Autonomy Targets Marketers
January 7, 2010
A number of pundits, poobahs, and mavens are beavering away with their intellectual confections that explain enterprise search in 2010. The buzz from those needing billable work is that enterprise search is gone goose (pun intended) and that niche solutions are the BIG NEWS for 2010.
I thought I wrote an article for Search Magazine two or three years ago that made this point. But the Don and Donna Quixotes of the consulting world are chasing old chimera. I nailed the real thing for Barbara Quint, one of my most beloved editors. With Gartner buying Burton Group, the azure chip crowd is making clear that the down market push of Booz, Allen (now a for fee portal vendor) and the up market push of the Gerson Lehrmans of the world is making their sales Panini toasty and squishy.
Against this background, I noted this Reuters’ news item: “Autonomy Interwoven Enables Marketers to Deliver the Most Relevant End-to-End Search Experience.” I have difficulty figuring out which articles branded as Reuters-created is from the “real” Reuters and which comes from outfits that are in the bulk content business (sorry I can’t mention names even though you demand this of me) and which comes from public relations firms with caviar budgets. You will have to crack this conundrum yourself.
The write up points out that Autonomy makes it possible for those engaged in marketing to provide their users with “relevant end-to-end search experience.” I am not clever enough to unwrap this semantic package. For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
A recent report published by Gartner entitled Leading Websites Will Use Search, Advanced Analytics to Target Content states: “Search technology provides a mechanism for users to indicate their desires through implicit values, such as their roles and other attributes, and explicit values such as query keywords. Website managers, information architects, search managers and Web presence managers can adopt search technologies to improve site value and user impact.” The research note goes on to say, “Choose Web content management (WCM) vendors that have robust search technologies or that have gained them through partnerships, acquisitions or the customization of open-source technology.”
The explanation of “most relevant end-to-end search experience” hooks in part to an azure chip consultant report (maybe a Gartner Group product?) that is equally puzzling to me. Here’s where I ran into what my fifth grade teacher, Miss Chessman, would have called a “lack of comprehension.”
- What the heck is relevant?
- What is end-to-end?
- What is search?
- What is experience?
- What is a Web presence manager?
- What is a robust search technology?
I try to be upfront about my being an old, addled goose. I understand that Autonomy has acquired a number of interesting technologies. I understand that azure chip consulting firms have to produce compelling intellectual knowledge value to pay their bills.
What I don’t understand is what the message is from Reuters (this “news” story looks like a PR release), from Autonomy (I thought the company sold the Intelligent Data Operating Layer, not experience), and from Gartner (what’s with the job titles and references to open source?).
I will be 66 in a few months, and I don’t think anyone in the assisted living facility will be able to help me figure out the info payload of this Reuters’-stamped write up. What happened to the journalism school’s pyramid structure? What happened to who, what, why, when, where, and how? Obviously I am too far down the brain trail to keep pace with modern communication.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 8, 2010
Oyez, oyez, I have to report to the Library of Congress, check out a dictionary, and admit to the guard on duty that I was not paid to explain I haven’t a clue about the meaning of this write up. I do understand the notion of rolling up other companies in order to get new revenue and customers, but this relevance and experience stuff baffles me. I am the goose who has been pointing out that “search sucks” for free too.
IBM and Its SEO Guru
January 5, 2010
I read an unusual write up on the DCDCQ.com Web site. No, I don’t know what the domain name means. The article was called “SEO in China Will Never Be the Same as Google’s James Mi, Adverted’s Stephen Noton and IBM’s Bill Hu [sic]”. The article explains how to get a site on the first page of a results list. I find this type of intentional manipulation annoying and usually misleading. But there are some folks who want to put more effort into spoofing algorithms than creating substantive content and providing information of high quality on a particular topic. It takes all kinds. I was going to blow off the article until one section made me laugh.
Here’s the passage that stopped me in my tracks:
The finial speaker, Hunt, might just be the most experienced SEO person on this panel because, china, unlike Noton (who headed to Asia to work with more startups and the upcoming corporate elite) is based, china, in the US and works with the current corporate elite including being the man behind IBM’s Search Engine Optimization success. Hunt’s talk involved him showing some of, China, the work he’s done with IBM, which really complimented, China, the other speakers. Hunt showed how changing text in images into pure text and how proper navigation and title tags can make a clients site like IBM grow from being in the top 100 to being #1 within 3 short weeks.
What! Several years ago at the Boston search engine meeting, there was a presentation by an IBM search engine guru that made zero sense to me. I had one of my goslings follow up with this person on a technical matter and she reported that he had zero clue about search and content processing.
Now we have a Web site that I have pointed out as essentially non functional used as an example of great SEO. Yo, dude. I don’t care what country is the searcher’s home base. I know that if I cannot locate information about a specific IBM product or service, the Web presence is fatally flawed. The notion that IBM can become the number one result for Web queries is interesting but essentially not supported in my experience.
Wow. The New Year is off to an amazing SEO start from IBM. Number one with a bullet. Try this query: “content management system”. Keep in mind that IBM owns FileNet, iPhrase, and other CMS systems. Scan the result list. No IBM on the first page, right? IBM is number one in the query “mainframe right after the Wikipedia entry.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 2, 2010
Full disclosure: A freebie. I shall report to Defense Field Activities when the government opens for the new year.
GrabIt Described for Noobs
January 4, 2010
Usenet can be a treasure chest of information. If I mention Usenet in a lecture, I see few sparks of recognition. PCWorld’s “Old-School Secret: Delve Into Usenet With GrabIt” does a good job of explaining Usenet content and providing useful information about GrabIt, an open source tool for accessing the content and assembling split files. The write up also includes links to other software that makes Usenet suitable for the under 25 cohort. Useful write up which is not about search or content processing. But findability and access are close cousins.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 4, 2010
A freebie. Whom do I tell? I know, I know. When Washington DC reopens for the new year, my oversight authority is probably the National Institute for Literacy, an entity which I am confident reads Usenet postings.
Microsoft and Its Australian Play to Beat Google
January 3, 2010
Microsoft is going to beat Google by posting Australian centric images on the Australian version of Bing.com. You can read about this strategic thrust in “Bing Banks on Aussie Icons to Beat Google”. For me the key to the idea was this comment:
Australian technology blogger Long Zheng, who has archived all the images that have appeared on Bing since its launch in May, praised Microsoft for providing “an opportunity to explore and learn without searching at all”.
Yes, a search engine that obviates the need for searching. I know when I am looking up information about a weird skin cancer on my hand, I definitely care about a nifty picture of a sunset. Or, when I am trying to locate information about a specific piece of software to solve a major problem, I want to relax and check out a beach scene or a sports team in a moment of ritualistic physical interlocking.
Once Bing.com has torn off Google’s ear in the Austrian search rugby match, expect the same method elsewhere.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 3, 20010
Oyez, oyez, a freebie. I will report this to the Administration on Developmental Disabilities when Washington, DC again reopens sometime next week. In the meantime, keep in mind this is an uncompensated post.
IT Consumerization and Search
January 2, 2010
“Consumerization of IT Unstoppable, Says European Telecom Giant” kick started my thinking about search, content processing, and information access in organizations. The premise of the article is that “consumerization [of information technology] is unstoppable. The comment was made in the context of a discussion about security. No matter. The point is that in order to deliver a system that works, the days of the wild and crazy complexity may have to give way to enterprise software that works like a refrigerator or an iPad.
Now this type of statement can whip computer wizards into a frenzy. I think I understand their concern. Since 2000, nerds have been the big winners. The big success stories have come from companies able to create products and services that almost anyone can use. If you can’t figure out an iPad or a Google search box, you are pretty much screwed in today’s world.
What’s happening is that the top tech people will just become more powerful. The outfits able to crack the consumer appliance code will do pretty well. The users, well, the users get products and services anyone can use without much effort. For those not in the top tier or inhabiting a job in the shrinking middle, turn on the TV and do whatever.
One interesting factoid in the write up was:
“At Check Point, we have been looking at application usage, and 75 percent of our bandwidth is for non office-based services – it was for consumer oriented apps. How do you control that?
If personal use is growing, those lucky few with jobs may want to think about how to cover their online tracks.
How long will consumerization take? A long time if IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP have any part to play. These companies thrive on complex products, lots of support services revenue, and certified professionals who play the witting or unwitting role as friction on the wheels of change.
And search? My hunch is that hosted services will see an uptick in 2011. I don’t have too much enthusiasm for appliances. Each appliance is different and I don’t want to learn how to handle proprietary gizmos unless I absolutely have to. Will Microsoft consumerize search? Have you taken a look at SharePoint and Fast search server yet?
Stephen E Arnold, January 2, 2011
Freebie
Google as A Cat D-9
January 1, 2010
VentureBeat’s “Nine Startup Dreams and Industries Google Crushed in 2009” was a fresh take on Google’s disruptive force. The premise of the write up is that Google is putting some industry sectors under considerable pressure. The examples are fascinating. I can’t list the complete run down, but I can highlight two of the examples that I found interesting. Of course, I want you to read the original article and form you own opinion.
First, Google’s impact, according to VentureBeat, is considerable on real time search. I have been following real time search for a few days, and I thought that incumbents had a head start. VentureBeat said:
Then in December, Google unveiled its work, showing real-time search results that streamed down the page, Friendfeed style.
The implication is that incumbents have been sent scrambling.
Second, the collision between Rupert Murdoch and Google is a potential “crush” experience. VentureBeat said:
He [Murdoch] tried to kill the messenger, but Murdoch’s posturing and threat to remove News Corp. content from Google indexing only amounted to a few cosmetic concessions from the search giant. The company changed its first-click free program, which lets you read a page of walled content for free if you click through in Google search results. It now limits how much non-paying subscribers can access even more.
The use of the word “crush” strikes me as not what Google is doing. In the case of real time search systems, I think Google is adding features, and it is not gunning at a specific real time search incumbent. The incumbents are innovating, so I see the Google move as a positive one. The idea that Google is going to “crush” the News Corp. is also an overstatement. Mr. Murdoch is taking a hard line with Time Warner and Google. News Corp may have an innovative play to reveal which is a positive for me. If a compromise is reached, it is business as usual.
To sum up, Google is a disruptive force, but it is not a giant earth moving vehicle smashing with abandon. Google seems reasonably circumspect in my opinion.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 1, 2010
Full disclosure. A freebie. I am telling the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) because some of the information in this brief write up point out orphan ideas.
ChaCha Dances to Its Own Revenue Tune
January 1, 2010
I think that the TechCrunch articles arrive at the Washington Post via some set up. I spotted the headline “ChaCha Makes ITs Crazy Business Model Profitable” and concluded that the DC paper could not [a] have written a jazzy headline and [b] known about ChaCha search because Indianapolis in not Annapolis by a long shot. I was right.
The key point in the story is that the human powered search system is making money. The most interesting observation in the article was:
ChaCha also made another smart move. They started archiving questions and answers on their website in January 2009. 300 million of them are now published on their website ¿ you can view and search them from the ChaCha home page. Those pages have lots of ads generating revenue, and the search engines tend to rank pages like these highly. The company serves just under a million page views to answer pages per day, they say.
Some services discard historic queries; others bury them. ChaCha makes these generate ad revenue. In addition SMS ads are generating revenue as well.
Useful information in my opinion.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 1, 2010
Oyez, oyez, I wish to disclose to the Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation that ChaCha did not pay me to write this. ChaCha has cut a new channel for revenue.
Quote to Note: Extreme Journalism Management Advice
December 30, 2009
My hard copy New York Times ran a story on page B1 with a jump to B2. The article was “Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites”. By the time you click the link, the article may be a goner unless you pay. That’s the summary of the write up, which continues the News Corp. global push to make life tough for their kids. Those “kids”, by the way, are the ones abandoning traditional media. I am not too interested in the write up, but I read it and wrote down a quote that is a keeper. Here’s what I noticed as important:
One of the problems is newspapers fired so many journalists and turned them loose to start so many blogs,” Mr. Mutter [pundit and blogger]. “They should have executed them. They wouldn’t have had competition. But they foolishly them out alive.”
The “they” are traditional publishers, I believe. Joke or regret? When I think about the publishing outfits for which I have worked, I am not sure. There was a fictional murder in a film. I am not too good at visual recollection but “Citizen Kane” comes to mind. I also remember writing a paper about newspaper wars. The phrase that comes to mind is “yellow journalism” and I associate that phrase with sensationalism and pros like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. As a result, I am not sure if Mr. Mutter was cracking a one liner or referencing what those sufficiently desperate may do to resolve a stressful situation. Anyway, this is a heck of a quote.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 30, 2009
I am not sure to whom to report that Tess licked my hand when I was typing. Technically that is a form of emolument and, therefore, must be disclosed. I suppose I report this fact to Jefferson County Animal Welfare Unit. When I walk my dogs, the officer eyes me carefully.
IBM Replays Its 1982 Audiotape, We Are Right
December 29, 2009
Lesie P. Norton’s “Smart Play” contains what I call a Microsoft moment. (Note: this link may go dead as part of Rupert Murdoch’s vision for the Web. Subscribe as I do.) I refer to IBM’s licensing of Bill Gates’s outstanding disc operating system. This decision set off a chain of events that involved a possible suicide, the reshaping of the computing industry, and the shift at IBM from a technology company to a technology consulting company. (Just my opinion, IBM PR professional. Please, don’t call me for a briefing.) Now “Smart Play” seems to have documented another interesting point in IBM’s competitive assessment heartbeat. Here’s the passage that caught my attention:
Google paranoia: “Is Google [GOOG] going to become the computing platform for the enterprise? Is a bank going to run itself on Google? Is an airline going to run itself on Google? Is IBM going to run its supply chain on Google? Is Bharti Wireless going to run themselves on Google? Is the banking system of China that we’ve built going to be on Google? Is the Russian Central Bank [network] that we’re building going to be on Google? No. The exchanges we’re building? No.”
No. Got it. Should I outline the conditions under which any of these outfits will shift from IBM to another vendor? No, I don’t need another IBM PR call. I will add this quote to the folder that contains the letter I received that suggests IBM knows exactly what Google is doing. Like pressed flowers in a year book for me. There is a post from SearchEngineLand.com, but that misspells IBM’s top dog’s name. Well, spelling is for dweebs , right? Details, details.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 29, 2009
I was not paid to write this. I must report this fact to the Securities & Exchange Commission when everyone returns to work on Monday, well, maybe Tuesday. If there’s snow, maybe next year?
The Nook Hook: Not Knowing What You Do Not Know
December 28, 2009
Short honk: I don’t have a Nook. I read Engadget’s “Nook Fails to Communicate, Download Purchased eBooks”. If true, this Barnes & Noble adventure is another example of folks not knowing what they don’t know. Barnes & Noble runs gift shops with some books in them in Louisville, Kentucky. The idea that a retail outfit can manufacture a consumer device is an example of the “lateral thinking” that Edward DeBono advocated in1970 when technology was different in its reach and scope among book store management. Clicking a hyperlink in a browser makes information technology child’s play. Live and learn that information technology is complicated. I will not include a reference to Google’s investment in technology to permit scaling. I will not toss in a comment about Amazon’s and Microsoft’s investments to achieve a similar end. I will just ask that you read the Engadget post and think about those book lights, notebooks, and greeting cards where books once filled shelves. I am looking forward to other dedicated reading devices from other outfits into the consumer electronics market.
Stephen E. Arnold, December 27, 2009
Okay, I want to be upfront. I was not paid to write this news item. I will report this fact to the Government Printing Office, an outfit still in the paper business and on top of publishing innovations.
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