Surprises in Search: Holiday Gifts for Pundits
December 6, 2009
The first week of December 2009 delivered a rich feast to mavens, pundits, poobahs, and azure chip consultants. Kwanza and Chanukah arrived early.
What’s transpired in the last week or so?
First, Google jumped into eCommerce search, hired Endeca’s chief technology officer, and made it clear that it wanted to suck in some cash from this lucrative sector of the information retrieval market. I know that most of this eCommerce excitement happened over a period of weeks, but the significance of this tactical move is significant. Endeca which has been working through its cash injections from Intel and SAP now has a real fight on its hands. The company has an RV full of bright MBAs, and it will need these folks to convert a Google thrust into new revenue. Fun holiday and New Year’s Day ahead for the Endeca folks. My “cutting Endeca from the herd” story evoked a gust of push back when I voiced my opinion. I stand by my argument in “Google Cuts Endeca from the Search Herd”.
Second, Microsoft and Yahoo finally got married. Well, maybe the right word is decided to implement their version of the Bernard Slade play “Same Time, Next Year.” The two outfits are going to team up to challenge Google. If you are not on top of this unusual sales / search deal, you may find the Macworld write up a useful summary. Read “Microsoft, Yahoo Finalize Search Deal.”
Third, Oracle, a notoriously aggressive outfit, attacked Mark Logic in a white paper filled with interesting assertions. I wrote about this on December 3, 2009. If direct attacks escalate, 2010 will be a contentious year. The notion that a multi billion dollar database company is threatened by a next generation XML data management system says more about the fear that traditional companies have for smaller firms with better technology.
Finally, the odd yet interesting machinations of traditional publishing companies have signaled a perceived urgency in adapting to the digital information environment. There’s the dust up between Google and News Corp. over indexing. I noted the San Francisco Chronicle’s take on one facet of this battle in “Google’s Schmidt Strikes Back at Murdoch.” More interesting is the push by traditional print publishers to create an online newsstand, sort of a modern day version of the old “Magazine Rack” idea from 15 years ago. You can read about this “old wine in new bottles” approach in “Publishers Alliance to Create iTunes for Print Media as Tablet Rumours Continue to Build”. The problem with this idea is that it is aimed at a generation of readers. The demographics argue that readers will be a small percentage of the consumer population which may not bode well for dreams of new revenue for traditional publishers.
I am looking forward to the discussion of these holiday season topics.
Stephen Arnold, December 6, 2009
Oyez, oyez, I wish to disclose to Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia that I was not paid to write this round up of holiday delights.
News Corp and Its MySpace Case
December 5, 2009
I have not recovered from my wonderful Delta flights from Louisville to London. In fact, the goose’s wings are tired. I was not in the mood for commenting about stories and issues that caught my attention. Then I noticed a headline from a newspaper under the control of the outfit that used to run Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. (No joke.) The headline was “The Rise and Fall of MySpace.” The idea is that News Corp bought MySpace.com when its perceived value was high: money, promise, and users. Now, under the firm hand of the hegemons at News Corp. the perceived value of MySpace.com is less money, little promise, and fewer users. Yep, these traditional media companies have figured out how to manage digital properties. There was one statement in the write up that merited the goose’s attention; to wit:
Murdoch himself was responsible for dealing the company the first in a series of blows. On a 2007 News Corp earnings call, a punchy Murdoch told analysts that Fox Interactive Media would generate $1bn in revenues for the 2008 fiscal year (up from about $550m in 2007). With MySpace representing almost all of Fox Interactive’s revenues, the implication was clear: Murdoch thought MySpace’s meteoric rise would continue. There was only one problem: the MySpace management team had no idea Murdoch had set them a new target until he opened his mouth. “It came out of thin air,” says a former MySpace executive. At a stroke, the site’s free-wheeling, entrepreneurial days were over: it had to perform exactly as expected – or else.
Read the FT’s article for more of this quasi-“we know what News Corp did wrong” view of a fellow traditional media company’s handling of a digital property.
Several observations:
- The write up makes clear that at one point in time, folks perceived News Corp’s heavyweight champion of business as “punchy”. Wow. Punchy as in punch drunk or as in too much fruit juice and vodka? Ambiguous but metaphorically rich.
- News Corp’s ability to manage programmers is interesting. Hopefully there will be a non fiction book from one of the “Sergey and Larry eat pizza” type writers. I want more of this insightful business writing.
- Any plan to save traditional media hatched by News Corp may have some MySpace.com DNA. Genes of greatness perhaps?
I thoroughly enjoy old media reporting on the foibles and follies of other old media company.
Stephen Arnold, December 5, 2009
Hark ye heralds of ethical blogging, this is a freebie. I think I will report this fact to the National Capital Planning Commission.
Is Bing Better than Google in Only Three Ways?
December 4, 2009
VenturedBeat caught my attention with its story “3 ways Bing is ahead of Google.” Whoa, Nelly! I thought Bing.com had to be ahead of Google in just one way: online revenue. Not the pay to use, not the faux UX, and not the me-too approach to Web search. Yep, revenue. The Google has revenue because it has traffic, and it has advertisers and partners who want to tap into that traffic to make sales, get leads, or build brand. VentureBeat does not agree; to wit:
Google is groping its way toward this same change in what its audience wants, but you can almost feel the intellectual hesitation. I have to admit, I’m not sure I want Google to become more like Bing. I’d rather have my choice. But Bing hasn’t grabbed one-tenth of the world’s search engine traffic in just a few months by luck, or by advertising. They did it by figuring out correctly what people actually want.
I am no VC and not an MBA. Heck, I am an addled goose. But even I can see that Microsoft needs to beat Google in just one way—online revenue. Of course, that requires traffic, the ability to scale quickly and economically, and infrastructure that can handle various fancy math operations.
So Microsoft’s three better components have to add up to one real metric—revenue. The other stuff does not matter.
Stephen Arnold, December 4, 2009
I wish to disclose to the National Institute of Standards and Technology that I was not paid to simplify three small components into one big factored element. This earned me zero, which is darn close to the eight percent market share of a certain Web search system. Metrics are good.
Online Paranoia and Context
December 3, 2009
Years ago, I met the president of a company in Houston, Texas. I recall hearing that person recounting some of his management insights in the construction business. One catchphrase he used to make a point had to do with paranoia and knowing that everyone was out to get you. Years later I read Andy Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company. Similar idea: some awareness of what the competition is doing is essential to focus an organization’s energies. Over the years, I have worked on a couple of jobs in which paranoia was a useful ingredient like basil on a Food Channel’s winning pizza recipe. In certain work situations, a dash of paranoia is what separates those who survive from those who become the concrete in a skyscraper or the dough in a calzone.
I read “8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight”, and you may want to scan the article as well. The main point in my opinion is:
My point is this: The vast majority of the government’s access to individuals’ private data is not reported, either due to a failure on DOJ’s part to supply the legally required statistics, or due to the fact that information regarding law enforcement requests for third party stored records (such as email, photos and other data located in the cloud) is not currently required to be collected or reported. As for the millions of government requests for geo-location data, it is simply disgraceful that these are not currently being reported…but they should be.
If you want a catalog of examples of surveillance activities, the article provides a useful starting point.
Let me conclude with several observations:
- Depending on one’s job, these activities may have a different context. For example, if one is working on a project when there are other factors in play, then the need to use available resources to address a matter is a responsible and necessary activity. I think of information has an instrument, and the use of that instrument depends on context. Without context, I find it difficult to make an informed judgment about “shoulds,” “woulds” and “coulds”.
- Some engaged in law enforcement have experienced significant increases in the amount and type of work that must be done on the “job”. As a result, like any process oriented professional, when software can perform certain work more efficiently, it makes perfect sense to me to use new methods to manage a task. I find it typical of public companies, start ups, and government organizations to try different techniques and determine which work and which don’t. Adaptation takes place. In my experience, those experiences are an essential part of professional behavior.
- The budget data for law enforcement and intelligence professionals, when compared to the volume of work that must be performed is not included in the article. One quick example: a major city’s law enforcement group needs twice the number of uniforms presently available to handle existing criminal activity. There is neither budget nor political support to expand the number of officers. Use of new methods is one way to extend the thin membrane of law enforcement over the present work load.
- The volume of data available is impossible to capture, manage, and process with traditional methods. Not even the most sophisticated computer systems are able to deliver the type of information that may be needed to address a certain situation. In my experience, more investment and effort are needed to tame and channel the raging floods of data.
In short, paranoia is a useful motivational and creative force. However, paranoia without context can create an impression that certain situations look like a duck but may be a very different animal. Forget trade shows. Forget public announcements about data sets being made available. Remember that context is needed to understand the who, what, why, and how of an action. These nuances are tough to get even when one is working on a project that requires certain types of data. Outside of those projects, context may be impossible to obtain. Without context, I find it difficult to speak with confidence about a specific action or a group of unrelated actions.
I do know what can happen if certain data are ignored. You do too if you do some historical thinking.
Stephen Arnold, December 3, 2009
Oyez, oyex, I wish to report to the Department of Justice that I was not paid by anyone to point out that context is a useful concept when writing about specific actions taken in order to complete a mission.
Will Google Ring Its Digital Cash Register for Thee and TV
December 3, 2009
One of the media mavens wrote “Is YouTube Ready for Primetime? Google Wants to Stream TV, for a Fee” and illustrated the write up with pictures of my relatives from Harrod’s Creek cooking over a wood fire. The maven also chose a picture that showed my relatives watching the flames burning instead of sitting in the wooden hovel telling stories about the deer who got away.
The point of this write up to me is summed up in this passage:
YouTube already lets users watch a smattering of TV shows for free, with advertising. Now it envisions something similar to what Apple and Amazon already offer: First-run shows, without commercials, for $1.99 an episode, available the day after they air on broadcast or cable. Sources say the site’s negotiations with the networks and studios that own the shows are preliminary. But both sides seem optimistic, since models for such deals already exist. No comment from YouTube.
I thought that YouTube.com was 99 percent crap and one percent good content. I thought Google lacked the business acumen to do “something” with YouTube.com. I thought YouTube.com was a giant mistake that would function like a giant, digital albatross and make Google into a current version of the ancient mariner. Guess I was misunderstanding previous punditry?
I don’t have too much to add to the maven’s analysis. I won’t even question this statement:
But while Web users have an insatiable appetite for video, they’ve yet demonstrate much interest in paying for it. If any of this is going to work, that will have to change.
I think I will raise some questions that might be considered:
- What are the core technologies on which this alleged new initiative of Google rests? When were they developed? What other functions do these have, assuming the technologies do indeed exist?
- What are the costs of the alleged new service? How will Google’s present business model benefit from such a push if such a push takes place?
- What other rich media could be affected by such a push assuming the push is extended?
- Why haven’t other companies built a sufficiently significant competitive barrier to entry? What are the weaknesses of the existing services? is Google’s service competitively flawed? If so, in what way? Is it superior? In what way?
I can generate some other questions that pundits, mavens, azure chip consultants, Google watchers, and other experts should be considering. I wonder if these wizards know the Pope has a TV channel on Google? Digital Gutenberg, anyone?
Stephen Arnold, December 3, 2009
I wish to disclose to American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers that I was not paid to point out that questions about Google are yet to be answered. Maybe the truth is within one of the many Sergey-and-Larry-eat-pizza books?
Some Thoughts About Real Time Content Processing
December 2, 2009
I wanted to provide my two or three readers with a summary of my comments about real time content processing at the Incisive international online information conference. I arrived more addled than than normal due to three mechanical failures on America’s interpretation of a joint venture between Albanian and Galapagos Airlines. That means Delta Airlines I think.
What I wanted to accomplish in my talk was to make one point—real time search is here to stay. Why?
First, real time means lots of noise and modest information payload. To deal with lots of content requires a robust and expensive line up of hardware, software, and network resources. Marketers have been working overtime by slapping “real time” on any software product conceivable in the hopes of making another sale. And big time search vendors essentially ignored the real time information challenge. Plain vanilla search on content updated when the vendor decided was an easier game.
Real time can mean almost any thing. In fact, most search and content processing systems are not even close to real time. The reason is that slow downs can occur in any component of a large, complex content processing system. As long as the user gets some results, for many of the too-busy 30 somethings that is just fine. Any information is better than no information. Based on the performance of some commercial and governmental organizations, the approach is not working particularly well in my opinion.,
Let me give you an example of real time. In the 1920s, America decided that no booze was good news. Rum runners filled the gap. The US Coast Guard learned that it could tune a radio receiver to a frequency used by the liquor smugglers. The intercepts were in real time, and the Coast Guard increased its interdiction rate. The idea was that a bad buy talked and the Coast Guard listened in real time even though there was a slight delay in wireless transmissions. The same idea is operative today when good guys intercept mobile conversations or listen to table talk at a restaurant.
The problem is that communications and content believed to be real time are not. SMS may be delivered quickly, but I have received SMS sent a day or more earlier. The telco takes considerable license in billing for SMS and delivering SMS. No one seems to be the wiser.
A content management system often creates this ty8pe of conversation in an organization. Jack: “I can’t find my document.” Jill: “Did you put it in the system with the ‘index me’ metatag?’” Jack: “Yes.” Jill: “Gee, that happens to me all the time.” The reason is that the CMS indexes when it can or on a specific schedule. Content in some CMSs are not findable. So much for real time in the organization.
An early version of the Google Search Appliance could index so aggressively that the network was choked by the googlebot. System administrators solved the problem by indexing once a day, maybe twice a day. Again, the user perceives one thing and the system is doing another.
This means that real time will have a specific definition depending on the particular circumstances in which the system is installed and configured.
Several business sectors are gung ho for real time information.
Financial services firms will pay $500,000 for a single Exegy high speed content processing server. When that machine is saturated, just buy another Exegy server. Microsoft is working on a petascale real time content processing system for the financial services industry which will compete with such established vendors as Connotate and Relegence. But a delay of a millisecond or two can spoil the fun.
Accountants want to know exactly what money is where. Purchase order systems and accounts receivable have to be fast. Speed does not prevent accidents. The implosion of such corporate giants as Enron and Tyco make it clear that going faster does not make information or management decisions better.
Intelligence agencies want to know immediately when a term on a watch list appears in a content stream. A good example is “Bin Ladin” or “Bin Laden” or a variant. A delay can cost lives. Systems from Exalead and SRA can handle this type of problem and a range of other real time tasks without breaking a sweat.
The problem is that there is not certifying authority for “real time”. Organizations trying to implement real time may be falling for a pig in the poke or buying a horse without checking to see if it has been enhanced at a horse beauty salon.
In closing, real time is here to stay.
First, Google, Microsoft, and other vendors are jumping into indexing content from social networks, RSS feeds, and Web sites that update when new information is written to their databases. Like it or not, real time links or what appear to be real time links will be in these big commercial systems.
Second, enterprise vendors will provide connectors to handle RSS and other real time content. This geyser of information will be creating wet floors in organizations worldwide.
Third, vendors in many different enterprise sectors will be working to make fresh data available. You may not be able to escape real time information even if you work with an inventory control system.
Finally, users—particularly recent college graduate—will get real time information their own way, like it or not.
To wrap up, “what’s happening now, baby?” is going to be an increasingly common question you will have to answer.
Stephen Arnold, December 2, 2009
Oyez, oyez, I disclose to the National Intelligence Center that the Incisive organization paid me to write about real time information. In theory, I will get some money in eight to 12 weeks. Am I for sale to the highest bidder? I guess it depends on how good looking you are.
When Your Search Traffic Heads South, What Ya Gonna Do?
December 1, 2009
Google gives new sites a little tailwind. Once a site is established, Googzilla, according to my research, becomes a bit more demanding. Over time, sites drift downward in a search results list if the webmaster does not pump value into a Web site. The algorithmic approach is not perfect, but I have examined a number of clients’ sites where the drift downward seems to be a natural process, if a Google algorithm is “natural”.
I read Problogger’s “What to Do When Your Search Rankings Drop” and the comments available at 2 pm eastern on November 30, 2009. The core of the article for me was embodied in this passage:
This approach [cross references and backlinks] had worked for me – however when my Google traffic disappeared I was left with little and realized how short sighted I’d been. I began to change my focus and started working on other sources of traffic. I still love the traffic that Google sends me but today if it all disappeared it would hurt – but it wouldn’t be the end for my business.
To keep traffic up, find other ways to get traffic. Good advice. Might be tough for some webmasters to implement because quite a few people with whom I work live in a Google fishbowl. In fact, the more Google seeps into the global information infrastructure, the more probable the outcome that Google becomes “the Internet”.
Stephen Arnold, December 1, 2009
Okay, a disclosure. Another freebie. I will send a Vulcan mind meld to the Rehabilitation Services Administration, whose professionals can “fix up” blogs and Web sites with declining traffic I presume.
Social, Real Time, Content Intelligence
November 29, 2009
I had a long talk this morning about finding useful nuggets from the social content streams. The person with whom I spoke was making a case for tools designed for the intelligence community. My phone pal mentioned JackBe.com, Kapow, and Kroll. None of these outfits is a household word. I pointed to services and software available from NetBase, Radian6, and InsideView.
What came out of this conversation were several broad points of agreement:
First, most search and content processing procurement teams have little or no information about these firms. The horizons of most people working information technology and content processing are neither wide nor far.
Second, none of these companies has a chance of generating significant traction with their current marketing programs. Sure, the companies make sales, but these are hard won and usually anchored in some type of relationship or a serendipitous event.
Third, users need the type of information these firms can deliver. Those same users cannot explain what they need, so the procurement teams fall back into a comfortable and safe bed like a “brand name” search vendor or some fuzzy wuzzy one-size-fits-all solution like the wondrous SharePoint.
We also disagreed on four points:
First, I don’t think these specialist tools will find broad audiences. The person with whom I was discussing these social content software vendors believed that one would be a break out company.
Second, I think Google will add social content “findability” a baby step at a time. One day, I will arise from my goose nest and the Google will simply be “there”. The person at the other end of my phone call sees Google’s days as being numbered. Well, maybe.
Third, I think that social content is a more far reaching change than most publishers and analysts realize. My adversary things that social content is going to become just another type of content. It’s not revolutionary; it’s mundane. Well maybe.
Finally, I think that these systems—despite their fancy Dan marketing lingo—offer functions not included in most search and content processing systems. The person disagreeing with me thinks that companies like Autonomy offer substantially similar services.
In short, how many of these vendors’ products do you know? Not many I wager. So what’s wrong with the coverage of search and content processing by the mavens, pundits, and azure chip consultants? Quite a bit because these folks may know less about these vendors’ systems than how to spoof Google or seem quite informed because of their ability to repeat marketing lingo.
Have a knowledge gap? Better fill it.
Stephen Arnold, November 29, 2009
I want to disclose to the National Intelligence Center that no one paid me to comment on these companies. These outfits are not secret but don’t set the barn on fire with their marketing acumen.
Ten Trends in Search for 2010
November 27, 2009
Next week I am going to “debate” some European search wizards about the future of search. The venue? Incisive online show. Sure, I know these experts, but I am going to grab my pugnum and two semispathae and chop some logic with these computational killers. Gentlemen, prepare to be skewered.
How will I accomplish this feat? Easy. I am going to make a comment about these trends in search and content processing for 2010, a most auspicious number. In 2010, quite a few vendors are going to lose their precarious grip on survival and fall to their death. Splat.
Other points I will toss like a verutum are:
- XML repositories will deliver content services that * actually * work and provide more information access functions than traditional search engines
- Google will exert greater pressure on Microsoft. This pressure will disrupt a number of search and content processing companies, which will be collateral damage.
- Rich media will become a major content challenge to an ever growing number of organizations. These outfits have not figured out text and databases, so rich media will create more information stress. Say farewell to information technology managers who can’t cope.
- Organizations will become less tolerant of big name companies whose marketing collateral and contracts spell out one thing while their enterprise software delivers another. Can you read IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP in the interstices in these two sentences?
- Government regulation of information is going to become more oppressive. The problem is that government ability to make use of intercepts, email, and other content is going to decline. Government entities are struggling to keep email working and deal with the nasty internecine fights between those who want Google, those who live for Microsoft, and those who advocate for open source. Efficiency goes down; costs go up. The nanny state gets Alzheimer’s.
- Open source is not open. I know. I know. The community. Baloney. Commercial plays for open source work just like any money-centric outfit. That basic function is to get the client, keep competitors out, and lock the San Quentin cell block. Guards are on patrol.
Disagree? Agree? I am ready. Bring your iaculum. I am gunning for anyone named Trent or Whitney, anyone with an MBA, and anyone who thinks their view of 2010 is more informed than mine. Ave caesar! Morituri te salutamus. For the other trends? Attend the debate.
Stephen Arnold, November 27, 2009
Oyez, oyez, Department of the Navy. I was not paid to make these martial comments. Furthermore, I am a sissy. Put that in my file and stamp me, “Sensitive”.
Cicumvallation: Reed Elsevier and Thomson as Vercingetorix
November 27, 2009
Google Scholar Gets Smart in Legal Information
One turkey received a presidential pardon. Other turkeys may not be so lucky on November 26, 2009, when the US celebrates Thanksgiving. I am befuddled about this holiday. There are not too many farmers in Harrod’s Creek. The fields contain the abandoned foundations of McMansions that the present economic meltdown have left like Shelly’s statue of Ozymandius. The “half buried in the sand” becomes half built homes in the horse farm.
As Kentuckians in my hollow give thanks for a day off from job hunting,, I am sitting by the goose pond trying to remember what I read in my copy of Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. I know Caesar did not write this memoir, but his PR bunnies did a pretty good job. I awoke this morning thinking about the connection between the battle of Alesia and what is now happening to the publishing giants Reed-Elsevier and Thomson Reuters. The trigger for this mental exercise was Google’s announcement that it had added legal content to Google Scholar.
What’s Vercingetorix got to do with Google, Lexis, and Westlaw? Think military strategy. Starvation, death, surrender, and ritual killing. Just what today’s business giants relish.
Google has added the full text of US federal cases and state cases. The coverage of the federal cases, district and appellate, is from 1924 to the present. US state cases cover 1950 to the present. Additional content will be added; for example, I have one source that suggested that the Commonwealth of Virginia Supreme Court will provide Google with CD ROMs of cases back to 1924. Google, according to this source, is talking with other sources of US legal information and may provide access to additional legal information as well. What are these sources? Possibly
Public.Resource.Org and possibly Justia.org, among others.
The present service includes:
- The full text of the legal document
- Footnotes in the legal document
- Page numbers in the legal document
- Page breaks in the legal document
- Hyperlinks in the legal document to cases
- A tab to show how the case was cited in other documents
- Links to non legal documents that cite a case.
You can read various pundits, mavens, and azure=chip consultants’ comments on this Google action at this link.
You may want to listen to a podcast called TWIL and listened to the November 23, 2009, show on which Google Scholar was discussed for about a half hour. You can find that discussion on iTunes. Just search for TWIL and download the program “Social Lubricants and Frictions.”
On the surface, the Google push into legal information is a modest amount of data in terms of Google’s daily petabyte flows. The service is easy to use, but the engineering required to provide access to the content strikes me as non-trivial. Content transformation is an expensive proposition, and the cost of fiddling with legal information is one of the primary reasons commercial online services have had to charges hefty fees to look at what amounts to taxpayer supported, public information.
The good news is that the information is free, easily accessible even from an iPhone or other mobile device. The Google service does the standard Google animal tricks of linking, displaying content with minimal latency, and updating new content in a a minute or so that content becoming available to Google software Dyson vacuum cleaner.
So what?
This service is similar to others I have written about in my three Google monographs. Be aware. My studies are not Sergey-and-Larry-eat-pizza books. I look at the Google open source technical and business information. I ignore most of what Google’s wizards “say” in public. These folks are “running the game plan” and add little useful information for my line of work. Your mileage may differ. If so, stop reading this blog post and hunt down a cheerful non-fiction Google book by a real live journalist. That’s not my game. I am an addled goose.
Now let me answer the “so what”.
First, the Google legal content is an incremental effort for the Google. This means that Google’s existing infrastructure, staff, and software can handle the content transformation, parsing, indexing, and serving. No additional big-buck investment is needed. In fact, I have heard that the legal content project, like Google News, was accomplished in the free time for play that Google makes available to its full time professionals. A bit of thought should make clear to you that commercial outfits who have to invest to handle legal content in a Google manner have a cost problem right out of the starting blocks.
Second, Google is doing content processing that should be the responsibility of the US government. I know. I know. The US government wants to create information and not compete with commercial outfits. But the outfits manipulating legal information have priced it so that most everyday Trents and Whitneys cannot afford to use these commercial services. Even some law firms cannot afford these services. Pro bono attorneys don’t have enough money to buy yellow pads to help their clients. Even kind hearted attorneys have to eat before they pay a couple a hundred bucks to run a query on the commercial online services from publicly traded companies out to make their shareholders have a great big financial payday. Google is operating like a government when it processes legal information and makes it available without direct charge to the user. The monetization takes place but on a different business model foundation. That also spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E for the commercial online services like Lexis and Westlaw.
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