Google+: How Does One Measure Success?
July 10, 2011
I keep trying to avoid the Google+ “thing.” I focus on a different slice of the online world, but my newsreader and Overflight system overfloweth with baloney about a service that is in trial, less than two weeks old, and pretty much a knock off of Facebook. This “me too” stuff is becoming the focus on innovation, and I am not too interested in learning how to use a wheel or light a fire, thank you.
How does one measure success? Tweets, revenue, number of products and services offered customers? Source: http://goo.gl/9yBS9
I did notice two items this morning. The first was a report about the number of short messages mentioning Google+. Yep, let’s get on the Tweeter thing. I find the data illustrative of the spike nature of information. Where’s that Fukushima thing? Long gone for today news consumers, but the aftermath of the event is good for a couple thousand years.
The second item was my favorite techno-management guru, Eric Schimdt. The view that caught my eye appeared in “Eric Schmidt on Gauging Google+’s Success.” There is a great deal of information in the write up and the embedded video. Here’s the passage that caught my attention:
When asked by reporters whether Google planned eventually to fill out Google+ with other products, Schmidt answered, “Yeah, and there’s a lot coming,” saying that business accounts and ads are expected, assuming Google+ continues to grow. ”We test stuff and when it works we put a lot more emphasis on it,” he said.
Okay, “a lot” and “test stuff”. Let’s reflect.
Google is juggling a large number of balls, just like IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. What’s interesting to me is that the company’s principal—dare I say, “only”—revenue stream is advertising. The purpose of Google+, Android, and the other major initiatives is generating advertising revenue.
I urge Google to move forward and generate ad revenue from these services. The reason is that once again I talked with a number of companies and heard one message, “We need traffic. Something’s changed at Google, and we don’t know what to do.”
My response was, “Adapt.”
Google has shifted its attention from the brute force AltaVista.com approach to information to a new, compound model. The focus of that model is not delivering better results. The focus is producing revenue. And the company needs the new sources. With Web traffic shifting from desktop access to mobile access, Google has to find a way to sustain revenue and then grow significant new streams. Generating new revenue streams is not easy. The case example? Google itself. After 11 or 12 years in business, Google has a giant footprint but it is now good at one thing: selling ads.
I think there are companies with better products in search. Example: Yandex.com. I think there are companies with better social network services: Facebook.com. I think there are companies with better mobile devices: Apple. I think there are companies with better online shopping: Amazon.com. In short, unlike the early days, Google has competition in packaging, technology, and innovation.
So, the buzz about Google+ tells me three things:
- Google excites significant interest, particularly among a certain sector of the online community. That indeed is a marketing advantage. Marketing now has to turn into revenue. Where’s that $100 billion a year company now? About $70 billion to go.
- Google faces significant competition across a wide range of business facets. I suppose Alexander the Great could handle a multi front war, but he died at an early age, and his empire fizzled. I won’t press the metaphor, however.
- The legal opponents Google faces are likely to see the sprawl of Google as an indication of the company’s ambitions. At a time when issues of monopoly and certain business practices is increasing, Google demonstrates that it can pretty much do what it wants, dismissing questions with remarks like “a lot” and “test stuff”.
The upcoming hearings in Washington, DC, will be interesting. I wonder if there will be a Google+ service for those involved? I hope so. That might be a way to measure success just not in terms of revenue.
Stephen E Arnold, July 10, 2011
You can read more about enterprise search and retrieval in The New Landscape of Enterprise Search, published by Pandia in Oslo, Norway, in June 2011.
Google Filters Ads but Decries Censorship
July 7, 2011
We like acrobats who can walk two tightropes at one time.
Let’s compare “Google Chairman Warns of Censorship after Arab Spring,” at Datamation to ZDNet’s “Google Takes Down 93,000 Scam Ads.”
The first piece cites Eric Schmidt’s concerns regarding consequences of this year’s uprisings across the Middle East:
Google chairman Eric Schmidt expressed his belief that dictatorial governments will begin restricting free expression on the Web following the democratic uprisings in Arab countries that occurred this spring. Many of these movements used Web-based technologies to organize protests and communicate with others. Schmidt says that as a result, government censorship of the Internet is going to ‘get worse,’ and he said that some technology executives could face arrest and torture.
That’s bad, alright. Isn’t censorship always bad?
Apparently not. The ZDNet article reports that, in cooperation with U.K.’s Office of Fair Trading, Google has removed 93,000 ads that linked to “scam sites” between July and December 2010:
Digital fraud is a significant problem for British consumers, according to Action Fraud. The UK’s national scam reporting centre said 23 percent of incidents submitted were carried out online. That figure includes cons such as fraudulent adverts, ticketing scams and dodgy online auctions.
Here’s an idea. How about educating consumers about fraud tactics? Nothing will dissuade the perpetrators better than wasted effort.
Isn’t taking down ads censorship? I get it; maybe this is different? Because in this case, isn’t able to decide what to filter? Is this also in cooperation with a government? Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2011
The addled goose is the author of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Are Webinars the Backbone of Concept Searching Marketing?
July 5, 2011
On the surface, Concept Searching looks like some of the other analytics company that asserts steady growth. What is interesting is that when some value adding software co9mpanies market, webinars or online lectures and demos are a component of a broader marketing program, Concept Search seems to rely heavily on webinars. We find this interesting.
We looked into one search company which was using Twitter to make the text processing service a hot trend. From our vantage point, it seems that Concept Searching is using social media in a more modest way.
Though it sounds like Spiderman should be involved, a webinar is simply an online seminar or workshop. The great thing about a webinar is that it is usually interactive and allows all participates to give, receive and discuss the topics at hand. Additionally, geographical boundaries are not an issue and these presentations are very low in cost.
When perusing Concept Searching’s Web site, you will find an entire events page dedicated to their upcoming exhibitions and a list and description of their current webinars. Some titles include: “Designing Information Architecture for SharePoint: Making Sense in a World of SharePoint Architecture” and “De-mystifying Content Types: Four Key Content Types of Leverage.” You simply register and voilà, you join in on all the fun. They also have a page dedicated to previously recorded webinars that you can access at your leisure.
I moderate webinars for a couple of outfits, and these are often expensive programs. There is time, often lots of time, required to prepare the text, create the graphics and demos, and then build an audience. I participate in webinars when I am paid to do so. However, I do not participate in webinars. The reason is that I am receiving inputs, experiencing interruptions even when the door is closed, and working to respond to ad hoc requests from clients.
I do think that webinars are somewhat more useful than attending certain conferences. Over the last couple of years, conferences are more like fraternity and sorority parties. But that perception may be a function of my age and distaste for rock and roll, mixed media events with lots of 20 somethings opining about social media and organic search. Yikes, digital bonsai.
This leads me to the question, “Who has time to participate in webinars?” If these are buyers of high end solutions, great. However, if I were the boss of a company where webinars consumed staff time, I would be asking some questions about the efficacy of the method.
I find reading a Web page and using an online demo or downloading code useful. Webinars may be too zippy for an old goose like me. One thing for sure: lots of companies are using webinars to hold down the cost of on site sales calls and getting individuals “interested” in a product or service to cough up an email address.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of the New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Security and Open Source: A Delicate Mix Requires a Deft Hand
July 5, 2011
I recall reading a very unusual write up with a “learning” hook. The story was “The 10 Worst Cloud Outages (and What We can Learn from Them).” The article makes lemonade from the Amazon faults, which is a combination of home grown, open source, and commercial software. The lemonade bucket is full because the same recipe is used for cloud outages at Microsoft Sidekick, Google’s Gmail (with no reference to the Blogger.com crash during this year’s Inside Search conference which focused on cloud stuff), Microsoft’s Hotmail issues, Intuit’s flubs, Microsoft’s business productivity online standard suite stumbles, Saleforce.com’s outage, Terremark’s troubles, PayPal’s hiccups, and Rackspace’s wobblies.
What the article taught me was that this cloud stuff is pretty difficult even for folks with deep pockets, lots of engineers, and oodles of customers who swallow the pitch hook, line, and sinker.
My hope is that US government funding of research into the use of open source software for security applications can route around cloud dependencies. “DHS, Georgia Tech Seek to Improve Security with Open Source Tools.” The article said:
Although parts of the government, such as the Defense Department, have embraced open-source software for a variety of applications, many agencies still view it as suspect. As a resource, Davis hopes HOST will help to dispel the “hippie in the basement” view of open-source programs — that it’s cobbled together by enthusiasts rather than teams of professional programmers. The advantage of open-source software is that users can vet the source code themselves to make an application more secure. “Having something in a cellophane wrapped box doesn’t make it safer,” he said.
A combination of cloud technology and open source might prove the undoing of a well conceived program based on open source technology. Intertwining the cloud and open source tools for security might create a interesting and difficult to troubleshoot situation. Let’s hope the approach delivers lemonade with just the right amount of sugar, not a sour concoction.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
Going Fast and Cheap Online for Information
July 4, 2011
“The Web: Fast, Cheap, and Getting Worse by the Minute,” declares InfoWorld. Writer Robert X. Cringely begins with the old adage, “cheap, fast, or good. Pick two.” Mr. Cringely believes that “good” has been left on the table in today’s Web-based journalism.
Fast and good requires a significant financial investment, he insists, like the huge staffs papers used to have but can no longer afford. Good and cheap requires more time, he states, and belongs to the realm of monthly magazine, not daily news sites. Can Internet journalism do anything right?
The author does site his employer as an example of fast and good, but seems concerned that InfoWorld quality may soon fall victim to the specter of budget cuts.
In summary, Cringely asserts,
Web publications are under tremendous pressure to crank out as much material as they can as quickly as possible. More stories equals greater Google juice and more traffic; more traffic equals more ad impressions and clicks, and thus more revenue. That’s the formula. And it’s getting worse.
Is Mr. Cringely throwing some in the writing profession under a bus? I think the columnist has a point, but we have to work with what we’re given. This is just another call to change the world. Not likely to happen.
As the piece acknowledges, the world of journalism has changed dramatically and it won’t be going back to the print model any time soon. Papers that are transitioning online are indeed cutting staff and other expenses. This means less research, less editing, and less fact-checking. I suggest that this puts the onus back on the reader—don’t believe everything you read, and do your own fact checking. Nowadays that doesn’t even require a trip to the library. Just open a new tab and check FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, or even Snopes.com. Right there on the Web.
Maybe neither traditional nor the new media is perfect? I just know there’s no use griping about the current state of affairs. We must adapt, writers and readers alike, for there’s no going back. Consumers should take responsibility for their own intellectual explorations, and confirm with a variety of sources before spreading information. It’s common knowledge, or should be, that you can’t just accept anything you read on the Internet.
Perhaps, in the long run, worrying about the quality of reading material will prove to be a moot point anyway. “Snap in another video, mom. I have to learn how to perform a physics experiment and the book is just too much work.”
Cynthia Murrell July 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Amazon and RIM: Sour Grapes Day and Its Whines
June 30, 2011
Long day for the goose. Most folks heading toward 67 do the golf thing, maybe drink a lunch, or hang out at the mall and check out the walkers. Not me. I was checking out the latest in news and info on the rapidly deteriorating Internet. It is not just the lousy throughput here in Harrod’s Creek, it is the increase in the whine volume. Yep, sour grapes make whine.
The first example is the anonymous letter about the management woes at Research in Motion. Based in Waterloo, the BlackBerry whine maker criticized policies, procedures, innovation, and the furniture. Yep, griping about the office decorations will fix up the BlackBerry orchard in a nonce. You will want to read “Open Letter to BlackBerry Bosses: Senior RIM Exec Tells All as Company Crumbles around Him.” There are some great lines in the letter. The passage I found most amusing was:
Let’s obsess about what is best for the end user. We often make product decisions based on strategic alignment, partner requests or even legal advice — the end user doesn’t care. We simply have to admit that Apple is nailing this and it is one of the reasons they have people lining up overnight at stores around the world, and products sold out for months. These people aren’t hypnotized zombies, they simply love beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work. Android has a major weakness — it will always lack the simplicity and elegance that comes with end-to-end device software, middleware and hardware control. We really have a great opportunity to build something new and “uniquely BlackBerry” with the QNX platform. Let’s start an internal innovation revival with teams focused on what users will love instead of chasing “feature parity” and feature differentiation for no good reason (Adobe Flash being a major example). When was the last time we pushed out a significant new experience or feature that wasn’t already on other platforms? Rather than constantly mocking iPhone and Android, we should encourage key decision makers across the board to use these products as their primary device for a week or so at a time — yes, on Exchange! This way we can understand why our users are switching and get inspiration as to how we can build our next-gen products even better! It’s incomprehensible that our top software engineers and executives aren’t using or deeply familiar with our competitor’s products.
The snippet has some interesting assertions. Let me squeeze those grapes:
- RIM takes guidance from partners and lawyers. Hey, partners and lawyers know what to do. Partners resell and lawyers bill by the hour. A sharp outfit like RIM not be able to climb much higher up the innovation jungle gym unless it pays more attention to partners and lawyers. RIM is on the right track.
- Android has “a weakness.” That is one reason why the whiner is not working at Google. Google is the top dog. Android. Weakness. Oxymoron.
- Features. Look. Features made Microsoft Word the outstanding product it is. I find the intelligent reformatting, the wonderful numbering function, the intuitive placement of images, and the lightning fast response regardless of computing platform nearly perfect. RIM needs to work harder to add complex functionality. Stop whining and starting adding more icons, earthworm menus, and ever-so-precise trackball ALT key thingies.
Now read “An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos On Terminating The Amazon Affiliate Program In California.” Like the high pitched scree of the RIM letter, this epistle makes my ear drums bleed and my frontal lobes throb throb throb. The issue is that a high traffic Web site gets a piece of the action, a commission, a kick back, a bounty, a beak dip, or a cut of what ever a visitor to an affiliate site spends on Amazon. The world’s smartest man may struggle with uptime for its blend of open source and proprietary software for webby services things, but TWSM, aka Jeff Bezos, knows how to make money. Here’s a passage I found amusing:
Not only are you [The World’s Smartest Man] sucking purchases (and thus potentially jobs) out of my state and undermining those retailers, but you’re also not letting the state earn off the sales tax like those retailers who actually are based here do. That makes me feel really good as a Californian.
Why should Amazon pay sales tax?
Amazon is a sort of virtual company. It does not drive on the roads of California too often. It does not use the California school or sewer systems all that much, and it does not provide fire protection for TWSM’s Seattle area properties. Why pay for what you do not use, do not need, and do not acknowledge as being relevant to the Amazon implementation of the Walton retail vision built of bits, not bricks?
So what’s with the whining about Amazon’s doing what a company is supposed to do in post crash America? Any nibbling at the edges of Amazon’s revenue is bad. What is bad for Amazon is bad for Mr. Bezos. Mr. Bezos wants his way in a manner similar to other tech titans’ perception of right and proper behavior. This whiner wants an entity in America to be fair. Get with the program. Join Prime. Suck it up and get back to search engine optimization, a field of great value and promise.
So there you have it. Two whines. If I drank, I suppose I could slurp some whine too. I am more of a commenter and from a goose pond at that. These two whiners are muddying the waters of the way business is conducted in the US today. Get with the program and put a stopper in the whine bottle, please. Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2011
Stephen E Arnold, described by super real news person Ken Auletta as gruff is the author of the New Landscape of Search, published by Pandia in Oslo, Norway. The monograph is not available for the BlackBerry (I cannot read my screen’s type. Too small.) and not available through Amazon either. I often wonder why I bother to write candid and objective analyses of enterprise search systems. Whining is where it is at for today.
Daily Deal Sites Are Hot and a Challenge
June 30, 2011
CNN Money’s article “Study Offers Grim News on Deal Sites Like Groupon” caused me to do some thinking about online deal sites. I know that some of the goslings follow the offers on Groupon and LivingSocial. I write a couple of columns about online marketing options and included deal sites in my recommendations. I was skeptical about some of the business models. With many companies jumping into the sector, I am not sure which approach will win and which will lose.
The write up called my attention to some research conducted by Rice University. One surprising finding for me was that the deal toboggan may be reaching the finish line. The study, by Utpal Dholakia, professor of management at Rice University, found that nearly 80 percent of coupon users are first-timers, and only 20 percent of them become repeat customers of businesses offering deals through services like Groupon, LivingSocial and OpenTable. . . .
The article said:
Theoretically, many customers will either spend beyond the deal offer or return for more business. But Dholakia found that just 36 percent of customers buy goods or services beyond what was offered in the deal. Worse, less than 20 percent return to the business for full-price purchases.
If true, does the study predict bad news for a field poised to fill with new competitors, including behemoths like Facebook and Amazon. In light of these findings, business clients are likely to either bail altogether or demand the deal sites take a smaller slice of the revenue. I am not sure Web search will regain is zip. This means that those wanting to sell online will have to put on their thinking caps. Easy to say but tough to do in a faltering economy. So much depends on a Google, filled with ads beside the hungry merchants. (Apologies to William Carlos Williams.)
Cynthia Murrell, June 30, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
Data Fusion: A Source of Contention?
June 29, 2011
Research. is reporting that Kantar and TRA are doing battle over intellectual property. In their article, “Kantar and TRA at Loggerheads over Data Fusion Patent” they report that Kantar and Cavendish have filed a joint complaint as a pre-emptive strike against TRA who is threatening to sue them over patent right infringement.
According to Kantar and Cavendish, TRA claims that Kantar’s RapidView-Retail product encroaches on its patent. The product marries TV audience data and purchase behaviour data with a view to better targeting ad spend. The case is unusual as Kantar has been a long-time investor in TRA, and Sheila Spence, a WPP and Cavendish executive, sits on the TRA board – though she is alleged to have been excluded from a recent board meeting and may also be excluded from another upcoming meeting.
Let’s think about this. Will a patent spat about data fusion in the ad world trigger potential downstream issues in other market sectors. On the surface, a person might say, “No.” However, with the surprises the US legal system can spring, I am not so sure. My view is that patent litigation can spill over and take out the entrepreneurial Minots and Fargos. There is considerable risk in certain legal matters. Data fusion is the issue but the problem is the advertising. Some folks care a great deal about advertising. My yellow warning lights are now flashing.
Stephen E Arnold, June 29, 2011
You can read more about enterprise search and retrieval in The New Landscape of Enterprise Search, published my Pandia in Oslo, Norway, in June 2011.
Visual Search with 3D from GE
June 25, 2011
A new Google search technology could change the way people use the Internet. According to the Search Engine Watch article “Visual Health Search” Google recently launched its Google Body Browser.
Users have the ability to view a 3D layered model of the body. The article asserted:
“The body can be turned, manipulated, and literally “dissected” down to the vascular level to see how its functions work and connect. This kind of detailed information gives users access to the human body that’s never been available before and goes a long way in promoting a level of understanding that can help people make better informed decisions about their health.”
Healthline Networks in conjunction with GE Healthymagination and Visible Productions have also introduced Healthline BodyMaps. We learned:
“This new tool layers search on top of a 3D anatomical model, and allows people to navigate male and female anatomy, view systems, and organs and explore how the body works.”
Not only can patients get a more in depth look and understanding of medical conditions but physicians and other health care providers will be able to use it to help explain medical conditions, procedures and etc. to patients. Visual Search and 3D could be the new dream team.
A couple of thoughts. Google seems to have terminated its electronic medical record project. And didn’t GE design the Fukushima nuclear facility? Visual search might be less challenging and have a higher upside.
Cynthia Murrell, June 25, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
Internet, Reading, and Comprehension: Guess What
June 17, 2011
Robert Glen Fogarty at Lockergnome asks, “Is the Internet Killing Reading Skills?” That good question is addressed by a recent University of Gothenburg study. Here’s what researchers found:
Study head Monica Rosén says: ‘Our study shows that the entry of computers into the home has contributed to changing children’s habits in such a manner that their reading does not develop to the same extent as previously. By comparing countries over time we can see a negative correlation between change in reading achievement and change in spare time computer habits which indicates that reading ability falls as leisure use of computers increases.
Sadly, these results come as no surprise and were probably inevitable. Why read when videos are clearly superior?
Fogarty compares this development to growing up with television, which could be accused of the same effect. He actually credits PBS children’s programming with learning to read early, and suggests that similar efforts on the Internet could be beneficial.
Hmm, we’ll see. Meanwhile, please, pass the Cheetos and Dr. Pepper. Oh, hand me my iPad and mobile phone.
Cynthia Murrell, June 17, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
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