Google in Switzerland: Another One Bites the Dust
May 15, 2011
What’s this got to do with search? If it isn’t in the index, “it” is tough to find. What’s the “it”? Images of Switzerland. Navigate to “Google Threatens To Shut Down Street View In Switzerland.” Why? Here’s the key passage:
Google is getting fed up with Europe’s strict privacy measures. Germany already regulated Google Street View into oblivion. After a series of restrictions the Germans placed on Street View — including giving people the right to have their houses blacked out on Google maps — Google decided to stop driving its Street View cars around Deutschland. Google says it’s facing the same dilemma in Switzerland now.
Countries are tough to push around. When will those outfits learn the Google way, which seems to be the Google way or the highway? Tough to pump up revenues in countries where Google is not. Interesting.
Stephen E Arnold, May 15, 2011
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A New Mr. Microsoft Platform Ecosystem in France
May 14, 2011
ITespresso announces “Microsoft France Has Found Its New ‘Mr. Platform Ecosystem’ at Sinequa.”
The former President & CEO of business search provider Sinequa, Jean Ferré, will be leading a team of 50 in his new position at Microsoft France. They will focus largely on building relationships with start-up companies. The article elaborates on the placement:
Aged 42, Jean Ferré finds himself in a strategic position in the organization of Microsoft France: platforms (software like Office and for Web 365, cloud with Windows Azure, Windows Phone), market places applications and tools development (Visual Studio …). And he joined the steering committee.
We wish M. Ferré the best of luck in his new position. Prior to joining MSFT, Mr. Ferré was the top dog at Sinequa, an enterprise search and solutions vendor. As for Sinequa, word is that Alexandre Bilger, formerly that company’s Managing Director, will be taking the reins. Good luck to him, too.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2011
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Quote to Note: Google and Customer Support
May 14, 2011
The story “Google AdSense Alternative? Lijit Thinks So” contained a passage that struck me as a quote to note. The write up talks about an alternative to Google’s AdSense called Lijit. AdSense, we learned, is aimed at large publishers. Lijit (a phonetization of “legitimate” colloquialized) offers a monetization. Lijit’s transaction volume is growing apace, up 74 percent since the fourth quarter of 2010. Now here’s the quote to note:
[Todd Vernon, the CEO and founder of Lijit] is quoted as saying:
“What we hear, time and time again, is, ‘when there’s something wrong, I can’t get a hold of Google… they only provide me error messages… I can’t actually talk to a human,’” he said.
Oh, oh. This type of comment comes at a time when Google is pushing into the enterprise with a low cost, Windows-killer Chromebook. What happens when a user or an information technology professional has a question? Is a new service business about the blossom?
Stephen E Arnold, May 14, 2011
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Microsoft and Its Research about Search
May 13, 2011
We loved Microsoft’s use of the “beyond search” phrase to describe some of its earlier efforts to wrest the King of Search crown from the rampaging Googzilla.
Non-techies tend to take the complexities and subtle nuances of search for granted. I’ll admit that at one point I was also in the dark. Since the switch has been flipped, I find sites like the one summarizing Microsoft’s Information Retrieval and Mining research incredibly interesting.
The overview explains:
We aim at developing fundamental technologies for general web search and enterprise search. Our main technology areas include machine learning, information retrieval, data mining, and natural language processing. We partner with Microsoft Live Search and SharePoint Search. Currently, we are working on five projects: Learning to Rank, Search Result Ranking, Data Selection in Search, Search Log Data Mining, and Next Generation Enterprise Search.
I recommend scanning the page if the subject piques your interest, but here are some of the highlights. For ranking web pages, they have advanced the common practice of web graph data to large-scale graph data collected from users’ own browsing habits. Complimenting this achievement is the work on a search log mining platform, culling search session and click-thru data, enabling the graph modeling mentioned above. They are even delving into what is on the tips of many tongues: enterprise social computing.
There are a lot of critics of Bing, even more of SharePoint. Regardless, Microsoft refuses to stand down when it comes to search development. Will these advancements launch Microsoft to the top of the field? Perhaps, with a little streamlining of their products or more negative PR for Google. If Apple could rise from the grave with the iPod, I guess anything is possible.
Sarah Rogers, May 13, 2011
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JackBe Joins the Business Intelligence Is Easy Parade
May 13, 2011
In our sister publication Inteltrax, you can read about the machinations in the data fusion sector. We wanted to highlight this news story because it sheds some light on the attempt to make really complicated enterprise solutions look like child’s play. Child’s play, in our experience, is a good description for kids like Wolfie Mozart or the 11 year old Srinivasa Ramanujan. Other times child’s play is somewhat less sophisticated. I remember my finger-painting classics my mother taped to the fridge.
According to the eWeek.com article:
“JackBe Presto Enables Information With Ease” the JackBe Presto 3.1 development platform is not just your normal real-time intelligence product. According to the article unlike other business intelligence products Presto 3.1 allows users to build on their existing data structures and transformation tools, instead of replacing them.”
The article asserted that Presto can handle both internal and external data sources and also comes equipped with a number of tools to ensure that managers can easily utilize the data for their specific needs. I noted this passage:
Developers and power users can use these tools to quickly create applications that are easily reworked as needed to react to rapidly changing business conditions and requirements.
Presto’s App Store provides users with valuable applications which can be shared in addition to being deployed and giving users even more flexibility. In addition Presto can run on the cloud. Presto 3.1 may not fit in every organization but for most it would seem that the pros far outweigh the cons.
Is this business intelligence activity child’s play? For some licensees, sure. For others, the colors of my finger-painting masterpieces was often muddy and a bit of a mess. Make sure you have a Shirley Temple on your project, a young Shirley Temple, that is.
Alice Holmes, May 13, 2011
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Skype and Funnelback: What Is the Microsoft Deal Impact?
May 13, 2011
I saw a tweet from Funnelback pointing out that Skype was using Funnelback technology for search. Funnelback is part of Squiz, an Australian vendor anchored in open source. Here’s a question for you: “Will Skype abandon open source Funnelback for one of Microsoft’s search systems?”
The question is easily answered for the next few months. Not much change. A big deal like this is going to take time to complete. However, once the dust settles, then the question becomes a more important one.
I would recast the question is, “Can Microsoft use the Fast Search & Transfer technology for Skype search?” The answer is, “Yes.” However, there may be some work to do. Let’s assume that Skype is running on Linux and other non-Microsoft goodness. If you want to brush up on Skype plumbing, you may find “Learnings from Five Years as a Skype Architect” a useful read. The diagrams are quite useful as well.
Fast Search & Transfer, circa 1998 to 2002, was mostly a Linux centric system. After 2002, Fast Search supported other platforms. After 2008, Microsoft jettisoned the Linux version of Fast Search. There are integrators and some consulting shops like Comperio.com, which support the non Windows’ licensees of Fast Search. For normal organizations, however, Fast Search means Windows.
My hunch is that Microsoft’s slotting Skype into another division is a graceful way of leaving Skype what Skype is. The thought of recoding the plumbing of Skype may be unappetizing to the Redmond crowd. So, Fast Search does not seem like a snap in for Funnelback.
Will Funnelback keep the Skype deal once Microsoft envelops the company? Based on my watching the machinations of the big search outfits, I think Funnelback has a 50-50 shot of keeping the account. However, Microsoft executives often get the revolving door treatment. As the door spins, the original managers and engineers exit and new humanoids flow into the acquisition. At the time of a buyout, Skype is pretty much 99 percent Skype. After 18 months, Skype may be 40 percent Skype goodness. As the Skype part of Skype becomes smaller, then the likelihood of search engine change increases.
My hunch is that other search vendors with some open source flags flying from their marketing tankers will be steaming toward Redmond. In short, Funnelback will have to work overtime to keep the account. Maybe Microsoft will acquire Squiz and get an open source CMS plus a Skype search engine. The months will fly by, and then we will know.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2011
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After Key Word Search: Social Analytics and Change
May 13, 2011
There’s an outfit called TechChange. Its tag line, the Institute for technology and social change, has little to do with search and content processing. However, the article “SwiftRiver: Where Software Meets Social Change” highlights issues not discussed at search vendor conferences, in the wild and crazy “emotion analytics” world, or at search centric conferences. No big surprise. Most conferences are “pay to play” events. The few “objective” presentations are often little more than day old bread sliced and slathered with oleo.
This article is interesting because it uses a single vendor (SwiftRiver) as the hook for applying a content framework that adds value to information. This sure sounds like search and content processing to me. The difference is the context. Here’s the description of the SwiftRiver system:
Our core platform has several points of easy extension and one of these is the plug-in system we call Parsers. Each parser knows how to communicate with one type of source and how to process data coming from that source. Examples of existing parsers are; the ‘Twitter Search Parser’, the ‘Frontline SMS Parser’ and the ‘Google News Parser’. The Parser plug-in architecture is very simple to program for, meaning that new Parsers for any new source are simple to produce and then leverage. It would therefore, be a relatively simple task for a developer to create a Parser that ‘understood’ how to use discreet data such as geo-coordinates (or in fact any other type of data) and knew how you receive that data from a source such as an SMS Gateway. Once written, the Parser can literally be dropped into the correct folder of the software install and this new Channel (combination of source and data type) would instantly become available for use.
The interesting spin put on the SwiftRiver technology is that a licensee can develop applications that:
can help private sector entities invest in developing counties in a way that is both profitable and socially responsible.
I find this approach fascinating. Too many content processing vendors chase down the trampled path of customer support, sentiment analysis, metatagging, and mashing up stuff. SwiftRiver has hooked next generation content processing into making a social difference. The original perception I had of SwiftRiver was processing large amounts of information quickly. the firm offers semantic analysis, auto categorization, and information classification. Instead of pitching access to documents in a content management system, SwiftRiver is flowing in a different direction.
You can get more information about SwiftRiver at http://swiftly.org in (as I write this) in 11 days, 3 hours and 22 minutes. Mysterious, no?
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2011
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Protected: Stack Exchange Provides SharePoint Q&A
May 13, 2011
Vivisimo Rolls Out Cross-domain Search with Enhanced Security
May 12, 2011
Top Hosting Service Information reveals that “Vivisimo Showcases Secure, Cross-domain Intelligence Solutions” at this week’s DoDIIS Worldwide conference in Detroit. Since Vivisimo serves the federal government, including the defense community, this is a welcome development.
The defense and intelligence communities recognize the need to improve information sharing as a way to achieve true all-source analysis and deliver timely, objective, and actionable intelligence to our senior decision makers and war fighters,’ says Bob Carter, vice president and general manager, federal, of Vivisimo. ‘In an era where spending cuts are being made to improve efficiencies, Vivisimo helps streamline operations and ultimately costs by allowing analysts significantly better access, processing and sharing of critical data necessary to the defense of the U.S.
Assembling the myriad of data gathered from around the globe into useful information is one of today’s biggest challenges for the intelligence community. Though the government often travels behind the curve in tech fields, it seems to be stepping up in this area.
Cynthia Murrell May 12, 2011
Oracle Text Import Tip
May 12, 2011
Want to import text into Oracle? A user at the Oracle FAQ’s forum has kindly provided the following instructions:
“PROCEDURE test_file_contents IS
input_file Text_IO.File_Type;
linebuffer VARCHAR2(200);
BEGIN
input_file := Text_IO.Fopen(‘test.txt’,’r’); — notice ‘r’ for Read file
Loop
Text_IO.Get_Line ( input_file, linebuffer );
Text_IO.Put ( Linebuffer );
Text_IO.New_LIne;
End Loop;
EXCEPTION
WHEN no_data_found THEN
Text_IO.Put_Line(‘Closing file…’);
Text_IO.Fclose( input_file );
END;”
Who says this content acquisition is not easy?
Cynthia Murrell May 12, 2011
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