Google and Complexity
November 19, 2010
Quote to note: I almost feel bad for Google. Facebook integrates email into its social messaging. Google is still trying to find a way to get the Math Club invited to the prom. Now the Google TV earns one of those New York Times-type reverse back flip with a twist belly flops. To get the context for Google TV, point your browser at “Google TV, Usability Not Included”. [If the link goes dead, you will have to birddog the original article at Starbuck’s or on the NYT’s own Web site.] The write up “reviews” the lean back with your controller and enjoy an insufficiently aged mash up of TV and Web. I am not much of a TV person, so I can’t relate to what Google has created or devoted so much development time. The number of Google rich media patent applications is interesting in itself. Googlers, when not thinking about the distribution of primes watches TV, looks at Web sites, and does all matter of content grazing. I pretty much do one thing at a time and find my limited intelligence stretched to its limit when I try to do two things at once.
Here’s the killer point in the write up in my opinion:
This much is clear: Google TV may be interesting to technophiles, but it’s not for average people. On the great timeline of television history, Google TV takes an enormous step in the wrong direction: toward complexity.
The point is that Google is working overtime to find a way to pump up its revenue. Now the company is big and growing, but the “next big thing” seems to be located down the road or across the street, not in the Google’s expansive manse.
Forget Google. The economy is no good. Overly complex systems in the enterprise or in the grubby hands of consumers is not where the action is. At a recent conference, the principal knock against established enterprise software was that it was too tough to figure out, too expensive, and too complicated. Our neighbor asked me to fix the family’s Windows 7 machine. I told the neighbors to buy a Mac. Who has time or energy to figure out how to troubleshoot software arguably more complicated than IBM CICS?
As we head into 2011, my hunch is that the big story is not the success of Roku or Netflix. The increasing complexity of Google’s products and services has become a defining characteristic of the company. I don’t know how to get “clean” search results any more when I run a query. Exalead, DuckDuckGo, and Blekko are getting more of my time. Google TV gets none of it, and probably not too much of my neighbors’ time either. When I want to watch a TV show, I just look in the newspaper or the cable TV guide. To do Webby things, I have other gizmos that work just fine; for example, my Toshiba NB 305 or my iPad. Complexity is no longer a benefit to me.
Stephen E Arnold, November 19, 2010
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Google and Video Content
November 14, 2010
Short honk: The YouTube blog reported that YouTube is sucking down a lot of video. What’s “a lot”? How does 35 hours of video a minute sound. That works out to 2,100 hours of video an hour. The rest of the math I will leave to you. You can read the news in “Great Scott! Over 35 Hours of Video Uploaded Every Minute to YouTube.” This blog is titled “Broadcasting Ourselves.” The chart below shows the intake of video at the Google.
The other side of the video business is non-YouTube content. I noted “Fox Blocks Google TV” which informed me that Fox has joined ABC, CBS, and NBC in blocking “Google TV from accessing their content online.” As crappy as network TV shows are, the top dogs at these commercial outfits seem to be unwilling to roll over for a Google mouse pad or a T shirt.
I am not a TV person. Video to me, including my own lame efforts, is serial, annoying, and mostly crap. In the race to the bottom of the intellectual barrel, I am not sure who is ahead. Google with 2,100 hours of dross flowing into YouTube each hour or the 500 channels of D minus info pumped out by the “real” television industry.
Quite an honor to win this content I surmise. Will the US economy will rebound with this type of competitive effort? Meh.
Stephen E Arnold, November 14, 2010
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Intel Stream 4 Now Available
November 10, 2010
The fourth podcast in the Intel Stream series is now available for download from ArnoldIT.com. This week, Dr. Tyra Oldham, LAND SDS and Stephen E Arnold discuss IBM’s surprising additions to Cognos 10, open source business intelligence, neuromarketing and sentiment analysis, and the upside and downside of blog content, and more. This week’s show features an interview with Oleg Shilovitsky, CEO and co-founder of Inforbix. His firm has pioneered a search and content processing solution for manufacturing and design engineering firms. You can read an interview with Mr. Shilovitsky in the Search Wizards Speaks section of the ArnoldIT.com Web log.
Stephen E Arnold, November 10, 2010
Sponsored by LAND SDS and ArnoldIT.com.
Intel Stream Number 3: An Interview with Mats Bjore, Silobreaker
November 3, 2010
Our third podcast in the Intel Stream series is now available. In addition to five news stories, you can listen to Mats Bjore, founder of Silobreaker, explain his firm’s next=generation information platform. A former McKinsey consultant, Mr. Bjore developed Silobreaker to make a wide range of information available in an easy-to-use discovery system. The news stories for this week cover open source business intelligence, a Coplink sale by i2 Ltd. to the San Antonio police, CNN’s surprising assertion that Microsoft has lost its consumer appeal, and more. You can access the podcast at this link or by navigating to the ArnoldIT.com rich media index page.
Stephen E Arnold, November 3, 2010
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Anti Search in 2011
November 1, 2010
In a recent meeting, several of the participants were charged with disinformation from the azurini.
You know. Azurini, the consultants.
Some of these were English majors, others former print journalists, and some unemployed search engine optimization experts smoked by Google Instant.
But mostly the azurini emphasize that their core competency is search, content management, or information governance (whatever the heck that means). In a month or so, there will be a flood of trend write ups. When the Roman god looks to his left and right, the signal for prognostication flashes through the fabric covered cube farms.
To get ahead of the azurini, the addled goose wants to identify the trends in anti search for 2011. Yep, anti search. Remember that in a Searcher article several years ago, I asserted that search was dead. No one believed me, of course. Instead of digging into the problems that ranged from hostile users to the financial meltdown of some high profile enterprise search vendors, search was the big deal.
And why not? No one can do a lick of work today unless that person can locate a document or “find” something to jump start activity. In a restaurant, people talk less and commune with their mobile devices. Search is on a par with food, a situation that Maslow would find interesting.
The idea for this write up emerged from a meeting a couple of weeks ago. The attendees were trying to figure out how to enhance an existing enterprise search system in order to improve the productivity of the business. The goal was admirable, but the company was struggling to generate revenues and reduce costs.The talk was about search but the subtext was survival.
The needs for the next generation search system included:
- A great user experience
- An iPad app to deliver needed information
- Seamless access to Web and Intranet information
- Google-like performance
- Improved indexing and metatagging
- Access to database content and unstructured information like email.
Short List of Image Search Tools
October 29, 2010
Short honk: One never knows when this type of list will be needed. “7 Image Search Tools That Will Change Your Life” provides descriptions, some screenshots, and links to seven image search tools. My life has not been changed, but a happy quack to Brain Pickings for the information. One example:
Retrievr at http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2010
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Google TV Fail Predicted
October 28, 2010
I am not sure I agree with MSNBC. I mean how objective can anything with either a hint of Microsoft or Comcast, but “Google Tamed Text, but Video Is Biting Back” is a must read. The author explains why the text-meister is having some problems with video. The write up even drags the dead fish of YouTube’s past through one paragraph. Nice touch.
Here’s a passage that caught my attention:
Now, with a new set-top box called Google TV, the company is trying to circumvent the usual channels again, and getting caught in the act. Ideally, Google sees the box’s software as a video equivalent of the Google Reader news program — you just tell it what you like, and all the freshest content will be there when you fire it up. But already, NBC, CBS and ABC have formally blocked Google TV’s Web browser from accessing the video content on their websites. This means that anyone who hopes to enjoy “everything … you’re accustomed to doing online” via Google TV will have to go without the lion’s share of popular TV content — even the full shows that are indeed available “free” online. Informally, other blocks are in place: Google TV includes a link to HBO GO in its “Spotlight” section, but when any Comcast customer visits that link, they are told to go to Fancast, Comcast’s own streaming service. Hop over to Fancast, and you’re told that the browser is not supported. Will Comcast ever let Google TV’s browser stream its content? I suppose that depends on who pays what to whom.
I am no TV or rich media goose. When I want to watch a sports program and my wife is recording one of her faves, I have to ask her how to make the weird switch channels or cancel recording message go away. But the MSNBC post speaks about those who are TV savvy. The argument advanced sounds reasonable.
Stephen E Arnold, October 28, 2010
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Intel Stream Number 2 Available
October 27, 2010
ArnoldIT.com’s Intel Stream podcast for October 27, 2010, is now available. The podcast focuses on the intersection of business intelligence and technology. In this week’s 10 minute program, Stephen E Arnold comments about the proposal for the US government to archive Federal workers’ social media postings and content, T-Mobile’s surprising acquisition of Vamosa, Recommind’s 2010 revenues revealed by a competitor, an online SharePoint 2010 cost estimator, and a free download of sentiment analysis software. You can listen to the audio program by navigating to http://arnoldit.com/podcasts/ and clicking on the October 27, 2010 Intel Stream program.
Stuart Schram IV, October 27, 2010
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Google TV: A New Spin on the Vast Wasteland
October 23, 2010
My hero was Newton Minow, one “n” thus differentiating him from the Leuciscinae, surely one of my favorite fish. My hero coined the phrase “vast wasteland” in a speech given in 1961. My dirt poor family got a television in 1958, so I had only three years of American Bandstand before the wasteland bon mot. I have never been hooked on TV. Lots of folks are, including one of my two friends and at least one member of my immediate family. For me, snap on the boob tube, and my eyes drift shut. The flickers and audio knock me out cold.
I have a fancy TV in my office. If I did not, the tech folks suck up bandwidth watching soccer on their workstations. Clever I solved this bandwidth problem with the big flat screen and a cable connection. I have been reading about the battle for the couch potato. Unlike Hannibal at Cannae, the Google TV phalanx seems to have marched into a thicket of troubles. Keep in mind that I know zero about the Google TV and my information comes from secondary sources. As a result, my writing this blog post is a reflection of what’s flitting around the World Wide Web news sites.
I noted two write ups that struck me as potentially problematic for the Google and for the lucky consumers who have snagged one of the gizmos that deliver the Google experience to the couch spuds.
Yahoo, probably an authority on rich media after the Semel years, posted “24 hours with Logitech’s Google TV-Enabled Revue.” Mouse maker Logitech has created a box that allows the lucky consumer to access the Google TV service.
For me, the key passage was:
As many have reported, several of the biggest TV networks — think ABC, CBS, and NBC —have blocked Google TV users from watching their online videos; needless to say, Hulu access has been blocked as well. (Online videos at Fox.com still seem to be working, at least for now.) Reuters reports that Google is in negotiations with the networks to restore access, but my guess is that the networks will hold out for the inevitable arrival of Hulu Plus — for which you’ll have to pay $10 a month (at least for now) — on Google TV.
Okay, the Google TV is available but the networks are not playing ball. Google’s Math Club team can dominate the TV executives while sending tweets and eating pizza. But when it comes to double dating with the Google, the TV executives are shy indeed. Fear? Money? Who knows.
The second write up that caught my attention was the Electronista write up “Sony’s Google TV Booted into Recovery, Opens Door to Hacks.” I can understand some rough edges with the interface and the need to update the gizmos before the lucky consumer can tap into Google’s search festivity. But a system that can allow the user to install updates and take control of the device seems to be a curious oversight. Maybe the Math Club team that worked on Buzz and Wave contributed to the Google TV? If you want to see how to hack the just released device, Electronista provides a couple of helpful YouTube videos. Left hand, right hand knowing what’s up? Go figure.
Keep in mind I don’t worship TV. I have not played with the Google TV. I can’t attest that the two cited write ups are accurate. Against this bleak factual background, my observations are:
- I wonder if the Google TV is the equivalent of the Microsoft Kin?
- Google is now moving into consumer territory. Does the Math Club understand the couch russet?
- Looking at the screenshots, some interface work seems to be in order. Someone told me that the Google TV browser lacks a browser bar. Well, the fix methinks is to know the key combination Control L. Intuitive for the Math Club, not so much for a soap opera fan.
The Apple TV is $99 and seems pretty easy to use. Yep, Apple and Google are chasing consumers. I don’t want to place a wager. I do like fireside apples, a book, and a TV on mute. Will apples take root in the vast wasteland?
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2010
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The New IntelStream Podcast Series
October 20, 2010
ArnoldIT.com and Land SDS have teamed up for a new podcast series. IntelStream will discuss important news in business intelligence where professionals and technology intersect. The podcast, which is now available for download, features Dr. Tyra Oldham, an expert in operations and information management.
Dr. Tyra Oldham, featured expert on the Intel Stream podcast. Her Web site is at this link.
Stephen E Arnold, publisher of Beyond Search. His Web site is at this link.
Also appearing on the program is Stephen E Arnold, publisher of the Beyond Search Web log. The program is available from the ArnoldIT.com podcast page at http://arnoldit.com/podcasts/. Dr. Oldham and Mr. Arnold agree on the importance of information, but the two colleagues disagree on specific issues related to policy and implementation. The purpose of the program is to address topics that are important to business professionals in commercial, not for profit, and governmental entities. The specific subjects discussed are those which are often overlooked by traditional media.
One of the basic premises of the IntelStream podcast is to explore different sides of an issue. One thing is certain when Dr. Oldham and Mr. Arnold engage in a discussion, no holds are barred. Each of these professionals articulates a viewpoint so you can get a sense of how complex issues can affect business and policy decisions when business intelligence systems and methods are in use.
Intel Stream is business intelligence without marketing lipstick.
Stuart Schram IV, October 20, 2010
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