Taxonomy Meetings: Change in 2011 or a Realization?
January 26, 2012
Editor’s Note: Please see the full version of this article at Marjorie Hlava’s Taxodiary blog.
Where should a taxonomist go to learn about the latest implementations of controlled vocabulary strategies? The meetings we have attended for years are dying on the vine. The SLA Expo was sparse, the Information Today meetings are smaller, Online Information (formerly International Online) was nearly empty, and NFAIS remains the same size each year.
The Internet has made many things possible. We can convene a meeting electronically in a very short time. People have turned increasingly to webinars and web searching. We follow blogs to read opinions and discussions. If we go to a meeting, we are expecting something else. We want to find community.
Selling of the speaking slots has had a deleterious effect on the quality of the meetings. The costs have reached a point where they no longer provide a good return on investment. But more than that, the challenge remains: how do you get a sense of community?
There are several budding online communities, which seem to be flourishing. Taxonomy Community of practice is one; the Taxonomy Division of SLA is another. The rest are in user groups. Access Innovation’s Data Harmony User Group meeting will be held in Albuquerque February 7-9 2012. Come join the community!
Marjorie Hlava. January 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Sinequa bottles up Pernod Ricard
January 26, 2012
Leading global beverage distributor and producer Pernot Ricard has selected Sinequa to handle its growing data management needs, informs “Pernod Ricard Uses Sinequa to Offer All Its Employees Unified Access to Group Information” at Minesto.
Each separate division of Pernod Ricard, and there are many, has its own intra- or extra- net, and many also have their own Web sites. The press release asserts,
Sinequa was chosen for its ability to implement a solution offering multilingual natural language search and ability to connect quickly with all sources of documents. Indexing, classification and organization of documents of any type and any size has facilitated access for users and administrators with information present in multiple intranets and extranets.
In the future, Pernod Ricard intends to integrate Sinequa tools into its business applications. Sounds like they are happy with their choice.
Pernot Ricard is a global behemoth, producing and distributing many of the top inebriants, like Absolut vodka, Glenlivet scotch whisky, Beefeater gin. . . the list goes on and on. See here for their US page.
Sinequa’s 25 years in the semantics business uniquely equips them for such large-scale projects. In fact, their world-wide customer base includes a number of huge private and public organizations. The company prides itself on crafting intuitive solutions.
Cynthia Murrell, January 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Intellisophic: Formerly Indraweb
January 26, 2012
Founded in 1999 as Indraweb and changing its name in 2055, Intellisophic, Inc., is a privately-funded technology company that is the world’s largest provider of taxonomic content. Its technology, originating from the work of founders Henry Kon, PhD., George Burch, and Michael Hoey, is based on the premise that concepts within unstructured information can be systematically derived by leveraging the trusted taxonomies of the reference book community. Within this core idea, Intellisophic developed and patented the Orthogonal Corpus Indexing algorithm for extracting and using taxonomies from reference and education books.
During a stint as principal investigator for MIT’s Context Interchange, CTO Kon researched and implemented methodologies for enterprise integration of structured and semi-structured data over independently managed and disparate schema databases. He researched, designed, and prototyped integration engines for distributed multi-database query and caching over heterogeneous, distributed, and partially connected databases. As a member of MIT’s Composite Information Systems Laboratory, Kon published on multi-database integration engines and the use of ontology for bridging database schema. With Intellisophic, he has pioneered innovation in the conceptual management of unstructured information and in the integration of structured, semi-structured and unstructured content.
Intellisophic content is machine-developed, leveraging knowledge from respected referenceworks. The taxonomies are unbounded by subject coverage and are cost-effective to create. The taxonomy library covers several million topic areas defined by hundreds of millions of terms. In addition to taxonomic content, the company offers intelligent solutions, such as enterprise search and retrieval, business intelligence, categorization and classification, compliance management, portal infrastructure, social networking, content and knowledge management, electronic discovery, data warehousing, and government intelligence.
Its strategic alliance partners include Mark Logic, DataLever, SchemaLogic, DFI International, and Mosaic, Inc. Competitors Sandpiper, Intellidimension, and HighFleet. The depth and breadth of Intellisophic’s taxonomies, along with its support of the leading text mining, search, and categorization applications, make it a good solution for many industries. (I would not include Concept Searching or Ontoprise in this short list due to exogenous complexity factors.)
Stephen E Arnold, January 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Apple Google Thing: Some Thoughts about a Phase Change
January 25, 2012
I have done a bit more thinking about the search-related implications of Apple’s first quarter 2012 results. Google remains dominant in search. But I am formulating the hypothesis that Google is now on a knife edge and may already have started to slide down search mountain.
A happy quack to Net Giant.
Straight away let me say that Apple is happy with “good enough search.” I have had conflicting information about Apple’s apparent indifference to search and retrieval. If you want to locate a particular category of books in the iTunes’ online service, good luck. From its earliest days, the search function in iTunes has been less than satisfactory to me. But who cares? iTunes is part of the software fabric which Apple has woven right in front of Google’s, Amazon’s, and the entertainment industries’ snoots. Apple could not have been more upfront about search. Search is simply not Job One for an iTunes’ user. Why should it be? The service helps Apple generate revenues which have even the greediest MBA drooling.
I read “Apple’s Massive Numbers and Some Context.” My viewpoint is different, but I agree that something big has happened in the numbers and beyond. Here’s the passage I noted:
Towards the end of the earnings call, Tim Cook dropped a huge nugget of information: led by 15 million iPads sold last quarter, the tablet market is now larger than the entire desktop PC market. Someday in the not-too-distant future, the tablet market will be bigger than all of the PC market, he predicts. (Apple has sold 55 million iPads since the original launch in April 2010, Cook revealed.)
Need more proof? Read “Apple Reports First Quarter Results. Highest Quarterly Revenue and Earnings Ever. All-Time Record iPhone, iPad, and Mac Sales.” You can find many pundits, poobahs, and disinformationists explaining why Apple is generating so much dough, selling so many gizmos, and achieving at least momentarily the highest market capitalization in the history of greed.
But there’s an important aspect of these revenue figures which caught my attention. Here’s the point:
Apple has downsized, marginalized, and subordinated search across its range of products. Key word search is a desktop search service. The youth of the world has moved on.
Why is this important to me? Here are the reasons:
Search is now a tertiary operation. Top finding methods are apps. Then there are Web pages with exposed links or facets. Last is good old key word search. Yep, it is time to forget the search as the reason a person uses some type of electronic gizmo. I want to make a distinction between “findability” and “search”. Apple does a pretty good job of making information findable. Whether it is the native search function in OS X or the hot links scattered across Web pages and applications or mobile apps themselves, most folks regardless of age can make Apple machines work. Forget where a document is? Apple provides numerous “punch-the-button, dummy” options.
Protected: SharePoint Joins the iPad Revolution
January 25, 2012
SharePoint How-To: Keep It Simple
January 25, 2012
There is a saying in the library world, and apparently a version has made its way into the SharePoint world. This version is, “Make it easier to use than not to use and it will get used.” We could all learn a thing a two from this principle, but let’s look at what Kerri Abraham has to say about SharePoint in, “Give Them Instructions!”
Referring to the principle above, Abraham says:
Someone in the SharePoint community used this quote in a webinar I watched years ago and it has never left me, I find myself quoting it often because it is just dorky (and easy) enough to remember. And again, proves the point that easy sells! The real gauge of an elegant solution is in its ease of use, not in how complicated it was to build. So how do I make SharePoint easy? I provide great instructions. I test solutions with users and think creatively about how they might end up frustrated or lost and include those tips in the how-to. Then I place the link at the top of the page for a consistent method of presentation.
It is worth taking a look at Abraham’s entry and viewing her instructive photos and screenshots. Ultimately, the point is well taken. Give clear instructions, make it simple, and any organization’s SharePoint installation will be cleaner and more efficient. However, we also think that third-party enterprise solutions often offer a platform that is more intuitive and easier to use out-of-the-box. One we particulary like is Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Read what the Upper Austria Chamber of Commerce had to say about the Mindbreeze ease of use:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise enables access to information from various data repositories throughout the organization (such as e-mail systems, file systems, data bases). By expanding the scope of Fabasoft Mindbreeze, the service center staff is now able to receive all relevant information at a glance with only one search query. The simple and intuitive user interface eliminates the need for time intensive training.
Abraham’s creative solution for implementing instructions might help end users with the everyday functions of SharePoint. If additional efficiency is required, research Fabasoft Mindbreeze and see if it can meet your organization’s enterprise needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Mobile Apps Reign Supreme Over the Web
January 25, 2012
A recent study by Flurry Analytics shows that American consumers are now using mobile apps more than they are using the web. The article “Mobile Apps Put the Web in Their Rear-view Mirror” reports that “Flurry compares how daily interactive consumption has changed over the last 12 months between the web (both desktop and mobile web) and mobile native apps.”
It took less than three years for mobile apps to overtake web use.
“Flurry found that the average user now spends 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet. This was not the case just 12 months ago. Last year, the average user spent just under 43 minutes a day using mobile applications versus an average 64 minutes using the Internet.”
They found that consumers use half of their time using game apps, while spending a third of their time using social networking apps which equals ” whopping 79% of consumers’ total app time.”
Even though games and the social network currently dominate the mobile app usage, it is only a matter of time before professional and work apps become commonplace. Product manufacturing is already seeing a shift. Recently, software solutions company, Inforbix introduced it mobile app which allows users to search and access CAD and engineering product data on-the-go from the iPad. This is just the tip of the iceberg for mobiles apps. Their popularity will continue to grow and it will go well beyond Facebook and Farmville.
Jennifer Wensink, January 25, 2012
TwitWipe Allows Room for Regret
January 25, 2012
The introduction of Facebook Timeline has made quite a few users uncomfortable. Users of such social media outlets, especially the public forum Twitter, may have second thoughts about postings and revealing their entire past.
A service created in 2009 by Aalaap Ghag is becoming popular with Twitter users. The service, TwitWipe, allows users to easily erase all of their previously posted Twitter messages. The article on Mashable, “TwitWipe Gives You a Fresh Start by Deleting All Your Tweets” tells us more:
Do you feel like everything you’ve done for the last few years is recorded by Twitter’s eternal digital record? A new service, TwitWipe, can get rid of all your carefully crafted (and less carefully crafted) 140-character messages Rather than creating a new account, TwitWipe allows you to keep all of your followers, favorited tweets and people you’re following.
However, if you’re interested, you better hurry. This may be disabled soon. Users should also be aware that all Tweets in the public Twitter timeline are recorded in the Library of Congress, anyway. Hurry. We have heard that there are moves afoot to prevent social content from deletion. Best bet? Don’t post on social media. How’s that sound, you 900 million social media users?
Andrea Hayden, January 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Deciphering Acronyms
January 25, 2012
Almost all companies, organizations, clubs and even schools use abbreviations and acronyms to represent their name and some even use the same or similar acronyms. It can be confusing to keep up with them all. According to founder Alex Rhadyushin, Acronyms.com started out as a private website developed by a group of college students and in 2005 it was opened to the public. A statement located on the site states:
The main purpose of All Acronyms is to have a convenient lookup Web tool for those who need to quickly find an acronym definition or need to abbreviate a particular word or phrase.
Visitors can also suggest acronyms definitions that they would like the site to offer. After doing a few searches, All Acronyms.com has made me a believer. The site is easy to maneuver and more importantly gives accurate and thorough results. I was impressed with how extensive the search results were. There is a definite need for the site and the fact that it’s easy to use and even better free, makes it’s a clear cut winner.
April Holmes, January 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Excellence in Search or Anything Else Slipping?
January 25, 2012
US lawmakers are called out for being willing to sabotage American products in “American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted For Anything” at Falkvinge & Co. The arguments over SOPA have revealed representatives’ true colors, charges Rick Falkvinge. The article asserts:
In the debate around the American Stop Online Piracy Act, American legislators have demonstrated a clear capability and willingness to interfere with the technical operations of American products, when doing so furthers American political interests regardless of the policy situation in the customer’s country. Actually, it’s even worse: American legislators have demonstrated a willingness to do this just because of the different laws in the customer’s country, outside of the United States.
The ramifications of such an attitude are be greater than might appear at first glance; most of the world’s governments and global entities are built on hardware and software from American companies.
Other countries seem to be moving to curb their reliance on American technology. Extreme Tech announces, “Russia Building 10-Petaflop Supercomputer, Joins China in Search of Less US Tech Dependence.” Now, the Russian computer of this headline is still built on US hardware. However, the article mentions that China is now building a supercomputer entirely out of home-grown tech.
Hmm. Are these countries really trying to protect themselves from dependence on US made products? Maybe Russia and China are just moving ahead of the US. It isn’t always about us.
By the way, Russia’s Yandex is an excellent search engine for both Russian and English content.
Cynthia Murrell, January 25, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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