Will We Pay for News Online?
February 10, 2011
BBC Mobile’s article “News Corp Launches Daily Newspaper for iPad” prompts a few questions.
The article examines the Rupert Murdoch empire’s launch of the Daily, via Apple’s iTunes store. A dedicated staff of journalist has been hired, a choice which separates this from most device-specific news sources. Alongside traditional news articles will be interactive graphics, videos, Twitter feeds, and personalized content.
The Daily will cost 99 cents a week. That doesn’t sound like much, but will consumers be willing to pay anything to access news online?
“Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the Web. The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Murdoch, have introduced pay walls for their websites. However, the Times has since seen an 87% drop in online readership.
We now have many sources for free, quality news coverage online, so it is no wonder readers are reluctant to pay. However, I predict that that flow will be stemmed in the coming years as companies become less willing to give their work away for free. Nevertheless, it is difficult to generate significant revenues online. Experimentation ahead.
Cynthia Murrell February 10, 2011
Online Outfits as Political Power Houses
February 9, 2011
We noted “Google Launches Phone Tweeting Service as Last Egyptian ISP Goes Down.”
The headline that Egypt turned off the Internet has made the global rounds and scared the entire developed world. If you do your research, you’ll find that in the US it will be extremely difficult to shut down the web, especially if Google is your ally. Noor Group, the last surviving Egyptian ISP, was shut down and totally blacked out the web. Maximum PC has the story, “Google Launches Phone Tweeting Service as Last Egyptian ISP Goes Down.”
“Over the weekend, engineers from Google, Twitter and SayNow — a company the internet giant bought just last week — extended a lifeline to the restive Arab country by coming up with the “idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.”
Google and Twitter to the rescue folks! Who would have thought these Internet companies would provide a voice in a time of crisis. While I applaud their efforts, I’m curious where Facebook, Amazon, and Apple are. Why aren’t these online outfits involving themselves in the political affairs of countries half a world away? What happened to search and content processing as an objective activity? Maybe search and content processing are no longer objective? Quite a shift for some, not much of a change for other organizations, however.
Whitney Grace, February 9, 2011
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Textalyser Highlighted on Podcast
February 9, 2011
Text analysis was mentioned by the podcast No Agenda, which is hosted by Adam Curry (professional broadcast journalist) and John C. Dovorak (technical and business columnist). The No Agenda podcast team runs certain text through Textalyzer and uses the output to identify “memes”; that is, words or phrases designed to be magnetic and persist in a conversation.
You can give Textalyser, the tool No Agenda mentioned, by navigating to http://textalyser.net/. There are two Web accessible modes. First, you can take a chunk of text and paste it into the Analysis Box on the Web page. The system will generate a report. Shown below, is a portion of the Textalyser report for one of my 2010 for fee columns.
The report generates a word frequency report, word length summary, and two, three, and four word phrase frequency reports.
The service carries this identification notice: V 1.05 help Traduction Nieruchomo?ci Magazine interactif Umarex Airsoft + Paintball. For more information about the service, you can navigate to this link and leave a message.
Stephen E Arnold, February 9, 2011
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Search into Politics
February 8, 2011
Here in Harrod’s Creek, we find search technology more interesting that political hoop jumping. Our question, “Has anyone noticed that companies with a foundation in search and content processing seem to be getting involved in politics?” Probably not, judging from the discussions of America Online’s purchase of the Huffington Post blog and information service or of the Google employee embroiled or at least caught in the turmoil in Egypt. You can get information about the AOL deal from “You’ve Got Arianna” and about the Googler-Egypt story from “Egyptian PM Says Missing Google Marketing Executive Wael Ghonim to Be Released Tomorrow.”
We don’t know if these two events are cut from the same bolt of fustian or completely unrelated events. If these are related, have search and content processing companies shifted from serving the needs of customers to a larger stage? And if on a larger stage, is the object generating value for stakeholders or some other goal; for example, implementing a “vision” of how the world should work.
If the events are unrelated, then the question becomes, “What next?” Will other companies knowingly or unknowingly allow employees to pursue political agendas under the colors of the corporation?
We liked the good old days when companies created products and met the needs of customers. The merging of technology and politics may be as complex a mixture as religion and politics. We have nothing against giving individuals and corporations some scope of operation. But when the actions play out on a global stage, we wonder if technology has worked its way into society in a new way.
What are the consequences of breaking a nation’s embargo against certain types of information? What are the consequences of using content as a weapon? What are the consequences of co-mingling corporate and personal goals with an online service? Is this stuff content, marketing, or something else entirely?
We don’t know. Fascinating for certain. And far from the mundane work in Harrod’s Creek.
Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2011
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Is Google Ignoring an Apple Method?
February 7, 2011
Love it or hate it, the Apple iPhone set the yardstick against which smartphones are measured. Microsoft has not slipstreamed fixes to its Windows 7 Phone. Now Google seems to be following the Microsoft path, not the Apple four lane superhighway.
Secure Computing Magazine reports that “Google Fails to Fix Android Flaw” in the newest 2.3 version. Google was aware of the flaw in Android 2.2 last year and promised to fix the defect. When 2.3 was churned out, hackers went to work and easily cracked the patch. Android’s flaw is as follows:
“If a user is tricked into visiting a malicious site, the flaw could let hackers view any files stored on the SDcard, as well as view a list of apps and upload them to a remote server.”
Disabling JavaScript support and/or using a third party browser can avoid the hacking problem. Google has again promised to fix its popular mobile OS in the next version and are already working on a solution, but we’ll see how that goes.
What may be important is that Google has not gotten its chickens in the coop. Another indication of the similarity in management approaches and customer focus between Microsoft and Google? And search? Maybe taking a back seat? Just a thought.
Whitney Grace, February 7, 2011
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MySpace, News Corp., and Credibility
February 4, 2011
I read “News Corp’s MySpace Sale Options Include New Investors, Management Buy-Out”. The story was clear. News Corp. is going to get rid of the social networking service. What caught my attention was this statement in the write up:
“The new MySpace has been very well received by the market and we have some very encouraging metrics. But the plan to allow MySpace to reach it’s full potential may be best achieved under a new owner.”
I had in my Overflight files a 2006 story in Fortune via CNNMoney.com called “News Corp. (Hearts) MySpace.” That story reported:
MySpace has simply exploded since the deal was done last July. Measured in terms of page views, MySpace has become the second-most popular site on the Internet — behind Yahoo!, but ahead of MSN, AOL and Google. It has 66 million members, and about 250,000 new ones sign up each day. That’s a mind-boggling growth trajectory for an Internet site that was launched less than three years ago. “It looks like the best acquisition we’ve made in a long, long time,” Peter Chernin, the second-in-command at News Corp., said in an interview with FORTUNE. “MySpace is the single biggest growth opportunity this company has.”
Has MySpace been the home run referenced in the 2006 story? I had tucked away a story call MySpace vs Facebook, which ran in HubPages. The original was offline when I checked this morning, but I found a copy of the 2009 article in the Google cache. TechCrunch reported in January 2009 that Facebook had 200 million unique worldwide visitors. The figure was twice MySpace’s traffic.
Short take: consumers vote with their clicks. In the click department, Facebook is at 500 or 600 million and MySpace is for sale. Does this case example shed light on the outlook for the News Corp. iPad newspaper. We think it does.
Stephen E Arnold, February 4, 2011
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Xoogler, Management Vision, and AOL
February 3, 2011
I don’t know much about America Online or AOL. The service never hooked me. When the company bought Relegence, a mash up outfit, I was interested again. Then Relegence became Love.com and now I have lost track of what was a quite promising technology.
I read “LEAKED: AOL’s Master Plan” because it promised insight into the alleged turnaround. AOL generated a profit but its revenues were down. At some point the revenues have to go up. Keeping the profit would be a plus for stakeholders.
The write up ran down some basic facts about AOL and its goals. What I liked was the phrase “the AOL way.” I recall the CD-ROMs and the birth of “carpet bombing marketing.” I recall the sale of AOL to Time Warner and the consequent business circus that ensued. Now, I get to learn about the AOL way. I am game.
If the write up is accurate, the AOL way seeems to be focused on content. The idea is that AOL will become 2011’s William Randolph Hearst empire. I recall that Mr. Hearst was dubbed “the wizard of ooze.” Instead of print, AOL will emerge as a media giant built of bits and bytes. Three points from the article caught my attention:
- The game plan for Jan Feb Mar 2011 at this link.
- Staff writers have to do 10 stories per day
- Pick stories that generate traffic, revenue, “edit quality” (I don’t know what this means), and turn around time (maybe stories a person can write quickly and without fact checking or research).
Several observations:
- What happened to search? AOL once embraced PLS, Fast Search & Transfer, and probably other systems unknown to me. I did not see much about search in the AOL way. If you know about search and the AOL way, please, post a comment in the form at foot of this story.
- What will set AOL apart? More shallow content is likely to get filtered by Blekko and then, hopefully, Google?
- Where is that old Google zing? The AOL way sounds like an old line publishing operation to me.
Stephen E Arnold, February 3, 2011
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AOL, Intellectual Rigor, and the Classics
February 2, 2011
I am an old fuddy duddy. I have goslings who call me much worse. I reshelve books out of alphabetical order at the local book store. I tell the people at the local supermarket to alphabetize the list of foods in an aisle. I expect students to read the full text of their text books. How out of touch am I? A lot.
I read “AOL and Mark Burnett Teaming to Offer Cliffs Notes Web Series” and realized that the Xoogler running AOL is not only smarter than I but he is also more in touch with the need of high school and college students. Why read a lousy novel like Barchester Towers. Archdeacon who? Skip the crap in King Lear. Why read a tragedy and discuss the possible parallels with the problems Steve Jobs may face. Get smart about the last Depression easily. Why read? Just click to AOL.com and suck down the summary. Forget reading. Waste of time, right?
Here’s a passage that annoyed me and made me happy that I am too old to care about the under 20 crowd’s understanding of a highly regarded fiction or non fiction book. Carlyle, anyone? I can hear the “Dude, you are wacky?” now. Ah, the passage:
In addition to summing up the plots, Burnett and Coalition will work with Wiley to develop videos that offer analysis, interpretation, and literary criticism.
There you go.
Video.
Is this the Wiley that publishes chemistry texts and accounting information? Nah, has to be an Angry Birds type of outfit. How does one search these new materials? Key words so one gets lots of ads. Pass the popcorn. Lots of time for some folks because I am not sure there will be jobs in the Brave New World. Read the abstract. Short enough to read as one waits for entitlement application forms.
Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2011
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Information Governance Solution from Autonomy
January 24, 2011
Those in a variety of sectors looking for a better information management solution should read the article “New IDOL Powered Autonomy Records Manager Ushers in New Era of Information Governance” detailing the features of Autonomy’s Record Manager. The product has modules for enterprise, legal, and government customers and includes auto-classification and cloud computing capabilities.
Chris Hathaway, director at local distributor Soarsoft Africa, touts Autonomy’s competitive advantage. “Manual records management tools are just no longer viable amid today’s complex information governance requirements, high volumes of information and the ever increasing intensity and pace of business operations. Autonomy Records Manager offers a solution to this challenge, using IDOL’s ability to automatically understand and apply policies to all forms of information,” he said.
Quality information governance can address a variety of challenges—cost effective e-Discovery, storage solutions, and privacy issues—in today’s complex information landscape. We believe Autonomy’s solution is a good approach in confronting these issues.
Christina Sheley, January 24, 2011
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Exalead Clicks with Olympus
January 21, 2011
Olympus, respected manufacturer of equipment such as cameras, audio devices, and microscopes, is embarking on a relaunch of it’s 47 subsidiary websites around the world. It has chosen to serve it’s customers using the e-Spirit Enterprise Search Module, which is based on Exalead’s technology.
Integrating with the FirstSpirit content management system, also from e-Spirit, EnterpriseSearch promises to:
“. . .allow for much more efficient searching of relevant information than is possible with standard full-text searching. Among the benefits for Olympus are a convenient search interface with fast filter options, personalized search results for protected documents, and integrated search via linked ‘non FirstSpirit sources’ such as the shop system.”
Among Olympus’ challenges are managing content in 30 languages and simplifying editing and administration processes. The company also hopes to represent it’s innovative nature and appeal to their customers’ emotions. We’ll see whether FirstSpirit and e-Spirit are up to the challenge.
Cynthia Murrell January 21, 2011
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