Yahoo’s Four Issues
December 26, 2008
TheStreet.com ran Eric Jackson’s “Reasons behind Yahoo’s Four Year Slump” here. Mr. Jackson does a good job of summarizing the received wisdom about the company’s challenges. Few can disagree that Yahoo’s leadership has been uninspired. Mr. Jackson moves quickly to identify product leadership leadership and the company’s organizational structure challenges. I wanted to add several observations that, in my opinion, also contribute to the company’s singular lack of effectuality:
First, the Yahoo technology generates one offs. News releases accompany these initiatives. That’s great for the public relations company and for the developers who hop on the Yahoo bandwagon. Build Your Own Search is a good example. Yahoo makes it easy for search developers to piggyback on Yahoo’s Web index. The excitement is certainly due to Yahoo’s making this service available without charge. Google offers some free searching too, but from what I hear the GOOG is quick to contact those developers who come to Google’s attention. Fees are never far from Googzilla’s mind. My point is that monetization does not seem to be a top priority at Yahoo. In today’s business environment, I think that is an issue.
Second, over the years Yahoo has acquired a wide range of companies. Based on the information I have, Yahoo had been content to let these outfits chug along. Yahoo was on the portal path when the GOOG decided to focus on search and seek inspiration from the Overture paid search service. The GOOG, whether by luck or input from former Altavista.com engineers, created a relatively homogeneous computing infrastructure. Not the Yahooligans. After collection companies, some of these outfits operated as services available within a portal, portlets, if you will. Instead of integrating acquisitions into a homogeneous platform, Yahoo has a more heterogeneous infrastructure. As a result, agility and cost control are difficult, if not impossible, for Yahoo to deliver on a daily basis.
Third, Yahoo has managed to create the internal environment that preceded the Pan Slavic initiatives of the last century. One the surface, Yahooligans get along and love one another. In the day to day dealings, I have heard that the sweetness and light dissipates. With cultural issues in information technology and the types of management and leadership problems at which Mr. Jackson hints, I think Yahoo is in a vulnerable position.
What will happen in 2009? The Yahoo of the 1996 to 1999 period will become a dim memory. The 2009 Yahoo is morphing into an America Online with a different logo. Now tell me why I am wrong. Just offer up some holiday facts to support your position.
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
Pew Speeds Quantifies the Dead Tree Blight in the Information Forest
December 25, 2008
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (a go-to info source for the Washington DC crowd) released a news story here with the snappy title “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Source.” the write up is typical charts and graphs style. You can wade through the data and the inevitable footnotes designed to make it easy for Statistics 101 teachers to create an assignment via cut and paste. For me, the key point was:
Currently, 40% say they get most of their news about national and international issues from the Internet, up from just 24% in September 2007. For the first time in a Pew survey, more people say they rely mostly on the Internet for news than cite newspapers (35%). Television continues to be cited most frequently as a main source for national and international news, at 70%.
The rest of the data are interesting but not the pivot point for me like this shift to the Internet and the crowning of TV as king for 2009.
The outlook for traditional publishing. Source: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/deforestation-2.jpg
My interpretation of these data, as you may expect, is slightly different from the “newspapers are dead” analysis I have offered in the past. Here’s the variant:
- More newspapers will chase the online world. I think this is akin to what I have seen described as death throes. These action presage the passing, not the dawning of a rebirth. Citizen input forms for breaking news, anyone?
- The magazines and professional journals are next in line. These intellectual mavens will find tough rowing when budget caps crash on hapless accountants, crushing the publishers of serials under the weight of increasing costs.
- The anti Google crowd needs to speed up their efforts to crush Google Video Search, YouTube.com, and the Google Channel. The children of the dead tree crowd are already defecting, so the publishing and media elite are not able to generate folks who share their mums’ and daddies’ love of 16th century intellectual artifacts. I can see the scene now. Mum says, “Take out the garbage.” Media child pulls iPod ear buds out of her ears and says, “What?” Media child goes back to the Macbook video, stuffs the ear buds in her ears, and grabs her iPhone to send a text message that says, “Parentz R 2 lame.”
Now you may point out that I omitted book publishers. No, I didn’t omit them. When the New York publishing houses started to announce cut backs in new titles last month, I wrote that segment off as intellectual meat through the sausage machine.
Okay, dead tree lovers, tell me I am wrong. Just include facts. Pew data are okay. Examples like the tiny 10,000 circulation newspaper in New Jersey are fine. Fancy books used to decorate law offices and upscale dwellings qualify as well. Just include data with your addled goose guidebook.
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
When Will the Dead Tree Times Come Crashing Down
December 24, 2008
Peter Kafka, writing in Media Memo, provided a useful summary of the New York Times’s bleak November 2008. You can read his article “New York times: November Was So Terrible, Even Our Internet Ads Were Down” in “D: All Things Digital” here. Mr. Kafka provides a link to more nitty gritty here. For my purposes, this key point was that Internet ad revenue and other Internet revenue declined as well. What is my agenda? Three points to bright your December 24th:
- What’s the big surprise? The Wall Street Journal’s early push into proprietary desktop software more than a decade ago and then its flirtation with BRS search generated losses as well. As one traditional newspaper after another brought its Gutenberg business model to online, revenues were not just down, most online ventures were disasters. Anyone recall the Knight Ridder “play”? Or, what about the Times’s own smooth move to kill the “Times file save tool”? Nice, especially with no provision to save the content elsewhere. Info about this gaffe is here.
- For most traditional publishers, the online train has left the station. I used to work at a newspaper, and I have watched costs run out of control. The response has been to trim down staff and raise rates. Stepping back and thinking about alternative business models was a common practice. Whilst pondering, new media luminaries rose (Mike Harrington’s TechCrunch) and new distribution systems (Google to name one) emerged. Where were the traditional newspapers? Most were congratulating themselves on their ability to “manage” their problems. Wrong. The management was a hoax, and the problems are not really expensive and painful to solve.
- It is not a question of which newspaper is next. My analysis suggests that the old doctrine of the Domino Theory” is right for our time and our place. Once the gray lady topples, the others will plummet with little or no warning. In death as in life, most of today’s dead tree publications are a bit like sheep. These four footed wizards are heading toward the cliff’s edge.
You can read Erick Schonfeld’s analysis here.
My thought picture of the New York Times and some other dead tree publishers. Source: http://parkerlab.bio.uci.edu/pictures/photography%20pictures/bigthumbs/screenDead%20tree%20on%20Inyo%20crest.jpg
I am delighted I have four or five readers. One or two may take issue with my opinions. If I reached more people, I would have to deal with assertions, cat calls, and so-so vilifications. My specialist study Publishing on the Internet: A New Medium for a New Millennium (Infonortics, 1996) included this statement:
… Technology’s impact cannot be predicted. Small innovations and incremental improvements interact almost organically and behave in complex ways. the use of those technologies and the impact of those instrumental applications of what appear to be harmless inventions create a new type of information environment. this environment is not routinely recognized as a distinct construct almost in the way that a fish does not recognize water. Experts on electronic information are only beginning to come to grips with the rhetorical and syntactical rules of the network publishing information types. The social impact is not fully understood. the implications for commerce, education, medicine, and politics are not understood. Indeed many think it is business as usual. We do not know what will come next. Many aspects of digital life seem unpredictable. they are. It is the datasphere showing its true colors.
I suggest beet red as the new color to signify failure. Okay, tell me why I am wide of the mark even for an addled goose in rural Kentucky.
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
Internet Explorer and European Users at Odds
December 24, 2008
Update: December 25, 2008–You will want to read this useful analysis of Microsoft’s brower market share woes here. Wolfgang Gruener has done a good job in his article “How serious is the market share loss of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer?”
Original Post
PCWorld ran a story called “IE Loses European Market Share” here. Certain types of data interest me, and I fancy statistics that chart the ups and downs of certain software giants. Microsoft is fun to watch. It offers what I call the “ejecting executive game.” The idea is to count the number of executives who leave the company’s search and content processing units. Another interesting activity is watching the company’s share of the Web search market. The Microsoft Web search 8.3 percent market share is documented here. Ouch. I found the data about Internet Explorer’s market share even more interesting; to wit:
Microsoft’s browser dipped under 60% for the first time in August, rallied slightly in September, but then dipped below that bar again during October and November, said XiTi Monitor, a Web measurement site operated by Applied Technologies Internet of Merignac, France.
Why the slip? Internet Explorer lacks those nifty plug ins and the cachet which seems to surround Firefox. I use Firefox portable, and I am delighted with its speed. I find it intuitive. The weird focus changes in Internet Explorer drive me wild with the opportunity to retype certain strings.
Add up the declining share of the Web search market, toss in a few ejected execs, and the loss of Internet Explorer users in Europe. Ask yourself, “What’s this mean?” And let you mind conclude that Microsoft has trouble in the old country.
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
Google and Microsoft: Question about Trust
December 24, 2008
I think you know the answer. The free market generated the current financial environment here in rural Kentucky. You may have a better time of it in your locale, however. When I read “Can Google and Microsoft Be Trusted with the Web?”, I know the answer. I will share it after a couple of comments. You will want to read Mat Asay’s article for CNet news here. The story was pegged by the impact of Chrome on Google’s Mozilla relationship and comments by Silicon Valley luminaries about the growing influence of Google and Microsoft. Mr. Asay also references the special “fast lane” Google allegedly floated to telcos until the Wall Street Journal broke the story. Google responded, “Who me?” Several observations:
- I am not sure Microsoft is carrying the same weight as the GOOG. Dominance of the Web is, in my opinion, Google’s area of expertise. Microsoft is probably flattered by inclusion, but I think its role is somewhat less than Google’s.
- What’s with the sudden concern? The GOOG has been plodding along for a decade and now people are concerned. Too late, in my opinion.
- Trust? Now I am not sure I trust anyone to manage the Web. I am confident that Google will make an effort to become the Web. Whatever falls within its grasp, it will use to its benefit. Not much of a surprise there in my opinion.
So, the answer to this question, Can Google and Microsoft Be Trusted with the Web?”, is “No.” A better question is, “What will Web users do about the situation?” I have no answer to this question. My instinct is that denial and procrastination may be useful tools. What’s your take? Here’s the Washington Post’s angle?
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
Google: Stomping Blinkx, Microsoft, Yahoo–Everybody
December 23, 2008
I am not a video centric person. But I have examined data that suggest in two or three years, rich media will be an increasingly big chunk of an organization’s data. I like to read; 15 year olds watch videos. The TechCrunch article here should make the blood run cold in quite a few search companies. Erick Schonfeld’s “YouTube Now 25 Percent of All Google Searches” means one thing–the Google is extending its lead in search. For me, the point of these data is not that the numbers are necessarily spot on. Stats never are when someone is tracking Internet traffic. The point is that users are becoming habituated to Googzilla. Well meaning but uninformed people who don’t look beyond the baloney generated by azure chip consultants miss the delayed impact of habits in online access. Once these habits are formed, competitors have to work overtime to change them. With Google’s dominance in search, why is it so difficult for folks to consider the implications of Google centric behavior in organizations? I figured it out a couple of years ago. The YouTube search data underscore the pay forward advantage the GOOG has in place.
Stephen Arnold, December 22, 2008
The Pompeii Effect: Google Books
December 22, 2008
I can hear in my addled goose brain two residents of Pompeii on the day of the eruption, “What’s that vibration?”
The second Pompeiian replies, “Nothing really. It will be okay tomorrow.”
I was thinking about the residents of Pompeii who remained in their town as Vesuvius sent signal after signal that a change was coming. Pompeiians adapted to the here and now, blocking the warning signs. Visit the ruins. What do you see? Plaster casts of those who denied reality frozen in time. The only problem is that these grim reminders are history, not the here and now. So, history in some ways repeats itself.
Pompeii today. Source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/74/199825971_2a6133cff7_b.jpg
What triggered thoughts of a giant volcano stirring to life? I read “A guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement” by Jonathan Band here. The article appeared on December 14, 2008, but I was too busy to read it. I regret the delay. The write up did a good job of walking me through the deal between Google, the Authors Guild, and the bastion of dead tree outfits, the Association of American Publishers. The settlement document consumes about 200 pages of dead tree output, which provides a hint of what’s inside. Lots of words to explain what I perceived as the end of traditional publishing. Like the eruption of Vesuvius, the event has occurred and publishers are now frozen in time just like these plaster casts of those who were not prescient enough to get out of town. Here is a figure described as a crying person. The individual just realized that tomorrow would be different.
Source: http://glutter.typepad.com/photos/italian_sculptures/pompei.jpg
You will need to work through Mr. Band’s write up. I want to highlight three comments that struck me as particularly significant. Remember: when you read the settlement and Mr. Band’s synopsis, you may reach a different conclusion. I am giving my opinion, which is a reminder to the dudes and dudettes who write to me as if I were creating something more than a free Web log recording my thoughts. Spare me the parental comments “You should” or “You need.” No, I won’t and I don’t.
Point 1: Who Controls Distribution?
Mr. Band does not address this point. The elephant in the settlement is that Google is the distribution mechanism. The deal “wraps” traditio0nal publishing in a package and puts that package within the GOOG. Control, therefore, is abrogated by the publishers. Mr. Band noted:
The settlement explicitly “neither authorizes nor prohibits, nor releases any Claims with respect to … any Participating Library’s Digitization of Books if the resulting Digitized Books are neither provided to Google pursuant to this Settlement Agreement nor included in any LDC, or the use of any such Digitized Books that are neither provided to Google pursuant to this Settlement Agreement nor included in any LDC.” (p. 20-21) In other words, the settlement does not restrict fully participating, cooperating, public domain, or other libraries from engaging in other digitization projects outside of the settlement.
With Google touching two thirds of the queries, who is going to go where? As budgets get more severely squeezed, who’s going to offer another access path? The Gates Foundation? More access means more traffic for Google.
The ash is now settling in my opinion.
Point 2: Term in “Google’s Obligations”
Mr. Band summarizes Google’s obligations to do something in five years. When I reflect on what’s happened to the economics of America and traditional publishing in the last 12 months, are you going to predict what will happen in five years? I will. The GOOG becomes the 21st century of the type of monopoly for which Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan prayed. Who has the money, the regulatory clout, and the influence to slow the GOOG? Amazon? Microsoft? Yahoo? I have thought about a wizard emerging from Croatia to rework online information, but as I said in The Google Legacy, the hoped for alternative to Google will just build on the Google. Salvation then becomes another Google, right?
Point 3: Arbitration
Okay, you are going out of business. Your savings are gone. Inflation is rampant. If you worked for a dead tree publisher, that outfit has sucked the pension money months ago. Google offers to wheel and deal for your writings. What will you do? Tough question for you. Not for me. As a writer of really lousy stuff, I will take Googzilla’s deal. I get the promise of ad revenue. I may get a cash payment. I may get free access to information so I can write more so-so reports. In short, as Google’s economic power grows via its business model and superior infrastructure, Google can morph from distributor to full-service end-to-end information River Rouge. Yep, arbitration is really going to work in this hypothetical environment. Arbitration works pretty well when each party has skin in the game and the balance of power is reasonable. In today’s economy with the deterioration of globalization and the emergence of Google as a nation state, arbitration is an interesting notion.
To sum up, I think the deal with publishers and the Authors Guild is a digital eruption of Vesuvius. The landscape has been changed. Okay, now marshal your facts and disagree. I enjoy the assertions of modern day Pompeii residents saying, “Nah, Nothing to worry about.” Check out the image below.
No big deal. Wrong. Big deal.
Stephen Arnold, December 22, 2008
Gates Foundation Indirectly Aids Google, Hurts Microsoft
December 21, 2008
When I saw the story about the Gates Foundation pumping money into libraries to boost their free Internet access, I wondered if Google was quietly celebrating. You can get the details about the $7 million grant here. The intent was admirable. The indirect impact, in my opinion, will be a boost to the Google. PBS’s take on the story shows that the Gates Foundation dug into data:
The Gates Foundation noted that a recent study by the ALA found that nearly three out of four libraries – 73% – are the only source of free public Internet access in their communities.
The problem is that Google’s dominance of search is growing in America’s garbage can, inflationary economy. With more than 60 to 75 percent of the search market in Google’s paws, the Gates Foundation money is creating more Google traffic. I wonder if the Gates Foundation considered hard wiring the browsers to use only Live.com’s search system. If the trial program works out, the Gates Foundation may provide more cash so Google gets even more traffic. For those who doubt that Google has won the search wars, why not explain to me what’s wrong with my hypothesis? Bring some facts, please. Assertions by angry 30 year olds don’t move me.
Stephen Arnold, December 21, 2008
.
Google Saves Dilbert
December 21, 2008
There are skeptics about Google’s impact, potential, and domination of search. Well, there’s one more believer. Scott Adams. The story appeared in the London Times here. “Google Was My Doctor” tells an interesting story. The creator of the popular comic strip Dilbert had a worsening medical problem. His doc was not optimistic and uninformed.
Mr. Adams created a Google alert and received useful information. The Google made it possible for Mr. Adams to resolve his health issue. For me, the most important comment in the article was:
I never would have found that path without Google alerts. It makes me wonder how far the Dr Google trend can go and what impact that can have on society’s medical costs.
The reason I mention this article is that the Google is slowly becoming a force in medical information. I know that librarians will point to the wonders of commercial medical information services. Heck, 20 years ago I was involved in Pharmaceutical News Index, and Google blows that system out of the water by accident. Are the commercial medical information companies aware of the Google. Sure, but I don’t most of these outfits think Google is savvy enough to master the mysteries of MeSH. The low profile health records test in Ohio is off the radar.
Just keep in mind that the Google saved Dilbert, and I think that in a year or so those pundits who ignore Google’s impact in medical information will regret their confidence that the Google has only a tiny role to play. The Web search market has lost its battle. Google in the enterprise is effectively over because Google need only sit back and let its demographic strategy play out. Now medical information. Do you know about Google’s patent document that makes the mobile phone a medical monitoring gizmo? Might be worth checking out before you write me and tell me that I am an addled goose ready for the oven. Conference organizers take note. Are you getting the “game plan” talk or are you getting solid insight into what the GOOG has in store for online information? My hunch is that dead tree publishers who run conferences have zero idea about this notion. Sigh.
Stephen Arnold, December 21, 2008
ChunkIt’s Evolution of Search
December 21, 2008
Happy quacks to the readers of this Web log for sending me links and snippets from “The Evolution of Search” by Admin here. I tried to answer the questions two people sent me about statements in this article. I wanted to offer some broad comments before these ideas get lost in the lumber room of my small goose brain. Keep in mind that this little goose brain of mine has concluded that Google has “won” the search wars. With an expanding market share in a down economy, its competitors have yet to demonstrate that they can kill the GOOG or leapfrog the beast. This, I hope, will be a controversial assertion and whip some of my readers into a crazed frenzy. I have learned that this type of open discussion does wonders for Web log traffic. Honk, honk.
ChunkIt is savvy enough to play the same game. So, the first point about “The Evolution of Search” is that the information is designed to promote ChunkIt, and there is nothing wrong with that. Second, the notion of evolution allows the author to create a narrative. In some places, the story line is a bit stretched, but in its broad outlines, a reader comes away from the article with an understanding of the unpredictability of search. Finally, the conclusion is also okay with me because the write up is clearly labeled as a ChunkIt effort. I don’t find anything wrong with tooting one’s own horn. Click here to buy a copy of Martin White’s and my new study Successful Enterprise Search Management. Monkey see, monkey do. That’s the story of the webby world, both digital and goose varieties I must say.
I want to comment on three points in the ChunkIt evolution article. I am not out to win friends and influence people, so stop reading if my penchant for looking at issues from a different perspective gives you a migraine. Cyrus, Martin, Bye Barry. Yes. I mean you.
First, the whole search revolution was a fluke. Search is actually old, much older than today’s 20-somethings think. There were corollaries for today’s neatest systems in the 1960s and 1970s. The systems sucked because of the limitations of hardware and programming tools. As the hardware became cheaper and more robust, programming tools hip hopped right along. Now, three decades later, whiz kids are dipping into their copy of Numerical Recipes and reinventing the past. So, the explosion of information, the shift to more users and a broader market, and the emergence of more capable, smarter software blundered forward in a two steps forward and one step back mode. By the mid 1990s, the avalanche had shifted from potential to real energy. I don’t do much history in my analyses of search because the same old stuff keeps getting recycled. History is a mass of cheap spaghetti, not a tidy box of pasta. ChunkIt falls into the trap of making a mess fit into a box. That does not work for me. You may find the approach useful. I don’t.
My view of the evolution of search. This image is from the Joe-KS Web site. What a wonderful illustration of the evolution of search technology. Source: http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_apr2006/EvolutionOfMan.jpg
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
