Bartz Reveals the Truth about Bing to Microsoft
June 2, 2009
In the oh-so-in group that comprises the All Things Digital conference, many interesting side stories unfold. You have to be there to get the real scoop. But the hot fudge, whip cream, and cherry on top go to those who get to fiddle with the detritus of a conference. I read “Bartz’s (S)mash Note to Ballmer: The Photographic Proof” here and realized that sometimes in the leave behinds are factoids of hard truth. First you need to read Kara Swisher’s article. Then look closely at the pink sticky note and look at the accompanying transcription. Set up: Carol Bartz, cruise directory of the SS Yahoo wrote to Steve Ballmer, captain of the $65 billion Redmond class war ship:
Steve, Forget it. Won’t Help. Ha. Carol
Addled geese are not at All Things Digital. Guests must leave dogs and other no hip creatures outside. I wasn’t there. But I can from my pond filled with Beargrass Creek pollutants offer Jacques Derrida like observations:
- The pronoun “it” lacks an antecedent. Because Mr. Ballmer spoke and demonstrated the Bing Kumo search system, I must assume that “it” is that search system.
- If the “it” is Bing Kumo, the statement “Forget it” introduces another ambiguity. Is the second “it” a reference to Bing Kumo. If so, Ms. Bartz is suggesting that Microsoft forget Bing Kumo. More colloquially, the phrase “forget it” said to me, “Dude, Bing Kumo cannot close the gap between Microsoft and Google in the Web search sector.
- The “ha” is also ambiguous. One can interpret this “ha” as an inside joke, discounting or disclaiming the implication that Bing Kumo is a loser. On the other hand, perhaps the “ha” means a Jay Leno Jaywalker “ha” where people laugh at others’ weaknesses.
In short, lots of ambiguity, but possibly a grain of truth. Here in Harrod’s Creek, the sticky note, the ambiguity, and the reference to getting one’s make up done underscores how far away the addled goose is from the real action in the world of Web search. Thank goodness there are neither make up artists nor pink sticky notes in these here parts. We don’t even have an in crowd unless you include the bikers who hit the River Creek Inn on Sunday morning before the church goers show up for brunch and a whistle wetting drink.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
Francois Schiettecatte, FS Consulting
June 1, 2009
Through a mutual contact, I reconnected with François Schiettecatte, a search engine expert with other computer wizard skills in his toolbox. Mr. Schiettecatte worked on a natural language processing project in the late 1990s. He shifted focus and was a co-founder of Feedster.com. He told that he had contributed to a number of interesting projects and revealed that he was working on a new search and content processing system.
Mr. Schiettecatte consented to an interview. I spoke with him on May 29, and I put the full text of our discussion in the ArnoldIT.com Search Wizards Speak collection. You can find that series of interviews with influential figures in search and content processing here.
Mr. Schiettecatte and I had a lively discussion and he offered some interesting insights into the trajectory of search and retrieval. Let me highlight two of his comments and invite you to read the full text of the discussion here.
In response to a question about the new start ups entering the search and retrieval sector, Mr. Schiettecatte said:
You can apply different search approaches to different data sets, for example traditional search as well as NLP search to the same set of documents. And certain data set will lend themselves more naturally to one type of search as opposed to another. Of course user needs are key here in deciding what approaches work best for what data. I would also add that we have only begun to tackle search and that there is much more to be done, and new companies are usually the ones willing to bring new approaches to the market.
We then discussed the continuing interest in semantic technology. On this matter, Mr. Schiettecatte offered:
More data to search usually means more possible answers to a search, which means that I have to scan more to arrive at the answer, improved precision will go a long way to address that issue. A more pedestrian way to put this is: “I don’t care if there are about a million result, I just want the one result”. Also, having the search engine take the extra step in extracting data out of the search results and synthesizing that data into a meaningful table/report. This is more complicated but I has the potential to really save time in the long run.
For more information about Mr. Schiettecatte’s most recent project, read the full text of the interview here.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
A Believer in Microsoft Bing
May 31, 2009
Shareholders in Microsoft may hold a parade for Larry Magid. He wrote “Don’t Count Microsoft Out in Search” for the San Jose (oops Silicon Valley) Mercury News. You can find the story here. Mr. Magid sees Bing as a potential contender in the Web search wars.
The premise of the story is that Microsoft’s most recent weapon in the battle for Web search eyeballs has a fighting chance against Googzilla. So, in the battle between Bing and the Google, Mr. Magid is urging odds makers to keep Microsoft in the game.
Mr. Magid reported:
It would be a gross exaggeration to call Bing a Google killer, but that’s OK. Google doesn’t have to die for Microsoft to succeed in search. Besides, Ballmer made it very clear that he doesn’t expect Bing to overtake Google in the foreseeable future. Microsoft, if anything, is persistent. It took three tries before Microsoft Word was worthy of becoming the dominant word processing program, and it wasn’t until version 3.0 that Windows began to get serious traction. To differentiate itself from Google, Bing is not only visually more attractive, it’s also more informative. Functioning as what Microsoft is calling a “decision engine,” rather than simply linking you to sites, Bing searches often end with information directly from Bing. For example, if you type in the name of a city you get local weather, hotel prices and other information without having to click anywhere. And, depending on the content licensing rules of sites that Bing draws from, it can sometimes display content directly — from Wikipedia for example — without the user having to click through. It even has a built-in shopping engine that, when you search for a product, shows you images, offerings from multiple merchants as well as product information, customer reviews and expert reviews.
My view is that a company with a seven to eight percent market share is what we in Kentucky would call a long shot. Sure, Derby winners come from the back of the pack to win the Run for the Roses. But in the Web search sector, there are some non-horse feathers facts with which to deal:
- Microsoft has approached search as a series of vertical content slices. There’s not much evidence that vertical search slices can narrow the Googzilla sized gap between Google’s market share and Microsoft’s market share in Web search. It’s not even clear if people will navigate to a vertical search system directly. My research indicates that people navigate to Google and type in the name of the service or function they want. Then Google spits out the url. Google is the finder; Bing may be the site receiving referrals from the Google. A bit of tweaking could change this quickly, might it not?
- Microsoft, Yahoo, and other firms have tried to get traction in Web search. What’s happened is a heck of a lot of repositioning. Web search companies jump into SEO or seek refuge in the enterprise market, indexing services for publishers, or brand themselves as business intelligence vendors. So far, that’s worked for some companies, but for many Web search firms, the outfits are road kill on the information superhighway. Google has been nuking these deer and possum with semi-truck efficiency.
- Google, in a lousy economy, has been * extending * its lead in the Web search sector. It will take more than $100 million in advertising to narrow the gap between user behavior and Bing adoption. What may happen is that Bing like the Microsoft butterfly will morph into some other creature. Microsoft’s best bet for crippling Google may be rain dance to bring thunderstorms to three amigos who run Google. A management blow up would create some new opportunities for Web search competitors.
Bing Kumo is a long shot in the Web search Derby. Just my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Search Archaeology
May 30, 2009
I find it amusing to look at articles about search, content processing and text mining. Perhaps I am tired or just confused. The past to me stretches back to cards with holes and wire rods and to the original NASA RECON system. For Computer Active, the past stretches all the way back to Lycos. You may find this revisionist view of history interesting. Click here to read “Bunch of Fives: Forgotten Search Engines.”
Let me comment of the five search engines, adding a bit of addled goose color to the authors’ view of search:
- Cuil.com. Cuil is a product of a Googler (Anna Patterson), her husband, and some other wizards. The company had a connection to Google. Dr. Patterson’s patents are still stumbling out of the USPTO with Google as an assignee. Xift, Dr. Patterson’s search system, was not mentioned in Computer Active. It was important for its semantic method and it exposed Dr. Patterson to the Alta Vista team. Alta Vista played some role in Google’s rise to success and its current plumbing. Cuil has improved, and I thought I saw a result set including some Google content before the system became publicly available. I use Cuil.com, and I am not sure if “forgotten” is a good word for it or its technology.
- MSN Live. I have lost count of Microsoft’s search systems. Microsoft search initiatives have moved through many iterations. The important point for me is that Microsoft is persistent. The search technology is an amalgamation of home grown, licensed, purchased, and reworked components. The search journey for Microsoft is not yet over. Bing is a demo. The rebuild of Fast as a SharePoint product is now in demo stage but not yet free of its Web and Linux roots. More to come on this front and, believe me, Microsoft search is not forgotten by Google or others in the search business.
- Alta Vista. Yep, big deal. The reason is that Alta Vista provided the Googlers with a pool of experienced and motivated talent. The job switch from the hopelessly confused Hewlett Packard to the freewheeling Google was an easy one. Alta Vista persists today, and I still use the service for certain types of queries. What’s interesting is that Alta Vista may have been one of the greatest influences on both Google and Microsoft. Again. Not forgotten.
- Lycos. We sold our Point system to Lycos, so I have some insight into that company’s system. The key point for me is that Fuzzy and his fellow band of coders from Carnegie Mellon sparked the interest in more timely and comprehensive Web search. Lycos was important at a sparkplug, but the company was among the first to add some important index update features and expanded snippets for each hit. Lycos has had a number of owners, but I won’t forget it. When we sold Point to the outfit, the check cleared the bank. That I will remember along with the fact that architectural issues hobbled the system just as the Excite Architext system was slowed. These are search as portal examples today.
- Ask Jeeves. I can’t forget. One of the first Ask Jeeves execs used to work at Ziff. I followed the company’s efforts to create query templates that allowed the system to recognize a question and then deliver an answer. The company was among the first to bill this approach “natural language” but it wasn’t. Ask Jeeves was a look up service and it relied on humans to find answers to certain questions. Ask.com is the descendent of Ask Jeeves’ clunky technology, but the system today is a supported by ace entrepreneur Barry Diller who, like Steve Ballmer, is persistent. The key point about Ask Jeeves is that it marketed old technology with a flashy and misleading buzzword “natural language”. Marketers of search systems today practice this type of misnaming as a standard practice. Who can forget this when a system is described one way and then operates quite another.
Enjoy revisionism. Much easier in a Twitter- and Facebook-centric world with a swelling bulge of under 40 experts, mavens, and pundits. These systems failed in some ways and succeeded in others. I remember each. I still use each, just not frequently.
Stephen Arnold, May 31, 2009
Connotate Update
May 30, 2009
Connotate is a content aggregation service. Two days ago a reader sent me a link to a story about Connotate on the MyCentralJersey.com Web site. The article “New Brunswick Software Company Tracks Web Info for Clients” here by Jared Twasser was informative and provided an interesting insight into the nine year old company. Mr. Twasser wrote:
Molloy [a Connotate senior manager] said Connotate’s technology is different than search engines, such as Google, that scour the Web searching for keywords. “What we do is we’re able to understand a page at a much deeper level,” he said. “We’re able to understand a page on an element level, not just the whole page, but we can understand objects on the page.” The system works because the user can train the software to find specific information … such as prices, job postings or press releases — on a given Web site. The software was developed at Rutgers University and the company was founded by two Rutgers professors and a former research programmer in 2000.
I found this interesting for two reasons. The notion of understanding content is very much in the news with the firestorm of articles about Microsoft’s smart search system Bing. Second, the idea for parsing content in almost a decade old. More information about the Connotate system is here.
My question, “What is new about Bing’s parsing?”
Any answers, gentle readers.
Stephen Arnold, May 30, 2009
Finding Info about Tsunami Named Google Wave
May 30, 2009
If you are want to ride the Google Wave, you need to get up to speed. I found a couple of resources that may be useful to you. I don’t recommend the Google Web site or the Web log posts. These are breezy and are not as comprehensive as some of the third party write ups. I looked at a number of descriptions today. I would recommend that you read Ben Parr’s Google “Wave: A Complete Guide” here. Then you can sit back and check out the official video. You can find an easy link on Google Blogoscoped here or look at the Google Channel on YouTube. Once you have this information under your belt, head on over to my Overflight service here and read the posts about Wave on the Google Web logs. If you are into code instead of marketing frazzle, click here. I want to reiterate what I wrote earlier. The Wave swamped the new Microsoft Web surfer, Bing Kumo.
Stephen Arnold, May 30, 2009
More about Exalead and Its Miiget Technology
May 30, 2009
I mentioned Exalead’s Miiget not long ago. I received a couple of questions about the technology. To provide more color to that reference you may want to look at Same Story here. That company has licensed the Exalead technology. The announcement of the deal is here. The system provides content from the Same Story repository and from other sources. The system incorporates profiles so that information is tailored to the user. You can get more information about the Miiget technologies here.
Stephen Arnold, May 30, 2009
Bing Kumo Rides the Wave, Wave Soaks Bing Kumo
May 29, 2009
Think back a couple of weeks. Wolfram Alpha became available and Google rolled out announcements about enhancements to its system. Microsoft raised the curtain on its Bing search system, and the Google rolled a Wave across its developers. No accidents of timing. Google wants to be in charge of the digital information flows, and it is clear to me that Google treats capable mathematicians and $65 billion software giants exactly the same. In the war of visibility and media attention, Google neutralizes other firms’ efforts in all things digital.
The number of articles about Wave and Bing Kumo seemed high. I thought it would be interesting to try and quantify which product name received the most coverage. I took a count before I conked out after a long day in Washington, DC, and then again this morning. To my dismay, the miserable high speed Internet connection timed out in the middle of script I used for the count. I tried a couple of more times and concluded that in terms of Megite.com, Microsoft was the lead story. Google’s Wave was a sublisting under a Microsoft Bing story. Twitter wasn’t much use because I timed out and then got what looked like erroneous results. A quick check of Newsnow.co.uk revealed that Microsoft and Google were not the top stories when I checked at about 7 am Eastern.
I did some poking around and learned two things:
First, Bing is neither a winner nor a loser as a “decision engine”. It is another search engine aimed at consumers. The mash ups, the social functions, and the semantics are present, just not dominant. Product Review Net here described its position in this way:
Microsoft tells us that this new search engine will be far different than we were used to with Live Search, Google and Yahoo Search. Normally when you search for something you then get one answer, Bing is different, as it knows that one answer is not often enough.
The key point in the article was the statement,
Internet users have been asking the same question, “Why Bing” and the answer is simple. Decisionengine.com explains that although current search engines are amazing, but as more than four websites are created every second, this means that half the search results that come up are not the results that people had searched for. Bing is different as it has evolved in to something new and better, but we will only know if this is true once Bing is up and running.
Okay, multiple answers. You may find the Bing video here located by Product Reviews useful.
Second, Warwick Ashford made a good point in his write up “Google Unveils Next Wave of Online Communications” here. Mr. Ashford wrote:
Google has posted examples of how services like Twitter can be automatically included in waves. Rasmussen described it as “concurrent rich-text editing”, where users see nearly instantly what collaborators are typing in your wave as well as being able to use “playback” to rewind the wave to see how it evolved.
Google, if Mr. Ashford is correct has focused on communication in which search is one function.
My thoughts about the Wave and Bing Kumo roll outs are:
- Microsoft is trying hard to out do Google in a market sector that focuses on finding information in some consumer areas such as tickets. Although the service is interesting, it is, by definition, constrained and inherently narrow. The method of interaction is well know, focused on accessing previously indexed information, and delivering utility such as a discount in airfare and similar practical information outcomes.
- Google seems to be cobbling together mash ups of its various components and moving parts. Wave is new and open. The idea is to allow developers first and then users to create information channels and then have those flows available for communication purposes. Wave is not search.
The contrast strikes me as quite significant in the broader information market. I think these three reasons sum up my thoughts in the early days of both services:
First, both services seems to be works in progress. In short, we are watching pundits, mavens, and self appointed wizards exercise themselves with what are not much more than demos. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with demos. Most of my work is a demo. But demos are not products and it is not clear if either of these offerings will have much of an impact on users. In short, I am less than thrilled with both Wave and Bing.
Second, Microsoft seems intent on beating Google at the search game. Google on the other hand is trying hard to invent a new game in which it has not had much success; that is, real time information retrieval. What’s interesting to me is that both Google and Microsoft may be tilting at windmills. My hunch is that Google will plug along in search, and Microsoft will plug along in its desktop applications and server business. Both companies will be hard pressed to achieve much traction in the short term with their Thursday roll outs. Over time, both will be reasonable successful, but I don’t see a future Le Bron James in either demo.
Third, both companies underscore how monocultures react to the new information world. The similarity of each company’s approach to these roll outs makes me see two peas in a pod, not innovative, distinctive ways to address the changing needs of users.
Just my opinion. Honk.
Stephen Arnold, May 29, 2009
HTML 5 Plus Chrome Plus Other Google Stuff
May 29, 2009
Short honk: HTML 5 is a potential problem for traditional desktop operating systems. There are quite a few posts about HTML 5. You may want to read the brief but direct write up “Java HTML5 Will Kill the OS!” in Dvorak Uncensored here. For me the key comment was:
While Java has accomplished a great deal, it’s potential as an OS-killer has not been realized. HTML5 has a better shot.
Very big deal.
Stephen Arnold, May 29, 2009
Track the Search Vendors
May 29, 2009
I will be adding to the Overflight service automatic pages that bring together a range of information about search vendors. We’ve been testing the system and for the most part, we have trimmed the number of false drops. The way the service will work is that you will navigate to a list of search vendors arranged in alphabetical order. Click on the name of a company in which you have an interest. The Overflight system will produce a run down of what’s new about the company from a range of sources. Some will be familiar like Web logs. Others will annoy like the Twitter hits. A few may be unfamiliar to you like videos about a search vendor. The idea is that you can click on a company and see what’s new. No key word searching. I find it easier to click a link and scan to see if there’s something that strikes me as important. For a preview of the service for Autonomy IDOL, click here. We will be fiddling with the final appearance so it matches my Google Overflights. More information about the vendors for which the automated service will be available will be coming soon. We have a short list of enhancements for these basic automated reports. We hope to have the full service available for free, of course, by September 2009.
Stephen Arnold, May 29, 2009
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
