LucidWorks Makes Big Data Better
July 25, 2013
LucidWorks made its name as an open source enterprise search value-added vendor built upon Apache Lucene Solr. However, in the last 18 months, much attention has shifted to the Big Data sector and LucidWorks Big Data solution. Mark Smith with Ventana Research gives his review of the product in his article, “Big Data Search is Getting Better with LucidWorks.”
He writes:
“LucidWorks has two product offerings in the search market. LucidWorks Search provides the ability to rapidly set up search and index content using Apache Solr. . . Solr, built on top of Lucene, is an enterprise platform that provides full-text search, dynamic clustering, geospatial search and other enterprise-class capabilities. Second, LucidWorks Big Data, which was released late last year, uses the compute and storage capabilities of Hadoop to support larger-scale deployments.”
LucidWorks is known for its commercial-grade support and services. Their design has improved Solr’s usability for business use, although Solr on its own is known as one of the strongest infrastructures for open source enterprises. LucidWorks is currently expanding, adding staff, and gearing up for the next advance in enterprise technology. Keep your eyes open.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
English Major? You Are Hot and May Not Know It
July 24, 2013
I get quite a few laughs when I point out that my degree is in medieval Latin poetry. Hey, what can I say? The computer science departments at my undergraduate university did not want anyone using the precious mainframe to index Latin anything. The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Dr. William Gillis had a different view. So I know zero about poetry but I could in the early 1960s generate concordances and indexes. The rest, of course, is history. Halliburton Nuclear, Booz, Allen & Hamilton (now Snowdonized), and a couple of big companies into electronic information.
Imagine my thrill when I read the most amazingly wild and crazy article in the San Francisco Chronicle (July 14, 2013) on page E8 with the reassuring, almost baby-blanket comfortable title, “English Majors, Once Disdained, Back in Demand.” You may be able to find a version of this write up at http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx. No promises, however. I am following in the footsteps of universities which are craw fishing away from the notion that someone with a degree in law or art history will be able to find a job after graduating.
In my opinion, the main point of the essay is that English majors can look beyond standing in line for SNAP cards and unemployment benefits. English majors have the ability to “construct stories.” The passage which made me a true believer about the value of an English major was:
When so0meone spends four years reading, writing about and talking about complicated, nuanced texts, a kind of interpretive stacking occurs that enables a student (or an employee) to navigate the noise surrounding a document and pay attention both to what it’s saying and (perhaps more important) to what it’s doing.
If you are an English major, you already know this. I frequently reflect on the Elizabethiad, an epic written in Latin hexameters by William Alabaster, to curry favor with Queen Elizabeth. The fellow needed some Latin oomph since he was flitting back and forth to Spain and putting himself in a position where his “true faith” was easily questioned.
The closing paragraph of the write up is interesting as well. The author, a university professor, noted:
Of course, English isn’t for everyone, and it won’t guarantee you a job upon graduation, like a major in accounting might. But with people switching jobs every few years now, I can think of no degree more versatile or more interesting. I also believe that studying English makes you a smarter reader of the world. And as the world becomes more saturated with information, literacy (in all its forms) is the most employable skill around.
Great point. However, with rising illiteracy in the US, and the emergence of smart software which removes the need to type words to locate videos, I think that the meaning of “English major” may have to be revised. Don’t write it in cursive, however.
Stephen E Arnold, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Rumored Acquisition May Put Baidu on Defensive
July 24, 2013
Now this is an interesting development. Search Engine Watch‘s Jennifer Slegg points to a rumor about China’s massive search engine market in, “Chinese Search Engine Qihoo to Buy Sogou for $1.4 Billion.” She writes:
“The Chinese search engine space just got a lot more interesting with Qihoo 360 reportedly purchasing Sohu’s Sogou search engine.
“If the report from DoNews (via The Next Web) is accurate, this deal will effectively combine the second and third largest search engines in China, which could have a significant impact on Baidu’s huge market share. . . .
“Qihoo 360 launched its own search engine in August of last year, and is second only to Baidu in terms of market share in China. Purchasing Sogou would mean the company would have nearly 25 percent of the search market share compared to Baidu’s eroding market share, which is now slightly under 70 percent.”
Is Baidu worried? Qihoo 360 launched its own engine just last year, and acquisition of the popular Sohu would mean a merger of China’s second- and third-largest search engines. Some expect the deal, rumored to be in the neighborhood of $1.4 billion, will soon be officially announced.
Cynthia Murrell, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Taming the Analytic Fire Hose of Twitter
July 24, 2013
If anything, Twitter is less a social media portal and more of an informational fire hose. The data that comes barreling through that outlet has been a horse no digital cowboy could break. However, we are starting to see promising signs of tools to do just that, according to a recent All Twitter article, “FirstRain Unveils First Tweets, Bringing Curated Twitter Intelligence to Sales Teams.”
According to the story:
“FirstRain’s FirstTweets bills itself as ’the world’s first solution for extracting business-relevant Twitter intelligence for sales, marketing and senior leadership teams.’”
The product filters out 99.9% of the Twitter fire hose to deliver only the most relevant Twitter intelligence directly into businesses’ CRM software and social enterprise platforms.
As anyone who’s used Twitter before, especially on behalf of a large brand, knows, it can be incredibly time-consuming to weed through hundreds of thousands of tweets to determine which to respond to, which accounts to cultivate relationships with, and what’s being said about your business on an hourly basis.
We are really excited to see this in action. However, we are cautiously optimistic. We’ve seen too many other social media analytics opportunities not live up to the billing. However, if FirstRain can pull it off, this will be on everyone’s wish list.
Patrick Roland, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Healthcare Analytics Issues Finally Solved
July 24, 2013
Does anyone really know how to crack the nut that has been sitting on healthcare’s table, begging to be opened? That question is, of course, will anything really help get all the unstructured data from medical files into a usable tool for helping professionals? The jury is still out after reading a recent Chiliad article, “The Hardest Question in Healthcare: What Works?”
In the interview we learned:
“To succeed in understanding what works by looking at all of the data, we also need a new approach that works. We need tools at our fingertips to allow experts in their field who are not experts in data analysis get to the bottom of important questions. We need tools that can reach out to data wherever it exists without compromising privacy, without compromising data control and data ownership.”
While this sounds like a person hunting for some answers. We are not so sure they have them at hand. Maybe nobody does? What the field of healthcare analytics has no shortage of, as we just saw, is optimism. We saw it earlier this year when Yahoo! declared that healthcare reform might be a boon for analytics. While that, too, makes logical sense we are not convinced anyone has a concrete solution to healthcare’s headaches.
Patrick Roland, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Gartner Highlights Cool Big Data Firms
July 24, 2013
Is coolness enough to succeed in the big data analytics world? That’s a tougher question to answer than you’d think. If we’re talking about fly-by-night hipness, then probably not. However, Gartner has been taking the entire industry back to high school by deeming certain organizations cool. Shockingly, they might be on to something, as we discovered in a recent PR Web story, “Gartner Research Recognizes Centrifuge as a ‘Cool Vendor’ for Big Data.”
According to the story:
“Centrifuge Systems today announced it has been selected by Gartner as a “Cool Vendor” in the respected analyst firm’s annual report on Security Intelligence Vendors for 2013* that recognizes innovative and disruptive technology solutions in big-data analytics, particularly those that provide “contextual analysis of security intelligence across silos”.”
Interesting news on a promising company. Normally, we are pretty skeptical about such designations, but have become big fans of Gartner’s cool awards. It’s not bestowing a lot of hype on a company to blow our minds, it’s a more subtle way of saying someone is doing something good for the time being, check it out. That sounds like a recommendation we can seriously get behind.
Patrick Roland, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Top Analytics Solutions Determined
July 24, 2013
Analytics is an ever-growing buzzword in the enterprise technology realm. Users and developers alike are turning to analytics to add depth and meaning to unstructured data and Big Data. Now, Website Magazine is ranking the top 50 analytics solutions. Read more in the press release, “Website Magazine Reveals the Top 50 Analytics Solutions.”
The article says:
“The Top 50 Analytics Solutions for Digital Media Pros were determined based on the quality of analytics solutions in four categories. Among the honorees are household names like IBM, Google and Adobe, as well as rapidly growing companies such as Pentaho and LucidWorks. Visit wsm.co/top50813 for the full list of analytics solutions for digital media pros.”
So it appears that major players are expanding into analytics, which is to be expected. They want to maintain their hold in an ever-changing market. However, a sure bet is on the smaller more specialized companies. A company like LucidWorks is well established in the market, but is agile and focused, always anticipating the way the market is moving. Their solutions can be implemented from the cloud or on-site, or in a hybrid format. LucidWorks builds on the strength of Lucene/Solr but also combines the best of emerging technologies such as Hadoop.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Business Efficiency to Increase with Semantic Search
July 23, 2013
Looking for an alternative to Google and other big-name web search platforms? Teach Amazing recommends “Hakia—Semantic Search Portal.” Writer Mark Brumley explains that the semantic web search portal presents multiple types of content in the same results page. The various sections encompass the gamut and this type of aggregated search displayed on a single point of access seems to be the wave of the future.
Brumley shares his user experience:
I love how search results are displayed. Various sections are populated on a single page. Sections include web, news, blogs, Twitter, images and videos. The Twitter feed is a real plus for me and gives an indication of the current pulse of a particular topic. Give Hakia a try the next time you are doing some research. Make sure you try it in the classroom as well. Students need to know that Google is not the only search provider on the planet.
Brumley is not alone in recognizing the advantages of parsing data with context and meaning that semantic search provides. The enterprise also functions more efficiently when using tools that take a semantic approach to data. For example, Expert System offers solutions that empowers users to work at new heights of discovery and collaboration.
Megan Feil, July 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search.
Leximancer Interview Now Available
July 23, 2013
We have posted another interview in the Search Wizards Speak series. The most recent interview features Leximancer’s Andrew Smith. You can find the full text of the interview at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Google and Its Enterprise Push: Changes Ahead?
July 23, 2013
I read “Google Will Invest More in Enterprise Business.” The story reported, “More than half of Fortune 500 companies are paying for Google enterprise products, and 5 million companies are using Google Apps for Business.” The story added:
Google’s deepening ties with HP could also help it crack into more enterprise accounts. HP is selling a Chromebook and is using Android for two of its tablets. Google and HP are also partnering on SMB IT In a Box, which bundles Google Apps with HP PCs and printers.
One important factoid in the write up was the assertion that Google’s cloud business and its applications business was generating about $200 million in the most recent quarter. Assuming that the figure is accurate, Google is on track to generate about $1 billion from its enterprise services. If the company ends the current fiscal year in the $60 billion in revenue range, the enterprise unit will make up one minute of 60 minutes of Google revenue.
Google may be using its own predictive system to help guide its decision to push into the enterprise. The UK Telegraph reported some interesting information about online ads and user behavior. “Study: Users Don’t Click on Online Ads” said:
An academic study concluded that brand adverts in internet searches have “no short-term bene?ts”, and added that “returns from all other keywords are a fraction of conventional estimates.” Byron Sharp, Professor of Marketing Science at the University of South Australia tweeted, “Google won’t like this”….With much of the web funded by advertising, and more advertising needed to make mobile pay, it seems that web business is becoming even more difficult.
Google has been working in the enterprise sector for a decade, maybe longer. There have been a number of initiatives, managers, and products. Perhaps now that Microsoft seems to be in the midst of some management change, Google thinks the time is right to ramp up its enterprise business? If ad revenue is no longer the sure thing it was, Google and other online advertising firms will have to step up their monetization efforts and probably take other actions users may not enjoy; for example, raising prices. Will Google boost prices for the Google Search Appliance, Google Apps, or Cloud Services?
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
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