AOL: Polishing a Older Online Service
May 24, 2011
The America Online brand polishing continues. That’s no easy job, even for the “real” public relations professionals. PR is a stellar occupation. The Facebook initiative demonstrates how reliable certain “real” PR can be.
I enjoyed “AOL’s Chief Upbeat on Rebooting the Brand.” At a time when Apple is the top brand and Google a lesser top brand, maybe AOL sees an opportunity to climb up the brand rankings. Brand rankings, like the inclusions in those college league tables, are entertaining but often disconnected from reality.
The passage I found memorable was:
Q: …you mention a Web site AOL owns like tech blog Engadget, some people say, “Oh, they own that?”
A: Right. I think a lot of it was just that old perception. If people used our services, they usually had a lot of complaints about them. But about six months ago, something started to change. The difference between the last six months and probably two years ago is when people stop me now, they say: “Oh, I’m addicted to the front page of AOL. I love it. I love the new way the e-mail’s been designed.” Forget about the financial industry and forget about our stock and all that other stuff. Our number-one lead indicator of this company being successful is the people who touch our products and services actually physically seeing the level we care about internally translated externally. I think that’s starting to happen, and that’s eventually what is going to change the AOL brand.
To check the addictive aspect of AOL.com’s front page, I visited it for the first time in quite a while, maybe five or six years. Here’s what I saw:
There must be something wrong with my chemistry. Not only was I not tempted to click, I was puzzled by the skull and cross bones and the “You’ve Got: Checklist All Women Must Know.”
My hunch is that Ms. Huffington will end up running the show. Googlers with soft degrees and a few years in the land of controlled chaos are not the stuff of “reboots”. Top line revenue growth, an increase in stakeholder value, and traffic are the components of a successful reboot. PR not so much. The search experience was enhanced by Lady Gaga, which looked like Lady Gaga results on the new, consumerized Google. Maybe Google should buy AOL so there is a reunion of Googlers and a more seamless integration of that old time instant messenger magic?
Stephen E Arnold, May 24, 2011
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Search: An Information Retrieval Fukushima?
May 18, 2011
Information about the scale of the horrific nuclear disaster in Japan at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex is now becoming more widely known.
Expertise and Smoothing
My interest in the event is the engineering of a necklace of old-style reactors and the problems the LOCA (loss of coolant accident) triggered. The nagging thought I had was that today’s nuclear engineers understood the issues with the reactor design, the placement of the spent fuel pool, and the risks posed by an earthquake. After my years in the nuclear industry, I am quite confident that engineers articulated these issues. However, the technical information gets “smoothed” and simplified. The complexities of nuclear power generation are well known at least in engineering schools. The nuclear engineers are often viewed as odd ducks by the civil engineers and mechanical engineers. A nuclear engineer has to do the regular engineering stuff of calculating loads and looking up data in hefty tomes. But the nukes need grounding in chemistry, physics, and math, lots of math. Then the engineer who wants to become a certified, professional nuclear engineer has some other hoops to jump through. I won’t bore you with the details, but the end result of the process produces people who can explain clearly a particular process and its impacts.
Does your search experience emit signs of troubles within?
The problem is that art history majors, journalists, failed Web masters, and even Harvard and Wharton MBAs get bored quickly. The details of a particular nuclear process makes zero sense to someone more comfortable commenting about the color of Mona Lisa’s gown. So “smoothing” takes place. The ridges and outcrops of scientific and statistical knowledge get simplified. Once a complex situation has been smoothed, the need for hard expertise is diminished. With these simplifications, the liberal arts crowd can “reason” about risks, costs, upsides, and downsides.
A nuclear fall out map. The effect of a search meltdown extends far beyond the boundaries of a single user’s actions. Flawed search and retrieval has major consequences, many of which cannot be predicted with high confidence.
Everything works in an acceptable or okay manner until there is a LOCA or some other problem like a stuck valve or a crack in a pipe in a radioactive area of the reactor. Quickly the complexities, risks, and costs of the “smoothed problem” reveal the fissures and crags of reality.
Web search and enterprise search are now experiencing what I call a Fukushima event. After years of contentment with finding information, suddenly the dashboards are blinking yellow and red. Users are unable to find the information needed to do their job or something as basic as locate a colleague’s telephone number or office location. I have separated Web search and enterprise search in my professional work.
I want to depart for a moment and consider the two “species” of search as a single process before the ideas slip away from me. I know that Web search processes publicly accessible content, has the luxury of ignoring servers with high latency, and filtering content to create an index that meets the vendors’ needs, not the users’ needs. I know that enterprise search must handle diverse content types, must cope with security and access controls, and perform more functions that one of those two inch wide Swiss Army knives on sale at the airport in Geneva. I understand. My concern is broader is this write up. Please, bear with me.
Search, Sharing, and a Shift in Content
May 18, 2011
Sharing is caring, and Digital Inspiration’s “How People Share Content Online and with Whom?” has the numbers to prove it.
When folks want to share content with friends, 92 percent use social networks. When it comes to family, that number dips to 76 percent. Other popular ways of sharing content with friends and family are via e-mail and blogs.
So the survey begs the question, why search when you can quickly and easily ask your friends and family – people you know and trust? The implications for Google should not be underestimated. It isn’t enough to be a search engine anymore. How far behind Facebook is Google. You be the judge. Here are five Google social media efforts as noted in March 2010 by TopRank’s “Google the Social Media Company”: Google Social Search, Google Buzz, Twitter and Facebook feeds in search results, various social acquisitions, and Google Wave. The clock is ticking as market and mind share slips away.
What’s this mean? Brute force search is not likely to work in this new information sharing space.
Rita Safranek, May 18, 2011
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Tracking: Does It Matter?
May 11, 2011
A news story broke this week that was more difficult for many to ignore; it seems our beloved iPhones and iPads are paying us the same attention we lavish on them. It turns out these Apple devices keep an internal log of every cell tower or hot spot they connect to, in essence creating a map of the user’s movements for as long as ten months. It gets better. The log file is highly visible and unencrypted, making it accessible to anyone with your device in their hands.
Getting the scent. Source: http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011/feb/07/wsweat01-beagle-found-in-a-jiffy-by-tracking-dogs-ar-760887/
This news stems from a couple of British programmers who stumbled upon said “secret” location file. In the midst of the melee that ensued from outraged consumers and lawmakers alike, I was directed to a Bloomberg article titled “Researcher: iPhone Location Data Already Used By Cops”.
Interestingly enough, a rendition of this same story has been covered by the press months ago, only featured in a different light courtesy of an individual studying forensic computing. Per the write-up: “In a post on his blog, he explains that the existence of the location database—which tracks the cell phone towers your phone has connected to—has been public in security circles for some time.
While it’s not widely known, that’s not the same as not being known at all. In fact, he has written and presented several papers on the subject and even contributed a chapter on the location data in a book that covers forensic analysis of the iPhone.”
Google I/O Toggled Off
May 11, 2011
How much does it cost to kill the Google media buzz? Give up? With its alleged $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, that’s the price. According to “Microsoft Buys Skype for $8.5 Billion; Creates New Business Division,”
In its press release announcing the deal, Microsoft played up the potential synergies between Skype and its own communications offerings.
The operative word is “press release.” When the news hit, the toggle for Google I/O, the super cool conference, was flipped to “off.” Various aggregation services put the Skype story at the top of the pile, pushing the Google I/O news down, down, down. With the buy and the precisely timed news release, the Google looked off balance and out of focus.
Will Microsoft turn the Skype deal to big money? Probably not. Will Google recover from the PR drubbing administered with surgical precision? Sure. But for now, Microsoft looked a bit like its old self with one key difference: Giving Google a PR lesson cost a lot of money.
What about the other news, other conferences, and other dust ups in the Webby world? Nuked, gentle reader. When the provenance indifferent Internet grabs a big money story, an information weaponization sends out shock waves.
And what about the Skype voice thing? I think killing Google I/O may be the story.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2011
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Recommind and LexisNexis Team to Generate More Revenue
May 9, 2011
Recommind has moved from eDiscovery to enterprise search and back again. The latest tactic in the firm’s growth strategy is a tie up with LexisNexis. This unit of Reed Elsevier has emerged as one of the leading non US owned firms delivering legal information in America and elsewhere. LexisNexis has been working overtime to cope with changing buying patterns among consumers of high end commercial online content. LexisNexis has branched into new markets, including data analytics and various legal back office services.
Recommind announced in “Recommind Forms Strategic Alliance With LexisNexis for Hosted eDiscovery Service” a new deal with LexisNexis. The idea is to apply the well known online dream of 1+1=2, maybe 3 or more. The news announcement said the tie up was “A strategic hosting and sales alliance” the two companies promises “rapid deployment of [Recommind’s] Axcelerate On-Demand” and LexisNexis’ Hosted Litigation Solutions group.
The goal we learned is to:
“provide more options and greater flexibility in discovery. . . dramatically reduce the costs and timelines associated with document review and analysis as part of litigation and regulatory investigations.”
In addition, the alliance offers “top-tier infrastructure capabilities, globally diverse IP network,” as well as security against disastrous loss events.
The business alliance will answer 2010 customer demand “for Axcelerate On-Demand with Predictive Coding.” It is designed to offer corporations and law firms to meet their review information needs, budgetary demands, and critical timelines for all of their cases, no matter how complex, changing “’the way corporations and law firms manage litigation in 2011 and into the future.’”
Sounds very good. Now we have to wait to see if there is an impact on other competitors in the over-crowded legal sector and if the river of revenues pulls a swollen Mississippi or maintains the current flow.
Jane Livingston, May 9, 2011
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New Spin for OmniFind: Content Analytics
May 2, 2011
IBM has dominated my thinking with its bold claims for Watson. In the blaze of game show publicity, I lost track of the Lucene-based search system OmniFind 9.x. My Overflight system alerted me to “Content Analytics Starter Pack.” According to the April 2011 announcement:
The Starter Pack offers an advanced content analytics platform with Content Analytics and industry-leading, knowledge-driven enterprise search with OmniFind Enterprise Edition in a combined package. IBM Content Analytics with Enterprise Search empowers organizations to search, assess, and analyze large volumes of content in order to explore and surface relevant insight quickly to gain the most value from their information repositories inside and outside the firewall.
The product allows IBM licensees to:
- Find relevant enterprise content more quickly
- Turn raw text into rapid insight from content sources internal and external to your enterprise
- Customize rapid insight to industry and customer specific needs
- Enable deeper insights through integration to other systems and solutions.
At first glance, I thought IBM Content Analytics V2.2 was one program. I noticed that the OmniFind Enterprise Edition 9.1 has one set of hardware requirements at http://goo.gl/Wie0X and another set of hardware requirements for the analytics component at http://goo.gl/5J1ox. In addition, there are specific software requirements for each product.
The “new” product includes “improved support for content assessment, Cognos® Business Intelligence, and Advanced Case Management.”
Is IBM’s bundling of analytics and search a signal that the era of traditional search and retrieval has officially ended? Base image source: www.awesomefunnyclever.com
When you navigate to http://goo.gl/he3NR, you can see the different configurations available for this combo product.
What’s the pricing? According to IBM, “The charges are unchanged by this announcement.” The pricing seems to be based on processor value units or PVUs. Without a link, I am a bit at sea with regards to pricing. IBM does point out:
For clarification, note that if for any reason you are dissatisfied with the program and you are the original licensee, you may obtain a refund of the amount you paid for it, if within 30 days of your invoice date you return the program and its PoE to the party from whom you obtained it. If you downloaded the program, you may contact the party from whom you acquired it for instructions on how to obtain the refund. For clarification, note that for programs acquired under the IBM International Passport Advantage Agreement, this term applies only to your first acquisition of the program.
Watson and Its Methods
April 30, 2011
In the Fast Company article by Ariel Schwartz, IBM is partnering with Caltrans and the University of California at Berkeley to create a “personalized commuter forecast” for individuals living in large cities and high traffic areas. This p.c.f. will be dubbed “Watson” because everyone needs a trusty sidekick.
Schwartz’s article “IBM Will Go All Watson On Your Commute, Keep You Out Of Traffic” explains that the program, which is still in its prototypes stage, will use the GPS on your phone to analyze traffic on your daily route to traffic and suggest the route that will get you to work the fastest. (According to IBM you’re still S.O.L. if you live in an area with no or few alternate routes, go figure.)
Instead of slogging through the traffic, your phone recommends that you drive halfway to work, park in the BART parking lot, and take the subway system the rest of the way. If you leave now, you’ll make your way through traffic just in time to catch the next train to work.
I feel like that’s a little too good to be true. Though IBM’s willingness to utilize already in place technologies such as the road sensors used by Berkeley and Caltrans is admirable (no wonder they’re partnered.)
Let’s face it. It all boils down to money, IBM is hoping to generate cash based upon sales to different transportation entities, merchants who would build along newly used transit systems and sales from advertisements–in exchange for IBM knowing your every location. IBM is not the government. Some people may take the position, “What’s one more conglomerate tracking user behavior?”
Leslie Radcliff, April 30, 2011
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Libraries Like the Snow Leopard May Be Endangered
April 29, 2011
We should have known this day would come. At silicon.com, Peter Cochrane blogs the question: is it “Time Libraries Were Shelved?” He asserts:
“Does it matter anyway? The debate goes on but I must admit that I cannot remember the last time I visited a physical library. I give away far more books than I read.”
Humph.
His questions were prompted by cuts to public libraries in the U.K. That story is already in progress here in the U.S. Are we about to become an illiterate society?
Budget woes pushed the trend, of course, but perhaps it was inevitable. Many feel that books are simply an outdated technology. I see their point but, at the risk of sounding outdated myself, there’s just no substitute for a real book in my real hands.
Sure, I can curl up in my comfy chair with an eReader, but it’s just not the same. I enjoy the different weights of different books, the feel of turning a real page, even the smell of ink and paper. And those sensations are part of what enticed me to become a reader in the first place! I can’t be the only one.
Besides, without libraries, how will folks get free access to knowledge? Ben Franklin would be very disappointed. Online is useful, but it does not answer * every * question a research may have.
Cynthia Murrell April 29, 2011
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Amazon: Insight into Search, Engineering, and Cloud Computing
April 28, 2011
In order to locate data, one must be able to search for it. If search does not work, data are lost. Seems obvious but one of the consequences of the Amazon cloud outage was that I had to think about the online big box store again. Amazon is, to me, a convenient way to get books and buy a gift or a replacement BlackBerry battery. Even when the A9 service was a priority, Amazon’s ability to make information findable was hit and miss.
Even today, I have a tough time thinking of Amazon as giant, reliable, low cost information utility. I have difficulty finding lists of books “about” a subject. Sometimes I stumble upon this user created content; other times, I have no idea how to find this useful information. When I want a book, I don’t know how to NOT out books that are available from those that will be published in the future. I cannot find information about the credits I “earn” when I buy Kindle books or products using my Amazon credit card. The snail mail coupons I used to get have disappeared, and I don’t have a clue about “finding” this information.
Several years ago, we did a close look at how Amazon handled glitches. The information was not that different from other companies we had examined. However, one approach was interesting. When an outage took place, a small team was assembled to figure out what happened and to fix it. This approach has its upside such as speed and fluid problem solving. The downside, in my opinion, was that solutions could be ad hoc. In my view, the next time a problem cropped up, the Amazon approach I probed three years ago meant that the next problem solving team had to figure out what the previous team did. No big deal until the problem of figuring out everything consumed lots of time.
We are not using Amazon Web services. Call me old fashioned but I prefer to have data storied on local devices with appropriate backups on media in an off site location.
For another, unrelated project we ran a series of tests in 2010 on the take up of the phrase “cloud computing.” What we learned was that the actual traffic generated by the phrase “cloud computing” was far less than our client anticipated.
After a six month text, we concluded:
- There was a large amount of information about cloud computing from a bewildering range of vendors big and small
- The interest in cloud computing was less than in some other words and bound phrases we tested
- The information about cloud computing was a cloud of semantic fuzziness; that is, it was difficult to pin down specifics within the documents written about cloud computing.
What happens when you combine a retail store with a cloud computing service? You get an anchor point. Amazon becomes associated with certain words and phrases, but these may not have much meaning. Examples range from acronyms from S3 to EC2.
What happens when a company which has associated itself with this difficult to define subject has an outage? The problems of Amazon immediately diffuse across other products and services available in the cloud.
You can see an example of this semantic drift in “Amazon: Some Data Won’t Be Recovered after Cloud Outage.” The article points out that the Amazon “outage” has resulted in data that “won’t be recovered.” The problem is no one that Amazon and its customers must resolve.
Amazon’s close association with cloud computing has made the Amazon incident the defining case for the risks of cloud computing. Even worse, unrecoverable data cannot be found. Search and retrieval does little good if the data no longer exist. Services which depend on their customers locating information are effectively stranded. Those affected include “Quora, Sencha, Reddit, and FourSquare.”
So what?
This problem at Amazon provides some insight into the firm’s engineering approach. In a larger arena, the close association of Amazon with cloud computing has had a somewhat negative impact on the concept of cloud computing. To sum up:
- You can’t find information if it is not “there”
- Amazon’s engineering methods are interesting and may give some companies some additional analysis to perform
- The impact of the outage has created some pushback for other cloud computing vendors.
Will this be a defining moment for Amazon? Probably not, but it is an interesting moment. Non-recoverable is a disturbing notion to those who have to find a fact, entity, or a concept. Amazon has figured out some aspects of eCommerce. Other areas warrant additional investment which may be why Amazon’s costs are skyrocketing.
Stephen E Arnold, April 28, 2011
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