Maximizing ROI from SharePoint
February 18, 2014
With all of the investment SharePoint takes from an organization, many are still not maximizing their returns by making the most of the platform. Read more in the CMS Wire article, “Are You Getting the Maximum ROI from SharePoint?”
The article begins:
“If your company has invested in SharePoint, they have likely put a lot of time, money and resources into its acquisition and deployment. Yet many companies are not realizing the return that they could be on their sizable investment. Most companies do not understand the plethora of features that are available to them, nor how to best leverage the platform to maximize their investment.”
Stephen E. Arnold is an industry leader in search and a follower of the latest SharePoint news and trends. His Web service, ArnoldIT.com, keeps an eye on the pros, cons, ups, and downs of SharePoint.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 18, 2014
Elasticsearch Disrupts Open Source Search
February 17, 2014
I did a series of reports about open source search. Some of these were published under mysterious circumstances by that leader of the azure chip consultants, IDC. You can see the $3,500 per report offers on the IDC site. Hey, I am not getting the money, but that’s what some of today’s go go executives do. The list of titles appears below my signature.
Elasticsearch, a system that is based on Lucene, evolved after the still-in-use Compass system. What seems to have happened in the last six months is one of those singularities that Googlers seek.
In January 2014, GigaOM, a “real news” outfit reported that Elasticsearch had moved from free and open source to a commercial model. You can find that report in “6 million Downloads Later, Elasticsearch Launches a Commercial Product.” The write up equates lots of downloads with commercial success. Well, I am not sure that I accept that. I do know that Elasticsearch landed an additional $24 million in series B funding if Silicon Angle’s information is correct. Elasticsearch, armed with more money than the now aging and repositioning Lucid Works (originally Lucid Imagination) has. (An interview with one of the founders of Lucid Imagination, the precursor of Lucid Works is at http://bit.ly/1gvddt5. Mr. Krellenstein left Lucid Imagination abruptly shortly after this interview appeared.)
I noted that in February 2014, InfoWorld, owned by the publisher of the $3,500 report about Elasticsearch, called the company “ultra hip.” I don’t see many search companies—proprietary or open source—called “hip.” “Ultra Hip Elasticsearch Hits Commercial Release.” The write up asserts (although I wonder who provided the content):
Elasticsearch was originally spun off from the Compass project, an open source Java search engine framework, back in 2004, in an effort to create a highly scalable search solution. Built on top of the well-known and popular Lucene library from the Apache Software Foundation, Elasticsearch adds such features as multitenancy, sharding, faceted search, and a JSON-based REST API. This feature set puts it in competition with the Solr project as a complete search solution built on top of Lucene.
The statement does not hit what I thought are the main points of the Elasticsearch initiative. let me fill in the blanks. Perhaps an azure chip consultant can use these to whip up another $3,500 report?
Marvel Introduced by Elasticsearch to Monitor and Manage Data Extraction
February 17, 2014
The article titled Elasticsearch Debuts Marvel To Deploy And Monitor Its Open Source Search And Data Analytics Technology on TechCrunch provides insight into Marvel, which the article calls a “deployment management and monitoring solution.” Elasticsearch is a technology for extracting information from structured and unstructured data and its users include such big names as Netflix, Verizon and Facebook among others. The article explains how Marvel will work to manage Elasticsearch,
“Enter Marvel, Elasticsearch’s first commercial offering, that makes it easy to run search, monitor performance, get visual views in real time and take action to fix things and improve performance. Marvel allows Elasticsearch system operators, who manage the technology at companies like Foursquare, see their Elasticsearch deployments in action, initiate instant checkup, and access historical data in context. Potential systems issues can be spotted and resolved before they become problems, and troubleshooting is faster. Pricing starts at $500 per five nodes.”
Elasticsearch reported that their revenue growth in 2013 was at over 400% and Marvel will only further their popularity. Already a user-friendly and lightweight technology, Elasticsearch is targeting developers interested in real-time discernibility of their data. Marvel may be great news for Elasticsearch and its users, but is certainly bad news for competitor Lucid Imagination.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SearchBlox Offers Enterprise Search In Spirit of Endeca
February 17, 2014
The sponsored article titled Faceted Enterprise Search from Searchblox on Web Designer Depot promotes SearchBlox as a viable alternative to Google Mini or Search Appliance for enterprise search. The article provides screenshots to show the simplicity of setup in detail. The article explains,
“SearchBlox has crawlers that work for filesystems, websites, RSS feeds, and databases that work straight out-of-the-box. They can index both public and protected content, and can be set to crawl on a specified schedule so your users’ searches are always up to date.
The faceted search plugin that comes with SearchBlox is jQuery based, so it’s easy to integrate it into your website or application. Running WordPress? There’s a custom WP plugin for searching and indexing your WordPress site”
It sounds like the spirit of Endeca is still alive. Prior to SearchBlox being able to index and search the various file types all the user must do is set folder paths or root URLs. SearchBlox promises to be a quick and faceted search built on Apache Lucene. Users can manage everything through a web-based administrative console. SearchBlox allows for crawling third party websites, indexing API, synonym searches and customizable stopwords. All of these capabilities make SearchBlox an interesting choice for enterprise search.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Twitter Improves Search Capabilities Adds New Filters
February 17, 2014
The article titled Twitter.com Gets New Search Filters for News, Videos, and People You Follow on TNW pronounces that Twitter has improved search (a little bit.) In sum, Twitter’s search will now allow its users to search in the categories of photos, videos, news, people you follow, and locations. This is certainly meant to make search easier on its users. When it comes to sorting through the millions of Tweets, it might come in handy to have more specific filters. The article explains,
“Twitter revealed the new features today with a tweet, but it’s not clear exactly when the filters began rolling out. Earlier filters let you specify whether you were searching for photos or people. The official iOS and Android Twitter apps got new search filters last November. Twitter’s Advanced Search feature still exists for those who need the extra search operator functions.”
The announcement tweet read, “We’re bringing new filters to search on ?http://twitter.com : by videos, news, people you follow, and more.” This small change might not be the most exciting innovation in search, but the article does express some interest in the new ability to weed out irrelevant tweets when searching for something read earlier in the day.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 17, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Secure Mobile SharePoint Connectivity
February 17, 2014
SharePoint is definitely moving in the mobile direction, but security remains a concern. MobilityShield is hoping to resolve some of those concerns with their newest product release. Read more in the PR Newswire article, “MobilityShield Reveals New Solution for Secure Mobile SharePoint Connectivity.”
The article begins:
“MobilityShield, an innovative solution that guarantees secure mobile connectivity, today launched SharePointShield, a new product that guarantees secure mobile connectivity for users of Microsoft SharePoint. The innovative SharePointShield was developed following the successful launch of LyncShield which enables users to safely use approved mobile devices outside the corporate network to connect through Microsoft Lync. The new solution protects organizations that use SharePoint against Active Directory credentials theft, block DoS, DDoS and brute-force attacks, and enforces connection to registered devices.”
Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime leader in all things search, including SharePoint. And while SharePoint has its ups and downs, it’s not going anywhere. That’s why the increasing availability of add-ons improves the usability of satisfaction of SharePoint implementations. More SharePoint news, tips, and tricks can be located on Arnold’s Web site, ArnoldIT.com.
Emily Rae Aldridge, February 17, 2014
Baidu, Chinese Search Engine Company Expands Into New Markets
February 16, 2014
The article on ITWorld titled China’s Baidu Testing Search Engines for Brazil, Egypt, Thailand explores the ambition of China’s premier search engine. For some years the company has contemplated moving beyond China, and in 2008 began targeting Japan. Now they are readying to move into Egpyt, Thailand and Brazil, although the search sites are still currently in the internal testing phase according to Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo. The article explains,
“The three sites can be found at www.baidu.com.eg, www.baidu.co.th, www.baidu.net.br and are designed in the local language of each market. In addition to a search bar, the landing pages to the sites offer direct links to popular services such as Facebook, YouTube, as well as Hao123, Baidu’s own local Web directory. Besides Web search, the sites also contain different features such as image and video search, along with language translation.”
The expansion into international waters means contending with Google, the giant that claims just under 70% of all searches as of December 2013. In the same month Baidu accounted for just under 20% of searches on desktop PCs. Spokesman Kuo made it clear that Baidu is not content to stop at Egypt, Thailand and Brazil, but plans to develop search engines for other nations too, and is currently building an office in Shenzhen solely for international operations.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Growth of Google’s Knowledge Graph
February 15, 2014
The article titled How a Database of the World’s Knowledge Shapes Google’s Future on MIT Technology Review is an explanation of Google’s Knowledge Graph and the progress made in compiling information to feed into it. The Knowledge Graph began as a database built by Metaweb, which Google acquired in 2010. The article is an interview with Metaweb cofounder and Google employee John Giannandrea, who explains the Knowledge Graph through an analogy with maps.
“For a maps product you have to build a database of the real world and know there are things called streets, rivers, and countries in the physical world. That’s creating a symbolic structure for the physical world; the Knowledge Graph does that for the world of ideas and common sense. We have entities in the knowledge graph for foods, recipes, products, ideas in philosophy or history, and famous people.”
The difference between the old web search and the Knowledge Graph version is what is understood. As the amount of data grows, the effectiveness of search is also supposed to improve. The article skims over the ad revenue drive of the Knowledge Graph, but it is clear that the better Google is at recognizing meaning in searches, the better they will be able to “target search ads”.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 15, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Google Revenue Railroad: Whoo Whoo
February 14, 2014
I don’t pay much attention to mobile anything. I am nosing near 70, and I find life works just fine without checking a mobile device every few minutes.
I read “New Android OEM Licensing Terms Leak; “Open” Comes with a Lot of Restrictions.” The main point is that open does not mean “open.” Since the artful explanation of the meaning of “is,” most of the words used by folks possess fluid definitions.
“Open” is a good example. Open invokes images of free and open source software. As my columns in Online Searcher document, open is usually closed. For software, open is a way to open the door to consulting services.
Open in the Google context is similar. The monetization angle is different. Google has a huge appetite for revenue. The system Google has constructed over the last 13 or so years is an expensive puppy to operate, upgrade, and maintain.
The goal of Android is to provide cash in little ways (conferences) and big ways (advertising).
The write up states:
The agreement places a company-wide ban on Android forks, saying OEMs are forbidden from taking “any actions that may cause or result in the fragmentation of Android” and specifically disallows distributing or encouraging a third party to distribute “a software development kit derived from Android.” Google has full control over the countries its apps are released in and distribution methods used to distribute the apps. This allows Google to restrict its apps to the Play Store and will keep them out of competing stores like Amazon and Samsung. Google also stipulates that the Google apps must be distributed free of charge, and they cannot be modified, reverse engineered, or used to make a derivative work, and ads are not allowed to be placed in, on, or around Google’s apps.
This is news? To whom? Online provides a terrarium for monoculture. The trajectory of Google has been evident for a decade. Now a single example of how the online service takes steps to ensure its sustenance is surprising.
I am turning off my mobile phone, silencing its beeps that inform me of “new” news. For those curious about Google and some of its revenue seeking actions, I have provided a list that links to versions of my different essays about Google. Most of these fill in the gaps between my books Google Version 2 and Google: The Digital Gutenberg. You can find the list at http://xenky.com/google-info/.
My view is that increasingly robust monetization is chugging down the Google tracks. There are few signals on this railroad. Look before crossing.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2014
FoxySpider is a Personal Web Crawler for Firefox
February 14, 2014
Ever wish you could have your own, personal web crawler? Now, if you browse with the open-source Mozilla Firefox, you can. Just download the add-on FoxySpider from Firefox’s Add-Ons site. The spider’s About section explains:
“With FoxySpider you can:
*Get all photos from an entire website
*Get all video clips from an entire website
*Get all audio files from an entire website
Well, actually get any file type you want from an entire website.
“FoxySpider can be used to create a thumbnail gallery containing links to rich media files of any file types you are interested in. It can also crawl deep to any level on a website and display the applicable files it found in the same gallery. FoxySpider is useful for different media content pages (music, video, images, documents), thumbnail gallery post (TGP) sites, podcasts. You can narrow and expand the search to support exactly what you want. Once the thumbnail gallery is created you can view, download or share (on Facebook and Twitter) every file that was fetched by FoxySpider.”
One podcast-loving user gives FoxySpider five out of five stars and calls it an “essential tool for harvesting sites rich in your interest.” Another, who bestows four stars, says the crawler crashed his browser, but admits that his “PC is not so good.” If you believe your machine can handle the rigors of a resource-pounding application, download away, gentle reader.
Cynthia Murrell, February 14, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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