Apps or New Browser for Access
November 9, 2010
The Google will have to make some changes to Chrome. When the GOOG adapts, I think those pushing the apps method of content access and the fuel providers behind RockMelt will have their hands full. I think a reinvention of the browser is an interesting idea. “
“New Browser Incorporates Latest Trends in Web Technology” reported:
RockMelt, a Mountain View startup that Andreessen has invested in and advises, is releasing today a beta version of a new, eponymous Web browser built around some of the latest trends in Web technologies. It integrates social networking to a degree not found in mainstream browsers and saves user data to the “cloud,” allowing users to get the same browsing experience on their work and home computers.
Both the Apps crowd and the new browser crowd are responding to needs from the exploding market for consumerized information access. Consumers like appliances. Some can be downright weird. Think about the Dyson fan and ball vacuum. Others can be helpful when one wants a way to read Web pages in unlikely places. Think iPad. The notion of mashing up information is not a new idea, but it is gaining momentum. Think apartment listings placed on a Google Map south of Houston. The mash up and a $1,000 in cash can score an apartment more effectively than a person from Harrod’s Creek and a printed listing of available spaces.
The challenge in the consumerized world of information is that whoever has eyeballs wins. Sure, some outfits can come out of left field and take over a market segment. One only needs to think about Google to realize that in the span of 12 years, Google is on the path to an AT&T-type operation. On some days, I think Google is AT&T, where some of Google’s wizards labored in a previous life. I can also point to the Apple iPad and the 200,000 plus apps available to someone with a lot of time on their hands like blog pundits.
My view is that browsers that seek to displace the incumbents have to leapfrog the competition. That’s going to be difficult because Google and other browser developers can incorporate functionality and make that functionality available to an installed base. My hunch is that the me-too tactic will make 2011 browser competition quite unlike 1993 browser competition.
Which will win? Browsers or Apps? The companies best at playing Monopoly will decide, not the market in my opinion. Fewer and fewer users want laundry lists. Complex results lists are an issue. Funky app interfaces are a barrier as well. Inertia, not innovation, is likely to be a formidable hurdle even with the ability to melt barriers made of stone.
Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2010
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LexisNexis Adds Content
November 6, 2010
LexisNexis is bringing the world together one search at a time. “LexisNexis TotalPatent Becomes First Patent Research Service to Provide Direct Links to….” Practically everywhere! LexisNexis’s new version of TotalPatent provides researchers the ability to search SciVerse Scopus, a virtual plethora of articles just waiting to be utilized by professionals in the scientific, medical,technical and social science fields.
“In conversations and visits with our customers, we learned how valuable it would be for them to have direct access to non-patent journal articles without having to leave TotalPatent and conduct those searches independently,”
TotalPatent also links up to Chisum on Patents. Chisum is the foremost authority on patent laws in the United States. Here’s the really cool part. TotalPatent includes English language software. It can translate foreign articles into the English language. All of these new improvements allow researchers to work more efficiently and accurately.
No word on prices for the new service.
Leslie Radcliff, November 6, 2010
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Wolfram Alpha and Search
October 12, 2010
I read “Wolfram Alpha and the Future of Search.” When I first looked at Wolfram Alpha, I did not consider the system a search engine. Google has a similar function. The idea is that an appropriate query will generate an answer. In my first queries with Wolfram Alpha, the math questions worked well. The more generalized query elicited some head scratching from the Wolfram Alpha system.
The write up summarizes some remarks made by Stephen Wolfram, a well know wizard and software genius, whose Mathematica finds use in many PhD study areas, research labs in Silicon Valley, and puzzle solvers who find Mathematica just what the doctor ordered to avoid a silly addition error.
The write up contained two points which I found interesting.
First, Dr. Wolfram allegedly said something along the lines:
Traditional search engines help us find documents in that mountain of words. But they do very little to distill those words into knowledge, or to answer our questions. The challenge in the coming years, Wolfram said, was to make more of these files and documents computable. That would enable systems like Wolfram/Alpha to digest them, and to use them to produce answers and analysis.
Dr. Wolfram is right in the flow of the data fusion trend. The question I would raise is, “What happens when those generating the outputs fiddle the game?” I don’t think “trust”, “reputation,” or “honor” will satisfy my need for some substantive reassurance. The nifty interfaces and the point-and-click access to “the answer” may be a mixed blessing.
Second, Dr. Wolfram alleged said something along these lines:
But the way Wolfram sees it, more of us will produce information in a style (or on templates) that will make it computable, and machines like his will eventually be able to answer all sorts of questions. In a sense, an early stage of this pre-processing is already happening: An entire industry is formatting Web pages to make them more searchable.
Bingo. Data fusion. The question I would raise is, “What happens when one of the nifty acquisition and transformation systems cannot process certain content?” In my experience, the scale of operation at even Twitter content centric start ups is a significant amount of data. Presenting information as complete that may quite incomplete seems to be a sticky wicket to me.
Is this bulk content processing and machine answering the future? Google, Recorded Future, and DataSift are rushing toward that end zone. Trends are fascinating, and in this case, data fusion tells us more about the market’s need for an easy-as-pie way to get actionable information than about the validity of the methods and the appropriateness of the outputs.
Stephen E Arnold, October 12, 2010
Budget Cuts Slam Government Data Fusion Operations
October 1, 2010
The dream is to sit down in front of one terminal or kick back and use an iPad to search government information. Most regular folks don’t know that the US government, working with state and local officials, has been trying to assemble data so it can be searched from one system. The buzz word for this effort is “fusion” and the conversion and normalization of data is handled at “fusion centers.”
“Fusion Centers Decry Lack of Dedicated Funding” reveals some interesting facts about the access, discover, and search initiative. According to the article:
The Government Accountability Office, for a report dated Sept. 29, interviewed officials from 14 of the 72 fusions centers spread across the country and found that most officials said that lack of a dedicated federal funding source is affecting their ability to plan for the long term.
The budget pinch in Washington is not likely to be resolved any time soon. The Department of Homeland Security is working on a nation-wide assessment of its fusion activities. You can read a report about this project in GAO document 10-972.
I flipped through the report. I am trying to steer clear of government work for a while. Enjoy. In the meantime, those looking for information will have to combine online and manual methods. Not agile, but it works.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2010
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Decisiv Search and SolSearch: Now Unified Search
September 30, 2010
This story in Information World Review interested me: “Recommind and Solcara Collaborate for a Unified Search Solution.” Note: I write a for-fee column for Information World Review. The story concerns Recommind, a vendor which I have traditionally associated with search and content processing for the legal sector. The story also references Solcara, a company that offers what I recall as an intuitive, personalized and integrated search solution across disparate information sources. These include structured information, online services, document management solutions, etc.
Here’s the passage that caught my eye:
Under the partnership, Recommind is integrating its Decisiv Search solution with Solcara’s SolSearch solution. The joint solution is aimed at providing unified access to internal and external sources, saving time and costs. Together, the two technologies deliver an enterprise search solution that unifies access to all internal data repositories, such as document management systems, know how systems and essential online services, such as Lexis Nexis Library, Thomson’s Westlaw & Lawtel and Practical Law Company (PLC).
The tie up of Decisiv Search and SolSearch obviously adds value to both firms’ search and content processing solutions. The questions that crossed my mind were:
- Is this type of tie up a variant of the no-cash mergers that Attensity and Lexalytics implemented? On the surface, the merging of two somewhat similar sets of functionality are difficult for me to unravel?
- Are customers likely to come from a specific sector like the US legal market or from broader enterprise search sectors such as those server by SharePoint? I am not sure about the functions of SharePoint, but with products from SharePoint add in vendors, SharePoint seems to off unified access.
- How will this type of tie up affect open source search vendors? With open source search showing some stamina, I wonder if this new merged service will allow both Recommind and Solcara to jump up the value chain?
This is a relationship that warrants further observation.
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2010
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Egentia: Another Aggregation Play
September 28, 2010
The newspaper is no longer the most sought after when it comes to finding the latest information. More and more people are putting down their paper and turning to online news to keep them informed. The company Eqentia aims to build a business portal that will have the same prestige for entrepreneurs that Google News has for the average user who wants to be informed about general news and developments.”
The article “Eqentia.com – Like Google News but For Businessmen” on KillerStartups.com explains a little more about the site. Basically, the company wants to allow users to customize their news options and get only the business news they want. Users can get the latest news from their business sector, keep an eye on the competition or see consumer patterns which can be helpful when coming up with marketing or media campaigns. A similar setup is already used by Silobreaker, which is dedicated to providing users with relevant news. Users perform automated searches in order to find in depth and relevant news instead of unsubstantiated chatter. Both sites give new meaning to the phrase “have it your way.”
The challenge seems to be marketing, not technology. There is an abundance of choices.
April Holmes, September 28, 2010
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White Paper on Data Mashups
September 28, 2010
We continue to work on projects that shift the emphasis from basic search to more sophisticated types of information retrieval. The companies in this market sector range from giants like SPSS (now part of IBM) and SAS to smaller firms that owe their origins to investments from the US government; for example, Recorded Future and Purple Yogi (now Stratify).
We noted the article titled “InetSoft Publishes Business Intelligence White Paper on Data Mashups”. The document of interest is a white paper authored by InetSoft, one of the companies pushing forward with data mashup technology. The paper asserts:
Data mashup is a data transformation and integration technique that puts control into the hands of the business user. Data mashup melds the flexibility of a spreadsheet with enterprise-level security, performance, repeatability, and collaboration. Data mashup can function in a complimentary relationship with warehousing, and can serve as a cost-effective substitute for traditional ETL [extract, transform, and load].
Spotting, digging out, and analyzing business data from disparate sources is expensive and time consuming. Further, this data must then be used for business intelligence (BI) decision-making and analysis. BI aims to support better decision-making by transforming raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable effective and strategic decision-making. The main point is that business intelligence can save licensees of mashup systems time and eliminate reporting costs. Like other next generation companies, the implication is that InetSoft offers a flexible framework.
Our view is that the “mashup” or data fusion sector is now the next big thing in search and content processing. We are uncertain about the time and expense of marketing these next generation systems, however. In our view, as traditional search vendors face commoditization for low value, low complexity solutions, the hunt for new revenue will create significant opportunities for confusing potential customers.
Search is not really simple, but it is now tired. The next generation content processing systems have vigor, but will the excesses of enthusiasm create the same type of market perplexity that befuddles some procurement teams? What will the azurini do? How will the marketers at the rising number of “data fusion” firms position their products?
Excitement ahead.
Stephen E Arnold, September 28, 2010
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