Quote to Note: Craziness about Facebook Search
January 29, 2013
Here’s a quote to note. I don’t want to lose this puppy. I spotted it in the dead tree edition of the New York Times. The location of this notable phrase is the business section, page B 7. The story containing the quote is “Facebook’s Search Had to Go Beyond Robospeak.” The story explains the wonderfulness of Facebook’s beta search system. We love Facebook search. How could the company possibly improve on a graph surfing system which blocks outfits like Yandex from indexing content. No way. Anyway, here’s the quote:
Letting users talk with a computer on their own terms.
Oh, baby. Do I love this type of insightful comment about search and retrieval. I was not aware that I was able to talk with Facebook, but what do I know. Even better I live the idea of doing the talking on my own terms.
How interesting is this statement about letting users talk with a computer? Beyond interesting. The statement ventures into the fantasyland of every person who watched and confused Star Trek, Star Wars, and Mary had a little lamb.
A keeper.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2013
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A Nokia Quote to Note about Google
January 24, 2013
I read “Nokia CEO Stephen Elop: Google Is Making Its Open Ecosystem More Closed.” I was not surprised at Nokia’s suggestion. What I noted was this alleged quotation:
“The situation that Android is facing, where the amount of fragmentation that you’re seeing is increasing as people take it in different directions, is of course offset by Google’s efforts to turn an open ecosystem into something that’s quite a bit more closed as you’ve seen quite recently.
Who cares? Maybe Samsung? What if Samsung goes its own direction with mobile operating systems? Impossible? Absolutely. Why would Samsung surf on Android and then want to do its own thing? Crazy?
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2013
Quote to Note: FTC Goes Slow with the Google
December 20, 2012
I read “U.S. Inquiry of Google Is Expected to Press On.” The story could 404 by the time you are reading this. But you probably have a dead tree edition of the New York Times handy. The story is dated December 18, 2012. I have no comment about the source or the story. I do want to highlight one passage as a quote to note:
The commission was prepared to accept Google’s written assurances that it would alter some practices related to search, according to the reports. The F.T.C. could enforce compliance with such a written assurance.
I know that writing on the chalkboard “I will not talk in class” a 1,000 times worked really well. I am sure a written note will have an enormous, lasting impact on the GOOG.
Stephen E Arnold, December 20, 2012
Quote to Note: Management Wisdom
June 24, 2012
I love management wisdom published by the New York Times, an outfit working to inject technologists into its management structure. Yes.
Navigate to the your local vendor of newspapers (good luck with that). Purchase the June 24, 2012, New York Times which contains news as fresh as two day tuna, and read “Who Made That Cubicle?” in the New York Times Magazine. (Fees may apply, but the Sunday newspaper is just $6 in rural Kentucky. You will find the quote below on page 19 as the last paragraph of a Dilbert-type story: “Not all organizations are intelligent and progressive, Propst [the father of the Dilbert cubicle] two years before he died in 2000.” Now the keeper:
Lots are run by crass people. They make little, bitty cubicles and stuff people in them. Barren rat hole places.” He spent his last years apologizing for his utopia.
Ah, irony. Utopia. Are any search and content processing vendors relying on cubicles? Probably not. Enlightened management. Don’t trip over the scooters, volleyball, or crate of organic protein bars.
Stephen E Arnold, June 24, 2012
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Quote to Note: Possible Name for Search Vendor?
May 5, 2012
In the Louisville Courier Journal newspaper I saw a memorable phrase. Tucked into an advertisement for a local religious group was a great phrase. I wanted to capture it, and I thought my two or three readers might find it a thought starter.
The ad ran on April 29, 2012, on page B3. The religious group was soliciting members who wanted to join the founder of—get ready:
Team Sweaty Sheep
Only in Kentucky, gentle reader, only in Kentucky.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2012
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Quote to Note: Google Fears for Net Freedom
April 15, 2012
Navigate to “Google’s Sergey Brin: Facebook and Apple a Threat to Internet Freedom.” From the Googler who wanted China to change its internal policies:
Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. “You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive,” he said. “The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.”
There you go. Right from the outfit which has orphaned Web site owners with Panda bites, left users out in the cold with the termination of services like Knol, and the stock play which is designed to leave Messrs. Brin, Page, and Schmidt in control no matter what.
Yowza.
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2012
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Quote to Note: Google and Its Intent
March 9, 2012
I don’t have much to say about the quite remarkable write up “Why Search Engines Can’t Just ‘Fix’ Search Results The Way The MPAA/RIAA Want.”
Here’s the quote:
Google isn’t designed to prop up the entertainment industry’s old business model. It’s designed to provide people results for what they’re searching for.
Google is like to be quite pleased with this view of its purpose, which, I thought was generating revenue from ads. One learns something new each day.
Yebo, gaga.
Stephen E Arnold, March 9, 2012
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A New Lower Class: Aspiring Majority
February 29, 2012
I remember a high school history teacher explaining the Middle Ages. The idea was that there was a king, some earls and barons, and lots of serfs. The idea was a harbinger of upper, middle, and lower class. The notion of the Great Chain of Being was tossed in to make sure the rats carrying fleas knew where they stood in this “chain.”
When I read “The Future According to Eric Schmidt”, I learned the medieval social order was back. Here’s the passage I noted:
A third group [serfs], though, will have no or only limited access to the Internet. This “aspiring majority,” as Schmidt calls them, will likely have some form of access to technology, but it will look different from what we expect today. Maybe, though, they will use mesh networks to create local networks that isn’t even connected to the wider Internet. For Schmidt, it seems, mesh networks represent the easiest and cheapest way to get these underprivileged users at least partly online.
Serf is updated to be the “aspiring majority.” Okay, I get it. Addled geese are part of the serf world, oops, aspiring majority. I need a T shirt with this catchphrase.
Stephen E Arnold, February 29, 2012
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Quote to Note: AOL Top Dog on Flat Revenues
February 26, 2012
This may be online. You can try to access the story “Arianna’s Work Husband” at www.nytimes.com. In this write up from the Times’s magazine for February 26, 2012, ran a story which was “condensed and edited,” the top AOLer, Tim Armstrong allegedly said about AOL’s financial performance:
So flat is up for us.
I find this quote clever (see my essay explaining exogenous complexity and clever output on February 24, 2012). I also find it fascinating because it echoes the belief that the world is flat from the semi-clueless ancient world and the New York Times’s columnist, Thomas L. Friedman.
The only issue for me is that revenues are supposed to go up. Maybe the stakeholders of AOL have a different viewpoint?
Stephen E Arnold, February 26, 2012
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Quote Cache
February 25, 2012
We’ve found a useful source of quotations at Dennys Funny Quotes. The site collects quotes on subjects from cats to music videos to politics. Anything, really. The tagline reads:
“Dennys Funny Quotes: Laugh at life, politics, the universe: irreverent, satire, photos, cartoons.”
There really is a lot here, but it is better for browsing than for looking for something specific. It is a real challenge to find anything in particular, as the topic links are scattered around the site rather than presented in a comprehensive list. There is a search field in the upper left, but you’d have to know what is already there to target a search with any accuracy.
Oh, and each click produces a full-page ad you must click past. Annoying. Give it a whirl when you have a few minutes to kill. You might stumble upon the perfect quote to tuck into your pocket for your next social event.
Cynthia Murrell, February 25, 2012
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