AOL Morphing into a Digital Publishing Company
November 17, 2010
Some publishing companies are trying to morph into mini-motion picture or video game companies. But AOL is an online company, and it is going a different direction.
The headlines about AOL’s financial performance are sobering: Heavy declines in search and display advertising caused AOL’s quarterly revenue to fall 26 percent.
“I would hope AOL is growing at industry advertising rates at the second half of 2011,” Tim Armstrong, AOL’ s Chief Executive(www.aol.com), said in “AOL Revenue Drops 26 percent on Slumping Ad Sales.”
Armstrong has been trying to turn AOL into a media and entertainment powerhouse instead of its typical and most known image as a dial-up Internet access business.
Will AOL find a pot of gold with its rich media and reinvention of traditional content?
The steep decline in revenue suggests that the company needs to find more advertisers who are willing to spend big bucks with AOL. Advertising revenue fell 27 percent from declines in search, display and third-party ads, totaling $292.8 million.
In addition, revenue fell to $563.5 million in comparison to the $557 million expected by analysts.
A warning from AOL to Yahoo: sell, sell, sell, or risk ending up as an online has-been. We predict a 50/50 chance that Yahoo’s next challenge will be similar to AOL’s advertising dilemma. AOL needs to find a path to the end of the rainbow. The company needs a pot of gold to cope with the presence of Facebook, Apple, and a couple of other “with it” companies.
Leah Moody November 17, 2010
Freebie
New York Times Wrestles with Online Fees
November 16, 2010
I still pay for daily home delivery of my local paper even though most of the content is available online. However, my local paper is a great deal cheaper than the New York Times, which is $14.80 per week if you’re not in New York. Felix Simon reports in “The NYT’s Subscription Strategy” that not only has the NYT’s subscription rate been rising much faster than inflation, but that its website makes it difficult to find exactly how much you’re paying. Simon asserts that “the NYT has been stealthily hiking rates for decades now, and has signally failed to get a bad reputation for doing so. Clearly, it’s going to continue doing this: it’s one of the few successful business strategies in the newspaper publishing industry, so it’s obvious that the NYT should adopt it.” He goes on to theorize that the New York Times will also attract subscribers to its online subscriptions with lower fees and then surreptitiously start charging more and more. Simon also points out that this is a strategy that only works with older subscribers. I wonder how successful a strategy this can be for the long-term. Not only will the subscriber base eventually age out, but with the economy as it is, how many people can continue glossing over the $769.60 a year on their credit card statements? With so much news, including much of the NYT, available free online, it seems to me that their audience will eventually reach a breaking point.
Alice Wasielewski, November 16, 2010
Freebie
Autonomy Outflanks Rivals with Push into Healthcare
November 15, 2010
A Beyond Search Exclusive: Interview with Fernando Lucini
The news in Harrods Creek arrives a day late and a dollar short. We heard that Autonomy, the search and content processing outfit with nearly $1 billion in annual revenues and more than 20,000 customers, has rolled out a new service.
Auminence delivers a vertical solution for the global healthcare industry. Like other Autonomy’s products and services, the solution’s heart is IDOL or what Autonomy calls an “integrated data operating layer.” I think of IDOL as a platform upon which solutions are constructed. Search is one use case for IDOL, which relies on smart numerical recipes. Autonomy IDOL now dispatches problems in video search, fraud detection, big data analytics, and business intelligence.
The firm’s Auminence offering is a vertical play, and it comes at a time when the US healthcare industry is being forced to look for new methods, new systems, and new ways of handling health, medical, wellness, and administrative challenges. Timing is one of Autonomy’s core competencies. The firm’s new healthcare service is as prescient as Autonomy’s move into eDiscovery and collaborative services.
Not surprisingly, Auminence delivers actionable information. The chief architect of the system is Fernando Lucini, an engineer with deep experience in delivering systems that crack tough “big data” problems. He told me:
Think of Autonomy Auminence as a powerful point-of-care analysis dashboard, designed to help the provider make better quality, data-driven, evidence-based, diagnosis decisions. Auminence allows a healthcare professional to combine his or her personal knowledge with the wealth of knowledge that exists on the patient and their symptoms, clinical features, and related diseases – contained in the vast volumes of “human-friendly” information that make up healthcare data.
The user does not require training to use the system. Instead of a laundry list Google-style, Autonomy presents the information in a dashboard and report format. Mr. Lucini said, “We want to reduce the time and cost of tapping into the needed information. We want to help a person rushing to solve a medical problem to maybe save a life. Who wants to work through a list of links. That’s more work. We want to provide answers. Fast.”
Another innovation is Autonomy’s implementation of the service in the cloud. Since the firm acquired Zantaz, Autonomy been advancing its cloud-based services and features at a steady pace. However, what struck me as particularly important was Mr. Lucini’s statement that the service, which is available now (November 15, 2010) supports mobile devices like the Apple iPad and Android phones and tablets.
You can read the full text of the exclusive interview with Mr. Lucini in the ArnoldIT.com Search Wizards Speak collection at this link. One thing is certain: other vendors will have to react and quickly to Autonomy’s well-timed move in the health vertical. For more information about this service, navigate to www.autonomyhealth.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2010
Freebie, but Autonomy promised me a cup of tea when I visit the international online show in December 2010.
Linguarde Translation Download Available
November 15, 2010
Linguarde translation software is available via a no-charge download. Created by the MindSpec Corporation, Linguarde is powered by Google Translate (a for-fee Pro version is also available). According to the download site, users can “translate Web-pages, e-mail and other documents without opening online-translation sites and buying expensive bulky programs”.
Further, there is no need to open a separate program; Linguarde begins translating when a user simply selects the text to be translated. Linguarde supports more than 50 languages and features automatic language detection. Programs supported are Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Adobe Acrobat and others. So, why use Linguarde instead of Google Translate? Linguarde doesn’t require users to visit a separate webpage to get a translation. For those who like to have their translation service at the ready, Linguarde is a good alternative. We located links to TimeMeter here and a stub site for MindSpec here. We don’t have much information about this software at this time. A bit of a mystery I conclude.
Laura Amos, November 15, 2010
Freebie
Reflections on Ask.com
November 13, 2010
Ask.com used to be the premier search engine for the Internet. According to the article, “IAC’s Barry Diller Surrenders to Google, Ends Ask.com’s Search Effort” they don’t even break the Top Five. Because of this backslide, Diller’s corporation will be laying off 130 engineers and letting the competition take most of its brute force, Web search business.
In the era before Yahoo and Google you could type in any question and your trusty guide, Jeeves, would take you anywhere you needed to go. Not anymore. It seems that Ask.com can no longer keep up with the Jones’s or, in this case, the Google. The write up asserted:
It’s become this huge juggernaut of a company that we really thought we could compete against by innovating. We did a great job of holding our market share but it wasn’t enough to grow the way IAC had hoped we would grow when it bought us.
Google has grown to be the world’s top search engine, and it seems to control 65 percent of the searches performed in the United States.
Some observations:
- How long will Google be able to sustain brute force indexing? The more interesting services use human input to deliver content.
- Who will be the next Google? Maybe it will be Facebook?
- With the rise of “training wheels” on search systems, will most users fiddle with key words? Won’t “get it fast, get it good enough” may become the competitive advantage?
Google is now the old man of search. I see the company moving clumsily. There was the “don’t go to Facebook” payoffs earlier this week. There is the Facebook game and Google watching from the cheap seats.
Changes afoot. I fondly recall the third tier consultant who told me that Ask.com was a winner. I assume that young person is now advising the movers and shakers about search and content processing. Maybe Google needs an advisor to help the firm move from the cheap seats to the starting line up?
Stephen E Arnold and Leslie Radcliff, November 13, 2010
Freebie
Dyve Goes Deeper
November 13, 2010
DeepDyve has expanded the content on its interesting content rental service.
DeepDyve was launched in 2005 as a place for professionals in the fields of science, medicine, social science, humanities and information technology to rent the scholarly materials they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. The company asserts:
DeepDyve is continuing to advance its mission of providing affordable and convenient access to scientific and scholarly research articles for the tens of millions of users who are unaffiliated with a large institution.
In general only professionals who are tied to a large institution are able to use the big research engines that generate the most relevant information; DeepDyve is changing all of that by making available more than 30 million articles from thousands of reputable journals. At $9.99 a month it’s practically a steal and perfect for the start-up or individuals who need to learn more about a particular subject.
Leslie Radcliff, November 13, 2010
Freebie
IBM Wants an Intuitive Internet
November 12, 2010
Yep, and I want a million dollars.
In “IBM Outlines Vision of a More Intuitive Internet” the researchers at the IMB Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) have been conducting research on how to make a more ‘intuitive’ Internet. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t necessarily want an internet that can read my mind…..I’m just saying.
Researchers are trying to create a way to make the little things in life easier, for example; making reservations and paying bills by setting up automatic notifications.
The Internet will move beyond the present paradigm where people are responsible for the initiating and managing their own manual navigation of the Web, to a ‘personalized Web,’ functioning as a platform of services and resources that are dynamically and automatically configured to suit each person’s individual goals, tasks and concerns, in a way that person wants.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong but don’t we already have automatic notification and withdrawal programs? My bills were paid via automatic withdrawal this week…..so why do I need the internet to do it for me?
They want the Internet to work for people not vice versa….Well, in my book it already does, it’s called an iPhone. You can pay bills AND make reservations at your favorite dining locale. For an example of an intuitive Web site, navigate to www.ibm.com. Now try to find the FRU for a NetFinity 5500 case fan.
Leslie Radcliff, November 12, 2010
Freebie
Forrester Expert Dings Zuckerberg
November 10, 2010
I don’t know the Facebook wizard Mark Zuckerberg. I haven’t seen the movie about Mark Zuckerberg. I don’t have much stock in the baloney that appears on Web sites—especially when that baloney includes executive biographies. Look at my bio at www.arnoldit.com/sitemap.html. Baloney. Look at the Google executive bios. Baloney. Look at consulting firms’ executive bios. Baloney. Look at a 20 something’s bio. Baloney.
Solid, fat filled, nutritional black holes. Baloney. Thus it is and thus it will ever be.
Picking apart a 20 something and criticizing his management expertise is pretty much a waste of time and indicative that an Angry Bird bone is stuck in one’s throat. Navigate to “Perspective On Zuckerberg”, written by one of the mid-tier consulting firms. Read it closely. Make up your own mind about what it is saying.
For me, grousing about a 20 something is like my quacking at a crow who wants the same chunk of bread this goose does. The crow doesn’t speak goose, doesn’t want to learn, and doesn’t want much more than the chunk of bread.
A mid tier consulting firm wants billable projects. When I read criticism of a high profile company and its top gun, I say to myself:
I think that a certain firm did not get a certain engagement. The best defense is a good offense. Let’s use the handy dandy blogosphere to point out why a certain company / person / product is deeply flawed.
Yes, this is how one 66 year old, addled goose in Harrod’s Creek thinks. My hunch is that there is a deep subtext in this consulting firms’ blog post. Will Mr. Zuckerberg care? Probably not. Will Facebook attorneys care? Maybe. I know Alexander the Great was a good manager despite some personal oddities handed down over the centuries. Does anyone in a history class care? Nah. Alexander conquered the world. Too bad he caught the sniffles and died. Bad luck, not bad management.
Do I expect a 20 something to combine the polish of a McKinsey partner, the insights of a Peter Drucker, and the financial acumen of a Warren Buffet? Not in a million years.
One thing about Mr. Zuckerberg is clear. He knows how to hire Xooglers. I don’t know how many mid tier consultants, former English majors, and wanna be techno-poobahs he has on his staff. I do know the 20 something has got the Google behind a social eight ball and Microsoft close to a side pocket. Not good enough for a mid tier consulting firm? Okay. Good enough for 600 million users, a growing base of banner ad customers, and some investment bankers? Yep.
Oh, and an important point: Mr. Zuckerberg is still alive, seems healthy, and appears to have the cash to hire some advisers. Maybe Forrester has found a magic sales method?
Stephen E Arnold, November 9, 2010
Freebie unlike the time of a mid tier consulting firm’s professionals.
Nielsen, about Those Web Traffic Data
November 9, 2010
One, two, three, four… The Nielsen Co. seems to have a problem with their counting skills. In “Nielsen Admits Undercounting Web Traffic” The Nielsen Co. recently found that they have erred in their counting of web traffic due to a glitch in how many characters their counting software is able to read. The miscount seems to have sent the illusion that web traffic is down nearly 22% in the past several months when in fact, this may not be the case at all. The article said:
Media owners have long complained that data from their internal logs was often leagues different than the data they got from Nielsen.
To most people this might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Because Nielson has a corner on the market, this error is going to be felt by many online media and advertising outlets. The numbers that Nielsen puts up affects how these companies allocate their funds. If the numbers aren’t high enough, the companies won’t put money into the website. And then:
We need to do a better job keeping pace with the rapid evolution of the internet.
It should be noted that Nielsen is doing everything they can to remedy the problem. Every part of their Internet measurement methods are under investigation. So, about those traffic stats, Mr. Nielsen?
Leslie Radcliff, November 9, 2010
Freebie
IntelTrax Available
November 9, 2010
The new Web log IntelTrax is now available. The free service from the editors of Beyond Search and ArnoldIT.com covers data fusion. The term “data fusion” refers to systems and methods for processing disparate data and information into actionable intelligence. The phrases “business intelligence”, “knowledge management,” “text mining,” “eDiscovery”, and “data analytics” have become imprecise. Marketers apply these terms to a wide range of companies, products and services.
“No one has a definition for these buzzwords. Yet there are important and exciting developments available,” said Stephen E Arnold, publisher of IntelTrax. “This Web log—edited by Patrick Roland, a professional writer—will describe companies, products, and services that are essential where business and technology intersect. Our research reveals that organizations want information about ‘what’s next’ in information access and management. IntelTrax will help readers cut a path through this dense thicket of activity.”
Like Beyond Search, the Web log will present opinions and commentary. Available immediately are more than 150 articles. These range from a discussion of the i2 Ltd.-Palantir legal matter to commentary about the need for an intelligence framework that works. The About section of the Web log explains the blog’s editorial policies. The publication accepts advertising and if a company wants a sponsored write up, those will be included in the Web log and identified as a placed article.
Arnold continued, “In the last 12 to 18 months, a number of specialized software firms have begun to market services to the general business community. Some of these firms’ technologies were funded by or developed for the US intelligence community or a similar country’s governmental entities. Now these companies are offering commercial versions of their products. These software systems move beyond traditional data mining and map mashups. The companies are shifting information retrieval from guessing words that unlock a results list to a proactive, answer-oriented approach to data and information.”
IntelTrax is updated Monday to Friday with a mix of commentary, original features, and summaries of important reports. In addition, IntelTrax will profile specific companies and products. The information in IntelTrax does not duplicate the information in Beyond Search. The content will be distributed via RSS, and you can sign up for an email each day with that day’s headlines. The service is now indexed by Silobreaker, a content processing company serving both the commercial and intelligence sector.
Comments about IntelTrax may be sent to the editor at inteltrax@ymail.com.
Stuart Schram IV, November 9, 2010
Post sponsored by ArnoldIT.com
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