice Francois, co-founding Director of Digimind said:
We are excited about helping businesses to revolutionize their social media strategy through a comprehensive suite of monitoring, analysis and engagement tools. Digimind Engagement is vital for companies who take their online reputation seriously and want to identify and manage risks as well as new sales opportunities. Our clients will also benefit from having on-demand access to real-time insights and analysis capabilities so they can respond quickly and effectively in the event of a crisis situation.
By finding a way to harness the previously unregulated created by social networking sites, Digimind Engagement is one of the products transforming content management as we know it. What happens if social content is filtered or censored? Interesting question.
Jasmine Ashton, January 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Gets Dinged Again
January 11, 2012
There have been some interesting statistics released recently in regards to Google+ growth and Android growth. According to the numbers Google stands to take over the world. That is precisely why the article, Digitas’ Bitterman On Owned, Earned And Hype — And Why Google+ Has Been A Negative, on MediaPost, caught our attention. According to the social marketing guru Google+ isn’t all it is hyped up to be.
The latest reports on Google+ numbers show that over 600,000 new members are signed on every day. Currently having over 60,000 million members Paul Allen of Ancestry.com predicts that by the end of 2012 400,000 million members could be a reality.
Google didn’t leave good enough alone with their market dominating efforts. Another report about the Google owned, Android, informed that 700,000 new Android activations happened each day – staggering numbers for a staggering company.
So why the loss of love from Bitterman? According to the article (quoting Bitterman),
We were surprised by the lack of true adoption of Google+ after an initial burst. With all of the resources at their disposal, we don’t count them out by a long shot, but integrating G+ into other parts of the Google ecosystem — as they intend to do –– would be wise. 2012 feels ripe for a breakout in this area. We are pleased with the speed in which brands are embracing marketing as service. (Digitas defines this as developing experiences with utility built-in.)
So all said and done the numbers of Google’s 2011 achievements are impressive and Bitterman doesn’t discount them, but Google needs to stop gloating and focus on the race if they want a chance at winning.
Catherine Lamsfuss, January 11, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Get Started on SharePoint Continuous Integration
January 11, 2012
Temis, Spammy PR, and Quite Silly Assertions
January 11, 2012
I am working on a project related to semantics. The idea is, according to that almost always reliable Wikipedia resource is:
the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.
Years ago I studied at Duquesne University, a fascinating blend of Jesuit obsession, basketball, and phenomenological existentialism. If you are not familiar with this darned exciting branch of philosophy, you can dig into Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint by Franz Brentano or grind through Carl Stumpf’s The Psychological Origins of Space Perception, or just grab the Classic Comic Book from your local baseball card dealer. (My hunch is that many public relations professionals feel more comfortable with the Classic approach, not the primary texts of philosophers who focus on how ephemera and baloney affect one’s perception of reality one’s actions create.)
But my personal touchstone is Edmund Husserl’s body of work. To get the scoop on Lebenswelt (a universe of what is self-evident), you will want to skip the early work and go directly to The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. For sure, PR spam is what I would call self evident because it exists, was created by a human (possibly unaware that actions define reality), to achieve an outcome which is hooked to the individual’s identify.
Why mention the crisis of European thought? Well, I received “American Society for Microbiology Teams Up With TEMIS to Strengthen Access to Content” in this morning’s email (January 10, 2012). I noted that the document was attributed to an individual identified as Martine Fallon. I asked to be removed from the spam email list that dumps silly news releases about Temis into my system. I considered that Martine Fallon may be a ruse like Betty Crocker. Real or fictional, I am certain she or one of her colleagues, probably schooled in an esoteric discipline such as modern dance, agronomy, and public relations are familiar with the philosophical musings of Jean Genet.
You can get a copy of Born to Lose at this link.
I recall M. Genet’s observation:
I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.
Temis, a European company in the dicey semantic game, surely appreciates the delicious irony of explaining a license deal as a “team”. The notion of strengthening access to content is another semantic bon mot. The problem is that the argument does not satisfy my existential quest for factual information; for example, look at the words and bound phrases in bold:
Temis, the leading provider of Semantic Content Enrichment solutions for the Enterprise, today announced it has signed a license and services agreement with the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the oldest and largest life science membership organization in the world.
Do tell. Leading? Semantic content enrichment. What’s that?
The “leading” word is interesting but it lacks the substance of verifiable fact. Well, there’s more to the news story and the Temis pitch. Temis speaks for its client, asserting:
To serve its 40,000 members better, ASM is completely revamping its online content offering, and aggregating at a new site all of its authoritative content, including ASM’s journal titles dating back to 1916, a rapidly expanding image library, 240 book titles, its news magazine Microbe, and eventually abstracts of meetings and educational publications.
I navigated to the ASM Web site, did some poking around, and learned that ASM is rolling in dough. You can verify the outfit’s financial status at this page. But the numbers and charts allowed me to see that ASM has increasing assets, which is good. However, this chart suggests that since 2008, revenue has been heading south.
Source: http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/DC/American-Society-For-Microbiology.html
In my limited experience in rural Kentucky, not-for-profits embrace technology for one of three reasons. Let me list them and see if we can figure out what causes the estimable American Society for Microbiology.
Android: Beyond Amazon and Samsung
January 10, 2012
I bought a phone from an outfit in China. I have been in some interesting cities in that vast, time immune nation state. The phone cost about $40 US. It runs a version of Android, supports two SIMMS, and worked with over the counter SIMMs from Europe and the US. I am not sure the phone is available in the US, but when I head to the damp, hot flood plains of Cambodia, I will tote my trust no name mobile gizmo. The BlackBerry is a technical clunker compared to this $40, two-SIMM device.
I thought about my gizmo when I read Samsung vs Google by the respected manager and investor Jean-Louis Gassée. I agree with most of his points, but I have worked with French wizards long enough to know that life is easier if one looks at the French as having outstanding technical capabilities, not just a nice country in which to purchase cheese. So no push back from me about the main point of the write up:
But even if we “de-propagandize” the numbers, Samsung is clearly the number one Android handset maker, and, just as clearly, it’s taking large chunks of market share from the other two leading players: Motorola and HTC both announced lower than expected Q4CY11 numbers. HTC’s unit volume was 10 million units, down from 13.2 million in Q3; Motorola got 10.5 million units in Q4, down from 11.6 million in Q3. This leaves us with the potential for an interesting face-off. Not Samsung vs Motorola/HTC, but…Samsung vs. Google. As Erik Sherman observes in his CBS MoneyWatch post, since Samsung ships close to 55% of all Android phones, the company could be in a position to twist Google’s arm. If last quarter’s trend continues — if Motorola and HTC lose even more ground — Samsung’s bargaining position will become even stronger. But what is Samsung’s ‘‘bargaining position’’? What could they want? Perhaps more search referral money (the $$ flowing when Google’s search engine is used on a smartphone), earlier access to Android releases, a share of advertising revenue… Will Google let Samsung gain the upper hand? Not likely, or at least not for long.There’s Motorola, about to become a fully-owned but “independent” Google subsidiary. A Googorola vertically-integrated smartphone line could counterbalance Samsung’s influence.
What caught my attention is the interesting role of Amazon in the Android avalanche. Amazon has used Android in its apparently successful Kindle Fire. The Amazon approach reminded me of the Chinese dual SIMM mobile phone. Android was like the lift a dude ranch rider gets from the trail ride boss. Android gets the dudes on the horses. Once on the horses, both dudes and animals can behave in unpredictable ways.
What is not in the write up is the possibility that the Amazons, Chinese mobile makers, and Samsung may use that open source Android in idiosyncratic ways. Even a dude ranch guest can make a horse behave, and in some cases turn the “head to the barn” mindset into a wild gallop. Can Google manage one or more run away horses? Will the clueless dude ranch rider develop some new affinity with the horse and make it do new tricks? Will the horse come back to the barn?
Google’s risk lies beyond Amazon and Samsung. Android in the hands of the clever engineers who developed my two SIMM phone may not behave as desired. Once out of the barn, life can be even more interesting. Is Google prepared for that type of “interesting”? I think that Google has to demonstrate that the freedom which created the Android herd can keep the nags under control. Does Jeff Bezos don a saddle and bridle each morning? Does the maker of my mobile with two SIMMs respond to Google’s trail boss and his whistle? Will Samsung trot back to the barn in a docile, predictable way? I think not.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Data Harmony: Sweet Tune for Knowledge Management Experts
January 10, 2012
Short honk: Here in Harrod’s Creek, we find meet ups, hoe downs, and webinars plentiful and out of tune with our needs. We want to put on your calendar an event that seems to offer a sweet tune about knowledge management.
The Eighth Annual Data Harmony Users Group (DHUG) meeting, scheduled February 7 to 9, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico will focus on helping users get the most from their investment in the knowledge management software suite, which helps users organize information resources based on a well-built and systematically applied taxonomy or thesaurus.
We learned:
This meeting is an exciting opportunity to learn how to fully utilize the power of Data Harmony software to maximize the effectiveness and profitability of your organization for your members, customers and staff,” said Marjorie M.K. Hlava, president of Access Innovations.
You can get complete details from Access Innovations. The widely read Web log Taxodiary is encouraging anyone who wishes to share their story at the meeting to contact Data Harmony at this link. Registrations are also now being accepted. For more information about the Eighth Annual Data Harmony Users Group meeting, click here or call (505)998-0800 or 1-800-926-8328. We hope that Access Innovations captures their knowledge in a monograph. Too many amateur taxonomists and knowledge mavens pumping out inaccurate or incomplete information. In our experience, the go-to experts gravitate to the performances by the Mozarts of mark up.
Sounds excellent to us.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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