Search as You Type: Been There, Done That
November 25, 2008
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to this article about Keyboardr here. The idea is that you can get search results without having to launch a browser, navigate to the search engine of your choice, type a query, and review results. The service “executes and displays searches as you type.” I think this type of service may have some utility. My addled goose recollection is that Autonomy introduced a similar service in 2000, maybe earlier. You can read this interesting article about Autonomy’s system here. If the link is dead, you can locate 1,000 other stories about Autonomy’s innovation with this Google query “Autonomy kenjin”. I really am an old goose. I keep seeing more and more innovations that are not new. Young folks just rediscover something that has already been done. A me too product is fine. Product extensions are fine. What’s not so fine is the positioning of a product as a new new thing. Take this shortcut in the pharmaceutical industry, and the innovator could be giving a deposition. You can get more information about Keyboardr here.
Stephen Arnold, November 25, 2008
Google Chrome: Eyeballs, Data, and Money
November 25, 2008
More information about Google Chrome seems to be drizzling into my newsreader. You will want to read Matt Asay’s “Microsoft Meets Its Match in Google; Chrome to Go Retail.” You can read this CNet story here. What I liked about this story is that it used the word “retail” in the headline. Mr. Asay also includes a link to a good Ars Technica article as well. For me, the most interesting comment in the article was:
Google is apparently preparing to compete with Microsoft at its own game (i.e., bundling its browser on new PCs). Once installed, there’s a very good chance that consumers will end up using Chrome. Once it’s there, all it takes is one article talking about Firefox or Chrome as being superior to IE in security or some other feature and consumers may well ditch the IE icon.
In my little goose pond, I think this “Google installed” angle is important for three reasons.
- Google wants eyeballs. Since most people buying a PC or mobile device use what’s installed, Google wants those eyeballs. I anticipate an arms race between Google and Microsoft. Yep, cash will change hands, and the stakes will be high.
- Google wants data. Clicks are it at the GOOG. Some of the uninformed fraternity officers who end up in Google PR might not know exactly what Google counts. Nevertheless, Google gobbles clicks, converts them to data, and then squeezes actionable information from those data. Google assumes that when Chrome is installed, eyeballs become clicks. Clicks are good.
- Google wants money. Chrome is a part of a larger Google money machine. Just as Henry Ford envisioned River Rouge as a big system. Put iron ore from Duluth in one end and Fords roll out the other. In my research, I think River Rouge is too small for Google’s ambitions.
I will keep watching the GOOG and its interesting Chrome technology. I wondered what that patent documents were talking about when the notion of virtualization, janitors, and tokenization kept popping up in odd place. Now I think I know a bit more. A digital River Rouge for the 21st century. What do you think?
Stephen Arnold, November 25, 2008
Getting Ready for the SEO Grilling
November 24, 2008
For the last 20 years, I have been attending and participating in the International Online Show. The show is now in the capable hands of Incisive, a UK based company. Each year, there are one or two sessions that catch my attention. The show next week in London promises to be interesting for me. I am giving a talk about the future of search and participating in a panel about search engine optimization. I can summarize my endnote in one word: Google. My talk explains how Google will have more impact in the enterprise search market than it did in 2008. If you want to know how and what, you will have to attend or wait until I post a summary of the speech. I don’t make a PowerPoint deck available before my talks. I prefer posting a PDF of my speaker notes and letting those interested link to that version of my remarks.
But SEO. That is the session that could cause me to gulp another blood pressure pill.
SEO: Consultant Heaven
I want to be crystal clear: SEO is a practice that annoys me. The reason is that content and correct code are what I value. SEO is a package of hocus pocus designed to create the sense that tricks will cause a Web page to appear at the top of a results list. Since most people don’t create substantive content, most Web sites don’t provide the indexing systems with much to process. Other outfits use a content management system like the ancient Broadvision or the remarkable Vignette. These systems generate Web pages that some Web indexing systems cannot process. Other people create Web pages with scripting errors. Sure, my team and I make scripting errors, and we try to fix them. If we can’t, we create a page without the offending function and live with the simplified presentation. Other companies pay 20 somethings from Cooper Union to create Web sites entirely in Silverlight, Flash or Adobe AIR. When a Web indexer or crawler hits these sites, the indexing system may not have much to work with or have to work overtime to figure what the site is “about”. I could list some other flaws in Web sites, but you get the idea. Click here for a listing of SEO experts.
Will you be the victim of an SEO consultant’s hold up?
Now people who are clueless about what good content is or what resources are required to create good content, don’t show up in a Google, Yahoo, or Live.com (maybe a new name is coming soon) results list. You can see this problem by running a query for “financial services.” You don’t get much meat because the phrase “financial services” has been co-opted by the SEO consultants.
Microsoft as She Be Perceived in Arabia
November 24, 2008
My newsreader is set to deliver me items from the whizziest consulting firms in the world. What I saw a few minutes ago surprised me. First, you have to read “Microsoft Brings Out Next-Gen Enterprise Suite,” which ran in Trade Arabia: Business News and Information here.
The article does a reasonable job of summarizing the major Microsoft server initiatives. The big gun is Microsoft’ virtualization technology, which has been a matter of some discussion. One consulting firm reported that it gobbled market share faster than my beautiful but dim boxer show dog. Then Paul Thurrott, publisher of a Windows information site and star of Twit network’s Windows Weekly reported that getting Hyper V to run was no easy task. I am confident Microsoft will get the bugs out of the software, probably already has.
Then the article sales into SQL Server 2008 territory. Microsoft has been investing in SQL Server for many years. Different consultants report different database vendor market shares. I have seen reports that peg Oracle as king of the data mountain. I have also seen studies that make DB2 the big dog. Trade Arabia references a study from the stellar consultancy Forrester, saying:
According to a September 2008 report conducted by Forrester Research, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 already has the strongest combination of price, performance, manageability, security and productivity.
Well, if Forrester and its legions of industry experts in most technologies uses the word “strongest”, I definitely know I have the received wisdom of the best brains money can hire.
The article concludes by describing Silverlight as he industry’s most comprehensive and powerful solution for the creation and delivery of applications and media experiences through a Web browser,”
Now, when I step back from the facts or assertions in the article, I recall that I am seeing more and more Microsoft cheerleading from the Eastern Mediterranean. My hypothesis is that Microsoft is making a push for sales and market share in this sector. I may be wrong, but I will keep my eyes open for more information on this topic.
But the larger issue for me is what is not in the article. Perhaps it was editing, but I keep thinking that Google uses its data management tools and MySQL. In fact, I recall hearing some talk at a recent conference that MySQL is the number one database in terms of Web applications. What about Flash? What about virtualization alternatives.
The Trade Arabia article is a masterful presentation of Microsoft technology as the only game in town. The problem is, I don’t believe it. But if big companies sniff this catnip, who am I to produce facts that get in the path of the baloney machines. This goose could become liver paste in a New York minute.
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2008
YouTube.com: Big Cleats
November 24, 2008
YouTube.com seems to have new winter tires with big cleats. First, YouTube.com staged a live event. You can read about it here. I was less impressed with the content and more impressed with the fact that Google, like Microsoft, had to resort to third parties to handle the load. Video is expensive, and the GOOG will have to crack the code for revenue in order to keep the bills from exceeding the revenue. Next, SeekingAlpha reported that YouTube.com was the “third largest search engine.” SeekingAlpha said here:
YouTube has long been acknowledged as the far-and-away frontrunner in online video, with close to 63 million US-based visitors in October 2008, according to Compete. Less well-known has been YouTube’s status as a top-ranking search engine. Last month, YouTube served nearly 770 million search queries, making it the third largest search engine, according to Compete’s October Search Market Share.
Google has some patent documents that provides insight into the monetizing options available. The financial winter that is settling upon online means that Google will need some snow tires with big cleats. These are the big, chunky tires with savage rows of grippers.
At the same time, Hulu.com continues to be praised for its professional programming. In addition, Blinkx, another video search engine, is trying to buy Miva (the old FindWhat.com) to get some ad traction itself. My take on all this is that TV is coming to the Internet.
Wonderful.
I don’t watch TV. Another vast wasteland is being created I fear.
Stephen Arnold, November 24, 2008
Google: Try This on Windows Server
November 23, 2008
Google has thrown down a gauntlet to the supercomputer crowd. You can read “Sorting One Petabyte with MapReduce” here. To learn more about MapReduce, click here. Now this recent Google gauntlet is digital, not one of those Sir Walter Scott fictional jobs with yellow tassels and brass fittings. Google is saying, “Take a terabyte of data and sort it. Now beat this time: 68 seconds. Once you have that whipped, take one petabyte of data and sort it. Beat this time: 362 minutes. You can read the details, get a comparison so you have a sense how much data a petabyte comprises, and even a touch of Googley humor. The sentence begins, “We are not aware…” If you don’t laugh out loud, well, you aren’t Googley. Why mention this type of lab rat exercise? Four reasons:
- In my opinion Google is reminding the folks who are yapping about how fast their supercomputers are that the GOOG is running a zippy computer too
- Make it clear to Microsoft that it has some work to do to match Google’s as is data center performance
- Show that Google can tackle big data as part of its real world applications. If you allow unlimited block uploads to Google Base, then you darn well have to whip that stuff around withoiut choking the services that pay the bills like ads.
- Put a benchmark in place so that competitors like IBM, Oracle, and Yahoo get a hint about how far ahead in data management Google is now. Today. This instant. IBM’s, Oracle’s, and even Yahoo’s technologists may be able to say their system is as good as Google’s. Google is too polite to come right out and say, “We’re faster across the board on certain key benchmarks.”
Oh, I am feeling frisky this Sunday morning. Here’s a thought for you: if you don’t care about these sort speeds, I guarantee that you will have a tough time understanding what the GOOG has been doing for the last decade while everyone talked about the company as an ad agency.
Stephen Arnold, November 23, 2008
Yahoo Shopping Search
November 22, 2008
My mother had a black thumb. She could plant a flower, and it would die. My father, on the other hand, could grow tomatoes that would spawn softball-sized fruit without doing much more than dropping the seed on the ground. Yahoo is a bit like my mother, not with plants but with growing profitable businesses. I read in TechCrunch a story by Ouriel Ohayon here that Yahoo sold its Kelkoo property. Yahoo had a shopping search at the time of the 2004 acquisition. Yahoo still has its not too useful to me shopping site today. What it doesn’t have is the $450 million the company lost on the deal. Yahoo has a financial black thumb.
Its inability to integrate acquisitions has long been one of the company’s most glaring weaknesses. The sale of Kelkoo proves once again that Yahoo doesn’t integrate its acquisitions in the manner of Google. Yahoo can own a property for four years and sell it like I would sell one of my goslings. Not much integration evident, do you think?
And what about Yahoo’s shopping search at this pivotal time of the retail year? In my opinion, I don’t think it is very good. Someone responded to my earlier criticism of Yahoo’s shopping search by pointing me to Kelkoo. Well, that won’t work now, will it. Try this test. Navigate to Yahoo.com, click the “shopping” label above the search box, and you will see the bold face “shopping” to alert you that you are now running a shopping search. Now enter this query: “penguin bracelet”. What do you see? Well, I got this page of results:
Now navigate to Google, click products, and run the same query. Here’s what I received from the GOOG:
I know these screen shots are difficult to read due to WordPress’s helpful image compression algorithm. But the key point is that the Yahoo results includes zero nada zippo penguin bracelets. Google delivers me penguin bracelets.
Similar queries return similar results. I am not sure why the Yahoo system does not do a better job of figuring out what I want when I run a query. Maybe I am not as tuned into the Yahoo “way”? Maybe Yahoo is not as tuned into what I want when I run a query? Maybe it is just a lousy search system and method? I use Yahoo less and less because it’s search system continues to unhelpful for me. Google, despite its weird positioning of Google Products is getting better.
My hypothesis: Google has my father’s green thumb. Yahoo has my mother’s black thumb (may she rest in peace). Not only does Yahoo have the uncanny ability to muff its acquisitions, Yahoo can’t find penguin bracelets.
Frankly I am tired of Yahoo technologists telling me that Yahoo’s engineering is as good or better than Google’s. I just don’t buy that argument. I can’t relate to black thumbs, and it is a fact that I can’t buy a penguin bracelet via the Yahoo shopping search system. I can, however, buy a pink penguin bracelet, a gold penguin bracelet, and silver blue gray penguin bracelet from Google.
Stephen Arnold, November 22, 2008
A Modest Proposal: Google for Government
November 22, 2008
I am not a TV person. I flap and hop right over articles about the flaws of user generated videos and the virtues of MFA produced commercial videos. What stopped me in mid flap and hop was a story by Brian Beers on CNBC.com. I have a tough time keeping NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC straight in my mind. Too many Cs reminds me of the majority of those in my high school physics class. Mr. Beers’s “Ratigan’s View: Demand Google for Government” baffled me. I still don’t know what or who a Dylan Ratigan is. The point of the story is that Google should index the government so citizens know more about the goings on in Washington, DC. Well, Google does index the government’s content better than Yahoo, Microsoft, and Vivisimo do. But each of these services has a long way to go before I am a happy goose. You can try this Uncle Same service yourself here. Let me know if you agree with this modest proposal “that would empower citizens to keep a watchdog eye on what our elected officials are doing with (or by laws and policies to affect) our money.” Google as super information hero. I think we need to get the Google triumvirate spandex costumes each with a big “G” affixed to the chest area. Mr. Beers might find that a helpful boost to get Google for Government.
Stephen Arnold, November 22, 2008
Europe’s Answer to Google Books Gets an F
November 21, 2008
I wrote that only a country can challenge Google. The company’s unprecedented 10 year run through online has been largely unchallenged. In the present economic climate, I don’t think the resources are available to out Google Google. The European Union, however, tried. According to Wired here, “Europe’s answer to Google Book Search officially launched Thursday after two years of prep — and promptly crashed.” First the collider suffered a multi million euro glitch and now Europeana nukes itself. The Google alternative experienced heavy traffic and choked. At some point, folks will take a look at Google’s engineering and try to replicate it. The notion that “our servers can handle the load” is time and again proven a fantasy statement. Google’s been working on its system for a decade and continues to invest in plumbing. Now I am not even sure a country can knock off Google. Google is tough to understand, hard to regulate, and now sailing serenely along without a significant competitor to one of its interesting but minor initiatives. The debate over Google as good or evil is essentially irrelevant. The focus has to shift to build businesses on what is now the computing platform for the foreseeable future.
Stephen Arnold, November 21, 2008
InfoSphere and Sandstone Tie Up
November 20, 2008
A happy quack to the reader in Sweden who alerted me to InfoSphere’s new partnership with Sandstone SA (Luxembourg). InfoSphere AB, founded in 2001, is a commercial business intelligence and security consulting firm. Sandstone is a private (OSINT)open source intelligence service or.
The partnership will provide each company with sales, service, and consulting services. Frank Schneider, chief executive for Sandstone said:
The partnership with Infosphere is part of the Sandstone strategy to seek out the best partner organizations to compliment and extend their capability, thus building an OSINT Network of Excellence with global reach.
The Sandstone team is made up of experienced former officers from various intelligence agencies and government services. Governed by a strong code of ethics and moral values, Sandstone provides services focused on financial compliance, business intelligence, KYC, due diligence, political analysis, foreign asset location, and opportunity creation. Sandstone serves clients throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa as well as in the United States.
InfoSphere has contributed to the Silobreaker.com service which I have reviewed in this Web log. You can read an interview with the founder of InfoSphere here. In my opinion, the deal between these two open source firms will make more open source services and information available to organizations seeking ways to build revenues and competitive knowledge. InfoSphere has been growing rapidly with services ranging from OSINT to online services to high-value content. I continue to be impressed with the InfoSphere operation; it is a company on the move.
Stephen Arnold, November 20, 2008
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