Quote to Note: Murdoch on Paywall
August 12, 2010
Quote to note: The memorable passage comes from “iPad ‘Perfect Platform’ for News, Murdoch Says.” Here’s the segment:
Murdoch added that subscriber levels for The Times website has also been very positive: “It’s going to be a success. Subscriber levels are strong. We are witnessing the start of a new business model for the internet. The argument that information wants to be free is only said by those who want it for free.”
Paywalls are not new. SDC had them 40 years ago. Paywalls are great for must have content and for defensive plays. Paywalls allows publishers to keep existing subscribers. Paywalls are wonderful filters. Traffic drops are significant, maybe 90 percent or more.
Poison antidote data is a must have information resource. News, for me, not so much.
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2010
More Google Negativity
August 11, 2010
In a “free market” as it operates in the US, money is the object. Along with money comes other benefits; that is, the Vanderbilt effect. Corny had some rough edges, including a track record of fist fights, lousy grammar, and putting one of his relatives in a special care facility.
So what’s the big surprise that the non-iPhone Verizon and the non-iTunes Google are figuring out how to get money. The poobahs and the former English majors who analyze technology use fancy words to describe basic American business activity.
What interests me is that the glossy, unsullied Google is now described as a “carrier humping, net neutrality surrender monkey” and discussed with words like “sold out.”
Wow. These folks need to “hie thee to a nunnery” or take a class in medieval wisdom literature. This is the US of A, land of MBAs, quarterly reports, and winner-take-all products like those Mr. Jobs cranks out at healthy margins I might add.
Google is suddenly garnering bad boy headlines because it is trying to deliver to its stakeholders. The object of a public company is to increase value to stakeholders. This means taking money from a third party and putting that money in one’s pocket.
I would have preferred to read about:
- Google’s acquisition logic, which seems to me to be very similar to Yahoo’s pre-Bartz method
- Google’s new social network service
- Google’s increasingly robust security methods for the Google enterprise products and services. (I do recall hearing that Google’s security was pretty good before the new security push.)
Nope. None of this.
The negativity is surprising and unwarranted. The Math Club and the chip off the pre-Judge Green AT&T are doing what is required to thrive in today’s business climate.
From what I have heard and learned in my research, there is more to come. Much, much more.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
Freebie, although it goes against the American capitalist method.
Google and Little Remote Controlled Flying Gizmos
August 11, 2010
Short honk: Navigate to Wirtschaftswoche. Learn about Google’s interest in wireless camera equipped flying aircraft. Ask yourself, “What would these devices add to StreetView?” Oh, come on now. Wireless, cameras, remote control, small, relatively quiet. Time’s up.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
Freebie
Denodo Is Hiring
August 11, 2010
Mash up vendor Denodo is hiring. Denodo Technologies, Inc. is looking for sales engineers in two big cities—specifically Chicago and New York. The company is one that proudly wears the azurini badge of third-party endorsement as a result of having been deemed the “cool vendor” by Gartner. Toast your résumé and fire it off before it cools.
Starting out in 1999, Denodo is no rookie. In fact, in just over a decade they assert that the company has revolutionized how corporate businesses collect their data. Competing with mashup vendors like JackBe and Kapow Technologies, Denodo seeks to amplify the value of business intelligence in two key ways:
According to Suresh Chandrasekaran, Vice President of Marketing for Denodo, “[Denodo] enables organizations to include data sources that reside outside the enterprise – particularly unstructured and external Web data – in your analysis. And compared to traditional data warehousing, the virtual data services approach is a more cost-effective and flexible way to integrate diverse data for BI and business mashups.”
In plain English, Denodo provides useful tools that reach out across the World Wide Web and grab data in all sorts of formats. It then pulls the data into one easy-to-access spot, allowing the user to synthesize the data however they see fit. It’s flexible and cost effective.
Denodo has proven a valuable asset to a wide array of corporations, from financial services to governments. The clientele strikes us as having a European flavor. But any organization can use Denodo to create new business apps based on more robust data feeds, regardless of the location or structure of the original information.
In short, Denodo Technologies, Inc. is positioning itself like a Marine Corps. drill sergeant. Will the company make good on its marketing assertions? How can it lose steam with gusts from Gartner?
So if you’re a marketing guru and know more about mashups than “it sure sounds cool,” you should do yourself a favor and go apply for the job. Of course, every other sales engineer in the world has probably applied as well, so your odds aren’t that good. But who knows—it’s worth a shot.
Chris Brantner, August 11, 2010
Yippee Shouts Wii
August 11, 2010
Yippy, Inc. has good reason to rejoice. In “Yippy Releases Family Friendly Search For Nintendo Wii” http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/07/28/4925824.htm VP Emily Parker says “the Yippee Wii search has been optimized for use with Nintendo Wii game controls and features Yippy content-blocking protocols.” The report also tells of a soon-to-be-released Yippee Wii Browser with cloud-based content management platforms.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. A family friendly search was the focus of The Point (Top 5% of the Internet), developed by Beyond Search’s Stephen E. Arnold, his son, Erik S. Arnold, and business partner, Chris Kitze in 1993. the Point service sold to Lycos in 1996, and, alas, Lycos lost its way. Now, a 17-yr-old idea is back, proving The Point was right on target almost two decades ago.
Brett Quinn, August 11, 2010
Freebie
Progressive Camden, NJ to Close Libraries
August 11, 2010
Want to read a library book in lovely Camden, New Jersey? Too bad. Libraries are closing. Point your browser at “Camden Prepares to Close Library System.” No quotes because the source is from the litigious Associated Press. I heard that someone in Utah wanted to eliminate the senior year in high school. With libraries closing and possible elimination of one fourth of a high school education, Americans will be the content consumers publishers know are out there toting an iPad, buying news, and consuming books at a prodigious rate.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
Freebie
Cloud and Context: Fuzzy and Fuzzier
August 11, 2010
I got a kick out of “Gartner Says Relevancy of Search Results Can be Improved by Combining Cloud and Context-Aware Services.” Fire up your iPad and check out this write up which has more big ideas and insights than Leonardo, Einstein, or Andy Rooney ever had. You will want to read the full text of the article. What I want to do is list the memes that dot the write up like chocolate chips in Toll House cookies. Here goes:
- value
- cloud-based services
- context-based services
- revenue facing external search installation
- informational services
- integration engineers
- contextual information
- value from understanding
- Web search efforts
- market dynamics
- general inclination
- search in the cloud
- discoverable information
- offloading
- quantifiable improvements
- social networking
- user’s explicit statement of interests
- rich profile data
Cool word choice, right? Concrete. Specific. Substantive. Now here’s the sentence that I was tempted to flag as a quote to note. I decided to include it in this blog post:
Optimizing search through the effective application of context is a particularly helpful and effective way to deliver valuable improvements in results sets under any circumstances.
Got that? Any circumstance. Well, except being understandable to an addled goose.
Stephen E Arnold, August 11, 2010
Freebie
Google Verizon: What’s the Goal and for Whom?
August 10, 2010
I have had a couple of media inquiries about the Google Verizon “proposal”. I don’t have much to add because in the hundreds of comments listed on Megite and TechMeme, you have more speculation, opinions, and factoids that I have goose feathers.
I would point out that pundits will want to locate a copy of the July 2010 document “Google Fiber to the Home Request for Information: Think Big with a Gig.” One of the comments in this document puts the Google Verizon in a useful context is the discussion of vendor disqualification, page 7 and following.
The threads are Google’s broadband “experiments”, Verizon, Apple, and rich media. With more information, Google can make more informed decisions that enable Google to achieve its corporate goals.
The chatter about issues not germane to Google’s goals is interesting, just not particularly relevant. Information warfare rages.
Stephen E Arnold, August 10, 2010
Freebie
Iron Mountain/Stratify Get an Azurini T Shirt
August 10, 2010
“New Iron Mountain Consulting Arm Combines Records Management and eDiscovery Expertise to Help Clients Cut Information Costs and Risks” interested me. Iron Mountain, a company with lots of trucks that move paper from Point A to Point B, has jumped into consulting services. Readers of this blog know that I find the folks donning azurini T shirts an interest.
According to the news story which looked to me like a public relations-type write up:
[Iron Mountain] announced the formation of a new consulting practice, which combines the company’s long-established practice in records and information management and its electronic discovery management team. Iron Mountain Consulting advises customers around the world on how to lower the cost of managing information and records, meet complex industry regulations, prepare for eDiscovery, manage complex litigation and avoid data or IT systems disasters. By combining its deep knowledge in hardcopy records, electronic information management, litigation readiness and legal process into one consulting practice, Iron Mountain can better advise and offer customers integrated solutions for consistently managing all of their information with less cost, risk and complexity.
What will be the new pecking order at Iron Mountain? [a] Records retention, [b] software licenses, consultants who sell big jobs and want to use another firm’s solutions? Image source: http://www.tigersoft.com/TigerSoft-Practical-Psychology/T01.htm
Three observations:
- Other blue chip and azure chip consultants will have to make certain each knows something about records retention policies, archival storage, and search. Iron Mountain has lots of experience with paper and digital content. A company with “real” clients and “real” experience may win engagements that the amateurs once viewed as their Jus primae noctis.
- Iron Mountain will have to figure out how to make the human resources, travel, and bonus stuff work. There is a big difference in accounting when one sells a monthly hauling service, licenses to software systems, and brain power. In my experience, those jumping into an azure colored pool often find that upon exiting their bathing trunks are tinted in a color not too different from red ink.
- Management will have its hands full. In an outfit like Iron Mountain the technical folks have been gaining influence. Senior management at a firm like Iron Mountain is not going to be toting and iPad and attending Defcon. When a consultant nails a big job, the pecking order is going to change or the azure chip person is going to hike right on over to a “real” consulting firm. Consultants sell clients and their loyalty (such as it is) is for the client. If the client wants a solution from a third party firm, the consultant will get that best-of-breed solution and the money. The Iron Mountain folks are likely to be really annoyed to have an azure chip person sell a competitor’s product. If Iron Mountain does not deliver objective solutions to a consulting client, that’s an exciting situation to consider.
This will be interesting to watch. Stratify complements other search and retrieval technology at Iron Mountain. Will Stratify the azurini?
Stephen E Arnold, August 9, 2010
Google Apps and the US Government
August 10, 2010
eWeek runs these odd slideshows which seem to be dot points strung out to get page views. I clicked through “Cloud Computing: Google Apps Leads Microsoft in Federal Cloud Race: 10 Reasons Why It Matters.” The hook is Google’s getting a government security certification. However, I keep hearing a great deal about Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft. Each of these companies is putting a body slam on the US government. The winner or at least the horse in the lead is Amazon. I know it sound wacky, but the AWS offerings seem to be at the right price point and have enough goodies to entice some procurement teams. Google may have to fine tune its pricing to be less Googley and more Bezosey. The eWeek slide show seems to offer information oddly disconnected from the reality I hear about. That’s why I am an addled goose, I suppose.
Stephen E Arnold, August 10, 2010
Freebie
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
