Google: Buy Time
December 10, 2010
I marvel at how giant news outfits get scoops. I mean day after day I read articles from the New York Times that are revolutionary. Revolutionary I say. Here’s an example: “Google Executive: No Time to Build, So We Buy.”
The article explains that Google is in a hurry. Google has lots of employees but it can’t form teams quickly enough to respond to opportunities. Despite having lots of Math Club guys and gals, Google can’t pinpoint the exact person needed to hop on a bandwagon and play the tuba.
Goodness. Who would have guessed? Google has watch Amazon implement most of the cloud ideas that Google spelled out in its voluminous patent applications in the last 10 years. Google watched Facebook catch fire, Microsoft buy a piece of the company, and Facebook explain that it wants to become the Web. Already some Facebook users stay within Facebook. No bigger Web wanted. Period.
Here’s what the New York Times did not ask Susan Mojcicki, a Googler as close to the throbbing hearts of the Google triumvirate as anyone in Mountain View:
- Why can’t you assemble a team?
- Why can’t you identify internal talent?
- Why can’t you create products that capitalize on trends?
- Why can’t Google deploy a local service that makes sense to advertisers?
Did the Gray Lady ask these questions? Nope. What we get is revolutionary information that warrants a Google T shirt.
Stephen E Arnold, December 10, 2010
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First XML, Then the iPad: Another Life Preserver for Publishers
December 6, 2010
Publishers love XML. Well, not the coding of XML. Publishers love the versatility and slicing – dicing functions of XML. Now the publishers have another life preserver as traditional cost structures and marketing methods come under increased pressure.
“Why the iPad Newspaper is Doomed” is broken down into a long list of all the reasons why Rupert Murdoch’s latest news venture is destined to be an epic fail. Gawker, publisher working to reinvent itself, asserts:
“Rupert Murdoch is putting $30 million and 100 journalists behind an iPad newspaper called “The Daily. He even has support from Apple CEO Steve Jobs. But no one really believes this thing will last.”
The reasons are that the morning news will be compiled the evening before, the scope is too broad, Murdoch has not had success online before, huge amounts of subscriptions will have to be sold, links will be non-existent, costs are too expensive to maintain, the cost-free news competition s too tough, and the staff is all traditional news not tech.
Yet, the post does also have a short list of reasons for optimism, which are: Steve Jobs, huge iPad sales, Murdoch’s unexpected success with Fox News, and the success of some other iPad publications. It’s the Fox News angle that interests me most. Rupert Murdoch, love him or hate him, has been known to sniff out an opportunity and keep putting his extensive resources behind it until it pans out. This iPad newspaper seems like a long shot, but sometimes Murdoch knows something we don’t. The story, as real journalists say, is still being written.
Alice Wasielewski, December 6, 2010
Word, Flawed as It Is, Embraces XML
December 2, 2010
I have fiddled with a number of editors that look like Microsoft Word or slap code on, over, and in Word to make it work like an XML editor. Sigh. Now, Word with its wacky automatic features has another function tossed in its 1990 retrorod truck bed.
“IXIASOFT Integrates Quark XML Author with its DITA CMS Solution” announces that Quark has partnered with IXIASOFT to integrate Quark XML Author for Microsoft Word into their content management solution. This will make it easy for anyone using Microsoft Word to edit or create content in XML. In short, “The combined solution improves cross-departmental collaboration on the production of technical documentation by making it possible for non-technical subject matter experts to create structured content without using complicated DITA or XML editors.” This solution will make life easier for the teems of people already using MS Word. Microsoft may score a bit hit with this one. There you go. Love that autonumbering too.
Alice Wasielewski, December 2, 2010
Google, France, and a Sacred Link
December 2, 2010
Short honk: Lots of chatter about Google just deciding to pay for content deals. The original approach seems to have been less than optimal. The new method is to write checks. Most folks are chasing the Miramax thread. I found “Google Signs France Artists Deal to Cool Tensions From Copyright Battles” more indicative of the Google Plan B. Will it work? I was tracking Google’s chit chat with Catch Media, a plays-anywhere outfit with some good-as-gold rich media content deals in place. According to the “we write checks in France” insight, I found this passage from the Bloomberg story interesting:
Google, the owner of the world’s largest search engine, is trying to build stronger relationships with regulators and copyright holders in France, where it has attracted scrutiny over its mapping, book-scanning, and advertising systems. Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt this year pledged to build a “European cultural institute” and a research and development center in Paris after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy. While the YouTube deal won’t produce large amounts of cash for artists in the short term, it re-establishes “the sacred link between the fortune of the work and the fortune of the author,” Laurent Heynemann, president of the 50,000 member SACD group, said at a Paris press conference. “The Internet is not a jungle, and an economic model is possible.
Heads of state: the country of France and the country of Google. And, the best phrase, “sacred link”. I like that elevation to even higher powers than mere heads of state and heads of publicly traded US companies. I keep asking, “How’s that Google TV working out for you?” No one in my office has much of an answer.
Stephen E Arnold, December 2, 2010
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Arnold For Fee Columns, December 2010
November 30, 2010
The December 2010 for-fee columns by Stephen E Arnold have gone to their respective editors. The topics covered this month are:
- For Enterprise Technology Management, “Google Street View: Fender Bender on the Information Highway”. Google’s avoided Street View collisions in the US and the UK. Elsewhere the mileage may vary.
- For Information Today, “RockMelt: Research Degrading to De-Search”. The idea is that social browsing puts another nail in the coffin for roll-up-your-sleeves research. Heck. It’s easier to ask a “friend”.
- For KMWorld, “The Semantics of Product Data.” In this column I discuss a domain of content ignored by most enterprise search systems. I profile a vendor tackling this opportunity.
- For Smart Business Network, “Hyperspace and Location, Location, Location.” I take a look at how small and mid-sized businesses can use location-specific advertising online.
- For Online Magazine, “Big Data: The New Information Challenge”. The write up looks at the opportunities big data create for publishers and information fusion companies.
I wrote a long piece for Information World Review, and I think the second part of my November submission will run in December. Also, my Google column has shifted from KMWorld to Enterprise Data World, and I have started a “semantics in the enterprise” column for KMWorld.
I can’t keep these outfits straight either. For copies of these articles, you will need to hound the publisher, not me. I just write ‘em. I don’t archive work for hire.
Stephen E Arnold, November 30, 2010
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Can You Digg It?
November 17, 2010
Automated systems with user generated content operate by rules different from those of traditional newspapers and magazines. Crowds can become mobs. Publishers prefer more genteel behaviors.
Digg, once your typical social information service, has now taken a vital step to become a market for socialization and newsgathering.
The site recently added a breaking news module and community team to aggregate should-be front page stories in efforts to become a source of news, says “Digg Adds Editors to Break News Faster.”
In the past, stories that garnered the most votes from users were then posted as front page articles, often taking a few hours for breaking news to become appropriate headlines. In today’s terms of real-time breaking news, this lengthy process made Digg a less than ideal destination for news junkies.
But with the addition of a new editorial layer, breaking news will now be posted in a more timely fashion for the typical online news seekers.
As the article says, the editors’ decisions “won’t directly affect the content that appears on the front page, but their recommendations will surely influence the stories that the Digg community will vote for.”
Hmm… sounds awfully familiar to Slashdot.
We think Digg is cool but we’d like to see something different and more innovated. Something that doesn’t resemble the recent past. Something…. What’s the word? Oh yeah, “new”. With some erratic online performance and stories that are not on the cutting edge, can you dig the service?
Leah Moody November 17, 2010
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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
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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
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Quote to Note: Cannibal Surprise
November 14, 2010
Nifty quote caught my eye in “iPad Affecting Newspaper Sales.” Here’s the bit:
Murdoch said that the apps were “much more directly cannibalistic” than Web sites, as subscribers read the apps in a manner similar to how they read traditional newspapers. Web readers apparently consume their news somewhat differently. While he didn’t disclose sales numbers, Murdoch said that the newspapers affected include the Wall Street Journal, News of the World, and the Times of London.
I love the phrase “more cannibalistic”. Donner’s Pass, stranded mountain climbers, and … Hmmmm.
Stephen E Arnold, November 14, 2010
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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
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