Ask, Search Marketing, and NASCAR – A Winner as NASCAR Attendance Drops
July 3, 2009
Michael Smith’s “Ask’s Next Question” provides a useful case study of search engine marketing. The story appeared in Sports Business Journal and reviews the Ask.com decision to put its marketing money into NASCAR, a rough around the edges version of the more sophisticated F1 series.
Beer, baseball caps, and barbeque characterize NASCAR, and Ask.com’s decision to build its Web search market share by sponsoring NASCAR was interesting. The approach was not original. The first search vendor to take this approach was Northern Light. That company sponsored a less blue collar race—the Indianapolis 500.
Mr. Smith wrote:
Examining the early returns, and despite the late start and a short 65-day window to conceive an activation program that launched at Daytona in February, the decision to leap into NASCAR seems to have paid off for Ask. Nielsen Online data shows that Ask’s market share has grown from 1.9 percent to 2.2 percent from January to June, although Ask remains fifth in the category behind ever-dominant Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL. Another Internet measurement company, comScore, has Ask fourth in the category.
That’s good news on the surface. The reality is that Google controls more than 65 percent of the search market, maybe as much as 75 percent. So, the question is, “How much did Ask.com spend for that 0.3 percent gain?” Another question I have is, “What other marketing opportunities have been lost because of the focus on the beer, baseball caps, and barbeque crowd?” I suppose that’s an unfair question, but it sure is fun to write “beer, baseball caps, and barbeque”.
These folks look like Web surfers to me. © Ask.com. Source: http://sp.ask.com/sh/i/a11/nascar/gallery/Talladega/800/ask_9_800.jpg
Mr. Smith added:
There’s also something about the fast-paced culture of a tech company that contributed to the rapid planning. In Ask’s office, results are measured daily. It’s in the company’s DNA to read and react quickly.
I think I would have said “bet the farm”, not “react quickly”. Ask.com strikes me as a company that has been struggling to find a niche. Lacking the marketing horsepower of Microsoft, the company has tried to find a short cut. No matter how enthusiastic the information in Mr. Smith’s write up, the pay off of 0.3 in share underscores the tough problem older search systems and newcomers alike face. I wonder if WolframAlpha.com will sponsor the English First Division Stoke City Football Club?
Stephen Arnold, July 3, 2009
Vivisimo Lands HCPro Deal
July 3, 2009
Vivisimo has a new client. HCPro, a health care regulation and revenue cycle management company, will use the Velocity platform, to power MedicareFind.com. That Web site offers definable search of a comprehensive database of Medicare rules, regulations, and CMS documents governing reimbursement–a critical tool for many companies in the health care business. According to a press release here, “Velocity’s ease of implementation, flexible user interface and social search features were key business drivers in selecting Vivisimo to power MedicareFind.com.” MedicareFind.com is a part of HCPro Inc., a portfolio company of Halyard Investments. Halyard is a private equity firm with more than $600 million of capital under management focused on investing in media, communications, and business services companies. If this is the type of company Vivismo is getting contracts with, they may be an even bigger player in search very soon.
Jessica Bratcher, July 3, 2009
Search and Maxing Out the Grid
July 2, 2009
I recall meetings at Halliburton’s old Nuclear Utilities Services unit we talked about the problem of sucking too much power from the grid. The grid, of course, is a metaphor for a complicated set up of devices and cables that move power from where it is produced to an end point or end points. I found the reference in the Slashdot article “NSA To Build 20-Acre Data Center In Utah” a blast from the past. My thought is that the problem of power sucking data centers is not on most folks’ radar. Along with the deteriorating roads and bridges in rural Kentucky, the power generation industry faces a similar problem. Search requires big data centers. Green yapping aside, as the volume of data increases, the need for megawatts goes up. Green is good but not even zippy chips and clever ideas like uninterruptable power supplied by conventional flashlight batteries is enough. Exciting times and costs ahead for those with big data centers. Plumbing may make the difference between the winners and the losers in search and content processing.
Stephen Arnold, July 2, 2009
Bing.com Tweets
July 2, 2009
Short honk: I noticed on July 1, 2009, that Bing.com has begun adding Twitter messages to its search results. The Google looks a bit flat footed in this area, although Google Wave was a good demo. Bing. Is it the real thing? You can find more information in IT Pro’s “Bing Integrates Twitter Data into Search”.
Stephen Arnold, July 2, 2009
SAP: Dinosaurs Resist Extinction
July 2, 2009
Kelly Fishash’s “SAP Hits On Demand SaaS Button to Avoid Extinction” here reminded me that I had in my write up pile a comment about the German software giant’s latest reflex action. Mr. Fishash wrote:
SAP, in a spectacular U-turn, has leapt on board the software-as-a-service bandwagon - the company confirmed its new selling strategy yesterday [June 10, 2009]. The German software giant, which was speaking at an On-Demand conference in Amsterdam on Wednesday, said it will launch SaaS functionality add-ons for its existing Business Suite ERP customers soon. It will wedge open the door to its Large Enterprise on-Demand product, to allow companies to bolt on SAP’s web offerings with their core, on-site or hosted ERP platforms.
I think SAP is one of those companies that merits close observation. The company is a variant of the IBM approach to software and services; that is, big, complex, expensive, and an exemplar of the “take your medicine” method. The SAP TREX search system is interesting, but I don’t see much about it. I track TREX in my Overflight service (sorry, this part of the service is not available for free at this time). I did a write up about TREX in one of the three editions of Enterprise Search Report I wrote. I did not include the system in my 2008 Beyond Search because I just wasn’t hearing much about the company. I continue to follow SAP outfit because it pumped cash into Endeca via its venture unit a year or so ago. I wondered if SAP execs recognized that Endeca required similar upfront consulting for its search and content processing system. The SAP system is front loaded in the same way, and both SAP and Endeca avoid offering bargain basement pricing on enterprise systems.
Now I learn that after a run at raising some fees, SAP is embracing SaaS or Software as a Service which is a more trendy name than timesharing.
Dennis Howlett’s “European SaaS Vendors: Not Quite Comfortabole in Their Skins” here made this point in his June 10, 2009 article:
you have John Wookey’s announcement of SAP’s saas plans. Confused or not, it speaks volumes that SAP chose to make the public announcement to the industry itself. It was greeted with muted acceptance with some muttering that it was defensive while others immediately thought ‘cost.’
I have a slightly different view; specifically:
- SAP is struggling with two financial challenges. The first is the money sucked into the SAP’ black hole of engineering. The company has to spend to keep the quite interesting collection of systems and subsystems working for today’s customers. Second, the company has to find a way to fund research that gets the SAP systems out of the dinosaur trap and into the Googzilla type of low cost engineering mode that Messrs. Brin and Page use. Even Amazon has figured out that open source and commodity hardware are a way to control costs. (Amazon reliability is another issue, however.)
- SAP’s customers are either happy because the system is up and running, business procedures are understood by licensees’ employees, and senior management just pays for engineering support and upgrades. The big invoices are behind the company. Happy days!
- Competitors like Salesforce.com and the Google are not deaf, blind, and mute to the opportunities the IBMs, Microsofts, Oracles, and SAPs create. So, SAP with its juicy client base and “intersting financial challenges” chugs along with a system creaking under complexity, almost immune to substantive change.
I think sudden shifts like the SaaS “love” are little more than signals that an era is ending. I keep watching for similar indicators from IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. I wonder which of these three will follow in the footsteps of the SAP dinosaur?
Stephen Arnold, July 2, 2009
Polyspot: Version 4.8 Released
July 2, 2009
Speed is the name of the game in search, and Polyspot, is keeping its hand in the pot. The French company just released an update of their enterprise search product, V4.8. The new version “speeds faceted search and navigation” and is designed to accurately retrieve relevant information intuitively. Polyspot works by extracting information/metadata/tags/etc. while indexing data repositories, and then it accesses those indexes to speed the search process. The product allows parametric search and faceted navigation while fine tuning results through widgets and tag clouds. There are also filters to allow for combinations of search terms. V4.8 also has an Administrative Console that facilitates facet definition, calibration of a host of widgets, and display options. You can check out the product here.
Jessica Bratcher, July 2, 2009
Search and an Asteroid Hit
July 1, 2009
I had two separate conversations this week. I can’t reveal the names of the people with whom I spoke or the companies with which the firms were affiliated. I am also going to refrain from identifying the search vendors. In short, this is a toothless post. If you don’t like gums, navigate away.
Debt, Search, and an Name Brand
A financial roll up owns an online service. The service is long in the tooth, expensive to operate, and based on software written when I was still able to see my toes. The conference call made clear that this outfit was going with a name brand search system. The procurement team bought the marketing pitch hook, line, and sinker. The head of the procurement team has an extra dollop of pride on top of a giant scoop of ego. In short, the financial roll up is buying into costs of which it believes it understands. The decision is likely to bankrupt the company. One person asked me, “How can we communicate that this decision will go wrong.” My reply was curt, “You can’t.”
In my experience, there is a certain type of self assured business professional who explains that he or she is good at technology but is really more skilled in business analysis. So the SABP (self assured business professional) assumes that he or she understands the cost issues associated with a large scale search system and simply refuses to listen. I have noticed that a remarkable number of IT professionals have perfected this skill.
The result is a seven figure deal for a name brand vendor and a significant risk of financial collapse for the licensee. Mark my words. The wizards at this outfit will rationalize the problems in dulcet tones. Jobs will be lost. The financial backers will be ruined. Pride and ego get in the way of admitting that more research and analysis have to be supplemented with tests and clear eyed analysis.
Amazing situation. I walked away from this project. When the cost overruns explore, I want to be in Harrod’s Creek and uninvolved.
Free Software and MBAs Who Can Use Google
The estimates of the size of the search sector are pretty miserable. First, most analysts discard Google because at $22 billion, it is easier to explain that it is an ad agency and, therefore, can be tossed out. Yikes. Then, the figures generated by analysts are essential created the way my mother used to back into a parking space at the mall. Trial and error, lots of guestimates, and considerable fretting until the vehicle was inserted at an angle. Close enough for horseshoes, she used to say. So, when a manager responsible for search at a European company spouts numbers, explains that he or she has limited knowledge of technology, and believes that low cost search is the way to search happiness, I clam up.
What’s going on here is that some companies just want to slap in a cheap search system as an component in “more important” software. Now “more important” means worth more than lowly search. As a result, this particular organization and its search boss want to generate revenue. The fact that the search system sucks is irrelevant.
When I brought up the point about meeting user needs, the bright eyed entitlement child said, “We believe that value comes from aggregating components.” Yeah, but if a core component doesn’t work, then what? My question was ignored. I was a person who lived somewhere in Kentucky of all places.
The result is that this outfit is using non functional search and retrieval software, assuming that the suite will make the customers’ problems with information retrieval become irrelevant. Wrong.
Observations
The need for effective information retrieval is going up. Half baked rationalizations, generalization, and just plain baloney will exacerbate financial issues. What concerns me is that these behaviors are flourishing. Search is cruisin’ for a bruisin’, and the pain will be felt by many.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Bing.com Search Share
July 1, 2009
Short honk: I relished the write up in Digital Trends about Microsoft’s share of the Web search market. The title of the article was “Bing Boosts Microsoft Search Share One Percent.” The data were interesting, but the segment I liked was:
Globally, Microsoft also saw gains from Bing’s debut, seeing its share of global Internet search jump from 3.08 percent in April to 3.30 percent in June; however, most of that gain appears to have come at Yahoo’s expense, which saw its global share decline from 5.48 percent to 5.15 percent over the same period. Google almost completely dominates the global search market, with a share of 89.80 percent.
Progress but the “dominates” was amusing.
Stephen Arnold, July 1, 2009
Microsoft Plumbing: Big Online Facility in Big Shoulder Territory
June 30, 2009
The Microsoft data center news keeps on swirling in my Overflight intel system. Patrick Thibodeau’s “Microsoft to Open Two Mall Sized Data Centers” levered my interest. Computer World reported:
Microsoft Corp. on Monday said it is preparing to flip the switch on what will eventually be more than 1 million square feet of data center space in two facilities, one in Chicago, the other in Dublin, Ireland. These centers will house hundreds of thousands of servers to help support the company’s Bing search engine and other online services.
Google does not provide this type of detail about its plumbing. My hunch is that Google doesn’t want to help anyone figure out how much the company invests in infrastructure and Google may not want to get tangled in a “who has the bigger facility” argument with its competitors, azure chip consultants, and besmirched MBAs seeking a commission from stock churn.
The numbers reported in the Computer World article stunned this addled goose. For example:
The Chicago center, which opens July 20 and is now said to be 700,000 square feet in size, will use containers that can be the size of tractor-trailers, with 1,800 to 2,500 servers each. The first phase of the Chicago center to go live has more than 50 parking stalls for shipping containers, which Microsoft said can be wheeled in and installed in hours. The facility’s second floor will have server racks.
Now that is a lot of Windows servers. Imagine the configuration work required to set these up, verify that the ever wonderful SQL Server clusters are running like clockwork, ensure that the fail over does not fail, and test to make sure that back ups actually restore.
Chicago has nuclear power generation facilities. That’s a plus. This data center is likely to consume more electricity than Blue Island. “Just Bing it” has new meaning to the executives at Exelon Corp.
Stephen Arnold, June 30, 2009
TextFindIt
June 30, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to Carlos Raposo’s Microsoft Windows Dot Net 3.5 search application. If you are one of the many Windows users who need to search for a text string in a folder, you may want to look at TextFindIT, Version 1.5. This is a one trick search pony. The program can search for a specific text string inside of the files in a folder. The software can find a text string or keywords inside a folder or sub folder, including non text files.
The Beyond Search geese are calling your attention to the fertility of those frustrated with existing search tools. You can snag a copy of the program from CRWLD.com. (Oh, the goslings test this type of software on machines not connected to anything and which are designed for lab experiments. You may want to follow the same method.) The source code is available and the software has been released under the creative commons license.
Stephen Arnold, June 30, 2009
