Google: More Like Apple?
March 4, 2012
You may know about “more like this.” Well, we think Google has a twist on this search feature. We call it “more like Apple.”
Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported on a new move that Google is planning in hopes of beating out Apple once and for all in the article “Google’s Real Estate Plans Hint It Wants to Own Your Living Room.”
The article argues that while Google has had incredible success in getting other companies to utilize its Android software, the search giant will never be able to out compete Apple until it starts making its own hardware as well. This is where Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola comes into play.
The article states:
“Though patents were one reason for the purchase, increasingly there are signs that Google will use Motorola to create a more integrated, Apple-esque approach. According to documents unearthed by the San Jose Mercury News, the company is building huge hardware-testing labs, including pricey anechoic chambers for testing the performance of antennae on mobile devices.”
This is definitely a risky move for an already very successful company. The real question is, is Google capable of being Apple? Heck, is Google even capable of preventing encroachment by Amazon, Microsoft, and Yandex?
Jasmine Ashton, March 4, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Libraries vs. Universities: Who Gets Funded?
February 29, 2012
As the economy struggles to recover, many of our educational institutions are forced to bear the brunt of budget cuts. A recent tumblr blog post entitled “Save the Libraries. Cut University Funding Instead” responds to the recent decision made by California’s state government to cut library funding rather than raise taxes.
The post argues that while libraries often get lumped in with universities the two are actually very different in regards to serving the poor, providing valuable community services, and being impartial.
After laying out these points, the writer concludes:
“Yes, university funding has already seen some cuts, but I’d rather see more cuts to universities and fewer cuts to libraries. They’re not the same thing. One of these systems claims to serve the poor, be open to differing viewpoints, and drive greater knowledge and learning for all humankind. The other actually does all of these things.”
While this writer makes some valid points regarding the problems with higher education, I think that pitting universities and libraries against one another is simply distracting us from the problem at hand. Neither of these institutions should have their budgets cut because they both provide valuable services to our society. But libraries need patrons who want information. With iPads and TV, subpar reading skills, and budget cuts—libraries are expendable it seems.
Jasmine Ashton, February 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Offers Free Websites For New York Businesses?
November 26, 2011
Search Engine Watch reported this week on website services in the article “Websites are Now Free For New York Businesses.”
According to the article, as a way to promote Google’s services to New York businesses, Google is now offering free websites as part of a deal they have made with the website building firm Intuit http://websitebuilder.intuit.
Google’s Website states:
“Small businesses are vital to America’s economic future; the nation’s 27.5M small businesses comprise half the US GDP and create two-thirds of all new jobs. While 97% of Americans look online for local products and services, 52% of New York small businesses do not have a website. That’s a lot of small businesses that are virtually invisible to potential customers looking online.”
Since web hosting and domain names are cheap as it is, Google can make more money from selling ad space on these free websites. Both Google and small businesses can increase their profits through this deal. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Jasmine Ashton, November 26, 2011
Google Predicts Video Games’ Successes
October 11, 2011
An increase in searches for game titles on Google and YouTube signal an awareness of the titles and the desire to acquire them, providing insight into sales. Google analyzed search activity for title terms of the top 15 games of 2010 and 2009, such as “Call of Duty,” “Black Ops,” and “COD Black Ops,” on Google and YouTube. The average search activity per title in 2010 rose 24% on Google and 28% on YouTube, jumping 25% in overall search activity.
Google Opens Retail Store: Search Engine Identity Crisis
October 9, 2011
After the huge release of Google+, a pretty direct attack on Facebook, Google is now going directly after the Apple giant in the form of retail outlets.
A spokesperson claims it is just something the company is playing around with, but we learn in Business Insider’s article,“Google Just Opened Its First Retail Outlet In London,” there is plenty of room for this “experiment” to grow:
…this is exactly how Microsoft got into the retail game a few years ago: by creating ‘Microsoft stores’ within big outlets like Circuit City, Best Buy, and — yes — PC World in 2008. It learned what it needed to know…Google doesn’t have enough products to sell to justify its own line of retail stores. Yet. But by the time it does, look for a gleaming chain ofGoogle Stores to sell whatever it comes up with.
Is this experiment in retail sales really a core competency of Google? I think not. Search engines seem to be having a major identity crisis these days, with Google in the lead. Attempts to tackle every market available may leave major areas of search engine systems weak. I assume rectifying the realm of search should be at the top of the agenda, but I remain wrong.
Andrea Hayden, October 09, 2011
Paving Stones of Good Intentions
October 9, 2011
Even Orwell didn’t foresee this, not specifically. From Kindergarten through college, students are now subjected to more forms of monitoring than I could have conceived of when I was a little rabble rouser. From cameras to RFID badges, it’s an entirely different world.
Now Michael Morris, is a lieutenant with the University Police at California State University-Channel Islands, is calling on universities to take surveillance to a whole new level. NetworkWorld reports on this in “Privacy Nightmare: Data Mine & Analyze all College Students’ Online Activities.” That’s right, the good lieutenant recommends recording every little thing college students do online and analyzing the data to predict and prevent “large-scale acts of violence on campus.” What’s more, it would be easy enough to do with today’s data management tools. Wrote Morris,
Many campuses across the country . . . provide each student with an e-mail address, personal access to the university’s network, free use of campus computers, and wired and wireless Internet access for their Web-connected devices. Students use these campus resources for conducting research, communicating with others, and for other personal activities on the Internet, including social networking. University officials could potentially mine data from their students and analyze them, since the data are already under their control. The analysis could then be screened to predict behavior to identify when a student’s online activities tend to indicate a threat to the campus.
Take a moment to reflect on the side effects of such a large-scale invasion of privacy. What other behavior, unrelated to potential violence, will be “predicted?” And how will those predictions be acted upon? The possibilities are endless.
Look, I get it. I once attended Virginia Tech, after all, and now I have a child in college myself. Not much scares me more than visions of some nut-job with guns descending on that campus. But I also realize that throughout history, fear has been the key to gaining citizen acceptance of the unacceptable. And now we have technology that allows the unacceptable to reach heights like never before.
Cynthia Murrell October 9, 2011
Questioning the Voice of the Customer
July 12, 2011
With search vendors embracing customer service and customer support, here’s an interesting insight into the niche: Steve McKee at Bloomberg Businessweek declares that “The Customer Isn’t Always Right.” Yeah, customers—who needs ‘em!
Actually, McKee does acknowledge that businesses should heed consumer voices much of the time. However, he insists that the reality of competing interests limits the value of that information:
As Adam Smith pointed out: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest.’ The same is true of the people who purchase the meat, the beer, and the bread. If you ask customers to design the perfect product, they’ll rack up the features and ratchet down the price, then be thrilled to buy from you all the way through your ‘Going Out of Business’ sale.
Businesses must balance customer input with knowledge about their own needs. The sting of losing a few sales because your prices are too high is small compared to the importance of protecting your bottom line.
What’s becoming increasingly clear, search vendors who offer customer support solutions are helping companies which want to reduce their customer support costs. Helping the customer? Maybe that is a secondary or tertiary benefit?
Cynthia Murrell, July 12, 2011
Endeca Pursues Customer Support
June 20, 2011
Always striving to stay abreast of trends, we found this post at CMSWire “Endeca Spotlights Customer Experience Mgmt with Infront” quite interesting. It is no secret that the search landscape has changed. Traditional vendors of “findability” solutions have put on their thinking caps in order to find ways to pump up revenue in a tough economic climate.
Endeca is pushing its technology’s applicability to customer support. Endeca’s InFront suite of products offers a solution to certain customer support information challenges. Endeca’s system does search and Guided Navigation. It also ads support for search engine optimization, social content, and mobile media support. Endeca asserts:
InFront allows businesses to create greater customer engagement with richer content and promotions,” explained Jason Purcell, General Manager, eBusiness, Endeca. “With integrated analytics and agile business user tools, InFront adapts to changing market needs, influences customer behavior across channels, and scales a relevant, personalized experience for every customer, every time.
Which search vendor will emerge as the victor in the pursuit of customer support license revenue? There are a number of search horses in the race, but there are incumbents. The race is difficult to call.
Micheal Cory, June 20, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
AT&T Shifts into Genghis Kahn Mode
June 13, 2011
I remember learning about warriors riding horses 24 hours a day. Instead of hitting the Mongolian equivalent of a convenience store, the rider open a vein on his horse’s neck and took a swig. Efficient.
Now AT&T wants to break in to the online coupon market according to Bloomberg’s article ” AT&T Takes on Groupon with $10 Promotion for Daily Deal Site.”
The new-old Ma Bell has revealed her plans to open a “Grouponesque” type of Web site for consumers through YellowPages.com.
Daily deals are the latest consumer shopping trend and have taken off in the wake of the slowing economy. Why pay full price when you can pay one half or one third of the full price?
AT&T will have to compete with veterans like Groupon, Facebook, and the such newspapers as the New York Times. AT&T believes it can be competitive by using larger discounts and making their site more amenable to the mobile deal hunter.
Pundits and assorted consulting firms anticipate that sales at restaurants, clothing stores and hair and nail salons will reach $6.1 billion by 2015 making the internet discount business potentially, extremely lucrative. The article said:
Market leader Groupon, based in Chicago, is planning an initial public offering later this year that would value the company at between $15 billion and $25 billion, two people familiar with the plans said last month.
I’m not entirely sure what my colleagues believe, but if ATT can truly capitalize on its “no search” couponing idea, may have an edge on their competitors. Could AT&T have a consumer market winner? With more than 90 million users AT&T is going to have a running start in this hot new segment.
Leslie Radcliff, June 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Online Addiction: Will Search Be a Controlled Service?
April 20, 2011
TechEye.net reports that “Kids Go Cold Turkey When You Take Their Technology Away.” We never agreed 100 percent with Marsshall McLuhan and his hot and cold thing. We do understand dependence, involvement, and digital magnetism. If the good Dr. McLuhan were in Harrod’s Creek today, he would sit up and take notice at this story.
Researchers at the University of Maryland subjected participants ages 17 to 23 to 24 hours without cell phones, the Internet, and TV. They could use landlines and read books. (Our view is that digital addiction can take place much, much earlier.)
The subjects’ diaries show that such restrictions threw many of them off their game. For a generation raised with such devices, unplugging is apparently unnerving, according to the article:
“[The study] found that 79 percent of students subjected to a complete media blackout for just one day reported adverse reactions ranging from distress to confusion and isolation… One of the things the kids spoke about was having overwhelming cravings while others reported symptoms such as ‘itching’. . . .One in five reported feelings of withdrawal like an addiction while 11 percent said they were confused. Over 19 percent said they were distressed and 11 percent felt isolated. Some students even reported stress from simply not being able to touch their phone.
And on the plus side, one in five enjoyed the experience, and some found they had more in-depth conversations during that day.
For a busy one parent family, hooking a child or adolescent means some blissful moments of peace. But what about other effects? How will these dependencies change search and content processing. Can an addicted user discern whether information is accurate or inaccurate? Will the user notice? Will the user care?
The study has me wondering about the future—will our grandchildren have chips in their heads that keep them wired 24-7? Will in-depth conversation, even in-depth thought, go the way of bound books? Key word search seems less likely to appeal to those who find the warmth and comfort of online so appealing. Facebook, on the other hand, offers a warmer place. Is this the McLuhan “hot”?
Will the solution be to make search a controlled service.
Cynthia Murrell April 20, 2011
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