Microsoft Innovation
September 12, 2010
Short honk: A reader sent me a link to the Microsoft “Beyond Search Award”. Great name. I wonder if I was inspired by the phrase or if I was a me-too goose. You can access a list of the “winners” at this link. I would have named the award differently, but I am an addled goose and closely associated with the phrase “Beyond Search.” Nothing like a search engine optimization tip of the hat from the Redmond innovators. Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, September 12, 2010
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KlickOut: Curation from the Users
September 11, 2010
In this age of information, KlickOut provides a platform where content is available for free, can be shared with the world, and even managed by the users themselves in a democratic fashion. For the content it receives from the people world over, the website says, “You are the editor and you are the reader here. We’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content.”
Users upload their content as ‘Upcoming Stories’, which viewers add as favorites if they like it, and on gaining popularity the content is shifted to the home page of its respective category, on the basis of receiving a critical number of favorite counters. The best of each category makes it to the front page of the website, and the content varies from news to videos to images. Users can even login through their Facebook account and view or submit content in categories like movies, TV, celebrity, music, lifestyle, gaming, business, health, sports, world, and technology.
Curation is useful. Low or zero cost curation could be a solution to the laundry lists of baloney that are now delivered with Alacrity.
Leena Singh, September 11, 2010
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Mobile Search in China
September 11, 2010
The Middle Kingdom has a track record for doing it the “emperors’ way”. Want to negotiate a tough deal? No problem. Get the traders into a trading city. Offer a deal. If refused, the area in the walled city becomes a hot spot. I find these architectural details from the past interesting.
Now Baidu, China’s top search engine with the largest market share is making all plans to keep up with the recent tech trends, and cash on the boost in the mobile segment. The Yahoo news article “Baidu to Focus mobile Internet Investment on Search” unfolds the company’s strategy to stand on its strength of core search business for the mobile Internet. According to the news, Baidu will “include mobile Internet and ecommerce initiatives in the business-to-consumer space” as it targets to dominate the next big Internet space.
Completing ten years of its existence, Baidu began its preparations last year, to play big in the mobile Internet, with the “introduction of a Baidu text input method and mobile maps.” The news reveals further that, “the company also set up a mobile Internet department.” The first to offer WAP and PDA-based mobile search in China, Baidu is equipping itself to continue to be the search king in China.
Now what about those inside a trading city? Tough spot for some vendors who make big plans just like the traders traversing the Silk Road. Long way from home to try and get frisky.
Stephen E Arnold, September 11, 2010
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SAP: From Sybase to Semantics
September 11, 2010
SAP is certainly trying to convince me that the little chip off the Big Blue block has what it takes in today’s economic thunderstorm. I am interested in SAP because the company’s approach represents a model that seems to be increasingly difficult to use to make me happy. The azurini love SAP, but a goose like me? Not so much.
Now with increasing research role in the semantic web space, we find SAP surprisingly becoming a ‘gorilla’ in this realm. The Semantic Web.com article “Semantic Web Meets BI In New Project Whose Partners Include SAP, Sheffield Hallam University, Ontotext” informs about SAPs yet another venture as a R&D and managing partner of a collaborative project. It is the Combining and Uniting Business Intelligence with Semantic Technologies (CUBIST) semantic web-BI space project, initiated “to create new visual tools to help businesses make sense of tons of data.” For more about Ontotext, visit the firm’s Web site at www.ontotext.com.
As per the article, “The goal of the project is ambitious: it will develop the first framework for enriching Business Intelligence with Semantic Web technologies,” which it intends to achieve by “developing a semantic incorporated business platform dealing with large amount of data and offering interactive visualization.” SAP, which provides the bulk of the project management, has earlier been a part of the Monnet Project involved in cross-lingual business intelligence using semantic technology.
Will this semantic push be the magic for SAP and Sybase? The goose is skeptical. And whatever happened to TREX and the SAP stake in Endeca. Are not these systems equipped with some semantic sweetness?
Harleena Singh, September 11, 2010
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Electric Pig Shocks with Pay Wall News
September 11, 2010
I saw a newsflash from Electricpig.co.uk which asserts that it is the only tech you need. Well, include the goose and I am happy. The story that caught my attention had this headline: “The Times Paywall Is Broken: content Set Free, for Now.” The point is that you can read the Murdoch Times here at this moment (September 10, 2010 at noon eastern). What’s interesting in that right before I saw the Electric Pig’s snort I read “USA Today to Throw Open Its Data This Month.” The main point in this write up is, in my opinion:
Media Content providers are increasingly opening up their vast amounts of data to developers. The latest to announce this is USA Today, with plans to provide much of its content via an API later this month. The nationwide newspaper aims to raise internal awareness about its databases first, with public access and a developer contest to follow. At the moment, the developer site is open to internal developers only. However, USA Today plans to launch it to the public by end of September.
Several observations before these flit from the goose’s mind:
- The challenge will be a business model that allows the giant publishing outfits to maintain their life style. The goose has witnessed publishing companies realize that their McMansions can no longer be supported by the online revenue streams “content” generates. There is money flowing but it pays for a Hardin County trailer rental.
- The assumption is that an application will unlock revenue. My work suggests that applications are a bit like motion pictures. The pictures are expensive and it is tough to pull off a blockbuster. Blockbusters happen, but will publishers have the cash to keep investing until a winner emerges.
- With the downsizing in publishing operations with which I am familiar, the younger staffers have little choice but practice their craft in the new digital Gutenberg environment. As a result, the big publishers will be competing with folks who understand their strengths and weaknesses with an insider’s sensitivity. I think this puts the big outfits at a disadvantage. Think of the plight of Nokia. That’s a model that some publishers will follow.
The goose has no answers. What do you expect from a goose anyway?
Stephen E Arnold, September 11, 2010
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Font Madness and Finding Frustration
September 10, 2010
Short honk: This is not directly about search. A reader sent me a link to Fontpark. Now there are tens of thousands of free fonts at the site. How do you find a font? There is a search box, and you can pick from more than 70 categories with names like “Easter” and “Runes”. You can also on an alphabetical letter and look at fonts that begin with the letter you click. There are also hot links for top fonts. I like the service, but I think that finding a font is difficult for me. Prepare to spend some time exploring this massive collection. The site makes clear how far search technology has yet to travel.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2010
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The Speed Thing: Google Search Results Tricks
September 10, 2010
I don’t have too much to say about speed. In my talks about real-time information, I make a point of identifying points in an information retrieval system where latency imposes delays. The Google speed thing addresses one aspect of search; namely, displaying results as someone types. I noted this display stuff in year 2000 when I got a demo of Fast Search & Technology’s implementation of a type ahead feature. Then and now, I did not get too excited. The reason is that I formulate queries and enter them with intent. I personally dislike systems that try to “think like a goose.” Pretty tough since algorithms work one way and a goose brain works a different way, right?
I do want to call attention to what I think is one of those wild and crazy write ups that appear in “real” publications. Point your browser thingy at “In an Instant, Google Pulls Further Ahead of Microsoft, Yahoo.” Now if the predictive stuff actually worked, you would not have to point or click in my opinion. Keep in mind that the predictive stuff is reasonably new and we were not able to see the function across the different systems we tested yesterday, so here in Harrod’s Creek, the Google magic was hit and miss. The article is a collection of observations by pundits and most of the points are like high school cheers. You hear the words but don’t really care. It is the spirit that counts.
My views are this:
- It is a bit early to declare that a Google feature does much of anything to Web usage data. The data are approximations of what’s happening and quite old. This means that the “effect” of Google’s whiz bang new feature won’t be known in its fuzzy statistical glory for weeks.
- The focus of search is shifting, based on our work in the last few months. Not only is the mobile device having an impact, but the social approach is beginning to gain traction. If our work is on the money, this spells big trouble in River City for traditional search box methods.
- Embedded search puts information “there”. A good example is a map which shows a bunch of stuff. The user just hovers. The “map” gets search parameters in the background so the “search without search” approach that I noted when I examined Endeca’s implementation for Fidelity Investments in the UK six or seven years ago is now being consumerized.
In short, I know folks love Google mouse pads and secretly hope to work for Messrs. Brin and Page. I also know that no one gets invited to Google events for raining on a Google parade. Nevertheless, let’s keep the latency issue in mind and then put the Google announcement in the context of significant search trends. “Real” journalists, I suppose, long for the days when they could sit in English class and interpret Milton’s “Lycidas.” Won’t work for the hard world of information retrieval in this goose’s opinion. Confusing razzle dazzle for what users are doing keeps the azurini busy. Wonderful.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2010
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Autonomy Protect Receives Kudos
September 10, 2010
Autonomy Protect Legal Systems comes with solutions that help the attorneys to deliver high quality services in a timely, efficient manner. The TMCnet.com call center software featured article “Autonomy’s Meaning-Based Governance Platform Selected by Bingham McCutchen LLP” explains how, “Lawyers can now pinpoint the exact information and firm expertise needed to help their clients succeed with solutions from Autonomy.”
Bingham, a top international law firm, has been using Autonomy’s iManage WorkSite product for its content and knowledge management requirements, which provides a collaborative environment to the lawyers. “They can store all of their case matter documents and also track updates, milestones, and client communications with this product,” reports the article. Meeting the requirements of Bingham to connect to its more than 2,400 globally dispersed lawyers and users in real-time, Autonomy provides the solutions in form of iManage Universal Search (IUS), iManage Records Management, and iManage ConflictsManager. The automation provided by Autonomy increases the productivity of the Bingham lawyers.
Leena Singh, September 10, 2010
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Twitter for Free Expression
September 10, 2010
Technology and Twitter have tweaked the fourth pillar of democracy. “The power of the Internet and social networks like Twitter is starting to force the media to be honest,” says Stan Beer in the ITWire Australian Election special article “Twitter becomes the new oracle of the media.” The author uses the case of the Fairfax freelancer Adam Turner’s tweets on election night, and summarizes that Facebook or Twitter posts have become sensitive, consequential, and accountable.
The article expresses the view that, “So-called fair and balanced media is populated with content produced by humans – and nearly all humans are biased and anything but fair and balanced.” The author implicates the publications to have pseudo-standards; portraying as fair and balanced but having biased policies. He points out that the media bosses “may publicly express their political preference in pre-editorials but for journalists to openly reveal their bias is not on.” They then revert to the tweets, which take more of a confessionary role – a medium for repressed or free expression?
Leena Singh, September 10, 2010
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Google and Speedy Search
September 10, 2010
I learned about Google’s push for speed in late 2009. I wrote a story for this blog called “Google 2010: Speed Becomes a Competitive Advantage.” Despite the enthusiasm of my two or three readers, no one cared. I know I didn’t. The Google of 2006 is long gone. In its place is a very different outfit.
I flipped through the write ups about the big Google event and its announcements today. I noted one as more in line with my thinking. Point your browser thingy at “Why Google Instant Is Good for Microsoft.” For me, the main point was:
In today’s press conference, Google boasted that only a “small percentage” of users in their tests turned off Instant search, and that they mainly did so because of connection issues. That seems an all-too rosy portrait of adoption rates. Clearly, there is a learning curve for such a novel service–after all, we’ve been clicking the “Search” button for more than a decade now. Doesn’t it seem unlikely that users would latch onto Google Instant so, well, instantly? Maybe in Google’s test-cases.
I know the search engine optimization boffins will be put in a tough spot. All the crap those folks have loaded into Web sites will hopefully disappear from personalized, on the fly search results. But the bigger point to me is that Google is making a change and assessing adaptability in terms of the Math Club ethos.
The Fast Company article nailed this point. Some folks don’t like math short cuts. I do like physics a lot. I also like relativity and what it suggests about speed.
Stephen E Arnold, September 10, 2010
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