IBM Lands New Account with Reevoo
September 5, 2013
Merchants at the U.K.’s the Jewellery Channel will soon have new analytics tools at their fingertips. PRWeb reveals the deal in the lengthily titled, “Reevoo and IBM Help the Jewellery Channel Analyse Customer Sentiment to Engage Customers and Build Trust.” Reevoo has embedded IBM’s Content Analytics with Enterprise Search into their Insight platform, which underpins the sparkly retail site. The press release informs us:
“The Jewellery Channel can leverage the sophisticated capabilities of IBM Content Analytics to access, aggregate and analyze unstructured content, understanding the meaning and context of human language within textual information found in both internal and external sources.
“The sentiment and natural language processing performed by Reevoo Insight with IBM Content Analytics not only unveils trends, patterns, issues and opportunities but also quickly identifies the root causes of why key metrics are changing. All the results are then made available through a series of user-friendly, visual actionable insights, customized for different roles.”
IBM has developed its Smarter Commerce program, of which its Content Analytics is a part, to help customers adapt to today’s dynamic tech landscape. The idea is to put the customer front-and-center, and IBM has tailored solutions for the fields of banking, electronics, consumer products, retail, and communications.
Based in London, social-commerce firm Reevoo was launched in 2005. Its cloud-based services aim to tap into social-media sentiment to provide clients with actionable insights. They pride themselves on their unique, flexible model, which they say outperforms the industry standard by far.
Cynthia Murrell, September 05, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
History of Web Indexing: BBC Style
September 4, 2013
I read “Jonathon Fletcher: Forgotten Father of the Search Engine.” I have no quibble with the claims that the first Web crawler was an invention spawned in the United Kingdom.
I did find several interesting factoids in the write up; for example:
- Google has indexed more than one trillion pages. On the surface, this sounds just super. However, what is the cost of maintaining the index of the alleged one trillion pages? Is Google cutting corners in its indexing to reduce costs? Perhaps the BBC will expand on this statement. A trillion is a big number and I wonder what percentage of those “pages” are indexed on a daily basis to keep the index fresh.
- “Because websites were added to the list manually, there was nothing to track changes to their content. Consequently, many of the links were quickly out-of-date or wrongly labeled.” Is this true today?
- “By June of 1994, JumpStation had indexed 275,000 pages. Space constraints forced Mr Fletcher to only index titles and headers of web pages, and not the entire content of the page, but even with this compromise, JumpStation started to struggle under the load.” Decades ago the black hole of Web indexing was visible. Now that Big Data have arrived, won’t indexing costs rise in lock step? What cost savings are available? Perhaps indexing less content and changing the index refresh cycles are expedient actions? Have Bing, Google, and Yandex gone down this path? Perhaps the BBC will follow up on this issue?
- “But in my [Fletcher’s] opinion, the Web isn’t going to last forever. But the problem of finding information is.” Has progress been made in Web search?
One interesting aspect of the write up is the conflation of Web search with other types of search. The confusion persists I believe.
Perhaps the BBC will look into the contributions to search of Dr. Martin Porter, the inventor of the Porter Stemmer. Dr. Porter’s Muscat search technology was important, arguably more important than Mr. Fletcher’s.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Microsoft: Another Scandinavian Deal
September 4, 2013
I read “The Deal That Makes No Sense.” The main point is that Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia for 3.79 billion Euros is ill advised in the opinion of the author. I would like to remind my two or three readers that Microsoft paid $1.2 billion in 1989 for the Fast Search & Transfer SA company. Shortly after that deal closed in early 2008, Fast Search came under scrutiny for financial reports. The Fast Search system is now at its end of life. I am not sure that Microsoft’s purchase of the Scandinavian enterprise search vendor made much sense either. In terms of dollars, Nokia may actually have more value than the Fast Search acquisition. The is faint praise. Both of these acquisitions are likely to be in a race to reveal which company was a better deal. Microsoft seems to have a soft spot for Scandinavian technology companies.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Attivio Teams up with Capax Global
September 4, 2013
Attivio has signed up another partner, this time a leader in search. PR Newswire reveals, “Capax Global and Attivio Announce Strategic Reseller Partnership.” The move will help Capax Global’s customers smoothly shift from conventional enterprise search to the more comprehensive unified information access (UIA) approach. The press release quotes Capax Global CEO and managing director John Baiocco:
“We have seen a natural shift towards UIA as our enterprise search customers contend with massive volumes of information, coming from multiple sources, in different formats. Traditional approaches are no longer adequate in dealing with the scale and complexity of enterprise information. Attivio leads the industry in addressing the demands of big data volume, variety, and velocity that our customers face.”
David Schubmehl, research director at analysis firm IDC, also weighs in on the importance of UIA:
“Unified information access is the next logical progression beyond enterprise search as companies face unprecedented volumes of disparate information, of which 85 percent or more is unstructured. Because UIA platforms can integrate large volumes of information across disconnected silos, technologies like AIE have become a key enabler for big data analytics and decision support.”
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Massachusetts, Attivio also has offices in other U.S. states, the U.K., Germany, and Israel. The company’s award-winning Active Intelligence Engine integrates structured and unstructured data, making it easier to translate information assets into useful business insights.
Capax Global celebrates its 20th birthday this year, making it a veteran in the search field. The privately-held company, based in New York, offers consulting services, custom implementations, and cloud-hosting services. An emphasis on its clients’ unique business objectives is no doubt part of its appeal for its many customers, which include Fortune 500 companies and major organizations around the world.
Cynthia Murrell, September 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
3DEXPERIENCE Platform With IFWE Compass Unveiled by Dassault Systemes
September 4, 2013
An article posted on July 25, 2013 on Market Watch was titled Dassault Systemes Announces Groundbreaking User Experience of its 3DExperience Platform and a New Cloud Portfolio. The French company revealed V6 Release 2014, offering a compact course-plotting interface that straddles the 3DExperience platform on the premise as well as on the cloud. As usual, the developments are ‘groundbreaking’. The article explains,
“This release brings a disruptive new user experience and the value of a business application at every single level of the company, transforming the world of IT platforms,” said Monica Menghini, Executive Vice President, Industry & Marketing, Dassault Systemes. “Our new navigational user interface is so intuitive that we wanted to give it a name: ‘IFWE Compass,’ because in business it is always a question of considering ‘what if’ scenarios to find the right path.”
The IFWE Compass provides an environment for business leaders to visualize their ideas on every level of development and collaborate from a shared cloud. The perks of the new system include Enovia Program Management and Engineering BOM Management, Delmia Assembly Planning and Milling Machining, Catia Concept Creative Design and Solidworks Mechanical Conceptual. The promise is of a holistic approach to information is the aim of the 3DExperience.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Cape Town WordPress Event Promises More Developments in Autocomplete and Search
September 4, 2013
The article titled ElasticSearch Soon Available for Websites on HumanIPO discusses LightSpeed’s developments in WordPress. The program will soon be emulating Google’s site search, and utilizes autocomplete based on Google entries. This development is scheduled for August. The article states,
“Also keen to improve the WordPress search functionality, the coding expert explained the key role of data in promoting the tool to scalability.
“Hopefully one day the datascale in WordPress is going to scale better because they are looking at reworking the post-type database infrastructure,” Shaw said, relating his knowledge of future plans for the popular open source platform.
The launch of a hostage server environment is also anticipated in August with a new SSL offloading system similar to Google’s recently released SPDY. “
Ashley Shaw, the founder of Lightspeed, spoke at the WordPress event in Cape Town. It is the hope of Shaw and others at WordPress that such events will lead to an African community akin to the WordCamp Europe. Kenya is particularly attractive, having taken mobile technology further. In the meantime, WordPress hopes to lower the cost of its new add-on service, which is currently set at US$2,500 for setup and an additional US$1,119 monthly subscription charge.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Are Google and Free an Oxymoron?
September 3, 2013
I am working on my presentation for the upcoming ISS intelligence conference. One of the topics which I will be addressing is “What is possible and not possible with Google’s Index”
Now don’t get the addled goose wrong. The goslings and I use Google and a number of other online services each day. The reason is that online indexing remains a hit-and-miss proposition. Today’s search gurus ignore the problem of content which is unindexable, servers which are too slow and time out, or latency issues which consign data to the big bit bucket in the back of the building. In addition, few talk about content which is intentionally deleted or moved to a storage device beyond the reach of an content acquisition system. Then there are all-too-frequent human errors which blast content into oblivion because back up devices cannot restore data. Clever programmers change a file format. The filters and connectors designed to index the content do not recognize the file type and put the document in the “look at this, dear human” folder or just skip the file type. And there are other issuers. These range from bandwidth constraints, time out settings, and software that does not work.
Does Google face a tough climb if online advertising falters? Image source: http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?tagID=8362
Are these issues discussed? Not often. And when a person like the addled goose brings up these issues, the whiz kids just sigh and tell me that my dinosaur tail is going to knock over the capuchin machine in the conference room. No problem. Most search vendors are struggling to make sales, control costs, and keep the often-flawed systems running well enough so the licensee pays the invoices. Is this a recipe for excellence? Not in my old-fashioned notebook.
I read “The Internet’s Next Victim: Advertising.” I found the title interesting because I thought the Internet’s next victim was a manager who used online search results without verifying the information. The article caught my attention because if it is accurate, Google is going to be forced to make some changes. The line “Everyone agrees that advertising on the Internet is broken” is one of those sweeping generalizations I find amusing. For some folks, online advertising works reasonably well. When one considers the options advertisers have, the Internet looks like a reasonable tool for certain products and services.
Evidence of this is Google’s ability to fund everything from tryst jets to self driving automobiles. Google has, if I understand the financial reports, managed to generate about 95 percent of its revenue from online advertising. The job hunting Steve Ballmer pointed out that Google was a one-trick pony. Well, he might have been wrong about my love of Windows 8, but he was spot on with Google’s inability to generate products and services beyond advertising.
That’s why the “Next Victim” article is thought provoking. What if Salon is correct? What will Google do to generate more revenue if advertising money decreases? What will Google do if the costs of selling ads spikes by 15 percent or more?
The options for Google are plentiful; for example:
- Raise ad rates
- Take ads from advertisers who are now not permitted to use the Google system
- Reduce staff, benefits, or salaries
- Cut back on some of the investments which are essential expensive science fiction Bell Labs-type projects
- Ramp up fees to customers.
There are other options, of course. But the easiest path to follow is to increase the number of sponsored messages and ads shown to users of Google’s most popular services. Mobile advertising is tricky because the screen is small and the graphic approach on tablets makes the clutter of the old-style desktop display look like a 1959 Cadillac tail fin.
What happens when ads take precedence over relevant, objective results? The usefulness of the search system decreases. The good news is that most users on online search systems are happy to get some information. These users believe that information in a search result page are accurate. Who needs for-fee research systems? The free results are good enough. The downside is that for the subject matter expert, the results from most free online search systems are flawed. For many of today’s professionals, this is a small price to pay for convenience. Who has time to verify search results?
Net net: if the “Next Victim” article is correct, Google may find itself facing an uphill climb. Looking at the data through Glass won’t change the outlook, however.
In my ISS talk, I will be offering several concrete suggestions to those who want to verify online results displayed in response to a predictive, personalized query.
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Big Data Analytics Proves Invaluable In Tax Fraud Investigation
September 3, 2013
The article on ComputerWeekly.com titled Big Data Journalism Exposes Offshore Tax Dodgers reports on the findings of Offshore Leaks, the result of the work of an international group of journalists. The fascinating story of offshore tax evasion by over 100,000 owners and founders of companies and trusts begins in Australia with a hard drive containing 260 GB of corporate files and unfiltered (and unorganized) personal emails. The article explains,
“Processing and publishing the leaked data brought to the US from Australia took over 18 months to bring to fruition, and is still continuing. As the largest ever big data project tackled by journalists, the investigation faced technical problems and errors from the start, took blind alleys, and encountered problems in collaboration, as well as pioneering effective new methods…
The first wave of reporting of Offshore Leaks stories began in the UK’s Guardian in November 2012, followed by a global relaunch in April 2013.
The G8 summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland this year will address the issue raised by the stories. David Cameron even requested that offshore company records be published. It was not until Australian company Nuix offered the journalists its text retrieval software that the unstructured data began to give relevant tips. Without such analytics software the project may have gone nowhere.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Digital Reasoning Releases New Synthesys Version that Includes Email Analytics
September 3, 2013
The article Digital Reasoning Sets New Standard In Real-Time Email Analytics for Risk and Compliance on Fort Mill Times publicized the release of Synthesys v3.7 from Digital Reasoning. Synthesys is a machine-learning platform that analyzes human-generated data and translates it into organized knowledge. The newest version makes available entity resolution, region classification and “real-time” ingestion. The article explains,
“Synthesys v3.7 provides breakthrough analytics for organizations who are struggling to meet their oversight requirements for electronic communications,” said Bill DiPietro, vice president product management at Digital Reasoning. “We are transforming the way compliance teams can connect the dots and identify risks by helping them understand what people are talking about, to whom and why in real-time.”
Synthesys now also offers email analytics, referencing the email body as well as salutations, headers and signatures. Digital Reasoning, based in Nashville, Tennessee, claims that this provides for information from email searches that is comprehensible and organized. This allows for companies to detect risky and criminal behavior in its employees. They provide many tutorial and informative videos about the new technology. Of course whenever the term ‘real-time’ is thrown about it makes us nervous, especially since the term means wildly different things to different companies. From a marketing perspective, however, it sounds great!
Chelsea Kerwin, September 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Kofax Purchases Kapow for Analytics and Integration Software
September 3, 2013
Reuters reported on July 31 the update Kofax Buys Kapow Technologies for $47.5 Million. Kofax, an Irvine, California based company acquisitioned the Palo Alto based Kapow for its analytics and data integration software. The purchase moves Kofax into the big data analytics sphere. The Kapow integration product is lauded for its user-friendly interface and its simplicity (Kapow uses a subscription model which makes installation and tests unnecessary. The article Kofax Adds Integration, Big Data Analytics in Kapow Acquisition on eweek explains,
“Thus Kofax… is combining all its newly acquired software IP to provide the basis for a significant big-data software package that will enable large organizations to access data–particularly the hard-to-get data that sits behind apps with no APIs (application programming interfaces)–faster and more cost-effectively…
Kapow Katalyst provides near real-time application integration and process automation, offering traditional API level integration capabilities as well as what it terms a “synthetic API” approach, which provides business users with a point-and-click interface, the company said.”
Kapow Kapplets are the apps that implement that data integration made possible by Kapow Katalyst. Kapow customers include Astra Zeneca, Audi and Zurich Insurance Group. The Chief Officer of Kofax applauded Kapow for its consistent growth in revenue over the last four fiscal years. The most surprising aspect of the deal may be the low deal price, assuming $47.5 million is correct.
Chelsea Kerwin, September 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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