A Woman Of Google
August 12, 2013
The typical IT worker is stereotypically male and rightly so, because there are more males in IT. Wired, however, takes a look into the feminine side of the IT industry by focusing on Google’s Melody Meckfessel in “This Is the Woman At The Heart Of Everything Google Builds.” Meckfessel has worked at startup companies since her twenties and complied with the mentality of the IT world so she would not stand out as a female, but when she started to work at Google later in life she decided it was time to assert herself. As an engineer, she is responsible for the team that makes Google’s programming tools and her experience not only benefits Google’s work but also its diversity.
Meckfessel’s tools are not used outside Google and the search engine giant wants to keep them a secret. When Meckfessel joined the Google team she took the tools to a whole new level.
Chandler Carruth, a Google engineer said this about his co-worker:
“Carruth says she brought a “product perspective” to Google’s developer tools, insisting that, although they were only used inside the company, they should be treated like like products used by the world at large. ‘She bootstrapped a new charter for the team,” he says. “We had to think of these as products used by other Google engineers — and she brought that attitude. We had to think of them as cohesive things, to give them a nice presentation. That had not been the focus before.’”
Code is not restricted to the male end of the spectrum and Meckfessel bespeaks of how anyone, male or female, can be a prime addition to Google. Considering that Marissa Mayer went to Yahoo, it is great to know that the female end is still well represented at Google.
Whitney Grace, August 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Google Pays AdBlock Enough Said
August 12, 2013
Pulling from the German Web site Horizont comes an interesting insight into Google’s dealings with AdBlock: “Google Is Funding AdBlock Plus.” AdBlock is a plugin users can download to block ads on their Internet browsers, but it still allows ads through that it deems “acceptable.” What makes an ad acceptable? Apparently if you pay Eyeo, the company that created AdBlock, enough money it will allow your ads to pass through the plugin. In a not too surprising deal, Google pays up.
Google is not the only one that pays out of pocket. Amazon, Reddit, and Yandex are also on the acceptable list. So money oils the squeaky wheel, but what makes Google stand out is what might be a suspect transaction. Forgive the translation below from Google. Deutsch ist eine schwierige Sprache.
“However, as a glance at the forum said of AdBlock Plus to receive Google AdWords shows, there are a total of nine entries. Till user – probably AdBlock Plus boss Till Faida personally – put the post on 18 Online in June 2013, six anonymous users briefly discussed what Google AdWords are ever exactly brought no reasons why it would violate the Acceptable Ads Rules, and three days later, on 21 June 2013, wrote Till user “Added” in the forum thread – Google’s advertising has since no longer filtered by AdBlock Plus. The same applies for the AdSense advertising program in which third party sites advertising Google can embed in their web sites, and be compensated for it.”
Suspect? Yes. Good business practice? No. If you do not want targeted ads, should you switch to a different plugin? Not a bad idea.
Whitney Grace, August 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Solr Update Goes Live
August 12, 2013
The Solr 4.4 update has been big news, exciting the open source search community. LucidWorks builds its LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data solutions on top of the Apache Lucene Solr project. Their developer devoted blog, SearchHub, pays attention to the latest update in its article, “Solr 4.4 Went Live this Week! – A Brief Summary.”
The article jumps right into the changes users can expect in Solr 4.4:
“Probably the biggest news is the new schemaless mode, or perhaps more aptly named schema guessing, where Solr tries to figure out what data-types to use based on the data you submit. While this puts to rest one of the bigger remaining complaints about Solr, it’s not recommended for production; this is the same recommendation that other schemaless engines advise. For example, if you’re going to be sorting and faceting over millions and millions of documents, you want to use the most compact numeric type that will suffice for your numeric fields.”
The good news for value-added open source enterprise solutions like LucidWorks is that when the open source foundation receives an update, the benefits automatically trickle down into the value-added solutions. Users of LucidWorks know that they can count on the latest technology that is fully supported by an award-winning company.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Ten Big Data Best Practices
August 11, 2013
Having to manage large quantities of unstructured data is a uniquely contemporary challenge, and many folks are still unsure how to approach the issue. A slideshow from eWeek offers some clarity in, “Managing Massive Unstructured Data Troves: 10 Best Practices.” Writer Chris Preimesberger introduces his list:
“Managing unstructured data is extremely important to reduce storage and compliance costs while minimizing corporate risk. This task has been painfully difficult due to the time, resources and overhead required to collect the immense volume of metadata and digest it into actionable business intelligence. The job isn’t going to get any easier all by itself. Gartner analysts predict unstructured data will grow a whopping 800 percent over the next five years, and that 80 (or more) percent of that new data will also be unstructured. If enterprises don’t have the right software to prepare for these forthcoming storage issues, they had better start planning to do something about it.”
The slideshow is designed to help organizations do just that. Its creators consulted a number of sources: research from analytic firms, tips from industry insiders, and an IBM survey of 1,500 CEOs [PDF]. The presentation begins with the assessment of an enterprise’s needs and current setup; encourages the elimination of outdated, inefficient approaches; and describes how to tackle the issue with today’s technology. It is a good starting point for anyone who foresees a big-data implementation (or upgrade) in their future.
Cynthia Murrell, August 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Information at a Glance: Quick. Confusion or Clarity?
August 10, 2013
I am not much of an interface person. You can see from the design of Beyond Search. There is a feature which we update once a week or so. There are daily summaries of articles I find interesting and wish to keep in a database. I use the research in my for-fee articles and other writings like my upcoming story for Homeland Security Today about “Cadillac tail fins.” I will explain the metaphor when the story runs next week (August 12 or 13, 2013).
I read a review of Information Dashboard Design, second edition. If you are into user experience or user interfaces, you will want to read the book. I will definitely check it out.
I just wanted to point out that the image from the blog is an example of a “solution” by the book’s author, Stephen Few.
Image source: http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/?p=1466
I find these types of extremely dense, complicated outputs interesting, not because I use them.
Check out my approach to tabular data. I stick with print outs, usually of chunks of Excel spreadsheets or short write ups with bullets and data in short tables like this one:
From the forthcoming monograph Google 20/20: A Prescription for New Revenue, which discusses the trajectory of Google Glass. The author is the Harrod’s Creek recluse, Stephen E Arnold.
If I need to show a point, I use a graphic like a stop light or maybe a thermometer.
The reason for my utter simplicity of approach is that I find the dense, busy, modern UX/UI presentations darned hard to figure out. If a person is under time pressure or does not know exactly what he/she is looking at, the likelihood of dismissing or misinterpreting data strikes me as high. Under pressure, absolute clarity and brevity are required. Fluff is okay in a personal blog, but not when money or lives are on the line.
Now in many vendors’ eyes, training is available online. Even better, a three minute YouTube video will explain “everything” the user needs to know. (Frankly categorical affirmatives about “users” is a questionable assertion.) The idea that an analyst is standing by to help the end user has disappeared like five cent Mars bars.
Net net.
Fancy interfaces do not replace a subject matter expert, an analyst, and a professional working through what the data will permit and how best to present answers to specific questions. Some interfaces are pretty much guaranteed to increase risk and go unused.
Step
Local: Great Idea, Just Expensive and Twitter Is Good Enough
August 10, 2013
At lunch a couple of days ago, one of the goslings was looking at his iPhone every few seconds. I asked, “Wazzup?”
The answer was, “I am checking on the road closings near the office.”
Yep, hyper local news right here in Harrod’s Creek. Twitter does a good enough job of pumping out local information to those who want to know “wazzup”?
I thought about this conversation when I read “Armstrong Confirms Hundreds of Layoffs at Patch, 400 Sites Shuttered or Partnered Off, and a New CEO.” My recollection is that a former Googler (born baby Jack Welches I assume) cooked up the idea for a series of sites which covered “local” news. Then, if memory serves, the Xoogler sold the company he owned to Time Warner. To make a long story short, the Xoogler became the president of AOL, which owned the Xoogler’s local news operation. I may have the details fuzzy, but Wikipedia has a useful write up which provides plenty of details.
Was Patch a bad idea? No. It was a great idea to sell the company to AOL. Yes, it was a bad idea because local news is expensive to set up, operate, maintain, and make exciting to advertisers. Advertisers can use cheap methods to reach eyeballs of local customers. I get message stuffed in my mailbox and fat envelopes with coupons explaining two-for-one Indian meals and $4.99 burrito specials. So for AOL and the founder of Patch, the result is that Big Daddy had to drop the hammer on hundreds of Baby Patchers.
Fascinating.
Will Yahoo’s Xoogler in charge experience similar management challenges? I read a story which may not be spot on, but it opened a window on former Googlers’ management capabilities. Navigate to “AOL’s CEO Just Fired Somebody for Pulling Out a Camera in a Meeting About Layoffs.” The article reports that on a conference call, Big Daddy Patch fired a person for taking out a camera type device. In the midst of a live call, Big Daddy Patch allegedly said, “”Abel, put that camera down. You’re fired. Out.” Interesting.
My hunch is that some folks equate getting hired at Google with Jack Welch type business acumen. Time will provide the quarter-by-quarter details.
In the meantime, check Twitter for job leads and local information. I would not use AOL or Yahoo search for that matter to seek new employment opportunities. Craigslist does that side of hyperlocal information I believe. Oh, Craigslist is for the most part free.
Stephen E Arnold, August 10, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
eBay Gets New Search Engine
August 10, 2013
An article from Ecommerce Bytes shares information, through the form of an interview, on an update to eBay’s search engine. Cassini is the name of the new search system according to “eBay’s Hugh Williams Explains Cassini Search, Part One.” Many were reported to have questions about why Cassini was rolled out. We enjoyed reading Williams’ framing of the conversation when he stated that most people do not have the same computer that they had ten years ago.
The upgrades to eBay’s search technology were addressed from many angles. Not only the ranking algorithms were tweaked, but also the search systems that process users queries and the machines and scales it runs on.
Williams offers a metaphorical point of comparison for the upgrade:
“An analogy might be, Voyager is a really nice toolbox. You open up the toolbox and get out a few tools and build. I feel like Cassini is more like a fully featured garage with walls of tools that you can use to get out and build great solutions for our customers. It’s is a stack, if you like, it’s all of those things. It’s really a complete ground up rebuild of the whole search technology stack.”
We had not noticed that eBay rolled out this new search engine, but it is good to know that they are working away at search.
Megan Feil, August 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Amazon: Everything But Cost Control
August 9, 2013
Amazon is one of the Internet success stories which generally avoids too much praise and too much criticism. The company offers convenience for shoppers who want to get presents delivered to their door.
I read “Amazon’s Profits”, an analysis which takes a look at the concept of profits. The article points out, “You don’t actually know what the profits are.” I would agree. Figuring out Amazon’s financial statements is a time consuming task. When one tosses in various bits and pieces like Mr. Jeff Bezos’ own investment vehicles, I am not sure who owns what. I have heard at conferences that some promising start ups get an opportunity to have Amazon be like a Big Brother. I turn a deaf ear on chatter which suggests the type of deals which are possible. I assume that gossip is inevitable when a service has so many ways to provide services and products to customers worldwide. My most recent Amazon delivery showed up in the early evening. The delivery car was a standard station wagon. The driver looked like one of the fellows at the local pizza joint. Hey, it worked.
The write up presents a number of graphs. These indicators show revenues rising and net income flat, which has been one of the defining characteristics of Amazon for more than a decade. (“Where does the profit go?,” I ask. Some analysts do not seem concerned about this minimal profit attribute, however.) The Amazon revenue by business unit shows that the building block is eCommerce. The write up points out:
This chart [Amazon revenue by segment] shows the revenue segments that Amazon reports. These are in different industries, at different stages of development, and in different markets. It seems pretty likely that their underlying economics are different too. Not, that is, the FCF or net incomes that Amazon reports after all that re-investment, but the underlying performance of the divisions. Moreover, even this isn’t the full story, since Amazon is actually a lot more atomized. Most separate product lines have their own internal owner and P&L by country or region (with a lot of internal transparency, incidentally). Some of them fail and get killed, some have only just started and some are doing very well.
I am no financial wizard. I just assumed that rolling up revenues and costs allows Amazon to present the best possible picture to investors while hiding some of the details from competitors and inquisitive analysts.
The one point I would add to this interesting write up is that Amazon seems to be fighting an on-going battle with cost control. One quick example, “Selling General and Administrative Expenses, FY 2010, 2011, 2012 look like this:
With the approach Amazon is taking in Web services, I wonder if users of these cloud services are actually subsidizing Amazon’s technology infrastructure. The recent roll out of cloud search raises questions about how much money Amazon will pump into the service. Right now, connectors and other must-have features are not available. The interesting deals which have some competitors using Amazon Web services to deliver their service are offered along with similar or directly competitive Amazon branded services. (See my forthcoming article in Information Today “Amazon: The Search Lazy Susan.”) What are the levers Amazon will pull to get its costs under tighter control? How will Amazon deal with labor dust ups in Germany?
Amazon is an interesting company to try and analyze. Like Google and some other dominant Web operations, the finances of these companies are managed to trigger mystery. Investors seem to love AMZN. As I post this, the stock is in the $300 per share range. Hapless JCPenny is about $13 per share. Will JCPenny and other retail outfits survive? I don’t plan on opening a retail store. Heck, I can’t even go into local shops any longer. The outfits have gone out of business. Rampant mismanagement in the Amazon jungle? Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, August 9, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Information Labeled As Black and White
August 9, 2013
Before the dawn of the Information Age, there was perhaps more of a general awareness of ethics regarding information and usage. The article from Digimind, “Different Shades of Big Data,” calls to our attention that this is a topic that everyone needs reminders about.
The Digimind article actually draws a distinction between two types of data, calling public and shared data white and referring to information not legally available to the public as black information.
Of course, there are some types of information that fall into grey categories as well:
“Apart from the obvious black and white information, there are various shades of grey, often referred to as the invisible web. This kind of information is available on the internet, but not easily accessible from a basic search engine, such as Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc. Some examples are:
-Newpapers and journals with a subscription, usually protected by a login and password
-Information indexed in search engines embedded on other sites
-Blogs and forums not listed by major search engines”
What would the author choose as the label for information found on the Deep Web? Also, it is very interesting that the author chose to label information with the descriptors black and white when the objectivity of search results is anything but clear due to sponsored results.
Megan Feil, August 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Semantic Search for Academic Social Networks
August 9, 2013
Arnetminer is an interesting service from China that we came across recently and feel compelled to share it. It is a tool that offers search and mining capabilities for academic and researcher social networks. Semantic technology is the name of its game.
There are several groups and organizations that have funded this service: Chinese Young Faculty Research Funding, IBM China Research Lab and Minnesota/China Collaborative Research Program among others. It was originally developed by Jie Tang in 2006.
We learned about the focal points of the system:
In this system, we focus on: (1) creating a semantic-based profile for each researcher by extracting information from the distributed Web; (2) integrating academic data (e.g., the bibliographic data and the researcher profiles) from multiple sources; (3) accurately searching the heterogeneous network; (4) analyzing and discovering interesting patterns from the built researcher social network.
It looks like the Introduction page was last updated in 2010, but the search engine itself seems to be going strong into 2013. In the past, the folks at Arnetminer have given talks at Google, the World Wide Web Conference and more. It would be interesting to know where they are currently making their rounds at.
Megan Feil, August 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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