Lookeen for Outlook Search
April 19, 2010
Those search experts at About.com flagged Lookeen as the best Outlook add on for 2010. No matter that 2010 is still in its youth, but I have confidence in the About.com “awards”. Does anyone else thing that there are a heck of a lot of awards floating around. Exalead and I sponsor an award at the Boston Search Meeting, but we are recognizing a specific person who does a great job in his / her presentation at this important gathering of search wizards. Outlook add ins. I am not so sure.
Anyway, Lookeen an extension for Microsoft Outlook. The company says, “It’s a search tool that is seamlessly integrated in your Outlook and will search everywhere in your Outlook data. Find every mail at your fingertips!”
Lookeen says (and these points come directly from http://www.lookeen.net/:
- Lookeen will find every mail – even in the largest archives!
- Use innovative features to find important data faster than ever!
- Search synchronous for e-mails, attachments, appointments, tasks, notes and contacts!
- Searching in external PST-Files or archives!
- Integrated Desktop search!
- Central indexing for enterprises!
There are too many exclamation points and I have a built in aversion to categorical affirmatives.
Whenever I change a machine, I go through the back up drill. When a machine crashes, I am paranoid unless I have two of everything plus whatever the happy little Drobo snags. As a result, I need a way to focus a search system on a specific PST or group of PSTs and then find emails and attachments that pertain to my query.
If you don’t have access to the Coveo search system which does a good job with email or Pocket Search from Gaviri, you may want to give Lookeen a spin. A 14 day trial is free. Navigate to www.lookeen.com.
Stephen E Arnold, April 19, 2010
A freebie. Gaviri’s founder told me he would buy me a taco when I was next in Newark. Promises. Promises. I am still waiting for the Coveo taco by the way.
FoxTrot Professional Search
April 17, 2010
CTM Development has released FoxTrot Professional Search 2.6, a 64-bit performance and feature-rich update to their popular document indexing and retrieval solution for Mac OS X. This release is perfect for anyone who works with files saved for future reference. As reported by macnn.com in “CTM Development Launches FoxTrot Professional Search 2.6” FoxTrot Professional Search helps locate documents and their contents using multiple categorizations of search results, ranked by relevance. This product is popular with legal (law firm and courts) and media (newsrooms researchers, ad agencies and editors) due to the precision tools it offers for finding content directly within PDF, HTML, word processing, e-mail and multimedia content and metadata. FoxTrot Professional Search 2.6 is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later and is a free update for current licensed owners. More information is available from the CTMDev.com Web site.
Melody K. Smith, April 17, 2010
Note: Post was not sponsored.
Google and Disruption: Will It Work Tomorrow?
April 15, 2010
Editor’s Note: The text in this article is derived from the notes prepared by Stephen E Arnold’s keynote talk on April 15, 2010. He delivered this speech as part of Slovenian Information Days in Portoroz, Slovenia.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am most grateful for the opportunity to address this group and offer some observations about Google and its disruptive tactics.
I started tracking Google’s technical inventions in 2002. A client, now out of business, asked me to indicate if “Google really had something solid.”
My analysis showed a platform diagram and a list of markets that Google was likely to disrupt. I captured three ideas in my 2005 monograph “The Google Legacy“, which is still timely and available from Infonortics Ltd. in Tetbury, Glos.
The three ideas were:
First, Google had figured out how to add computing capacity, including storage, using mostly commodity hardware. I estimated the cost in 2002 dollars as about one-third what companies like Excite, Lycos, Microsoft, and Yahoo and were paying.
Second, Google had solved the problem of text search for content on Web pages. Google’s engineers were using that infrastructure to deliver other types of services. In 2002, there were rumors that Google was experimenting with services that ranged from email to an online community / messaging system. One person, whose name I have forgotten, pointed out that Google’s internal network MOMA was the test bed for this type of service.
Third, Google was not an invention company. Google was an applied research company. The firm’s engineers, some of whom came from Sun Microsystems and AltaVista.com, were adepts at plucking discoveries from university research computing tests and hooking them into systems that were improvements on what most companies used for their applications. The genius was focus and selection and integration.
Google is an information factory, a digital Rouge River construct. Raw materials enter at one end and higher value information products and services come out at the other end of the process.
In my second Google monograph, funded funded in part by another client, I built upon my research into technology and summarized Google’s patent activities between 2004 and mid 2007. Google Version 2.0: The Calculating Predator, also published by Infonortics Ltd., disclosed several interesting facts about the company.
dtSearch Expands
April 14, 2010
dtSearch, the ultra interesting search vendor in Maryland, was the subject of “dtSearch Expands File Parsers and Converters; Content Extraction Only Licenses Available.” dtSearch triggers memories of small blue and white advertisements in trade publications. The angle is that dtSearch can search lots of text quickly and the system is low cost in comparison to some other vendors of search systems. I have tested the system, and it works.
Source: http://www.dtsearch.com
I find some of the interface conventions inappropriate to my style of working but you will have to give the system a test drive and make up your own mind. The article—a news release type write up—points out that dtSearch is getting into the file conversion business. The leaders in this sector offer solutions that some find too expensive. dtSearch may follow its proven marketing approach and put some pressure on the industry leaders like Oracle-Stellent. The write up says:
The file parsers and converters now cover Adobe Framemaker MIF, XFA form templates, and Visio XML, in addition to existing supported file types like HTML, PDF, XSL/XML, ZIP, OpenOffice and MS Office files (through current released versions). The parsers also support popular email formats, along with the full text of attachments. For a complete list of supported file types, see http://support.dtsearch.com/faq/dts0103.htm.
The story also describes a “content extraction” license. The explanation in the write up is:
The dtSearch Engine embeds the file parsers for hit-highlighted WYSIWYG display of web-ready files and HTML conversion (with hit-highlighted display) of other file types. Content extraction only licenses are also available.
We will have to test this system to understand exactly what is permitted. No pricing information was available in the story. My notes about dtSearch show that fees begin in the hundreds of dollars and rise from there. Compared to other Microsoft-centric search systems, dtSearch is definitely a lower cost option.
You can see the dtSearch system in action if you have access to Mimosa. That company, according to my notes, uses dtSearch in its content processing system. As you may know, Iron Mountain acquired Mimosa. It will be interesting to see how the acquisition affects the trajectory of dtSearch in certain indexing situations.
My Overflight system generates a number of links to Softpedia for a “free” download of the dtSearch system. The page here describes dtSearch 7.65.7887 in this way:
The dtSearch is a complex product and includes dtSearch Desktop, Spider, Network, Web, Publish and Text Retrieval Engine. dtSearch products instantly search gigabytes of text across a desktop, network or Internet/Intranet. Products can also publish large document collections to Web sites or to CD/DVD. dtSearch is … the Smart Choice for Text Retrieval since 1991.
The features of the system, according to http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/Text-Retrieval-Engine.shtmlSoftpedia, include:
- Provides over two dozen indexed and unindexed text search options for all popular file types.
- Supports full-text as well as field searching in all supported file types.
- Has multiple relevancy-ranking and other search sorting options.
- The dtSearch product line displays retrieved files in a browser with highlighted hits and convenient hit and file navigation options ??” next hit, previous hit, next document, etc.
- For HTML and PDF, the products highlight hits while keeping embedded formatting, links and intact.
- For all other supported file types (“Office,” XML, ZIP, etc.), the product line has built-in HTML file converters for displaying these files in a browser with highlighted hits
- dtSearch Engine supports SQL, C++, Java, VB.NET, C#, Delphi, ASP.NET
My reaction to Softpedia’s write up is that it is promising a great deal. Considering the converters have just been expanded, I think that the use of “all” is quite interesting and a categorical affirmative. The technology of dtSearch seems to date from 1991. That makes it one of the more chronologically mature systems available today. Search has changed significantly in the last 19 years and the absence of nods to social content, semantic technology, and business intelligence type functions distinguishes dtSearch from some of the other competitors in this market sector. Finally, the software offered by Softpedia carries a $999 price tag, which seems to fit between open source search at essentially zero cost and the six and seven figure systems available from certain vendors.
Bottomline: the 1991 interests me and begs the question, “How has dtSearch been able to invest in new technology and offer such a compelling price point?” The answer to this question may instruct other content processing vendors so they avoid the financial pressures that companies like Delphes, Nstein, and others have experienced.
Stephen E Arnold, April 14, 2010
No one paid me to write this.
Big Bucks to NetBase for Semantic Search
April 13, 2010
Semantic search continues to fire probes into the information sector. The most recent laser flash was the $9 million that charged the batteries of NetBase. I read “Semantic Search Startup NetBase Gets $9 Million” and learned:
With the new cash, NetBase will have now raised $18 million since its start in 2005. The funding comes from Altos Ventures and Thomvest Ventures. Cash will be used to “aggressively develop and serve new markets.” NetBase says it will build out its sales, marketing, business development and product management functions.
Interest in semantic search continues to percolate. The idea is that indexing words is often not enough. In order to go beyond key word indexing, semantic search innovators employs a broad range of techniques. These methods can degrade into marketing buzz. Casual observers of search hear “natural language processing” and “entity extraction” and leap to the conclusion that smart software can understand text.
Well, sort of. But the point is that most people who have used search engines for information know that a key word can generate information wide of the mar. One example is the use of the word “terminal” in a query. If you are looking for a bus station and get hits to an untreatable cancer, you realize that the word “terminal” has insufficient specificity to get you what you want. On the other hand, if you enter five or six key words, you may get a handful of hits but these may be too specific.
The fix is to assemble a number of methods to make fuzzy boundaries sharper and make too sharp boundaries fuzzier. The idea is to create a recipe that yields results that are just right. Google has some formidable intellects working on the semantic challenges. A Paul Allen start up Evri, bought the high profile Radar Networks, to beef up its semantic offerings. Most search vendors assert that their systems use semantic technology.
NetBase describes its approach as delivering the “next generation of search.” The company says:
We are the insight discovery company. Founded by innovators Jonathan Spier and Michael Osofsky, NetBase develops and markets a next-generation semantic technology that reads and understands the English language. This technology is the basis for solutions that help our users answer complex questions faster, more accurately, and with greater confidence. And we do this at scale. NetBase finds and extracts the most relevant information from billions of public and private sources of online information. Our advanced technology combines with patent-pending lenses to provide context for search results and intelligently guide users to highly relevant answers.
The company’s technology “focus searches by organizing the patterns detected by our next-generation semantic technology in the context of a specific set of questions relevant to a specific discipline or audience of researchers.”
Hakia, another semantic player, has been successful in attracting investment as well. The challenge for any semantic vendor is to find a way to generate sufficient revenue to keep the investors in vacation homes and new BMWs. There is a race underway among a number of interesting companies with semantic solutions. Looming over the entire sector are giants like Google and Microsoft which are keen to use semantics and any other context generating technology to give their services an advantage.
Which semantic vendor will break out and deliver a solution that delivers a hockey stick growth curve. Azure chip consultants praise most semantic technologies. But the proof is not PR. The proof is a sustainable base of revenue, sufficient revenue to continue technology investment, and the agility to dance around the very big players in the semantic game.
NetBase may be focusing on a vertical strategy and it will be interesting to watch the story unfold.
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2010
No one paid me to write this.
Trade Association Defines Search Its Way
April 12, 2010
I don’t know much about the Technology Services Industry Association. Most associations serve the narrow requirements of a select membership. Some “associations” are not really associations. I learned that the outfit called the “National Association of Photoshop Professionals” is a company that owns an association, a magazine to which I subscribed once, and a string of expensive “how to” conferences. TSIA may be like the American Bar Association or it could be like the NAPP outfit.
What caught my attention was a news story that we snagged in the Overflight system. The headline was “TSIA’s “Intelligent Search Market Overview” Report Identifies Innovative Criteria for Search Technology Selection.”
Reports about members are bread-and-butter activities in some “associations.” I don’t have a problem with a member profile write up but I did stumble on this passage in the news story:
The following search specialists participated in the study: Attensity, Baynote, Clarabridge, Consona CRM, Coveo, InQuira, KANA, nGenera CIM, Q-go, and RightNow.
So what’s the big deal? Well, for the addled goose, this listing of companies as “search specialists” is one of the most egregious examples of confusing an enterprise procurement team I have encountered. Tossing in the word “intelligent” just plain flummoxed me.
Let’s look at this line up of “search specialists”.
First, there’s Attensity. This is a deep extraction content processing firm. Recently the company has moved from the intelligence market sector into advertising, sentiment analysis, and other markets. The company’s technology processes content and generates a range of outputs that can used to figure out whether email is positive or negative. The firm provides basic search functionality, but the company is a vendor that adds metadata to content objects. Those metadata can be manipulated in a number of ways. One of the uses is to locate documents tagged in a consistent manner by the Attensity system. This is impressive technology, but it is a component of search, not a search system along the lines of the Autonomy, Exalead, or Google offerings. This is an error of confusing the parts with the whole, and it is a serious logical flaw in the TSIA write up.
Second, there is Baynote. This is a company that offers a “recommendation engine.” Think of Baynote as a more robust, more configurable version of the Amazon system. The idea is that the firm’s technology can process information about a Web site visitor and then generate outputs that reveal intent and context. Again, this is powerful technology, but it is not search. Baynote supplements more comprehensive search-and-retrieval systems. Baynote is what it says it is, a recommendation engine. Why label it a search system? (I think it is to create a report for which inclusion was advertising and revenue perhaps?)
Third, Clarabridge is a company that, at one time, had some of the good old MicroStrategy DNA. The system can process the type of data collected in a traditional structured business intelligence system and perform additional functions. Instead of coding a report, a client can use the Clarabridge system to frame a Google-style query and get a report out. Recently Clarabridge has embraced the Attensity approach of pushing into customer support and other allied market sectors. There’s good business logic behind this shift, but Clarabridge is not a vendor of search-and-retrieval technology. In fact, one might need both Clarabridge and a more robust text processing system to get most users comfortable with the outputs in a business application. This is a repositioning of Clarabridge from business intelligence to a specific vertical application. Okay with me but misleading in my opini0on.
Consona CRM is just what the name says. Customer relationship management. The company includes a basic search system with its software, but the core competency of the company is in supporting a call center application. Try to extend the system over the full spectrum of potentially relevant content in an organization, and you will find the need to look for other bits and pieces. This is a naming error because CRM is not search. Search is a utility within CRM in my opinion.
Coveo is a vendor of search and content processing. Unlike the other firms, Coveo started with a search system and has now created a solution that fits into a customer support application. Coveo’s platform makes possible more than customer support. While it is important to explain how Coveo’s customer support solution delivers call center features, it is a disservice to Coveo to position the company narrowly.
InQuira is a company formed by fusing two other firms. The company has natural language processing technology which is sold as an engine for self-help systems. The firm can deliver a broader search solution, but I think of the company as a niche player in the customer support sector. I don’t think of InQuira in the same way I perceive the Microsoft Fast type of solution. In my experience, there are some interesting parallels in the trajectories of the two firms that merged to create InQuira and the fusion of Microsoft and Fast Search & Transfer. InQuira, therefore, is a search system but it is one that has been shaped to somewhat special purposes.
KANA is a help desk vendor. In a meeting with the firm years ago, I was told that KANA had state of the art search technology. The demo showed that a customer support rep could enter a product name and see information about that product from different repositories. This is indeed search. In my opinion, it was primitive but it worked. Since that demo, I have not considered KANA a search vendor. In fact, I have resisted KANA as a vendor of knowledge management solutions. The firm builds and maintains customer support system for a large number of companies. Some of these companies have multiple search and retrieval systems plus KANA.
nGenera says that it is a vendor with systems that power “the collaborative enterprise.” One function of some nGenera applications is search. Search is like the hubcap on a Hummer, and I am not sure that nGenera itself would describe the company a search vendor. The company says, “Our solutions combine strategic insight, onsite services and the most comprehensive suite of collaborative applications on the market.” I have no problem with nGenera, but I think that describing this firm’s products and services as “search” is just misleading.
Q-Go says that it delivers “relevant online answers, better customer service.” I suppose I could interpret this phrase as meaning enterprise search or an Intranet and Web combined search, but I think that would be a real stretch. The company, like others in this list, focuses on customer support. Search is one facet, but it is not the complete system the firm delivers. In fact, the company asserts, “Q-Go guarantees a six month return on investment. Not many search vendors can make this type of statement in my opinion.
RightNow, a TSIA silver partner, is a customer support platform vendor. The company has moved into cloud computing and includes a search and retrieval function in its products. As one of the leaders in call center and related functions, search is important, but RightNow is not a vendor of enterprise search solutions. Maybe the company is moving into this sector? I know that when I hear “RightNow”, I think of the company’s push for “customer experience.” In my files I had a clipping that addressed the function of indexing a Web site with RightNow. The answer in the 2007 item here was that the Web indexer was a separate component. But since 2007, I haven’t seen much about the RightNow search system in the enterprise. Labeling RightNow as a search vendor seems to be a stretch. In 2007, a change to an indexed article required an index rebuild to pick up the change. Not exactly what I prefer.
My view is that the term “search” is used as an umbrella to cover a report about customer support vendors. Some of the vendors deliver full service solutions with search as an after through. Some deliver a specific type of content processing. Some deliver a package search solution tailored to the needs of customer support.
It is confusing to me and probably some potential customers to slap the word “search” on these vendors. Perhaps the report would be more compelling if a more informative title and description were used? Perhaps some of the vendors are stretching their own capabilities to cover this lucrative market for reducing the cost of providing customer service?
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2010
A freebie.
Exalead Powers PagesJaunes.fr and More
March 29, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to the new Exalead-powered PagesJaunes service.
The system allows a user to enter a name of a company or a needed service and get a listing, a map, and other information. The Exalead system displays the traditional address and phone number, but the system taps into information on social network on which the person has a public profile.
PageJaunes.fr is high-revenue, high-use service. The Exalead system adds functionality and speed to the PageJaunes service.
The blog post PagesJaunes Integrates Social Networks with Exalead PagesBlanches.fr explains how the social networking content amplifies the listings.
I try to keep pace with innovations in directory systems. Exalead’s push into this market is welcome news. Most of the directory-centric systems I examine struggle when acquiring, indexing, and mashing up content from structured and unstructured sources. Exalead’s system makes this type of next-generation information display part of the firm’s core system.
For more information about Exalead, navigate to www.exalead.com. If you want to read an interview with the technical wizard behind the Exalead system, navigate to the ArnoldIT.com Search Wizards Speak series.
AT&T, check out PagesJaunes.com. Put your existing system out to pasture and let me use an Exalead-powered system from my goose pond in Kentucky. Yo, AT&T, are you listening?
Stephen E Arnold, March 29, 2010
No one paid me to point out that the Exalead directory system is a heck of a lot better than what I have to use from Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. I suppose I can report this to the ever vigilant FCC. But Exalead is a French company, so maybe I have to report to the State Department. Goodness, compliance is often confusing.
Vamosa and SchemaLogic
March 24, 2010
A happy quack to the reader who took me to task for not covering SchemaLogic more diligently. I check out my Overflight service and I can tell quickly if a search and content processing vendor is making some marketing tracks. Autonomy is on the ball; many of the vendors I track are either lacking in marketing savvy, marketing resources, or marketing energy.
I want to point to SchemaLogic’s tie up with Vamosa. SchemaLogic makes a controlled vocabulary server. The company has other technical capabilities, but I want to highlight the server product. With it, an organization can tame the wild ponies of uncontrolled tagging. SharePoint offers this users-can-do-it approach, and I think that uncontrolled tagging creates some interesting retrieval challenges. SchemaLogic’s server is a traffic cop, authority file, and repository. The software enforces some order on indexing or metatagging as the 20-somethings prefer.
Vamosa is a services firm and it is one of the many companies that offer consulting and information governance expertise to organizations. The idea is that in a SharePoint environment, people learn pretty quickly that there are problems “finding” information. Vamosa to the rescue.
The tie up allows Vamosa to offer a solution and SchemaLogic to get some marketing support. You can get details about the deal in the write up “Vamosa Adds More Content Governance Capabilities via MetaPoint.”
For information about Vamosa navigate to the firm’s Web site, www.vamosa.com. For information about SchemaLogic, you can find information at www.schemalogic.com.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2010
Nginer, Timesaving Metasearch
March 23, 2010
I find that for certain types of queries, I need a metasearch system. I have mentioned Devilfinder before, and I like that service because it generates the top 100 hits for queries. I can scan the list and get a good sense of what’s available. That type of overview is useful because I prefer to hit the Web before using the for fee services.
A reader sent me a link to Nginer.com, a system that displays results from Google, Bing, Yahoo, Clusty and several others in one window. I ran several queries and found the service quite useful. Here are the points I noted:
- A drop down list lets me confine the query to a collection; for example, blogs, books, and social bookmarks, among other subsets.
- A tabbed display which lets me look at the top hits across a number of search and metasearch systems. I like this approach because I can tell at a glance which system is indexing certain content quickly.
- A tag cloud that shows me what is getting traffic at the time I ran the query.
I did not like two things. First, there was no button to let me clear the results and run another query. No big deal, just annoying. Second, I want way to eliminate systems that in my experience rarely yield any useful results for my types of queries. Otherwise, I was a happy camper.
My recommendation is for you take a test drive.
Coveo and GEICO Host Webinar on March 23, 2010
March 21, 2010
Fierce Media has asked Beyond Search to facilitate a discussion about “how GEICO thinks about leveraging its data-rich enterprise systems to generate real-time business value and intelligence.” The participants are GEICO and Coveo as well as Stephen E Arnold.
Topics include how the Coveo system can:
- Enable improved business intelligence and decision making through dynamic dashboards and information mashups that provide actionable business information
- Access structured and unstructured data from across enterprise systems and repositories without complex integration or data migration, improving efficiency and cost effectiveness through a unified indexing layer
- Lower the cost of legacy system integrations and upgrades, and reduce time-consuming data migration
- Optimize social networks and incorporate the value of collaboration and just-in-time information exchange into the knowledge ecosystem
The audio program will be on Tuesday, March 23, 2010 beginning at 11:00am Eastern/8:00am Pacific. More information about Coveo may be found at http://www.coveo.com. You can register here.
Ben Kent, March 21, 2010, Beyond Search
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