Is Local Search a Dead Cert Service? Nope.
September 14, 2011
Local search reviews play an increasingly important role for businesses. When is the last time you checked your phone book to find a good restaurant or see the best place to get a manicure? Exactly. You pick up your smartphone, tablet, or laptop and search for the best restaurant, store, or shop in your given area. Internet businesses like Yelp and CitySearch have sprung up in response to such local search needs. Yellow Pages or Yellow Book has even reinvented itself to keep up with the times.
Search Engine Journal goes over the basics of managing reviews for local business in, “The 3 Pillars of Local Search Reviews.”
“If you do one thing right in local, make it your reviews. Build on a strong and diverse platform that will allow you roll with the changes with ease because your strategy will be based on pillars.”
The author maintains that the sound strategy for managing business reviews is not to tailor your strategy for any particular service, but rather to stick to the basics, the three pillars.
- Diversify your reviews by providing customers links to several different review services.
- Obtain consistent reviews by mechanizing review requests and ensuring there is a steady stream at any given time.
- Provide reliable reviews by allowing any and all reviews, even non-favorable ones, to be seen and read. Sounds like good solid business advice, just updated a bit to keep with the times.
Our view is that local search is more likely to be subject to distortion, either intentional or unintentional than a general purpose Web search. Just our view. If you disagree, use the comments section.
Stephen E Arnold, September 14, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
SQL Injection: Knowledge Prevents Problems
September 14, 2011
Our modern lives are controlled by databases: health records, financial records, education records, and online search. Even when you are not personally interfacing with a database, there is usually one behind the scenes controlling your enrollment, appointment time, or access to any given record. SQL is a computer database language used to write or create such databases and is vulnerable to hacking through a technique called SQL injection.
SQL injection exploits a security vulnerability in the database layer of an application, like queries. It’s considered one of the top 10 web application security vulnerabilities. Our culture of free access to information can be used for good or for evil. One example is this SQL Injection Pocket Reference.
Freely available on the Web, this pocket guide explains the ins and outs of SQL injection. The author could argue that this guide helps creators build more secure databases by recognizing mistakes in the framework or areas of weakness. However, a stronger argument could be made that such a reference is more of a “hacking for dummies” guidebook than anything else. Anyone who’s ever suffered an email or bank account hack would like to see such information be a little harder to find.
We are not fans of hacker related information or the hacker ethos. Information can prevent missteps. We suggest you consider learning about SQL injection and then double checking that you are not vulnerable.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 14, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Protected: CSS Reference Chart for SharePoint 2010
September 14, 2011
Search Share Drop for Google: Should You Care?
September 14, 2011
What is Google’s search engine share? I don’t think it is what the outfits reporting the league table are accurate. I have commented upon the problems of figuring out traffic many times, and I am will not retravel a well worn path, You can hit the Burger King’s of sampling, smoothing, and statistical fancy dancing yourself. The actual traffic to a Web site is often a dark mystery even to those with access to Web logs.
For an example of the recent tempest in a not so small tea pot, navigate to “Google Search Falls Below 65% as Yahoo, Bing Gain”. The news is that Bing is up and Google is down. How much? Well, the Google drop off is reported to be “64.8 percent from 65.1 percent in July [2011, according to comScore.”]
Anyone remember how confidence levels work? Nah, I don’t think that matters at many places.
But, just for fun, let’s assume that Google is losing market share. The first question I would ask is, “How is overall Web traffic behaving?” Without context, the performance of a particular service is interesting but sort of floating out there without an anchor. The next question is, “What is the relative gain on non search systems which perform finding?” There are apps that search. There are social sites like Facebook.
What will happen if the Google does lose traffic? I think that there will be some significant and tough to overlook changes in how the Google does business. One non search example is the hike in prices for the enterprise app engine. I drop in Web traffic is likely to make Panda look like a toothless lap dog.
I see some warning signs of softening in online ads. One high profile example is the Groupon fatigue. Another is the drift toward mobile search. The behavior of mobile users, according to our research, is different from desktop boat anchor searching. For now, the reports of a decline are little more than suggestive. More data are needed. When a shift changes, we won’t learn about it from the services doing the reporting. That is rear view mirror stuff. For now, I don’t care. Your mileage may vary.
Stephen E Arnold, September 14, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
HP Autonomy: Oh, Oh
September 13, 2011
Short honk: I don’t know what this means, but I wanted to document it. The story “DealBook: H.P. Extends Autonomy Offer” said:
Autonomy investors have been slow to accept the deal, with just 41.62 percent tendering their shares as of Monday [September 12, 2011].
If I had any shares, I would have stepped up to sell those puppies in a New York minute. That’s a heck of an offer, but there is some heel dragging. Maybe an error?
Stephen E Arnold, September 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
IBM, Natural Language PR, and Television
September 13, 2011
I read “IBM and Jeopardy! Relive History with Encore Presentation of Jeopardy!: The IBM Challenge.” Frankly with TV in the summer slump, a reprise of the competition between IBM and humans is not likely to kick off the fall TV season with a bang. Reruns are, in fact, recycled information.
The idea is that on September 12, 13, and 14, 2011, I can watch humans match wits with IBM’s natural language search system, Watson.
Now Watson, based on what I have heard, is quite a lot of Lucene (an open source search system which IBM uses in its OmniFind 9.x product), and an extremely large database of analytics and content. To some degree it is not too different from having Wikipedia on your hard drive with IBM’s highly customized proprietary software.
To make Watson work, IBM needed three key ingredients: (a) very large systems – ninety IBM Power 750 servers with four 8-core processors each (2880 cores total!), (b) numerous engineers from the IBM R&D Labs, and (c) an army of technicians to baby sit the machine and database. Watson does not understand spoken speech, but like the computer on my desk, Watson can accept typed inputs. Watson also does not work from my iPad or my mobile phone.
While it is a solid achievement and nice step forward for Natural Language, the reality is that Watson is pretty much a raw demo from the R&D labs, and the Jeopardy! angle is an expensive and somewhat amusing marketing play. Not many Jeopardy! watchers are going to license IBM’s natural language processing technology. A better question is, “How many Jeopardy! watchers know what natural language processing is anyway?”
The problem for me is that television is not the real world. Reality shows are loosely scripted. When I see a commercial television production, the operative word is postproduction. The video wizards snip and segue to make the talent and the floor personnel, the writers, the sound team, the videographers, and the teleprompter operator fuse as a seamless whole.
But let’s look at Watson’s impact in the commercial software world. Jeopardy! is a show and the Watson system and content is highly customized to the show. In applying Watson to the real world, I personally have some doubts about how “smart” Watson is. Watson has potential but clearly needs much more work to prove it can be applied to everyday business problems due to the immaturity of the technology and the tremendously high cost of the systems and the databases involved.
Watson Is Back from Medical Leave to Your Enterprise?
September 13, 2011
You know Watson. The software system that wraps Lucene so it can answer questions on a scripted reality TV game show. “Lights. Camera. Action. Retake. Can it.” That’s reality TV when it meets super searching technology from IBM.
EWeek thinks that “IBM’s Watson Could Shake Up The Enterprise.” Craig Rhinehart, head of IBM’s enterprise content management (ECM) division, says using the technology behind the Jeopardy!– winning machine for ECM is a no-brainer. The wealth of unstructured data that companies have been collecting is the perfect target for Watson’s decision engine. Writer David Jamieson comments,
This unstructured data – in human language, not computer language – represents about 80 percent of the data hoarded by the enterprise, according to Rhinehart. And there is valuable information contained within that NLP [Natural Language Processing] can unlock, revealing trends and insights to be acted upon.
Rhinehart emphasizes that Watson’s technology is not a search tool, but a “decision support tool.” This means users have to refine their queries, but in exchange they get the advanced natural language algorithms Watson is famous for. With them, companies can make important correlations that lead to increased revenue and/or decreased losses. Areas that could particularly benefit are ones brimming with data, like healthcare and law.
Does “decision support’ sound like Microsoft’s “decision engine” angle? It does to us.
IBM has much invested in content management and analytics, and the technology behind Watson is the prize. One may be tempted to dismiss the whole Jeopardy! appearance as a publicity gimmick. What’s the promotional hook for the enterprise? A free mainframe with Lotus Notes with every Watson licensed? If so, we want one. We can decide without asking Watson too.
Cynthia Murrell, September 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Next Generation Ads: Laser Dots on Your Forehead
September 13, 2011
Targeted broadcasts may be the next step in maintaining our ever-increasingly niche specific interests. With real-time analytics, news writers and editors now have another tool to use to construct our generation’s version of journalism. Wired reports on this with their article “Real-Time analytics Turn the Web into a Targeted Broadcast.”
Analytics obviously are not a new concept. Anyone with a WordPress blog can check out how many users view their site and other related statistics.
Chartbeat has been offering analytics to mainly e-commerce sites since 2009. Now, the same company tailors this service for reporters with Newsbeat, the brand-new real-time analytics tool.
We learned the following information from the Wired article:
News editors want to know where their readers are coming from, what content they’re engaging with, whether their social media campaigns are working, which new headlines are luring readers in and which new advertisements may be turning them off.
All of this data allows news sites to match their stories to interested readers—sounds great.
However, it would be interesting to know if certain content is filtered. If this is the case, then how will people not involved in an event or activity receive information?
Megan Feil, September 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Baidu-Bing Partnership Still on Track
September 13, 2011
Search Engine Watch sees opportunity in the Baidu Bing partnership; see “Bada Bing! It’s Baidu Bing- English Search Marketing in China.” Chinese search engine Baidu is on the move.
Writer Michael Bonfils describes the deal wherein Microsoft’s Bing will fill the void left by Google, who famously beat feet in response to China’s censorship requirements. Google’s withdrawal left Baidu’s English language features unfulfilled. Apparently, Microsoft is willing to work with that government on content control in order to corner this market.
Bonfils suggests companies take advantage of the change (see the article for accompanying screenshots):
Say, for example, you go to Baidu.com and search for [SAP software]. You’ll see Baidu’s advertisements and listings as normal, but lower down the page, you will see three indented listings with a ‘provided by Bing message’ over these. Click on the Bing logo and you’ll be redirected to Bing’s search results for the same query. In terms of maximizing search, getting great top three positioning in Bing and Baidu for your English keywords, along with a Baidu paid search campaign, would result in three well-placed positions on the Baidu page.
He acknowledges that an English set of webmaster tools and a better English paid search ad platform would help, and hopes to see them incorporated.
The project is expected to be completed in full by the end of the year.
Cynthia Murrell, September 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Disruption Oversimplification: Is Search Taking a Hit?
September 13, 2011
Bear with me here: Techdirt has published “Intellectual Ventures’ Response To This American Life: Oh Those Crazy Reporters Don’t Understand Disruption.” In this piece, writer Mike Masnick criticizes this blog post at Intellectual Ventures: “Disruption Invites Controversy.” That post was itself a defense against accusations made in “When Patents Attack! Act One” by This American Life on NPR.
That’s a lot of back and forth. We’re not going to weigh in here on whether companies like Intellectual Ventures (IV) are indeed evil “patent trolls.”
What we take issue with is the philosophical view of disruption represented here. In this context, disruption is a development in a given market that forces all participants to change how they do business. In other words, progress. Disruption may be inconvenient, but hey, that’s life.
In the Techdirt piece, Masnick says of the IV post,
The entirety of the blog post can be summed up in IV basically saying ‘we’re just too damn disruptive for those silly NPR reporters to understand us.’ But they don’t refute or respond to a single allegation from the report. Instead, they just use the word ‘disrupt’ (or disruptive/disruption/disrupting) five times in a short blog post. If they truly believe that it’s just that their business is ‘disruptive,’ then they could perhaps explain why IV patents of extremely questionable quality are being used to pressure tons of companies into paying large sums of money.
The point of view behind this assertion has the same problem as IV claiming credit for bringing disruption to the patent industry: disruption is not caused by one factor. We think it just looks that way and this outlook is a facile way to come to grips with events otherwise difficult to explain.
In search, for example, the disruption is the shift from search as the main event to more of a utility or tool function. The more significant shift is like the Exalead move to search based applications. Such shifts aren’t necessarily good or bad, just inexorable.
It’s tempting, especially in this sound-bite world, to simplify complex issues. However, such attempts only serve to confuse matters further.
Cynthia Murrell, September 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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