Doomed Idea, Charge Everyone for Content
April 6, 2009
You can find quite a few posts in this Web log’s archive about making money online. Believe it or not, there are some things that don’t work too well. Business moguls don’t read this Web log, but these folks have confidence in their business acumen. A recent example is Rupert Murdoch’s plan to charge for newspaper content. “Rupert Murdoch Calls for Newspapers to Charge for Website Access” here provides some insight into how confident business managers assume that business models that worked in the pre digital world will work in today’s digital ecosystem.
For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp, has said that people reading the websites of newspapers should be paying. According to Murdoch, the ad revenues that many publishers expect to offset the costs of its digital operations will not cover their costs.
The stridency of these traditional media companies’ executives is amusing. Here in Harrod’s Creek, we watch the mine drainage seep into the pond. We splash in the warm, murky water and listen to the muted drone of I-71. The goslings and I know that the dead tree crowd are likely to drown in a sea of red ink. Maybe these folks should chill, kick back and join us in rural Kentucky? The goslings and I can explain how online revenue can flow and demo some interesting new ways to meet users information needs. On the other hand, it may be too late.
Stephen Arnold, April 7, 2009
Google Health: Two New Deals
April 6, 2009
Googzilla has revealed some new tie ups in its Google Health initiative. At my lecture a couple of weeks ago in Houston, a big medical center with a city wrapped around it, there was quite a bit of interest in electronic medical records. The real issue, however, was consistency. I thought privacy and security were the cat’s pajamas. I was wrong. The medical types kept circling around the issue of data management, data transformation, and moving bits from Point A to Point B with the people at Point B able to use the information.
Google announced two interesting tie ups. The first is a partnership with CVS, a retail chain. You can get the details here. The Reuters’ story provides a few details. But the big point to me was that the GOOG is thinking retail and retail pharmacies.
The second tie up is with the giant Medco Health Solutions Inc. outfit. You can read this Reuters’ story here. Same deal: some facts but not much on the way the tie up will affect customers. The news story asserts that Google has more than 100 million people who can get access to prescription data. For me, the point is that the GOOG is thinking consumers via a partnership.
Microsoft thinks the same types of thoughts for HealthVault. The appearance of the two stories is either a coincidence or part of a health push. With the Obama Administration’s support of electronic medical records, the Google may be shifting gears. If so, the company will accelerate its surround and seep strategy in an effort to capture the market sector.
Can Google do this? Right now I think it is a wide open sector. Google’s chances are neither better nor worse than the other companies fighting for a handhold.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
US Government Gets Aggregation Fever
April 6, 2009
Navigate to http://data.gov. You will see the message that revealed the site goes live sometime in May 2009. Word is that citizens will have a one-stop shop for data. What data? I am not certain. I hope it includes the content that does not find its way into either www.usa.gov, Yahoo’s index limited to the Dot Gov extension, or Google’s Uncle Sam service here.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
Cirilab: Entity Extraction
April 6, 2009
I took a quick look at Cirilab in order to update my files about entity extraction vendors.
Cirilab develops practical search, retrieval and categorization software designed to increase organizational productivity by effectively harnessing key knowledge resources. Cirilab offers a range of advanced analysis and organization applications and tools.
I learned about the company when another consultant sent me links to several online demonstrations of the Cirilab’s technology. I located an older but useful discussion of the Crilab technology here. You can explore a Wikipedia entry about Winston Churchill here and a document navigator of Sir Winston’s writings here. The engine generating these demos is called the KGE or Knowledge Generation. The idea is that KGE can process unstructured text and generate insights into that text.
Source: http://www.cirilab.com/TSMAP/Cirilab_Library/Literature/Winston_Churchill/WikiKMapPage/index.htm
The company’s enterprise solutions include vertical builds of the KGE:
- Publishing. The Web Ready Publishing service allows an organization to take unstructured data in WordPerfect, Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, and even Text files, and publish it in a Web Ready Publishing format so that it is instantly available to your customers in a thematically navigable format.
- Pharma. Cirilab can “read” the documents and therefore allow “mining” of existing data.
- Legal. KGE permits discovery of information.
- Security and intelligence. Cirilab products provide unique insights into this information not otherwise available.
The company offers a range of desktop products. These are excellent ways to learn about the features and functions of the Crilab’s KGE system.
More recently, Cirilab has succeeded in developing and bringing to market a core suite of technologies known as KOS (Knowledge Object Suite) based on its Multidimensional Semantic Spatial Indexing Technology.
You can register and receive a free, thematic map of your Web site. The company is located in Ottawa, Ontario. You can get more information here.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
Facebook Usage Data
April 6, 2009
Short honk: Mashable published Mark Ghuneim’s “How Big Is Facebook?” here. This is a very good round up of available estimates about the size of Facebook’s audience. This was one of the better sizings of the Facebook audience that I have seen. A happy quack to Mashable for these data.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
LexisNexis Sues Data Mining Wizard
April 6, 2009
LexisNexis is a unit of Reed Elsevier, the Anglo Dutch professional publishing outfit. In case you have been in a more remote area than Harrod’s Creek, you know that professional publishing companies, like their newspaper counterparts, are not in tall cotton. Publishing and its 16th century business model are out of step with the iPod equipped trophy generation cohorts. In short, there’s financial trouble in what once was a cash carnival.
I found the article “LexisNexis Sues Data-Mining Pioneer Henry Asher” here quite fascinating. Henry Asher sold a company called Seisint Technologies to the LexisNexis business mavens. The price? A reasonable pre crash, MBA crazed $775 million.
Flash forward from 2004 to 2009 and the Anglo Dutch giant is allegedly taking legal action against the data mining wizard for violating a non compete agreement which seems to be have been part of the deal terms.
The Law.com write up digs into some details that make lawyers salivate, but the addled goose finds the tidbits tasteless. What the addled goose does find worth pondering are these questions:
- Hasn’t technology in data mining advanced in four or five years? If not, what’s the difference? If it has, why the fuss about old technology?
- Why hasn’t a company with Reed Elsevier’s resources dominated the data mining market? Perhaps implementation and sales ability are an issue so customers want newer methods from those individuals who have been able deliver in the past?
- What’s the benefit to Henry Asher, a pretty savvy innovator, to take actions that would anger a multi billion dollar outfit that seems unable to generate sufficient new revenue to offset losses in the dead tree side of the firm’s business?
I wonder if there is more to this story than a spat over a non compete. I recall a number of conversations about non compete agreements. I am confused about some aspects of such agreements. In a lousy economy, a person must have sufficient latitude to innovate, commercialize, and build a successful business. The entity demanding a non compete probably sees financial trouble ahead and fears the consequences of a wizard who can deliver. Who is right? Who is wrong?
The addled goose will have to wait and see what the legal process spits outs. What this matter tells me is that tension and pressure are increasing at Reed Elsevier. Will some other problem burst to the surface? If I had more interest in the problems of professional publishing, I would poke into it. But in my view, these are ships modeled after the Titantics of the newspaper business. I will watch from the dock, thank you very much.
Stephen Arnold, April 6, 2009
SharePoint Online
April 5, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Tobias Zimmergren’s SharePoint Online—A First Look” here. On premises SharePoint installations are tar balls that become tar pits. The hapless information technology dinosaurs caught in these traps will struggle and probably die. Uncontrollable costs pull down even the brightest SharePoint wizards in a lousy economic climate.
Mr. Zimmergren’s article makes a very strong case for hosted SharePoint or what the trophy generation consultants call cloud based SharePoint. The idea is solid. Let experts figure out how to make SharePoint behave and maybe perform some useful content related tricks. The users access the needed SharePoint services via a broadband connection.
He does not talk about finding information in the SharePoint system, which is a major weakness of hosted SharePoint. If you can live with the limitations of Microsoft’s approach to indexing, then you are going to be happy. If not, you will have to pursue some other options.
I urge you to read Mr. Zimmergren’s write up. He explains how cloud based SharePoint works and provides useful information to those who may be singing the on premises SharePoint blues.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
Murdoch vs Google: Don Quixote Redux
April 5, 2009
Quite a thrill to read “
Murdoch Wants A Google Rebellion” by Dirk Smille in Forbes here. Forbes is the business magazine with the wacky Web site that befuddles me. This article has a subtitle that was almost a throwback to what made newspapers war fun to study. Either Mr. Smille or his editors wrote:
The media mogul says Google is stealing from publishers. It could be the call to arms that newsrooms need
I like the softening of the “newspaper war” metaphor to a “call to arms”. I waddled into this story with goose-like anticipation. Mr. Smille asserted:
Rupert Murdoch threw down the gauntlet to Google Thursday, accusing the search giant of poaching content it doesn’t own and urging media outlets to fight back. “Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?” asked the News Corp. chief at a cable industry confab in Washington, D.C., Thursday. The answer, said Murdoch, should be, ” ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ “
You will be hearing more about this challenge in my opinion. At one time, Mr. Smille upgrades a newspaper owner’s lament into a shotgun blast:
Barrel one: Google is stealing content. Keep in mind that the word “steal” means, according to my online and free dictionary
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
The use of the word creates a nifty duality—right wrong, black white, up down.
Barrel two: the phrase “fight back”. Google is in my opinion is on the wrong side of truth, justice, and the newspaper way. I have joked that Google is Godzilla, but Mr. Murdoch is taking this viewpoint and apparently using it to defend the traditional media empire from the predations of the GOOG.
Mr. Smille wrote what I think is an interesting sentence:
For now, newspapers’ attempts at gaming Google remain “rogue efforts,” says Anthony Moor, deputy managing editor of the Dallas Morning News Online and a director of the Online News Association. “I wish newspapers could act together to negotiate better terms with companies like Google. Better yet, what would happen if we all turned our sites off to search engines for a week? By creating scarcity, we might finally get fair value for the work we do.” Sounds like an idea Murdoch would endorse.
In my opinion, Mr. Murdoch has embraced the spirit of Don Quixote. The problem is that Google can move and windmills cannot. Another goosely thought: young folks are not too keen on traditional media in my opinion. Perhaps Mr. Murdoch will go ?after those folks too
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
The BBC and Google: Keeping on Top of the News
April 4, 2009
Short honk: When Sergey Brin’s name appears on a Google invention, my research suggested to me that the technology is important. You can track down Mr. Brin’s inventions any number of places, including the Arnoldit.com, my Google monographs, or (heaven help us) the USPTO. If you are the BBC, you discover this information that dates today and make it news. To see Mr. Brin’s interest in search, read Voice interface for a search engine – Patent 7027987. The BBC news story is here. The BBC will want to look at Mr. Page’s inventions. These are indicative of Google’s interests as well.
Stephen Arnold, April 5, 2009
Audiopoint VTS
April 4, 2009
You’ve got to love modern technology. Having been nearly blind before eye surgery, I can really appreciate Audiopoint’s Voice Terminal Service, http://www.audiopoint.net/VTS/. Now Audiopoint has expanded the VTS technology to allow the visually impaired to use the Internet, read and send e-mail, and even access Google Calendar with its agendas and address books, all by using simple voice commands. There’s a long list of features at http://www.voiceterminal.net/tour.jsp which includes the above as well as news, weather, stock quotes, entertainment and more. What’s even more exciting is that VTS is working on fully integrating the web and voice commands, which means voice-commanded search engines, web browsers and more are coming soon to a computer or smart phone near you. Here’s a happy quack for Audiopoint. Keep up the great work.
Jessica Bratcher, April 4, 2009
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