Content Analyst and dtSearch Combo Product Announced
April 4, 2008
Content Analyst, a text processing company with DNA from the US intelligence community, released its Conceptual Search and Text Analytics software Version 3.2. This release incorporates dtSearch’s search-and-retrieval system. dtSearch has offices in Bethesda, Maryland, has offered a solid search-and-retrieval system for single users, developers, and organizations since 1991.
The combo product delivers key work and conceptual search. The release also offers licensees clustering and support for cross language support. Based in Reston, Virginia, Content Analyst’s technology can be used to generate taxonomies and produce summaries of documents.
Content Analyst–like Groxis, Recommind, and Vivisimo–is making a move from a niche market into the broader market of behind-the-firewall search applications.
Digimind Says, “Bonjour America”
April 3, 2008
Digimind, a French marketing intelligence and content processing systems company, has opened offices and a subsidiary in Boston. Chris Hote, Ph.D. will head up the operation.
The company’s flagship product is Digimind Evolution. The company asserts that it ‘”is the only global competitive intelligence platform.” What sets Digimind apart from other text processing companies is the scope of the firm’s platform, which delivers intelligence software as a service.
The company reports that it has tallied nine consecutive years of profitable growth. The company says its market intelligence systems have more than 60,000 users worldwide. More information is available at the company’s English language Web site at www.digimind.com. French readers will find www.digimind.fr adds detail to the information available in English.
Stephen Arnold, April 3, 2008
Inside the Tokamak, Part 2: The Red Spheres of Context
April 3, 2008
In the first part of this essay, I drew a parallel between a tokamak device and plasmas. The idea is that in an organization, new technologies and increasing pressure to work smarter changes what users expect a search and retrieval system to deliver. In this second installment, we look at four additional digital ions and electrons that are “going critical” with regards to information access.
Let’s begin by revisiting the diagram, paying particular attention to the 12 spheres inside the diagram’s central “gray boundary”.
The outer two stacks of “yellow spheres” and “purple spheres” exert pressure on users, vendors, and organizations. As the individual yellow and purple spheres expand, the activity inside the “gray boundary” increases. When dealing with non-linear phenomena, it is difficult to predict what will give way and what will surge to dominance. There is considerable uncertainty within the “gray boundary”.
Perhaps you have experienced this yourself. In my work in the last five years, I have documented the increasing dissatisfaction users express about their search and retrieval systems. Some comments are delivered with hope: for example, “I wish the system would let me retrieve what I need regardless of which department has the data”. Other comments are more earthy, “Management has no idea how frustrated I am with this stupid system.” In my work in New York, I have seen 20-somethings staring at a search results display with frustration and anger clouding their otherwise pampered features.
You may want to click on the diagram to see the labels of the “red spheres” more clearly. As you recall, I prepared this diagram more than five years ago, so it is long in the tooth. But it serves as a useful starting point for our exploration of the forces transforming search from a nice-to-have function to a must-have service.
The Red Spheres
There are four “red spheres” in this stack of digital ions and electrons. As per my wont, I’ll comment on each briefly. To sum up this second installment, I want to offer some additional comments about the “search” sphere. The label for the “red spheres” is contextual. Read more
Microsoft’s Search Wrangler Identified
April 2, 2008
Satya Nardella, according to the Hindustan Times, is Microsoft’s top gun in search. In a story by Priya Ganapati, we learn:
Nadella, senior vice-president for Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group, is trying hard to focus on business as usual in Microsoft’s online division even as he faces an uncertain future. In other words, the MSN portal and the Live Search business, and big bets on getting advertising revenues from services now rest on Nadella’s shoulders.
A graduate of Mangalore University and an alumnus of Manipal Institute of Technology, Nardella is described as “technical”. He’s a manager who can “go really deep technically”. According to Mary Jo Foley, a Microsoft pundit, “he’s a real straight shooter”. But Nardella may find himself reporting to Brian McAndrews, the former boss of aQuantive, which Microsoft acquired in May 2007.
This is one job to watch because whoever is “search wrangler” for Microsoft, a shoot out with Google requires serious weaponry. Beyond Search wonders if Yahoo’s big guns can add the fire power Microsoft needs to bag the Googzilla of search.
Stephen Arnold, April 2, 2008
Inside the Information Tokamak, Part 1: The Blue Spheres of Messaging
April 2, 2008
I’ve also enjoyed the tokamak, a machine that produces a toroidal magnetic field for confining a plasma. (A plasma is, for those who cut physics class to enjoy a spring day, an ionized gas containing an approximately equal number of positive ions and electrons. Zap this puppy, you get interesting phenomena. Here’s one example on a slightly larger scale than your local university’s physics lab.
Source: http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Global/7/
77E722FA-4A00-476D-9D4A-3F86C9BDA2B3/0/chp_sun_plasma.jpg
So what does nuclear physics have to do with behind-the-firewall search? Actually, quite a log if you have a poetic side to your curious self.
I am living in a digital tokamak. Instead of ions and electrons, I am bombarded by the information particles shown in the diagram below:
This is a diagram prepared in 2003. I am using it “as is” despite its flaws. If you want to recycle the diagram, please coordinate with me.
If you read my earlier post about the “gray bar”, you know that the “yellow spheres” and the “purple spheres” exert pressure on an organization’s information environment. The three new sets of spheres in blue, red, and green are what’s inside the “gray bar” in this diagram.
Nettlesome Google Story Won’t Die
April 1, 2008
Rumors about Google’s cooperation with US government agencies come and go. In the last week, more details percolate about the tie up between the search giant and the intelligence community.
An interesting recycling of the current crop of rumors appeared on April 1, 2008, in the Times of India‘s Web site. The Times‘s unsigned article states:
In the most innovative service, for which Google equipment provides the core search technology, agents are encouraged to post intelligence information on a secure forum, which other spies are free to read, edit, and tag-like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia .
Beyond Search has no information to prove or disprove the assertions in the Times‘s article. If true, a public relations dust up can add to the increasingly negative stance taken toward Google for its loss of key staff to Facebook.com and its seemingly weakening grip on online advertising.
Stephen Arnold, April 1, 2008
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