Shasta Ventures Adds Staff to Meet Demand
March 13, 2013
Demand for enterprise solutions is soaring and the companies that provide them are expanding. Shasta Ventures is the latest to make an announcement about expansion in response to increased demand. Read more about their new staff additions in the TechCrunch article, “Shasta Ventures Doubles Down On Enterprise Software Experience With New Hires.”
The article begins:
“Shasta Ventures is doubling down on enterprise software experience with the additions of Zenprise CEO Jayaram Bhat as an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) and Issac Roth as Venture Advisor at the early-stage venture firm. As the company tells us, this is a move to grow Shasta’s enterprise software, cloud and SaaS practice.”
Shasta Ventures is just another enterprise software solution company to add staff in response to demand. LucidWorks is another that recently upped and expanded its expert staff. LucidWorks is not an up-and-comer, but a trusted, industry-vetted standard. Even more, LucidWorks uses Lucene and Solr as their open source infrastructure. Enterprise is hot and so is open source, and the combination of the two has moved beyond a trend to become a necessity.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Doubts About Big Data
March 13, 2013
More skepticism is in the air over big-data hype. ReadWrite’s Matt Asay cites a recent dustup between a New York Times reporter and Tesla Motors‘ head honcho Elon Musk in, “Tesla and the Fallacy of Data-Driven Decisions.” Reporter John Broder had given the Tesla Model S a scathing review, with which Musk took issue. In the end, both parties effectively supported their arguments using Broder’s test-drive data. Who was right? Even after looking at that data, it is hard to say; and that is the problem.
Asay asserts that the value of big data lies in pointing us in the right direction, not in employing it to prove points and draw conclusions. He writes:
“New York Times columnist David Brooks nails this in an op-ed piece, wherein he argues that Big Data, while very useful for guiding our intuitions, gets some things very wrong. Like the value of social connections. Or the context for answering a question. In fact, he speculates, Big Data might actually obscure Big Answers by complicating decisions and making it even harder to determine which statistically significant correlations between data are informative and not simply spurious.”
The new big-data industry made for a $4.5 billion market in 2010, but is projected to hit $23.8 billion in 2016. Is all this growth just a house of cards?
Not necessarily, but it is important to recognize what data can and cannot do. Analysis software can find patterns and draw preliminary conclusions, but human minds are still better at higher-order thinking. (And I hope they always will be.)
Cynthia Murrell, March 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Cloud Revenue Drifts Upward
March 13, 2013
Google has added some support items to its cloud menu, we learn from “Google Adds Fee-Based Support Services for Cloud Platform Customers” at ComputerWorld. These options are available for use with Google‘s Cloud Platform products like App Engine, Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, and Big Query. This is an important step for the company, which has been rightly criticized in the past for subpar technical support.
Turning to an unoriginal but easily understood metals theme, Google has named the service tiers Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The free Bronze level just lets you in on documentation, forums, and billing assistance. For $150 per month, Silver hooks users up with the Cloud Platform support team via email, where one can ask about functionality, best practices, and service errors.
Writer Juan Carlos Perez discusses the highest precious-metal options, which are a bit more complex:
“The Gold tier, which starts at $400 per month, adds around-the-clock phone support and consultation on application development, best practices or architecture issues. In the Gold tier, the $400 fee is the minimum charge for all customers, and Google then adds a percentage of the customer’s total monthly usage fees for all Cloud Platform products if those fees exceed $4,000 per month, according to the company. For example, a customer that spends between $4,001 and $10,000 per month in usage fees would pay 9 percent of that monthly total to receive Gold-tier service. Those who spend more than $200,000 in monthly usage fees would pay 3 percent. The top Platinum tier gives customers direct access to a technical account management team. To obtain pricing for the Platinum tier customers need to contact Google.”
Of course they do. Gee, now they’ve made me curious.
Differing levels of response-time promises accompany each paid tier; on urgent issues, Silver customers need wait no longer than four business hours, while Gold and Platinum players should get a response within the hour. For less crucial concerns, Silvers and Golds should see a response within a business day, and Platinums should hear back in under four business hours. The number of an organization’s users who may access the Support Portal also varies with tier, with two for Silver, five for Gold, and an unlimited number for Platinum users.
Cynthia Murrell, March 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Bookstores Take on Amazon and Publishers Over Ebook DRMs
March 13, 2013
Oh, the joys of the free market. PaidContent announces, “Indie Bookstores Sue Amazon, Big-6 Publishers for Using DRM to Create Monopoly on Ebooks.” Three brick-and-mortar bookstores seek to represent similarly positioned stores with their class-action suit filed in New York’s Southern District Court. This is the same court that oversaw the Department of Justice‘s antitrust suit over ebook pricing.
These stores assert that deals between the big publishers and Amazon, combined with the Amazon-specific reader, the Kindle, form a closed loop designed to shut out the competition. Digital rights management (DRM)software is the mechanism the mammoth online bookseller uses to enforce this exclusivity. Writer Laura Hazard Owen explains:
“The filing takes issue with Amazon’s proprietary DRM, AZW: ‘Ebooks with the AZW DRM can only be read on a Kindle device or on another device enabled with a Kindle application. . . . The Kindle app works solely with ebooks sold by Amazon.’ While the case names only the big-six publishers as defendants, Amazon places its DRM on nearly all of its ebooks from all publishers.
“The filing says that big-six publishers, through their contracts with Amazon that allow for Amazon’s proprietary DRM on their ebooks, ‘unreasonably restrain trade and commerce in the market for ebooks in violation of the Sherman Act.'”
The filing acknowledges the Nook as a Kindle competitor, with 25 percent of the market to Kindle’s more than 60 percent, but notes that Barnes & Noble is not exactly in a strong financial position at the moment. The plaintiffs hope the court will issue an injunction prohibiting Amazon and the large publishers from selling ebooks with device- and app-specific DRMs. They also call for those six publishers to let independent stores directly sell their ebooks with “open-source DRM,” though what they mean by that term is unclear.
Cynthia Murrell, March 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Can LinkedIn Move into Ebsco and Thomson Territory?
March 12, 2013
You may find “LinkedIn to buy Pulse Newsreader for More than $50 Million” interesting. If true, stakeholders in some large professional publishing companies may want to reconsider their holdings.
I think that the commercial business information publishers won’t pay much attention to this deal. Companies like Ebsco, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer are trying to sustain their revenues while achieving growth. Thomson Reuters has faced some growth challenges. The other companies which compete with this venerable firm are in the same pickle in my opinion.
The reason is that LinkedIn is built of professionals who want to get jobs and sell work. Now hunting for a job may seem a far cry from searching an Ebsco database or consulting a Wolters Kluwer health database. I don’t think the gap is too big at all.
According to the write up:
LinkedIn will buy the maker of the newsreader app Pulse, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The price of the acquisition is in the tens of millions, they said — between $50 million and $100 million.
The amount paid for Pulse is pocket change for the giants of business information publishing. But LinkedIn owns Slideshare, a collection of business information. Add that content to the base of people who want to make sure each can find a job or sell a consulting job, and you have a 21st century content system which is going to be of increasing importance.
With a nifty distribution channel like Pulse, which is a next generation magazine/journal platform, LinkedIn is in a position to start encroaching on the territory of the Thomsons, the Ebscos, and the Wolters Kluwers of the world.
LinkedIn is integrated professional publishing. Its customers and advertisers pay for value. Contrast that business model to “we have to buy this stuff” which characterizes some of the big professional publishing outfits.
What can these giants do to protect their markets? Is LinkedIn for sale? My hunch is that LinkedIn will put fragile professional publishing companies under more pressure. Why didn’t one of these giants of business information jump on the LinkedIn type of opportunity?
Perhaps none of the executives at these firms is thinking about finding a job or becoming a consultant? If the firms do not hit their financial goals, many of the senior executives at the business information and professional publishing powerhouses will have an opportunity to learn the value of LinkedIn first hand.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2013
LucidWorks Sees Multiple Solutions for Enterprise Search Future
March 12, 2013
Mark Bennett of LucidWorks recently granted an exclusive interview to Steven E. Arnold, of the influential Beyond Search blog. The focus is on meeting the coming challenges in the trajectory of search in 2013. LucidWorks has always been a major player, and the informative interview is summarized in the Virtual Strategy article, “LucidWorks Addresses Multiple Solutions for the Future of Enterprise Search.”
After discussing the content of the interview, Arnold makes a strong recommendation for LucidWorks amidst its open source competitors:
“Stephen E. Arnold, Managing Director of Arnold Information Technology and publisher of the influential search industry blog Beyond Search, said, ‘In my analysis of open source search, I rated LucidWorks as one of the leading vendors in enterprise search. Other firms with open source components have not yet achieved the technical critical mass of LucidWorks. Proprietary search vendors are integrating open source search technology into their systems in an effort to reduce their technology costs. At this time, LucidWorks is one of the leading vendors of enterprise and Web-centric search.’”
For someone with such experience in the search field, an endorsement from Arnold is a strong one. LucidWorks continues to receive positive press for its cutting edge technology and professional team. For organizations in the market for a value-added open source solution, LucidWorks should get the first look.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The Future of Surveillance
March 12, 2013
It seems ironic that video search is still terrible, but video-tracking of individuals is becoming very good. Scarily good, we learn from InfoWorld’s, “Nowhere to Hide: Video Location Tech has Arrived.” The International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkley, with funding from a U.S. intelligence agency, is quickly making progress on a project that should interest us all: They are devising a way to build location-centric databases by analyzing videos and photos posted online. This will allow users to determine where other videos and photos were shot, even when posters do not include any identifying information.
With this method, the development of which is being funded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, visual and audial clues are analyzed and compared to samples for which the location is known. Something as seemingly neutral as a train whistle in the background has been used to pinpoint a location (Tokyo, in this case.) So far, 14 percent of the time, researchers are able to determine the location in which a video was shot to within 33 feet. Naturally, they intend to keep working on that percentage.
Reporter Bill Snyder, who visited the Institute, writes:
“Jaeyoung Choi, the lead researcher on the project, downloaded thousands of videos from Flickr that contain embedded geographical information. That data may include location tags (aka geotags), visual cues such as textures and colors, time stamps, and sounds such as birdsong. The attributes of a test video are then compared against these profiles, and its location is estimated. As more videos with embedded geographical information are downloaded, the researchers will use them to train the software to recognize more and more locations.”
Like a lot of technology, this development offers potential for both weal and woe. Combined with ever-improving and increasingly available facial recognition software. . . the capability is staggering. While it is true that such a tool could help our agents rid us of terrorists, it could also be used by repressive governments to target protesters. What happens when organized crime gets a hold of this? So much for witness protection. Or how could giant corporations use this? The possibilities are endless.
Now, I am not one to say we should hold up progress because of the potential for problems. We couldn’t if we wanted to. But, as Snyder concludes, our society needs to have a serious conversation about this “tagging of America,” before the technology surges way ahead of the public’s awareness.
Cynthia Murrell, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Texas County Plans Bookless Library
March 12, 2013
Is this initiative too little too late? We hope not. The blog over at public-sector IT firm GCN informs us, “Bookless Library Foreshadows Next-Gen Students, Learning Technologies.” The post lauds Bexar County, Texas, for its forward-thinking plan to launch a bookless branch. However, it also notes that how they approach the project can make the difference between a crucial resource for study and “just a nice place for a cup of coffee and texting with friends.” Writer Paul McCloskey explains:
“The project, called BiblioTech, would offer about 10,000 titles that patrons could check-out and access remotely via e-readers and mobile devices, as well as about 100 tablets, laptops and desktop computers that will be made available inside the branch. Technical help with computers would be offered to patrons, but reference assistance would be cut.”
He goes on to caution:
“Over the long run, simply offering digital or mobile access to its collection is a pretty old technology model. . . . To maintain a healthy level of patronage, libraries, like schools, will have to keep up with the latest media formats, including social media, intelligent browsing and educational gaming.”
Cutting reference assistants with heartbeats may be the first mistake, he asserts, and I agree. Still, the county is to be commended for changing with the times (even if it seems a bit belated to some of us.) If done well, this could set a good precedent for learning centers in the 21st century.
Cynthia Murrell, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Aussie Retailer Sticking with Mainframe Approach to Data
March 12, 2013
One Tasmanian organization refuses to buy into to the cloud-migration trend. TechEye informs us that retail outfit Coogans is saying, in effect, “Forget the Cloud, Get a Mainframe.” The company is forging ahead with plans to upgrade its old standby, the Unisys mainframe. The article tells us:
“To understand how unusual this is, you have to realise that Australia never really had the mainframe bug and there are only about six organisations in Australia to use Unisys’ mainframe systems. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Coogans has been a loyal client of the Unisys and its predecessor, Burroughs, since before 1965, and this new fangled cloud tech just does not cut the mustard.
“It just took a weekend for Coogans to set up one mainframe, the latest Unisys Libra 460s, at each of its Hobart and Moonah locations in Tasmania and migrate its real-time custom production application, called Coogans Online Stock, Financial And Rental System, which was written in 1992 and is the centrepiece of the retailer’s IT architecture.”
It seems like a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But won’t they regret eschewing the advantage of cloudy redundancy? Nope. The company maintains a separate disaster-recovery environment at a nearby building, complete with VPN–ensured redundancy.
Okay, so they’re covered there. Still, why resist what many consider an inevitable shift? IT manager Peter Jandera is simply uncomfortable with not knowing exactly where his company’s data is going, and with knowing that “all it would take is a person with a space to cut through a cable and the company is stuffed.” He emphasized that Coogans cannot afford to lose even a minute from their working day; he is simply unwilling to trust another organization with that responsibility. I can’t say I blame him.
If more organizations were to buck the cloud trend, would it mean new hope for systems like BRS Search and IBM’s STAIRS?
Cynthia Murrell, March 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Search Engine Optimization: Scumbags? Amazing
March 11, 2013
If you are paying upwards of $2,000 a month or more for search engine optimization, you will want to read “Sick of SEO Scumbags” and the comments to the post. Web site traffic is important. What is tough to swallow is that most of the billions of Web sites get little traffic. You can check out if your Web site rates with a quick check of Compete.com’s free analytics look up. Sign up at www.compete.com.
The search engine optimization experts practice the dark art of SEO. The idea is that these experts have methods which can trick Bing, Google, Yandex, or any other free Web indexing service. Once fooled, a query for a topic will return the client’s Web site at the top of the results list for a query. Magic. Almost.
The problem is that Bing and the other outfits want to sell ads based on the content on a Web page. If the content or other element is misleading, the ads won’t hit their target. Most ads do miss but in today’s landscape a slight improvement in targeting may be enough to keep the ad revenue flowing. Where else can an advertiser go to get traffic? SEO wizards know that paying for traffic works. Some SEO actions don’t work.
The post asserts:
Recently, a well known flower shop lost both the rankings for the brand name and the keyword ‘flowers’, the SEO agency involved are a good agency and this post isn’t about the tactics used but large companies like Interflora have years of brand building, offline campaigns, TV advertising, word of mouth, mailing lists, newspapers and shops to fill the gap incase any one vertical (search) drops, they can and will still survive, there will be a dip in some profit sheet somewhere and someone might lose their job, but the company doesn’t fold. If you do that with a small ‘mom and pop’ shop (Dom’s Flowers) and they get banned or lose the rankings for ‘flower shop east leeds’, Game Over, most of the smaller clients I see depend on Google traffic…
Where’s the scumbaggery?
I’ve seen companies who have built a site for a client, no index it then charge for an SEO package to ‘sort out the rankings’, Domain change audits with no 301?s, I’ve seen agencies charge £10k for ‘keyword research’ which is copied and pasted straight from Google Adwords and more than a few times I’ve seen companies charge a thousands per month for an IBP report. We all make mistakes, we all have clients that want to be #1 for $crazy keyword, but as the search team involved with the campaign, you have to set realistic expectations and know the risk when placing links and making site changes, those that don’t, that just take the money and hammer with shitty links or try and scam the client to extract more money, those are the SEO Scumbags and they are giving the search industry a really bad name.
Does SEO work? The answer is that what actions the SEO expert takes may help or hurt a client. What annoys me is that the word “search” gets dragged into a traffic and click related exercise. Using the word “search” to refer for methods of buying traffic and for actions such as finding information in an organization’s archive muddies the water.
When it comes to scumbaggery or to a more serious activity such as enterprise search, clarity is useful. If a Web site wants traffic, man up and buy it from Google. If you want to build a brand or position a person, use content. No tricks required.
Stephen E Arnold, March 11, 2013
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