Google and Prediction: Not Thin Gruel, Please
April 28, 2013
The Google religion continues to diffuse in the UK. I read “Google Searches Predict Market Moves.” Predictive analytics can be useful. Years ago I was on the Board of Directors of NuTech Solutions, one of the then world leading firms in predictive analytics. The methods of what I call fancy math are extremely useful. Applications range from identifying markets in which certain type of automobiles are likely to sell to figuring out when to cut back on power plant operation to reduce pollution are of great value. However, fancy math based on mereology or more familiar techniques have limitations. What’s interesting is that the limitations of fancy math are of less interest than the science fiction types of applications which catch the attention of folks who write about math as opposed to do math.
Here’s a passage in the write up which I noticed:
Google’s own researchers found that searches can track the spread of influenza and more recently showed that they “predict the present”with regard to economic indicators. In 2011, the Bank of England determined that searches for relevant terms could even predict house prices.
Useful indeed. Now here’s the snippet I circled with my yellow highlighter:
The researchers have already been approached by executives within the financial industry to try to put their findings to use, and have recently received a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to develop a “big data” software platform specifically aimed at the emerging business models that will depend on it.
The idea is that Google and those in the know can make money, save lives, and in general just do good stuff is compelling.
I would point out that Google has a number of systems and methods which make use of fancy math, Google generated metadata, and data provided by users and computer processes. These systems and methods are not new to Google. It would have been gratifying to some Googlers to have their work recognized. I think a reference to the work of Ramanathan Guha and Alon Halevy would have moved the write up from “gee, this is hot now” to a more foundational approach.
The write up would have gained impact in my opinion with a reference to Google’s support of the systems and methods of Recorded Future. Founded by the person who developed Spotfire, now owned by Tibco, is a cutting edge approach to generating actionable output from a range of data, including stock market related information. I can read the BBC story as if the information were based solely on Recorded Future’s capabilities. Note that Recorded Future has, in my opinion, pushed beyond some of its direct competitors like Digital Reasoning, Talend, and other firms in this market.
Yes, Google has formidable fancy math capabilities. I would be a happier old observer if those writing about fancy math included more substance in the write ups about Google. The thin gruel does not do Google justice nor does it present the scope of Google’s capabilities in an informed, rich context.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext, which also uses some fancy math
ManageEngine Accommodates the IT Professional
April 28, 2013
Is this a fresh angle in the enterprise search game? Gigaom announces, “ManageEngine Hones Enterprise Search for IT Admins.” The key lies in taming the wealth of information IT pros must now deal with every day. Writer Bob Darrow explains:
“Anyone who’s been an IT administrator for a decade or more will tell you of the good old days when there was far too little information about the underlying IT configuration of a given enterprise. Now, the problem is too much information — which can be just as useless unless put into the right context. That’s the issue that ManageEngine said it’s addressing with a new Enterprise Search function for its IT360 IT management software.
“‘There are too many IT consoles, too many vendors — one for network management, one for help desk, one for application performance,’ said Raj Sabhlok, president of ManageEngine’s parent company Zoho. Pity the poor admins who have to piece all that information together to figure out what’s going on, or worse, what went wrong.”
A “Google-like” interface simplifies these challenges, allowing ManageEngine users to search by device name, server type, and so on, and quickly view every relevant instance and associated data. (See the article for a screenshot.) Though this functionality is part of ManageEngine’s overall IT360 on-premises management product, it acts across all relational database backends. It even works, insists Darrow, on competitive management products like SolarWinds. The company is considering offering its Enterprise Search as a standalone package down the road.
Previously known as AdventNet, ManageEngine was founded in 1996. A part of Zoho Corporation, the company is splits its headquarters between Pleasanton, California and Chennai, India. The company’s global roster includes prominent clients like Disney, Sony, and the U.S. Federal Reserve System.
Cynthia Murrell, April 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Loan, Own, Bankrupt Model for Publishing
April 27, 2013
Author’s Note: I was not going to make a big deal about the death of my father. He had a long, productive life. He was a pal to some heavy hitters in Illinois politics. He had a couple of good jobs. He worked hard. My family, lawyers, and advisors made the tasks associated with this life event less burdensome. There was one problem, however. The Peoria Journal Star failed to publish my father’s obituary on time. I was not going to discuss this procedural failure on the part of GateHouse Media’s newspaper until I read the article in the Wall Street Journal about companies which allegedly loan themselves money and then own the company to which the money was loaned. When the company in the loan-own mode gets into trouble, some financial tap dancing is in order. After reading the Wall Street Journal story, I decided to capture some thoughts. What’s this have to do with search? Two things: Try to find an obituary when it is not in a system is tough. Second, the modern approach to management often leaves the customer adrift. In my opinion, this is not good. Feel free to skip the write up.
Part I: The Financialing
On most days, I don’t think too much about textbook publishing, newspaper publishing, or loaning myself money and then declaring myself bankrupt. Publishing once was an interesting business, but putting ink on paper seems a bit retro for me. Isn’t digital where it is at?
A publisher who hits upon the clever idea of loaning oneself money, spending it, and then going broke is very 2013ish. The notion strikes me as an idea crafted by a couple of MBAs, a handful of attorneys, and a person suffering from sleep deprivation. I thought publishers published. Not now if the Wall Street Journal’s story is any where near accurate.
I read “Buyout Firm Gathers Cengage Debt” in the April 27, 2013 Wall Street Journal, page B2. If you are a savvy MBA you may be able to locate the story at this link. If not, be prepared to pay up. I did. (No, gentle reader of my personal blog, I do not update links in order to curry favor with the Google. You want good links, go elsewhere, please.)
The main point of the story is that an investment/financial type of firm is “both an owner and senior creditor of Cengage.” If you know your history of professional publishing and its wheeling and dealing, Cengage was once a separate firm and then once a chunk of the Thomson Reuters’ outfit. Thomson Reuters is interesting because it has run a number of senior managers though its executive suites and maintained flat revenues and modest profits for several years.
I think the way this owner and creditor thing works is that one part of a big investment/financial outfit buys a stake in something and another part of the big investment/financial outfit loans the recipient of the money some cash. In short, the big investment/financial outfit both owns the recipient of the money and is a creditor who wants money back.
Got that. I sort of do.
Part II: The Unveilingness
But what’s fascinating to me is a series of comments in the original write up and a reference to a publishing company with which I did business on April 9, 2013. Let’s look at these two blips on my aging radar screen.
Here are the quotes I marked in my dead tree copy of the venerable Wall Street Journal, which I think was or is a Rupert Murdoch property:
- “[APAX] the private equity-firm’s potentially conflicting roles as an owner and creditor”. I like the potentially conflicting, don’t you?
- “Some lawyers say wearing both owner and creditor hats can undercut the goals of bankruptcy law.” What are those goals, by the way? Undercut is an interesting word too.
- “By tacking on a debt investment, a private-equity owner can keep control of a company while sometimes using bankruptcy or other means to cut jobs, cancel contracts, or offload pensions and other obligations.” Seems reasonable to take these steps. Hey, it’s just business in 2013.
On April 9, 2013, I arranged for a mortuary to place an obituary for my father in a company mentioned in this April 27, 2013, Wall Street Journal story. The Peoria Journal Star is owned by GateHouse Media, Inc. GateHouse I learned is one of the outfits which may be both a creditor and an owner of properties which are facing financial headwinds. GateHouse Media’s tag line on its Web site says, “We can.”
Well, maybe the company can be listed in the owner-creditor story in the Wall Street Journal. The company may be able to chop staff. And, for sure, the company can mishandle an obituary like nobody’s business.
The Wall Street Journal article pointed out that some firms use various methods to lessen the financial pain. One of them, cited above, is dumping employees. The elegant phrase is “cutting jobs.”
Part III: The Pay Downing
How does this work out in real life?
Well, the Peoria Journal Star’s obituary desk is staffed on what struck me as somewhat loose hours. One person whom I finally reached by calling the City Desk at the Peoria Journal Star said, “I think someone will come in around 9 am.” Another person told me, “There have been many staff reductions at the paper. Most people wear two or three hats.” A bit of Web surfing revealed that the Peoria Journal Star’s obituary “desk” is actually part of the advertising department and that members of the family could not submit obituaries. As it turns out, a member of the family wondering why the obituary did not appear on April 22, 2013, was published only after the mortuary contacted the Peoria Journal Star’s obituary desk a second time on Monday, April 22.
Predictive Application Tracks Global Events
April 27, 2013
Have you heard of the Global Data On Events, Location, and Tone project yet? Head on over to Foreign Policy and its article, “GDELT: What We Can Learn From The Last 200 Million Things That Happened In the World?” The article summarizes how the GDELT project tracks political events from all over the world. Similar databases exist for a particular region, but GDELT separates itself out by covering the expanse of the globe. It records events and categorize them by four different types: material conflict, material cooperation, verbal conflict, and verbal cooperation and within those categorizes the event is classified with CAMEO, a 300 category taxonomy system.
GDELT can be used to track political events and political rhetoric and from its data it can possibly predict the future and it might even be a tool for complexity theory mathematicians.
“Of course, for all the high-tech software behind its creation and its potentially far-out applications, GDELT is, at its core, a way of summarizing news coverage, and old fashioned legacy-media news coverage at that. The sources used to identify events include world news coverage from Agence France Press, the AP, BBC,Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, UPI, and the Washington Post, as well as a few more specialized outlets and Google News. Leetaru notes in his recent paper introducing the project that the increasing availability of news on the web has led to a ‘dramatic increase [of recorded events] since the beginning of the 21stcentury.’”
There are concerns for the project such as rural areas gaining as much frequency as developed areas and bringing in social media. Mainstream journalism has quality behind it, while social media is still relatively new and there is a lot of junk in it. The information needs to be gathered no matter where the source is from. The problem is sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Whitney Grace, April 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Amazon and Margins
April 26, 2013
Amazon is making some big bets. The company is chasing Apple, Google, PayPal, and probably some other juicy giants. I read “Margin Call 2.” The article includes a nifty chart which focuses attention on Amazon’s margins. Revenue growth is super. Profits are super. So what does a finance type complain about? Margins. The key point is that tucked into the charts about Apple, Google, and Microsoft is the thought that Amazon may have to do some pencil sharpening when its comes to its margins. Cost control may be tough when trying to move into territory occupied by some fierce competitors. Will there be sufficient money for Amazon to address its what seem to be minor and “trivial” search challenges? Search can be an expensive item and cash hungry when pursued aggressively.
Stephen E Arnold, April 26, 2013
Sponsored by Augmentext
Open Source Must be Supported to be Safe
April 26, 2013
A recent controversy surrounds the issue of whether or not open source software can be trusted. Is it safe? Some proprietary executives are saying no. Both sides of the issue are discussed in the CMS Wire article, “Is Proprietary Software Better, Safer than Open Source? What Univa, Alfresco, MapR, MongoDB, WANdisco Say.”
Gary Tyreman, CEO of Univa, is interviewed in the article and has this to say:
“He claims that using Free Open Source Software (FOSS) is particularly dangerous because if something breaks at a critical time, you’re out on a limb and there may be no one to call for help. And even if there is, he adds, Open Source software, by its very nature, is still in production and therefore unstable.”
But, on the other hand, open source advocates and CEOs disagree. Jeff Potts of Alfresco has this to say:
“And even if ‘free’ is an initial reason for considering Open Source, it’s not why companies ultimately go (and stay) with it. . . . He cites ‘additional flexibility, lower TCO (which includes support), vendor independence, vendor transparency and the faster pace of innovation enjoyed by community development efforts,’ as the real drivers.”
Innovation, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness win out for open source users. But, if there are concerns with open source stability and security, simply choose a value added software based on open source technology, like LucidWorks. LucidWorks is based on Apache Lucene and Solr and fully supported. Users like knowing they can have the benefits of an open source solution with the support and guarantee of a trusted name.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
LinkedIn Takes the Place of the Traditional Newspaper
April 26, 2013
Gone are the days of the newspaper boy and his route to be replaced by tablet and the warm glow of an app on its screen. LinkedIn is a professional job networking Web site and it replaces the old-fashioned want-ads. The newspaper consisted of more than want-ads and Read Write informs us that the business section has been replaced: “With Pulse, LinkedIn Is Becoming The Newspaper Of the Future.” LinkedIn’s $90 million acquisition of the news-reader Pulse gives it users access to articles from 750 publishers.
The LinkedIn heads want their Web site to be the definitive professional platform:
“That means bringing in a wide variety of sources — a layer of original, exclusive, high-end articles on top; links to relevant business items from around the Web in LinkedIn Today; and user contributions in LinkedIn Groups and profile updates. The only problem LinkedIn has on its current website is that its tools for reading, saving, and sharing content leave something to be desired. That’s where Pulse comes in.”
LinkedIn is not afraid to add media to its company and so far it has gained it a respected reputation and more money in the pocket. Where are the Sunday coupons and comics, though?
Whitney Grace, April 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Measuring the Worth of Social Media
April 26, 2013
When social media first started any companies thought it was a useless tool meant only for the younger crowd. Why would an established company want to promote itself through a tool meant for kids? According to LucidChart in the article, “Is Social Media Worthless?” the company polled 3,000 users on their Web behavior and found that social media played a small role in driving Web traffic. Social media experts are trying to justify the place it plays in a company’s business, but if it loses money it does not have any value.
“Social media denizens are, by and large, in it for themselves. They’ll promote your brand if it means their share of a cool $20 million, or a free pair of glasses, or whatever else you’re offering them. Everyone likes to pat themselves on the back and feel like they’re serving their fellow man, whether that’s retweeting a funny video or donating money to a favorite charity. But if your fans aren’t buying your product, or influencing others to buy your product, they’re not really fans at all. And all the brand awareness in the world isn’t going to change that.”
Harsh words for social media if the source is accurate. It echoes the era of MySpace filled with teenage girls and boys touting their social lives and interests. Social media has its place, but it needs to be reexamined in generating revenue for real life companies.
Whitney Grace, April 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Taking on the Google Giant
April 26, 2013
It has been discussed before and will continue to be discussed, because humans are always curious about finding alternate and new ways to accomplish the task. The question is, “Can A Small Search Engine Take On Google?” and it was proposed by On the Media. The link will lead you to a recording about:
“Duck Duck Go is a small search engine based in Pennsylvania that is, according to Google at least, a Google competitor. OTM producer Chris Neary talks with Duck Duck Go founder Gabriel Weinberg, SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan, and a dedicated Duck Duck Go user about the site. Also, each of the OTM producers try Duck Duck Go, and only Duck Duck Go, for a week.”
Google challenged its unhappy users to use an alternative search engine if they were unhappy with its practices. Duck Duck Go has been acknowledged as a Google rival. Weinberg says his search engine does not collect personal data from its users and it does not have Google Web sites in its results. Others are saying that Duck Duck Go is only acknowledged, because the search engine market is so small. Changing search engines is a major upheaval in a user’s life and the On The Media staff found using Duck Duck Go for a week difficult. Some of the people enjoyed it, because they were interested in privacy and wanted to find an alternative search solution.
Duck Duck Go may not find everything you need in a minute, but its fans are dedicated. It has awhile to go, but count on it hanging on for time to come. The competition is hefty: Google fields 2 billion + queries a day?
Whitney Grace, April 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
CRN Releases Big Data 100
April 25, 2013
Big Data has been quite the buzzword in 2013. In response, multiple solutions have popped up that intend to solve enterprise Big Data problems. In order to identify the strongest contenders on the market, CRN has released a list of their top 100 picks for Big Data solutions. Read all the details of the report in the CRN article, “The 2013 Big Data 100.”
The article states:
“Market researcher Gartner recently issued a report declaring 2013 to be the year of large-scale adoption of big data technologies: A survey of IT executives found that 42 percent had already invested in big data technology or planned to do so within a year. Recognizing that need, we present the inaugural Big Data 100 list, developed by the CRN editorial team, identifying vendors that have demonstrated an ability to innovate in bringing to market products and technologies that help businesses manage big data.”
Among the awardees is LucidWorks, a leading contender in open source enterprise search since 2008. It is important to pick a solution that suits your company and your data needs. Because LucidWorks is built on the open source infrastructure of Apache Lucene and Solr, their solutions are scalable and easily customizable, though fully functional out-of-the-box.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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