KlickOut: Curation from the Users
September 11, 2010
In this age of information, KlickOut provides a platform where content is available for free, can be shared with the world, and even managed by the users themselves in a democratic fashion. For the content it receives from the people world over, the website says, “You are the editor and you are the reader here. We’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content.”
Users upload their content as ‘Upcoming Stories’, which viewers add as favorites if they like it, and on gaining popularity the content is shifted to the home page of its respective category, on the basis of receiving a critical number of favorite counters. The best of each category makes it to the front page of the website, and the content varies from news to videos to images. Users can even login through their Facebook account and view or submit content in categories like movies, TV, celebrity, music, lifestyle, gaming, business, health, sports, world, and technology.
Curation is useful. Low or zero cost curation could be a solution to the laundry lists of baloney that are now delivered with Alacrity.
Leena Singh, September 11, 2010
Freebie
Facebook Pages Become Customer Support Centers
August 17, 2010
Consumers are the driving force behind any successful business. Many companies are behind when it comes to their CRM (customer relationship management) and though they may have excellent products customers are unable to get the quality support they need and deserve. Issues with customer service can lead to customers jumping ship and taking their money elsewhere. Many businesses have Facebook pages aimed at consumers. Facebook is improving by “brining customer service software to businesses living inside the world’s biggest social network.” “Facebook Pages Become Customer Support Centers” provides a little insight on the new support system designed by Parature. Customers will be able to choose from several different options and find the answers they need quickly. Users will no longer be a victim of the dreaded phone tree Hades. A language processing vendor will become one of the first to use the new service. Time will tell if this customer service software is effective but sometimes talking to a real person is the best fix. We think this repurposing of Facebook has significant implications for the hapless customer support search sector.
April Holmes, August 17, 2010
Progressive Camden, NJ to Close Libraries
August 11, 2010
Want to read a library book in lovely Camden, New Jersey? Too bad. Libraries are closing. Point your browser at “Camden Prepares to Close Library System.” No quotes because the source is from the litigious Associated Press. I heard that someone in Utah wanted to eliminate the senior year in high school. With libraries closing and possible elimination of one fourth of a high school education, Americans will be the content consumers publishers know are out there toting an iPad, buying news, and consuming books at a prodigious rate.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
Freebie
eBook Sales to Grow
April 15, 2010
In a report from Goldman Sachs, analysts predicted growth in book sales. “U.S. Book Sales to Increase on E-Books, Goldman Says” included this statement: “Apple’s share of the e-book market will surge to 33 percent in 2015 from 10 percent this year.” Amazon, it seems, will see its share of e-book sales decline to 28 percent from 50 percent. Will e-books remain books, or will e-books morph into interactive media? Will authors of books be able to create products that will appeal to users of new devices like the Apple iPad? If publishers have to invest in software development, will increased costs of production put further pressure on author royalties?
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2010
Unsponsored post.
HP: Ink or Information?
March 30, 2010
I have commented about Hewlett Packard’s push into content centric activities. The deal that made me sit up and take notice was the purchase of Exstream Software for more than $1.0 billion a year or two ago. There have been moves in other content areas, including records management. Seeking Alpha caught my attention with its article “Hewlett-Packard: Printers More Valuable Than PCs” and its nifty interactive graph. The main point of the write up is that HP, despite its efforts to make its bottom-line as fat as a French-government, certified goose destined for paté, HP is a printer and ink/toner company. With much of its printing technology influenced by Canon, I wondered about HP’s innovation as well. For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
HP’s stock is more sensitive to changes in its printer business than changes in the notebook business. A 5% increase in HP’s printer market share will lead to a 4% upside to $53 Trefis [analyst outfit] price estimate for HP’s stock, while a 5% increase in HP’s notebook share will result in less than a 3% upside.
HP may be big but the company has to find a way to generate more bottom-line impact from its other businesses before the printer and ink business softens.
Stephen E Arnold, March 30, 2010
No one paid me to write this about HP.
One UK Media Companies Pays Tribute to Two US Media Companies
March 18, 2010
Read “How the New York Times and CNN Try to Keep Up with the Tech Companies.” No, not the article. The title. First, the notion of “try”. The write up makes clear that the NYT and CNN are in try mode. Calvinistic? A less gifted pair trying to cope with Sergey and Larry? In French, “to make an often tentative or experimental effort to perform”.
Second, notice the phrase “keep up with”. Not “lead” or “change the game.” The notion is that a couple of 40 year old former high school stars are in fantasy camp with a bunch of retired pros and some college players. Yep, “keep up with”, not go “toe to toe” or “push the boundaries.” The details of the write up are interesting, but what is omitted are:
- Explanation of what Facebook has done to become one of the largest sites on the Web and a preferred source of news for lots of folks in some tasty demographics
- How these two sites plan to leapfrog Google and Yahoo
- Where the money will come from when it becomes necessary to build software, implement enhancements, and do big time research.
- What about that traffic challenge? Eyeballs are needed, then more eyeballs.
I think these questions make clear the challenges traditional publishing companies face as they try to learn new tricks, make them work, and find ways to pay for the costs that software and systems for the Web bring to the party.
Stephen E Arnold, March 18, 2010
Free, uncompensated information. I will report this writing for no money to the Jefferson County shelter manager.
Microsoft Fast on Linux and Unix Innovation
February 15, 2010
It’s Valentine’s Day. I feel quite a bit of affection for the system professionals who have licensed Fast Search ESP, and I hope each finds search love. I think there will be a “tough” element to this love. And like other types of love, there will be ups and downs. Microsoft practiced some “tough love” for licensees of the Linux and Unix versions of Fast Search & Transfer’s Enterprise Search Platform recently. I am in a discursive frame of mind, and I will share my opinion about the “tough love” for the Linux and Unix licensees of the 1997 technology that comprises some of Fast Search & Transfer’s system.
The not-too-surprising announcement that Microsoft would stop supporting Fast Search & Transfer’s Linux and Unix customers surprised some folks. I think a handful of resellers were delighted because customers with non-Windows versions of Fast Search cannot change horses in the middle of the Tigris River, as Alexander the Great discovered in 331 BCE. Some poobahs pointed out that open source search would become a hot ticket for Fast Search Linux and Unix licensees. Others took a more balanced view of figuring out whether to rip and replace or supplement the aging Fast Search system with one of the more specialized solutions now available; for example, Exalead’s system could be snapped in without much hassle, based on my research for Successful Enterprise Search Management, published by Galatea in the UK last year. (Martin White was my co-author.)
Source: http://www.zastavki.com/pictures/1024×768/2008/Saint_Valentines_Day_St.Valentine_004959_.jpg
What I found interesting is that the Microsoft Enterprise Search blog contained some information from Bjørn Olstad, CTO, FAST and Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft. The write up’s title is “Innovation on Linux and Unix,” and it appeared on February 4, 2010.
Mr. Olstad wrote:
When we announced the acquisition two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” and that we would provide updates to these versions to address customer concerns and add new features. Over the last two years, we’ve done just that.
The deal was consummated in April 2008. In October 2008, the Norwegian authorities seized some company information, but there has not been much news about the investigation into the pre-acquisition Fast Search & Transfer’s activities. At any event, it is now February 2010, so Microsoft has been operating Fast Search for the period between April 2008 and February 2010. That’s not quite two years, which is a nit, but software works when details are correct. What’s clear is that Fast Search and its Enterprise Search Platform or ESP is pared down and focused on the Windows platform.
I also noted this passage:
When we announced the acquisition two years ago, we said that we were committed to cross-platform innovation—that we’d “continue to offer stand-alone versions of ESP that run on Linux and UNIX,” and that we would provide updates to these versions to address customer concerns and add new features. Over the last two years, we’ve done just that.
Cloud Performance
December 5, 2009
After the endnote session at the International Online Show, Charlie Hull, Lemur Consulting, and I were talking about various aspects of open source technology. Mr. Hull has a positive view of open source, and I try to be disputatious whenever possible. Since Mr. Hull purchased my hot chocolate (small hot chocolate, in point of fact), I pushed back a bit. I focused on the issue of performance of certain open source software. Committee built gizmos may lack the trim tummies found in some commercial software solutions. I recalled seeing a performance comparison of some open source and commercial cloud solutions, and I said that I would dig up the article and post a comment.
The write up was “VPS Performance Comparison” in the Journal of Eivind Uggedal. You can see what fun it is to have a hot chocolate with a Lemur and a goose! The guts of this quite interesting piece of research are spilled in several charts. The systems put through their paces via scripts and some test data included:
The results, thoughtfully accompanies by some useful fee metrics, were interesting. The data revealed that both Mr. Hull (the modest lemur) and I (the addled goose) were both correct. He and I also like Banksy, the street artist, and we have several other areas of agreement in common as well. Quite depressing I might add.
I want to urge you to read Mr. Uggedal’s essay, so I will point out one chart that I found illuminating:
I know the lines are difficult to see but the point is that Amazon is predictable if pokey. Several vendors consistently lag others and the top performers in this test which is close to a Web application’s load are zipping right along. The speediest, are summed up by Mr. Uggedal this way:
Linode. 32-bit gave the best results on the Unixbench runs while 64-bit was fastest on the Django and database tests.
Quite a nice piece of work. Lemurs and geese agree that analyses like Mr. Uggedal can shed light on certain technical issues. Nevertheless, I assert that a wet goose is more sleek than the average dry lemur.
Stephen Arnold, December 5, 2009
Oyez, oyez, I wish to disclose that I wrote this essay and referenced Lemur Consulting because I was paid off with a cup of hot chocolate. Small cup, mind you. To whom do I report this commercial transaction. I think the US Federal Aviation Administration has jurisdiction over addled geese. Must comply, of course.
Wired Fraying and Shorting Out
May 19, 2009
Making money with electronic information is tough. Making money writing about the wired world is also difficult. Joel Johnson’s interesting “Welcome, Wired. We Call This Land Internet” here provided me with a useful anecdote for an upcoming talk I will be giving at an NFAIS conference at the end of June 2009. Mr. Johnson informed me that Wired Magazine may be killed off. No surprise. The magazine business was challenging when readers did not worry about dead trees and the chemicals in ink, distribution costs, and the millions of direct mail solicitations required to build a subscription list. In May 2009, the magazine business is different from those salad days between the late 17th century and 2008. Mr. Johnson wrote:
Wired is great print, but if the magazine can’t make money and is shuttered, taking the website down with it, I’m going to be livid. Not that making money online is easy—it’s not, especially without sacrificing your ethics and your voice—but if any mainstream outlet should be able to make the transition, it should be Wired. I fear that may be impossible, not just for Wired but for all these old brands, because they can’t accept that the work at which they have excelled for years will be just as important when it’s online—and online only.
I bought two magazines at the airport news kiosk this morning. The total price was about $14. I paid for them, but I was the only person in the shop in Washington Reagan Airport buying magazines. With buyers like me in short supply and advertisers trying to figure out how to maximize their ad dollars, Wired is not the only traditional publication to face a problematic future.
I also thought about the Wired wizards who described the brave new digital world. It is one thing to write about electronic information. It is quite another to make money from a print publication that contains information about online. I don’t think the Wired Web site can survive in its present form, regardless of the fate of the print publication.
Again. That pesky writing and doing problem.
Stephen Arnold, May 19, 2009
Migrating SharePoint Objects
April 27, 2009
I like the notion of federating; that is, leaving information where it is and then pulling what’s needed without crating a duplicated source store. I was interested in this Web log post “Migrating SharePoint Content between Different Site Templates and Preserving all the Necessary Metadata” because the approach ran counter to my method. Migration is sometimes necessary; for instance, a merger requires that the acquired firm’s information be placed under the control of the purchaser’s information technology department. If you need a method to migrate SharePoint, you will want to navigate to Boris Gomiunik’s article here and download the steps. There are eight steps, and I did not see a quick and easy way to automate this set of procedures. Like much in the SharePoint environment, a human must enter values and make decisions. The approach is great for the billable SharePoint consultant and makes a SharePoint administrator a must-have headcount. But for the senior manager, the costs associated with this somewhat tedious procedures are likely to be an issue. In my experience, the more manual intervention in a method, the greater the chance for mistakes. SharePoint may be a candidate for the cloud because in today’s financial climate eliminating headaches, errors, and expenses may reduce on premises software installations magnetic appeal. There was no reference to what fixes had to be made to get the SharePoint search system to rebuild its index and point to the correct instance of the migrated and potentially duplicate content. I wonder if that requires another multi step process involving lots of human fiddling?
Stephen Arnold, April 26, 2009
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