Microsoft Search: Continuing Clarity of Confusion. You Decide.
December 9, 2011
A reader forwarded me a snippet of a LinkedIn discussion about enterprise search. The issue concerned what Fast Search & Transfer would or would not do. The answers pointed in one direction: Write a widget. The developers in the discussion thread pointed out that such a widget was not a particularly difficult task. The marketing types were, not surprisingly, baffled. The discussion raised a somewhat more important issue; namely, what the heck is Fast Search & Transfer today. It has been almost three years since Microsoft paid $1.23 for the FAST Search & Transfer technology.
In February 2011, Microsoft point out in “Fast Search for SharePoint and FSIS. What Is the Difference?” that there are flavors of Fast Search. Think in terms of the different versions of Windows 7 like Home, Professional, etc. Microsoft is implementing the Microsoft method which is very useful to consultants, integrators, resellers, and Microsoft enthusiasts. For the iPad crowd, Microsoft’s approach is just really different from Apple’s “take what we give you” approach.
Confused? Don’t be. Image from the good folks at Creative Type Dad.
The first thing to keep in mind is that the “old” Fast Search & Transfer technology was tweaked to flush the open source components and to get the old gal running on 64 bit platforms. That, gentle reader, is what is called Fast Search for SharePoint 2010. The Microsoft naming convention converts this five word string to FS4SP.
Next you can get a version of Fast Search tailored to index only Internet sites. Think of this as Microsoft’s answer to Google’s Site Search service. This version of Fast Search is called Fast Search for Internet Sites. The acronym in February 2011 was FSIS. Comperio posted some useful information about FSIS in its article “Fast Search for Internet Sites.”
For the brave souls who are using the version of Fast Enterprise Search Platform stripped of its Linux and Unix DNA is called Fast ESP.
You can also license via a client access license or a per server license a specialized version of the FS4SP software for an “internal application.” The idea is that some luddites do not use SharePoint yet understand the value of Fast Search. This version is called Fast Search for Internal Applications.” The acronym is FSIA, and it is supposed to be an alternative for the Exalead of PolySpot search based application approach which is now widely imitated by most vendors.
There are “free” versions of search floating around; for example, when you install SQL Server, you get search. Other Microsoft products come with their own search components. Examples range from the accounting software to Windows 7, which implements quite an interesting approach to finding a file on a personal computer.
AppRapids: A New Information Service about Enterprise Apps
December 6, 2011
We pride ourselves on the wide variety of information covered “beyond search”. But the field of search technology increasingly morphs into a larger and larger beast. We have decided to focus on apps in a new information service.
That’s why we have created AppRapids. We want to cover the appification of enterprise software solutions. Like SharePointSemantics and Inteltrax, the service is supported by a commercial venture. We are delighted to announce that PolySpot will sponsor AppRapids.
The AppRapids service will cover news, developer information, and business strategies for the exploding world of enterprise applications for search, content processing, and business processes.
This service is run by members of the Beyond Search team. AppRapids’ editor Megan Feil and ArnoldIT editorial coordinator Constance Ard, MLS, utilize the Overflight intelligence system to track important news related to enterprise architecture, search solutions, and apps.
Features of the new service include:
- Open comments section
- Social components such as LinkedIn and Facebook presences
- User-submitted content
- Open source approach so you can locate a source document and reuse the AppRapids’ content with a link back to the micro-site.
As the PRWeb News Release states, Chief Marketing Officer and PolySpot Founder Olivier Lefassy said:
We believe that the type of information generated by ArnoldIT makes it easy to track important innovations and the companies which are helping create the next-generation enterprise frameworks, architectures, and solutions, including open source. PolySpot is active in this arena, and we want to ensure that a continuous flow of information is available to document developments in open source and proprietary solutions.
PolySpot was founded in 2001. The company designs and sells search and information access solutions designed to improve business efficiency in an environment where data volumes are increasing at an exponential rate. PolySpot’s solutions offer universal connectivity, covering all business needs and ensuring that companies can access the data they need, regardless of their structure, format or origin.
For more information about PolySpot’s enterprise solutions, navigate to www.polyspot.com.
PolySpot’s solutions are based on an innovative infrastructure offering both versatility and high performance, enabling companies to make best use of their assets and rationalizing the strategic costs that today’s businesses and organizations face. PolySpot’s solutions have millions of users worldwide, across all business sectors, with customers including Allianz, BNP Paribas, Bureau Veritas, Crédit Agricole, OSEO, Schlumberger, Veolia, Trinity Mirror and Vinci. For more information about PolySpot, point your browser to www.polyspot.com.
The most notable feature of AppRapids is similar to what we do at Beyond Search: stories include analysis of topics that are usually intentionally muddled by the language of marketing experts. The editors welcome comments for stories and any ideas may be submitted to gumdrop1@mail.com. Point your browser to the About Us page for more information on the editorial policy.
The AppRapids’ team will be attending key events, and we will process news releases sent to us at the email in the news service, gumdrop1@mail.com. We are contemplating a meet up in the near future. Watch AppRapids for details.
Megan Feil, December 6, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Amazon, Apple, and Google: The American Automobile Industry Approach to Innovation
December 3, 2011
I have been amused by two things:
First, Amazon watched and implemented Google ideas with remarkable consistency. Now maybe it was chance or the old college dorm discussion about simultaneous insights as a result of zeitgeist and beer. Regardless of the cause, Google described the cloud as a computer and Amazon implemented it. Google was in the game, but Amazon’s remarkable sense of timing meant that Google arrived in a niche plastered with Amazon’s arrow logos.
A sign of decay in innovation? Image credit: http://detroitfilms.com/blog/news/proposals-to-draw-more-filmmaking-to-michigan/
Second, Google fell into a pattern of reacting, not innovating, particularly in high value services. Forget the cloud stuff, Google was a late entrant to shopping, online payments, and street view search. Why these examples? Amazon arrived first.
I read “Google Wants to Create an Amazon Prime for the Entire Internet.” The main idea is that Google wants to pull an iPhone; that is, implement another company’s idea with a few wrinkles to demonstrate “real” innovation. You may be aware of my sensitivity to “real” consultants, “real” experts, and “real” innovation.
Here’s the key passage in my opinion:
Google is teaming with online retailers to cook up a standardized way to ship things to customers super fast (for a fee, of course). Sound familiar? Yeah, Google’s going after Amazon Prime. The WSJ’s sources say that Google has started this ‘Amazon Prime for other retailers’ initiative because people have began searching for products directly on Amazon rather than Google. And Google needs to protect its corners! The current rumored plan is to use Google’s existing product search in Google Shopping and combine it with a behind-the-scenes system that’ll figure out what stores have what in stock and how fast customers can get it.
Several observations:
First, I find it interesting that in the spirit of competition, a small number of companies are competing by rolling out me too products. In my view, I would like to see a bit more effort put into a service. A couple of wrinkles alters the suit in a superficial manner, but how about something fresh, interesting, and useful?
New Intellectuals: Technology and Its Augean Stables
November 29, 2011
In order to do some work today, I have to run a search. The desktop search systems I use are from Gaviri, a system developed by my friend Dr. Emeka Akezuwa, and software from Sowsoft called Effective File Search. My hunch is that as technology awareness of search seems to expand, knowledge about specific systems like Gaviri and Effective File Search decreases. If I could figure out the “smart” software in Windows Live Writer, I would express this as an equation. But for the life of me, Windows Live Writer has a weird interface, and I just don’t have the energy to try and think like a 20- or 30-something “expert” any longer.
I thought about search and digital information when I read the quite long write up “Humanity Has Always Feared Technology. In the 21st Century, Are We Right to Be Afraid?” Right out of the gate, the headline troubled me. First, there was the categorical affirmative “always.” Okay, every time there is an innovation, “human” behaves exactly the same way—In fear. Wow. Then there was the secondary thought: Are we right to be afraid? Well, if the “always” is operative, then the author definitely wants me to cower, shake, and experience the various manifestations of fear. You will want to read the original post because it contains some narrative woven amongst quotations from experts, mavens, and satraps.
The problem is that I am not “always’ fearful. What frightens me is the type of thinking that I find in many “expert” analyses. The goal is polarization, shock, and agenda pumping.
When one considers technology, I think it is a good idea to have a point of reference. The write up does not offer the type of anchor that even a third tier university lecturer would trot out to a group of students talking in a student center over milk and cookies.
Here are three points which I noted:
First, the write up references a professor and baroness, Susan Greenfield, who is quoted as stating:
“In real life, because actions have consequences, normally there’s a pay-off. If you want to go bungie jumping, which might be very exciting, there’s an element of danger there, and risk. Alternatively, if you want to sit with your friends and play poker or bridge where there’s zero danger it might get a bit boring, but here you have the perfect world of something that’s very exciting for you but at the same time completely safe,” she says.”
Second, the six part article hurtles forward, offering references to addiction. The idea that “doing” online is similar if not congruent to taking hard drugs or gambling compulsively. Does addictive behavior result from online or is addictive behavior evident whether one has an iPad or mobile phone? My view is that addictive behavior has been around for a long time and some folks find addictive behavior satisfying. To eliminate addictive behavior, the solution seems to be to eliminate the apparent cause. So how is that working out in society? I walked through an economically challenged area of London yesterday and noted five gambling facilities, a number of establishments selling various alcoholic beverages, and I watched one drug transaction in front of a take away. Online, therefore, is likely to attract its share of reformers, but if other potential magnets for addiction are operating in a busy metropolitan area, the “intellectuals” may not make the progress desired.
Augean stables. Big job. Maybe impossible?
Addiction is one side of the coin:
Why then is there a tendency for society to view technology addiction as something negative? Part of the answer surely lies in the pejorative nature of the word ‘addiction’ – replace addiction with ‘enthusiasm’ and the emphasis is immediately very different.
Yes, humans are particularly problematic, and it is a matter of time for a new thinker to conclude that technology is neutral, the universal solvent, and all things great and beautiful. I don’t agree, but the thought is one I understand as 20 and 30 somethings try to find the knobs and dials for a Fukushima melt down world. I am not sure “addiction” captures what I see happening. Technology is a way for a person to exert apparent control over certain situations. Online shopping does the immediate gratification thing and online dating delivers a similar kick without the need to dress up and interact in a non virtual social setting. “Date” in the digital realm is in some ways less likely to generate a sharp retort, laughter and pointing, and the physical presence non digital interaction affords some.
Third, the write up mentions the digital divide. In my opinion, the focus is on the obvious digital divide. What is ignored are the people and physical locations where there is no online connectivity. The barrier may be political like some less than upscale towns in Afghanistan or financial like the unemployed, food stamp folks in Louisville, Kentucky. Either way, the always on life style is as out of reach as the vacations of Brad Pitt. Here’s the digital divide characterized in the write up:
Open Text Social Framework
November 21, 2011
The dips and glides of the enterprise and content processing sectors fascinate me. I noticed that Open Text, based in Waterloo, Ontario, is on track to remain a $1.0 billion company. As I write this, the company’s stock is nosing toward $60 a share. With Hewlett Packard’s acquisition of Autonomy, Open Text inherits the title of a “billion dollar search and content processing company.”
In the 1990s, I tracked Open Text. As the company evolved into a collection of properties, I shifted to companies which were sticking closer to the “findability” sector. As you probably know, the core of Open Text today sits upon technology which I associate with Dr. Tim Bray. Dr. Bray work at Digital Equipment and worked at the University of Waterloo on the New Oxford English Dictionary project. He founded Open Text Corporation, which commercialized an XML search system which I believe was used in the dictionary. Open Text created a Web index which available as the Open Text Index and then morphed into “Tuxedo,” a Web index no longer available at the link I had on the Open Text Web site. Web search is an expensive proposition, and I understand why a company like Open Text would exit the free Web search service business.
Today’s Open Text owns the SGML search technology, and the company has acquired a number of other search and content processing systems. My view is that Open Text perceived search as a good business in which to compete. With the ready availability of open source search solutions and low cost “good enough” systems, I wonder if the company’s enthusiasm for search and retrieval has dwindled.
Open Text has a number of search technologies. For example, Open Text acquired Information Dimension in 1998. Information Dimensions’ BASIS search system was database management system. My colleague Howard Flank and I used BASIS to build the original Bellcore MARS billing system on the platform shortly after the AT&T breakup was announced. Open Text also acquired Fulcrum, a Microsoft centric search and retrieval system based in Ottawa, Ontario. I remember that one could use Fulcrum to search Siebel Systems content. Hummingbird was acquired by Open Text in 2006. Open Text used the Fulcrum technology in its Hummingbird Search Server product, now a connectivity solution. Open Text also acquired BRS Search (Bibliographic Retrieval Services) in 2001. As you know, BRS was a competitor to Dialog Information Services. BRS was a variant of IBM STAIRS technology, ran on IBM mainframe systems, and could handle sophisticated queries. I recall hearing that BRS technology was used in the Open Text LiveLink product. I think of LiveLink as an early version of SharePoint, blending content, collaboration, and search in a single system.
In 2010, Open Text purchased the Nstein content processing firm, which was based in Montréal, Québec. I think one of my team contacted Nstein to profile them for one of my reports. The firm was too busy. Then in 2009, an Nstein executive scheduled an appointment with me in London, UK, and “forgot” the meeting. Nifty.
Open Text has a basket of technologies to use to solve prospect and client problems. Is the company a model for other search and content processing firms trying to generate top line growth in a tough economic setting?
Since Dr. Bray’s departure, Open Text has been rolling up search and content processing firms. Much of the company’s growth has been fueled by acquisitions and cross selling, not raw innovation. In fact, Open Text has a bewildering array of content management technologies, including PS Software (records management), Gauss (Web content management systems), RedDot (Web content management systems with an embedded Autonomy search functionality), IXOS AG (SAP-centric archiving systems), Captaris (document capture systems which gave Open Text Brainware and ZyLAB functionality), Spicer (file viewing technology), Vizible (an interface company), StreamServe (an enterprise publishing system vendor of direct mail and other collateral), Metastorm (business process software), weComm (mobile device software developer), and Global 360 Holding Corp. (case management solutions).
Search Acquisitions
November 18, 2011
One of my two or three readers sent me a link to “Acquisition: The Elephant in the Meeting Room.” I don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about Mongoose, the write up, or the enterprise search sector. I have identified some of the buzzwords used to dance around the little-discussed problem of lousy enterprise search systems. If you want to catch up on the obfuscation in which marketers and “real” consultants are entangled, you may find “Search Silver Bullets, Elixirs, and Magic Potions: Thinking about Findability in 2012” a thought starter.
The main point of the Elephant article, it seems to me, is summarized in this passage:
Should you be wary of acquisitions? Not as much as you might read in the blogs and professional communities.
The write up mentions a number of high profile acquisitions and provides some color for the reasons behind the deals. My view of some of the recent deals is different from the Mongoose write up. I suppose that at age 67, I have been watching and participating in the sale of large and small companies. I learned in my work at Booz, Allen & Hamilton before it became an azure chip firm, that the reasons for a corporate action are often difficult to discern from the outside looking in.
The table below provides a run down of my personal take on why certain deals took place.
Google Reworks Its Approach to Innovation
November 15, 2011
In the aftermath of Steve Jobs’ death, innovation is a hot topic. Even consumer television programs stick in a reference to Mr. Jobs’ attention to detail, his brush with oriental philosophy, and his mental processes which would get him deleted from the interview pool at General Motors. Since Mr. Jobs’ death, Apple has made some mistakes which suggests that the loss may have generated some negative karma for Apple.
Apple may have innovation challenges going forward. I now hypothesize that Google has here and now innovation problems, and I think the firm’s most recent actions underscore that innovation is a concern to Google’s senior management.
As you may know, Google’s not-so-quiet shift from “we do it all in the Googleplex” to a more traditional approach to finding great ideas turned out the lights in the “old” Google Labs. Now many of the “real” consultants and journalists will point out that Google is an innovation machine. Examples range from the upgrade to Google+ Facebook type service to the tweaks to maps, Gmail, and Google Apps. Point taken, but let me summarize the thought that was triggered by three apparently unrelated announcements. Some of the azure chip crowd will assert that I, once again, am off base, living in rural Kentucky, and past my prime.
No problem. But consider:
First, last week Google bought two companies. Google has been acquiring companies quickly, and I thought it was a combination of getting people and technology. You can read about the deals in “Google Acquires Apture and Katango”. Apture developed an in-browser search gizmo described as a “glossary for the Web,” and Katango offers an automatic friend manager. (The Katango url was dark, but the eWeek story to which I linked explains what Katango did or does.) Net net: Buying ideas.
Google is throwing money, people, and public relations at its innovation problem. Is this is warning light that the engines of creativity at Google are ill-suited to breakthroughs that neutralize challenges from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and other firms which are gaining momentum in lucrative new markets.
Second, my dead tree copy of the New York Times ran a front page story about Google’s “new” and presumably “real” Google Labs. You can find it in the November 13, 2011 production copy which arrives in Louisville with a November 14, 2011, date. “Google’s Lab of Wildest Dreams” is one of those big company public relations coups that make smaller outfits turn green with envy. I learned in the carefully shaped story that Google has a “new” Google Labs, Google X. It is a “clandestine lab where Google is tackling 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas.” So the demise of the “old” Google Labs was not the “termination with extreme prejudice” of “labs.” Google just trimmed the fat and narrowed its focus to 100 “shoot-for-the-stars” ideas. I understand gentle pruning of innovative deadwood, reassignment of bright folks without hurting too many egos, and the focus thing. Net net: Focusing the best of the best on 100 problems to get a home run.
Third, ITProPortal recycle ad story from Globes, an Israeli newspaper, that Google was “planning to establish an incubator for startups in Israel” in 2012. “Google to Incubate Startups in Israel” said:
The company said that it plans to host 20 pre-seed start-ups or 80 people in the incubator program. Google plans to give the start-up training for a minimum of three months. Google said that it was interested in companies developing projects based on open source technologies similar to Android and Chrome web browser.
Israel has some innovative folks. My Overflight service is chock-a-block with references to Google’s activities in Israel, but this is another public relations or marketing nudge related to innovation. Net net: Fund smart people in Israel and presumably elsewhere like Beijing, Moscow, etc.
Search Silver Bullets, Elixirs, and Magic Potions: Thinking about Findability in 2012
November 10, 2011
I feel expansive today (November 9, 2011), generous even. My left eye seems to be working at 70 percent capacity. No babies are screaming in the airport waiting area. In fact, I am sitting in a not too sticky seat, enjoying the announcements about keeping pets in their cage and reporting suspicious packages to law enforcement by dialing 250.
I wonder if the mother who left a pink and white plastic bag with a small bunny and box of animal crackers is evil. Much in today’s society is crazy marketing hype and fear mongering.
Whilst thinking about pets in cages and animal crackers which may be laced with rat poison, and plump, fabric bunnies, my thoughts turned to the notion of instant fixes for horribly broken search and content processing systems.
I think it was the association of the failure of societal systems that determined passengers at the gate would allow a pet to run wild or that a stuffed bunny was a threat. My thoughts jumped to the world of search, its crazy marketing pitches, and the satraps who have promoted themselves to “expert in search.” I wanted to capture these ideas, conforming to the precepts of the About section of this free blog. Did I say, “Free.”
A happy quack to http://www.alchemywebsite.com/amcl_astronomical_material02.html for this image of the 21st century azure chip consultant, a self appointed expert in search with a degree in English and a minor in home economics with an emphasis on finger sandwiches.
The Silver Bullets, Garlic Balls, and Eyes of Newts
First, let me list the instant fixes, the silver bullets, the magic potions, the faerie dust, and the alchemy which makes “enterprise search” work today. Fasten your alchemist’s robe, lift your chin, and grab your paper cone. I may rain on your magic potion. Here are 14 magic fixes for a lousy search system. Oh, one more caveat. I am not picking on any one company or approach. The key to this essay is the collection of pixie dust, not a single firm’s blend of baloney, owl feathers, and goat horn.
- Analytics (The kind equations some of us wrangled and struggled with in Statistics 101 or the more complex predictive methods which, if you know how to make the numerical recipes work, will get you a job at Palantir, Recorded Future, SAS, or one of the other purveyors of wisdom based on big data number crunching)
- Cloud (Most companies in the magic elixir business invoke the cloud. Not even Macbeth’s witches do as good a job with the incantation of Hadoop the Loop as Cloudera,but there are many contenders in this pixie concoction. Amazon comes to mind but A9 gives me a headache when I use A9 to locate a book for my trusty e Reeder.)
- Clustering (Which I associate with Clustify and Vivisimo, but Vivisimo has morphed clustering in “information optimization” and gets a happy quack for this leap)
- Connectors (One can search unless one can acquire content. I like the Palantir approach which triggered some push back but I find the morphing of ISYS Search Software a useful touchstone in this potion category)
- Discovery systems (My associative thought process offers up Clearwell Systems and Recommind. I like Recommind, however, because it is so similar to Autonomy’s method and it has been the pivot for the company’s flip flow from law firms to enterprise search and back to eDiscovery in the last 12 or 18 months)
- Federation (I like the approach of Deep Web Technologies and for the record, the company does not position its method as a magical solution, but some federating vendors do so I will mention this concept. Yhink mash up and data fusion too)
- Natural language processing (My candidate for NLP wonder worker is Oracle which acquired InQuira. InQuira is a success story because it was formed from the components of two antecedent search companies, pitched NLP for customer support,and got acquired by Oracle. Happy stakeholders all.)
- Metatagging (Many candidates here. I nominate the Microsoft SharePoint technology as the silver bullet candidate. SharePoint search offers almost flawless implementation of finding a document by virtue of knowing who wrote it, when, and what file type it is. Amazing. A first of sorts because the method has spawned third party solutions from Austria to t he United States.)
- Open source (Hands down I think about IBM. From Content Analytics to the wild and crazy Watson, IBM has open source tattooed over large expanses of its corporate hide. Free? Did I mention free? Think again. IBM did not hit $100 billion in revenue by giving software away.)
- Relationship maps (I have to go with the Inxight Software solution. Not only was the live map an inspiration to every business intelligence and social network analysis vendor it was cool to drag objects around. Now Inxight is part of Business Objects which is part of SAP, which is an interesting company occupied with reinventing itself and ignored TREX, a search engine)
- Semantics (I have to mention Google as the poster child for making software know what content is about. I stand by my praise of Ramanathan Guha’s programmable search engine and the somewhat complementary work of Dr. Alon Halevy, both happy Googlers as far as I know. Did I mention that Google has oodles of semantic methods, but the focus is on selling ads and Pandas, which are somewhat related.)
- Sentiment analysis (the winner in the sentiment analysis sector is up for grabs. In terms of reinventing and repositioning, I want to acknowledge Attensity. But when it comes to making lemonade from lemons, check out Lexalytics (now a unit of Infonics). I like the Newssift case, but that is not included in my free blog posts and information about this modest multi-vehicle accident on the UK information highway is harder and harder to find. Alas.)
- Taxonomies (I am a traditionalist, so I quite like the pioneering work of Access Innovations. But firms run by individuals who are not experts in controlled vocabularies, machine assisted indexing, and ANSI compliance have captured the attention of the azure chip, home economics, and self appointed expert crowd. Access innovations knows its stuff. Some of the boot camp crowd, maybe somewhat less? I read a blog post recently that said librarians are not necessary when one creates an enterprise taxonomy. My how interesting. When we did the ABI/INFORM and Business Dateline controlled vocabularies we used “real” experts and quite a few librarians with experience conceptualizing, developing, refining, and ensuring logical consistency of our word lists. It worked because even the shadow of the original ABI/INFORM still uses some of our term 30 plus years later. There are so many taxonomy vendors, I will not attempt to highlight others. Even Microsoft signed on with Cognition Technologies to beef up its methods.)
- XML (there are Google and MarkLogic again. XML is now a genuine silver bullet. I thought it was a markup language. Well, not any more, pal.)
Apple and Google: Too Big to Flail?
November 9, 2011
The game is in its final seconds, a key player gets the ball and flails helplessly as the ball is fumbled. Game over. Football, however, is not life.
That is a plus for both Apple and Google. At lunch today (November 4, 2011),one of the goslings mentioned the appear and and disappearance of the Google Gmail app for the iPhone. I don’t use an iPhone. I don’t use Gmail but I do have an account. I don’t need an app. A phone is for talking. I have another gizmo for email, thank you. With lousy eyes, I can’t see the tiny screens which are made for 12 year olds, not 67 year old geese.
According to CBS News, “Google Flubs Its First iPhone Gmail App.” I suppose when regular TV reports a fumble, I should care. I don’t, but I think there is a lesson in the general release of software with a “bug”. I liked the alleged comment by the pre-eminent Google: “Sorry. We messed up.”
Okay. Flail. Not football.
Then someone mentioned that her nifty iPhone 4S was really annoying. I asked, “Does it make calls?” The answer: “Yes.”
I asked, “What’s wrong with the gizmo?” She said, “The voice recognition thing is not working.”
Okay, fumble. Apparently, the death of Steve Jobs has left Apple in a tough spot. A key feature does not work and there is no one to fire off snappy emails in the pre-dawn hours.
According to the Washington Post’s “Apple’s Siri Shows She’s Only a Beta,”
Owners of the iPhone 4S, some of whom are still dealing with the battery drain issues from iOS 5, were further disappointed Thursday when Siri, the automated personal assistant on the phone, took some unapproved personal leave. Siri seemed to be back in service by late Thursday evening.
Another flail. Not a game. Just customers. Who cares?
A tip of the managerial hat to http://jeffreykrames.com/2009/10/12/a-person-could-be-the-biggest-unforced-error-of-all/
As my wont, I see these two events without the personal annoyance that customers of Google and Apple may experience. I don’t really care about either of the two companies.
Beyond Search About Page Update
November 9, 2011
After the carpet bombing by AtomicPR, I updated my About page. I wanted to make clearer than ever my policies. You can find the About page at this link.
The main point is that I did not design Beyond Search to be a news publication. If news turns up in the blog content stream, that’s an error. We rely on open source content and use it as a spring board for our commentary.
Beyond Search exists for three reasons:
First, I capture factoids, quotes, and thoughts in a chronological manner, seven days a week, three to seven stories a day. We have more than 6,700 content objects in the archive. I use this material for my for fee columns, reports, and personal research. If someone reads a blog post and thinks I am doing news, get out of here. The blog was designed for me by me. I have two or three readers, but the only reader who counts is I.
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Test question: Which one bills for time and which one donates to better the world? Give up. Mother Theresa is on the right. The billing machine is on the left with the mustache. PR and marketing professionals, are you processing the time=money statement?
Second, if someone wants us to cover a particular technology topic, we will do it if the item is interesting to us. If we write something up, we charge for our time. We also sell ads at the top and side of the splash page content window. The reason? I pay humans to work on my research with me, and I put some, not all, just some of the information I process in the blog. I am not Mother Theresa, don’t have much interest in helping injured dogs or starving artists. Therefore, in my world my time invokes money. Don’t like it? Don’t ask me to do something for you, your client, your mom’s recent investment, or a friend of a friend.
Third, the Beyond Search content links to high value, original information like the Search Wizards Speak series. Anyone in an academic or educational role can use my content without asking. If you are a failed home economics teacher now working as a search expert or an azure chip consultant pretending you know something about content analytics, you will have to get my permission to rip off, recycle, republish, or otherwise make what’s mine yours. I have been reasonable in allowing reuse of my content. There’s one person in Slovenia who actually translates my blog content into a language with many consonants. No problem. Just ask. Don’t ask? Well, I can get frisky.
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