Readers Digest Enters Intensive Care
August 18, 2009
The Readers Digest, according to the Baltimore Sun’s “Reader’s Digest Bankruptcy Report”, did not surprise me. This outfit had a clever business model and some very confident executives. I interacted with the Readers Digest when it bought the Source, one of the early online services. For me, the Readers Digest had a money machine with its “association” model when my grandmother subscribed to the chubby little paperback-book-sized monthly stuffed with recycled content. I liked the “digest” angle. The notion that my busy grandmother could not read the original article amused me. She was indeed really busy when she was in her 70s. What she liked was that the content was sanitized. The jokes were clean and usually not subject to double entendre.The Readers Digest recognized that the Source was a harbinger and made the leap to get into electronic information with the now moribund Control Data Corporation. The step was similar to an uncoordinated person’s jump off the high dive. The Readers Digest knocked its head on the Source deal and dropped off my online radar. Now the Readers Digest is blazing a new trail for magazine publishers: chopping the number of issues published per year, cutting its circulation guarantee, and learning to love bankruptcy attorneys. Which magazine will be next? Oh, I know the leadership of the dominant magazine companies will chase crafts, home decoration, and Future Publishing’s book-a-zine model. New thinking and methods are needed to save the traditional magazine, a group eager to turn back the clock to the glory days of the Saturday Evening Post. Like Babylonian clay tablets morphing into Home Sweet Home on ceramic wall hangings, magazines will survive. The market is moving beyond the old information delivery vehicles, and the 1938 Fords are struggling to keep pace with Twitter “tweets”. Here’s a quote by Charlie added to the Baltimore Sun article: “Still interesting to thumb through, but reprinting articles that were already published – how long ago? – is not a good model for those who make regular use of the Internet.” Well said.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2009
Bing Cherries Ripen Slowly
August 18, 2009
Short honk: Dan Frommer (Silicon Valley Insider) reported that “Bing Search Share Rises Modestly in July”. He said, “Bing’s share was 8.9 percent, up from 8.4 percent in June”. Because online is seasonal, any growth in the summer months, is a positive. Mr. Frommer points out that Yahoo’s search share is heading south. He points out that Yahoo has to grow its search share because “Yahoo will only get revenue from Bing searches performed on Yahoo.” Three quick observations: [a] Yahoo continues to struggle to make its services visible. I have to do a lot of clicking to see current email messages. [b] Yahoo’s search technologies may have been also rans to Google’s but I find the different search interfaces and the unpredictable results when searching for computer gear annoying. I had to write one SSD vendor to locate the product on the vendor’s Yahoo store. The outfit was Memory Suppliers. When I located the product on Yahoo, it was priced at more than $1,000. Error or a merchant trying to skim the unknowing? [c] I ran the query “iss weather photos” for an article I had to write yesterday for the International Online Show’s Web log. I did not get “International space station” snaps of weather systems. I got hits to backyard weather stations. Google delivered what I needed. I settled on using images from USA.gov, which uses the Bing.com system. Yahoo’s image search was less useful than Bing’s and Google’s. I have made this statement before: Yahoo is a floundering AOL. Instead of Yahoo buying AOL, maybe AOL should buy Yahoo. AOL is trying to become a content generation company. I still am not sure what the Yahooligans are doing. I don’t think it is search and that is going to prove to be a misstep.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2009
Google in Jeopardy
August 18, 2009
Two heavyweights in the search expertise department have concluded that Google may be vulnerable to Microsoft and Yahoo when their search systems are combined. And if not actually in trouble, two search experts think that Googzilla could be cornered and its market share reduced.
Let’s look at what the search experts assert, using new data from online monitoring and analytics vendors.
Search Engine Land, a publication focused on search engine optimization or SEO, ran “Report: MicroHoo Penetration Near Google’s, Google Users Most Loyal”. Greg Sterling analyzed the comScore data. He noted that Google had “65 percent of the search volume in the US”. He added, [the data] shows that 84 percent of search users are on Google.” Then he inserts the killer comment for those who want Google neutered:
However 73.3 percent of the search user population are on Yahoo and Microsoft, when the two are combined.
He pointed out that Google is a habit. He closed the analysis with the comment:
The new conventional wisdom is that people simply use Google because they’re familiar with it and have become habituated to using it. But I suspect that explanation doesn’t really capture what’s going on.
My question is, “What is going on?” You can look at his presentation of the comScore data and draw your own conclusions.
Along the same line of reasoning, the New York Times weighed in with “The Gap between Google and Rivals May Be Smaller than You Think”. Miguel Helft wrote:
ComScore found that for the combined Yahoo-Microsoft, “searcher penetration,” or the percentage of the online population in the United States that uses one of those search engines, is 73 percent. Google’s searcher penetration is higher, but not by that much: at 84 percent.
Again the foundation of the argument is comScore. Mr. Helft concluded with what I found a surprising direction:
“The challenge will be to create a search experience compelling enough to convert lighter searchers into regular searchers which is generally easier than converting new users,” Eli Goodman, comScore Search Evangelist, said in a press release. “Though clearly easier said than done, if they were to equalize the number of searches per searcher with Google they would command more than 40 percent market share.” That suggests Microsoft may want to spend more of its money improving Bing, rather than on marketing Bing. Spending on both, of course, can’t hurt.
So, two search experts see the comScore data as evidence of an important development in Web searchers’ behavior. And the New York Times is offering Microsoft marketing advice. I recognize the marketing savvy of the New York Times and I think that the New York Times should tell Microsoft what to think and do.
Three questions flapped through the addled goose’s mind:
- Are the comScore data accurate? I did not see any information from other Web traffic research firms, nor did I see any data from either Google or Microsoft. My recollection is that any data about Web traffic and user behavior has to be approached with some care. Wasn’t there that notion of “margin of error”?
- What is the projected “catch up” time for Microsoft and Yahoo, once the firms’ search businesses are combined? My analyses suggest that the challenge for Microsoft is “to get there from here”. The there is a significant chunk of Google market share. The “here” is the fact that the Bing.com traffic data are in early days, influenced by “pay for search schemes”, and research methods that have not been verified.
- Are the search experts working hard to create a story based on a consulting firm’s attempt to generate buzz in the midst of the August doldrums?
Experts like Search Engine Land and the New York Times know their material and are eminently qualified as consultants in information retrieval. What keeps nagging me is that pesky 80 percent Google market share and the 11 years of effort necessary for Google to achieve that share. I am not expert. I see a lot of work ahead for Microsoft.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2009
Exalead Web Search
August 18, 2009
Short honk: A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Exalead’s Web search. The link appeared in an item posted on Identi.ca by Todd Eddy. You can find the item here. With Yahoo out of the Web search game, perhaps Exalead will flow into the vacant number three position. I prefer Exalead’s Web search to either Bing.com or the soon-to-disappear Yahoo Web search.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2009
Accenture Pitches Corked Balls about Open Source Software
August 18, 2009
Accenture threw a corked ball at me this afternoon. A reader sent me a link to a Computer World story I ignored last week. The reader wanted to know my views of open source software. I focus on search and content processing, so I have my Overflight system slogging in the bits and bytes generated by the open source search vendors. One of my favorites is Tesuji.eu, whose owners I know. This company supports some of my programming needs, and I know that these engineers understand open source as well as traditional commercial systems.
The Computer World story was “Commercial Open Source Is Essential to Enterprise IT”. The article reminded me of some Booz, Allen & Hamilton tasks dumped on my desk in the late 1970s. The idea in my boss’s mind was that BAH could sell consulting by becoming “thought leaders” in specific and largely unknown issues. The write ups were designed to create uncertainty in the mind of the reader. BAH would then follow up with a method and expertise to reduce that uncertainty and put the issue, for which BAH was the thought leader, in context.
The author of this Computer World story was Alex Wied, clearly identified as a “senior manager at Accenture and head of its Innovation Centre for Open Source.” The story is an artful combination of fact, references to what’s hot in management circles today, and public relations / marketing.
I worked through the write up and identified some points that seemed to me to warrant a comment.
First, Accenture wants open source to become more like traditional enterprise software. That makes sense to a consulting firm. These high end outfits are set up to sell a range of services around a traditional software procurement. Some of the consulting firms charge vendors to be included in a dog and pony show or placed in a graphic. The enterprise client sees the recommendations of the consulting firm as objective. Some are but many of these services are not objective. The goal is to use information to generate an engagement, often at seven figure rates. The worse the economic problems facing an organization, the greater the appeal of a high end consultant who can offer a light to illuminate the darkness. Open source, therefore, needs to be more like IBM, Oracle, or SAP. If this seems somewhat peculiar, you just need more Kool Aide. I find the argument self serving and one that would have easy for my cross exam debate partner in college to knock down. Traditional software and open source software are different. Making them equivalent with the requirements ploy is not a rock solid argument in my opinion. Software contributed by individuals so other individuals can enhance, support, or fix that software is * not * how enterprise software companies operate in my experience.
Second, the requirements for open source software in the enterprise disconnected from the information technology methods used by some of the poster kids for successful Internet-centric outfits. If the requirements for open source are the same requirements for enterprise software, Accenture can apply its business consulting recipes. The client, therefore, sees the “new” approaches through the black frame, 1950s glasses that some high end consulting firms wear. Turning the new into the old means that the consultants can recycle their business school thinking. The approach may cut off information that may help an organization in need of change. The client becomes more vulnerable and risk goes up. Nice outcome for the consulting firm client if I am on the money.
Third, communities are important in open source. As I read this, the communities that will be most useful will be those for which the open source software matches the Accenture author’s requirements. Communities for non compliant open source software are excluded. After all, if you don’t meet requirements, you can’t join our country club. Accenture’s voice in this article is saying to me, “We know better.” Intellectual apartheid in my opinion .
What I find interesting is:
- The up market consulting firms are showing awareness that open source software is of interest to some of their corporate clients. Jumping on the bandwagon may generate some consulting engagements and by defining the requirements for open source as the same as the requirements for traditional enterprise software, the analysis is not going to make an MBA or subject matter expert burn the midnight oil.
- The traditional enterprise software systems have put many organizations in jail. The degrees of freedom are restricted, and, in may organizations, the software vendors and their partners call the shots. Open source provides an alternate path. I don’t think the Fortune 50 will dump Oracle for an open source data management system. So Mr. Wied’s analysis is reassuring and makes the traditional approach the “right” approach. The problem is that the competitors who will challenge many established companies may view open source in a different way. Since the Accenture clients cannot see this use, Accenture’s approach limits their clients’ vision and may make these firms more vulnerable.
- The business model for some open source firms (I won’t name any names so relax) is a traditional enterprise software model. The principal differences in my opinion boil down to elimination or reduction in software license fees. The other costs remain and may be just as tough to control as the costs for traditional enterprise software.
To close, figuring out what is public relations and marketing and what is solid analysis is getting more difficult for me. Consulting firms are good sources of low cost content provided by consultants who have billability targets to hit. Open source is not traditional software. Making traditional enterprise software and open source software equivalent makes me honk.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2009
MarkLogic and docGenix
August 18, 2009
Short honk: Mark Logic inked a deal with docGenix. The legal risk management solutions provider will use the MarkLogic server as the delivery mechanism for XML content generated by docGenix’s system. You can read the details in “docGenix, L.P. Utilizes MarkLogic Server to Deliver its Powerful Risk Management Solution for Derivatives Markets.” What I find interesting is that this tie up moves Mark Logic squarely into the risk and financial services sector. Good play well done, Mark Logic.
Stephen Arnold, August 18, 2009
Young at Heart Advise Newspapers about Survival
August 17, 2009
I enjoy the Mashable write ups. The coverage of my area of interest is tangential, but I like the approach taken by the publication. The article “12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive” is what I call outputs from the peanut gallery. The author is a student, and he does not have decades of travail trying to generate revenues, deal with staff benefits, and mud wrestling with printers, paper suppliers, and – yikes – syndicators. Students have a freshness that azure-chip, blue-chip, and try-too-hard-to-be-brilliant consultants lack. Let me give you an example. Mashable recommended to newspapers that a newspaper should develop a start up culture. Stop right there. Newspapers think that many of their actions are entrepreneurial. Newspaper managers are knee deep in new technology, innovations that require high-power publishing systems, and wallow in programmers, consultants, and information technology professionals. What Mashable’s advice overlooks is that the meaning of start up to a Mashable writer like Vadim Lavrusi means one thing. Start up to a newspaper executive in Peoria, Illinois means something else. You can work through the shopping list of recommendations. One or two may resonate with newspaper publishers. Most won’t. As a result, the financial challenges the newspapers face seem to be outside the newspapers’ span of control. Paper is getting more expensive. Ink is an environmental issue. Distribution is both a management headache and a money pit. On the other side where new media thrives, outfits like Google as “publishing” creative commons books. Aggregators are becoming more sophisticated. Check out Surchur.com, for one example I reviewed today. New competitors are springing from the ranks of journalists fired by newspapers as they try to control costs by killing off their expensive professionals. I agree with most of Mashable’s suggestions. I fear that many of them are beyond the grasp of newspapers. I subscribe to four traditional newspapers. I find about two thirds of the information “old”; that is, I have seen the topics in my electronic tools. The other one third does not interest me. One of these newspapers spams me to become a subscriber, oblivious to the fact that I point out that their policy reminds me of Nigerian email scammers. With “time” an issue, I think that newspapers struggle with real time because time for many is running out.
Stephen Arnold, August 16, 2009
X1 Probes eDiscovery at a $20,000 Price Point
August 17, 2009
The search vendors continue their hunt for markets eager for sophisticated content processing technology. The most recent shift to the legal sector is X1’s probe of the eDiscovery market. When an organization finds litigation the answer to a problem, eDiscovery reduces the cost of figuring out what information is germane to a matter. X1 Technologies, according to SocalTech.com, is rolling out an eDiscovery Search Suite. X1 entered the search market with a desktop search solution. I used this system when I received a download link from the company. “X1 eyes eDiscovery Market” reported that the software for law firms and in house attorneys begins at $20,000. Beyond Search thinks this is an interesting move. Recommind, which cut its teeth in the legal sector, has moved into the enterprise search market. Stratify, which pursued the intelligence community when it was known as Purple Yogi, shifted to the legal market and has expanded to other areas of the enterprise. Stratify is a unit of Iron Mountain. Search vendors continue to follow well worn paths in search of the key that unlocks greater revenue. With open source search systems such as those available from Tesuji.eu and Lemur Consulting and the bundling of search with other enterprise applications, the shifting from market to market is likely to increase for many search and content processing vendors.
Commercial Online at Crunch Time
August 17, 2009
Einstein would be confused about the meaning of “time” in the search and content processing sector.
In the early days of online, commercial database producers controlled information that was accessible online. The impetus for electronic information was the US government. Some of the giants of the early online world were beneficiaries of government contracts and other government support for the technology that promised to make information findable.
I recall hearing when my father worked in Washington, DC in the 1950s that there was “government time.” The idea, as I recall, is that when a government entity issues a contract or support, the time lines in that deal stated start and stop dates, but not how fast the work had to be completed. I learned when but a youth that “government time” could be worked so that the contract could be extended. As a result, government time had a notional dimension known to insiders. Outsiders would have another view of time.
Source: http://focus.aps.org/files/focus/v23/st18/time_tunnel_big.jpg
When the first commercial online systems became available, time gained another nuance. Added to the idea of “government time” was the idea that computing infrastructure required time to process information. Programmers needed time to write code and debug programs. Systems engineers needed time to figure out how to expand a system. More time was needed to procure the equipment and time was necessary to get the hardware like DASDs (direct access storage devices) deliver and online.
One word—”time”—was used to refer to these many different nuances and notions of time. Again the outsider was essentially clueless when it came to understanding the meaning of “time” when applied to any activity related to electronic information.
Fast forward to 1993 and the availability of the graphic browser to make the Internet usable to average folks. The idea that a click could display a page in front of the user in very little time was compelling. The user received information quickly and formed an impression that the time required to access information via the Internet was different from the time required to schlep to a library to get information. Time became distorted with another load of meaning: work processes.
Now think about the meaning of “time” today. Vendors are no longer content with describing a system as fast and responsive. The word time has been turbo charged with the addition of the adjectival phrase “real time”.
What is real time? What is real time search? If you think about the meaning of time itself in the online world, you may conclude as I have that when an online vendor says “time”, you don’t have a firm understanding of what the heck the vendor means. When a vendor says “real time” or “near real time”, we are further into the fog.
Document Type Query: Okay for Horseshoes, Not for Real Life
August 17, 2009
DotNetMafia.com published a tip for limiting a SharePoint query to a “document type”. The tip was a query string that looked like this: ContentType:\”Company Document”. The result list displays Microsoft Office files from Excel and Word. Okay, this is close enough for SharePoint horseshoes but not for my real life query game.
A document type has to be tagged at a meaningful level of granularity. In the distant past in the commercial databases with which I was involved, we used an explicit field called “File Type”. The idea was that a human initially and then later a software method identified the type of file and plugged in a specific tag for that File Type. The person looking for a specific File Type such as a newspaper article or a monograph could find only those documents using the File Type descriptor in the query.
You can see a more pragmatic way of assigning File Type in Google. There are two methods available to anyone using the free Google.com Web search. The first is navigating to Google.com and picking one of the collections. These categories such as Images and Shopping are, in a sense, narrowing the result set to a File Type. Images with various file extensions such as jpg and structured product data in the form of a product description, image, and price, among other data elements.
A more fine grained method is available from the Google advanced search page.
The Google approach, in my opinion, is superior to the “document type” method for SharePoint. If you poke around in SharePoint you can create more precise queries. For these methods to work, in my experience, life is much easier if you skip the SharePoint internal tools and go directly to a third party system. You can locate add ins and third party tools by navigating to the Microsoft Partner Network. There are lots of options which suggests that some Microsoft partners see the native SharePoint tools as an opportunity.
Stephen Arnold, August 17, 2009
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