Another Pundit Outfit Predicts Doom for GOOG
March 17, 2012
I don’t think the Google is going anywhere. Granted the outfit is floundering, but have you ever tried to coordinate 60,000 employees with high IQs, deal with legal annoyances on every continent except Antarctica, and fight off the incursions of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft plus dozens of other companies looking to get a chunk of Googzilla’s tail? Nah, I did not think so. It is much, much easier to post punditage and collect paychecks.
I just read “This Is Why Google Is Losing the Future.” I grimaced at the “this is why” phrase and rebelled at “losing the future.” I wonder if the use of “its” was spiked by a “real” journalist. The point of the write up in my opinion was a way to work the word “crack” and the phrase “roach hotel” into a “real” article. I use on occasion Latin, Greek, and French. I don’t think I have ever used the phrase “roach hotel” to describe an online service. Nice metaphor.
Here’s the phrase that sets the news and opinion piece apart:
And, as an increasing number of developers feel that Google will treat them poorly, or that it is simply too much of a threat, it’s lost the future. Yet Larry Page is even telling his own engineers that they should leave if they don’t agree with his plan to focus on a “single, unified, ‘beautiful’ product across everything”. If that’s what’s happening inside the Googleplex, what hope for those on the outside? Let’s go back to where we started: the startup founder who sees Google as a drug dealer looking to offer him a sweetener that gets him addicted. Since he doesn’t want that to happen, he’s left with that single question.
I am okay with humor, sarcasm, criticism, and cynicism. I am not okay with “real” journalists, failed webmasters, unemployed political science majors working as experts, and folks who have never managed a big operation sitting in the balcony emitting catcalls.
I am not sure that heckling is particularly constructive even when the intended listener has no choice but attend to the message. The game is traffic I suppose.
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Online Ad Revenue Decline: Implications for Google?
March 17, 2012
The digital advertising industry took a hit in the last quarter of 2011, experiencing about a six percent decline in both display and search, recently released statistics from Kantar Media, which we learned about in ClickZ’s “Spending on Digital Ads Fell Sharply in Q4.”
The optimism of the alleged economic recovery seems to be false, if the Kantar data are accurate. The firm’s numbers show display ad revenue slipped 5.9 percent compared to the same quarter in 2010, while paid search dollars took a somewhat surprising 6.4 percent downturn. Leaner spending by telecommunications providers, automobile manufacturers and businesses in the local sector as a major factor, Kantar Media reports.
But display and search were not the only ad sectors hurt by the overall economic climate. Kantar’s statistics indicate the entire ad industry suffered a one percent revenue drop compared to 2010, marking the first time a quarter’s revenue declined since the end of 2009 and dashing the hopes of many for a recovery. Perhaps this trend is motivating Yahoo to outsource advertising and Google to take steps to enhance its advertising platform.
There were some bright spots. For example, there was a solid football season, the World Series’ seven games and Fox Networks’ new vocalists’ contest The X Factor. Each helped television advertising to couch potatoes growing in the vast wasteland to expand. grow. Kantar reports network TV advertising for Q4 grew 7.7 percent.
Advertising in beleaguered consumer magazines fell 5.2 percent. Sunday magazines’ ad spending dropped 9.8 percent and local newspapers spent 3.9 percent less than last year, marking a continuation of the downward spiral the print industry has been experiencing over the last several years.
Internet ad spending in general gained only slightly with a .4 percent increase in revenue, while online display advertising lost 2.8 percent of its revenue compared to last year, and display ad spending experienced a 5.5 percent decline.
Considering the fact that the revenue streams of search engines like Bing, Yahoo! and Google are made up largely of advertising revenue, some have speculated that these declines in ad spending may push these search engines to charge its users more, shotgun out more ads in hopes of producing clicks which will encourage advertisers to spend more, or saturate a market sector for big spenders who want to reach anyone who is looking for a hotel, airplane flight, or celebrity news item..
“If true, this is bad news for those depending on online ad revenues,” said Google expert Stephen E Arnold, who maintains the site www.arnoldit.com. “If Google revenues go south, the company will take immediate and direct action to pump up revenues and sustain growth. After 13 years of trying to diversify revenue, Google is living up to Steve Ballmer’s quip that ‘Google is a one trick pony.’ The pony is aging now.”
Jonathan Tressler, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
BrightEdge: Confusing Search and SEO
March 17, 2012
Little wonder that there is massive confusion about search and retrieval. I noted “BrightEdge Raises $12.6 Million to Fund Market and Company Extension.” The cash alone deserves attention. What threw me for a loop was this passage:
BrightEdge, the leading site, search and social management platform for global enterprises…
I checked my Overflight file which monitors search and content processing companies and there was no information about BrightEdge as a vendor of search and retrieval. I looked at the company’s Web site and learned that the firm is a search engine optimization outfit. I don’t have reservations about the upside potential of helping outfits get traffic from Bing, Google, or Yandex. I do think that the use of the word search is darned confusing.
As an side note, Google’s public announcements that the company will alter its search system is likely to give some of the search engine optimization experts either a new lease on life or a reason to look for a job as a WalMart greeter.
SEO, in my opinion, erodes relevance. Precision and recall to an SEO expert who has a degree in home economics means traffic to a Web site. But does a searcher today know or care? Nah, it’s the Goldman Sachs-type excitement that matters.
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Geospatial Intelligence: Autonomy and SharePoint
March 16, 2012
I must admit I don’t associate Hewlett Packard Autonomy with Microsoft. I know I should. Autonomy technology has been adding functionality to Microsoft SharePoint for years. I was reminded of Autonomy’s ability to “play well with others” when I read “Information Discovery Improves Search Capability for the Largest Database of Geospatial Intelligence.” If you are not involved in intelligence activities, you may not know what “geospatial intelligence” embraces. If you don’t know, I am not going to explain it to you.
The write up makes three points.
First, the use case described in the document performs what I call data fusion. For the azure chip crowd and the self appointed search experts, you can probably figure out that Autonomy technology is facilitating the integration of images, data, and other information. Without Autonomy, the merged outputs would not be possible.
Second, the use case makes clear that search is an essential component of information discovery. Everyone wants the outputs to tell the user what she or he needs to know. Won’t work. So outputs lead to search and search leads to more outputs. The use case explains that text and source data have to be “augmented”; specifically, entity extraction, categorization, geo-tagging, and reverse geo-tagging.
Third, the system handles open source and secure content in compliance with a Department of Defense metadata specification. If you like codes, here’s the one you need: DDMS 2.0.
Net net: Autonomy has some interesting capabilities for outfits who use Microsoft SharePoint.
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Is Yandex an Emerging Force?
March 16, 2012
Having fought for market share in its homeland since the mid-1990s, Yandex just achieved a victory: over the past three months, the Russian search engine captured an average of 59.4% of that nation’s Internet searches, while Google trailed with 25.6%. Search Engine Watch examines the contest in “Yandex Tries to Solidify Search dominance, Keep Google Down in Russia.”
Local knowledge helps Yandex outrun Google in the Russian market. The site is also advancing its Social Networking Search, which incorporates social content into search results. (Where have we heard that before?) Yandex has also partnered with Twitter and will soon display (public) tweets in its results pages.
Writer Michael Bonfils asserts:
There is no doubt Yandex will face many challenges ahead in the face of browser wars, mobile operating systems and even new competition beyond Google. As a representative of several advertisers in the Russian market, we have only seen continued query volume, search quality improvement, better conversions and advertiser return on investment. When it comes to Google vs Yandex in Russia, I still think Yandex in 2012 will continue to dominate and be an impactful and useful search engine product to millions of Russian speakers around the world and many multinational companies who market to the Russian audience.
Yandex has a piece of semantic search system, Blekko.com. Should Google look to the East or should it look toward Facebook?
Cynthia Murrell, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Hakia Rolls Out Meaning Based Search App
March 16, 2012
App Appeal recently reviewed the new meaning based search engine app called Hakia in the article “Hakia Review – Meaning Based Web Search.”
According to the article, it was founded in 2004 and, rather than searching for how often a keyword is used, this application scours for meaning. Hakia, like most search engines, is a free service and search results are displayed as text links. Where Hakia differs is it breaks the differing results down into categories.
When distinguishing Hakia from other search engines, the article states:
Search engines are not uncommon today, however search engines that do not focus on keyword popularity are. Hakia offers a unique way to seek content based on meaning. Users can try different ways to search for topics, people, events and anything else imaginable. The search engine has some issues, but may prove to be an interesting alternative to the traditional search engine. It may not be a practical replacement, but it is a nice supplemental tool.
While Hakia is a cool alternative to keyword search engines like Google, it isn’t getting a ton of attention yet. This could be due to its lack of accuracy and cumbersome approach to search.
Jasmine Ashton, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Walmart Transparent Dream for PLM Applicable to All
March 16, 2012
Typically, engineers and IT managers located deep in the bowels of manufacturing plants are the only ones interested in the ins and outs of product lifecycle management (PLM). Walmart wanted to thrust PLM into the hands of buyers with a program that turns the usually dense practice of PLM into a transparent method of determining a product’s value. In the article, VIEWPOINT: Has Walmart lost sight of its green vision?, on Just-Style, Walmart’s dedication to ‘going green’ through focusing on PLM is challenged by their lack of evidence as proof.
The author explains Walmart’s noble yet inconceivably difficult aspiration:
“Suppliers would be required to calculate the full environmental costs of making their products and the ultimate vision was to see clothing labels that would not only display size, price and care instructions but also information like how much cotton was used and how many product miles were consumed to get an item such as a T-shirt into the store.”
Walmart is unique in its desire to push PLM into the forefront of the marketplace but the idea of breaking down the barriers separating PLM experts back in the IT department from the rest of the team is on the money. For PLM to truly be successful there must be accountability. To have accountability there must be a broad understanding across departments of large companies. One of the many benefits of hiring a smaller-sized PLM provider is the intimate relationship that develops between the provider and customer. As part of the package employee training and customer support is the cornerstone. As usual Walmart’s idea is great and smart businesses will pick up where they have left off and make PLM more transparent in their own companies.
Catherine Lamsfuss, March 16, 2012
Give SharePoint a Solid Foundation with Mindbreeze
March 16, 2012
In “SharePoint Performance Troubleshooting,” Jason Himmelstein addresses the broad issue of improving performance issues in SharePoint. He points out that this can be a hard issue to confront as many end users may not adequately articulate the problem, such as ‘SharePoint feels slow’ or ‘uploads take a while.’ From an IT perspective, fixing such a problem isn’t easy without specific details.
But with user education a topic for another day, Himmelstein speaks to more general areas that IT can look at to “ensure that any bottlenecks users experience are not SharePoint-related.”
Himmelstein explains his approach:
When I initially sat down to start this article, I quickly realized that you can’t begin to troubleshoot performance issues until you have a sound baseline to start with. Otherwise, the likelihood of you figuring out what is going wrong in the environment is extremely low. With this in mind, I decided to tackle this topic from a bit of a different perspective, examining what forms the base of a solid and well-performing Microsoft SharePoint 2010 farm and working backward from there.
The author outlines some main areas. First on the list, Himmelstein says you’ll want to look at your Windows server hardware sizing and make sure the platform that supports SharePoint is sound. In terms of the SQL Server tier, Himmelstein suggests that is the one in which you’ll want to make your hardware investment. Web server load testing and other performance issue causes are also discussed in the lengthy article.
Himmelstein searches for that solid base in SharePoint. We agree a solid base is needed for optimum performance, but you may not find that with an out of the box SharePoint installation. A comprehensive third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze, can give your SharePoint system a solid foundation and extended capabilities.
Daniel Fallman points out:
. . . in Microsoft SharePoint only one facet of a company’s knowledge can be presented. The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise 2012 Winter Release puts an end to this shortcoming. It enables all information that is connected to Mindbreeze to be displayed in Microsoft SharePoint. This takes place smoothly via Web Parts.
Read more at www.mindbreeze.com.
Philip West, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: AvePoint Takes SharePoint to Japan
March 16, 2012
Semantics Goes to Search, Search Goes to Semantics
March 15, 2012
The flip flop, “we do everything” and then “we need to do something new” world of search is fascinating. I wrote earlier today (March 15, 2012) about the “scoop” that Google is into semantics. The information was only a decade old, but, hey, “real” journalists do what “real” journalists do.
I read the word rich title and scanned the story “Temis Chooses Isys to Power Its Next Generation Luxid Semantic Content Enrichment Platform.” A couple of words jumped at me: “next generation,” “semantic”, and “platform.” Luxid was originally a specialist in scientific and technical content processing, almost an early version of Linguamatics. Then the company expanded its reach into more generalist content types, including a fly by of business intelligence. Now the company, according to the news release, is a “platform” which is a combination of semantic technology and search.
There are many vendors in search and content processing. Only a few exert significant gravitational pull on the market. Are Luxid and Isys poised to alter the orbits of Autonomy, Endeca, and Lucid Imagination?
The “chosen” vendor is Isys Search, which has been providing search and retrieval, facets, one click access to “clusters” or “segmented” hits to a query, and connectors for years. My recollection is that the firm’s entrance into search was in 1988, which was almost a quarter century ago. You can get information about the Isys system in my write up about the company in one of the first three editions of Enterprise Search Report (2004 to 2007), now out of print. Wikipedia has a shortish write up as well.
The news story, asserts Eric Bregand, Temis top chien, says:
We are delighted to have Isys Document filters embedded in our flagship Luxid platform, where it will strengthen our ability to turn enterprise content into actionable knowledge, and enable advanced content analytics and information discovery. ISYS gives us the quality of technology we wanted, backed up by excellent support and a clear commitment to the product over the medium-long term.
Is the deal for a 1988 search and retrieval system or for software widgets that permit Luxid’s system connect to content? My hunch is that Luxid licensed the Isys connectors, but it is difficult to tell when semantic outfits embrace search.
I want to point out that the Wall Street Journal’s story “Google Gives Search a Refresh” reported the opposite move by the Google. Note this link may go dead without warning due to the savvy methods used by the News Corp. to protect its content. If I understand the Wall Street Journal story, the Google search system is getting an injection of semantic technology, well, any day now.
Both of these announcements are presented as “news.” I find it difficult to get excited about technology with roots in the late 1980s for Isys and Luxid and for a decade old effort at Google. But “real” journalists chomp on news. I am happy to be an addled goose with a reasonably complete file on who does what with whom in the search and content processing space.
I did not cover either Isys Search or Luxid in my 2011 monograph The New Landscape of Search. Both companies are interesting but not the Jupiter-like forces of the companies which exert considerable influence on enterprise search.
Flip flop tie ups are standard operating procedure as revenues become tough to generate, sustain, and then grow. I anticipate more of the semantics to search and search to semantics activities in the months ahead.
Stephen E Arnold, March 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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