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May 9, 2011
Google Pushes the Cloud
May 8, 2011
I continue to ponder the Amazon cloud failure. At ArnoldIT.com, we use a combination of methods to deliver our products and services. The Overflight “content with intent” system is a mix of on premises systems and services delivered from various service bureaus in the cloud.
To avoid failure, the trick is redundancy. When one cloud service fails, we have a way to switch to a different service. The ideal is to make this switch over automatic, but in most cases someone, including the chief silly goose, has to baby sit the service. Baby sitting, although annoying, is just one more annoying facet of today’s computing environment. The mainframe was also annoying, so maybe the whole computer thing delivers magic and annoyances.
I read with interest “Google Urges Enterprise to Go 100% Web.” The idea is one of those rah-rah notions that I find amusing. Would that life delivered 100 percent solutions. In my experience, absolutes are death and taxes. The other life activities are slippery enough to warrant Plan B, redundancy, back ups, and contingencies of various types. When I go to a restaurant, I show up. When I set up a “content with intent” system, I immerse my safe in a web of contingency planning and actions. The notion that everything we do at ArnoldIT.com should be 100 percent on the Web strikes me as premature if not wacky.
Here’s the passage that made me realize that Google may have lots of smart people, but it does have some unusual ideas for me:
Most of all, Remley [a Google employee] argued, Google’s services represent an opportunity for IT teams to unburden themselves from patching and maintaining years’ worth of legacy systems. Not only is patching an unproductive use of IT time, but most organizations wind up running about six to eight weeks behind on implementing software patches, he said.
I applaud Google’s confidence in the cloud. Nevertheless, I will put this “100 percent” admonition in the circular file under “Baloney.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2011
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Patch: A Hobby Horse or a Derby Contender?
May 8, 2011
I found “Tim Armstrong’s Rambling Explanation Of What He’s Getting For Plowing $40 Million Into Patch” darned interesting. The magnetic pull of going local continues to exert a pull over former Googler Tim Armstrong. The write up features a long segment transcribed from an analyst’ phone call. I have read a few of these transcripts, and there are typographical errors. My hunch is that over time the revisionists will explain the comments. In that spirit, I want to highlight one segment and offer a couple of observations from the perspective of search and retrieval:
And job one is getting consumer traffic going. Job two is on the advertising front. And Patch is basically being monetized right now almost 100% by local zip code level advertisers or people.
The only hitch in the git along is that I don’t run across Patch in Harrod’s Creek. The local ad market is tough to reach, lacking in know how and resources, and generally interested in paper coupons to putting big mobile signs in front of the fish joint on the creek’s side. Local news, well. There’s not much. My hunch is that other services are serving the needs of the technically hip. Others in Harrod’s Creek are oblivious.
Searching for local information is tough, and I don’t see AOL becoming the go to way to find a pizza joint or a fried catfish sandwich.
Patch. Puzzling. More like a hobby horse than a derby contender. Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2011
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Investors Shun Google CEO
May 8, 2011
E-Commerce Times has reported in it’s article “Google Investors’ Motto: Don’t Be Youthful” that investors are essentially dropping Google stock that was down and continues to fluctuate after Google’s recent earnings report. E-Commerce Times thinks one reason may be that some investors see Larry Page, Google co-founder and newly appointed CEO, as too inexperienced to run the sprawling company.
That type of chatter may make work a more challenging for Larry Page. Imagine that you helped to build a company from the ground up and then your investors didn’t think you were mature enough to run it. Let’s be fair, it’s not as if Mr. Page were a teenager that makes rash business decisions, he’s a 38 year old grown man perfectly capable of running a company.
The “Don’t be youthful” idea seems to suggest that Mr. Page is perceived as focusing on pet projects as well as Google’s main goal of increasing shareholder value. Google is a successful company. However, if investors see Google shares at a peak, Google could face stakeholder push back.
The article said:
Google is an exemplar of innovation in some areas, but in others it loses site of the proper process innovation requires, said Mark Faust, author of the book Growth or Bust! and head of Echelon Management International, pointing to the much-hyped driverless car concept. There is no doubt the founders are creative and technically savvy, he told the E-Commerce Times — it is just that some feel they lucked into successful business models that weren’t initially their strategic choice.
Google faces a number of Beat the Clock trials. The specter of Facebook capturing a larger percentage of the online display advertising business looms. The problems with various legal matters are annoying at best and at worst can lead to reversals that make headlines. Finally, the effort to improve the relevance of search results continues to roil the search engine optimization sector.
Maybe E-Commerce Times is wrong headed? On the other hand, maybe not.
Cynthia Murrell, May 8, 2011
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Anonymous Uploads to a Murdoch Property
May 7, 2011
Short honk: I just wanted to document the me too play from the Wall Street Journal. I learned about the Wikileaks clone from “The Wall Street Journal Launches a WikiLeaks Competitor, SafeHouse.” There is quite a bit of controversy and risk involved in doing the Wikileaks thing. My view is that uploading to a newspaper in today’s politically sensitive environment is going to be interesting. How quickly will those anonymous documents and the usage logs become bed time reading? Not long. No house is safe in my experience when certain folks want to enter. Yep, interesting idea. I think the parent company is trying to buy the F1 racing series too. Synergy!
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2011
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Palantir Needs and Gets More Investment Money
May 7, 2011
Palantir caught my attention when it became involved in a messy law suit that was settled out of court. There was another dust up, but I don’t want to drag that cat through the door. “SEC Watch: Palantir Technologies Raises $50 Million In New Funding” said:
According to an SEC filing, the company has just raised $50 million in new funding. This would bring Palantir’s total funding to $175 million.
That’s a great deal of dough. My view is that Palantir is making sales but having to work hard to deliver. Killer graphics are one thing. The system and method to make the data sing is expensive. What happens if the engineers hit a rough patch? I don’t want to think about that nor do the folks who are betting big bucks that Palantir will emerge a winner.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2011
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As Search and Analytics Merge: Visualizations Surge
May 7, 2011
“6 Great Data Visualization Applications” provides some interesting screen shots and links to exemplary graphical presentations of result sets. The drivers for visualization are MBAs looking to add sizzle to their otherwise narcotized PowerPoints and big data. When running a query against petabytes of data, a laundry list is essentially useless. With top results distorted by spam and SEO machinations, I find it difficult to pinpoint what I need to answer a question. I find myself falling back on traditional research methods such as notecards, looking up information in books (printed and digital), and talking to people who allegedly know their stuff.
Assume you want some snappy visualizations. The article from Techlozenge will help you out. You get a screen shot and a brief description of six tools. These include:
- DiskSpaceFan
- Google Chart Tools
- Mindmap
- Newsmap
- Treesize Free
- WinDirStat
Of this group, I found the Newsmap and Google Chart Tools links the most useful. You may want to take a look at these examples. Keep in mind that these are not industrial strength toolsets like those provided with Palantir and Digital Reasoning. The idea is to provide some examples.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2011
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Google: Search to Knowledge
May 6, 2011
Short honk: Knowledge is a sticky wicket. When I was working on a PhD, one of my advisors was the fellow for whom I was indexing Latin sermons. His name was Arthur Barker. In his spare time, he cranked out bibliographies and studies of topics best not discussed among search engine optimization experts, poobahs, and technology satraps. I recall one conversation in which he complained about the problem of knowledge. My recollection is that he suggested knowledge was a slippery fish. Epistemology, hermeneutics, and other hot topics left “knowledge” poorly defined. What did I know? I was indexing medieval Latin. Who needed knowledge for what in 1968 was pretty much irrelevant to everyone in the world. Flash forward to my reading “Why Google Renamed Its Search Group ‘Knowledge’”. Google has put one of its HP hires in charge of search which is now called knowledge. Check out the original article. You will undoubtedly understand it. Forget Fichte. Don’t say Kant. Google’s got knowledge nailed or Knolled.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2011
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Old Newspapers, Now in Jpeg Format
May 6, 2011
In a former work life, some of my colleagues had a brush with microfilming newspapers. Yep, microfilm, chemicals, scratches, and EPA baiting effluvia.Imagine my surprise when I read about Smart Team’s new solution to hard copy information in “OCR Newspaper, are you kidding me?” The company’s Steven Wang allegedly said:
Smart Team has built a solution for a global news agency to Full-Page-OCR its millions of decade old newspaper archive in jpeg format. The solution is built upon Autonomy Teleform and LiquidOffice. The whole solution let the agents to snatch paragraphs and pictures on the image, auto OCR the content, then verify and eventually export the content into the Newspaper Archive, a data warehouse, and index them into Autonomy IDOL.
This is an interesting use of technology. The write-up lists several challenges that have deterred this attempt in the past and describes how Smart Team has overcome them. The ability to convert optical scans into semantically-searchable data is quite an accomplishment. According to the firm’s Web site:
Smart Team is a software service firm focused on providing Enterprise Software solutions, specialized on customization and integration around Autonomy, Zeus products. We continue to add new modules to our SMART Library and provide outstanding support services to support your organization…
The choice of Autonomy as an engine or platform is a good one. Hopefully the company will find a market. Libraries once were hungry for certain types of material in image form. With constrained budgets, sales may require time and effort.
Cynthia Murrell May 6, 2011
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Google in TV Marketing and PR Storm
May 6, 2011
Two items caught my attention today (May 4, 2011). First, I noticed the New York Times’s story “Google Takes to TV to Promote Browser.” The link may go dead or cost money so you will have to track down a hard copy or turn a cartwheel.) The point of the story is that the Google TV in its various incarnations did not light a fire here in Harrod’s Creek nor elsewhere. How does Google fix this? The New York Times astutely points out that marketing is needed. Okay, but I was thinking a product that solved a problem would be useful too. The write up is a long one and it dances around the big story for me: Google has to figure out how to market a consumer product. Microsoft takes three shots before sinking a short jumper. How many for Google? More than one for certain.
The second item is the big marketing and PR push for Chrome. Is Chrome an operating system? Is Chrome a browser? Is Chrome both? I still wonder how Chrome complements or competes with Android. The article I read was “Chrome Ads Are Google’s Biggest Offline Campaign Ever.” With Google’s formidable online advertising system, why does Google rely on old-fashioned, “offline” ads? If Google’s online marketing system won’t work for Google, will that alert those who think like me that Adwords is not enough? I can only speak for myself. The answer is, “Yes, Google’s use of offline advertising calls into question the efficacy of its own online system.”
Google’s offline method is working. In fact, here’s a somewhat interesting factoid from the Huffington Post write up:
Last month, Google’s chief financial officer Patrick Pichette told analysts, “On a tactical basis, everybody that uses Chrome is a guaranteed locked-in user for us in terms of having access to Google.” As with many of its videos, Google said that the ad tells a true story, though it changed the real names and used actors. The spots lack the playful aesthetic of earlier Chrome campaigns, but they’re clearly going for a wider audience. Today’s ad, It Gets Better, has already racked up over 170,000 views and mixes YouTube videos, Blogger and news videos. It tells the story of the It Gets Better project for LGBT teens facing harassment through Google Chrome.
Using both online and offline media to sell a message makes sense. But—and this is a lingering but—why does Google TV and Google Chrome warrant such massive reworking, remessaging, and remarketing? My hunch is that Google may be reacting to signals predicting a slow uptake. Which is easier? Develop a product that people want or must have or leave the product pretty much undifferentiated and throw money into the marketing and PR department’s cubicles.
Apple does the “need and want” thing. Google seems to be doing what US auto makers did in the 1970s: good old fashioned marketing and PR. What happened to good old innovation in search?
The Google is ageing, maybe maturing. Let marketing shoulder the bags of rice.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2011
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