“In a blog post about the changes, Scott Zuccarino, product manager of Google News, wrote: ‘Many news stories inspire vibrant discussions on Google+, and today we’re starting to add this content to both the News homepage, and the real-time coverage pages.’

“Google has yet to reveal how many active users Google+ has. This latest move to weave the Facebook rival into one of Google’s most powerful products is a bid to boost the popularity of the service.”

She has that right. Google+ has not exactly been a stellar success.

Another Google News addition is, perhaps, a bit more useful for the average news junkie. The new “real-time” button summons the latest articles displayed chronologically, with commentary or more in-depth pieces at the bottom. This feature is probably designed to replace the Twitter feed the site used to get; Google’s deal with Twitter expired last year and has yet to be renewed.

Oh, and images are larger now. That may be the most useful change of all.

Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

To some it’s a corporate collaboration tool that does everything you need straight out of the box. To others it’s a development platform upon which, with the addition of tools such as SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio, you can build a ‘portal’ (whatever that might mean). Microsoft really needs to come up with an accurate, punchy description in order to persuade more people to give it a try.

Tasked with forming his own definition of what SharePoint is and does, Schifreen soon learned that SharePoint was not always willing to work with files and software outside of its own comfort zone.

While Microsoft likes to shout loudly about the fact that SharePoint 2010 embraces not just Windows and IE but also other browsers and other hardware, the relationship does indeed stop at a mere embrace. Some of the rich editing controls don’t like non-Microsoft browsers.

While no enterprise solution is without its quirks, we have found some to be more intuitive and agile.  Consider checking out Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise.  This award-winning enterprise solution is prized for its ability to play nice with a wide variety of data types.

Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.

Launching an enterprise infrastructure is not yet easy, nor may it ever be.  However, finding a smart and intuitive solution can go a long way in easing the task of the enterprise developer.  Check out the Fabasoft Mindbreeze suite of solutions for more information.

Emily Rae Aldridge, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by Pandia.com

The adoption of Oracle PLM solutions has helped WahShing Toys make their toys safer. As the article explains,

“…(Takao Kubo, executive director of the R&D, engineering and QA departments at WahShing Toys) said they are aiming to shorten the time required for toy debugging and fine tuning by one month after implementing Agile. He added the company has currently completed phase two of the project, which is to manage workload and scheduling for the different engineering teams. As they enter the third phase: integrating Agile with the company’s ERP system–also supported by Oracle–Kubo expects to achieve cost-efficiency.”

Manufacturing companies have long benefited from PLM to increase production time but the implications of adding a safety component will be far reaching.  In fact, as more cloud based PLM solutions are entering the business arena companies will continually find new and creative ways to make the platforms work to their advantage.  PLM solutions providers are taking full advantage of advances in cloud and open source technologies to make these dreams realities for companies of all sizes.

Catherine Lamsfuss, May 16, 2012

Regarding Facebook‘s Timeline change, the article explains:

“Among other things, it allows users to add a ‘cover’ to their ‘story,’ edit basic information, quickly jump to the past, see highlights of their Facebook existence from each month at a glance and more easily highlight events that they want others to notice.
“These changes present challenges to many firms.
“‘In general, I think that securities firms that allow Facebook are going to have to provide ongoing guidance when new features are available or they will find that the granular features may quickly land their firm out of compliance,’ Art Metzger, vice president of advertising supervision at Advisor Group, wrote in an e-mail a few weeks ago.”

Such twists and turns emphasize that social media compliance requires constant maintenance after the initial setup. Writer Davis Janowski is right to note that Timeline is just an example of the ever changing nature of social networks. Compliance advisors must stay on their toes, but at least it looks like they can count on some job security.

Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

Summarizing the problem, the article informs us that the issue lies in the need to matchworks billions of short strings to a 3 billion character long text. Currently, the way sequencing technology works is too convoluted.

The article continues:

“We need an algorithm that allows repeatedly searching on a text as fast as possible. We are allowed to perform some preprocessing on the text once if that will help us achieve this goal. BWT search is one such algorithm. It requires a one-time preprocessing of the reference to build an index, after which the query time is of the order of the length of the query (instead of the reference).”

Overall, the article does a solid job providing the contextual technology revolving around their product and explaining it with diagrams and concise language. It is a recommended read for those who would like to know more about this interesting idea for high speed searching.

Megan Feil, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

According to the article, starting July 1 Amazon, occupying 20 percent of all US online retail sales, will begin collecting a 6.25 percent sales tax on all of its products in Texas. The deal promises to bring more jobs to the state.

Buckley writes:

“The settlement resolves the online retailer’s ongoing dispute with the Lone Star state, which claimed that Amazon owed $269 million in back taxes. In addition to taking up collection, Amazon has agreed to create at least 2,500 jobs and invest a minimum of $200 million in capital investments, though it admits no fault, and believes the assessment was without merit, according to its latest SEC filing.”

Following Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota and Washington, Texas is the sixth state to collect sales tax from Amazon. This isn’t the end either, there are several other states on the horizon looking to fight the pesky sales tax battle with the online retail giant.

Jasmine Ashton, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by HighGainBlog

“According to a blog post, AOL is becoming a sponsor so it can transfer its internal open-source projects to the Foundation, ‘which eliminates the complexity of creating, funding and managing a separate foundation,’ in the words of Erynn Petersen, AOL SVP of Paid Services Engineering. ‘Outercurve sponsorship also will make it simpler for our partners to contribute to AOL-sponsored open source projects,’ Petersen added.”

Foley asked whether the choice had anything to do with last month’s sale of hundreds of AOL patents to Microsoft, and was assured there’s no connection. (By the way, Microsoft is reselling a number of these patents to Facebook. Interesting.)

A 501c(6) non-profit , the Outercurve Foundation is resolved to complement other open source foundations rather than compete with them. It provides organizations with details like software IP management and project development governance in order to encourage collaboration and spur faster results.

Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

“The company emphasizes in Tuesday’s announcement that the algorithm shift will target only those practices, such as ‘keyword stuffing’ and ‘link schemes,’ that violate its guidelines.

“However, the announcement included the caveat that not all content punished by the changes will ‘be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise.’

“The shift to Google’s algorithm is likely to affect, at least initially, some websites that aren’t clearly violating its guidelines, according to a strategy paper for Web marketers released earlier this month by the search-engine marketing firm iProspect.”

The paper goes on to say that such users rankings will probably be restored with “subsequent adjustments and tweaks.” I’m sure that will be of great comfort to companies who thought they were playing by the rules but suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the heap.

Look, Google fostered search engine optimization in its effort to balance “free” placement with paid traffic. Now that the ponies have left the corral, Google wants to round ‘em up. Do you hear the theme from “Rawhide”?

Cynthia Murrell, May 16, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

The write up quotes Kristofer Månsson, Silobreaker’s CEO:

“Situational awareness and contextual insight are essential and time-critical requirements for any corporate or governmental organization today. Yet, users are drowning in information, and cutting through the proliferation of content from both traditional and social media represents significant challenges, which cannot be met by the use of conventional search methods. We are very pleased that customers keep recognizing our products as leading edge for analytical and sense-making purposes, as well as for the efficiency of their prompt implementations.”

Yes, the “big data” phenomenon is placing big demands on organizations everywhere. Silobreaker’s Enterprise Software Suite is a robust tool for making sense of it all. It covers workflow from beginning— back end content, aggregation, indexing, classification and storage— to end— front-end search, filtering, analysis, visualization, user collaboration, report generation, and decision support. The software handles both structured and unstructured content with aplomb, and manages data from both inside and outside sources, both horizontally and vertically.

Founded in 2005, Silobreaker has headquarters in London and Stockholm. Their solutions facilitate teamwork across user groups through strong single user platforms that provide information aggregation, analytical tools, and collaboration features. Besides the aforementioned Enterprise Software Suite, the company offers Silobreaker Premium, a powerful intelligence and media monitoring SaaS tool for corporate, financial, NGO and government agency users. Silobreaker’s products help many private, corporate, academic, financial and government organizations worldwide with intelligence, media-monitoring, risk management, and early warning capabilities.

Cynthia Murrell, May 15, 2012

Sponsored by PolySpot

“Tips for Maximizing SharePoint For Corporate Communications Success” provides readers with an recap of a recent presentation along with several other resources to supplement the topic including: a PowerPoint presentation, a case study, an article, and a training.

Blogger Ken Toth informs:

“The free resources may be worth checking out if you’re looking to boost communications success in your organization. Maximizing SharePoint to manage your content and communications is no doubt a priority for success.”

Another informative post was “Presentation Recaps from Connect With the Experts SharePoint Day Now Available.” The article recaps a recent SharePoint presentation by Ant Clay where he spoke on SharePoint Performance and Business Intelligence.

After sharing Clay’s highlights from the day, Toth states:

“Stimulating conversation with fellows in the SharePoint community is a great way to participate in continuing education, get new ideas, and to develop a network of colleagues to call on throughout your SharePoint deployment and maintenance process. Slides from the presentations on why SharePoint works and how to govern it are also included if you missed the day’s talk.”

Another helpful article that offers solutions and applications on all versions of SharePoint is “Best Practices and Tips for Using Corasworks and SharePoint to Improve Work Processes.”

Suggested tools that better service the customer include: an app request system, task management and an app catalog.

Toth thinks:

“The best practices may be worth reviewing, especially to get tips for weekly programmatic reviews. We also know that it is best practice to use a powerful search feature to connect your users with the valuable information they need. Look to Smartlogic to enrich your metadata and provide an enhanced search and navigation experience with the Semaphore Content Intelligence Platform.”

Toth is absolutely right. Using a third party solution to solve your SharePoint needs is always an excellent idea for those who are not interested in taking the time and energy necessary to do the research on your own.

Jasmine Ashton, May 15, 2012