Big Data, Publishing, and an Opportunity?
May 16, 2010
People are looking for a way to connect to the massive quantities of data online, but these publishers may be missing the point. Semantic Web’s recent article, “Big Data Publishing: Common Threads in STM, Legal & Educational Publishing,” discusses the possible onslaught of publishing online data, even recommending it as an entrepreneurial option. Big data publishing is the idea that a publisher will compile the Web—from blog posts, tweets, news articles and other ephemera—into print form. The goal is that people will want to study the web as a whole and understand how all things are connected. The question is, why should the internet be published? There are tools like social search that help us make connections between many topics, individuals and opinions already. Do we really need researchers and academics to help us make these connections?
Patrick Roland
May 16, 2010
Post not sponsored
Social Networks, Testosterone, and Facebook
May 13, 2010
In my Information Today column which will run in the next hard copy issue, I talk about the advantage social networks have in identifying sites members perceive as useful. Examples are Delicious.com (owned by Yahoo) and StumbleUpon.com (once eBay and now back in private hands).
The idea is based in economics. Indexing the entire Web and then keeping up with changes is very expensive. With most queries answered by indexing a subset of the total Web universe, only a handful of organizations can tackle this problem. If I put on my gloom hat, the number of companies indexing as many Web pages as possible is Google. If I put on my happy hat, I can name a couple of other outfits. One implication is that Google may find itself spending lots of money to index content and its search traffic starts to go to Facebook. Yikes. Crisis time in Mountain View?
It costs a lot when many identify important sites and the lone person or company has to figure everything out for himself or herself. Image source: http://lensaunders.com/habit/img/peerpressuresmall.jpg
The idea is that when members recommend a Web site as useful, the company getting this Web site url can index that site’s content. Over time, a body of indexed content becomes useful. I routinely run specialized queries on Delicious.com and StumbleUpon.com, among others. I don’t run these queries on Google because the results list require too much work to process. One nagging problem is Google’s failure to make it possible to sort results by time. I can get a better “time sense” from other systems.
When I read “The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand”, I interpreted these observations in the context of the information cost advantage. The write up makes the point via some interesting rhetorical touches that Facebook is off the reservation. The idea is that Facebook’s managers are seizing opportunities and creating some real problems for themselves and other companies. The round up of urls in the article is worth reviewing, and I will leave that work to you.
First, it is clear that social networks are traffic magnets because users see benefits. In fact, despite Facebook’s actions and the backlash about privacy, the Facebook system keeps on chugging along. In a sense, Facebook is operating like the captain of an ice breaker in the arctic. Rev the engines and blast forward. Hit a penguin? Well, that’s what happens when a big ship meets a penguin. If – note, the “if” – the Facebook user community continues to grow, the behavior of the firm’s management will be encouraged. This means more ice breaker actions. In a sense, this is how Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo either operated or operated in their youth. The motto is, “It is better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.”
Five Myths of Enterprise Search Marketing
May 12, 2010
The telephone and email flow has spiked. We are working to complete Google Beyond Text and people seem to be increasingly anxious (maybe desperate?) to know what can be done to sell search, content processing, indexing, and business intelligence.
Sadly there is no Betty White to generate qualified leads and close deals for most search and content processing vendors. See “From Golden Girl To It Girl: Betty White Has Become Marketing Magic.” This passage got my goose brain rolling forward:
On Saturday night, ‘SNL’ had its best ratings since 2008, with an estimated 11 million people tuning in to see Betty talk about her muffin. But more than the ratings boost was the shear hilarity of the show; for the first time in a long time, ‘SNL’ was at the center of the national conversation this Monday morning. ‘Saturday Night Live’ was good with Betty White. Really good! And that kind of chatter is something you just can’t buy.
The one thing the goose knows is that one-shot or star-centric marketing efforts are not likely to be effective. A few decades ago, I was able to promote newsletters via direct mail. The method was simple. License a list and pay a service bureau to send a four page letter, an envelope, and a subscription card. Mail 10,000 letters and get 200 subscribers at $100 a pop. If a newsletter took off like Plumb Bulletin Board Systems which we sold to Alan Meckler or MLS: Marketing Library Services which we sold to Information Today, the math was good. Just keep mailing and when the subscription list hit 1,000 or more, sell out.
Times have changed. The cost of a direct mail program in 1980 was less than a $1.00 per delivered item. Today, the costs have risen by a factor of five or more. What’s more important is that snail mail (postal delivered envelopes) is ignored. An indifferent recipient or an recipient overwhelmed with worries about money, the kids, or getting the lawn mowed has afflicted radio, television, cable, door knob hangers, fliers under windshield wipers, and almost any other form of marketing I used in 1970.
I had a long call with a search entrepreneur yesterday, and in that conversation, I jotted down five points. None is specific to her business, but the points have a more universal quality in my opinion. Let me highlight each of these “myths”. A “myth” of course is a story accepted as having elements of truth.
First, send news releases with lots of words that assert “best,” “fastest”, “easiest”, or similar superlatives produces sales. I am not sure I have to explain this. The language of the news release has to enhance credibility. If something is the “fastest” or “easiest”, just telling me one time will not convince me. I don’t think it convinces anyone. The problem is the notion of a single news release. Another problem is the idea that baloney sells or produces high value sales leads. Another problem is that news releases disappear into the digital maw and get spit out in RSS feeds. Without substance, I ignore them. PR firms are definitely increasing their reliance on news releases which are silly. So the myth that cooking up a news release makes a sale is false. A news release will get into the RSS stream, but will that sell? Probably a long shot?
Second, Webinars. I don’t know about you but scheduled Webinars take time. For me to participate in one of these, I need to know that the program is substantive and that I won’t hear people stumble through impenetrable PowerPoint slides. I have done some Webinars for big name outfits, but now I am shifting to a different type of rich media. Some companies charge $10,000 or more to set up a Webinar and deliver an audience. The problem is that some of the audiences for these fees are either not prospects or small. A Webinar, like a news release, is a one shot deal and one shot deals are less and less effective. The myth is that a Webinar is a way to make sales now. Maybe, maybe not.
Third, trade show exhibits. Trade show attendance is down. People want to go to conferences but with the economic climate swinging wildly from day to day, funds to go to conferences are constrained. Conferences have to address a specific problem. Not surprisingly events that are fuzzy are less likely to produce leads. I attended a user conference last week and the exhibitors were quite happy. In fact, one vendor sent me an email saying, “I am buried in follow ups.” The myth that all trade shows yield says is wrong. Some trade shows do; others don’t. Pick wrong and several thousand dollars can fly away in a heartbeat. For big shows, multiply that number by 10.
Fourth, Web sites sell. I don’t know about you, but Web sites are less and less effective as a selling tool. Most Web sites are brochureware unless there is some element of interactivity or stickiness. In the search world, most of the Web sites are not too helpful. Who reads Web pages? I don’t. Who reads white papers? I don’t. Who reads the baloney in the news releases or the broad descriptions of the company’s technology? I don’t. Most effective Web sites are those showcased by the marketing and designers. These are necessary evils, and my hunch is that Web sites will be losing effectiveness like snail mail, just more quickly. The myth is that Web sites pump money to the bottom-line. Hog wash. Web sites are today’s collateral in most cases. A Web site is a necessary evil.
Fifth, social media. I know that big companies have executives who are in charge of social media. Google lacks this type of manager, but apparently the company is going to hire a “social wrangler” or “social trail boss.” Social media, like any other messaging method, requires work. I know for certain that a one shot social media push may be somewhat more economical and possibly more effective than a news release or two. Social media is real and hard work. The myth that it is a slam dunk is wrong.
So with these myths, what works?
I have to be candid. In the search and content processing markets, technology is not going to close deals. The companies whom I hear are making sells are companies able to solve problems. In a conflicted market with great uncertainty, the marketing methods have to be assembled into a meaningful, consistent series of tactics. But tactics are not enough. The basics of defining a problem, targeting specific prospects, and creating awareness are the keys to success.
I wish I could identify some short cuts. I think consistency and professionalism have to be incorporated into on going activities. One shot, one kill may have worked for Buffalo Bill. I am not so sure the idea transfers to closing search deals.
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2010
A freebie.
Walls: Their In and Out Functions
May 8, 2010
In college, one of my courses featured lectures by a fellow named Smythe, Daniel Smythe, I believe. He was a Robert Frost scholar and had spent time with the poet doing odd jobs. I was never sure whether he cleaned the pasture spring or shoveled out the barn. I do recall having to read and discuss a poem about a stone wall that kept falling over or was shoved out of the way by my neighbors who wanted to shoot small animals with their weapons in the adjoining field.
After 40 years I recall
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
My thought as an addled goose was, “Apple, the New York Times, and Rupert Murdoch are obsessed with walls. Pay walls, registration walls, and walled gardens are among the types about which I hear much chatter.
After some dancing around in synonym and metaphor weeds, the Bobster[my name for Mr. Frost] concludes:
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
I think T shirts with this slogan will be distributed by Apple, the New York Times and Rupert Murdoch. I definitely will want one. (Do you think the T shirts will have a footnote pointing to the Bobster’s support of the wall thing?)
I read the UK Telegraph article “Adobe: Apple Wants to Turn the Web into a Walled Garden.” For me the hot passage was:
[Kevin Lynch, Adobe CTO] went [on] to say: “We’re facing a time where there are some who want to wall off parts of the web and need to have approval. I don’t think that’s the role of a company. Apple is playing this strategy where they want to create a walled garden.” Lynch compared Apple’s decision to put up technological barriers to railroads in the 1800’s. “It’s like railroads in the 1800?s. People were using different gauged rails. Your cars would literally not run on those rails. That’s counter to the web. The ‘rails’ now are companies forcing people to write for a particular OS, which has a high cost to switch. We need people to compete on the merits of the things they do, not on the gauge of the rails.”
The old addled goose is tired from inputs from 20 somethings, one of whom regaled me with enough baloney to keep a Chicago school lunch room in sandwiches for a decade. Let’s think about this wall angle.
First, walls mean control. Prisons mostly rely on walls. What happens in prison can be pretty exciting. I have watched a couple of the prison reality shows with titles along the line “Prison Tattoos for You” and “Street Gangs and MBAs: A New Male Bonding Opportunity.”
Walls are good if you own the prison, control the toll road, or have enough lawyers to frighten a Las Vegas street gang with a fondness for spray paint. For those who don’t own walls or have “wall power”, walls can be annoying.
There can be bad stuff behind walls. Examples range from control of the TV set, the color of the prisoners uniform (an Arizona sheriff allegedly likes pink overalls), and a chance to make friends with the delivery people. That is really good friends with the delivery people. Walls, therefore, don’t mean safe, clean, crime free, or fair. Walls mean an attempt at control. Other operative terms include lock in, lock down, lock up, and the hole. The “hole” is a bit like being at Google and not having any access to MOMA I have heard.
The interest in walls is one more step toward the Middle Ages of Information. I would not be surprised that in order to protect revenue, content, or jobs executives adopt some new clothing styles. I was thinking armour, tasers, and iPads would complete the outfit. Togas could be used to keep these goodies out of sight but close at hand.
Will the Middle Ages of Information override the Wild West along the Internet superhighway? Some folks are going to try.
Control and money are tasty chunks of kibble in my opinion. Search is easier too. Put a wall around your world and you have a shot at knowing who enters, what is there, and who does what. Oh, power. I forgot power. Did I mention money? Oh, money. And don’t forget the hendecasyllabic verse. The Bobster was into rhyme, not crime. Fences. Ambivalent maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2010
A freebie.
Digital Black-Snouted Flying Frog: Objective Search Results
May 6, 2010
Pick a free online Web search service. Run a query. Are the results you see in your laundry list presented without regard to payment, bias, or some other digital tilt?
Tough to tell. At the Search Engine Meeting in Boston on April 26th and 27th, Dr. David Evans and I had one of our note-passing moments. Thank goodness he and I were not in the same math class. The professor would have taken our slide rules away and maybe banished us to the gym.
These notes presented below tackled the issue of objective search results and their becoming an endangered species in today’s rough-and-tumble marketplace.
We sketched and annotated a chart that looked like this:
The up swinging line suggests that as online users’ technical capabilities rise, the down-swinging line shows that objective search results have less value. The idea is that in the public Web search arena, subjectivity may be losing ground to objective selection and presentation of search results. The user * thinks * results are objective. The results may be subjective. If this supposition is true in a world of play for placement, online advertising, sponsored results, and the chicanery of search engine optimization experts, there may be some implications in world of Web search.
For instance, the type of search results from a service such as Delicious, Facebook, or StumbleUpon may be perceived as having more value. The idea is that if a person suggested a particular source of information and that person has some “connection” to the user, then the results may be more useful. Other possible descriptions of the results might be “trustworthy,” “accurate,” “non commercial”, or “reliable.”
In actual fact may be that these social results are as subject to commercial intent as the results in a Bing, Google, or Yahoo search list. That may not matter because there seems to be a flagging appetite for verification of information snagged from public Web sites. The demographic and social shift may be the prehistoric termites nibbling on the the intellectual foundations.
The passages below come from the notes that Dr. Evans and I exchanged in the course of our note-passing moment:
Arnold: I wonder if the interest in social media is a change in how people think about finding information. I think the social angle in the US is different from what I have experienced in China and Japan. Surprisingly there was some resistance to social media in Slovenia which contrasts sharply with the texting frenzies of the Chinese and Japanese.
Evans: In the US, we’re skeptical about authority (and resist the temptation to appear to conform to someone else’s opinions). This is not the case in other places (like Japan).
Arnold: Social is the new security problem. Information validity is an issue and some information is subject to manipulation.
Evans: It’s the network of associations that permits individuals to “suspend skepticism” and conform, cooperate, join in, etc. A kind of democracy effect. One network effect I have observed is the “rule of two”. If two acquaintances agree on a position, we’re likely also to agree.
Arnold: The social trend in the US is able to make factually incorrect information into “accurate” information.
Evans: Is this an Anglo-centric phenomenon? That is, is it a “sea change” only because we are Americans? In Japan, France, Italy, India and many other countries, social collaboration is the norm.
Arnold: The potential for misinformation is ratcheting upward in the US. Information can be shaped and the consumers of that information are unaware. Think of Fox News, which is owned by Mr. Murdoch. The information pushes an agenda, and despite its approach, the content gets wide distribution and is sometimes indistinguishable from information that does not have a slant or a political angle.
Evans: It’s ironic that a technology–digital computers and networks–designed to overcome limitations in human memory and ability to calculate probabilities and ground facts–would become the vehicles for and licensers of socially grounded points of view.
Arnold: It’s tragic that many individuals cannot make informed judgments about the information used to “know” something. The lack of information literacy gives social media in the US considerable potential for disinformational activities.
Evans: The Web has introduced noise in the information channel. It’s hard to distinguish one results of a search from another. The results “look alike” in a search results list. One might be from a respected research institution, another from a blog post. The attitude (banal democracy) has become, “Who can tell which is more reliable?”” We may be taking a huge step backwards.
Arnold: The digital Dark Ages? Figuring out which information is more accurate, reliable, or objective may be like finding a black snouted flying frog. A long shot indeed.
Stephen E Arnold and Dr. David Evans, May 4, 2010
Big Data, Big Problems
May 5, 2010
Short honk: Not all data are created equal. Understanding the difference can also help understand the privacy issues involved. Danah.org took the time to explain the complexities of data, its origin and impact, in “Privacy and Publicity in the Context of Big Data” () They identify big data as the type of data that marketers and researchers and business folks deem valuable – data about people, their activities, their interactions, their behaviors. One of the pertinent points they make is that “big-ness and whole-ness are NOT the same.” In other words, quantity doesn’t equal quality. Think Google? Think Facebook? Worth a read.
Melody K. Smith, May 5, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
eBooks and Mobile
May 4, 2010
“Paper View”, which appeared in Mobile Entertainment, provides an interesting glimpse of eBooks in the UK market. For me, the most telling comment in the article was this passage from the CEO of Mobcast:
There was a good deal of support for the no-DRM idea at the Mobcast event. Tony Lynch, CEO of Mobcast, was quite forthright. He said: “The current level of DRM is problematic. But ultimately, obscurity is a bigger problem than piracy. People need to be able to find what they want, and if they can they will buy. The single biggest complaint we get is about availability. That’s what we need to focus on.” Evidence suggests that removing DRM can work and may indeed become the norm in e-books as it is in music. In the 18 months since O’Reilly, the world’s largest publisher of tech books, stopped using DRM on its e-books, sales increased by 104 per cent. Hard to assess how much of that growth was organic, but it’s still a thought-provoking figure.
Common sense may not prevail. The stakes are sufficiently high that companies perceiving themselves as kingpins want control. Right now, I am looking at any reference to open, open source, and standards to try and figure out if these are marketing words or something else.
Apple is the poster child for control. When Apple talks about “standards” and an “open Web”, I have some disambiguation to do.
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2010
Unsponsored post.
Simplifying Search, Is It Possible?
May 4, 2010
“iPad Guts Approach to PC Design, Says iSuppli” triggered a thought about enterprise search. The article points out that the iPad eliminates the complexity from personal computers. The interface dictated the operating system. In an effort to create a fool proof system, which required a different approach to a computer. The key passage in my opinion was:
…these design changes will have profound implications for manufacturers. As shipments of the iPad are expected to rise to about 20 million in 2012 up from 7 million forecast in 2010, the “question of which companies in the supply chain will capture the profits (from tablets) will be of major importance in the coming years.
The Google Search Appliance implemented a similar design philosophy. Other vendors offer appliances that eliminate the complexities of configuring dozens if not scores of settings.
Try and tinker with this.
Will enterprise search be simplified? There may be a race between the appliance crowd and the vendors who want to embed search in other applications. This embedding angle is similar to the plastic covers that auto manufacturers put over their engines. Blocking the Saturday mechanic minimizes problems. Will this “blocking” be enough to keep the complexity of search and content processing systems manageable and affordable.
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2010
Unsponsored post.
Facebook Chases Trends
May 3, 2010
When new users are signing up with Facebook, they are taking advantage of the opportunity to learn more about their likes, dislikes and interests. Mashable.com recently reported in their article, “Facebook Suggests Pages to Like for New Users” on this new approach to making connections and enhancing the new user’s first experience with their product. Apparently they are trying to get ahead of search by suggesting brands, people, etc. that you might “like”. As long as they don’t start using it for a cheesy marketing approach to sell something, it really can’t hurt. Finding a page of an organization you are truly interested in, but might not have thought were on Facebook is an added bonus. Key word search which requires turning ideas into search terms takes one more step out of the mainstream.
Melody K. Smith, May 3, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
Search as Oil Slick or Volcanic Ash
May 3, 2010
I had a conversation with a person familiar with enterprise search. In the course of the ebb and flow, a metaphor surfaced, and I wanted to capture it before it slipped away.
The idea is that an environmental event or a human action can trigger big consequences. Anyone trying to get from Europe on April 16, 2010, learned quickly about ash plumes. Now the unlucky residents of the US Gulf Coast have an opportunity to understand the diffusion pattern of an oil release.
What’s this have to do with search?
The idea which struck me as interesting is that search is now having a similar impact on activities, processes, and ecosystems far removed from ground zero. I am not able to accomplish much of my “work” unless I can locate the program, file, information, and data I need. I don’t really do anything with physical objects. I live in a world of data and constructs built upon information. Sure, I have a computer and keyboard, and without those hardware gizmos, I would be dead in the water or maybe a sea of red ink?
The search eruption. Source: http://www.liv.ac.uk/science_eng_images/earth/research/VolcanicAsh.jpg
Search is now disappearing in some organizations, absorbed into other applications. One way to describe this shift is to use the phrase “search enable application”. Another approach is to talk about search as a utility or an embedded service.
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