More Real Journalist Antics: A News Corp. Innovation?
April 8, 2012
Here’s more about the work methods of “real” journalists from the alleged “real” news. BBC News declares, “News Corporation firm NDS Accused of ITV Digital Hack.” BBC Panorama is accusing rival NDS of misconduct back at the turn of this century which resulted in the downfall of ITV Digital.
Panorama says NDS leaked the codes to smartcards that allowed users pirate ITV Digital’s services through a Web site called Thoic, putting the paid-TV broadcaster out of business. Thoic’s Lee Gibling charges that NDS paid him to publish the information for that very purpose. NDS internal documents seem to support the claim, according to the article.
NDS, of course, insists it did no such thing; in fact, they were actually working to *stop* piracy. The NDS response asserts:
“Like most companies in the conditional access industry – and many law enforcement agencies – NDS uses industry contacts to track and catch both hackers and pirates. This is neither illegal nor unethical. And, to ensure that all activity remains completely within legal bounds, NDS staff and their contacts operate under a clear code of conduct for operating undercover.
“These allegations were the subject of a long-running court case in the United States. This concluded with NDS being totally vindicated and its accuser having to pay almost $19m in costs.”
So, who is telling the truth? Unfortunately for NDS, its parent company News Corporation is currently suffering from a lack of credibility after last year’s phone hacking scandal. I imagine we will be hearing more about this issue as it unfolds. This online and technology approach to information is fascinating.
Cynthia Murrell, April 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Is ZyLAB Warning the European Union?
April 7, 2012
I know search and content processing are important. I wonder, however, if the companies in this sector believe that with a long lever, they can move governmental entities. I thought campaign contributions were required.
ZyLAB’s Press Room informs us, “’EU Reform of Data Protection Rules Complicate Cross Border Litigation’, Warns ZyLAB.” We wonder: how may EU entities are attentive to warnings? Maybe the financial crisis in Spain, oil, and unemployment are on the radar too? Anything’s possible.
At issue here are existing or proposed rules that ZyLAB warns will affect any company with US business connections, such as the proposed reform of data protection rules by the European Commission last January and the new Sedona Conference International Principles on Discovery, Disclosure & Data Protection published last December. The write up asserts:
“In an international business environment organizations can become involved in complex, high-stake regulatory investigations that cross international boundaries. When that happens, it is not easy to grasp the full spectrum of international litigation issues to resolve cross-border disputes. ‘Firm control over all of your data and having machine assisted monitoring and audit procedures incorporated in your compliance strategy, will be essential in helping an organization to deal with the contradictory requirements of eDiscovery versus privacy law and data protection rules,’ says Johannes C. Scholtes, chairman and chief strategy officer of ZyLAB.”
The company offers a series of webinars and roundtables that address these issues, the first of which is titled, “Cross-Border Litigation: Preparing for the Unknown.” See the write up for more details.
EU, listen up!
Cynthia Murrell, April 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google in the World of Academic Research
April 5, 2012
Librarians, teachers, and college professors all press their students not to use Google to research their projects, papers, and homework, but it is a dying battle. All students have to do is type in a few key terms and millions of results are displayed. The average student or person, for that matter, is not going to scour through every single result. If they do not find what they need, they simply rethink their initial key words and hit the search button again.
The Hindu recently wrote about, “Of Google and Scholarly Search,” the troubles researchers face when they only use Google and makes several suggestions for alternate search engines and databases.
Google has tried to combat their “low academic quality” results with Google Scholar and Annotum. Google Scholar is the equivalent of a regular academic database, except they don’t always return full text articles. Annotum takes a different approach by changing the search configuration all together. It is a scholarly blog platform, where experts can share their knowledge without being bogged down by personal opinion, rants, and other social networking content (Annotum was preceded by Knol, but Google is eliminating that service).
There are other tools to help the wayward researcher. The search engines Hakia, Kngine, Sensebot, and DuckDuckGo use semantic search technology instead of the usual Google formula. While they are not strictly research search engines, they do provide you with a more logical approach to search than returning every web site where the key term pops up. One semantic search engine that eliminates the usual everyman search is Deepdyve. You won’t be able to look for pop culture references with it, but it will give you more authoritative sources than Google.
If one needs information specifically on the sciences, Web of Science and SciVerce ScienceDirect are university -approved databases that host millions of articles from scientific journals, abstracts, track research data, and connect with other researchers. Another topic that is of current interest in the IT world is patents. Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all racing to create the next big technological craze, but they research patents to make sure their competitors haven’t gotten there first. Micropatent, SumoBrain, and Relecura are the top patent databases on the web used by industry and business heads.
While Google may provide the easiest way to access information, it is hardly the best for research. Use the above search engines and web sites to improve research quality and not just receive quantity from Google.
Whitney Grace, April 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Netflix of Magazines and How Usage Will Really Work
April 5, 2012
I read “Finally, a Reason to Read Magazines on a Tablet.” The idea seems like a quite fresh one. A group of publishers have teamed up to pool high-value content. Users can buy the content. The idea is that aggregation of full text and a flat fee of $10 or $15 per month will generate revenue. I have not been privy to the discussions, but I have a hunch that the notion of “big money” and possibly the idea of “saving the magazine business” may have crossed the minds of the folks who came up with this 21st century idea. You can read the AllThingsD article and get the nitty gritty.
I want to focus on a fact I learned in my years of working with content in online form. Some of these ideas will strike most of the people under the age of 40 as silly, but the comments below are based on real life experience with commercial information products delivered in digital form via electronic media. I invite comments, but I want to capture the basics before I zoom past this “revolutionary” idea. I have pulled some ideas from my confidential report, “The Physics of Information,” prepared for a government agency a number of years ago. (Some related content is available when you search Beyond Search for “mysteries of online”; for example, Mysteries of Online 3: Free versus Fee Information.”)
The collision of reality and for-fee, high value information services spawns a large number of unanticipated costs. Revenue is usually inadequate to cover spikes, pay overhead, invest in additional development, and expand the user base. Unlike print magazines, digital content is slippery and tough to make pay in the way a successful magazine did in 1975.
First, in any aggregation of electronic content, there will be a variant of the 80-20 rule. In the digital world, four to seven percent of the available content attracts attention. If you have a back file of 100,000 stories and a flow of five new stories a day, the most recent content attracts the majority of the clicks. The “long tail” is an interesting concept, but in the world of paying for digital information, the fresh content and the most recent content has value. Older content for the majority of those seeking information is “nice to have” and will be rarely if ever clicked upon for a fee. As a result, when I am asked, “Do we build a back file of our high value content?”, my answer is, “No.” The money comes from the now content. Back file content unless easily automated or very cheap to acquire is not worth the hassle. Better to put the resources into the now content.
Lousy Traffic? Buy Adwords
April 3, 2012
From the obvious department:
SEO is one hot buzzword, but more and more people are starting to realize that, what they thought was a web traffic miracle, is really just a quick fix that fails to deliver lasting results. In the recent Search Engine Land article, “Google Research: Even With a #1 Organic Ranking, Paid Ads Provide 50% Incremental Clicks,” one of the poobahs of SEO points out that now that SEO does not work as advertised, if you have a Web site, you have to buy Adwords.
According to the report, Google’s research on paid versus organic found that cutting out paid ads would result in an 89 percent drop in clicks, regardless of whether or not your site is the number one search result.
The article states:
Surprisingly, even when advertisers show up in the number one organic search result position, 50% of clicks they get on ads are not replaced by clicks on organic search results when the ads don’t appear. The study found that 82% of ad clicks are incremental when the associated organic result is ranked between 2 and 4, and 96% of clicks are incremental when the brand’s organic result was 5 or below.
Gee, what a surprise that Google finds that paying them boosts search rankings. Is this the purpose of a Panda invasion? We think so.
Jasmine Ashton, April 3, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Two Pundits and Their Punditry
March 31, 2012
I find the notion of pundits fascinating. The US in 2012 pivots on a news hook, the Warhol fame thing, and a desire to share viewpoints to Flipbook and Pulse users.
This morning I was listening to the crackle of small arms fire in rural Kentucky. Dawn had not yet extended its crepuscular reach to my hollow but two write ups did. Neither is one of those magnum loads squirrel hunters desire here in the Commonwealth. Nope, these were birdshot, but each write up is interesting nonetheless.
Both indirectly concern search and retrieval. Both found their way into my “gems of the poobahs” folder.
First, I noted the digital Atlantic’s write up “The Advertising Industry’s Definition of ‘Do Not Track’ Doesn’t Make Sense.” What caught my attention was the juxtaposition of the word “advertising” with the phrase “doesn’t make sense.” Advertising making sense? The Atlantic “real” journalist has not watched television with a 67 year old. More than half of the TV commercials which I find embedded in basketball games every four minutes don’t make sense. Advertising is about creating a demand for must-have products. Advertising is part of the popular culture and an engine of growth for companies unable to generate sales without the craft and skill of psychological tactics. Check out an advertisement for Kentucky bourbon. Does this headline make sense?
“Honk if you’re proud to be a redneck?
As a resident of Kentucky, I am not sure I know what a redneck is, but I bet those folks in Boston do. But what’s “making sense” part. What advertising does is tickle the brain to make some folks want to drink. And we all know how important it is to imbibe whiskey, engage in “real” journalism, ferry children to soccer practice. Yep, makes “sense” to me.
But here’s the passage which caught my attention:
Stanford’s Aleecia McDonald found that 61 percent of people expect that clicking a Do Not Track button should shut off *all* data collection. Only 7 percent of people expected that websites could collect the same data before and after clicking a ‘Do Not Track’ button. That is to say, 93 percent of people do not understand the industry’s definition of DNT. Which totally makes sense! Who would ever think saying, “Do not track me,” actually means, “It’s fine to collect data on me, but don’t show me any signs that you’re doing so.” Simply because the industry itself has defined ‘Do Not Track’ in an idiosyncratic way doesn’t mean their self-serving decision should be the basis for all policy and practice in this field.
Almost any redneck would understand this passage, the implications of persistent cookies, and the distinction between various types of tracking, including my favorite, iFrames-based method.
Second, I read “Debunking Senator Al Franken On Google, The Internet & Privacy.” This screed is from a “real” journalist and favorite source of juicy quotes on the subject of search and retrieval. The point of the write up is that despite the author’s affection for a US senator as a comedian, the US senator does not know beans about tracking, Google, and, by extension, search and retrieval. Now “search” does not mean find. Search, I believe, means to the “real” journalist using methods to generate traffic to a Web site. I define “search” differently, but the good part in my opinion is this passage:
Ya think? But I mean, Facebook kind of does sell my friends. I can export all of them out to Yahoo and Bing, because Facebook and Yahoo and Bing all have deals. I can’t export them to Google, because, you know, they aren’t friends. Would you call that selling to the highest bidder? When I go over to search on Bing, by default, all my Facebook friends are being used to personalize my search results. Oh, I can opt-out, but you know how hard that is. Since that’s part of a Bing-Facebook deal, is that a line that’s crossed?
Please, read the entire “real” journalistic analysis of a talk by a US senator. I must admit I don’t relate to the questions and analytic points in this paragraph. I recognize the names of the companies mentioned, but “the deal” baffles me.
Why do I care? Three points:
- I sense the emotion in these write ups. Passion is good for advertising and good for capturing attention. However, I am struggling to figure out what the problem is. Advertising seems to be what America is. Untangling the warp and woof of this fabric is difficult for me.
- The ad hominem method and charged language causes me to think that the lingo of advertising has become the common parlance of “real” journalists.
- I struggle to unravel the meaning of certain parts of these two write ups. Am I alone?
Net net: technology and advertising are an interesting compound. Now “real” journalism is quite similar. To quote one “real” journalist, “Ya think?” Well, not much.
Stephen E Arnold, March 31, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
A Road Map for Censorship
March 31, 2012
David Bamman, Brendan O’Connor, Noah A. Smith present some interesting facts based on a study they wrote about in their article, Censorship and Deletion Practices in Chinese Social Media. Their study touches on a variety of different aspects regarding how China allegedly controls the intake and outflow of information.
The Chinese government methods are far different from the United States’ approach. My understanding of the situation is that China takes censorship to extremes and infringes on the freedom of their citizens using the GFW (Great Firewall of China) , which filters key phrases and words, preventing access to sites like America’s Facebook and Google. However, Sina Weibo is the Chinese equivalent of Facebook where bloggers post and pass information presumably in a way the officials perceive as more suitable for the Middle Kingdom.
Sina Weibo is monitored and as long as members stay within the boundaries or disguise their information, posts go unnoticed. If any of the outlawed phrases are entered, the user’s post is deleted and anyone searching for the information is met with the phrase ‘Target weibo does not exist’. If the user properly masks the phrase or words used, the information will get through, showing that there is the possibility of future change regarding the censorship practices in China.
The GFW will catch obvious outgoing information such as political figures, which was monitored during the study. The article asserted:
In late June/early July 2011, rumors began circulating in the Chinese media that Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, had died. These rumors reached their height on 6 July, with reports in the Wall Street Journal, Guardian and other Western media sources that Jiang’s name had been blocked in searches on Sina Weibo (Chin, 2011; Branigan, 2011). If we look at all 532 messages published during this time period that contain the name Jiang Zemin, we note a striking pattern of deletion: on 6 July, the height of the rumor, 64 of the 83 messages containing that name were deleted (77.1 percent); on 7 July, 29 of 31 (93.5 percent) were deleted.
No firewall is perfect, but according to the studies done on searches, blogs and texts containing prohibited information, China has a pretty impressive figure. It may not seem reasonable by American standards, but by filtering anything they deem as politically sensitive, China protects the privacy of their country, preventing global rumors and interference.
On one level, censorship makes sense, in particular regarding the business world. The Chinese government makes its corporations responsible for their employees, meaning if an employee is blogging instead of working and puts in illegal information, the company itself is fined, or worst case scenario, shut down. Thus Chinese factories have a high rate of productivity because their workers are actually doing their job.
How is China’s alleged position relevant to the US? There may be little relevance, but to officials in other countries, the article’s information may be just what one needs to check into a Holiday Inn of censorship.
Jennifer Shockley, March 31, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Newspapers Losing Revenue: Time for a Change
March 30, 2012
Newspaper acquisition time? I was surprised by a headline I landed on while browsing Business Week; an article titled, “Newspapers Lose $10 in Print for Every Digital $1” grabbed my attention.
According to the article, newspapers in the United States lost $10 in print advertising revenue in 2011 for every dollar gained online. The article cites a study by Pew Research and blames the 7.9 percent ad revenue loss on competition from tech intermediaries. Newspapers are hurting tremendously in the online arena. Paid news sites and print copies are declining in revenue because consumers want their news fast and free, usually via mobile apps and free news blogs.
Newspaper groups have failed to capitalize on the volume of personalized data available online in the face of increased competition from companies including Google (GOOG) and Facebook, which are selling advertising targeted to consumers based on their interests and demographics, typically at higher ad rates, Rosenstiel said. Newspapers have slowly shifted their businesses online, led in part by the recent success of New York Times Co. (NYT)’s plan to charge readers for access to its newspapers’ websites. Pew’s study estimates as many as 100 newspapers are expected to offer a digital subscription model in the coming months.
No matter how one exercises ingenuity, the newspapers have a broken business model and a customer base indifferent to old information in print or online. Users are not likely to pay subscription fees, even for traditional and trusted organizations, if the material is available elsewhere for free. News groups should reconsider new business models or becoming partners with data-driven companies, or else it could be sell off and go fishing time.
Andrea Hayden, March 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Publishers Pose Threats to Text Mining Expansion
March 26, 2012
Text mining software is all the rage these days due to its ability to make significant connections by quickly scanning through thousands of documents. This software can recognize, extract and index scientific information from vast amounts of plain text, allowing computers to read and organize a body of knowledge that is expanding too fast for any human to keep up with. However, Nature.com recently reported on a some issues that have developed in this growing industry in the article “Trouble at the Text Mine.”
According to the article, text mining programmers Max Haeussler and Casey Bergman have run into trouble trying to get science publishers to agree to let them mine their content.
The article asserts:
Many publishers say that they will allow their subscribers to text-mine, subject to contract and the text-miners’ intentions, and point to a number of successful agreements. But like many early advocates of the technology, Haeussler and Bergman complain that publishers are failing to cope with requests, and so are holding up the progress of research. What is more, they point out, as text-mining expands, it will be impractical for individual academic teams to spend years each working out bilateral agreements with every publisher.
While some publishers are getting on board the text mining train, many are still trying to work out how to take advantage of the commercial value before signing on. Too bad it takes more than a degree in English to make text mining deliver useful results. Bummer.
Jasmine Ashton, March 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Long Live the Blog
March 25, 2012
Thought blogs were dead? Think again. Neilsen Wire reveals, “Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Blog Readers.” The world is now graced with over 181 million blogs, up from 36 million in 2006, according to research by NM Incite. The study also found that 6.7 million bloggers write on blogging websites, while 12 million more publish through social networks.
Researchers broke bloggers down by category; the article reveals:
“* Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34
* Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates
* About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household
* Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month”
Three forums, Blogger, WordPress, and Tumblr, when combined boast 80 million unique visitors. The write up posits, though, that the future lies in Pinterest, a fast-growing, visually oriented social media site whose audience inhabits the coveted 25- to 34- year age range.
NM Incite offers competitive advantage through social media analysis. Though headquartered in New York, the company has operations in twenty-five markets around the world.
Stephen E. Arnold, March 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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