Voice Search: Getting Siri-ly
October 26, 2011
There is more hostility in the next search interface wars, and this time it sounds vaguely similar to a gaggle of middle school girls badmouthing the one lucky kid who got the newest thing.
At the recent AllThingsD conference, Google’s head of Android, Andy Rubin, made some snide comments about Apple’s Siri interface. Rubin said there shouldn’t be a distinction between tablet apps and phone apps, and he also believes your phone shouldn’t be an assistant. It should be for communicating. He must have momentarily forgot about Android’s apps and Google’s voice searches. Microsoft’s Windows Phone president, Andy Lee, also criticized Siri, saying it “isn’t super useful” and that Windows Phone 7’s voice interactivity uses “the full power of the internet, rather than a certain subset.
Fast Company’s article, “Why Google And Microsoft Are Bad-Mouthing Apple’s Chatty Siri” tells us more about the new interface:
“One thing Siri does that may have both Google and Microsoft quaking in their boots is to act as a first sift “layer” for users trying to query the internet for information. When you speak to Siri the data gets whizzed off by Apple to its cloud servers, where the speech is processed and then interpreted–a process that, we imagine, involves trying to see if the query is answerable via a fact-based query to Wolfram Alpha… or a review-based query via Yelp…”
In my opinion, Google and Microsoft must be nervous. Maybe Siri could interfere with Google and Bing ad revenue? Siri is offering a very novel way of interacting with your device, a program that is just in its beta phase with plans to move to the iPad and the Mac. Looks like Google and Microsoft may be getting a bad rep for falling behind, and my advice is to leave the gossip for middle school and catch up.
Andrea Hayden, October 26, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Tableau 6.1 Available for Apple iPad
October 25, 2011
App mania is in full stride.
Seattle based rapid-fire business intelligence software producer, Tableau Software, http://www.tableausoftware.com/ has gained recognition for performing “simple business analytics,” has now made Tableau 6.1 available for public use and can be made available on the iPad. This is important because most apps insulate the user from of the messy fiddling old style enterprise applications required. Some were beyond the MBA and required a programmer, who, in theory, could verify that data were clean and the functions appropriate to the data set available.
The Tableau blog post “Tableau Makes Business Intelligence Faster and Mobile” states:
The new version delivers automatic touch and gesture optimized support for the Apple iPad, whether views are accessed via Tableau’s new iPad App or via Mobile Safari. In addition, Tableau enhanced its in-memory analytics engine with increased query and loading performance. People can also rapidly update existing extracts in Tableau’s data engine. Other improvements include localization and new maps.”
In addition to having an even faster in-memory data engine, what’s really cool about this new version is that through the new iPad app, you can still create quick and easy interactive dashboards and reports from both Tableau Server and Tableau Public. There is no need for up-front design changes or maintaining multiple versions of workbooks to serve multiple platforms and when a view is accessed from the iPad, Tableau automatically detects and optimizes the user experience.
Several observations:
- Will end users know what data delivered the output?
- Are the data fresh? How will end users know?
- Will end users make a decision based on a graph and some highlights?
Our thought is, “Many users will accept what’s on the iPad as accurate.” In some situations, the assumption may be incorrect by a little or a lot.
For more information on Tableau 6.1 and any other Tableau happenings, feel free to check out the company blog.
Jasmine Ashton, October 25, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Is Mobile Search a Slam Dunk for the Google?
October 17, 2011
Can Mobile Search Be as Big for Google as Desktop Search? generated some poobahing in the digital anther today. I can answer the question:
Google sure wants it to be.
In our work, we look at search in different “environments.” The mobile terrarium is one crazy place. Different demographics do quite different things. As a result, “search” is losing what semblance of meaning it had. Here are three examples
- Little kids don’t search. Little kids immerse themselves in a flow. Yikes, ads don’t work the same way in the pre literate world of the two year old fooling with an iPad.
- Type A professionals don’t type lots of stuff into small devices when moving around. Excuse me. I call someone or use a short cut. Yikes, bad for ads.
- College students watch videos and send Facebook messages. A search is more like a question fired off to someone who is in the person’s “friend” list. Yikes. Another problem for the Google. Maybe Facebook has an edge at the moment, but there is always Google+ or Google Plus. Try and search for that name from a BlackBerry that doesn’t work. Yikes. Bad for ads.
Net net: Google is a company forged in the portal days of the late 1990s. Mobile is a newish thing and requires newish solutions. Think Google finds these examples a slam dunk? I don’t.
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Fixes Maps in 15 Minutes
October 15, 2011
Let’s say that an address or landmark is wrong on Google Maps and someone, somewhere uses Google Map Maker to fix it. How long does it take to show up in Google Maps? And how long does it take to populate out into all the embedded Google Maps around the world that are powered by the Google Maps API, the most popular API in the world? According to the company this week, it now takes as little as fifteen minutes.
Now that’s customer service. Lots of competition in mobile apps, especially in maps, drives Google to keep refresh rates very high, and update times very short. To stay dominant in this market, Google has to stay fast.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 15, 2011
Oracle Plans for CRM Expansion
October 12, 2011
The consulting firm Ovum is weighing in on Oracle’s pending acquisition of InQuira; a move that expands Oracle’s CRM capabilities. Read the full review at, “InQuira buyout firms up Oracle CRM sway.”
Oracle’s pending acquisition of InQuira is a sensible move, providing it with tools to help enterprises unify web information with internal CRM data and provide more targeted sales, marketing, and customer service. Although Oracle already had a partnership and integration with InQuira, the acquisition will ensure that knowledge becomes an intrinsic part of Oracle Siebel and Oracle Fusion CRM applications.
Just as every other sector of the corporate world, customer service channels will need to respond to the ever-changing mobile technology. Oracle will likely bring InQuira’s information expertise to work alongside its already successful suite of process management and business expertise products. The match is a good one and will likely prove fruitful for Oracle.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 12, 2011
http://www.telecomseurope.net/
Quote to Note: Google on Motorola Mobility
October 4, 2011
Quote to note. We read “Google’s Schmidt Says Acquisition of Motorola Won’t ‘Screw Up’ Android”. In addition to the professional sounding phraseology in the Bloomberg news story, we noted this passage:
The Android ecosystem is the No. 1 priority, and that we won’t do anything with Motorola, or anybody else by the way, that would screw up the dynamics of that industry,” Schmidt said in an Oct. 1 interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker in Nantucket, Massachusetts. “We need strong, hard competition among all the Android players. We won’t play favorites in the way people are concerned about.
Okay. So if Google owns a company like Motorola Mobility and provides support to that outfit, will the treatment of Motorola be identical to the treatment of other Android centric manufacturers, partners, and ecosystem dwellers? Will attendance at a Google company meeting impart any special insight? Will having Googley online meetings or time shifted chats in MOMA provide the Motorola folks with some ideas, insights, or information?
My hunch is that the likelihood of the information remaining compartmentalized is an interesting one in theory. In practice, I am not certain that “we won’t do anything with Motorola or anybody else by the way that would screw up the dynamics of that industry.”
Great quote. Let’s see how the future arrives for deals that get put together quickly, engender so much controversy, and have already made best friends out of Samsung and Microsoft.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Rings Up Spain
September 30, 2011
Google continues to make many announcements. One caught our attention because it hooks into mobile and ultimately into mobile search.
As a multinational corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies, Google is jack of all trades company. Photographs were recently leaked, which may not be authentic, of a Google-branded SIM card, along with rumors that the search giant is branching out once again and setting up operations as a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) in Spain.
Spanish Google employees will receive company branded SIM cards to test Google voice features on Nexis S Handsets. The company plans to eventually do MVNO testing with its employees all over Europe. According to the September 22, 2011 “Google to Become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator in Spain, Rest of Europe Coming Soon?”:
While Google doesn’t own its own towers or infrastructure (it buys bulk data from the local telecoms – in this case Telefonica, Vodafone, etc.), the move allows Google to control more of the phone experience. For instance, it can pay one price for bulk data rather than on a per phone basis. It can also dictate which carriers the phones pull in data from based on quality of service or price. Roaming internationally can also be controlled and owned as well.
Google appears to only be using this technology for it’s own staff, but could expand it’s operations in the future. This could lead to some disgruntled traditional telecommunication vendors.
Jasmine Ashton, September 30, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google and Its Good Enough Method for Android Fragmentation
September 7, 2011
I avoid cabbage and I dodged it at dinner tonight. To celebrate, I did some quick headline scanning and found this enticing item, crisp and tasty like cabbage: “How Android’s Fragmentation Issue Is Slowly Receding.” I found the analysis interesting, and I noted this passage:
The only way to eliminate the problem is for Google to either cease licensing the platform and build its own devices, like Apple, or for the Android-maker to be very specific in terms of hardware requirements, like Microsoft. I don’t expect either of those things to happen. And that’s OK, because the fragmentation issue is less of a problem than it was 18 months ago.
Call me old fashioned, but I don’t get it. There are multiple versions of Androids. Developers have to pick one and then figure out how to support the app on various Android platforms. I am probably wrong, but Android is growing fast and imposes some different types of friction from Apple’s in or out approach and Windows 7 “no users yet” methods.
The point I thought important was swerved around the way I dodge cabbage. Amazon, I thought I heard, was creating what I call “Bezos-Droid” or “An-Zos.” So now we have to support the Amazon variant. What happens if certain Google partners take open source Android and go a different direction? These possibilities seem to add some spin to the Google Android fragmentation management task. Will developers avoid certain Android variants the way I avoid cabbage?
I also think the notion of “less of a problem” is a facet of Google’s “good enough” approach. I am not sure “good enough” will pass muster in the present business climate. I have to keep reminding myself that South Korea’s alleged police action, the US government’s hit and miss scrutiny of Google, and the EC’s stack of legal actions involving Google could make “good enough” management show even more stress fractures.
Fragmentation may be less of an issue that forks and fractures.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Local Deals Appeal to the Google
August 26, 2011
Google seems to be interested in the mobile advertising business. First they purchased AdMob for $750 million and now they are combining local searches with mobile advertising. This strategy is discussed by Jason Spero, Google’s head of mobile for the Americas, in the Tech Crunch article “Google’s U.S. Mobile Head Talks Local Intent, M-Commerce, Geo-Targeting and More”.
Spero says the move to combine local and mobile advertising was simply driven by consumer behavior. They found that one in three mobile interactions had local intent. So they have been exploring several different local ad formats, they have been particularly focusing on click-to-call ads.
[T]hese ads perform well on phones because the natural path for a consumer is to want to engage the phone and get more info from a merchant or service. The key in these advertisements on mobile phones is a ‘call to action’ element, which can work for a retailer, florist, insurance company and many other smaller businesses. So far, he says that over 500,000 Google customers are running click-to-call campaigns on a mobile phone.
Google’s strategy seems to be right on target. I cannot count the times that I have used my phone of look up a local pizza joint or a retail store. This could lead to some major advertising dollars for Google, a significant profit increase for the advertiser and a happy customer with the quick and easy ad format. Seems like a win-win-win to me. What about exisiting local ad and deal vendors? Maybe a lose-lose?
Jennifer Wensink August 26, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
EasyAsk Enhances User Experience in Mobile Apps
August 24, 2011
EasyAsk is a company that leverages its incorporation of natural language processing in order to boost its information retrieval technology. EasyAsk offers an alternative to traditional enterprise search and is having a strong impact on eCommerce as it relates to “findability.” The company told us:
Founded in 1999 by Dr. Larry Harris, a computational linguistics professor and internationally recognized expert on database systems and computerized natural language. EasyAsk technology is used today by leading retailers, manufacturers, financial services institutions, government agencies and pharmaceutical and health care organizations around the globe.
Mobile commerce is the undeniable way of the future and EasyAsk is shaping how it will look. John Morell, VP of Product Marketing, wrote “Mobile Apps and User Experience” for the company blog, addressing how navigation and search must be treated differently in the mobile context. He spoke to some of the considerations made when developing EasyAsk eCommerce mobile. We learned:
The screen real estate on a mobile browser is vastly smaller than that on a PC or Mac. This says that excellent search is critical. You need to pinpoint search results because wading through pages of results in a mobile browser would frustrate a user and cause them to abandon. But excellent navigation is also important due to the screen real estate constraints. Using richer, dynamic search criteria in the navigation, such as product attributes . . . allows visitors to find products in 1 to 2 clicks, rather than plowing through pages of categories – increasing the chances of conversion.
Other vendors, such as X1, are pushing into this territory as well. However, EasyAsk has a definite edge in its tested usage of natural language processing. An “Interview with Craig Bassin,” EasyAsk CEO, is a good reference for how the company got its start and why it can currently stand toe-to-toe with others in the field like Endeca. Mr. Bassin said:
EasyAsk’s unique natural language technology helps people find information faster and easier by enabling them to perform e-commerce searches or enterprise data searches in plain English, making it easier for users to express what they want and delivering a more accurate answer. The technology is used in two products: EasyAsk eCommerce Edition, an e-commerce search and merchandising solution that has proven to drive the best buyer conversion rates in the industry, and EasyAsk Business Edition which offers the easiest, most intuitive manner to search and explore corporate data.
EasyAsk is proven in the market, but it is not stuck in the success of its past. Continuing to innovate, the company looks for new ways to improve not only user experience, but also client satisfaction. EasyAsk and its natural language processing looks good to me.
Stephen E Arnold, August 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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