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
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
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
