A Fairy Tale: AOL Was Facebook a Long Time Ago
February 8, 2012
The Wall Street Journal amuses me. A Murdoch property, the newspaper does its best to minimize the best of “real” News Corp. journalism. I appreciate objective editorials which present oracular explanations of meaningful events in the world of “real” business.
A good read is “How AOL—Aka Facebook 1.0—Blew Its Lead” by Jesse Kornbluth. What is interesting is that this is a report from a person with Guccis on the ground. According to my hard copy edition, February 8, 2012, page A15:
Mr. Kornbluth was editorial director of America Online from 1997 to 2003. He now edits Headbutler.com.
I did a quick search on Facebook 3.0—aka Google—and learned from no less an authority than the Huffington Post the Mr. Kornbluth edits a blog which is a “cultural concierge service.” He is a “real” journalist and has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and new York, and a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times, etc.”
The addled goose is still in recovery mode, sort of like a very old restore from the now disappeared Fastback program. Thinking of old software and AOL, I think in 1999America Online was in hog heaven in terms of stock price. I recall shares coming in the $40 to $100 range. The accounting issues of 1993 were behind the company. The merger with Time Warner was a done deal by mid January 2000. The $350 billion was a nice round number. The New York Times marked the 10th anniversary in its “analysis” on January 11, 2010, with the story “How the AOL-Time Warner Merger Went So Wrong.”
Now I learn that AOL was Facebook 1.0. I had forgotten about AOL’s chat rooms. When I think of chat rooms, I recall CompuServe, but I was never into AOL despite the outstanding marketing campaign with the jazzy CD ROMs that seemed to be everywhere. Here’s Mr. Kornbluth’s Facebook parallel:
Search and Exogenous Complexity
January 31, 2012
I am now using the phrase “exogenous complexity” to describe systems, methods, processes, and procedures which are likely to fail due to outside factors. This initial post focuses on indexing, but I will extend the concept to other content centric applications in the future. Disagree with me? Use the comments section of this blog, please.
What is an outside factor?
Let’s think about value adding indexing, content enrichment, or metatagging. The idea is that unstructured text contains entities, facts, bound phrases, and other identifiable entities. A key word search system is mostly blind to the meaning of a number in the form nnn nn nnnn, which in the United States is the pattern for a Social Security Number. There are similar patterns in Federal Express, financial, and other types of sequences. The idea is that a system will recognize these strings and tag them appropriately; for example:
nnn nn nnn Social Security Number
Thus, a query for Social Security Numbers will return a string of digits matching the pattern. The same logic can be applied to certain entities and with the help of a knowledge base, Bayesian numerical recipes, and other techniques such as synonym expansion determine that a query for Obama residence will return White House or a query for the White House will return links to the Obama residence.
One wishes that value added indexing systems were as predictable as a kabuki drama. What vendors of next generation content processing systems participate in is a kabuki which leads to failure two thirds of the time. A tragedy? It depends on whom one asks.
The problem is that companies offering automated solutions to value adding indexing, content enrichment, or metatagging are likely to fail for three reasons:
First, there is the issue of humans who use language in unexpected or what some poets call “fresh” or “metaphoric” methods. English is synthetic in that any string of sounds can be used in quite unexpected ways. Whether it is the use of the name of the fruit “mango” as a code name for software or whether it is the conversion of a noun like information into a verb like informationize which appears in Japanese government English language documents, the automated system may miss the boat. When the boat is missed, continued iterations try to arrive at the correct linkage, but anyone who has used fully automated systems know or who paid attention in math class, the recovery from an initial error can be time consuming and sometimes difficult. Therefore, an automated system—no matter how clever—may find itself fooled by the stream of content flowing through its content processing work flow. The user pays the price because false drops mean more work and suggestions which are not just off the mark, the suggestions are difficult for a human to figure out. You can get the inside dope on why poor suggestions are an issue in Thining, Fast and Slow.
Deep Web Technologies: Cracking Multilingual Search
January 30, 2012
The rapid development of Web-based technologies over the last decade has created a unique opportunity to bring together the world’s scientists by making it easy for them to share research information. With the shift from US-centric, English language information to information published in other languages, researchers find that facility in one or two other languages is inadequate.
The Multilingual Challenge
Multilingual search increases the value of research output by making it available to a wider audience. Seamless federation and automated translation makes available research from China, Japan, Russia, and other countries prolific in science publication to researchers who may lack facility in certain languages. In the area of patent research, multilingual search greatly broadens the scope of patent research. For English speakers, the availability of multilingual federated search exposes English speakers to diverse perspectives from researchers in foreign countries.
For example, China’s research output is now far outpacing the rest of the world. In 2006 China’s research and development output surpassed that of Japan, the UK and Germany. At this pace, China will overtake the USA in a few years. But non US innovation is not confined to Asia and Europe. Brazil’s share of research output is growing rapidly.
Sample system output from WorldWideScience.org, powered by Deep Web Technologies’ multilingual federating system.
Deep Web Technologies (DWT) is one of the leaders in federated search. Federation requires taking a user’s query and using it to obtain search results from other indexes and search-and-retrieval systems. For example, Deep Web Technologies’ Explorit product handles this process, returning to the user a blended set of results. For the user, federation eliminates the need to frame a query for Google, Medline, USA.gov, and the NASA website. The user frames a query, sends it to Explorit and a single, relevance-ranked results list is displayed to the user.
DWT has moved beyond single language federation and grown to become the leader in federated search of the deep web. This has resulted in the launch of their ground-breaking, patent pending multilingual federated search capability in June of 2011.
“We now live in a much more interconnected world where information is available in a variety of languages,” noted Abe Lederman, President and CTO of Deep Web Technologies. “Major advances in machine translation have made it possible for DWT to develop a revolutionary new Explorit product that breaks down language barriers and advances scientific collaboration and business productivity.”
The Apple Google Thing: Some Thoughts about a Phase Change
January 25, 2012
I have done a bit more thinking about the search-related implications of Apple’s first quarter 2012 results. Google remains dominant in search. But I am formulating the hypothesis that Google is now on a knife edge and may already have started to slide down search mountain.
A happy quack to Net Giant.
Straight away let me say that Apple is happy with “good enough search.” I have had conflicting information about Apple’s apparent indifference to search and retrieval. If you want to locate a particular category of books in the iTunes’ online service, good luck. From its earliest days, the search function in iTunes has been less than satisfactory to me. But who cares? iTunes is part of the software fabric which Apple has woven right in front of Google’s, Amazon’s, and the entertainment industries’ snoots. Apple could not have been more upfront about search. Search is simply not Job One for an iTunes’ user. Why should it be? The service helps Apple generate revenues which have even the greediest MBA drooling.
I read “Apple’s Massive Numbers and Some Context.” My viewpoint is different, but I agree that something big has happened in the numbers and beyond. Here’s the passage I noted:
Towards the end of the earnings call, Tim Cook dropped a huge nugget of information: led by 15 million iPads sold last quarter, the tablet market is now larger than the entire desktop PC market. Someday in the not-too-distant future, the tablet market will be bigger than all of the PC market, he predicts. (Apple has sold 55 million iPads since the original launch in April 2010, Cook revealed.)
Need more proof? Read “Apple Reports First Quarter Results. Highest Quarterly Revenue and Earnings Ever. All-Time Record iPhone, iPad, and Mac Sales.” You can find many pundits, poobahs, and disinformationists explaining why Apple is generating so much dough, selling so many gizmos, and achieving at least momentarily the highest market capitalization in the history of greed.
But there’s an important aspect of these revenue figures which caught my attention. Here’s the point:
Apple has downsized, marginalized, and subordinated search across its range of products. Key word search is a desktop search service. The youth of the world has moved on.
Why is this important to me? Here are the reasons:
Search is now a tertiary operation. Top finding methods are apps. Then there are Web pages with exposed links or facets. Last is good old key word search. Yep, it is time to forget the search as the reason a person uses some type of electronic gizmo. I want to make a distinction between “findability” and “search”. Apple does a pretty good job of making information findable. Whether it is the native search function in OS X or the hot links scattered across Web pages and applications or mobile apps themselves, most folks regardless of age can make Apple machines work. Forget where a document is? Apple provides numerous “punch-the-button, dummy” options.
Facebook, Google, and Evil: Standard Operating Procedure?
January 23, 2012
One of the most over-used and little-understood words attached to online is “evil.” Long before Google, I was in a meeting at which ABI/INFORM announced per online type pricing. I think the person who described the decision to charge $0.25 per online type for Format 5 on Dialog was Martha Williams, one of the stalwarts of the online industry and a respected figure at the University of Illinois science and engineering libraries.
A tip of the trident to http://reinventingtheeventhorizon.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/midnight-in-the-garden-of-good-and-evil%E2%80%94mafia-style/
Evil, according to Dictionary.com–which is tough to use because of the ads for Zoho, InetSoft, and RingCentral–iterates through 10 definitions:
- morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
- harmful; injurious: evil laws.
- characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering;unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
- due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
- marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.
- that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
- the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
- the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
- harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
- anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.
Like many words in every day use, evil can denote or connote different shades of meaning.
I thought about these 10 definitions after I read “Facebook to Google: Don’t Be Evil, Focus on the User.” The write up presents a respected real journalist’s report about information exchanged in a meeting. The main point of the write up describes a way to make Google work the way it did before the social bonus program kicked in and the Google Plus avalanche rumbled down the roof of the Googleplex.
Enterprise Search: Cruising on the Concordia
January 19, 2012
I keep my eyes peeled for useful management examples. Whilst recovering from a minor hitch in the goose liver, I watched the drama of the Concordia cruise ship unfold. The horrific event reminded me of several enterprise search deployments I had analyzed. I was not the “captain” of these enterprise search voyages. I was able to do some post-crash analysis.
To get the basics of the event, you will want to familiarize yourself with the write up in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, “Concordia Disaster: Should a Captain Go Down with His Ship?” In my opinion, the key passage in the Daily Telegraph’s story was:
…leadership entails an obligation to be courageous – morally, physically or both. It is the price of leadership; it is why leaders are more highly regarded and rewarded than the rest of us. But even subordinates in certain professions have the duty to be brave, as the rest of us do not. A soldier is expected unquestioningly to put himself in the way of bullets as a civilian is not.
(But my favorite news item was Cruise Captain Says He ‘Tripped’ Into Lifeboat, Couldn’t Get Out.”
Not Taking Responsibility
The alleged behavior of the captain shares one similarity with enterprise search implementations that sink. The person running the operation shirks responsibility for the disaster. My view is that ego plays a part. The more important factor may be the person’s character. I have reviewed a failed search implementation and had a difficult time determining who was responsible. The procurement team has the thick linen of committee think under which to hide. The information technology manager often keeps well away from search, a behavior conditioned by knowledge that making information findable is often impossible. The chief financial officer just counts the dissipated dollars. Accountants are not implementers. The person charged with the failure is often a young engineer whom those ultimately responsible deem expendable.
The first similarity is that in big disasters those who are responsible do whatever is needed to avoid responsibility. In enterprise search, there is a ship captain. Pretending that a captain does not exist is one interesting characteristic of today’s organizational life. Think Jerry Yang at Yahoo. Recall Leo Apotheker. You get the idea. What about the search system at your company? The National Archives? Amazon’s online store? There are captains responsible. Unfortunately these captains do not get global news coverage for their behavior.
Show Boating
The crash and sinking was a consequence of show boating. The idea is that doing something fancy is appropriate and within the perimeter of the job description is allowed. In enterprise search, the show boating becomes visible when one or more people make suggestions along these lines:
- We need to deliver answer to users, not laundry lists
- Natural language processing is essential to the success of our search system
- We need a taxonomy and semantic technology to make information accessible
- Our system has to work just like Google.
Each of these is similar to the Concordia’s buzz close to shore. Few of those involved in an enterprise search implementation realize how downright expensive, complicated, and resource intensive these “suggestions” become. Vendors go along to keep the contract. The deployment team is thinking about making search headlines and maybe getting a raise and a promotion. Great idea but when the effort sinks the search project, the result is a disaster.
The second similarity between the Concordia and the ill fated enterprise search system deployment is that getting cute can wreck havoc. Now you may say, “Hey, semantic methods will only help our search system.” Maybe, maybe not. My view is that show boating is one characteristic of doomed enterprise search system. The fix? Just do the basics well, then add some special sauce.
Inforbix: A New Mobile Search Service for CAD and Product Data
January 16, 2012
Beyond Search recognizes that mobile applications are on the rise and people are moving their business to devices that are as flexible as they are. However, our team notices that this trend leaves a lot of people confused about how to deal with the excess of data that is available in the world of mobile applications. Search systems that navigate the chaos are often difficult to use or are simply nonexistent.
Boston-based Inforbix is responding to the rising issue. The company develops intelligent apps for CAD and product data access and is rolling out an iPad mobile application that allows customers to search engineering data anywhere, anytime.
Inforbix is a software company founded in 2012 that addresses the excess of product data within manufacturing companies. The company strives to develop software solutions and apps to address specific data trends and improve productivity. Inforbix is currently a cloud service accessed by web browser and assists customers in finding and sharing product data companywide.
Inforbix products work together with Product Data Management systems that may already be in place at organizations and connect companywide product data. Smaller companies without PDM systems can find an affordable alternative with Inforbix.
The new iPad app is the first mobile application release by Inforbix. The app is powered by InforBix’s semantic technology, which connects structured and unstructured related product data. This link allows users to find and access product data quickly on-the-go, while still providing correct and thorough information that is crucial to efficiency and productivity.
The service is cloud-based and requires no data migration or maintenance. The app can also access multiple file types and addresses searching and accessing product data, as well as other product data tasks such as organizing and presenting data patterns. The app is easy to use and requires no training or prior experience to use.
Chief Executive Officer Oleg Shilovistsky speaks on the topic of the mobile app release in the PR News Release:
“There’s lots of data everywhere. Customers are asking ‘How can I access it all with a single solution?’ Enter Inforbix, and the new iPad app will take Inforbix, a fresh new approach to find, engage with, and administer product data in manufacturing companies, a giant step forward in accessibility.”
The software is simple for companies to employ and is an intelligent solution to sorting through the endless product data that is available. The app can be demoed by pointing to http://www.inforbix.com/demo. Current Inforbix customers can already begin using the iPad app, which is available for free on the Apple App Store. New users can register with Inforbix to enable the app and begin accessing company product data.
At Beyond Search, we applaud companies that are focusing on creatively solving the issue of excess data and are impressed with Inforbix’s move to mobile. The future of technology is going fluid and companies need to remain accessible in the transition.
Andrea Hayden, January 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Real Journalism: The Anterior in the Aeron Method
January 12, 2012
Short honk: I admire companies which can survive after technology renders their methods obsolete. One example is the crafts people who carve mallards in northern Indiana. Another is the “feet on the street” stringers who write about major events around the world. Well, I suppose I should say, “Seat on the sofa” or “anterior in the Aeron”, not “feet on the street.” I am referring to the time honored practice of the Associated Press’s use of mobile humans to cover events. The key is putting humans in state capitols, capturing the wisdom as it flows from the mouths of the elected representatives, and writing up the good stuff. Of course, with local newspapers chopping staff, the AP has been the go-to source for state politicos’ antics for many years.
The “real” journalist’s research vehicle. This is the Herman Miller Aeron Chaise 2/3. Kick back and get the news via an Internet connection. No need to talk to humans. No reason to ask vapid questions. No need to get a first hand feel of the crowd. Put the anterior in an aeron and produce news. Get static, dude. Image source: http://www.kalkwijk.com
The company takes a different approach to events such as the anachronistic Consumer Electronic Show. CES is held in the new, spiritual and emotional heart of America—Las Vegas. As you may know, this is a city where a destination looks as if one could walk to the status of Liberty in a couple of minutes. The spatial distortion often means a slog of 30 minutes through a crowd of America’s most intelligent and productive citizens.
Navigate to “Microsoft CEO Hits Familiar Chord in CES Swan Song.” Skip the ambiguity of “swan song” and pondering whether its reference is to Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft, or CES itself. Here’s the new “real” journalism method:
The Associated Press watched Ballmer’s speech in Las Vegas on a webcast.
Whether it is an online university or an update on a legal matter via YouTube.com, why go to an event, interview attendees, check out the crowd reaction, and maybe ask a “real” question? Irrelevant to modern news work.
Here in Harrod’s Creek, this 67 year old goose does not go to many trade shows and he never, ever visits Las Vegas. The older, gentler America in rural Illinois and the mine drainage choked pond are what he prefers.
Does he miss “real” life and information by relying on his Aeron and Internet connection? Well, he thought he did. But what’s good enough for the AP, a “real” news outfit is definitely good enough for an old person like me. Life as it is viewed is definitely better than life as it is actually experienced. Here’s another video on YouTube that makes the first hand experience essentially irrelevant. Good to know how news works today. A video is just like life now. Progress? Not for me but that’s a personal opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Temis, Spammy PR, and Quite Silly Assertions
January 11, 2012
I am working on a project related to semantics. The idea is, according to that almost always reliable Wikipedia resource is:
the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata.
Years ago I studied at Duquesne University, a fascinating blend of Jesuit obsession, basketball, and phenomenological existentialism. If you are not familiar with this darned exciting branch of philosophy, you can dig into Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint by Franz Brentano or grind through Carl Stumpf’s The Psychological Origins of Space Perception, or just grab the Classic Comic Book from your local baseball card dealer. (My hunch is that many public relations professionals feel more comfortable with the Classic approach, not the primary texts of philosophers who focus on how ephemera and baloney affect one’s perception of reality one’s actions create.)
But my personal touchstone is Edmund Husserl’s body of work. To get the scoop on Lebenswelt (a universe of what is self-evident), you will want to skip the early work and go directly to The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. For sure, PR spam is what I would call self evident because it exists, was created by a human (possibly unaware that actions define reality), to achieve an outcome which is hooked to the individual’s identify.
Why mention the crisis of European thought? Well, I received “American Society for Microbiology Teams Up With TEMIS to Strengthen Access to Content” in this morning’s email (January 10, 2012). I noted that the document was attributed to an individual identified as Martine Fallon. I asked to be removed from the spam email list that dumps silly news releases about Temis into my system. I considered that Martine Fallon may be a ruse like Betty Crocker. Real or fictional, I am certain she or one of her colleagues, probably schooled in an esoteric discipline such as modern dance, agronomy, and public relations are familiar with the philosophical musings of Jean Genet.
You can get a copy of Born to Lose at this link.
I recall M. Genet’s observation:
I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.
Temis, a European company in the dicey semantic game, surely appreciates the delicious irony of explaining a license deal as a “team”. The notion of strengthening access to content is another semantic bon mot. The problem is that the argument does not satisfy my existential quest for factual information; for example, look at the words and bound phrases in bold:
Temis, the leading provider of Semantic Content Enrichment solutions for the Enterprise, today announced it has signed a license and services agreement with the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the oldest and largest life science membership organization in the world.
Do tell. Leading? Semantic content enrichment. What’s that?
What about outfits like Access Innovations, Concept Searching, Expert System SA, Smartlogic, and more than 75 other firms in the semantic space. The “leading” word is interesting but it lacks the substance of verifiable fact. Well, there’s more to the news story and the Temis pitch. Temis speaks for its client, asserting:
To serve its 40,000 members better, ASM is completely revamping its online content offering, and aggregating at a new site all of its authoritative content, including ASM’s journal titles dating back to 1916, a rapidly expanding image library, 240 book titles, its news magazine Microbe, and eventually abstracts of meetings and educational publications.
I navigated to the ASM Web site, did some poking around, and learned that ASM is rolling in dough. You can verify the outfit’s financial status at this page. But the numbers and charts allowed me to see that ASM has increasing assets, which is good. However, this chart suggests that since 2008, revenue has been heading south.
Source: http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/DC/American-Society-For-Microbiology.html
In my limited experience in rural Kentucky, not-for-profits embrace technology for one of three reasons. Let me list them and see if we can figure out what causes the estimable American Society for Microbiology.
Open Access Threatened by Elsevier Backed Legislation
January 3, 2012
Academic publishing, specifically in the fields of science and math, is a big money industry. The whole system hinges on containing the flow of information, a task that grows increasingly difficult with the demand for free access to information. Free access is fueled by the internet and social media, with these influences creating a new generation of young people who assume and demand that information be free. Arxiv.org is an open access archive for academic literature devoted to math and science. It and other open access portals are being threatened by potential legislation. (Open access is a term referring to quality information sources that are not protected by a subscription.) The Quantum Pontiff tells us more in, “Could Elsevier Shut Down Arxiv.org?”
The blogger reports:
They (Elsevier) haven’t yet, but they are supporting SOPA, a bill that attempts to roll back Web 2.0 by making it easy to shut down entire sites like Wikipedia and Craigslist if they contain any user-submitted infringing material.
Splash page of arxiv.org shows the seal of Cornell University and the phrase “We gratefully acknowledge supporting institutions. See http://arxiv.org/
Social media and copyright are inherently opposing concepts. User-submitted material, as it is referred to above, will almost always infringe upon copyright. In fact, very few submissions aside from the users own thoughts and words will not infringe upon copyright. If the legislators supporting SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) make good on all their promises, eventual showdowns with social media heavy hitters like Facebook or YouTube could occur.
American copyright was established by the founding fathers in our constitution to balance the protection of intellectual property with the ability to foster creativity and innovation. However, copyright has evolved in the modern era into a blanket protection policy, primarily serving corporations. Libraries and other institutions of learning champion the cause of open access, but even these civic organizations are threatened by corporate lobbyists in their constant quest to have copyright protection extended tighter and longer.
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