PLMIG Moves Forward in Next Round of Workshops
August 3, 2012
In an effort to standardize product lifecycle management (PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) the PLM Interest Group (PLMIG) was formed in 2004. Their goal from the beginning has been to create a global set of standards and best practices. A recent MCAD Café article, “PLMIG asks for help in timing the North American PLM-ERP Workshop”, announced the latest series of workshops planned by the group. The first two sessions will be in Europe and then the results of those will be examined in the United States.
The article explains of the workshops:
“The workshops will give PLM and ERP specialists the chance to work together to formalise best practices and to generate a neutral, globally-applicable PLM-ERP Handbook. Each workshop will produce a new version of the Handbook, building on the previous results, and everyone who participates in a workshop will receive the results of the whole series.”
The PLM industry is growing faster than most can follow allowing for confusion and inefficiency, two conditions PLM strives to eliminate. As new data management solutions emerge and technology advances, cloud technology in particular, PLM standards must be constantly checked and adjusted. Leaders in the industry, like Dassault, Inforbix and PTC, continue to expand their offerings furthering the industry helping the PLM IG fine-tune best practices.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Did Google Overpay for Motorola?
August 3, 2012
Though Google cited patent collection as a primary motivation for acquiring Motorola, The Wall Street Journal now tells us, “Google Says Patents, Tech Were Less Than Half Motorola’s Price.” In a recent regulatory filing, the company revealed that $5.5 billion of the $12.4 billion investment covered ‘patents and developed technology.” Nevertheless, I suspect the company is pleased with its purchase; as writer John Letzing notes:
“Google has sought to bulk up on patents as a protective measure, as a number of its technology rivals have targeted both the company and its Android software with litigation.
“Oracle sued Google for alleged patent and copyright infringement by Android in 2010, though a related trial earlier this year resulted in a victory for Google.”
Yes, the protection a trove of patents can provide is a valuable thing, valuable enough to put up with a lot. The article also reveals:
“Google reported second-quarter earnings that included Motorola results from a portion of the period. Google said Motorola contributed some $1.25 billion in revenue, though the new unit also posted a $233 million operating loss.”
Eh, the patents and an operating loss of $233 million are but peanuts to Google. All in the cost of doing its globe-dominating business.
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
YouTube Boasts Most Creative Commons Licensed Videos
August 3, 2012
Creative Commons has brought “free” video to millions, and now The Next Web reports, “With 4 Million Videos, YouTube Now Has the Largest Collection of Creative Commons Videos in the World.” What a surprise.
The write up by Drew Olanoff notes that YouTube began building its Creative Commons video library one year ago, and has quickly captured the lead, at least in terms of quantity. Flickr, by the way has amassed the most Creative Commons-licensed photos.
Cathy Casserly, the Creative Commons CEO, recently blogged about her project’s YouTube-hosted library. She promotes:
“Do you need a professional opening for your San Francisco vacation video? Perhaps some gorgeous footage of the moon for your science project? How about a squirrel eating a walnut to accompany your hot new dubstep track? All of this and more is available to inspire and add to your unique creation. Thanks to CC BY [the Creative Commons Attribution license], it’s easy to borrow footage from other people’s videos and insert it into your own, because the license grants you the specific permissions to do so as long as you give credit to the original creator.”
Founded in 2001, Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization. Designed to counter the inability of bureaucratic systems to adapt to rapid technological changes, the organization provides a suite of licenses that works within copyright law’s “all rights reserved” realm. The goal is to empower folks to share and build on each other’s’ creative work online without the risk of some commercial entity snapping it up for profit.
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
AOL to Redirect Patch from Local News to Local Ads
August 3, 2012
The light bulb has gone on at AOL regarding troubled property Patch: forget local news and do ads instead. Digital Trends ponders, “Patch Restructuring to Turn Into a Craigslist Competitor?”
The planned overhaul of Patch promises to mirror Craigslist. CEO Tim Armstrong spun the changes this way—he says the new version of Patch “is really about unlocking the vitality in towns… groups, commerce, and the social aspects of towns for a much deeper, richer engagement level.” A nice turn of phrase, that.
Writer Molly McHugh notes some possible consequences of the shift. She observes:
“Realigning its product from hyper-local news to hyper-local commerce is a pretty big pivot, and one that would affect the many, many freelance writers Patch employs. Not to mention the fact that taking on Craigslist is a formidable task: despite any of the collective Internet’s problems with Craigslist and its refusal to massively update its interface and become even incrementally more user-friendly, Craigslist has time on its side. When it comes to a crowd-sourced platform, that’s a major investment.”
Indeed, AOL is wise to capitalize on the local connections it has built through local advertising. Still, the loss of local news blogs is a shame.
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Ranking Factors for Local Search
August 3, 2012
Here are some trivial recommendations from the search engine optimization experts. Free SEO News offers, “Local Search Ranking Factors Survey: How to Get High Local Rankings.” The survey in question asked 40 local search marketers around the world which factors were most influential in gaming local search results. The write up explains:
“For some keywords (for example ‘plumbers’), Google shows local results at the top of the search result list. These websites aren’t listed at the top because they have good content or good backlinks. They are listed at the top because they fit to the geographic area of the search query. If keywords that show local results are relevant to your business, it is important to be listed in the local search results.”
Can no one seem to find the local restaurant run by your next door neighbors? Well, put this SEO research to use and help them out. The survey found that the five most important local ranking factors included the businesses physical address, its category association, its proximity to the center of the searched area, its Web site’s domain authority, and citations on aggregation sites.
Negative influencers were also noted. For example, different phone numbers across data ecosystems can hurt, but so can having multiple Google Places pages with the same phone number. Also, make sure the restaurateurs include a crawlable version of their businesses name, address, and phone number on their landing page.
So, there you go local businesses, it is simple. Or, is it simply pointless?
Cynthia Murrell, August 3, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Customers Value Effective Web Site Search
August 2, 2012
A successful Web site search is essential in today’s market. Customers expect a pleasant appearance, intuitive interface, and effective search in public facing Web sites. Those features can all be added with the least amount of effort by choosing Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite. Fabasoft Mindbreeze has long been a leader in enterprise search, but the newer InSite product enables customers to access effective search, outside your organization’s enterprise.
Registration is easy and includes a free 28 day trial. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite will crawl your site and complete an index of your content.
Read what one customer, Dr. Manfred Weiss of Computerwelt, is saying:
We want to stand out from the crowd with a top internet presence. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is part of this strategy. Our readers value the service of a perfect search. Regardless of which of our portals the information is on, Mindbreeze finds it. Since the search function is operated as a Cloud service, we save time and money.
Do not worry about installation or configuration. Complete your registration now and let Fabasoft Mindbreeze do the work for you. Organizing your enterprise is no longer enough, set yourself apart from the pack by presenting an efficient search on your public facing Web site with Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Facebook Advertising and Business Model Flawed
August 2, 2012
It seems there is more bad news for social networking king, Facebook. In addition to new lows in its share price and rough second-quarter earnings, a newly released study suggests that Facebook’s business model may be broken.
EyeTrackShop, a firm that measures audience attention, released a study that tracked user attention to ads on Facebook’s website and apps. Users had a particularly bad recall for ads that had been seen on the iPhone and generally neglected the ads overall. The article on ReadWriteWeb, “Facebook’s Mobile Strategy is Flawed, Eye-Tracking Study Indicates,” shares more on the study’s results:
“During yesterday’s call, Facebook executives revealed that more than half of its users regularly access Facebook through mobile sites. That raised concerns among analysts and investors, as nearly 85% of Facebook revenue comes from advertising, which the company has been struggling to implement on mobile platforms. The executives stressed that while their mobile strategy is in its early stages, early tests suggest that the limited number of mobile ads that have rolled out have performed well and delivered a return on investment to advertisers.”
For a company that relies so heavily upon paid advertising, this is certainly bad, as well as surprising, news. We think that a problem of this magnitude could have been noted earlier on and are left to wonder: Perhaps Facebook has other flaws as well?
Andrea Hayden, August 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Dashboards Demanded by Industries
August 2, 2012
As manufacturing processes grow in complexity the need for data management solutions to keep pace with those processes grows as well. Recently, MCAD Café sang praise of Autodesk in the article, “Global Manufacturers Select Autodesk Digital Prototyping Solutions over Rivals”, for their dedication to transparency and ease of use within the manufacturing industry among many others.
The article quoted director of engineering, Sunkist Research, Alex Paradiang, as saying,
“Autodesk software helps us display our engineering talents to our customers and shows them that we are constantly innovating on their behalf. Both Autodesk Factory and Product Design Suites are invaluable tools and big parts of our success in developing solutions that help maintain our lead in the citrus industry.”
While Autodesk has accomplished some impressive feats in innovation and product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions they are not alone. One of the ‘new kids on the block’, so to speak, is Inforbix, a PLM provider comprises of some of the best data management brains in the industry. Understanding the need for quality dashboards as discussed in the MCAD Café article they are developing Inforbix Dashboard:
“The idea behind Inforbix Dashboard is to give you multiple customizable views of useful product data presented in tables or charts. Creating a dashboard of product data takes a few seconds… a single dashboard present(s) the following pieces of information: a report for drawings updated within the last week, a chart of the latest drawing approvals, your project assembly bill of material, (and) a list of assembly references and dependencies for CAD drawings your working on.”
We look forward to Inforbix Dashboard and are happy to see the resolution within the PLM provider community to further simplify the reporting features of software.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Epic Analysis
August 2, 2012
A unique application of text analytics may hint at a future for English majors, at last! Phys.org News informs us, “Physicists Study the Classics for Hidden Truths.” Scholars at Coventry University analyzed the Illiad, Beowulf, and the Irish epic Táin Bó Cuailnge. They found that, in all three mythological works, character interactions mirror those found in today’s social networks.
The write up describes the study’s methodology:
“The researchers created a database for each of the three stories and mapped out the characters’ interactions. There were 74 characters identified in Beowulf, 404 in the Táin and 716 in the Iliad.
“Each character was assigned a number, or degree, based on how popular they were, or how many links they had to other characters. The researchers then measured how these degrees were distributed throughout the whole network.
“The types of relationships that existed between the characters were also analysed using two specific criteria: friendliness and hostility.
“Friendly links were made if characters were related, spoke to each other, spoke about one another or it is otherwise clear that they know each other amicably. Hostile links were made if two characters met in a conflict, or when a character clearly displayed animosity against somebody they know.”
These interaction maps paralleled those found in real-life networks. On the other hand, the same analysis of four fictional tales, Les Misérables, Richard III, The Fellowship of the Ring, and Harry Potter, turned up clear differences from real-life interactions. (See the article for more details on these differences.)
Interesting—the classical epics are more true-to-life than fiction. This is not to say that everything in them can be taken as facts, of course; no one insists Beowulf slew a real dragon, for example. However, the study does suggest that as the craft of story writing was refined, it moved away from realistic portrayal of societies and the ways folks related to each other. Why would that be? Ask an English major.
Cynthia Murrell, August 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Open Source Data Treasure Trove
August 2, 2012
Hungering for open source data? The H Open reports, “Data on 500,000 Open Source Projects Available.” The trove comes from Ohloh, a directory of open source projects maintained by Black Duck Software. The projects listed are all available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. The write up reveals:
“The company also made a RESTful API available that allows information about the projects to be queried. Ohloh analyses projects from around 5,000 repositories, including GitHub, SourceForge, Google Code, kernel.org, Eclipse, Mozilla, and Apache.
“To use the API, users first have to register for a key and they can then query metrics such as the number of active contributors and commits, the number of lines of code, the main programming language used, and licensing information for the project. Black Duck uses the Ohloh database to identify items such as particularly active new projects or licensing trends.”
The folks at Black Duck are also working on a new version of their code search for Ohloh, now in beta; they hope the search will help improve links between project code and metadata.
Since its founding in 2002, Black Duck Software has been dedicated to supplying strategy, products, and services to enable the adoption of open source software on the enterprise scale. In fact, they boast that they are the leading provider of such solutions worldwide.
Cynthia Murrell,August 2, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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