Why Read? Images Are Stronger
March 14, 2012
I came across an article about the value of Facebook profile pictures as opposed to text, and was amazed by the new research that shows that words simply do not matter; it is all about image.
“With the Right Photo, Your Facebook Text Profile Hardly Matters,” covers a couple of studies by Brandon Van Der Heide and two other Ohio State graduate students. The studies look into how people make impressions of others on social networking sites, and it seems that is primarily done through photos.
Apparently, people already have certain expectations of the photos they view on social networking. We expect people to highlight successes and social activities. The study went on to show that if a photo fits what someone expects to see, then the rest of the profile doesn’t have much impact on the viewer. If it doesn’t fit what they expect, that is when people will decide to look closer at what you wrote. The article continues:
Van Der Heide [lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University] said he believes the results apply beyond Facebook to dating websites and other social networking sites. It should also apply to other traits beyond extraversion and introversion, such as social desirability and even political orientation. It all depends on what is shown in the photographs, and what clues viewers can glean from them.
According to the research, when people use text or photos alone to build an impression, text will typically have a greater influence. As more businesses head to social networking to build strategic relationships and strengthen customer bases, this is something that should be kept in mind. Be sure to highlight exactly what you want the customer to take away at first glance, because that may be the only glance you get.
Andrea Hayden, March 14, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Data Mining Hits the Big Screen
March 4, 2012
It seems that 3D is not just for the big screen any more. According to the SlideShare article “Visual Data Mining with HeatMiner” three-dimensional heatmaps can be used to represent data. The makers of HeatMiner claim that large data sets with a variety of correlating attributes can be hard to understand “using traditional data analysis and visualization methods.” “HeatMiner is a new visual data mining technology which visualizes the data as three-dimensional heatmaps.” HeatMiner argues that most data reports are too simple and therefore lack accuracy. Visual data mining with HeatMiner relies on 3D shapes to represent frequent value combinations. “Colors can be used as the fourth dimension or to ease interpretation.” At first glance the technology is very attractive and does grab your attention but will is that enough for users to buy into this visual mining technology. Only time will tell if this new technology is actually practical or just a pretty picture.
April Holmes, March 4, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Ikanow: Creating Pathways through Information
March 1, 2012
Lost in Dataspace? CA Erwin Can Help
February 24, 2012
Intuitive graphics and a search that looks like Google. That’s what CA Technologies proscribes for the non-techies who are being plunged into the cloud, ReadWriteWeb reveals in “Data Visualization for People Who Don’t Visualize Data: CA ERwin 8.2.” ERwin is a database visualization tool which has been evolving since 1998.
Writer Scott M. Fulton, III maintains that the moving of data from SQL databases to cloud storage has many organizations reexamining their data structure. ERWin’s Web portal can help business users better understand what they are looking at. The article relates:
[CA Technologies’ Donna] Burbank agrees that data modeling may never be appealing to 100% of the ‘sponsor’ audience [of database administrators]. But making it appeal to a somewhat greater audience through more intuitive graphics, along with Google-like search, could go a long way toward enabling those tasked with new responsibilities to be able to better understand what they are, and carry them out with a greater sense of confidence.
But will that confidence be misplaced? More consumerization is all well and good, but what happens if the underlying data do not meet standard tests for validity?
CA Technologies has been building IT management software for over 30 years. They pride themselves on providing agile solutions to business and government organizations in nearly every nation.
Cynthia Murrell, February 24, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Why Does Dassault Need Netvibes?
February 23, 2012
Enterprise Irregulars reports, “Cloud Wars Heating up: Oracle : Taleo, Dassault Systèmes : Netvibes.” Writer Michael Fauscette examines the potential impact of two recent acquisitions. Oracle has snapped up the cloud-based employee management vendor Taleo, while Dassault Systèmes has bought Netvibes, a dashboard specialist.
Most eyes are on the much larger Oracle-Taleo deal, and the article thoroughly explores that development. However, Fauscette is more interested in the smaller matter of Dassault and Netvibes. We are, too. The write up notes:
“I think this acquisition is an interesting tell to a strategic move by Dassault to reposition as a broader innovation platform. Today Dassault is securely positioned in the product engineering and manufacturing world, but product development is under pressure to become more social and to drive more innovation.”
We’re confused. We thought that Dassault property Exalead offered social-compatible dashboard functionality. Is there an issue with existing technology? Or is Dassault doing the IBM dance of just buying stuff and hoping revenue will follow? Perhaps Inforbix, an ArnoldIT client, is putting pressure on the old-line French firm? Instead of innovating, Dassault is doing what ageing companies do to get new ideas: Buy them. More may be needed. Inforbix’ technology is quite promising and, in my opinion, truly innovative.
Cynthia Murrell, February 23, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Autonomy: Ready to Disrupt Again
February 17, 2012
When Hewlett-Packard (HP) purchased the enterprise software company Autonomy for a hefty 10.3 billion last August, the world was left wondering what would come of this new partnership. While HP has the hardware, Autonomy’s unique software allows enterprises to provide insight and structure to electronic data, including unstructured information, such as text, email, web pages, voice, or video.
Now, six months after the acquisition, word has broken and Business Insider’s Julie Bort has written “HP Finally Explains Its Big Plans for its $10 Billion Purchase, Autonomy” which shares some of the new products that HP has planned for Autonomy.
According to the article, HP is working on several hardware appliances that will power enterprise search and ideally out compete Google’s Search Appliance. HP also unveiled a new Autonomy video application.
In addition to this, Bort writes:
“HP is working on mobile Autonomy applications that will let you view images of physical world objects such as a movie poster and interact with them online. That’s nothing special, as lots of companies are working on similar technology, known as “augmented reality.” But this type of thing hasn’t gone mainstream yet, so there’s plenty of room for a big player like HP to own it if it ever does.”
While HP many not be using Autonomy to create the most innovative products right off the bat, HP’s extensive resources and purchasing power paired with Autonomy’s software make a duo that will be difficult to compete with.
Jasmine Ashton, February 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Another Take on Visual SharePoint
February 16, 2012
We noted the excellent article “How to Do Visual Best Bets for Built In SharePoint Search”. Mikael Svenson has done a very good job of explaining the details of an earlier article about best bets (content which may of interest to a user) enhancements to SharePoint FS4SP.
Users find useful suggestions and content flagged as having particular relevance to a query. The suggestions in many systems are in the form of “facets” or highlighted results. Busy users can scan the results list and note the suggestions. A visual component can make it even easier for a SharePoint user to spot potentially useful content.
We learned from Mr. Svenson:
Visual Best Bets is a feature of FAST Search for SharePoint which lets you point to a file with html content to be displayed above your search results. For example an image, Silverlight or flash content can be used to graphically enhance what is linked to the keyword term. The Visual Web Part uses an iframe to accomplish this and loads up your content inside the iframe. This is useful as you can easily edit the html file at will. But why go the extra mile for a separate file, or opt in for FS4SP for this feature? The Best Bet web part support the showing of keywords and keyword definitions. Keyword definitions are formatted as html. And a definition with html formatting is in effect a Visual Best Bet. (If you have more than one Visual Best Bet you want to assign to the keyword you would have to add them all to the same html for this to work.)
We agree, and we want to add that there are numerous other options available to a SharePoint licensee. These range from the integration of visual displays from Microsoft-certified third party developers to custom code. One company with some interesting technologies is Nevron. The firm’s components can convert a SharePoint page into an advanced dashboard or a report. The user no longer looks at a results list. With Nevron-type technology, the user sees a report which answers a specific business question.
At Search Technologies, the technical team can implement FS4SP via PowerShell or other system, integrate third party components, or develop a customized solution to meet a SharePoint licensee’s specific needs. To learn more about Search Technologies’ customization and FS4SP services, navigate to the Search Technologies’ Web site.
Iain Fletcher, February 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Exclusive Interview with Ana Athayde, Spotter SA
August 16, 2011
I have been monitoring Spotter SA, a European software development firm specializing in business intelligence for several years. A lengthy interview with the founder, Ana Athayde appears in the Search Wizards Speak section of the ArnoldIT.com Web site.
The company has offices throughout Europe, the Middle East, and in the United States. The firm offers solutions in market sentiment, reputation management, risk assessment, crisis management, and competitive intelligence.
In the wide ranging interview, Ms. Athayde mentioned that she had been recognized as an exceptional manager, but she was quick to give credit to her staff and her chief technical officer, who was involved in the forward looking Datops SA content analytics service, now absorbed into the LexisNexis organization.
I asked her what pulled her into the vortex of content processing and analytics. She told me:
My background is business and marketing management in the sports field. In my first professional experience, I had to face major challenges in communication and marketing working for the International Olympic Committee. The amount of information published on those subjects was so huge that the first challenge was to solve the infoglut: not only to search for relevant information and build a list, but to understand opinions and assess reputation at an international level….I decided to fund a company to deliver a solution that could make use of information in textual form, what most people call unstructured data. But I knew that the information had to be presented in a way that a decision maker could actually use. Data dumps and row after row of numbers usually mean no one can tell what’s important without spending minutes, maybe hours deciphering the outputs.
I asked her about the firm’s technical plumbing. She replied:
The architecture of our own crawling system is based on proprietary methods to define and tune search scenarios. The “plumbing” is a fully scalable architecture which distributes tasks to schedulers. The content is processed, and we syndicate results. We use what we call “a source monitoring approach” which makes use of standard Web scraping methods. However, we have developed our own methods to adjust the scraping technology to each source in order to search all available documents. We extract metadata and relevant content from each page or content object. Only documents which have been assessed as fresh are processed and provided to users. This assessment is done by a proprietary algorithm based on rules involving such factors as the publication date. This means that each document collected by Spotter’s tracking and monitoring system is stamped with a publication date. This date is extracted by the Web scraping technology, from the document content. The type of behavior of the source; that is, the source has a known update cycle. We analyze the text content of the document. And we use the date and time stamp on the document itself.
Anyone who has tried to use the dates provided in some commercial systems realizes that without accurate time context, much information is essentially useless without additional research and analysis.
To read the complete interview with Ms. Athayde, point your browser to the full text of our discussion. More information about Spotter SA is available at the firm’s Web site www.spotter.com.
Stephen E Arnold, August 16, 2011
Freebie but you may support our efforts by buying a copy of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Holodeck: For Your Spies Only
July 14, 2011
Wired announces. “Spy Geeks Want Holodeck Tech for Intel Analysts.” Yes, finally! Wait, intelligence analysis?
The U.S. intelligence community’s research group DARPA is working on the Synthetic Holographic Observation (SHO) program, which will allow intelligence analysts use holographic displays to collaborate. Oh. I guess that’s cool too.
Though we’re still a long way from the Holodeck as envisioned in Star Trek, writer Adam Rawnsley is emphasizes that this is a step in that direction. More importantly for the current point in history, it could become an indispensible tool for our intelligence officers. The article asserts:
The program is aimed at generating 3-D displays that let analysts get a better feel for the mountains of imagery that the intelligence community collects. In particular, SHO needs to render conventional imagery and LIDAR (light detection and ranging) into holographic light fields. . . .SHO needs to be able to let multiple analysts work together on the same image at the same time. To do that, it has to be interactive. DARPA asking prospective builders to make a hologram that analysts can navigate and manipulate in ways that regular maps don’t allow.
Sounds like a great idea. I look forward to learning more. We think a phase change is search and information access is underway.
Cynthia Murrell, July 14, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Visual Search with 3D from GE
June 25, 2011
A new Google search technology could change the way people use the Internet. According to the Search Engine Watch article “Visual Health Search” Google recently launched its Google Body Browser.
Users have the ability to view a 3D layered model of the body. The article asserted:
“The body can be turned, manipulated, and literally “dissected” down to the vascular level to see how its functions work and connect. This kind of detailed information gives users access to the human body that’s never been available before and goes a long way in promoting a level of understanding that can help people make better informed decisions about their health.”
Healthline Networks in conjunction with GE Healthymagination and Visible Productions have also introduced Healthline BodyMaps. We learned:
“This new tool layers search on top of a 3D anatomical model, and allows people to navigate male and female anatomy, view systems, and organs and explore how the body works.”
Not only can patients get a more in depth look and understanding of medical conditions but physicians and other health care providers will be able to use it to help explain medical conditions, procedures and etc. to patients. Visual Search and 3D could be the new dream team.
A couple of thoughts. Google seems to have terminated its electronic medical record project. And didn’t GE design the Fukushima nuclear facility? Visual search might be less challenging and have a higher upside.
Cynthia Murrell, June 25, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
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