Ad Networks
November 30, 2008
The Overflight technology here sparked some inquiries from companies in the ad network business. I never pay much attention to online advertising. My view is that if a Web site offers content, the Web indexing systems will find you. A good example is the Overflight service announced on November 17, 2008. On November 18, the site was not in the Google index. By November 20, 2008, the Overflight site ranked sixth in the results list for the word Overflight. As I write this before getting on a flight to Europe, the Overflight sight ranking in the results list for the query “overflight” is number two. No metatag spamming, no SEO baloney, no nothing. We index content and provide what seems to me to be a useful service. We are now adding some other features to the public facing Web site. The most interesting will be the use of the Exalead CloudView technology. This is a joint effort between my technically challenged goslings and the French wizards at Exalead. Watch for the announcement shortly. The service is in final testing and looks quite good so far.
But the ad network calls to me put me in unfamiliar territory. I have researched Google’s AdSense, which makes use of the Oingo (Applied Semantics) technology plus many Google inventions, enhancements, and tweaks. My focus on AdSense and its sister AdWords created for me a volcanic island of information. I thought that Google * was * online advertising.
The yellow box marks the Overflight result on November 29, 2008.
After a bit of research Google is not the only game in town. Sure, there are the Microsoft and Yahoo services that I know by name. A bit of sleuthing turned up a large number of outfits who are in the business of selling ads to companies wanting to reach online users. One of them is the AutoChannel.com, a company with which I have been associated for years. Because of the volume of traffic, the Auto Channel gets, I saw its name as a place where companies wanting to reach auto enthusiasts could advertise. You can learn more about this directly from the company. Just navigate here for the media kit.
I located on the Web logs at ZDNet here a useful list here of what the company calls “Top 50 US Ad Carriers in October 2008.” The usual suspects appear on this list, but there were many firms whose names I did not recognize. I clicked on about a dozen of the top ranked firms and learned that each provides a wide range of services both the high traffic Web sites looking to generate revenue and to advertisers who want to place messages on sites germane to their core markets. I can’t reproduce this list, but I think I can give you a flavor of the diversity of firms in this sector. Here are three companies I found interesting, but your taste is likely to be different from this goose’s:
Search: Fast and Loose
November 29, 2008
Two news items do not make a trend, but two news items cause me to question what other shenanigans are afoot. The first item concerns British Telecom. The story “BT in Trouble over Secret Behavioral Ad Tests” appeared in WebProNews on November 28, 2008, here. BT seems to be involved in a legal matter related to using Phorm to sniff out data from unsuspecting customers. Gee, I wonder if other telecommunications companies have done things without their customers’ knowledge? Nah, probably not. The second item concerns online advertising. Ars Techica’s “Baidu Caught in Search Ad Scandal, Vows to Overhaul System” here does a good job of explaining some hitches in its relevance ranking. Ars Technica does a good job of explaining the alleged fraud. Baidu has been the target of criticism and litigation despite legal action from the recording industry. Perhaps these are outliers? My thought is that BT and Baidu might be harbingers?
Stephen Arnold, November 29, 2008
Alexa Search: The Gone-Goose Flock Grows
November 29, 2008
I had heard rumblings about Alexa for a while. Early in 2008, I had to gather information about Alexa’s infrastructure. I uncovered some information that did not add up. Great words about the future of Alexa, but the performance was spotty. Amazon–owner of Alexa–is making some changes, if the news reports are accurate. The world’s smartest man may be, in the words of TechFlash, Seattle’s Technology News Source, “pulling the plug”. You can read the story here. “Amazon Pulling Plug on Alexa Web Search” said on November 27, 2008, said, “The reason for the closure: very few people were using it.” The Bezos word for this was “deprecated.” I thought “deprecate” meant “to pray for deliverance from”. Don’t believe me? Click here and look at definition number four. So, the Search Engine Death Watch list grows again. For more information about Alexa, click here. What’s next for Amazon? My thought is that in the present economic climate, Amazon will have to crank the revenue dials for its we’re-better-than-Google cloud computing play. I think the cost of the cloud initiative at Amazon may be rolling in from the Sea of Red Ink. I hope the weather system goes around Amazon, but if it hits, wow, the costs will be high.
Stephen Arnold, November 29, 2008
Google: ZDNet and Two Views of Usage Data
November 29, 2008
This item is not really about Google. I think I found it interesting that ZDNet UK wrote a story here with the headline “Yahoo, Microsoft Outperform US Search Growth” and ZDNet US wrote a story here with this headline “Microsoft Still Fighting a Losing Battle against Google”. I detected a certain joy in the UK story. The GOOG is not growing so quickly. The fact that hapless AOL is giving up share in a lousy economic climate to other Web search outfits is not too surprising. The US ZDNet analyst, Garett Rogers, reproduces a chart and suggests that Google is still growing, just not as quickly. I think data from outfits like Comscore and others are only somewhat helpful. Based on the resources to which I have access, I peg Google’s share of the Web search market in the 75 percent range with its share in certain countries in Europe nosing into the 90 percent range. The big point for me is that most people, including trained analysts, have a reluctance to accept three facts:
- Google’s share of the search market is dominant and it is unlikely that short of the Google triumvirate having a shoot out in the Google cafeteria, not much is going to change in the foreseeable future
- Microsoft and Yahoo are not making significant headway because users are not running queries on these systems. The problem is not Google; the problem is the user.
- The data from consultants who make a horse race out of sampled data output stuff that does not make the conclusion easy to understand.
In Web search, the GOOG is number one, and unless Yahoo and Microsoft figure out how to leapfrog Googzilla, the gap is likely to remain quite wide. Clicks mean money. Paying money for traffic won’t do the job. Yahoo, bless its purple heart, has one heck of a mess to sort out. Selling the Kelkoo search system that worked while keeping one that doesn’t work very well is one sign that the company is drifting. Yahoo lost money on the deal and kept the less effective system.
Stephen Arnold, November 29,, 2008
Knowledge Plaza
November 28, 2008
Whatever, a Belgian enterprise solutions start-up, just rolled out Knowledge Plaza Platform as a Service for search and multi-user companywide knowledge management combined into one shareable, customized interface. The idea is to tap all user data and experience. In theory, no knowledge is lost, and users can learn from others in an interactive environment. See features detailed here, and note the Expert as Search Engine (EaSE), which searches user bookmarks in both the plaza and online so that one employee can search other user assets. There’s also a wiki setup and browser and e-mail integration.
Check it out at http://www.knowledgeplaza.be. They’re scheduling demos now. The product appears to be in the same category as Yakabox, which we talked about here. As I get more information, I will pass it along.
Stephen Arnold, November 28, 2008.
Bebo Says Google a Nightmare
November 28, 2008
This story is getting pretty tough to locate online. I found a version at Mad.co.uk, and you can try to access “Bebo’s Burns Labels Google a Nightmare to Deal with” here. The story is hooked to Kate Burns, a person who was according to the story by Suzanne Bearne was “Google’s first employee in the UK.” Apparently the comments were made at a public forum in the UK. The article reports that another speaker described Google as a “parasite”. The most interesting comment in the article, in my opinion, was this chunk of prose:
Kelvin Mackenzie, chairman of Myvideorights.com and former editor of The Sun, said, YouTube is a fantastic idea but the piracy issues involved with the company are “a disgrace for smaller companies.”
My pal Cyrus, the world’s smartest person in his mind, often accuses me of Photoshopping Google information. Here is the screen shot I made of the Mad Web page. Sorry about the resolution Cyrus, but that’s the way WordPress handles images.
Source: http://www.mad.co.uk
I have several thoughts in my addled goose brain which I intend to capture:
- A former employee had to learn how to deal with Google. This suggests that Google is changing, so that former Googlers may not be able to provide the “inside Google” knowledge that many organizations want
- The word “nightmare” is quite colorful and its suggests that my mental image of Googzilla which I débuted in early 2005 is works for me. Your mental image of Google may differ from mine, of course.
- The combination of Google’s culture and the YouTube.com service seem to be an explosive combination for some non-Googley types. However, I bet their children are hooked on YouTube.com and mom and dad won’t admit that from a demographic point of view, Google may be rooted for the long haul.
One final thought: this story is getting hard to find. Yahoo 404s. NewsNow.co.uk reports zero hits. No reference in AllTheWeb.com news. But I found the story using the query “bebo burns” on Google News at 10 44 am Eastern on November 27, 2008.
That’s interesting to me. Now I want to run the query “google nightmare.”
Stephen Arnold, November 28, 2008
Google: No Semantic Search
November 27, 2008
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to “Google Not Interested in Semantic Search.” You can read the short article on Tech Startups 3.0 here. The source of the statement is Marissa Mayer. In the article Ms. Mayer makes clear that Google is not chasing the natural language processing juggernaut. The article reported that Google can do semantics with Google’s “large amounts of data.” In my opinion Google is dragging a large, quite smelly red herring across this topic. If you are curious about Google’s interest in semantics, you may want to look at the five patent applications filed in February 2007 by Ramanathan Guha. You will need to brush up on Dr. Guha’s background; for example, he was involved in writing the W3C semantic documents, and his technology delivers what Google calls “context.” Ms. Mayer is separating Google’s approach to semantics from Microsoft’s approach. My thought is that Google’s method of communication is designed to keep Google the warm fuzzy company everyone used (not the tense) to love. I don’t buy this statement for a devalued US penny. What about you? If you can locate a copy, I contributed to an analysis of Google’s semantic technology published by Bear Stearns in 2007. Too bad the company is history. The report suggests that Ms. Mayer is doing some wordsmithing if the Tech Startup’s story is on the beam.
Stephen Arnold, November 27, 2008
Autonomy: Swifter than Google Again
November 27, 2008
A plumb content processing and information infrastructure project found itself a happy home at Autonomy. the win wraps up a strong November 2008 for the Cambridge-based company. You can read the story here. Autonomy said that:
the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a global provider of secure financial messaging services and the acknowledged leader in international standards-setting for the financial industry, chose Autonomy to power its corporate Web site, www.swift.com, Intranet and Extranet. Autonomy’s core infrastructure software the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) was chosen after a competitive procurement owing to its unmatched conceptual capabilities, scalability and mapped security model.
For me, the key point is that this is another big win for Autonomy. In the last year, Autonomy has focused on identifying and winning big deals. Some vendors announce agreements to index Web sites, a business that Google is eroding with its free Customer Search Engine. Not Autonomy. The company hunts whales. Swift is as swift does.
Stephen Arnold, November 27, 2008
Google: A Glimpse of 2009’s Tactics
November 26, 2008
CNet’s Tom Krazit wrote “Google Admists Breaking App Store Rules.” You can read the full text of this article here. My thought was that only those in the know would understand that “App Store” meant Apple and its fuzzy wuzzy policies regarding what’s in and what’s out on the iPod software store. I also considered the idea that the notion of Google “breaking” one or two “rules” would be ignored. Big companies often do what’s best for themselves, not doing what upholds a Platonic ideal of “good” for others. For me, the most interesting comment in the story was:
A Google spokesman confirmed Tuesday that Google Mobile uses undocumented APIs (application programming interfaces) in order to use the iPhone’s proximity sensor to prompt a verbal search. iPhone developers were only supposed to use the APIs that Apple published in its SDK when they create their applications under the terms of that agreement.
However, as an idle and addled goose, I did more thinking about this Apple-Google connivance. Here are my thoughts. Please, keep in mind that I am expressing an opinion. Hopefully making this statement will spare me the sugary emails that Google’s brilliant PR minds fire at me like cotton candy missiles from the sorority or fraternity house second story windows during a toga party. To wit:
Google is going to throw its weight around and companies–even mountain top opeations like Apple on Infinity Drive–will go along to get along. In fact, I am considering 2009 the year that Googzilla gets into the Mixed Martial Arts’ ring with some other, more cantakerous combatants. Fighters in the featherweight division will want to steer clear of the heavyweight fights that are now almost guaranteed.
Why is the GOOG getting more physical? Three reasons:
- I think the GOOG’s cash flow, while still good, is flattening. Google’s own math gurus don’t need to do much pencil sharpening to figure out that the financial downturn is going to make getting braces put on Googzilla’s children a trivial expense. The GOOG is going to tighten its belt and fight to generate revenue.
- The competition is exposing its neck and liver to killer blows. In my opinion, Google’s competition is getting weaker, not stronger. There’s Yahoo. I don’t think that company is much of a threat for the foreseeable future. There’s Microsoft which is again distracted with legal hassles, many products, and the curse of the Wii, the Zune, and Microsoft Fast tie up. There’s the evil Hulu, but video is a black hole of cost. In the search and content processing sector, the GOOG is hugely disruptive. Even though competitors are making sales, Google continues to seep into organizations with Maps, Apps, and Gmail without much organization or direction. Therefore, a big of muscle might just make it possible for the GOOG to get more revenue quickly.
- Regulators are clueless. Google continues to do what it wants because people are just darned happy to have a Googler give them a flashing lapel pin, a T shirt, lunch at the Google headquarters, or one of those candy colored mouse pads. People fawn over Googzilla, overlooking the fangs, the claws, and the really bad predator breath. I am still surprised that the GOOG doesn’t sell its own brand of mints.
To sum up, Mr. Krazit’s story evoked these thoughts, which will sail right over the Webby world in which we live. This goose sees the future behavior of Google in this tiny, trivial, single Google judo chop to Apple’s policies. Are you exposing a vital part to the GOOG? A good defence may be the best offense in 2009.
Stephen Arnold, November 26, 2008
Google Search Trivia
November 26, 2008
MarketWatch reported the Nielsen Online MegaView Search rankings for October 2008 on November 25, 2008. You can read the small print table here. (This is a wacky url, and the link may go dead at any moment.) One comment in the article caught my attention:
An estimated 4.8 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 61.2 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.
With our trusty pencil and paper, one of my colleagues created this table:
| 4,800,000,000 | queries in 31 days |
| 154,838,710 | per day |
| 6,451,613 | per hour |
| 107,527 | per minute |
| 1,792 | per second |
Google’s plumbing appears to operate at about 1,700 queries per second. Seems speedy to me. If my assistant’s math is wacky, let me know. My thought was that if you divide the number of queries per second per month into Google’s capital expenditures over the last decade, you get another big number. In fact, that big number is the one that companies competing with Google have to match or better yet beat either by dumping money on the problem or being smarter than Google. One challenge is that Google, despite its cut backs, is not slowing down in the infrastructure department so the gap between Google and its nearest competitor may be increasing. What’s your take on these numbers? Useful or baloney?
Stephen Arnold, November 26, 2008
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