Smart Business Network Columns
February 18, 2010
Stephen E Arnold’s nine columns for Smart Business Network are now online. You can access these discussions of search, eMarketing, and social networking by clicking the graphic below or you can navigate to www.arnoldit.com/articles/sbn.
A new series of columns for Smart Business Network will focus on using Google to generate sales and revenue for your business. The first article in the 2010 series jumps into Google Local, free coupons, and mobile search. Read the column in the next few weeks to learn how to get a free slice of pepperoni pizza.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2010
This is a marketing column marketing my marketing columns. Ah, a possible tautology. I will report self-funded tautologies to the Office of Management & Budget, an outfit familiar with tautologies and probably pepperoni pizza.
Someone Said It, Facebook Is a Problem for Google
February 18, 2010
I react to what I see in the open source information flow. I was quite happy to read “Don’t Count Out Facebook as a Competitor to Google.” Google managed to match Facebook’s disjointed approach to user privacy. Neither company is the Olga Yosifovna Preobrazhenskaya (darn good Russian dancer) of social media. Nevertheless, these two companies with their skill in the Plexico Burris Method continue to chase one another. Shooting oneself with regards to privacy could be fatal I suppose. Facebook with its wounds is hounding the Google.
Web Pro News wrote:
Facebook has surpassed Yahoo as the #2 site online in the U.S. in terms of unique visitors, just under Google. In December, according to Compete, Facebook’s unique visitors in the U.S. had increased by over 121%. That’s pretty incredible, because I seem to recall Facebook being pretty popular in late 2008 too.
The Google is chasing some big fish, but I think Facebook might be one of those creatures from the depths of the demographic ocean. Gmail’s Buzz might not be the net to catch the Facebook beasties. Facebook’s search is not too spiffy, but it has users and keeps getting more.
Stephen E Arnold, February 18, 2010
No one paid me to write this article. Because I mention the deep sea, I think I must report fishing without a catch to NOAA.
Will the iPad Able to Float Publishers’ Boats?
February 17, 2010
My answer to this question about a product that has not shipped containing information that I don’t know about at prices that are fuzzy is, “Nope.” Apparently, I am not alone in my skeptical goose pond. “Publishers Skeptical of Apple iPad Business Model” reported other Doubting Thomases. In my reading, some of the publishers mentioned in the Apple Insider write up are not sure that the iPad and its business model will deliver big bucks. For me, the most interesting comment was:
One unnamed newspaper senior media executive said Apple’s reluctance to share consumer data beyond sales volume is “pretty damn close” to being a deal breaker.
Caravaggio’s Doubting Thomas, 1597
Another point of interest:
Some publishers also said Apple’s revenue model, which gives the content provider 70 percent of sales while Apple keeps 30 percent, does not make much sense for subscriptions. Publishers are also reportedly concerned that they will see the same impact iTunes had on the music industry in 2003, when individual song sales from Apple severely impacted consumer purchases of full albums.
In my business, I start with assumption that a person pretty much does the same thing that worked in the past again. Sure, there are some minor changes, but a biochemist usually does biochemical stuff. My hunch is that Apple does Apple stuff. Hope is a wonderful human quality, but I assert that Apple starts work thinking about how to make life better for Apple. Publishers, well, maybe a resource to be used as needed?
Stephen E Arnold, February 17, 2010
No one paid me to write about Apple. With food as a metaphor, I will report writing for no money to the Department of Agriculture. I wonder if a relative of Johnny Appleseed works at a regional research lab now?
Search Engine Convera Drifts Off
February 16, 2010
The journey was a long one, beginning with scanning marketing brochures in the 1990s has filed for a certificate of dissolution. I think this means that Convera has moved from the search engine death watch to the list which contains Delphes, Entopia, and other firms.
Convera splash page on February 15, 2010
You can read the official statement for a few more days on the PRNewswire site. The title of the announcement is / was, “Convera Corporation Files Certificate of Dissolution, Trading of Common Stock to Cease after February 8, 2010 Payment Date Set.” I am no attorney so maybe my lay understanding of “dissolution” is flawed, and Convera under another name will come roaring back. For the purposes of this round up of my thoughts, I am going to assume that Convera is comatose. I hope it bounces back with one of those miracles of search science. I am crossing my wings, even thought each has a dusting of snow this morning. Harrod’s Creek has become a mid south version of Nord Kap.
For me, the key passage in the write up was:
Convera Corporation announced today that it filed its Certificate of Dissolution with the Delaware Secretary of State on February 8, 2010, in accordance with its previously announced plan of complete dissolution and liquidation. As a result of such filing, the company has closed its stock transfer books and will discontinue recording transfers of its common stock, except by will, intestate succession or operation of law. Accordingly, and as previously announced, trading of the company’s stock on the NASDAQ Stock Market will cease after the close of business on February 8, 2010.
My Overflight search archive suggested that Excalibur Technologies was around in the 1980s. The founder was Jim Dowe, who was interested in neural networks. The notion of pattern matching was a good one. The technology has been successfully exploited by a number of vendors ranging from Autonomy to Verity. Brainware’s approach to search owes a tip of its Prince Heinrich hat to the early content snow plowing at Excalibur. Excalibur used most of the buzzwords and catchphrases that bedevil me today, including “semantic technology.”
Sample of a category search on the Retrieval Ware system. The idea is that you would click a category.
One of my former Booz, Allen & Hamilton colleagues made some dough by selling his ConQuest Software search-related technology to Excalibur Technologies. The reason was that the original Excalibur search system did not work too well. Excalibur, according to my Overflight archive, described itself as “leading provider of knowledge and media asset management solutions.”
Deep Web Technology Nails Deal with SWETS
February 14, 2010
Abe Lederman (one of the founders of Verity) alerted me this morning that his company, Deep Web Technology, signed a deal and partnership agreement with SWETS. This Netherlands-based company is one of the world’s leading subscription services. SWETS helps government agencies and companies with subscriptions and related services. The firm has clients in over 160 countries and describes itself as “a long-talk powerhouse.”
Deep Web Technology provides the software and systems that fuel Science.gov, a US government search and retrieval project. Science.gov taps into a wide range of data and information related to science and technology. The invention of the Deep Web method was an outgrowth of Dr. Lederman’s experience in providing a user with access to a broad range of structured and unstructured data. In my various reports on enterprise and special purpose search, I have given Dr. Lederman’s method high marks, and I even let him buy me a taco in a restaurant in Santa Fe, after I finished a lecture at Los Alamos. Dr. Lederman contributed at Los Alamos prior to founding Deep Web as I recall.
The deal brings Dr. Lederman’s federation technology to the SwetsWise Searcher. This service will be powered by Deep Web Technology. SwetsWise is designed to help librarians and their users meet the challenge of searching and finding relevant results from the ever-increasing catalog of content available online. The search system simplifies access to an organization’s diverse and valuable resources, along with the open Web content users are accustomed to searching. SWETS will deliver search results through the Deep Web ranking engine, providing incremental results for fast response times, scalability and flexibility. SwetsWise Searcher performs a rapid parallel search of all available sources or selected sources in real-time, ensuring fresh information and that documents are retrieved the minute they are published into a collection’s database. A simple search box to cover all sources can be integrated into any web page, blog or Intranet homepage.
A happy quack to Deep Web Technology. No more tacos in Santa Fe. I want a nuked burrito, a nod to our friends up the road.
Stephen E Arnold, February 14, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I do have a promise of a taco in Santa Fe, which I have just rejected. I will report this to the Food & Drug Administration.
Raise Prices, Lose Sales. Obvious?
February 13, 2010
I found the information in “Online Gaming Store Lowers Prices 75%, Sees Sales Shoot Up 5500%” ideal for my lecture anecdote file. I suggest you check out this write up. For me, the key point was:
Rasmus Larsson points us to a report from an online gaming store that also reduced prices by 75% and saw sales increase by an astounding 5500% (Google translation from the original). A similar test, with a price decrease of 50% saw sales increase 533%. Interestingly, after each price decrease, the company put the price back up again and saw a (slight) sales increase at the higher price too. As the article notes “the price is marketing.”
With book publishers pushing up prices for electronic books, will publishers hit a home run? Bottom of the 9th, two outs. Play ball.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report the non compensated activity to the director of the US Postal Museum. Help stamp out inefficiency.
Apple and Online Pricing Tactics
February 13, 2010
I found the Techwatch story “Apple Wants Cheaper TV in Time for iPad Launch” useful because it showed the tactical mismatch between Amazon and Apple. Amazon is a digital discount store, moving closer and closer to eBay. Apple blindsided Amazon with its pitch to publishers for eBook pricing that left Amazon twisting in the wind, to use a Nixon era phrase. Amazon countered with a misstep and then capitulation. To make Amazon’s management disarray more evident to me, Amazon announced the Kindle software development kit. Good luck with that. I own a Kindle first generation and a Kindle second generation. Neither has enough power to get me to use the clunky on board search system. Most system functions such as moving media from the Kindle One memory to the SD card I installed is so painful I don’t fool with the function. Amazon is going to have to add some serious horsepower to the Kindle to get the basics to work in way to find acceptable before I think of letting one of the goslings code up an Amazon app.
The Techwatch story underscored how Apple’s book play was the equivalent of sacrificing a pawn in chess. Books are just not going to be where the money is in the future. Check out your own kids. How many of them are going to buy books when there are other ways to obtain information. The Apple push for cheaper TV shows, reported in the Techwatch story, makes clear that Apple knows exactly what sells and what price points are needed to generate big bucks. I think the publishers may be in for a surprise when the iPad finally comes to market. Save the magazine and newspaper industry? Great idea. The gizmo is for TV. Book readers will pay whatever the going rate is. The problem is that there are more non book, newspaper, and magazine readers. Price accordingly.
Apple knows pricing.
Amazon wants to be Google, eBay, Apple, and Wal*Mart. I think Amazon is skating on thin ice. Some hints can be found in studies about commoditization. The difference is that plumbing and marketing are going to be needed to cope with Apple and Google.
To round out my comments, what about eBay, Microsoft, and Yahoo? Are these the first team? Here’s how I view the players. Remember, this is my opinion. eBay seems to have an identity crisis. Microsoft is more like IBM or a baby Ling Temco Vought. Yahoo is—well, I think—a 1998 portal.
In this list of four, which are the players whom you would choose first for your digital softball team:
[a] Yahoo
[b] Google
[c] eBay
[d] Apple
[e] Amazon
[f] Microsoft.
Post your answers and the one compelling reason to the comments section of this Web log. I know which I would choose. I will go with the companies that make things happen, not companies that are reactive and tactically weak.
Stephen E Arnold, February 13, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report non compensation for tactical metaphors to the commandant of the Army War College. Those folks are into tactical superiority.
CloudXL: Cloud Services Search
February 12, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to CloudXL.com, a cloud service locator service.
I have been one of the voices of caution about vertical search services. The reason is that a broad indexing methods like Google’s generally provides a method for slicing and dicing results. The vertical search engine targets a specific topic area and indexes it well. But over time the types of indexing that a company like Google does makes the broader index more useful. There are exceptions like specialty indexes for antidotes, chemical structures, and ternary phase diagrams. But for general topics, a big data index like Google has an advantage if you know how to work around the training wheels that Google bolts to some users browsers.
I did CloudXL.com useful. The service uses some Google plumbing but the CloudXL.com service provides some useful one-click filters; that is, a Boolean NOT converted to colorful buttons. If you want to see the most recent additions to the service, you don’t need to search. Just scan the home page. If you want to locate a cloud database, you just click on “Categories” and scan the list. When you spot “database as a service, check the box and click submit.
The system displayed three hits and two of them were useful. If you are looking for cloud services, you might want to bookmark CloudXL. There’s no search system. Perhaps a Google custom search engine will be added in the near future.
Stephen E Arnold, February 12, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Because I mentioned clouds, I will report non payment to NOAA.
MySpace Turmoil
February 11, 2010
I never jumped into the MySpace.com service. I looked at a couple of sites and noticed some presentations that jarred my aging goose senses. When I honk, I am reasonably gentle. One MySpace site blasted sounds and lights at me, and I lost a handful of pin feathers.
What I found interesting was the coverage in the top drawer online media about turmoil at MySpace, which is owned by the large enterprise run by Rupert Murdoch. I found myself interested in the comments in BoomTown’s “MySpace CEO Van Natta Was Fired by News Corp. Digital Head Miller in Late Afternoon Meeting.” Whenever a large online company “fires” a person, I think that there may be some dissention in the ranks. When a giant corporation “fires” someone, there is the specter of some type of litigation or intense media scrutiny. I don’t know about the legal eagles, but there is quite a bit of media interest in MySpace.
In my opinion, MySpace is a member of the Over the Hill Gang without the cinematography. The dramatic soundtrack is there, however. In the BoomTown write up, this passage caught my attention:
The long-running telenovela that has been MySpace over the years took yet another dramatic turn late today when News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller fired MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, whom he had hired only nine months ago to turn around the troubled social networking site, according to several sources.
Brazilian soap opera! Fascinating. But the telling facts in the write up underscored issues with management interaction. And my recollection is that Facebook has left MySpace in the dust and has begun to nose ahead of Google in some features.
I suppose this is an anomaly in the News Corp. empire. If the new pay wall program follows in MySpace’s footsteps, there will be more heads rolling out the door in my opinion. Once there is a problem, unless that problem is resolved, a domino effect can kick in. Is it money? No, in my opinion. Is it market share? No, in my opinion. Is it management? Yes, in my opinion. The management problem can become management problems.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2010
No one paid me to write this comment. I will report it to someone in DC when the city digs out and the Montgomery County snow plow drivers regain their courage.
Online Pricing Insights: The Music Edition
February 11, 2010
I enjoyed reading “iTunes Price Increases Mean Slower Sales for Music Labels.” I can hear the azure chip consultants saying, “We were surprised.” Right. The core of the story is that higher prices on Apple iTunes’ music reduced sales. Got it. For me, the most telling statements in the write up were:
- “Warner Music Group revealed Tuesday that it has seen digital music sales slow down since the price increase took effect in April 2009.”
- “Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. reportedly said the pricing change has been a “net positive” for Warner, but conceded that a 30 percent price increase during a recession was not the best move.”
- “Publishers have said the increased prices will not lead to greater profits, but will protect the viability of the book marketplace by giving authors and agents the ability to make more money on every digital sale.”
Net net. Raising prices reduces sales. Get your Number 2 pencils out. Based on the data in the article, calculate the price point at which publishers generate a pre tax profit of 20 percent. I know Steve Jobs will get this problem right.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2010
No one paid me to write this article or create a test question. I will report this failure to get paid for an academic exercise to the Department of Education.
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