Kicking the Google Habit
February 20, 2010
Short honk: ComputerWorld takes on Google. Navigate to “Why I’m Dropping Google.” Strong stuff. The anti-Google rhetoric keeps on flowing. What’s the cause? My hunch is that Google itself may be the motor driving this Veyron.
Source: http://images.thecarconnection.com/lrg/veyron-smash01-1_100206678_l.jpg
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report no dough to the Federal Highway Administration. Click it or ticket sounds so sweet.
Google and PageRank under Siege
February 20, 2010
Well, well, well. I am plugging away on a new Google study and what do I spy with a casual glance at my feedreader? Several interesting items that are going to force me to make some working changes about Google’s position in dataspace.
First, Investors.com’s story “Google Search Results Manipulated? Clooney Clue Tips Off Researchers.” If true, PageRank and the search engine optimization crowd have held a shoot out at the Not-OK Corral. The winner, if the write is accurate, are the “hackers” who gunned down Google’s force field to manipulate search results. Yikes. Crown jewels ripped off after the Google takes bullets? If true, big news indeed.
Second, WebProNews’ “Links Not Always the Best Indicator of Relevance.” The categorical affirmative is off-putting to me, but the killer passage in my opinion was:
Google is all about providing users with the most relevant results for the best user experience, and maybe the fact that these kinds of sites aren’t often featured near the top of results could be considered an area where Google isn’t necessarily delivering the best results.
Check out the full write up. Is PageRank losing pride of place at the Google”
Third, PCWorld reports in “Google Gets US Approval to Buy and Sell Entergy”. Isn’t this what Enron explored? Interesting and potentially exciting for gullible states like California whose energy costs were whipsawed by some interesting folks as I recall. Could this again occur? Could Google be focusing on controlling energy costs to the detriment of other tasks?
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2010
No one paid me to summarize three items. This type of free work must be reported to the FAA, an outfit that is good at multiple instance analysis.
PCWorld Reports DOJ Search Thinking
February 20, 2010
“Yahoo Microsoft Deal Makes Bing Better, DOJ Says” caught my attention. In my opinion, a key passage was:
The [Department of Justice’s] reasoning is simple: By handling the back end of all Yahoo searches, Microsoft will gain access to almost three times the search queries it’s getting with Bing alone. The extra data will speed up Bing’s automated learning, helping the search engine return more relevant results, especially with rare queries, the DOJ says. In other words, Bing will have a better chance of finding what you’re looking for the first time around.
I suppose.
My view is that an outfit that has a significant market share lead can pretty much do what it wants. Competitors can surf the market economy. My question is, “Does the DOJ know more about search methods than some of the attorneys whose search expertise with which I am familiar?”
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2010
I was not paid to write this opinion. I am reporting my not getting paid to write this item to the DOJ.
The Perils of Consulting: Share of Savings?
February 20, 2010
With more and more search and content processing vendors getting into the consulting and engineering services business, consulting is a grass-is-greener opportunity. Making money from selling knowledge is a bit more difficult than selling a product. What’s knowledge? Well, the content management experts turned knowledge management experts are not going to be able to help too much. Now it seems even consultants less in touch with the complexities of today’s information technology operations are teaching an important lesson. Talking is easy; collecting is tougher. After all, determining the value of a services is difficult. The azure chip crowd and the self appointed experts don’t know what they don’t know as “BT Settles Multi-Million Spat with Cost-Cutting Consultants.” The idea is that the client did not value the services rendered by the experts. Once again the problem of defining knowledge-value pokes its nose into the fantasies of big companies looking for relief from past management decisions and the cash register ringing expertise that the consultants deliver. The write up said”:
BT has settled an £88m dispute with a consultancy it asked to find cost savings at its troubled Global Services division…Magenta [the consulting firm] asked for £80m in damages and £8.1m for unpaid invoices.
My view is that the attorneys one. Will search and content processing vendors selling consulting services find themselves in a similar pickle? The geese are overflying and watching?
Stephen E Arnold, February 20, 2010
No one paid me to write about Overflight and overflying. I will report this non payment to the FAA, which I anticipate is quite busy today.
PointCast Version 2?
February 19, 2010
I read “Did Google Reader Just Turn on the Firehose?” I don’t use the Google Reader. The addled goose does not read. But when he scanned with one eye the story in Stay N’ Alive, he had one thought, “Is PointCast back?” Different coat of paint maybe but possibly the same squeaking wheel?
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Non payment means that I must report this to the IMF, an outfit aware of such sad situations.
Microsoft Gets Almost Married
February 19, 2010
My feedreader has been overflowing with the news that Microsoft and Yahoo can unite in their quest to chop down Google’s Web search market share. I think that the idea is an enervating one to the execs in strategy meetings. The optimism is probably contagious. Take a gander at the ZDNet write up called “Microsoft-Yahoo approved: Now the Heavy Lifting Starts.” For me, the key passage was:
Folks, this is a big project. The companies hope to have the integration complete in the U.S. by the end of the year. Meanwhile, advertisers and publishers are expected to be migrated over before the 2010 fourth quarter holiday push. That deadline could slip to 2011. All customers globally will be transitioned to Microsoft’s platform by early 2012.
Wow. I must admit I have not paid any attention to the grand plans of the Microsoft Yahoo duo. What crossed my mind when I read this ZDNet article was:
- What’s the Google doing during this time? Certainly taking pot shots at its foot but probably lumbering forward even when encumbered with lots of legal briefs.
- Will the tie up of two companies which have not been able to make much headway in online advertising be able to get their Evinrude fired up and the bass boat into the lake? Panama took years and never really worked as well as Google’s system. Microsoft’s fixing Vista sucked up a couple of years. Both of these were priority projects and neither made my pinfeathers tingle.
- Users have quite a few tasty options. These include Facebook and Twitter. The Google has not been able to deal effectively with these two, and I don’t think of either Microsoft or Yahoo as set up to deal with users who may not have a combined service as a number one destination or even a number three or four destination.
In short, Microsoft and Yahoo may need to do some pretty nifty work and quickly. Without quick, decisive, compelling action, the Yahoo crowd will get mired in Microsoft. Microsoft will be Microsoft. Google may be more vulnerable to Facebook, the Chinese special section, and lawyers. I am eager to see the search solution that Microsoft and Yahoo roll out to close the gap with Google.
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to write this. Since I mention social activities, I suppose I will report this to the GAO’s intramural team picnic chairperson.
Quote to Note: The Future of Google Revealed
February 19, 2010
I find it interesting to learn how others interpret Googlespeak. In “CEO Eric Schmidt at World Mobile Congress: Google’s Future is in the Enterprise”, I spotted this alleged quote as a potential quote to note:
Schmidt’s reference to the enterprise is not ground shaking news. But it is noteworthy in its mention at an event as significant as the World Mobile Congress. Google may have offered an olive branch to the mobile operators but in the background are a number of issues that could have ramifications for Google’s strategy to be the king of the enterprise.
I want to hang on to this statement.
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to create a note card as a blog post. I suppose I report this type of research-like action to the National Science Foundation, where the cutting edge is in the future.
Yahoo to Out Google Google
February 19, 2010
I remember when the kids were young. I had to endure some films with titles like Friday the 13th, Part 2, Friday the 13th, The Final Chapter, Friday the 13th, Part VII, and (my favorite) Jason Goes to Hell, the Final Friday. Well, it wasn’t the final Friday, there was Jason X. When I read about a new search wizard at Yahoo and how Yahoo will become a powerhouse in search, it’s Jason time.
I read “Yahoo! Looks beyond Google’s Data Cruncher” and shivered. It’s back! The article reports without the zing I associate with the Register that Google has a laser dot on its scaly forehead. Googzilla’s data methods are toast. According to the write up:
But for Ron Brachman – the former Bell Labs and DARPA man who now serves as vice president of Yahoo! labs and research – a future interwebs may need something very different. MapReduce splinters compute tasks into tiny pieces that are processed independently of each other, and this sort of parallelism by complete separation, he argues, may be ill-suited to a more nuanced breed of web application. One example is a web that leans heavily on natural language processing. “When we get closer to doing broad-scale language processing that’s more, if you will, semantic, we might need to move away from a MapReduce architecture to something that may be equally parallel but with a very different computational architecture,” Brachman tells The Reg.
On paper, sure. In reality, not so sure. Yahoo is going to enter some sort of speed dating event with Microsoft. Yahoo is losing credibility with me because I have heard promises before. After my BearStearns report about Ramanathan Guha’s semantic inventions, a Yahoo poobah insisted that Yahoo had semantic technology that was going to put Google in a dark room with no candles.
What happened was staff cutting, reorganizing, lower revenues, and the same old search. Shopping search, which was unusable, and remains less useful to me than Bing.com’s approach.
My view. Roll out a service that delivers on point results. The PR buzz causes me to put in ear plugs. Have you ever seen a goose with ear plugs. Very weird. Almost as weird as viewing Google’s data management infrastructure, system, and methods as frozen in time. When you read it in a patent, it is too late in my opinion. Google has moved on when the patent applications are filed.
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I will report getting no money to the White House which seems to know everything there is to know about the Google. Well, almost everything.
Tinfoil Hat Department: UK UFO Archives Now Online
February 19, 2010
The Ministry of Defence (UK) and the National Archives have an online resource for those who believe in unidentified flying objects or UFOs. You can get the details in “MoD UFO Files on the National Archives Site.” For me the telling statement was:
The files are just the latest round of information about UFO sightings released by the MoD.
Who needs Google Books?
Stephen E Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I am not sure which agency controls the writing of uncompensated news items about UFOs? Probably NASA. I am now reporting. Dit dah dah.
Search Patterns: User Experience Explained
February 19, 2010
The addled goose does not do book reviews. I was asked if I wanted a copy of Search Patterns by Peter Morville and Jeffery Callender. I said, “Sure.” I read the book, and I think that anyone mired in user interface for search and content processing systems will want to snag a copy. For me, the section that was Chapter 4, Design Patterns. The O’Reilly production value is good. The book is stuffed with screenshots. I am not sure when the book will be in the Harrod’s Creek bookstore. You can chase down a copy on Amazon.
After finishing the 180 page book, I kept thinking about the thrashing that goes on among procurement teams and vendors. The procurement teams know what they like when they see, and in my experience, have not too much information about what is required to make a particular interface feasible. The vendors do quite a bit of borrowing from one another. It is possible that some procurement teams will focus on the UX, user experience in the lingo of Microsoft. Maybe that approach will reduce the dissatisfaction among enterprise users of search and content processing systems?
Worth a look.
Stephen E. Arnold, February 19, 2010
No one paid me to read this 180 page book, examine the screenshots, and do some thinking about the shift from search plumbing to the UX. I am not sure to which government agency I report such uncompensated work. Maybe the Library of Congress whose interfaces knock my socks off each time I use LOC.gov.
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