Real Journalists May Have Lost Touch with IT Reality
March 9, 2010
Keep in mind that the addled goose’s Web log, which you are now reading, is a marketing vehicle. It contains on good days old news. On bad days, the addled goose recycles his own talks which he delivers for tacos and Pepsis. I am not a journalist and I don’t pretend to be one. I am not even a public relations person. As I approach 66, I entertain myself capturing information that I otherwise would forget and documenting my thoughts, which are subject to change. When was the last time, a 65 year old could remember where he or she put the keys to the automobile? See what I mean.
When I read the Cnet write up about a post I saw last week, I thought, “CBS’s real journalists are now thinking about themselves in a meta-way.” Navigate to “Has Business Press Lost Touch with the Tech Industry?” CBS is a real company and it does real news. Cnet is a real news outfit, if I understand set theory. The point is that an azure chip outfit called ITDatabase figured out that the real journalists are writing about topics that are popular. I think this is using humans the way Google uses popularity algorithms. I am sure the “real” journalists would disagree. That’s okay.
For me, the most interesting passage in the write up in Cnet was:
Enterprise IT is woefully underrepresented, despite being the cash-cow in the industry. “In the overall editorial agenda,” the report says, “enterprise IT is treated like consumer tech’s snaggletoothed twin. It barely even makes the family photo.”
Let’s think about this statement.
First, publicly traded companies are covered with a bit of fancy geometry by the investment analysts tracking these companies. The information is usually able to deliver a couple of nuggets. The reason is that most of the analysts talk to people * other than public relations * and * business development officers *. Most of the real journalists recycle familiar contacts, preferring to quote names the writer assumes the readers will recognize. So when the word “search” appears in a story the same handful of “experts’ get quoted. The result is that the stories really don’t change too much from article to article. Google is an advertising company. Bing is gaining share. Autonomy is the leader in enterprise search. The statements in the article are true because they are in the article. Tautology meets routine.
Second, figuring out what is going on in a technology field is tough for three reasons. [a] The jargon is impenetrable. A “real” journalist may not have the time to figure out what the words mean. Example: faceted search or taxonomy. [b] The sources are often running the game plan. Take a look at the comments by tech leaders. There are buzzwords and a jab or two at a windmill. Not much substance because the focus is the sound bite. [c] A tech company sells products that a really complex. The wizards at the company cannot be trusted to answer a question because the wizard might point out that a specific feature is different from the function described by the marketing person. Guess who gets in trouble? The tech person so there folks are shuttled away from the lights and the cameras.
Third, I heard that publishing companies are getting rid of staff. The numbers quoted at a conference last week struck me as pretty high. The person pointed out that newspapers were shedding jobs at the rate of 1,000 per month. Wow. What will be left? What’s left, if this number is accurate, are people who have to write from news releases, contacts who are warm and familiar, and topics that are listed on Tweetmeme.
When the money goes away, algorithms will do this work and, of course, folks with time on their hands like this addled goose. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2010
No one paid me to write about how I write this blog. Wait. If I buy myself lunch this afternoon, I will be getting paid. I will report the write-for-food angle to the FCC.
Possibly Unfair Criticism of Real Journalists
March 9, 2010
I heard about a frustrated programmer who found a livelihood as an azure chip consultant. The fellow tries hard. He writes a Web log that takes on software companies with a feather duster. When I read “UK Press: 21st Century Journalism hits an All Time Low”, I thought the author was writing about this blogger fellow and his simplifying gang of mavens. I was wrong. The article challenges the quality of journalism in the UK, and the author read old newspapers as part of his research. For me the most interesting passage was:
Some editors seem to have a funny idea of what’s newsworthy. They also seem to have an odd idea of what people find interesting to read and are bending over backwards to put press releases by celebrity agents instead as newsworthy stories, these are often recycled in other major newspapers. Round me, people are losing their jobs left right and centre and only today, I have had yet another person speak to me about regular elder abuse in care homes. Front page stories about celebrities are an insult to the British public.
I wonder how Google’s smart software would populate a newspaper with its snippet and segmenting technology mixed with a dash of its context server? Maybe some day.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2010
No one paid me to write this short item. I will report the fact of non payment to the Department of State, an outfit on top of activities in the United Kingdom.
The Discovery Hoax: Commercial Databases Make Big Promises
March 8, 2010
I was given a box lunch and a can of Pepsi as compensation for my one hour talk at a conference last week. I had an interesting conversation with a former big wheel in commercial database publishing. I thought the wizard was a retired poobah. I was wrong. The fellow had his shoulder pads on, a sweatband, and Gucci cleats. He’s back on a commercial company’s publishing team. I am an old, cowardly goose, and it is with trepidation that I get too close to big people garbed for quasi-military re-enactments related to electronic information.
I asked the industry titan what his new gig involved. I recall one word, which he repeated several times to me, the addled goose. The word? “Discovery.” I thought I was having a The Graduate moment. In 2010, plastic was a loser. The winner? Discovery.
Yep, the lingo of the search and content processing market has reached the world of professional publishing and for-fee database access.
The idea, as I understood it, is that this commercial company will allow a user to enter a keyword; for example, employee stock ownership. The system will crunch away and present:
- Results from the firm’s for fee databases. Not just anyone can run a search. The user has to have access to an institutional account or sign up and pay. There is some free stuff, but this is a real, live make-money-or-die operation.
- The system will also “discover” possibly related content and list that information in the form of links. I think the idea the titan was communicating is what Endeca calls “Guided Navigation” in 1999! Not exactly yesterday! To see the Endeca system in action just go to OfficeFurniture.com.
- Content from the public Web.
The idea is that a person using a commercial system will enter a search string and then see links to related content. This works for buying office furniture. I am not sure how a computational chemist would react to a suggestion she read a blog post about a meth lab that blows up.
Yep, our professional grade service needs those custom chrome wheels. Image source: http://www.up.ac.za/organizations/movup/images/minefun/indian_haul_truck.jpg
I asked what happened if I used one of the company’s business databases and entered the search term “management.” I got a bit of double talk and the titan backed up, trying to get away from me. The reason I asked about this type of search is that I know from hands-on experience that the use of a general controlled term in his firm’s databases does not generate a usable results list. Thus, any “discovered” information is likely to be wide of the mark. Broad queries don’t often work too well in the for-fee, quite specific content in certain commercial systems. A single word like “management” in a Google search box generates what is highly ranked by clueless millions like a link to the Wikipedia entry.
Financial Times Hopes for a Flood of Cash
March 3, 2010
The Financial Times * was * one of the most magnetic business information brands. Now I don’t think too much about the Financial Times. Its 2009 Newssift.com site (now mercifully removed from my browser’s bookmark list) is history. Newssift featured technology from Endeca, Nstein (now surprisingly part of OpenText, and Lexalytics (now a unit of Infonics). The dreams of the SharePoint-ish interface, the weird and colorful boxes of options, and the irrelevant results are just a reminder that online is tough. The decline in revenues in the most recent quarter is not heartening either, but the company did get out of the wax museum business. That was a positive step.
I just read “FT.com Tests PayPal To Rake In Paywall Fees”. The most telling comment in the write up in my opinion was this passage:
FT.com has more than 126,000 online subscribers and 750 direct corporate licenses, according to UK’s MarketingWeek. In 2009, content revenues increased by 15%, although revenues for the overall FT Group, which contains Interactive Data and FT Publishing, fell by 12% in 2009.
I thought about some of the free thinking ideas I heard at the NFAIS Conference in Philadelphia yesterday (March 1, 2010). NFAIS is a professional organization for those in the “old” abstracting and indexing business, but there were some young folks attending as well. I heard some speakers describe in general terms their employers’ monetization efforts.
I wanted to ask some questions, but I caused enough upset tummies when I mentioned in my invited luncheon address for members the following:
In the old days of online, the publishers ruled the roost. Publishers had memberships to the country club. Publishers organized the golf foursomes. Publishers got to pick who was allowed to entertain at the 19th hole. Today companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and a handful of others are the country club members who organize the foursomes, and it is the Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google executives who decide who pays and who plays. The publishers are now the caddies for these newer info-giants.
Two people excused themselves. Quite enough of the addled goose I concluded.
Now the Financial Times is about to demonstrate that it has weak magnetic power. Why will its dreams of untold riches not materialize? Individual newspapers, even those with a chunk of the Economist in its hip pocket, lack the pull that other types of online services deliver. One example is the financial information available from AOL, Google, and Yahoo. If you have not explored these resources, take a gander. These services continue to improve, and I think that as the economy continues to wobble, the Financial Times will have to do quite a bit of work to get traffic and generate significant flows of online revenue.
Can the Financial Times achieve this goal? If Newssift.com is an early indicator, I think the odds are indeed long.
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I suppose I have to report writing for nothing to public affairs person at the National Railway Retirement Board.
Automated Reports May Squeeze Azure Chip Consultants
March 3, 2010
On Mach 1, 2010, I heard an interesting presentation by Alacra. This company aggregates business information and packages it in an easy-to-read way. The talk focused on Alacra Pulse. The basics of the service as I recorded the speaker’s comments are:
The Alacra Pulse Platform monitors thousands of carefully selected news feeds and blogs and extracts actionable intelligence in near-real-time. Alacra’s Applied Knowledge Extraction turns Web content into an idea generation and current awareness service for financial professionals and corporate executives.
The Pulse service offers a free version and a premium version. I thought the demonstration of the free version was quite good, and it certainly shows how far automated content assembly has come in the last two or three years. You can explore the service yourself. Navigate to http://pulse.alacra.com/analyst-comments to get started.
Right after listening to the Alacra talk, I read a news release about “New Market Report Now Available: Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Limited – SWOT Analysis” from an azure chip outfit called Datamonitor. Now Hon Hai Precision, if I recall correctly, is a unit of Foxconn. Foxconn makes stuff for “hollow manufacturers.” The idea is that a company like Apple or Dell does not have the expertise or cost structure to make things. Foxconn and Hon Hoi do. The buzzword for lacking a core competency in manufacturing is outsourcing in my opinion. Foxconn is interesting because of a glitch in Apple related security and an employee death.
I think I prefer the autogenerated reports from Alacra, thank you. Image sourcehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Hs_cKZPkvaU/Sxshr9-foYI/AAAAAAAAAG4/ZtHNfWYGEIE/s400/sleazy-salesman-thumb.jpg:
The azure chip crowd assembles reports, presumably like the Hon Hoi “SWOT” analysis using basic business school methods, which may or may not be germane to the present financial climate. Here’s what the news release said:
Datamonitor’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Limited – SWOT Analysis company profile is the essential source for top-level company data and information. Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Limited – SWOT Analysis examines the company’s key business structure and operations, history and products, and provides summary analysis of its key revenue lines and strategy.
Would you trust your retirement savings to anyone relying upon an off the shelf, MBA’s SWOT analysis in today’s real time world? I would not.
But several more important questions crossed my mind.
First, why would I pay for a profile when I could get the basic information from Alacra? Furthermore, when I get the Alacra report, it is (as I recall the speaker’s saying) generated in real time. No delay between my request and getting the freshest data. I am reasonably capable can can formulate my own views of a company from fresh data if what I saw from Alacra is indicative of what the company provides in its Pulse service.
Second, assume I don’t know about Alacra. Why not use a federating search system such as Devilfinder.com, Ixquick.com, or Vivisimo.com? There are even more interesting federating systems to tap, including Bright Planet and Deep Web Technologies. I understand laziness, but these services can deliver the basic information that provides a manager with direct links to some publicly available, quite useful reports about the company; for example, the Google Finance or the AOL company report.
Third, if I * really * want to do a good job, perhaps my firm should look into industrial strength solutions from Kapow Technologies or Kroll Ontrack? Let’s face it. Buying an off-the-shelf report chock full of business school jargon may not be what’s needed to deal with a business decision in today’s economic climate.
My opinion is that as outfits like Alacra and Google roll out more reports generated by “smart” software, the pressure will mount on the azure chip consulting crowd. Already pressured from below by the likes of Gerson Lehrman Group and from above from the blue chip outfits like McKinsey & Co, the azure chip outfits will be like the cheese and salami in a Panini, feel heat and pressure from two places at once.
My thought is that canny business executives may want to check out services like Pulse, familiarize themselves with federating search systems, consider an industrial strength solution that operates in near real time, or just sign up for a pay as you consulting service from Gerson Lehrman. In short, do something other than buying the Cliff’s Notes for executives who are lazy like this addled goose. In short, the middle may be an uncomfortable place for self appointed experts, poobahs, and mavens writing reports about Chinese businesses using English language sources. Yep, Cliff’s Notes for Harried Executives?
Stephen E Arnold, March 3, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mentioned myself as a lazy goose, I will report non paid writing to Fish & Wildlife, an outfit that does a stellar job scheduling rooms at national parts and monitoring the health of geese in the US.
Wild and Crazy Tweeting
March 1, 2010
In the flow of stories for our Strategic Social Networking blog we see a lot of wild and crazy articles. Some of the information is a reminder of the “Wild and Crazy Guys” skits on the fourth season of the American comedy show Saturday Night Live. The tag lines, “We are wild and crazy guys” still echoes when I read some of the outputs from the azure chip crowd with its mavens, poobahs, and self appointed experts.
One of the more interesting items was “DOD Authorizes Soldiers to Tweet, Access Facebook,” which appeared in PC Magazine on February 26, 2010. The main point was:
Provided they’re not giving away classified information, employees at the Department of Defense are now officially allowed to use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter…The policy covers everyone using the department’s non-classified Internet system, known as NIPRNET.
It is, therefore, not too surprising that some think tanks, azure chip consultants, and poobahs are on the social media bandwagon too. A reader sent me a link to “Banks Need to Wake Up to the Potential of Social Media.” The “article” appeared on the Datamonitor Web site (“the home of business information”) on February 18, 2010. The main point, in my opinion, is:
UK traditional banks need to recognise the value of social media if they are to keep their grip on customers in the thawing economic climate according to Datamonitor. The independent market analyst believes the rise of social media has facilitated a fundamental shift in power from banks to consumers. The research* reveals how UK consumers are leading the way, as 50% are using a variety of online tools to make their financial decision compared to 41% globally. According to the Datamonitor findings, ‘online media’ is most popular amongst the 25-34 year old segment in all regions except APAC (Australia, Singapore and Japan).
Lots of buzzwords and fancy verbal dancing. When I read this, I heard the voice of Steve Martin.
Steve Martin, “Yes, the military and banks should make the tweets.” Dan Aydroyd: “We must post pictures of our strategic policy meetings on Facebook too.” Source: http://www.la2day.com/images/page_image/SteveMartinWild.jpg
Audience laughs. Loudly. A lot.
What caused me to think about this quite remarkable paragraph was another news story, “Experts on Bank Crisis Will Name and Shame.”? The main thrust of this story is that the exploration of some “issues” in Ireland will identify some bankers who may be involved in an interesting way.
Now why did I connect the “Banks Need to Wake Up to the Potential of Social Media” and “Experts on Bank Crisis Will Name and Shame?”
Easy.
Can you imagine folks like German economist Klaus Regling or Max Watson, a bank expert, sending tweets about their activities? How about some Facebook posts with pictures of a couple of meetings or a toast at a restaurant? What about a link to some little-known public PDF documents on a public Web site?
What about the banks themselves? Should the Royal Bank of Scotland, an outfit that managed to match some of the fine lads and lasses in the US with a lost of $5.5 billion in 2009. See “Royal Bank of Scotland Loses $5.5 Billion in 2009”?
Yep, the financial community should jump on that social media bandwagon. Start a social media campaign? Forget information policies, governance, and legal concerns. Tweet now!
Sometimes I wonder why the azure chip crowd with its assorted poobahs, mavens, and glib souls cook up recommendations that: [a] will not make much sense to the senior executives, [b] may create additional legal hassles if the messages are not in step with what the legal eagles define as appropriate, and [c] are little more than a sales pitch less subtle that the columns I write for Information World Review.
Now back to the military. The alleged assassination in a far off country, reported in “Inquiry Grows in Dubai Assassination”, which appeared in the digital New York Times, is helping to keep this story fresh. I am not sure who is involved in what. The social info zooming around adds layers of messaging to a strange story.
I am on the fence about the military and the banks getting “social”.
So what about search?
Well, that’s the point. With services like Collecta.com or even the newcomer like Wowd.com, an investigator or attorney working in one of the legal matters related to “name and shame” are going to have an * easy time * of finding a comment, an observation, or other item that * may * be material to the legal proceedings. Great idea to urge more social media in the midst of a financial downturn. Keep in mind that Datamonitor’s poobahs see the economic climate “thawing”. Sorry. I don’t agree.
I sure hope that the folks pushing certain institutions toward social media have thought about some of the implications for security and personnel safety.
A more prudent approach would emphasize the use of social media in a particular context with certain information governance policies in place and working. Defense and financial institutions may find that more analysis preferable to a rush to tweeting.
For one, I am leaning toward a more conservative approach to social media unlike the cheerleaders, poobahs, and bandwagon riders.
Stephen E Arnold, March 1, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I think I have to report non payment of articles that are about wild and crazy consulting idea must be reported to the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a canny lot.
When Domains Collide
March 1, 2010
Editors’s Note: This is a modified version of the lecture that Stephen E Arnold, ArnoldIT.com delivered in Philadelphia, March 1, 2010. The actual presentation was an extemporaneous talk based on this preliminary set of notes.
I want to thank NFAIS for inviting me to address the members of this professional organization. The world of bibliography, abstracting, indexing, professional publishing and academic research has been shaken to its foundations in the last three or four years. The Richter scale measuring the waves pulsing through the bedrock of information access is being stretched. I find that talking about what is happening and what information professionals can do about those pulses difficult.
This morning I want to put the pulses into a context. I am cautiously optimistic about a finding my research has revealed. Specifically, the shocks are coming from the integration of formerly separate disciplines into new services. In short, the traditional methods are being put into software and hardware modules and used to build new, more efficient, and more flexible services. Complete information businesses are now a commodity component that a clever engineer can use like a building block. Good news for engineers skilled in integration. Not such good news for experts in a hand-craft like Linotype operation. By snapping together modules, domains collide and are reinvented.
That’s today’s world of information.
Where We Are
Today we live in a world of a number of global, possibly monopolistic online research services stands and literally a hundred million or more citizen journalists creating blogs and tweets.
Until recently, say about 1979 or 1980, a scholar transported from the 11th century scriptorium would have become familiar quickly with the hard copy research books painstakingly documented by Constance Winchell. But move that person to today’s world and the mental shift would be more difficult, perhaps impossible.
Bring that 11th century researcher to today’s world, and I think adjustment would be difficult. Since the advent of online (anyone remember NLS?), information is just “out there”. Today information is “here” when it appears on a screen. The display of information is evanescent until it is “written”—that is, copied—to a storage device which may be located “out there”. It is possible to print an item of information, but the digital instance is the “real information.” This is a significant conceptual shift since online became our common information currency.
In fact, I cannot begin work until I “find” the particular electronic instance on which I am to work. Without search and retrieval, I am a cooked goose.
And just finding a particular document can be difficult even with the many search systems available. If our time traveling 11th century research can print a document, the information needed may surrounded by unwanted images and advertisements. Without the ability to recognize the “real” information our 11th century scholar would be hard pressed to use today’s information retrieval systems. The monk comes from another time, and that time has its own domain of information. The domain includes ways to create information, way to access information, and ways to reference other information. The monk might be squashed when his domain collided with the domain of 2010 information access. When domains collide, methods are crushed, recycled, and remade. This is deeply disturbing to people who cling to specific ways of doing such things as research.
The implications of domain collision are important in my opinion. Economics, human behavior, work processes, and speed are defined by domains. Let’s run down a handful of the challenges domain collisions ignite. The good news is that domains that touch create a boundary condition in which opportunities can flourish.
Challenges of Domain Collisions
If you have a business school degree, you have studied the touchstone buggy whip reference in Theodore Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia” that appeared in the Harvard Business Journal in 1960. The idea is that a buggy whip manufacturer who anticipated the advent of the automobile could have expanded the product line to include a leather steering wheel wrap or automobile interiors.
Thus, the problem is that each domain has a certain way of perceiving phenomena. I won’t dwell on phenomenological existentialism, but I think it has quite a bit to teach us about what we can see when something “new” this way comes. We are, in the telling phrase of William James, stricken with “a certain blindness”. We simply cannot see beyond our domain. When domains collide, not only our vision is impaired we must deal with processes and methods that have been transformed by the forces involved.
Not surprising, the problems of apprehending have triggered a cascade of challenges. Vocabulary is an issue. One example is the use of abbreviated spelling and neologisms to communicate in Twitter “tweets” or short messages via a mobile device. Messages such as ru w/me grate on some. To those in the domain, the messages is clear and appropriate.
Other phenomena I have observed include:
- Work methods crafted for one domain such as copying a manuscript by hand on animal skin do not transfer to another domain such as copying information to a storage device. An entire lifetime of learning is irrelevant in the new domain.
- The time required to assemble a document is measured by manual tasks that are often organized in a sequential manner. The digital domain allows many tasks to be handled quickly and, in some cases, in parallel.
- The costs for manual, serialized work processes can be problematic. When software can be used to eliminate certain work previously done by humans, the economics change.
I think you can see from these examples that our time traveling researcher from Mont St Michel in the Middle Ages would have a steep learning curve.
I have given quite a bit of thought to the implications of this type of domain collision. I know when I look at banking, retail, manufacturing, and finding the right person to marry that domain collisions are one of the defining attributes of today’s world.
Publishing
I want to comment about publishing because most NFAIS members are involved in the creation, selection, and dissemination of information. The domain collision began with the advent of the online search systems for the NASA RECON project, the work of Dr. Gerald Salton (Cornell University), and the non-linear increase in the capabilities of hardware and software.
What is interesting to me is that since this revolution began, arguably in the 1970s, publishing has been eager to embrace certain technologies yet reluctant to get too close to other technologies.
Let me give you an example. When I worked at the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co., we operated a rotogravure press and we printed the New York Times Sunday Magazine. We embraced traditional rotograveur printing technology and then we adopted technology that chopped the manual plate making process out of the work flow. We used computers, fancy software, and numerically-controlled presses as early as the early 1980s.
The Courier-Journal Board of Directors understood the importance of electronic information and created a separate separate business unit to build digital products. I was lucky to participate in the development a profitable online business with ABI/INFORM, Business Dateline, Pharmaceutical News Index, and the core technical databases that were the foundation of today’s Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. This work took place in the early 1980s and relied on traditional mainframes and timesharing businesses like Tymnet and Dialcom as service bureaus.
I know from first-hand experience that those who managed the technologies steeped in the domain of traditional newspaper production believed their unit of the company was in the thick of technological change. The electronic publishing technology was a radical and strange undertaking. The people running the state-of-the-art four color printing presses did not see how electronic information could be a viable business.
We know now that the electronic publishing technology has emerged as one of the key technologies for information companies today. In fact, the brutal struggles between Macmillan and Amazon, Apple and Sony, and Google and book publishers are anchored in the technology that was a second-class citizen in the 1980s.
What’s interesting is that within publishing the domain of the traditional products like books, music, motion pictures, and television programming is now colliding with the domain of the network computing infrastructure. Complete businesses and their nested processes are now a Web service. One can download a electronic publishing system as open source software. The key point is that anyone anywhere in the world can become a digital newsroom with a Web site, newsfeed, and a community.
What’s even more interesting is that the agents of change are the children of many publishing executives and in some cases, the former employees of established publishing and rich media companies.
Another interesting point is that the new domain of content production is surrounding the traditional information industry which Paul Zirkowski tried to capture in this diagram from the Information Industry Association in the mid-1980s, which, in my opinion, nicely summarizes what we now know as the Petri dish for Amazon, Apple, and Google, among other firms.
This is a diagram created by the “old” Information Industry Association. Created in the mid 1980s, it is an attempt to show how the information world at that was beginning to develop. What’s interesting is that the successes of Amazon, Apple, and Google, among other companies is dependent to some degree on combining several of these “old” segments in one service.
When I look at this diagram, I can see that the success of Amazon, Apple, and Google in information comes from taking the building blocks from this 20-year-old diagram and combining pieces into new constructions. Keep in mind that these firms are not in the strict sense traditional publishing companies. These are technology-centric companies whose engineering uses information as a catalyst to create new functions.
Mainframe Madness in US Government
February 28, 2010
Fascinating article “US Secret Service Shackled by Ancient Mainframes.” The search engine optimization company known as IBM has been crowing about the value of mainframes. In fact, a recent sale was to a bank in Africa. Yep, that’s a niche.
Despite IBM’s efforts to convince me that I need a mainframe in my office, I have had enough experience with these beasties to say, “No thanks.” IBM is deep into search engine optimization, and I know that SEO wizards understand computers.
The most interesting point in the write up was the use of the phrase “shackled by ancient mainframes.” Mainframes are not ancient; they are – er, ahem – geriatric.
The second interesting comment in the write up was in my opinion:
… a Secret Service memo (dated Oct. 16, 2009) obtained by ABC News revealed that 42 mission-oriented applications ran on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating. In addition, networks, data systems, applications, and IT security did “not meet” current operational requirements, while the IT systems lacked appropriate bandwidth to run multiple applications to “effectively support” USSS offices and operational missions around the world.
IBM Federal Systems has a big operation in between Germantown and Rockville. Why can’t the IBM folks get these Secret Service systems working? I think I know. The real wizards at IBM are in SEO or selling consulting services.
As a result, the mainframe units may be starved for talent.
Stephen E Arnold, February 27, 2010
No one paid me to write this. With IBM revamping the GSA systems, I will report my writing for free to someone at IBM Federal Systems. I wonder if an SEO expert is on duty now.
German Google Books Activity
February 26, 2010
A reader sent me an email filled with useful information. A happy quack to that person. Here’s the key information from that message.
I know you like watching these efforts.
Munich Digitization Center of the Bavarian State Library does the scanning. The product: The German Digital Library (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek, or DDB). The Fraunhofer Institute in Sankt Augustin, near Bonn, is responsible for the DDB’s computer technology and may be based on Theseus. The goal is to integrate the DDB with Europeana. See information here.
Another article on the Fraunhofer Institute linked from Silobreaker looks at developments in 3-D scanning of museum pieces and the possible building of an online repository of culture and archaeology. See the China Post’s “Digital Depot May Archive World Culture in 3-D.”
Great idea for Germany, but with the European Union’s financial challenges falling on Germany’s broad shoulders, I am not certain the flow of money needed to deliver a Google-scale project will be available if Greece, Italy, Spain, and Belgium go south.
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2010
No one paid me to copy and paste a reader’s email. Because I used the word “mail”, I will report sending a message without official payment to the US Postal Service.
iTunes Landmark
February 26, 2010
This just in: iTunes sold it’s 10 BILLIONth song on Feb. 25, 2010!
Can you imagine that… open for business April 28, 2004, iTunes has already sold its first 10,000,000,000! And all of them were bought online with never a 33 rpm, 45 rpm, long play, VCR, cassette, CD or DVD being shipped… just a click of the mouse!
The world’s largest music, TV and movie retailer doesn’t have a store front, is open 24/365 and has a 12 million song inventory (plus 55,000 TV episodes and 8,500 movies) without the need for a warehouse to store them in. Who would have ever thought… ? Well, that’s today. How long do you think it will take for the next 10 billion to happen?
For your information, the 10 billionth song purchased was “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash. The lucky buyer, ironically, is from Woodstock (Georgia, in this case), representing even today, the soul that drives many of the purchases. For his lucky timing, iTunes has given him a $10,000 gift card. Wow! Is he going to have a great song library.
Jerry Constantino, February 26, 2010
This post was paid for by ArnoldIT.com
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