OpenText Cares
January 5, 2011
Vendors claim that their clients are the most important parts of their companies. They back up this claim with automated customer service hotlines and technical support that creates more answers than questions. OpenText/NStein has released a press statement to assure their clients that they will be treated with respect and care: “OpenText/Nstein’s ongoing commitment to our WCM’s customers.” Here’s a snippet:
“When you contact your Customer Care Center, we readily check for improvements that may have been made for your version of WCM and often customize existing patches for your needs. These patches and fixes are all based on improvements built in the newer versions of WCM; they were ultimately inspired by your ideas and suggestions to the Customer Care Centre and our long experience in content management.”
We find that statements about ongoing commitments are thought provoking. Why make them if the commitment is evident to licensees? Just a question to consider.
Whitney Grace, January 5, 2011
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Amazon and Its Fast Moving Cloud
January 3, 2011
Several years ago, I noted that Google’s technical papers described features and functions that were evident in Amazon’s actual services. At that moment, I realized the Google had lost its chance for a cloud utility play. Now the GOOG may come roaring back, but with the legal friction increasing, Amazon has some clean air through which to float its big, fast cumulus cloud. Sure, Rackspace is a competitor to Amazon, and every vendor is yammering about the cloud. But right now, the Amazon has a big PR push underway. Now, to be fair, the Amazon cloud generated a nasty storm with its hardware crash the other day. Not good.
That’s why the PR guns are firing. You can see two examples of “good news”. Navigate first to the “I love Amazon” sky writing from Netflix. “Why We Use and Contribute to Open Source Software” and “Netflix Touts Open Source, Ignores Linux.” Netflix, of course, is flying in the Amazon clouds. The other PR example is a bit of a downer for library types who expect books to be available. Point your browser thing at “Amazon Erases Certain Books on Kindle Due to Content.”
But despite the good and bad PR, Amazon managed to pull of an interesting and useful technical coup. “Announcing VM Import for Amazon EC2” said:
VM Import enables you to easily import virtual machine images from your existing environment to Amazon EC2 instances.
Useful for many applications. Crash recovery. I think so.
Net net: The others in the cloud race need to kick into a different gear. Google? A question, “Can you get that airplane aloft?” Storm clouds rushing in.
Stephen E Arnold, January 3, 2011
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New iPhone App Takes Down Language Barrier
January 3, 2011
¿Usted quiere oír la cosa más asombrosa nunca? ¿Habla usted español? ¿No?
Without Spanish language skills or time to correctly type this into an online translator, you may not realize I just asked if you wanted to hear about the most amazing thing ever. A new post on gizmag.com entitled World Lens app turns your phone into a real-time translator details what has just incited giddiness across the tech community: the latest in translation tools. Quest Visual has brought the future into the palm of our hands with its recently introduced “World Lens” for the iPhone, an application that uses your phone’s camera to “view printed words and translate them into another language as you watch.” You can expect modest photo editing options such as cropping and zoom, and what camera would not be complete without a flash? If that was not good enough, the process is near instantaneous while still maintaining the texts original color and font.
There are noted limitations. First, Spanish is the only language currently available. Don’t be too disappointed though as the programmers are working on others, promising to continue until they “get all the way across the globe.” Also, it is only compatible with iPhone 4, iPhone 3Gs and the camera-equipped iPod Touch, so other users, including Android fans, are out of luck at this time. Finally, even Quest Visual recognizes that the translation will not always be exact; they do promise you will always walk away from the situation with the right idea.
I did notice a couple of reviews on the iTunes website stating that it was lame to give the application away for free only to turn around and charge five dollars for the plug-in languages (which is in fact the pricing model). Seriously? This novel instrument is straight out of a science-fiction novel, gadgetry many never expected to see in their lifetimes. We should be so lucky it only costs five dollars to own this incredible capability.
Sarah Rogers, January 3, 2011
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An Xoogler Looks Back at 2010
January 3, 2011
In “Reflecting on 2010: Searching for Answers” a former Endeca and Google (and current LinkedIn) employee, Daniel Tunkelang, gives his year-in-review. Some interesting notes about LinkedIn here, including that LinkedIn’s CEO sees his company as providing a Pandora-like service where job seekers can know instantly who has been promoted or left a given company and who they know there. Tunkelang also gives his opinion that Google should keep its relevance ranking secret, unlike Blekko, which is more upfront about its system. He states: “Now that web search is essentially a duopoly (at least in the US), I believe the real test of the value of transparency to users will be whether one of the two parties employs it as competitive differentiator.” It will be interesting to see where the other half of the duopoly (namely Bing) goes with transparency in 2011. Where’s my crystal ball?
Alice Wasielewski, January 3, 2011
BitTorrent Top Searches in 2010
January 2, 2011
Short honk: I am not into BitTorrent. You may be like the goose. Or, you may not. Regardless of one’s affinity or lack of it, the list of the most searched words and phrases warrants a quick look. Navigate to “BitTorrent Zeitgeist: What People Searched For in 2010.” You can determine your “with it” score. Just tick off the referents you know. My score was a dismal 11 out of 100. Obviously 66 year olds are clueless about the content available on BitTorrent. Those with a more agile life outlook may find the list either thrilling or disheartening. What is a “hot tub time machine.” See what I mean. The phrase is number 100 on the list. Number 1: Inception. Go figure.
Stephen E Arnold, January 2, 2010
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A Metric Morning for Digital Content Marketers
December 30, 2010
Hard data about the success or failure of online initiatives is tough to locate. I routinely delete news releases from privately-held companies that assert “Record revenues” or “profits double in the last quarter.” If the news is so good, why not provide some facts and figures?
That won’t happen because the numbers are just not that impressive. So data are expressed in art history major metrics. Interesting to some but search baloney to me.
This morning (December 30, 2010) I spotted some allegedly hard numbers. Now I don’t believe that these data are rock solid. Figure plus or minus 25 percent on a good day. Nevertheless, I find the attempt at quantification encouraging.
First, item: “Some iPad Magazines Seeing Steep Sales Declines.” No big surprise to soap and shampoo marketers. “New” and “improved” compete with weird discounts to lure grocery shoppers in Harrod’s Creek. The write up makes clear that some online publications for the trendy iPad gizmo are declining. The juicy part of the write up are the alleged data. Here’s one example:
According to WWD.com, a fashion-oriented news site, reported figures for sales the iPad edition of Wired fell from a stunning 100,000 copies of its debut issue in June to just 22,000 and 23,000 copies in October and November. Other publications reporting numbers to the Audit Bureau of Circulation saw less-dramatic drops, but drops all the same:Vanity Fair held steady at 10,500 iPad editions in August, September, and October then dropped to 8,700 copies in November.Glamour moved 4,300 copies on the iPad in September, but fell steadily to 2,775 in November, and has seen sales drop from a steady 13,000 to 11,000 in November.
My take? Making money online is just as tough with the iPad as it is with more traditional services. What’s easier is that non technology people can get excited about a product or service that is colorful, easy to use, and on the nifty new gadgets. Will these products or services repay their development costs and generate the type of revenue from the good old days of ink on paper publishing? A few will. Most will tank because software is different from making content. Read the original write up for more data.
Second item: “How Much Did Those AOL CDs Cost? A Lot.” The nugget in this post was this metric:
in the early 1990s our target was to spend 10% of lifetime revenue to get a new subscriber. At that time I believe the average subscriber life was about 25 months and revenue was about $350 so we spent about $35 to acquire subscribers. As we were able to lower the cost of disks/trial/etc we were able to ramp up marketing. (Plus, we knew Microsoft was coming and it was never going to be easier or cheaper to get market share.) When we went public in 1992 we had less than 200,000 subscribers; a decade later the number was in the 25 million range. …”
For search vendors, calculating revenue per deal is a dark art. In my experience, AOL style marketing spends are the exception, not the rule. And AOL style metrics? Better to hunt for gold nuggets in Harrod’s Creek.
Third item: “Facebook dominates Hitwise list of Top Searches.” The good part is not the top ranking of “Facebook” as a term. Nope. The tasty morsel is the list for 2010 that does not include Google. In 2009, the Google hit number 6. These fuzzy data drop the GOOG out of the Top 10. Good news. YouTube.com pegged number 3 in 2010 searches behind the Facebook log in and Facebook key word. What’s ahead for Google in this list for 2011? Probably more Facebook clicks. Worth watching even if the Hitwise data give me a headache.
Implications for search marketers? iPad apps may disappoint. Spending for marketing is a big deal. The Google’s pulse jet may be sputtering which might open wider the Facebook Web search opportunity.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2010
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Arnold January 2011 For-Fee Columns
December 30, 2010
My for-fee columns due on January 1, 2011, are now written. I had to accelerate the pace this month because I have been on the road, enjoying the snow in France and the UK. I will be heading for warmer climes at the end of the month. Keep in mind that the for-fee work is more serious and fact-rich than the content in my Beyond Search Web log. Due to the agreements I sign for these for-fee writings.
Here’s the run down for my for fee August 2010 columns. These will appear over the next four to 12 weeks. Each for-fee publication has a different editorial cycle.
- Enterprise Technology Management. “Google Enterprise Apps: Forcing Competitors to React”. I am now doing a monthly column for the print and online editions of ETM, which is a publication aimed at global information technology managers. I kick off 2011 by looking at what I think is the real reason Google is pushing its applications for the enterprise so aggressively.
- Information Today, “Search Interfaces: What Will Work in 2011?” The big news in enterprise search is the user experience. I take a look at a surprising change in how one will “find” information in 2011. You may not have to search at all!
- Information World Review (Bizmedia), “SAP: After Admission of Guilt, What’s Next?” SAP admitted guilt in its dust up with Oracle. So, I consider the question, “What’s next for SAP?”
- KMWorld, “EasyAsk: Cut Loose with Semantics and NLP in 2011?” EasyAsk is now a stand-alone company again. With potent natural language processing capability, what new functionality will NLP provide you? I try to answer this question for KMWorld.
- Smart Business Network, “Is 2011 the Year for You to Create a Social Media Policy?” With Facebook becoming a must-have marketing vehicle, should large and small businesses alike whip up a social media rule book? The idea sounds good, but is it necessary.
The full text of these articles is available directly from their respective publishers.
Stephen E Arnold, December 30, 2010
Freebie but I get paid to write these for fee thingies.
Adeptol Document Viewer Selected by Openfind
December 25, 2010
Openfind, a leader in business mail messaging products recently announced the integration of the Adeptol Document Viewer technology into their current messaging product line. According to the PR-inside article “Openfind Embeds Adeptol Document Viewer In Enterprise Messaging Products” users will be able to view their documents directly within their Openfind email without any additional software. Openfind’s CEO stated:
“Adeptol’s document viewer offers greater customer value and ability to create new business opportunities while delivering quick document viewing, built-in Digital Rights Management, security and scalability to applications.”
For many people this may come as a surprise but Adeptol is actually one of the most advanced and flexible document viewers on the market today. Adeptol’s document viewing technology can easily be integrated into a variety of WebPages, application and system processes. It works with over 300 different document types and is fully customizable. With options such as these, document viewers such as Adeptol and another notable market player Documill speak for themselves.
April Holmes, December 25, 2010
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Scientific Abbreviations Look Up
December 22, 2010
For some terms abbreviations and acronyms or the long form (LF) Federal Bureau of Investigation and the short form (SF) FBI are immediately recognized.
However, the exact understanding of some abbreviations is not always so cut and paste. According to the Science Base article “Searching For Scientific Abbreviations” there are no clear cut abbreviation rules for the science world. Researchers have sought to lay out specific rules for scientific abbreviations.
One new technique “known as LFXtractor, uses noun chunking together with a distance metric to detect SF- LF pairs regardless of the presence of parenthetical expressions.” However with no exact rules, the verdict is still out on how to use and understand scientific abbreviations.
Google helps when it comes to searching for the abbreviations but surprisingly even the search giant can’t do it all. The specific area or niche must be known because the same abbreviation can mean two different things depending on the subject area. Researchers may have to go back to the drawing board.
April Holmes, December 22, 2010
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Search Analyst Evaluation
December 21, 2010
“Analytics, Schmanalytics! How to Evaluate an Analyst” reminds us that analysts, unlike lawyers or accountants, are not professionally licensed and gives advice on how to know you are getting your money’s worth. The conclusion: “If you need analytics help, make the effort to assure yourself that the analyst is technically competent, understands your business and has the communications skills that you need.” Some things to look for are formal education or experience in the specific area to be analyzed, familiarity with businesses similar to yours, and a communication style that will suit the situation in which the presentation will be made, whether it be to your boss or in court. Then again, if a search consultant promises to get you sales leads or sales, you might want to ignore this advice all together.
Alice Wasielewski, December 21, 2010
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