Bing Moves to Become the Wolfram Alpha Male of Web Search
August 23, 2009
Activewin.com’s “Bing Strikes Licensing Deal with Wolfram Alpha” caught my attention. The write up said that the deal…allows Bing to present some of the specialized scientific and computational content that Wolfram Alpha generates. Active Win gives TechCrunch a nod for the original news item.
Several observations seem to be warranted:
- I had heard that Wolfram Alpha was a concern to some at Google. When the system rolled out in Boston, the Google tried to upstage the event. Google likes to control the focus of search innovation, and I found the “timing” in line with other search moves that perturbed the Google.
- Wolfram Alpha has been making changes. The system remains difficult to use for many of those with whom I spoke.
- Microsoft, like Yahoo before it, is in “collect search systems” mode. The approach can lead to significant integration chores and costs.
Will this make it possible for Microsoft to whittle away at Google’s 75 to 80 percent market share in Web search?
No, but it may make it possible to Microsoft to add some eye candy to Wolfram Alpha and capture the segment of Web searchers who need “answer” types of outputs. Google may have to take some of its toys from the Google cellar and give them to users. If Microsoft keeps making these types of deals, the Google will look flat footed to some.
Stephen Arnold, August 23, 2009
Noetix: Learn Something New Everyday
August 23, 2009
I received a news release from Noetix Corp. The write up contained a piece of information that was new to me and somewhat surprising. First, you will want to read the news release “Noetix Search Named KMWorld Trend Setting Product for 2009”. Then navigate to the Noetix Web site and use the search box on the site to run the query “Noetix search”. Here are the results:
As I clicked through these results, it became evident that the news release was not indexed by the Noetix search system. I find this interesting for several reasons:
- I did not know that Noetix had shifted from its roots as an Oracle centric software company. I am behind the curve I learned. Search is part of Noetix business intelligence and appears to be a subset of a larger system.
- If an sales person at Noetix were on a sales call and the prospect asked, “Where is the news release about being a trend setting product, the Noetix system would not return that hit using my query string?” I find this an issue when current information are needed by employees and those vetting a company’s products. I expected news to be indexed and available from the Noetix site itself. Business intelligence requires fresh, if not real time, content processing. Can a repository based system deliver real time indexing?
- The performance of the Noetix search system when I ran my test queries struck me as sluggish. I am not sure how a company in the search and business intelligence business can deal with sluggish performance, but I grew impatient waiting for results, clicking through text links, and the dismal relevance scores. The most relevant document in the test set was 37 percent relevance.
My question, “Shouldn’t a vendor of search have a system that returns documents about search with a relevance in the 90 percent plus range?” As a trend setter, I need more “trendy” precision and recall. Facets would help as would suggested queries. Take a gander at Noetix. Formulate your own assessment about timely business intelligence systems.
Stephen Arnold, August 23, 2009
Grokker Mystery
August 22, 2009
I was calling some of the search and content processing vendors to update information today. I dialed Grokker at 1 866 968 4765 and 1 415 398 0820. Both lines were disconnected. The Web site remains online. When this happens and I mention that the company seems to be drifting or cut loose, I often get a flood of angry emails. Okay, let’s assume Grokker is alive and well. Let’s assume that its enterprise repositioning worked. Let’s assume that the reason no one is answering the phone is because the company is really busy.
Image of a Grokker interface.
I think that when phones go unanswered, the reason is positive. Some prospects may, on the other hand, conclude that the company is no longer in business or some other grave issue has surfaced. You decide. [a] In business and so busy the company can’t answer the phone. [b] Out of business. [c] Hey, we are in business and we have a free spirited way of doing business.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
Bing Has Upsides and Downsides
August 22, 2009
I enjoyed “Bing’s Conversion Rates are Awesome; Volume, adCenter, and Agency Relations Not So Much” in the Search Engine Watch Web log. With cleverness or by accident, the story provides some useful insight into how the Google killer Bing is adapting to the real world. First, Search Engine Watch makes clear that Bing delivers a “better conversion rate”. The idea is that an ad on Bing, I assume, gets a serious buyer making a click with intent. That speaks volumes about the Bing user, the pay for clicks, and the cash back marketing methods. Useful information. The nuance that made me smile was embedded in this passage:
Another thing Bing needs to do is communicate more with SEMs. Google and Yahoo! reps contact search marketers frequently, but adCenter is just crickets. However, when you’re not bringing in as much money as Google and Yahoo! (at least on the search front), it’s harder to staff up with account reps. It’s your classic catch-22, chicken and egg situation. The disparity between ad spend on Google and ad spend on Bing seems disproportionate to the difference in market share between the two. This should not be, especially when Bing’s conversion rates are higher.
Bing needs to be a big rooster and have lots of hens producing eggs. Keep those lights on and play that Mozart to mute the hum of the conveyer belt system delivering 24×7 feed.
Until that time, the word “disparity” should trigger some despair in Microsoft’s Bing echelons of power. On the other hand, Google might find the “disparity” a cause for levity.
On the other hand, Microsoft can be proud of its participation in SIGIR 2009. The need, however, is more traffic, not more academic papers in my opinion.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
Convera and the Bureau of National Affairs
August 22, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a Tweet that pointed to the International HR Decision Support Network: The Global Solution for HR Professionals. You can locate the Web site at ihrsearch.bna.com. The Web site identifies the search system for the site as Convera’s. Convera has morphed or be absorbed into another company. This “absorption” struck me as somewhat ironic because the Convera Web site carries a 2008 white paper by a consulting outfit called Outsell. You can read that Convera was named by Outsell as a rising star for 2008. Wow! I ran query for executive compensation in “the Americas” and these results appeared:
The most recent result was dated August 14, 2009. Today is August 21, 2009. It appears to me that the Convera Web indexing service continues to operate. I was curious about the traffic to this site. I pulled this Alexa report which suggests that the daily “reach” of the site is almost zero percent.
Compete.com had no profile for the site.
I think that the human resources field is one of considerable interest. My recollection is that BNA has had an online HR service for many years. I could not locate much information about the Human Resource Information Network that originally was based in Indianapolis.
Convera appears to be providing search results to BNA, and BNA has an appetite for an online HR information service. The combination, however, seems to be a weak magnet for traffic. Vertical search may have some opportunities. Will Convera and BNA be able to capitalize on them?
But with such modest traffic I wonder why the service is still online. Anyone have any insights?
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
The Microsoft Plan to Beat Google in Search
August 22, 2009
That’s a much better title than a “how to” about Microsoft’s plan to beat Google. You can find a by-the-book description of Microsoft’s “kill Google” strategy in the August 16, 2009, Mashable story “Search Showdown: Microsoft’s Plan to Win the Search War.” I want to be upfront. I think Google has won the Web search war and it is now threatening in other “wars” as well. Nevertheless, Ben Parr runs through the Microsoft game plan. My observation about this write up is that it omits two key points of Microsoft’s approach:
First, Microsoft is in “pay for traffic” mode. Cash back is one of the ways Bing is getting traffic. Not a problem for me, but it is an important point when thinking about how Google operates—getting users addicted to the Google search service.
Second, Microsoft is focusing on “user experience” or UX. The idea is that Google is often a plain if not dowdy looking system. Microsoft wants to deliver eye candy. This “look” is what sets Bing apart. Unfortunately, the results have yet to match Google’s for my test queries. I think this UX push is a big part of the Fast ESP system as well. In my opinion, Google is about plumbing; Microsoft is about decoration.
Read the Mashable story. Make up your own mind.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
Autonomy Interwoven Integration
August 22, 2009
I was confused when I received dozens of variations on a news release telling me that Autonomy had completed the integration of IDOL with Scrittura. The sheer volume of announcements confused me. I thought that Autonomy IDOL was a “snap in”. You can read through some of the releases yourself by running this Google query. The Silicon Valley Business Journal published “Autonomy Completes Integration of Idol into Scrittura”. I noted this passage:
“By combining IDOL’s unique meaning-based technology with Scrittura’s proven trade-processing capabilities, we will arm capital markets institutions with a solution that can keep pace with the dizzying speed and complexity of today’s financial markets. We intend to leverage Autonomy’s well-established leadership in the financial sector to deliver new levels of transparency and order to this market.”
Scrittura, according to my recollection, is a data and work flow tool that automates critical trade-related processes. My question was, “What was integrated and why?” Is it fraud detection, or some other application of IDOL? The many stories suggested this was an important announcement, but I am confused. Not unusual for an addled goose.
Stephen Arnold, August 22, 2009
Telcos: Google Cannot Understand Our Business
August 21, 2009
Yep, a memorable statement made to me somewhere in the concrete jungle near the Chicago O’Hare Airport. I don’t recall who was in the room, but I was doing my Google & Telecommunications dog and pony show. The audience did not like the act. The idea that a dog and a pony could challenge the big telco players was absurd. In my 90 minute circus act, I mentioned the 1999 quality of service patent application, the use of a clever flooding algorithm to route calls with minimal latency, the “I’m feeling doubly lucky” invention, and a handful of others. The show stopper was the pony’s trick of deploying a wireless network using gizmos stuck on top of pizza delivery cars. Fortunately I was paid but I had to dodge the staplers, balls of paper, and empty Fiji water bottles tossed at me as I exited the briefing room. Ah, those were the days. Imagine my disappointment when I read Mark Milian’s “Telecoms Chase after Google Voice’s Innovative Calling Features”. Looks to me as if the telcos have realized that those Googlers have perturbed the “real” telephone companies. What other business sectors are in the dark with regard to Google’s capabilities? Actually quite a few.
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
The Real World and the Clouds: Just Like the Weather. Unpredictable.
August 21, 2009
ITNews has been a consistently interesting source of information technology information. I have concluded that the flies in Canberra motivate Australians to stay inside and work hard to understand software and systems. “Stress Tests Rain on Amazon’s Cloud” is a thought provoking article. The main idea appears in the subhead for the story: “Availability an Issue for Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, and Microsoft Azure.” [Editor’s note: We edited App Logic to App Engine since the story refers to that Google service.] That is correct: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft face some challenges if the information in the ITNews story is spot on. The most telling comment in the write up was:
Liu said all three services lack the monitoring tools large organizations require to check on whether the platform is meeting service level agreements. “None of the platforms have the kind of monitoring required to have a reasonable conversation about performance,” she said. “They provide some level of monitoring, but what little there is caters for developers, not business users. And while Amazon provides a dashboard of how much it is costing you so far, for example, there is nothing in terms of forecasts about what it will cost you in the future.”
Hmm. No SLA monitoring tools. Hmmm. Costs are fuzzy. Hmmmm. Not exactly what the marketers wanted me to believe. Promising just no promises.
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
More Local Loco Action: Guardian UK Gets the Bug
August 21, 2009
Short honk: I don’t want to dig too deeply into the efforts of a traditional newspaper company to get more traction in the Webby world. You will want to read Online Journalism Blog’s “The Guardian Kicks Off the Local Data Land Grab” and ponder the implications of the write up.” The idea is that a newspaper wants to hop on the hyper local toboggan before the run dumps the sledder into the snow at the base of the mountain. Mr. Bradshaw, the author of the article, wrote:
Now The Guardian is about to prove just why it is so important, and in the process take first-mover advantage in an area the regionals – and maybe even the BBC – assumed was theirs. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone: The Guardian has long led the way in the UK on database journalism, particularly with its Data Blog and this year’s Open Platform. But this initial move into regional data journalism is a wise one indeed: data becomes more relevant the more personal it is, and local data just tends to be more personal.
For whatever reason, hyper local information is getting as much attention as real time search and Twitter. I wish the Guardian good luck with scaling, monetizing, and marketing. My thought is that the hyper local crowd will want to move quickly before Googzilla wanders through this information neighborhood. Finding is a big part of the local information challenge. The deal breaker will be monetizing. The Guardian may well have the most efficient monetization method known to man. I hope so. The Google’s a good monetizer too.
Stephen Arnold, August 21, 2009
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