Torrents of Money
March 12, 2009
Check out the meager revenues from some of the dead tree crowds’ online services. What about Twitter revenue? Not much there. Now click here to read the Ars Technica story “Torrent Search Engine Mininova Earning €1 Million a Year.” You may be able to locate a link to Mininova with a Google search. I am not comfortable putting a link to the site on the addled goose’s blog. What is evident that users of torrent sites will pay money to locate data indexed by a torrents’ system. No big surprise. For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
Even a casual glance at the site will confirm that a huge percentage of the .torrent files it hosts (Mininova, like The Pirate Bay, does not host actual content on its own servers) infringe copyright, but Mininova isn’t quite The Pirate Bay. While the Bay used to delight in posting—and then ridiculing—takedown requests from copyright owners, Mininova claims to comply with all such requests and has a prominent page on its Web site providing information on the takedown process.
I liked the Ars Technica write up. My hunch is that as legal eagles get more knowledge about torrents, the number of legal challenges will increase. Mininova may have the dough to fight today’s battles, but repeated, contentious, and prolonged legal battles will kill the company. Interesting challenges for the parties to the matter. Older folks have difficulty explaining why torrents may be problematic. The children of these individuals have zero problem understanding the benefits of a torrent site, finding them, and using them. Not much chance of a quick change in this pattern in my opinion. Search is a gateway to information. A link delivers the information object. The children of legal eagles may ask their parents, “What’s the big deal?” No quick or easy answer yet.
Stephen Arnold, March 12, 2009
Google Software: A Glimpse at the Future of Google Applications
March 11, 2009
In my analyses of Google Patent documents, I documented the number of inventions that have applicability to online advertising. This makes sense. If your $20 billion in annual revenue depended on online advertisers bidding to get in front of potential customers, you would invest in ad R&D as well.
Most of the 40 percent of Google’s inventions have an ad hook. But some of the wizardry operates beneath a digital kimono. Few outside of the GOOG itself get to see the hidden charms that Google’s billions have purchased.
You can glimpse some of the technology by exploring what Google calls its “Agency Toolkit”. You can locate the page here, but I am not sure if you have to be an authorized Google-holic to access the tools. My own goslings wrought the necessary magic for this addled goose. Your goslings may vary in capabilities, of course.
Here’s what Google said about its Agency Toolkit:
We know how busy you are planning, creating and measuring success for your clients. That’s why we’ve created this site: your one-stop shop for Google tools to make your job a little easier. Build effective advertising programs, optimize your performance, and uncover market insights using the resources outlined here. And each of these free tools is easy to use, helping you to efficiently support your clients.
What’s on offer? Quite a few interesting services and functions. I don’t want to spoil your fun when you work through the 18 tools and links for training on the Web page. Let me highlight two:
- A placement tool. Google described it this way: “Find and choose websites, RSS feeds and other placements in the Google content network where you want your clients’ ads to run. Identify placements by URLs, topics, or demographics.”
- An SEO troubleshooter. The Google wordsmiths wrote: “Find and choose websites, RSS feeds and other placements in the Google content network where you want your clients’ ads to run. Identify placements by URLs, topics, or demographics.”
The toolkit is important for three reasons:
First, it is making powerful functions available to non programmers found in advertising agencies. In my opinion, this approach to what once were script based tasks makes Google a potential disruptive force for information contractors
Second, the metaphor “tools” implies that the ad exec or you if you are your own ad agency you can pick and choose the right tool for the task at hand. Unlike the notion of tools used by Microsoft or Oracle, Google wants its tools to be used by “regular” people, not techies who have passed tests to prove they are worthy of the secrets that unlike the usefulness of software.
Third, the tools themselves are pure Google. That is clean with just enough eye candy available for those client presentations. Don’t believe me. Refresh your memory with http://trends.google.com, which is one of the tools in the kit.
Google is one of the leaders in making arcane and technically complex operations easy and, for some, interactive. Whether to tools provide the amount of control a user assumes he or she gets, the perception of control is what is important. Think of tools as an never ending supply of ice cream and snacks for the Mad Ave type Google customer. The process is so much fun, in my opinion, that is is easy to forget that those are real deflated dollars one is spending. Not even a newspaper’s haggard, desperate ad rep can match the Google Ad Toolkit for fun and results.
Stephen Arnold, March 11.009
YAGG: Gmail Down
March 11, 2009
If you are a Gmail user, you don’t need the Beyond Search Web log to point out another Google glitch, what I call a YAGG (yet another Google glitch). You can read the story here. If accurate, the ComputerWorld headline tells the tale: “Gmail Down; Outage Could Last 36 Hours for Some.” If that link is dead by the time you read the addled goose’s write up, you can find tons of fun at this link to Google News‘s own coverage. So what? Not much to add to my earlier comments. The vaunted technical prowess of the Googlers is not that vaunted. Organizations trying to call Google to license its enterprise solutions may well find that Google will put in place humans who will promptly and eagerly field calls and explain why an potential customer should put its information on Google’s cloud systems.
Stephen Arnold, March 11, 2009
Amazon Out Googles Google… Again
March 10, 2009
This is like watching reruns of Batman. Every week (well, maybe not that often), Amazon announces another cloud service or technology breakthrough. On a shoestring, compared to Google’s and Microsoft’s R&D and infrastructure budget, Amazon continues to out maneuver these arch rivals.
The most recent example I saw was this story “How Amazon Builds the World’s Most Scalable Storage” by Robin Harris. The wonderful thing about this type of publicity is that only readers privy to the story secrets of Google, Microsoft, and others know whether the assertion is accurate or a bit of flexible reality. Please, read the story here and make up your own mind.
I am less interested in the technology Amazon used to get an indulgence from the sins of its storage past and more interested in the way in which Google looks a bit slow. Don’t get me wrong. My research suggests that Google has a more sophisticated data storage and data management system than Amazon. I have read enough Google open source technical papers to know that Google has some next generation storage and dataspace technology moving from the lab to user. Technology is not the issue. Public relations and marketing are.
For me the most interesting comment in Mr. Harris’ article was: “Amazon Web Services will dwarf their products business within a decade.” Wow. This means that Amazon’s present revenue and its growth projections will be a small part of a far larger revenue stream. I can relax my mental turnbuckles and read into this bold assertion that Amazon will be the big cumulus in the cloud computing sky.
Say this type of big idea enough times and it is possible a self fulfilling prophecy could take place. Will Google respond? Will Microsoft? I don’t think either company will do much, which concedes the assertion to Amazon. That’s how one might create an impression of technical superiority without providing fungible evidence.
Stephen Arnold, March 10, 2009
Twitter Bashing Not
March 10, 2009
Network World’s “To Tweet or Not to Tweet, That’s Not an Option” is an interesting write up about Twitter here. Twitter is a micro blogging service much loved by the mobile phone crowd under the age of 24. Most oldsters in heart and mind don’t understand why anyone would want to know that someone is eating breakfast. I suppose an Athenian would express similar surprise after listening to a chunk of Iliad and then having a colleague point out the wonders of the haiku. The article includes a link to a video with tips for social networking. This is another one of those info pellets designed to eliminate the need for a person who in theory knows something to write a sentence or two. For me, the most interesting comment in the semi clever article was:
Even if my explanations so far aren’t enough to persuade you to put some serious effort into “getting” Twitter” just consider that according to a blog entry on Compete.com in February this year Twitter ranks as the third largest social network with 6 million users and 55 million monthly visitors (it is only beaten by Facebook and MySpace, No. 1 and No. 2 respectively).
A good snip for my Twitter file and maybe yours too. Hey, with a url that would be a Tweet.
Stephen Arnold, March 10, 2009
Searching Twitter
March 9, 2009
At dinner on Saturday night, the conversation turned to Twitter. One of the guests asks, “Why would I want to use Twitter?” Another asked, “What’s it good for?” I listened. I will forward to each person in the dinner party Chris Allison’s “Welcome to the Hive Mind: Learn How to Search Twitter” here. Mr. Allison does a good job of documenting Twitter’s real time search system. If you too are baffled by Twitter, read the article and give Twitter a whirl. Join the growing number of intelligence and law enforcement and business intelligence professionals who are also learning about real time search. Note: most of the information in a Tweet is inconsequential. Aggregated, the micro blog posts are useful.
Stephen Arnold, March 9, 2009
Twitter: SWAT or Sissy
March 8, 2009
Farhad Manjoo’s “What the Heck Is Twitter?” here joins the team suggesting that Twitter is a sissy; that is, Twitter can’t kill Google. Google is a tough customer. Underneath those primary colors, Google has a dark core. Mr. Manjoo points out that some blogeratti see Twitter as a SWAT team able to take out Google. Google has “special” search engines. Real time search is a category of search. Twitter has “a great future” (maybe) but it does have the T shirt that says, “Fail whale.”
You should read the Slate story because the online publication has considerable clout, certainly much more than the feather duster the addled goose brandishes.
I would offer several observations:
First, Twitter has a content stream and search is a relatively recent trendlet for Twitter. Twitter is primarily about inconsequential content that when passed through a user filter–that is, a query–can yield timely information. The point, therefore, is that the content can yield nuggets. These are not necessarily “correct”. Google doesn’t have at this time the content flow. Real time search is a logical jump to information that offers the pre-cognitive insights much loved by some analysts (business and intelligence).
Second, Google has been a company with great potential and game changing technology. Twitter may flop. But it has become for me an example of a segment that Google has not been quick to seize either with its own technology or with its Google bucks. Twitter is not my go to search engine, but it has become a case example of a company that has managed to make clear Google’s inability to decide what to do and then do it with the force of will the company demonstrated between 2003 (pre Yahoo overture settlement) and 2006. Since 2007, Google has been, in my opinion, showing signs of bureaucratic indigestion.
Third, users of Twitter see the utility of the service. My hunch is that if I showed Twitter to my father’s friends at his Independent Village lunch group, no one would know what the heck Twitter is, why anyone would send a message, or what possible value is a Tweet like “I am stuck in traffic.” Show Twitter to a group of sixth graders, and I think the uptake will be different. That’s what’s important. Who cares if someone over 25 understands Twitter. The demographics point to a shift in the notion of timeliness expectations of users. To me, Twitter is making clear an opportunity from micro blog message traffic.
Therefore, I am not a Twitter user. I have an expert on staff who sends Tweets as Ben Kent, so we can see how the system interacts with the Twitter-sphere. I am an addled goose, but I am coherent enough to look at the service and see possibilities. I would opine that unless Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo don’t respond to this opportunity, Twitter may become much more than a wonky service with a “Fail whale” T shirt.
Stephen Arnold, March 8, 2009
YAGG: Google Docs Sharing Quirk
March 8, 2009
TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid’s “Google Privacy Blunder Shares Your Docs Without Permission”, if on the money, revealed yet another alleged Google glitch here. The issue pertains to inadvertent sharing of Google Docs. Mr. Kincaid wrote citing a Google generated message:
this sharing was limited to people “with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document” – a vague statement that sounds like it could add up to quite a few people. The notice states that only text documents and presentations are affected, not spreadsheets, and provides links to each of the user’s documents that may have been affected.
To be on the safe side, sensitive Google Docs might be happier on your local computing device. The addled goose loves things Google. YAGGs make the goose nervous. You may be different–at least until the alleged matter is clarified.
Stephen Arnold, March 8, 2009
Good SharePoint in the Cloud Forecast
March 7, 2009
I try to look at what’s new from the Microsoft SharePoint, Fast Search, and related content processing units once a week. Since the Fast Forward 2009 road map, there’s been not too much to grab my attention. I am fascinated with road maps. These are easier to create and deploy than software. I did come across a very useful set of PowerPoint slides here. The focus is SharePoint from the cloud. My hunch is that Microsoft will be packing SharePoint with search technology when the road map converts to shipping code. If this url doesn’t work for you, navigate here and click the faint Download link at http://cid-0ddc65de8785e94e.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/mpdc-bpos%20-%20DIWUG20090217.pdf. Note that this information is on a Microsoft Sky Drive in Adobe PDF format, a fact I find amusing. The presentation is by Serge van den Oever of Macaw. Parts of the talk are in Dutch, but the meaty stuff is in the diagrams. Here’s an example of the type of information available. Note: this is a portion of a single slide; there’s more on the original:
Another useful slide shows the pricing in US dollars. Navigate to the original for this information. I don’t know how touchy the Microsoft legal eagles are about folks reproducing non a Dutch presentation with US SharePoint costs. There’s a screen shot of an application from Metavistech which looks interesting as well. There’s even a “pimp my SharePoint” slide for those with a yen to customize SharePoint and a sense of the California car culture. Instead of a hot tub, the slide suggests adding a wiki to SharePoint. Sounds cool.
Stephen Arnold, March 7, 2009
Clouds Dissipate at HP
March 7, 2009
Hewlett Packard joined Yahoo is bailing out of the cloud storage business. You can read the ComputerWorld story “HP Shuts Down Upline Online Storage Service” here. HP has the distinction of going zero for two in the online game. First, the company muffed the bunny with AltaVista.com. When the wizards escaped the HP Compaq DEC set up, Google and other companies surged forward. Now HP pulls the plug on a service that did not work as well as Amazon’s service. HP beaten by an eCommerce company. The most interesting comment in the write up in my opinion was:
HP’s Upline service had trouble from the start. Three weeks after opening in April last year, it went down for a week. Users at the time reported problems in the client software to upload and synchronize files with the hosted service — calling Upline a good idea that was horribly executed.
HP has some big customers, one of which is alleged to be Microsoft. I thought HP was an ink company.
Stephen Arnold, March 7, 2009
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