Pew Speeds Quantifies the Dead Tree Blight in the Information Forest
December 25, 2008
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (a go-to info source for the Washington DC crowd) released a news story here with the snappy title “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Source.” the write up is typical charts and graphs style. You can wade through the data and the inevitable footnotes designed to make it easy for Statistics 101 teachers to create an assignment via cut and paste. For me, the key point was:
Currently, 40% say they get most of their news about national and international issues from the Internet, up from just 24% in September 2007. For the first time in a Pew survey, more people say they rely mostly on the Internet for news than cite newspapers (35%). Television continues to be cited most frequently as a main source for national and international news, at 70%.
The rest of the data are interesting but not the pivot point for me like this shift to the Internet and the crowning of TV as king for 2009.
The outlook for traditional publishing. Source: http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/deforestation-2.jpg
My interpretation of these data, as you may expect, is slightly different from the “newspapers are dead” analysis I have offered in the past. Here’s the variant:
- More newspapers will chase the online world. I think this is akin to what I have seen described as death throes. These action presage the passing, not the dawning of a rebirth. Citizen input forms for breaking news, anyone?
- The magazines and professional journals are next in line. These intellectual mavens will find tough rowing when budget caps crash on hapless accountants, crushing the publishers of serials under the weight of increasing costs.
- The anti Google crowd needs to speed up their efforts to crush Google Video Search, YouTube.com, and the Google Channel. The children of the dead tree crowd are already defecting, so the publishing and media elite are not able to generate folks who share their mums’ and daddies’ love of 16th century intellectual artifacts. I can see the scene now. Mum says, “Take out the garbage.” Media child pulls iPod ear buds out of her ears and says, “What?” Media child goes back to the Macbook video, stuffs the ear buds in her ears, and grabs her iPhone to send a text message that says, “Parentz R 2 lame.”
Now you may point out that I omitted book publishers. No, I didn’t omit them. When the New York publishing houses started to announce cut backs in new titles last month, I wrote that segment off as intellectual meat through the sausage machine.
Okay, dead tree lovers, tell me I am wrong. Just include facts. Pew data are okay. Examples like the tiny 10,000 circulation newspaper in New Jersey are fine. Fancy books used to decorate law offices and upscale dwellings qualify as well. Just include data with your addled goose guidebook.
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
SharePoint Search Tip for Missing Content
December 25, 2008
Michael Nemtsev’s “Why Content Query Web Part (CQWP) Doesn’t Return All Results” here provided a useful tip we snipped and saved. Mr. Nemtsev said that missing content was “behavior by design”. Sounds like a thoughtful feature to me. The fix is to set “UseCache” property to false. A happy quack to Mr. Nemtsev for this tip.
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
SharePoint Holiday Treats
December 25, 2008
Eli Robillard’s “The Best Free SharePoint Downloads” might be a useful holiday treat for you. We find ourselves enjoying SharePoint each day. Despite its ease of use and rock solid code, we often find ourselves looking for special tools that make life easier and even more fun. If you are like the ArnoldIT.com team, you will want to navigate here and peruse the list of freebies for SharePoint. We particularly liked the faceted search extension. You can find that here. The free tool might night be as rich as some third party solutions, but it may be good enough for some SharePoint administrators. The tool groups search results by facet and provides other features sure to grease the squeaky wheels in marketing and business development. These folks are never satisfied with their SharePoint search results in our experience.
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
SQL Server Flaw for Your Holiday Stocking
December 25, 2008
Wow, another flaw in the Microsoft enterprise data management system, SQL Server. You can read “Microsoft Acknowledges Critical SQL Server Flaw” here. The issue is another remote code execution issue. Affected systems include, if the report is accurate:
- Microsoft SQL Server 2000
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
- Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine
- Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine
- Windows Internal Database.
As I write this (December 24, 2008), there is no fix. Microsoft is believed to be working on the issue. With SQL Server flaws like this remote code execution, I ask, “Is it time to look elsewhere for mission critical data management systems?” I am getting a bit tired of the continuous cycle of “it’s broken” then “oh, now it’s fixed” and “yep, it’s broken”. What about you? SQL Server is more important to me than a Zune upgrade. Perhaps the priorities at Microsoft could use a close look?
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
Autonomy after Winning the Enterprise Search Wars
December 25, 2008
Let me be clear. I did not write the article in CBRonline. The author is Jason Stamper, and I am pointing to the story “It Ain’t Over” which appeared on December 23, 2008. A couple of my four or five readers look at my coverage of Autonomy and assume I am a cat’s paw. Nope, the outfit has ignored my last two emails with questions I had hoped the company would answer. If you want to comment on Mr. Stamper’s article, write him, not me. I read his piece here and found several interesting points. Let me highlight these and then offer a couple of my own opinions. Mr. Stamper landed an interview with Mike Lynch, the CEO of Autonomy. The article provides some color about the background of the company in the early 1990s. Mr. Stamper then picks up the theme that Autonomy has won the war for enterprise search. I quite liked the handling of the Fast Search & Transfer missteps that precipitated some official looks into the Fast operation. Mr. Stamper does a good job of highlighting some of the basic facts about the enterprise search market. I am a collector of customer stories, and the profile of Autonomy’s work at Ford is a juicy anecdote. For me, the most important comment in the article was this statement:
One of the differentiators over its smaller rivals in the space – including Endeca, IBM (smaller in terms of search, at least), Google Enterprise, Simplexo, Sinequa, Recommind and many more – is the list of supported file types that can be handled by Autonomy’s IDOL platform. “By supporting more than 1,000 different data formats, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, located across 400 different content repositories, Autonomy can search all categories of information repositories in an organization,” the company says.
Now you may not be too excited about connectors. That may be one of the differences between my view of search and yours. Connectors, in my experience, are one of the surprises that often bedevil licensees. These code chunks make it possible for the licensee to index information that reside in systems or files within an organization. A vendor who does not provide connectors leaves the customer with some stark options; for example, don’t index the content or pay for a new connector. If Mr. Stamper is correct, Autonomy’s connectors are a definite plus for the IDOL system. One vendor (not Autonomy) which I won’t be able to name has quite a few connectors. But–and this is an important “but”–does not make them available as part of the basic license fee. The vendor charges extra for a connector even though it is available and ready for the licensee to use. Pretty nifty way to earn some extra money, right?
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
Google and Incubation
December 25, 2008
Xconomy Seattle reported here that Google will host a start up weekend in Seattle. Gregory Huang’s article says that a the Startup Weekend will be in Seattle on February 6, 7 and 8. You can read the story here. What I find interesting is that Google is out looking for innovation. This contrasts sharply with Microsoft Fast’s forthcoming Fast Forward Conference. The Fast Forward conference features pundits who are talking about what’s happening now in the pubic Web. The idea is that an attendee at the Fast Forward conference will learn about what has already happened. I don’t think the program will provide an update on the police action against the company nor will there be many speakers who point out some of the challenges of the Fast Enterprise Search Platform. You can read about the Fast Forward conference here. I find the difference in the two programs quite striking. Microsoft Fast is reporting on what has happened. Google wants to find things that are happening. Little wonder than Google continues to outpace Microsoft in certain key areas such as search and geospatial services in the enterprise. I am not much of a history buff, but I do enjoy analyses of famous battles. This skirmish just underlines how one company looks forward and the other backwards. I am curious about the police action even though others in the search space seem to have forgotten the visit to Microsoft Fast offices in mid October. Any one have any updates on this or was I misreading the news reports from Norway?
Stephen Arnold, December 25, 2008
Google as Machiavelli
December 24, 2008
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli–a poet, philosopher, and tunesmith–wrote a view of power that resonates in our 21st century, consumer fueled world. I enjoyed Saul Hansell’s reference to the savvy 16th century Italian, in the article “Google’s Machiavellianism” here. Mr. Hansell opines that Google may have to buy a social networking outfit in order to keep a bumbling competitor from transforming itself from Barney Fife into the Incredible Hulk. Mr. Hansell touches on some of the Google vulnerabilities that have become visible; for example, privacy. For me, the most telling comment in the article was:
… the most powerful opponent Google might face would be a combination of a portal and search engine with one of the big social networks. A year from now, if the players were MySpace-Yahoo and MSN-Facebook, Google might be sweating a little more.
This is a good point, but several thoughts crossed my mind:
- The GOOG has been moving forward mostly unimpeded for a decade. I am skeptical that a tie up between or among Microsoft, Yahoo, MySpace, and Facebook will work the competitive magic for which Mr. Hansell suggests is much needed
- Google is not well understood because its core asset is its plumbing. Assume that Google gets a dent in its beak. Google’s response will be to push the button that launches Google into other sectors ripe for financial plucking
- The economic downturn will affect other ships in the financial ocean. If Google continues to increase its lead in Web search (which happened last month), the gap between Google may actually widen.
In my opinion, the social network trend is real, but it like other trends can fizzle or become a component in the next big thing. Oh, one other point. Google embraces the ethos of the math club. I am not sure Machiavelli’s writings are high on the Googlers’ reading list. Euler greases the Google’s skids: Math, not Machiavellianism.
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
When Will the Dead Tree Times Come Crashing Down
December 24, 2008
Peter Kafka, writing in Media Memo, provided a useful summary of the New York Times’s bleak November 2008. You can read his article “New York times: November Was So Terrible, Even Our Internet Ads Were Down” in “D: All Things Digital” here. Mr. Kafka provides a link to more nitty gritty here. For my purposes, this key point was that Internet ad revenue and other Internet revenue declined as well. What is my agenda? Three points to bright your December 24th:
- What’s the big surprise? The Wall Street Journal’s early push into proprietary desktop software more than a decade ago and then its flirtation with BRS search generated losses as well. As one traditional newspaper after another brought its Gutenberg business model to online, revenues were not just down, most online ventures were disasters. Anyone recall the Knight Ridder “play”? Or, what about the Times’s own smooth move to kill the “Times file save tool”? Nice, especially with no provision to save the content elsewhere. Info about this gaffe is here.
- For most traditional publishers, the online train has left the station. I used to work at a newspaper, and I have watched costs run out of control. The response has been to trim down staff and raise rates. Stepping back and thinking about alternative business models was a common practice. Whilst pondering, new media luminaries rose (Mike Harrington’s TechCrunch) and new distribution systems (Google to name one) emerged. Where were the traditional newspapers? Most were congratulating themselves on their ability to “manage” their problems. Wrong. The management was a hoax, and the problems are not really expensive and painful to solve.
- It is not a question of which newspaper is next. My analysis suggests that the old doctrine of the Domino Theory” is right for our time and our place. Once the gray lady topples, the others will plummet with little or no warning. In death as in life, most of today’s dead tree publications are a bit like sheep. These four footed wizards are heading toward the cliff’s edge.
You can read Erick Schonfeld’s analysis here.
My thought picture of the New York Times and some other dead tree publishers. Source: http://parkerlab.bio.uci.edu/pictures/photography%20pictures/bigthumbs/screenDead%20tree%20on%20Inyo%20crest.jpg
I am delighted I have four or five readers. One or two may take issue with my opinions. If I reached more people, I would have to deal with assertions, cat calls, and so-so vilifications. My specialist study Publishing on the Internet: A New Medium for a New Millennium (Infonortics, 1996) included this statement:
… Technology’s impact cannot be predicted. Small innovations and incremental improvements interact almost organically and behave in complex ways. the use of those technologies and the impact of those instrumental applications of what appear to be harmless inventions create a new type of information environment. this environment is not routinely recognized as a distinct construct almost in the way that a fish does not recognize water. Experts on electronic information are only beginning to come to grips with the rhetorical and syntactical rules of the network publishing information types. The social impact is not fully understood. the implications for commerce, education, medicine, and politics are not understood. Indeed many think it is business as usual. We do not know what will come next. Many aspects of digital life seem unpredictable. they are. It is the datasphere showing its true colors.
I suggest beet red as the new color to signify failure. Okay, tell me why I am wide of the mark even for an addled goose in rural Kentucky.
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
Google and the Telcos: The Saga Continues
December 24, 2008
Earlier this year, Mercer Island Group and I held a series of briefings for telco executives. We reviewed Google’s considerable body of technology related to telephony. In those briefings, we encountered push back. Telcos did not understand what Google had been doing for seven or eight years. Furthermore, the telcos viewed the world of Google as one confined to looking up innocuous information on a free Web search with mostly meaningless advertisements sprinkled on the edges of the results. The Wall Street Journal reported that the GOOG allegedly communicated with some telcos to get a deal for high speed access for certain types of services. The story ran and Googzilla showed its fangs. But the story did not die. Now you can read more by Adam Lashinsky, editor at large, for Fortune Magazine, a dead tree output of the giant Time Warner. The digital version of the story “Google Wants Something for Nothing” here. I don’t subscribe to paper magazines anymore, so I can’t say if this CNN version is the whole enchilada or just the crumbs. The article runs down the Wall Street Journal’s story and takes more of a Google is doing something approach. For me the most interesting comment was:
The bottom line here isn’t the fine points of public policy. The main thing is attitude. The Web culture thinks things should be free. Internet access is a commodity. Music videos are for the taking.
You may want to read the story to get some insight into the perils of writing about Google and then rationalizing the differences between the “Web culture” and the dead tree crowd. My thought is that neither the telcos nor outfits like New York magazine publishers have a solid understanding of the scope of Google’s services and their implications for companies with business models that no longer work very well. I want to see what the New Year brings.
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
Oracle and Firefox: Avoid
December 24, 2008
Network World ran a story called “Simple Workaround for a Huge Problem with Oracle Applications.” The item is the work of Curt Monash in A World of Bytes. Mr. Monash reported that Firefox does not work with Oracle applications. The solution is to use Internet Explorer. You can read his story here. Beyond Search suggests giving Mr. Monash’s fix a try. If you have mission critical Firefox add ins, you may have to use two browsers. If a reader is able to get Firefox to play nice with Oracle applications, let me know.
Stephen Arnold, December 24, 2008
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