The Future of Search Revealed, Well, One Viewpoint Revealed
May 15, 2010
I heard a lecture that asserted mobile search was chugging along. If my behavior is an indication, the chugging is pony slow. I rarely use the geo-location functions in my alleged smartphone. The darn thing needs help getting a signal and keeping it. Fancy stuff does not work too well paddling in the goose pond. I read “Mobile and Location Fueling the Design of Future Search” and wondered where I had to live to take advantage of this particular future. My conclusion? I don’t care. I realize that at my advanced age, many whizzy trends swirl around me. I ignore them. For me, this passage riffled my goose feathers: “Mobile is fueling innovation in a way that perhaps hasn’t been seen before.” Well, maybe. I am not sure how “location” will do much for the hapless paralegal looking for an email or the 30 something manager desperate for a client record in order to make a sale and earn the commission to pay the mortgage. Pinning the future on mobile makes a great headline, but it doesn’t address some of the search challenges I encounter.
Stephen E Arnold, May 15, 2010
Freebie.
Twitter Bent to News
May 5, 2010
Researchers classify Twitter as more of a news source than a true social media site. Is that a good thing?
Part of the analysis reported by PCWorld in their article, “Twitter: More a News Medium Than Social Network” refers to the low percentage of reciprocal “follows”. Only 22% of Twitter users choose to include their followers’ tweets on their page.
The high number of celebrities utilizing Twitter also makes it weigh heavy in the new source category versus a social media, i.e. two-way, interactive, etc. site. Because of their dual personalities, Twitter gets a pass on the quantity of marketing that it shares. News sites that share marketing information tend to be more tolerated by users than a pure social networking site. So this makes it good for the marketers, what about the users?
Melody K. Smith, May 5, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
Android Droid Surprise
April 30, 2010
Short honk: “Google Tells Verizon Users to Buy HTC Incredible over Nexus One” reported a surprising development. The passage I noted was: “When asked [by a reporter] for an elaboration on the word change, Google added the following: “We won’t be selling a Nexus One with Verizon, and this is a reflection of the amazing innovation happening across the open Android ecosystem. Verizon Wireless customers who want an Android phone with the power of the Nexus One can get the Droid Incredible by HTC.”
The Nexus One is not a goner. The device will be sold by other carriers. Have you snagged a free Nexus One? Google allegedly has been giving them away. Free-conomics?
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2010
Unsponsored post.
Coveo Surges Forward
April 23, 2010
The Coveo team has surged forward in search, according the story “Coveo Announce Une Augmentation de 55% des Revenus de License au 1er Trimestre de 2010; Conclut 24 Nouvelle Transactions.” (There’s an English version of the news release at Intelligent Enterprise as well.) If you don’t read French, this translates as significant growth and two dozen new deals in 12 weeks. Beyond Search thinks that is pretty darned good in today’s economic climate. Other highlights from the story include:
- The release of Version 6.1 of the firm’s Enterprise Search Platform with a raft of new features such as an Outlook integrated sidebar, a floating desktop search bar, and complete desktop email indexing. (You can get the full details at www.coveo.com).
- Deals with Trading Technologies, Netezza, Hewitt, Royal Mail Group, and Allina Hospitals among others
- A 97 percent reduction in time taken to find expertise across a top engineering firm and a two week ROI for a Fortune 100 financial services company
I moderated for Fierce Content Management, the publishing company, a Webinar with Louis Tetu, one of the investors in Coveo, Bill Cavendish (GEICO), and Coveo’s Executive Vice President (Richard Tessier). The company’s approach to enterprise information struck me as focused on chopping the “wait” out of the installation and delivering information that helps employees do their jobs. The “search” function meshes with work processes, so employees can click on a link, fire a query from a mobile device, or use a customized interface. After the Fierce Webinar, I spoke briefly with the firm’s founder Laurent Simoneau. He pointed out that Coveo’s architecture and “smart” software make it possible to get real payoff from search, not big engineering and consulting bills. My recollection is that Laurent Simoneau said, “We focus on making search work the way users want in their specific situation. This seems to be working quite well for us.”
With 55 percent growth in 12 weeks. I am inclined to agree.
Stephen E Arnold, April 23, 2010
This post was not sponsored.
LTU LookThatUp iPhone Image App Available
April 23, 2010
LTU Technologies, a company dealing in image recognition and search technology, just released an visual search application for the iPhone called LookThatUp. The mobile app lets users take a picture and submit it for identification and information. The app coordinates with a database of more than two million items including a variety of content like paintings from large museums, movie posters, DVD/CD covers and more. To get even more snazzy, the app allows sharing to Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail, and offers an online bookmarking service for those lookups. It’s all part of LTU APIs that allow developers to include image recognition functionality in mobile applications. While this sounds pretty peppy, it’s not brand new. An app called kooaba was doing basic image recognition in 2008 and just released version 2.2.1 earlier this month. Search as an app on a device seems to be an emerging niche.
Jessica Bratcher, April 23, 2010
The Seven Forms of Mass Media
April 21, 2010
Last evening on a pleasant boat ride on the Adriatic, a number of young computer scientists to be were asking about my Google lecture. A few challenged me, but most seemed to agree with my assertion that Google has a large number of balls in the air. A talented juggler, of course, can deal with five or six balls. The average juggler may struggle to keep two or three in sync.
One of the students shifted the subject to search and “findability.” As you know, I floated the idea that search and content processing is morphing into operational intelligence, preferably real-time operational intelligence, not the somewhat stuffy method of banging two or three words into a search box and taking the most likely hit as the answer.
The question put to me was, “Search has not kept up with printed text, which has been around since the 1500s, maybe earlier. What are we going to do about mobile media?”
The idea is that we still have a difficult time locating the precise segment of text or datum. With mobile devices placing restraints on interface, fostering new types of content like short text messages, and producing an increasing flow of pictures and video, finding is harder not easier.
I remembered reading “Cell Phones: The Seventh Mass Media” and had a copy of this document on my laptop. I did not give the assertion that mobile derives were a mass medium, but I thought the insight had relevance. Mobile information comes with some interesting characteristics. These include:
- The potential for metadata derived from the user’s mobile number, location, call history, etc
- The index terms in content, if the system can parse information objects or unwrap text in an image or video such as converting an image to ASCII and then indexing the name of a restaurant or other message in an object
- Contextual information, if available, related to content, identified entities, recipients of messages, etc.
- Log file processing for any other cues about the user, recipient(s), and information objects.
What this line of thinking indicates is that a shift to mobile devices has the potential for increasing the amount of metadata about information objects. A “tweet”, for instance, may be brief but one could given the right processing system impart considerable richness to the information object in the form of metadata of one sort or another.
The previous six forms of media—[I] print (books, magazines, and newspapers), [II] recordings; [III] cinema; [IV] radio; [V] television; and [VI] Internet—fit neatly under the umbrella of [VII] mobile. The idea is mobile embraces the other six. This type of reasoning is quite useful because it gathers some disparate items and adds some handles and knobs to the otherwise unwieldy assortment in the collection.
In the write up referenced above, I found this passage interesting: “Mobile is as different from the Internet as TV is from the radio.”
The challenge that is kicked to the side of the information highway is, “How does one find needed information in this seventh mass media?” Not very well in my experience. In fact, finding and accessing information is clumsy for textual information. After 500 years, the basic approach of hunting, Easter egg style, has been facilitated by information retrieval systems. But I think most people who look for information can point out some obvious deficiencies. For example, most retrieval systems ignore content in various languages. Real time information is more of a marketing ploy than a useful means of figuring out the pulse count for a particular concept. A comprehensive search remains a job for a specialist who would be recognized by an archivist who worked in Ephesus’ library 2500 years ago.
Are you able to locate this video on Ustream or any other video search system? I could not, but I know the video exists. Here is a screen capture. Finding mobile content can be next to impossible in my opinion.
When I toss in the radio and other rich media content, finding and accessing pose enormous challenges to a researcher and a casual user alike. In my keynote speech on April 15, 2010, I referenced some Google patent documents. The clutch of disclosures provide some evidence that Google wants to apply smart software to the editorial job of creating personalized rich media program guides. The approach strikes me as an extension of other personalization approaches, and I am not convinced that explicit personalization is a method that will crack the problem of finding information in the seventh medium or any other for that matter.
Here’s my reasoning:
- Search and retrieval methods for text don’t solve problems. The more information processed means longer results lists and an increase in the work required to figure out where the answer is.
- Smart systems like Google’s or the Cuil Cpedia project are in their infancy. An expert may find fault with smart software that is actually quite stupid from the informed user’s point of view.
- Making use of context is a challenging problem for research scientists but asking one’s “friends” may be the simplest, most economical, and widely used method. Facebook’s utility as a finding system or Twitter’s vibrating mesh may be the killer app for finding content from mobile devices.
- As impressive as Google’s achievements have been in the last 11 years, the approach remains largely a modernization of search systems from the 1970s. A new direction may be needed.
The bright young PhDs have the job of figuring out if mobile is indeed the seventh medium. The group with which I was talking or similar engineers elsewhere have the job of cracking the findability problem for the seventh medium. My hope is that on the road to solving the problem of the new seventh medium’s search challenge, a solution to finding information in the other six is discovered as well.
The interest in my use of the phrase “operational intelligence” tells me one thing. Search is a devalued and somewhat tired bit of jargon. Unfortunately substituting operational intelligence for the word search does not address the problem of delivering the right information when it is needed in a form that the user can easily apprehend and use.
There’s work to be done. A lot of work in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, April 20, 2010
No sponsor for this post, gentle reader.
Google Shifts to Mobile
April 21, 2010
I read “Global CIO: Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s Top 10 Reasons Why Mobile Is #1”. My immediate reaction was that David Letterman’s top 10 list had a new challenger. Then I realized that these 10 items are no spoof. Taken as a group, Google is making it clear that the “old Web” is not where the future will be for Google. Is this a big change? No. Google has long had an interest in mobile with some interesting patent applications from a decade ago as tiny markers bobbing in the Google’s technical river.
What I find interesting is that the article identifies 10 reasons. I discerned one—money, but you can read the article and make your own decision.
Two of the points in the article struck me as notable.
First, put your best people on mobile. Sergey Brin’s name appears on a couple of patent documents related to mobile; for example, voice search. That’s a good person. I think that Google has applied quite a few of its best people to infrastructure and supporting technologies as well. Instead of looking at this top 10 item as unique, I think Google is applying resources to mobile and to other, related technical areas. The approach makes Google particularly noteworthy because it is more than a product company. Google is more diverse and mobile is one application of Google’s capabilities.
Second, the “everything now” idea. Google has been an everything now company, but it has been quite patient. Google’s management has rolled out puzzle pieces at different times. The result has been to make it hard for some analysts to see the big Google picture. I think mobile is another puzzle piece. As impressive as the company’s push into mobile has been, I think there is more to come. Mobile is not the end game. The everything now demographics will demand more connectivity, convenience, speed, and services. Google is going to make a run at providing that array. Devices can be implanted, embedded, and sewn into people, places, and things. Is this everything now and everywhere?
To wrap up, this article is one of the first that has been able to identify 10 points made by a Google top gun since I have been tracking the company. I still see one point—money. But that’s my narrow perspective.
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2010
No sponsor for this article.
Quote to Note: Games Consoles Follow the Snail darter
April 19, 2010
Quote to note: Fascinating quote from Japanese game superhero Hideo Kojima, who created Metal Gear Solid. In “Japan’s Video Game Visionary: The Console Is Dying,” Mr. Kojima allegedly said:
“In the near future, we’ll have games that don’t depend on any platform,” Kojima said at a news conference announcing the latest installment in a game saga that began in 1987. “Gamers should be able to take the experience with them in their living rooms, on the go, when they travel — wherever they are and whenever they want to play. It should be the same software and the same experience,” he said.
The end of history came and went. Now the end of consoles. Big news for some folks I suppose. Is a mobile device the new console? Is Google’s rich media infrastructure shaped for this portable playability?
Stephen E Arnold, April 10, 2010
A freebie.
iPad Search Apps
April 7, 2010
Short honk: At lunch one of the goslings mentioned “8 Search Engine Related iPad Apps.” I took a look at the listings and thought that iPad lovers would want at least one of these. If I were younger, I would probably dive into iPad search. For now, I will float in the goose pond and watch the apples drop from the tree.
Stephen E Arnold, April 7, 2010
A freebie. No worms. No core. No Apple iPad.
Wolfram Alpha Reloads
April 5, 2010
I enjoy firing queries into the Wolfram Alpha system. The challenge for me is figuring out exactly how to get the system to respond. Addled geese are notoriously bad searchers and I get a fair share of “Wolfram Alpha isn’t sure hw to compute and answer from your input.” If I can do an input, then Wolfram Alpha can’t do an output. I don’t have that problem when I fire a query into Bing.com or Google.com. Those systems display something, often anything. For most users this approach is exactly what’s needed. In my experience, some people looking for information don’t know what they don’t know. Hence, any information is likely to be relevant in my opinion.
I learned when I read “Wolfram Alpha Tries Again: New Mobile Site, Big Refunds,” that the company is “making a new start” with its mobile search app for the iPhone. The article revealed:
The company has also drastically cut the price of the Wolfram/Alpha App for the iPhone and iPod touch to $1.99, down from the previous rather unfeasible $49.99. It’s offering refunds to anyone that bought at the old price, here – apparently 10,000 people did. It’s a particularly generous move on the company’s part, as it means Wolfram/Alpha is covering the cut Apple took on that price.
Is Wolfram Alpha blazing a trail for the many iPhone application developers who want to cash in on the Apple craze for shiny, touchy gizmos? Publishers of “real” content are among the most interesting segment of app developers. I am looking forward to seeing the results of their software / content initiatives. Refunds would be even more unwelcome than making no app sales in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, April 5, 2010
No one paid us to write this.
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