Oath Rhymes with Loath and Maybe Sloth?
April 5, 2017
I wanted Yahoo to be named Yabba Dabba Hoot. Darn it. The Verizon outfit which may put some interesting software on mobile phones it sell has come up with the name Oath. I am not sure any of my friends in Harrod’s Creek would have stumbled upon this word. I noted that a number of the write ups reporting about the new name, the Tony Romo like sacking of Marissa Mayer, and the assurances that the calculus of AOL+Yahoot will change my life. See “Under Oath? How Yahoo + AOL Will Change Your Life.”
USA Today brilliantly revealed that Verizon’s Xoogler believes “the brands will stay the same. “ Yep, that’s what happens when Verizon acquires companies: The status quo is the Baby Bell way. Well, sometimes as long as one is not the CEO, the CFO, the legal team, and anyone who does not understand the ethos of the Young Pioneers and Bell Telephone training methods:
The real journalism outfit which we call McPaper here in Kentucky quoted the Xoogler responsible for the AOL Yahoot marriage. Tim Armstrong and apparently someone else allegedly said:
Armstrong has described Oath as a B2B brand, overseeing the names that you are all familiar with. Beyond Yahoo and AOL, those names include Tumblr, Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget. In all, about 1.3 billion consumers use the company’s collection of brands making these among the most powerful digital brands on the Internet. “We like to say branding wise if you look at a hat, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Yahoo Sports will be on the front, Oath will be on the side,” Armstrong said. Besides the early reaction to Oath hasn’t been all that flattering, with the new name the subject of numerous jokes out on social media.
On the side. Does oath mean economic growth?
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2017
The Design Is Old School, but the Info Is Verified
April 5, 2017
For a moment, let us go back to the 1990s. The Internet was still new, flash animation was “da bomb” (to quote the vernacular of the day), and Web site design was plain HTML. While you could see prime examples of early Web site design visiting the Internet Archive, but why hit the time machine search button when you can simply visit RefDesk.com.
RefDesk is reminiscent of an old AOL landing page, except it lacks the cheesy graphics and provides higher quality information. RefDesk is an all-inclusive reference and fact checking Web site that pools links of various sources with quality information into one complete resource. It keeps things simple with the plain HTML format, then it groups sources together based on content and relevance, such as search engines, news outlets, weather, dictionaries, games, white pages, yellow pages, and specialized topics that change daily. RefDesk’s mission is to take the guesswork out of the Internet:
The Internet is the world’s largest library containing millions of books, artifacts, images, documents, maps, etc. There is but one small problem in this library: everything is scattered about on the floor, with growing hordes of confused and bewildered users frantically shifting through the maze, occasionally crying out, Great Scott, look at what I just found!’ Enter refdesk.
Refdesk has three goals: (1) fast access, (2) intuitive and easy navigation and (3) comprehensive content, rationally indexed. The prevailing philosophy here is: simplicity. “Simplicity is the natural result of profound thought.” And, very difficult to achieve.
Refdesk is the one stop source to find verified, credible resources because a team dedicated to fishing out the facts from the filth that runs amuck on other sites runs it. It set up shop in 1995 and the only thing that has changed is the information. It might be basic, it might be a tad bland, but the content is curated to ensure credibility.
Elementary school kids take note; you can use this on your history report.
Whitney Grace, April 5, 2017
HonkinNews for 4 April, 2017 Now Available
April 4, 2017
For April 4, 2017, HonkinNews digs into a shallow article about enterprise search. We did not know that enterprise search illuminates the dark corners of the Internet. We don’t believe this, but that’s why we decided to discuss this flimsy analysis. Also, Snap ephemera are now findable, which means that these gems of knowedge ot disappear quickly. We find some humor in a headhunting outfit which is promoting the name Beyond Search in interesting ways: Dead links and tie ups in Brazil, for example. ISPs can now sell user data. We quote a former FTC big wig who is a master of alliteration. Of course, big ISPs promise not to sell user data. Never. Ever. We discuss a company with technology able to figure out a person’s interests and match ads to that individual. The ads will arrive via an Alexa device or a wheelchair. Finally we illustrate the Google way of answering direct questions. You can find the program at this link.
Kenny Toth, April 4, 2017
Dataminr Presented to Foreign Buyers Through Illegal Means
April 4, 2017
One thing that any company wants is more profit. Companies generate more profit by selling their products and services to more clients. Dataminr wanted to add more clients to their roster and a former Hillary Clinton wanted to use his political connections to get more clients for Dataminr of the foreign variety. The Verge has the scoop on how this happened in, “Leaked Emails Reveal How Dataminr Was Pitched To Foreign Governments.”
Dataminr is a company specializing in analyzing Twitter data and turning it into actionable data sets in real-time. The Clinton aide’s personal company, Beacon Global Strategies, arranged to meet with at least six embassies and pitch Dataminr’s services. All of this came to light when classified emails were leaked to the public on DCLeaks.com:
The leaked emails shed light on the largely unregulated world of international lobbying in Washington, where “strategic advisors,” “consultants,” and lawyers use their US government experience to benefit clients and themselves, while avoiding public scrutiny both at home and overseas.
Beacon isn’t registered to lobby in Washington. The firm reportedly works for defense contractors and cybersecurity companies, but it hasn’t made its client list public, citing non-disclosure agreements. Beacon’s relationship with Dataminr has not been previously reported.
The aide sold Dataminr’s services in a way that suggest they could be used for surveillance. Beacon even described Dataminr as a way to find an individual’s digital footprint. Twitter’s development agreement forbids third parties from selling user data if it will be used for surveillance. But Twitter owns a 5% stake in Dataminr and allows them direct access to their data firehose.
It sounds like some back alley dealing took place. The ultimate goal for the Clinton aide was to make money and possibly funnel that back into his company or get a kickback from Dataminr. It is illegal for a company to act in this manner, says the US Lobbying Disclosure Act, but there are loopholes to skirt around it.
This is once again more proof that while a tool can be used for good, it can also be used in a harmful manner. It begs the question, though, that if people leave their personal information all over the Internet, is it not free for the taking?
Whitney Grace, April 4, 2017
Palantir Technologies: 9000 Words about a Secretive Company
April 3, 2017
Palantir Technologies is a search and content processing company. The technology is pretty good. The company’s marketing pretty good. Its public profile is now darned good. I don’t have much to say about Palantir’s wheel interface, its patents, or its usefulness to “operators.” If you are not familiar with the company, you may want to read or at least skim the weirdo Fortune Magazine Web article “Donald Trump, Palantir, and the Crazy Battle to Clean Up a Multibillion Dollar Military Procurement Swamp.” The subtitle is a helpful statement:
Peter Thiel’s software company says it has a product that will save soldiers’ lives—and hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds. The Army, which has spent billions on a failed alternative, isn’t interested. Weill the president and his generals ride to the rescue?”
The article, minus the pull quotes, is more than 9000 words long. The net net of the write up is that changing the US government’s method of purchasing goods and services may be tough to modify. I used to work at a Beltway Bandit outfit. Legend has it that my employer helped set up the US Department of the Navy and many of the business processes so many contractors know and love.
One has to change elected officials, government professionals who operate procurement processes, outfits like Beltway Bandits, and assorted legal eagles.
Why take 9000 words to reach this conclusion. My hunch is that the journey was fun: Fun for the Fortune Magazine staff, fun for the author, and fun for the ad sales person who peppered the infinite page with ads.
Will Palantir Technologies enjoy the write up? I suppose it depends on whom one asks. Perhaps a reader connected to IBM could ask Watson about the Analyst’s Notebook team. What are their views of Palantir? For most folks, my thought is that the Palantir connection to President Trump may provide a viewshed from which to assess the impact of this real journalism essay thing.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2017
Which Beyond Search? Text Processing or Meet Market?
April 3, 2017
In Madrid last week, a person showed me a link to Beyond Search. Nope, not this Beyond Search but to an executive recruitment firm based in London. This outfit owns the url beyondsearch.net and had the good sense to piggyback on the semantic value created by my Kentucky thoughts about search, content processing, text analytics and related subjects.
I took a quick look at the company’s Web site, which looks quite a bit like one of those Squarespace instant sites with sliders, large type, and zippy images. There were a couple of points I noted. Permit me to focus on the staff and the partners of the London-based “get you a new job, pal” store front.
First, the list of partners includes a link to a Brazilian executive recruitment company named Grupo Selpe. I used to live in Campinas, and I did a quick check of this company. The connection between Grupo Selpe and Beyond Search seems to be one of Beyond Search’s “directors.” There’s not much information about the executive directors, but we will continue to monitor the named entities. There was one link related to Grupo Selpe and Beyond Search, and it was dated 2005. Odd that in 12 years, there’s only one modest reference to the London shot house type company.
Second, we noted that the founder of Beyond Search is a person allegedly named James Davies. He too exists in a bit of an information vacuum. His LinkedIn page reports that he is a graduate of Keele University, and he has been the founder of two interesting Google-scale operations; specifically:
- ScaleUp Works, a conference designed to raise investment funds
- Walker Davies, an outfit described as “the UK’s pre-eminent startup and scale up hiring specialists”.
Walker Davies is interesting because it is listed as one of the “partners” of the Beyond Search recruitment outfit. It strikes me that Walker Davies and Beyond Search are in the same business: Headhunting, a colloquial terms popular in the US for moving a person to a new job.
Headhunting refers to the practice of some indigenous people. Beyond Search, despite its aboriginal origins, consumes only geese. Beyond Search in London may consume the careers of certain individuals. Beyond Search is enjoyed by certain individuals familiar with our approach and work for certain government entities engaged in law enforcement. Beyond Search in London is familiar to the pay-to-play aspect of executive recruitment; for instance, this company, Not Actively Looking.
Third, one of the partners of the recruitment outfit is the Financial Times. It apparently had a Non Executive Directors’ Club. I clicked on the link to the Financial Times, a publication which I view as one which tries not to get embroiled in illegal, underhanded, and deceptive practices. (I could be incorrect of course.) What happens when I follow the link? I get a 404 error.
This snippet from the headhunting Web site says that Beyond Search is proud to be partners with the Financial times Non Executive Director’s Club. Please, note the typographical error introduced between the logo and the executive placement service’s rendering of the identical text. Careless? No, just a bad link. I saw this when I clicked on the logo:
It seems that the Financial Times does not want to be captured in the headhunters’ pot of boiling oil or the Beyond Search headhunting outfit does not have the ability to get details right. If that is indeed the case, I am not sure I would entrust my Beyond Search goose’s job search to those who might plop the dear bird into a pot and sit back and wait for goose with sauerkraut. “Sour” right?
Fourth, The OwenJames’s link is not active. But it seems to be given pride of place on the Beyond Search LinkedIn page. I find that interesting because even my LinkedIn page includes slightly more timely information. Compare the two entries and decide for yourself: The Arnold LinkedIn page vs. the James Davies’ page.
| Beyond Search | BeyondSearch |
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Fifth, the Beyond Search partner Paradox is in the coaching business. No, not football in the Roman Abramovich school of management. (See “Ruthless Sacking Is the Hallmark of Roman Abramovich Empire.” The Paradox service strikes me as somewhat vague. As a former Booz, Allen & Hamilton lackey, I understand the value of vagueness. I did enjoy the quote from Niels Bohr: The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.” But is that what Paradox is about? False statements. I know that folks in Harrod’s Creek are not as sharp as those from more sophisticated cities like London, but the paradox is that I don’t understand how paradox is the heart of leadership.
An outfit with the same name as this beloved blog may have some good qualities. Granted, the punctuation errors, Financial Times’s link which isn’t, and the fascinating grab bag of partners suggests that the headhunter outfit is an interesting operation.
Rah, rah, to any company which wishes to hang on the webbed feet of the flying goose. Remember. When the Beyond Search goose lands, it can lay golden eggs. Sometimes, however, it can leave a deposit which can discolor paint with poo burn like this:
The opposite of the truth is what again? Ah, right. The Beyond Search operation in the UK. Recruit on, I say.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2017
The Golden Age of Radio as Compared to the Internet
April 3, 2017
Here is an article going out to all those old fogies who remember when radio was the main source of news, entertainment, and communication. Me Shed Society compares the Golden Age of Radio to the continuous information stream known as the Internet and they discuss more in the article, “The Internet Does To The World What Radio Did To The World.”
The author focuses on Marshal McLuhan’s book Understanding Media and its basic idea, “The medium is the message.” There are three paragraphs that the author found provoking and still relevant, especially in today’s media craze times. The author suggests that if one were to replace the Hitler references with the Internet or any other influential person or medium, it would be interchangeable. The first paragraph states that Hitler’s rise to power is due in part to the new radio invention and mass media. The most profound paragraph is the second:
The power of radio to retribalize mankind, its almost instant reversal of individualism into collectivism, Fascist or Marxist, has gone unnoticed. So extraordinary is this unawareness that it is what needs to be explained. The transforming power of media is easy to explain, but the ignoring of this power is not at all easy to explain. It goes without saying that the universal ignoring of the psychic action of technology bespeaks some inherent function, some essential numbing of consciousness such as occurs under stress and shock conditions.
The third paragraph concludes that there should be some way to defend against media fallout, such as education and its foundations in dead tree formats, i.e. print.
Print, however, is falling out of favor, at least when it comes to the mass media, and education is built more on tests and meeting standards than fighting hysteria. Let us add another “-ism” to this list with the “extreme-ism” that runs rampant on the TV and the Internet.
Whitney Grace, April 3, 2017
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