Print and the Digital Gutenberg
July 7, 2009
The premise of my new study Google: The Digital Gutenberg is that a new medium has supplanted traditional media. I don’t mean print. I mean video, images, and constructs. The Google Wave is a bundle of Google components that eliminate the need for separate types of communication modes. Wave may or may not work, but whoever pulls it off will be rolling in money and opportunity. Hamilton Nolan, writing in Gawker, reprinted David Eggers email, which is germane to my thesis. You can find the Eggers’ email here. Mr. Eggers wrote:
Anyway. I would like to say to you good print-loving people that for every dire bit of news there is out there, there is also some good news, too. The main gist of my (rambling) speech at the Author?s Guild was that because I work with kids in San Francisco, I see every day that their enthusiasm for the printed word is no different from that of kids from any other era. Reports that no one reads anymore, especially young people, are greatly overstated and almost always factually lacking. I’ve written about youth readership elsewhere, but to reiterate: sales of young adult books are actually up. Total volume of all book sales is actually up. Kids get the same things out of books that they have before. Reading in elementary schools and middle schools is no different than any other time. We have work to do with keeping high schoolers reading, but then again, I meet every week with 15 high schoolers in San Francisco, and all we do is read (literary magazines, books, journals, websites, everything) in the process of putting together the Best American Nonrequired Reading. And I have to say these students, 14 to 18 years old, are far better read and more astute than I was at their age, and there are a million other kids around the country just like them.
I agree. I just think that a new medium will supplant ink-on-paper and to a certain extent other media that are expensive to distribute via traditional means. I have three or four publishers selling my books, and I know that a downturn is underway. My newest publication “Mysteries of Online” will be made available without charge on my Web site. One of my publishers expressed interest in the material, but I am shifting my approach. Call it a test.
Information is not at risk. Certain approaches and business models are at risk. Innovation and experimentation are needed.
Mr. Eggers wrote:
As long as newspapers offer less each day— less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos— then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious that it will seem a bargain at $1. The web obviously presents all kinds of advantages for breaking news, but the printed newspaper does and will always have a slew of advantages, too. It’s our admittedly unorthodox opinion that the two can coexist, and in fact should coexist. But they need to do different things. To survive, the newspaper, and the physical book, needs to set itself apart from the web. Physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience. And if they do, we believe, they will survive. Again, this is a time to roar back and assert and celebrate the beauty of the printed page. Give people something to fight for, and they will fight for it. Give something to pay for, and they’ll pay for it.
My view is that the medium of innovations like Wave may offer an opportunity. The paper “thing” is expensive and becoming an issue for some concerned with the environment. Information is thriving.
Stephen Arnold, June 6, 2009
Another Real Time Search Angle
July 7, 2009
Along with James Bond, urban legends have reached the wireless digital age, but this “legend” is true: there is Spyware for cell phones, and someone could be listening and tracking your every move. Check out this article at http://www.wthr.com/global/story.asp?s=9346833&ClientType=Printable that includes confirmation of the legitimate danger of these products by a former military intelligence officer who now teaches cyber forensics at Purdue University’s Department of Computer and Information Technology. While cell phone spyware has been used by the FBI in the past, it’s now available on the open market from overseas. And while the article includes some tips for suspecting spyware and protecting yourself, reading about the possible danger is enough to make you reconsider using a cell phone at all.
Jessica Bratcher, July 7, 2009
Google Non US Initiatives Presage Future
July 7, 2009
Short honk: The Google real estate service in Australia is important. The service goes beyond the Google Base listings and the experimental results that appeared a year or so ago. The bigger news is the impending UK health deal. This enhancement of Google’s tactics is significant. More coming where the legal eagles flap less enthusiastically. Does this mean the US gets Google services later? Is Google preparing for a world in which the US plays a lesser role? I am contemplating these and other questions. Change is in the wind.
Stephen Arnold, July 7, 2009
Google Gestation Period
July 7, 2009
I went through my notes about the Guha patent documents. These were published in February 2007. BearStearns published my analysis of these documents in May 2007. I am not sure these are available to the public, but I did describe the Programmable Search Engine invention in my Google Version 2.0 study which came out in September 2007. The Google Squared service and its query “digital camera” replicates the exemplary item in the Guha patent document. Several observations:
- My 2005 assertion that the Google gestation period is about four years. There is a two year ramp period inside the firm during which time the technology is shaped and then, if deemed patentable, submitted to the USPTO and other patent bodies.
- After the patent document is published like the Guha February 2007 PSE patents a two year maturing and deployment process begins.
The appearance of the Google Squared service as a beta marks the Darwinian field testing. The age of semantics is now officially underway. You can read about Google’s methods in my trilogy The Google Legacy (2005), Google Version 2.0 (2007), and Google: The Digital Gutenberg (2009). The 2007 and 2009 studies provide some research data germane to those who want to surf on Google. Yep, that the source of my “wave” analogies and the injunction at the end of my Google talks to “surf on Google”.
What’s next? Wait for my newest monograph on time in search and content. I find it easier to let research and content analysis illuminate the would and could of the GOOG.
Stephen Arnold, June 7, 2009
Funnelback Sucked Up by Squiz
July 7, 2009
Funnelback, an Australian vendor of enterprise search, has been acquired by Squiz, a content management vendor.
When I questioned Brett Matson, the managing director of Funnelback, I learned that Squiz will offer hosted and on premises installations of Funnelback. I learned:
Funnelback and Squiz already share a large number of very satisfied customers so we all agreed that this would make sense for the two Australian based companies. Funnelback will continue to run as an independent company.
Funnelback had built some traction in Australia, the United Kingdom, and in Canada. Funnelback has a long history, which I summarized in one of the Enterprise Search Report encyclopedias i wrote for a published in Maryland. CMS systems have a love – hate relationship with search. Some vendors have licensed search technology from mainstream vendors of enterprise search. The customers who use these CMS systems – for example, RedDot – learn that in order to index content that does not reside in the CMS realize that an upgrade is needed. Some CMS vendors like Interwoven prior to its sale to Autonomy would ink deals with vendors like Vivisimo. Customers using these systems learn that they too often need to upgrade to get the features they need. Will Squiz find search heaven and crank out happy licensees?
The addled goose thinks that most users of enterprise search systems are not too thrilled, but my research data may differ from that available to Funnelback and Squiz. I also find it interesting that news of these small scale roll ups continue to drift down to the goose pond in Harrods Creek. My hunch is that the economic climate for some software vendors is harsh, and the financial mavens behind these deals work on the 1+1=3 premise. Autonomy, of course, bought a CMS company. Other firms have different strategies. In my view, consolidation and survival figure prominently in the Excel models that underpin these deals.
Stephen Arnold, July 7, 2009
Google Certification Baby Steps
July 6, 2009
Microsoft’s “partner” program has been a gold mine. Partners pay to be certified. Partners pay to attend conferences. Partners spend to dedicate engineers to things Microsoft. Google has some partner savvy wizards on its staff, but the company has been taking baby steps to build a really big partner ecosystem. Today’s partners are more like junior Googlers than the Big Deal Certified Gold outfits that Microsoft has in tow.
That might be changing.
Read “Google Sets up Accreditation Programme to Safeguard Site Conversion”. You see words that suggest that Google wants to do good. You see words that dance away from Big Time Certification and Accreditation. I noted this passage:
Google has extended the project by launching the Google Conversion Professional (GCP) programmed to help brands connect with those companies it deems to be the best conversion specialists….Graham Cooke, Google UK senior ecommerce manager, said, “We want our customers to get the best ROI from their advertising. If we’re driving paid clicks to a site but they’re not converting as well as they could be, we want that to be improved.”
For this addled goose, the Google is taking some baby steps.
Stephen Arnold, July 6, 2009
X1 Gains Additional Funding
July 6, 2009
I heard that X1 had been seeking additional funding. Until I read the SocalTech.com story, “X1 Technologies Gains New Funding, CEO” here, I was in the dark about the company’s financial status. Along with the money, other changes were reported by SocalTech.com; for example:
- The cash came from Idealab, the outfit that funded Overture which was sold to Yahoo. (Google learned a little from its observation of Overture I have heard.)
- John Waller has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer
- Bill Gross has rejoined the firm’s Board of Directors.
X1 has pushed from its high speed desktop information niche into the enterprise. My tests of the system a year ago revealed that the product was indeed a speedy indexer, easily able to keep pace with new email and other content at which I pointed the system. I prefer considerable control over a search system, and X1 made it harder for me to customize its system that I liked.
In the last year, the company has focused on making the product snap into Microsoft SharePoint as well as retaining the company’s core competency in email indexing. The product is on my list for a review later this year. You can get more information about X1 here. You can download a trial of the desktop system here.
Stephen Arnold, July 6, 2009
Recommind and Its 2009 Positioning
July 6, 2009
Short honk: I find the shifting and twisting of search vendors interesting. In MetroCorpCounsel.com I learned that Recommind was described as “a leader in search-powered information risk management (IRM) software”. You can read the story “Recommind Survey Finds Global Recession Making Information Risk Worse For Large Enterprises” here. The company landed a new search account described in this way:
Recommind has announced that Seyfarth Shaw LLP has selected Recommind’s MindServer Search application as the search layer powering the firm’s new Microsoft SharePoint portal.
My take is that Recommind is a vendor of search systems. It is describing itself as a leader in a new field, information risk management. Interesting.
Stephen Arnold, June 6, 2009
Microsoft Visual Studio Shocker
July 6, 2009
I get a copy (no charge because I don’t subscribe to print publications any longer) of Visual Studio Magazine. The May 2009 issue arrived on Friday, May 29, and I was flipping through the articles. I scan for info about Microsoft’s many search systems, but my eye landed on page 18. A table, reproduced below, provided some information derived from a poll of 369 developers. The idea was to get some info about Dot Net programming tools. I had heard that Dot Net was a sore spot with some developers due to performance problems, and I have only isolated examples of unacceptable performance from Dot Net centric applications. Throwing hardware at the problem seems to be the way out of the woods for speed issues.
Here’s a scan of the table, and I have converted some of the items to summary bullets for readability. You may be able to locate the original material online at the Visual Studio Magazine here. I haven’t had much luck locating stories that are not super positive, but your mileage may be different.
Here’s the table from page 18 of the May 2009 issue:
Now, let me highlight several data points:
- The sample reported that 31 percent of the organizations are moving forward with new projects
- About one third of the respondents see a tough development market in the second half of 2009
- 45 percent of the sample reported developer fatigue due to Microsoft’s technology upgrades
- 60 percent of the sample reported that their organizations are * not * developing specifically for the Windows 7 client operating system.
I like the “developer fatigue” angle. Google’s approach seems to be to allow developers to use what they know, thus making some effort to reduce developer fatigue. The question in my mind is, “How many developers may throw up their hands and just go with the GOOG?” That’s a $64 question.
Stephen Arnold, July 6, 2009
Autonomy Not Longer a Search Vendor
July 6, 2009
Notch up at $15 million software compliance deal for Autonomy,. For the details read “Autonomy Corp Wins $15 Million Compliance Solutions Order From US Bank”. The deal is worth more than the combined revenues of Funnelback, Lexalytics, and Vivisimo—to name three vendors of search and content processing. The deal about more than one tenth of Endeca’s revenues. I think what the deal makes clear is:
- Terminology for describing a vendor as in the search business is not indicative of what the coming is selling
- Search vendors who stick to basic indexing and retrieval will have a tough time making a value proposition that causes big companies to pump out $15 million contracts with enthusiasm
- The notion of what it takes to succeed in the contentious, competitive world of enterprise search has to be rethought.
Autonomy has emphasized that it is a leader in enterprise search. I think it has morphed into a different type of software3 outfit. Any thoughts for adjectives that would describe this space?
Stephen Arnold, July 6, 2009
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