Euro Lecture: Domains and Boundaries in Digital Information
April 15, 2011
I keep getting letters from various government officials asking for my write up of a public lecture I gave in Spain about a year ago. I email and I then get snail mail letters explaining that my document did not arrive. I think the lecture will be accessible worldwide if I reproduce the text with only some redaction and updating in this blog. Herewith is another version of my formal presentation and analysis of informations domains which collide, morph, and evolve. The key point is that by “jumping up a level” even established leaders find that the boundaries have changed. In math, one goes from a simple 1 + 1 problem to an n-space problem. If you disagree with me as much as some conference organizers, use the comments section of this Web log. Don’t send me snail mail or an email. Like some government entities, I don’t receive this type of communication. Brave new world and all that.
When Domains Collide, Boundaries Shift
In the ancient world, crossing a frontier triggered mixed emotions. Fear of the unknown or the threat of brigands outlined some voyagers’ experience. There was excitement, evoked because of real or imagined adventures in crossing boundaries. Leaving the familiar world of one’s home for a vacation in another country can, for some, heighten one’s senses, and stimulate the appetite for adventure. The question becomes, “Where are you?” Look at the figure in the box. No room to move. Look at the figure in a hypercube? Movement is possible. Which is the reality of digital information?
In a box and trapped? Or, room to move?
![clip_image002[30]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/clip_image00230.jpg "clip_image002[30]")
Perception and defining boundaries becomes more important than ever before.
Boundaries: Real or Imagined?
Those engaged in the information industries today are also trying to cope with boundaries. Few of these feature hard lines of demarcation. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the symbolic action committed him to a course of action that rippled through the ruling elite of Rome. Entrepreneurs like Richard Rosenblatt, certainly no Julius Caesar, crossed from the land of MySpace.com into content production. His approach tapped individuals, often with little or no formal journalistic training, to create content. Thousands upon thousands of articles flowed from Demand Media into the firm’s Web sites and on to his clients’ Web sites. Though ignored by the “real” publishing community, Demand Media is poised for an initial public offering, introducing consulting services delivered by individuals who are not “real” consultants, and generating millions of clicks from Web sites like eHow.com and Cracked.com. Demand Media now is contemplating additional services which are similar to those offered by professional publishing companies and consulting firms. When I briefed a publishing company earlier this year, I mentioned Demand Media. I asked who was familiar with the firm. No one in attendance knew much about the company.
The issue of crossing a border, more specifically, the space between something well-known and something not-so-well-known is the focus of this essay. Of particular interest is the intersection of two different domains. Thinking broader than a college student taking her first trip to Paris, I want to explore what happens when digital spaces bump together. The boundaries of these intersections are in my opinion ripe with opportunities.
To give the inquiry some handholds, I will discuss the domains of traditional information and non-traditional production. In some ways, there is a significant financial stake in the boundary between these two domains. Each has its leaders and foot soldiers. Each has a method of working. Each has a mission. Each has a business model or models. What makes the intersection worthy of comment is that the collision of the traditional and non-traditional information worlds an important pivot point.
In the traditional versus non-traditional confrontations, I am not certain which “side” will win. Maybe neither will triumph? The costs of the collision may be so high that both sides fall, spent from the battle. Let’s look at an example of domains in collision.
Before World War One, transportation was expensive. For most Americans and Europeans, horses and mules were the Chevrolets and Hondas of the era. By the end of World War One, automobiles captured the fancy of the public. With that shift, MBAs learned that buggy whip manufacturers should have been able to manufacture seat covers for the horseless carriage. According to business school lore, the bright and agile would thrive. The proprietors who did not adapt had to find their future elsewhere. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Much of the US MBA cant has a similar lilt. The financial improprieties and the gasping economy make many aware of the shortcomings of MBA thinking. The domain of traditional financial conservatism died under the Hummmers driven by the top man at Bear Stearns or by the dare devil Bernie Madoff.
The point is that when domains collide—whether horses and automobiles or business methods based on trust with more facile and fluid approaches—unexpected consequences occur. The boundary at the intersection of domains that collide is one of uncertainty, opportunity, and risk. Winners and losers often look at their fate and wonder, “What happened?”
![clip_image002[6]](http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/clip_image0026.jpg "clip_image002[6]") |
| Demand Media has been a winner. Let me use financial payout as a yard stick. Business Week magazine was the American version of the highly regarded Economist. Bloomberg purchased Business Week for about $5 million. Associated Content, an information factory similar to Demand Media, sold to Yahoo for 15, maybe 18 times more than Business Week. That works about to $90 million versus $5 million. Associated Content and Demand Media produce bulk content for online consumption. If I measure quality in terms of dollars, is Business Week is a lower-value product when viewed in economic terms? Is the reasoned and sonorous writing of Business Week less successful than the crunchy, semi-professional outputs from hundreds of anonymous writers. The lesson from this transaction does not require a sleek, sharp-pencil MBA to explain. |
A Warning to AOL Top Dogs
April 14, 2011
AOL may have a chance now that Arianna Huffington is on the job. I think the silly stuff will go away, and the basics are going to put front and center. Now AOL’s top dog is a Xoogler, and before the management twists and turns at Google revealed how “controlled chaos” does not work so well, the Xoogler was set. Big money, a brand, and a dream for “publishing”. The happy “AOL way” may be going in a direction that the former Xoogler did not anticipate. I would hazard that the Xoogler did not think that the acquisitions of Arianna Huffington’s content company would upset the Xoogler’s dreams of a bright, happy future.
The first indication that Ms. Huffington may be the next boss of AOL can be seen in the write up “About that Lawsuit”. Upon reading the article, I noticed this passage:
The key point that the lawsuit completely ignores (or perhaps fails to understand) is how new media, new technologies, and the linked economy have changed the game, enabling millions of people to shift their focus from passive observation to active participation — from couch potato to self-expression. Writing blogs, sending tweets, updating your Facebook page, editing photos, uploading videos, and making music are options made possible by new technologies. The same people who never question why someone would sit on a couch and watch TV for eight hours straight can’t understand why someone would find it rewarding to weigh in on the issues — great and small — that interest them. For free. They don’t understand the people who contribute to Wikipedia for free, who maintain their own blogs for free, who tweet for free, who constantly refresh and update their Facebook pages for free, and who want to help tell the stories of what is happening in their lives and in their communities… for free.
What I took from this passage was:
Google and Its New Management Method: Pundits Throwing Punches
April 10, 2011
I read the modest flurry of quasi-MBA analyses triggered by “Larry Page’s First Blunder”. I liked the word “first” because it implies that Mr. Page and his co-founder have been management “perfect 10s” since 1998. I thought about pointing out that the present range of challenges Google faces is a consequence of earlier blunders.
But I wish to ignore that admittedly trivial point.
The Computerworld article focuses on the idea of linking a Googler’s annual hefty cash bonus to becoming or coding social apps, systems, solutions, etc. I don’t know about you, but I have a number of high powered technologists working on projects. None of these individuals is what I would describe at fraternity or sorority president material.
Last week, at lunch, Dr. Tyra Oldham, one of my colleagues, pointed out that the three nerds and myself constituted a small world of insiders which was pointedly anti-social. In fact, as I recall, she said, “You are in some weird alternate universe where normal people don’t go.” In addition to a PhD in operations, Dr. Oldham holds an MBA degree and is well qualified to comment on management-related behaviors.
Dr. Oldham pointed out to some of the ArnoldIT.com engineering team, “You are not social.” With considerable pride, the engineering team agreed. One asked, “How can one be an excellent engineer by being more social?’ Dr. Oldham shook her head. We think it meant that the three ArnoldIT.com engineers were in need of social remediation. Good luck with that.
That’s an important point to consider: expected behaviors regarding “social.”
I live in rural Kentucky, commune with large boxer dogs, and spend my time in front of my various computing devices. As I look around my office, I count on April 10, 2011, 14 multi-processor machines, an assortment of electronic components and gadgets, the two large dogs, and white boards covered with diagrams. I have a cleared space for my new Sandy Bridge machine which will arrive on Monday. (Hooray.) My office bookcases are stuffed with technical manuals, cables, and “stuff.” If you know where to look, you will see a container of IBM’s weird computer fasteners from the now retired NetFinity 5500. Ah, nostalgia! To me, my little world is plenty social, thank you.
The film “Revenge of the Nerds” does contain elements of truth that age and money cannot alter with alacrity.
Now if Dr. Tyra Oldham were correct, a financial incentive might get my attention for a while, but I think I would drift away from social innovation. Money is not what makes ArnoldIT.com and its Managing Director go. Social is, at this time, not that interesting to me because Facebook and other services have okay systems. Maybe there is something that might catch my attention? However, I have personal projects that are going to get my attention and my time. Weaponized information, for instance, is really quite promising here in Harrod’s Creek. Curious? Well, lots of people are and many are writing checks to understand the system, method, and technology. Social? Not so much for me and some of my team.
Now back to the Computerworld, here’s the passage that may echo through the online grape vine:
Penton Plunge?
April 6, 2011
Yesterday a former publishing executive asked me about my write up about traffic to enterprise search vendors’ Web sites. If you want to review those data, read “Enterprise Search Vendor Web Traffic.” The main point of the write up was that I used Compete.com data, which I viewed as indicative, not definitive. Across enterprise search vendors, the majority of the vendors’ Web sites get minimal traffic. Even the big dogs like Autonomy and Exalead are not pulling at the level of magnetism of some big blogs. Lady Gaga type traffic is just not happening.
The person with whom I was conversing expressed surprise that large companies were getting such lousy traffic. He asked, “How can that be?”
I told him that I would give this some thought and post my observations in Beyond Search. This write up captures the ideas that crossed my mind. I decided to focus on one publishing company, Penton in New York City, as my representative example. The company has a number of Web sites but the flagship is www.penton.com.
Compete reports this:
Traffic is less than 13,000 uniques per month. But more interesting is the alleged data’s indication that usage of the Penton Web site has dropped by 30 percent in the last couple of months.
The question becomes, “Why?”
First, I think that the data are in line with traffic to some other publishers’ Web sites. The information on the Web site is not compelling and, therefore, does not attract the MBA students, job seekers, or competitive intelligence professionals. Penton’s financial performance has been lackluster as well, so the Web site is in line with the overall performance of the company.
Second, I think that more and more company information is becoming harder and harder to find. Forget Google and the SEO marketers’ best excuse for lousy traffic. The Penton site is little more than brochure ware. The substantive information is lacking in my opinion. A quick look at the source code for the splash page shows that the company is using an open source tool, lots of tagging, and stuff like this:
Tidy code? This bloat can be addressed for major browsers, including Chrome, by making a change to the master page. Without the fix, you get this junk as a cookie workaround.
Third, Penton is not using its corporate Web site with intent. Whoever is the brains behind the Web site is walking in step to a different drummer than the goslings in Harrod’s Creek follow. Now I know that the slick New York crowd is with it, but in terms of creating an information service that ignites excitement, I see a typical big media Web presence.
Why SEO Is in a Bind?
April 4, 2011
In New York City, I gave a breezy 15 minute lecture about “content with intent.” The main point was that traditional search engine optimization methods are now under attack. On one hand, the Web indexing systems have had to admit that SEO distorts results lists. Examples range from links to auto generated placeholder pages such as the one at www.usseek.com or links to sites not related to the user’s query.
Google has made significant changes to its method of relevance ranking. You can read about the infamous Panda update to the PageRank algorithm in these articles:
- Google Panda Update: Say Goodbye to Low Quality Link Building
- Google’s Panda Update Changed The Playing Field
- Google Panda Update Survival Guide.
Blekko.com’s approach has been more direct. The company introduced filtering of sites. For more information about the Blekko method, read “Blekko Banning Some Content Farm Sites.”
The larger problem can be seen by running a free comparison on www.compete.com. Enter the urls for Bing, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Yahoo in the search box on this page. If the traffic from Facebook and Twitter are combined, the traffic winners will not be a traditional Web search engine in the future. Keep in mind that Compete.com’s data may be different from the data your Web analytics system uses.
SEO experts and service providers may find themselves hemmed in by changes such as Google’s Panda algorithm tweak.
The real problem for traditional search engine optimization service providers comes from a combination of factors, not a single factor. This means that Google’s Panda update has disrupted some Web sites’ traffic, there are a number of other forces altering the shape of SEO. These include:
- A social system which allows a user to recommend a good source of information is performing a spontaneous and in most cases no cost editorial function or a curation activity. A human has filtered sources of information and is flagging a particular source with a value judgment. The individual judgment may be flawed but over time, the social method will provide a useful pool of information sources. Delicious.com was an early example of how this type of system worked.
- The demographics of users is changing. As younger people enter the datasphere, these individuals are likely to embrace different types of information retrieval methods. Traditional Web search is similar to running a query on a library’s online public access catalog. The new demographic uses mobile devices and often has a different view of the utility of a search box.
- The SEO methods have interacted with outfits that generate content tailored to what users look for. When Lady Gaga is hot, content farms produce information about Lady Gaga. Over the last five years, producing content that tracks what people are searching for has altered search results. The content may be fine, but the search engines’ relevance ranking methods often skew the results making a user spend more time digging through a results list.
- Google, as well as other online search systems, is essentially addicted to online advertising revenue. Despite the robust growth on online advertising, Google has to find a way to generate the revenue it needs to support its brute force Web indexing and search system AND keep its stakeholders happy. With search results getting less relevant, advertisers may think twice about betting on Google’s PageRank and Oingo-based Adwords system.
Android Microsoft: Strange Mobile Extremes
April 3, 2011
The birds are singing. The sap is running. And the pundits are feeling their digital oats. Navigate to “Android Is Destroying Everyone, Especially RIM — iPhone Dead In Water.” What’s remarkable about this write up is that it, in a way, is as wild and crazy as the mid tier consulting firms’ prognostications that Microsoft’s Windows phone will dominate the mobile market. For a representative look at this assertion, point your browser at “ABI Research: Android will have 45% of the Smartphone market share by 2016.” I find the extremes fascinating not because the predictions are probably incorrect but for the motives that trigger such statements.
Here’s a snippet from the dead in water write up:
The Android gains matter because technology platform markets tend to standardize around a single dominant platform (see Windows in PCs, Facebook in social, Google in search). And the more dominant the platform becomes, the more valuable it becomes and the harder it becomes to dislodge. The network effect kicks in, and developers building products designed to work with the platform devote more and more of their energy to the platform. The reward for building and working with other platforms, meanwhile, drops, and gradually developers stop developing for them.
The thought that galloped through my mind was that Google is about search. Android is a vector for search. The only hitch in the git along is Google management. In a perfect world, Google’s management would deftly steer Android forward, avoiding the telco reefs and regulatory riptides, ducking below deck to avoid the hail of Android’s fragmenting platform, and cashing in on the applications marketplace.
Google versus Microsoft fighting in the open. What happens if there is a sniper with a clear shot at the combatants? Source: http://www.defensive-solutions.com/hand_to_hand.asp
For Microsoft and Nokia, the challenge is similar. There is the management “thing”, the software update “thing”, and the execution “thing.”
With Android a winner in one pundit’s view and Microsoft the victor in another consultant’s view, what could go wrong? Good question and one that is ignored for purposes of generating clicks and reputation enhancement via online methods.
My short list of challenges for both Google and Microsoft includes:
- Proving that both companies can succeed without coming apart at the seams. What do I mean? Neither Google nor Microsoft has its management ducks in a row. Both companies are quite similar and appear to have difficulty focusing resources and making money outside their quite different money making workhorses: ads for Google and desktop applications for Microsoft. The stress of creating another winner that generates substantial revenue is likely to break fragile management methods at both companies. Internecine warfare may be underway at both firms. The management shift at Google and the calls for the ouster of Mr. Ballmer are not to be ignored.
- Apple and RIM may be marginalized, but I am not sure that these companies are down for the count. Apple seems to be chugging along. RIM, despite its stand up comic reputation, has some enterprise adherents. A third party, not on the pundits’ radar, could swoop in and cut a deal or enter into some other agreement. In the aftermath of a third party move, Google and Microsoft might face a competitor for which neither firm has prepared. What type of firm might make such a play? Candidates range from investment banks, foreign owned entities, or even a player which now seems to be on the periphery of the mobile phone business. Surprise can be a disruptor.
Content with Intent Delivers Search and Sales Impact
March 28, 2011
Millions of content creators on the Internet must now tighten their output or face obscurity. As a result of a recent change in Google’s quality grading, writers and bloggers are scrambling. Luckily, something can be done. Stephen E Arnold, ArnoldIT.com, will be one of the speakers at “Google Changes the Rules” on March 30, 2011, in Manhattan at iBreakfast. The “content with intent” tag line is one that Mr. Arnold has used since his work on the Threat Open Source Intelligence Gateway, funded by an interesting government entity in the fall of 2001. He has refined the system and method for a number of clients worldwide. To see an example of the technique, navigate to Google, run the query “taxodiary” or “inteltrax” and follow the links. Your product or company can achieve similar sales and marketing impact in as little as one month. Unlike SEO, the content with intent method persists. Run a query on Google.com for “ssnblog”. This demo site has not been updated since April 30, 2011 and the content continues to be easily findable. Keep in mind that the Web sites for each of these examples is one way to access the information. The method touches hundreds of findability services, including real time and social systems.
Most SEO delivers an expensive, often problematic, failure for clients with unrealistic expectations for an expensive, low traffic Web site. Source: http://www.lifepurposediscoverysystem.com/blog/uploaded_images/fear-of-failure-768216.gif
This shift ArnoldIT’s “content with intent” approach manifest is an innovation driven by a high volume of lower quality online content and increasingly heavy handed SEO tactics.
Stephen E Arnold’s “content with intent” method works in a manner similar to a series of bursts, a digital MIRV. Source: http://www.rolfkenneth.no/NWO_review_Sutton_Soviet.html
In what appears to be increasingly desperate attempts to generate traffic to a Web site, search engine optimization experts have forced Google and other search systems like Blekko.com to take action. Going forward, search vendors will, like a strict teacher, to scrutinize, “grade”, and flunk some online information.
Arnold says, “In effect, Google is like a college composition teacher. Grades of C, D, and F are not acceptable. Deliver A or B content or suffer the consequences.” “Does Google have an emotional investment in great writing?,” asks Arnold. He answers his own question this way, “No, Google cares about ad revenue and lousy content could harm Google cash flow.”
The relationship between content producers and Google sounds grim at best. Fortunately, Steve Arnold, author of Google: A Digital Gutenberg and managing director of Arnold IT, recently provided four tips for moving out of “SEO hell”, where guessing and shoddy content are likely to yield decreasing traffic from major search engines like Google and systems which federate its outputs:
Enterprise Search Vendor Web Site Traffic
March 24, 2011
I did some poking around on Compete.com. You plug in the url of a major search vendor and you get a traffic report. There’s no charge. Here’s the traffic report for the Autonomy.com Web site. The company has a high profile and revenues that match its market size. You can see that Autonomy, based on Compete.com data, is in the 10,000 to 20,000 unique range. This type of traffic is pretty good in my opinion.
If you plug in a vendor with a slightly smaller market footprint—for instance, Coveo—here’s the traffic report for that site. Compete data which are certainly not definitive reports this traffic pattern:
The Coveo Web site is pulling about 3,000 uniques over the last quarter of 2010 which appears to be an average of the up and down in the Compete data.
What happens if you search for vendors with even more lower profiles. I plugged in Dieselpoint.com (a vendor which has gone quiet in the last few months), Brainware (a paper to searchable index system) , and Vivisimo (the information optimization company). What I learned was that Vivisimo (the green line) mounted a marketing and public relations push that spiked the company into Autonomy traffic territory. But Vivisimo has dropped below 10,000 uniques.
What do I make of the Compete.com data?
First, the data are useful for broad comparisons. Most of the usage data generated by third parties has quite a margin for error. These outputs make it possible to see that a big outfit like Autonomy can be challenged when a smaller firm mounts a PR push. The problem for the smaller firm, if I understand the data in the Compete outputs, is sustaining a high level of traffic.
Second, it is pretty clear that enterprise search vendors are not in what I would call high traffic territory. My view of this is that enterprise search and the other even less well known buzzwords like customer support and eDiscovery are going to become a big part of search vendor marketing because these terms might have more magnetism. Here’s a Compete chart for Recommind (eDiscovery and enterprise search), Clearwell Systems (the outfit with the “rocket docket” phrase), and Kcura (an eDiscovery company generating some buzz now, according to one of my sources). You can see in the chart below, the spike for Clearwell, which is close to 5,000 uniques according to Compete. The other vendors are in the modest traffic range.
Third, enterprise search vendors are going to have to find a way to generate sales leads beyond a traditional Web site. My hunch is that most of the search vendors are betting that their participation in trade shows, their direct sales efforts, and their partnership relationships will produce leads and then revenue. The Web site is or has become a chunk of brochureware.
eDiscovery Discovered
March 23, 2011
I read in my hard copy version the story “Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software.” (The link may go dead as the Gray Lady tries to regain its can of Monster Energy Drink.)
After reading the story, I was not exactly sure if the information was about the cost cutting that law firms must undertake to keep their partners in BMWs and vacation homes, the software that is now making its way from the green corridors of government agencies to the walnut paneled rooms of legal eagles’ nests, or the brainchild of a PR firm.
Source: http://www.challengecamps.com/programs/session.php?view=session1&subsect=morning
Let’s tackle the legal eagle issue first.
The cost of looking at email is high. Not only is email a generally crappy type of document in its native habitat, email is a downright evil invention when one is looking for who said what to whom at a specific point in time. Clever lads and lasses can make email do magic tricks, including disappear. The legal eagles want systems that prevent messing around with email. The law school grads call this spoliation. Hey, that’s why some of the lawyers command $1,200 and hour or more. With clients getting nervous about the costs of legal services, law firms are trying to manage like real businesses, which as you know are not exactly hitting home runs in the fiscal probity game.
Study of Enterprise Search
March 12, 2011
Research vendors, magazines owned by consulting firms, and dozens of “experts” just keep explaining why search is an issue. I find these reports fascinating because each purports to explain what enterprise search is, provide profiles to six, 12 or in this case more than 30 vendors’ products. The information involves opinion, surveys, and rehashes of previous reports. I am old enough (66) and jaded from more than three decades of laboring in the online vineyards to view these reports with a curious frame of mind and amusement.
You can get a synopsis of a longer report in the Information Week story “Go Rogue with Enterprise Search.” What? “Go Rogue?” Before I read the four part article I wondered how a key function like finding an electronic document or other information object is “rogue.” My understanding of rogue is “a deceitful or unreliable scoundrel” or the Australian horror film about tourists who are pursued by a giant crocodile.
Source: Graph Jam, where consultants often get their graphs. http://graphjam.memebase.com/upcoming/page/2531/
Search or finding needed information is too important to be slapped with the “rogue” moniker. But that is my opinion, and you may well find that “rogue” is the perfect description for what enterprise search has become in today’s marketing-centric world. Like other enterprise applications, the software system may be difficult to put under a simple, clear explanation of what happens upon installation.
Please, read the Information Week story and sign up for the full report.
Here’s my view of three key points in the write up.
First, here’s a factoid that I don’t understand.
Despite more than a decade of product development aimed at helping companies find information across their networks, a paltry 22% of the 433 business technology professionals polled in InformationWeek Analytics’ Search 2011 survey have purchased the technology. That’s down from 24% in our 2008 survey.
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
