Arnold Study Explains Google as a New Information Medium
July 13, 2009
A new in-depth search industry monograph that examines how Google’s highly sophisticated technical resources could position it to become a formidable player in 21st Century media is now available.
“Google: The Digital Gutenberg” offers critical analysis and information to anyone connected with traditional media enterprises and to anyone charged with calculating threats and potential for media companies in book and magazine publishing, directory and guide compilation, television and video. It is authored by Stephen E. Arnold, http://www.arnoldit.com, an consultant in search, content processing and text analytics.
Arnold explains in the monograph that Google is a type of large-scale disruptor. “It’s the poster child of larger changes made possible by technology, infrastructure and user demands,” he said.
Google continues to push products and services into different business sectors, and media is an obvious target. These waves can be disruptive and often the cause of surprising reactions; “Google: The Digital Gutenberg” explains the current industry climate surrounding Google and will help the traditional media industry understand how the technological landscape is changing as led by Google’s charge.
Google is best known as a Web search vendor and an online advertising system. But Google as a publisher is a relatively new concept. The company already offers a number of revenue-generating opportunities such as the AdSense program to publishers and business at-large.
But Google is now moving to also offer video content organization, actual advertising sales and Google search within sites, among other functions. The monograph closes with a discussion of the Google App Engine, which offers users the ability to build and host web applications on Google’s infrastructure. Essentially, the partner who uses Google as a back office can negotiate revenue splits with Google, making it an effective shot in the arm for failing traditional media revenues.
The study reviews Google’s content automation methods, dataspace functions and the company’s increasing impact on education, scholarly publishing, and commercial online business as Google positions itself as a major player in the media industry.
Arnold ends by summarizing “Google: The Digital Gutenberg” by urging readers to develop products and services for the Google platform. For those who choose to ignore Google, they risk being left behind as Internet technology forges the new media of the future.
The monograph, available now, is published by Infonortics. Orders may be placed online at https://www.infonortics.com//https/goog-ord.html or by mail using the order form here. A table of contents is posted here.
Jessica Bratcher, July 13, 2009
Exalead Snags Former Autonomy Sales Director
July 12, 2009
I learned from one of my readers that Mike Hobson, formerly the UK sales director, has joined Exalead in a similar capacity. Mr. Hobson has experience in search and content processing with Verity, Information Builders, and Interleaf. Mr. Hobson said:
“We are aiming to capitalise on the possibilities offered by CloudView and continue to place the emphasis on improving operational costs and ROI for our customers. Our aim it to promote more rapid and more economical development cycles with CloudView, while enabling our clients to benefit from architecture, ergonomics and technology inspired by the Web.
You may want to read the detail on TMCnet.com. Exalead offers a scalable, extensible content processing solution. More information is available at http://www.exalead.com. You can read an exclusive interview with the founder of Exalead on the Search Wizards Speak series here.
Stephen Arnold, July 12, 2009
Hakia Binged
July 12, 2009
A couple of weeks ago I heard a discussion about “who’s on first”. The talk was not about the Abbott & Costello comedy routine. The discussion concerned who invented categorized search first. AltSearchEngines.com has a story by Melek Pulatkonak, the chief operating officer of Hakia, a semantic technology company. The article “Inspired by Hakia, Bing Introduces Categorized Search” is interesting. Ms. Pulatkonak wrote:
Bing, the new search engine from Microsoft just went live and in doing so introduced a similar version of Hakia’s categorized search. At its launch in 2006, Hakia became the first search engine to provide categorized aspects of search queries via Hakia Galleries. Hakia Galleries received industry accolades after their formal introduction in 2007. Our goal has always been to take search beyond 10 blue links. It was then no surprise when Microsoft invited us to show them the inner workings of the Hakia Galleries in July 2008- shortly after their acquisition of Powerset. But it was a huge surprise to recently find out that Microsoft introduced categorized search in Bing. Today we checked out the Bing preview and compared the Bing’s categorized search feature to its inspiration, Hakia Galleries.
What struck me as interesting is that this type of development in search is part of the “thermonuclear escalation” in which vendors engage. One vendor comes up with a new twist; for example, Endeca and Guided Navigation. Then many vendors offer similar features. Few of the people with whom I interact know where an idea originated. If the idea has utility, then that twist can be implemented in another vendor’s search system. The bandwagon effect is remarkable. Universal search, federation, date sorting, and other basic functions today began as a tough problem solved by someone somewhere. Most of the engineers working on search today don’t dig back to the roots of SDC Orbit to find out how tags worked in the late 1970s.
Is search better because of these rich functions? In my experience, the rich functions are eliminating the need to understand the content of a collection, how Boolean logic works, and the value of a controlled vocabulary. I applaud those who find a new angle. I am amazed at how quickly innovations diffuse in the search space and then become a standard function.
The one problem is that dissatisfaction with search continues to poke its nose into the rosiest of user studies. Whatever is going on has produced a couple of points that are tough to ignore:
- Figuring out who is first is probably a matter for lawyers to decide. Good luck with that. Those folks are not up on algorithms in my experience.
- Users are still dissatisfied. Better from the developers point of view continues to leave 50 to 65 percent of the users dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with search systems
- Innovation, while moving quickly to some, is not going all that fast in my opinion. There has not been a significant breakthrough in search since the Google poked its nose from the Stanford dorm.
Search is a tough, often thankless business. I like the Hakia technology, but what can you do when a giant corporation goes in the same direction? See today’s mini case about Convera to get a sense of the difficulties search puts in the way of investors and managers. Repeating: search is a tough, complex business. Some azure chip consultants say otherwise, but those folks are wrong.
Stephen Arnold, July 12, 2009
Convera Firstlight Online Tie Up
July 12, 2009
Convera’s financial results for the period ending April 30, 2009, came across the goose pond on June 12, 2009. The news release said that:
- Revenues decreased
- The company reported a net los of $5.4 million.
Following in the path of Lexalytics, Convera (once one of the big five in enterprise search) has merged with a European company. Same path followed by Attensity. The new company will take another run at the market. The mash up combines Convera and Firstlight Online Ltd. This tie up was announced early in June, before the financial results hit my desk. Convera will be delisted from public trading. The current CEO of Convera will become chairman of the new entity. The Firstlight CEO Colin Jeavons will run the combined company.
A recent recent positioning statement about Convera suggested that Convera was a developer of Web tools to allow publishers to crate customized search engines. Those with some mileage under their belt in search will recall that:
- Convera was Excalibur Technologies, which had some scanning, OCR, and search functions
- Excalibur bought ConQuest, a vendor with a search system
- Excalibur became Convera and entered into a search deal with Intel and the NBA.
After both the Intel and the NBA deals went south, Convera focused on rebuilding and invested some of Allen & Co.’s money in hardware to build vertical search systems. Convera sold its enterprise and government search businesses to Autonomy and Fast Search. The “new” Convera was to be a vertical search specialist. As you may know, Google gives away the functionality via its “custom search engine” program. Google also offers a “syndicated search” option as well.
The future of these tie ups could be bright. InQuira was formed from two search and content processing companies. That firm seems to have found a niche in customer support. The jury is still out on the Lexalytics / Infonic deal’s success.
Convera’s new angle will be online advertising and search. The story “Convera Corporation and Firstlight ERA to Create a new Search and Advertising Company for Publishing Market.” Convera Will Also Distribute Cash to Stockholders” in the Examiner said:
The combined new company will bring together the vertical search technology of Convera and the advertising sales and marketing capabilities of Firstlight. It will have over 60 corporate customer accounts and 120 existing Web sites with approximately 1500 advertisers. The new company will provide technology and advertising to the publishing market and expects to generate revenue from advertising sales and subscriptions.
In my opinion the trajectory from enterprise search to the Firstlight tie up underscores the lengths to which developers of search and content processing are willing to go to generate revenues. I remain skeptical of no cash tie ups or blending two organizations with different technical orientations. Search, gentle reader, is a tough business.
Stephen Arnold, July 12, 2009
Overflight Coverage Expanded
July 11, 2009
Short honk: The Beyond Search goslings have added three companies to the ArnoldIT.com Overflight service. These are Mark Logic Corp. (a next generation content processing company), Recommind (eDiscovery. Teragram (a unit of SAS) and enterprise search). Additional vendors will be added to service in the weeks ahead. Overflight allows you to get a bird’s eye view of what’s new in Web logs, YouTube videos, and Tweets. The service is free.
Stephen Arnold, July 11, 2009
Hunch: Decision Becomes the Hot Search Angle
July 11, 2009
Search – particularly the key word variety – does not do the job for most users. For that reason, Google’s wizards work behind the scenes to deliver what most people want when two or three words are typed into the ubiquitous Google search box. Bing.com positions itself as being in the decision business. The idea is that a user types in a couple of words, and the Microsoft wizards try to match Google’s method and supplement the laundry lists with suggestions and actionable information.
The user, based on some work the goslings and I have been doing in the last six weeks, don’t care too much about the how. The users know only that the results deliver an answer or something useful. A system that moves beyond search and delivers useful information is perceived as a great leap forward.
Now we have moved from “search” to “decisions”.
Another search company – Hunch.com — has jumped on the decision bandwagon. I played with the service and found it useful for product queries. You can read a useful write up by Josh Lowensohn “Decision Maker Hunch.com Opens Up” on the sprawling Cnet service.
The idea is that a user can type a question or enter a key word and browse a list a topics. I tried netbook and found that the system offered by a one click option and then when I refined the query, the system allowed me to work through a list of machine generated questions that refined by initial broad terms and the first result list.
This struck me as a painless way to get the user to narrow a broad query. Big fill in the blank forms work for those with experience and training in parametric queries or formulating Boolean queries. Not for the average person in Harrod’s Creek, however.
Worth a look before every vendor lets their Buffy the Marketer or Biff the Business Development wizard use the “decision” word.
Stephen Arnold, July 11, 2009
Google’s Demise with a Network World Imprimatur
July 11, 2009
I sat on the May 2009 write up by Kaila Colbin. She wrote the first part of her “Google’s Dilemma and Why It Will Die, Part One” and Network World published the essay. You can read Part One here. Part Two became available on June 9, 2009. You can read that installment here. The “it” in the title refers to Google not the dilemma, but I pushed that ambiguity aside and jumped into the argument.
Part One trots out the problem innovator have; that is, in the intellectual shade of Clayton Christensen, Google won’t be able to keep pace with the many problems, see through its blind spots, and recapture the sizzle that made the steak great before it stayed on the fire too long.
Part Two recycles more of the good professor Christensen’s findings and races to this conclusion:
Finally, any investor in Google would have to concerned about the narrowness of its success. They’ve never gone through a leadership transition. They’ve never generated significant revenue from anything other than AdWords. As of now, they’re Gloria Gaynor; they’re Dexys Midnight Runners; they’re Harper Lee. Don’t get me wrong — I’d welcome the kind of success and financial returns associated with I Will Survive, Come On Eileen, or To Kill a Mockingbird — but it’s generally not desirable to predicate long-term business strategy on a single major success.
Let me offer several observations:
- What if Google is, as I argued in my three Google monograph’s here, a new type of company? Will the lessons of those who found themselves crushed by the logic of Mr. Christensen’s analysis apply? One quick question: who regulates the GOOG if it parks its data beyond the three mile limit on its data center barges?
- How will Google’s controlled chaos, eternal betas, and surround and seep tactics help protect the company from the type of ossification that characterizes some of its competitors? Will companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, to pick two competitors, themselves be able to change to keep pace with the multi-front tech probes Google delights in launching?
- What is Google doing that makes it vulnerable to the specific points Ms. Colbin plucked from the Christensen book? Are there any steps Google has taken to resolve those issues, say, for example, some of the ideas in The Innovator’s Prescription?
Network World’s imprimatur is not enough to make me grab on to this analysis.
Stephen Arnold, July 11, 2009
IBM Gets Social
July 11, 2009
IBM has 100,000 partners according to Juan Carlos Perez’s “IBM Preps Social Network to Boost Partners’ Business”. You may be able to find the story here but if it 404s let the new Yahoo know, not me. IBM, wrote Mr. Perez:
decided to create PartnerWorld Communities, which is based on IBM’s Lotus Connections product, after a survey of partners revealed a high interest in such a site, the company said Tuesday [June 9, 2009]. The site will be a complement to IBM’s global PartnerWorld program. IBM is also releasing a new online training forum called the Business Partner Development Series featuring more than 60 free, virtual classes, webcasts and listings of in-person events, like seminars.
In my opinion, IBM has become a trend surfer. Yesterday I learned that IBM is breathing new life into its mainframe systems. How hip is that?
My hunch is that IBM is more consulting firm than technology vendor. Like other service firms and consultancies, the senior managers spend quite a bit of time sniffing the wind, making an attempt to identify the next big thing.
This roll out of social functions and partner-centric activities resonated with me for three reasons:
First, IBM has to keep the partners happy. With other vendors on the look out for firms who can find a client, install a system, and service the client, good partners have to be treated with respect. With HP nipping at IBM’s heels and the baying of Google and Microsoft echoing in the hallways, IBM wants to keep what it has.
Second, I surmise that the “social” buzz inspired IBM to create a Facebook-Twitter type of environment. My hunch is that partners are not likely to Twitter about sales leads. In fact, I am not certain that Tweets among IBM partners will be about problems either. When the Tweets turn against IBM’s methods and policies, I think that some of the social may be drained from the service.
Third, I assert that this is a trend. I would much prefer some substantive information about search, content processing, and information access. News releases are easy to do. Tackling substantive information issues is not fun and not trendy. Too bad.
But with $100 billion in revenue, perhaps I should emulate Big Blue? I just ran a query at IBM.com for “social software”. The first hit was a link to a September 2008 * news release * about a Center for Social Software here. I did not see a link to any social software. Lots of fuzzy stuff though.
Stephen Arnold, July 11, 2009
Inmagic Presto
July 10, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who told me about Inmagic’s upgrade to its social knowledge management platform. I read a story in CIOL.com, a developer oriented publication. Years ago I was on the Board of Directors of Inmagic, and I thought highly of their product. The company has evolved over the years, and now offers an interesting range of products. You can get the full scoop from the company’s Web site.
The Presto product connects content management, knowledge management, and social technologies. Inmagic has a search service that operates within a Presto environment too. Support for Microsoft SharePoint is quite good. With more than 100 million SharePoint licenses “in the wild”, Inmagic’s Presto adds useful functions to SharePoint installations.
Presto 3.1 uses Web Parts technology that allows the search parts on the Presto homepage to be embedded and used in a SharePoint deployment. A new Web Services API lets SharePoint communicate with Presto to create, replace, update, and delete records seamlessly.
Phil Green, CTO of Inmagic said:
With Inmagic Presto 3.1, companies can enhance their SharePoint environment with a cost-effective, off-the-shelf solution suited to their needs. They can create internal, secure knowledge communities around enterprise content, with sophisticated social, search, security, and library workflow capabilities not found in SharePoint. The use of Web Parts, Presto, and SharePoint together can deliver tremendous value to an organization’s bottom line.
Based on the research I have been doing for a major SharePoint installation, a software such as Presto can save many hours of fiddling. Recommended by the Beyond Search goslings.
Stephen Arnold, July 10, 2009
Surviving Universal Search: What?
July 10, 2009
Pippa Nutt, director, online strategy, Northern Lights Direct Response, wrote “How You and Your Company Can Survive Universal Search”. I read the story in DM News and was tangled in my sneaker laces. The term “universal search” has been a baffler to me when I saw it recycled as part of Google’s PR push for putting information from its separate indexes on one result page. In the way of search, not much was new with this announcement because metasearch, federated search, and mash ups were last year’s T shirt when Google’s marketing machine produced this phrase at the hastily organized Searchology Day a couple of years ago. Now, the term is used in the first paragraph of a direct marketing publication’s story without definition or context.
This is a signal that:
- Google controls the search agenda, rendering other companies’ efforts about as important as my neighbor’s new lawn mower. He cares but I don’t.
- A buzzword is assumed to be understood by professionals in the marketing world when few can agree on what “search” itself means. “Universal search” is even more anchor free.
- The article invokes other types of search, again without context or explanation.
Little wonder that when I talk with senior managers, search is essentially a black hole of knowledge. Everyone thinks he or she knows what it is. Upon questioning, I find that defining terms is the * essential first step * when talking about search. Skip this and the conversation is for me almost meaningless.
Stephen Arnold, July 10, 2009
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