Facebook Called to Improve Search Functionality to Compete
September 10, 2012
A call for Facebook to do a better job with on-site search is being repeated from leading advertising industry analysts. One of the next steps for the social networking giant needs to be integrating on-site search and ad targeting functions regarding these searches. In an article on MediaPost titled, “Facebook Must Improve Site Search to Stay Competitive,” we learn that better site search could (and should) improve ROI for advertisers on the social networking site.
The article also informs us:
“For Facebook to ‘truly go after Google’ it will need to compete in search, and Google must go after social to compete with Facebook, according to Brian Solis, principal at research group Altimeter Group, and Pivot conference editorial director. ‘It took years for Google to create an algorithm to serve up the correct pages from a search query, but Facebook doesn’t have the luxury of time,’ he said.”
With the stock price looking anemic, Facebook may want to follow advice and get in gear. No one at the company would respond to comments, but it is predicted that revenue should begin to increase if Facebook continues to roll out new ad products and improve search functionality of the site.
Andrea Hayden, September 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Wapedia Makes Mobile Device Searching More Efficient
September 9, 2012
Mobile device searching can prove difficult, even with mesmerizing products such as Apple’s Siri. A good go-to resource to try when looking for information on your cell phone or tablet is Wapedia from Wikipedia. The mobile version of the well-loved free online encyclopedia makes standard Wikipedia pages viewable on smaller displays, reduces image sizes, and includes a search engine independent of Wikipedia servers. The Wapedia page tells us more about the technology:
“Wapedia offers the most recent version of every article, which is done by using a combination of a proxy-like behavior and a local article database. This combination provides both high speed and up-to-date articles and low load and traffic for the Wikipedia servers. The copying of data is one way, from Wikipedia to Wapedia, and so Wapedia does not offer the ability to edit pages. Edits must be made to the original page on the Wikipedia site, which propagate through to Wapedia over time.”
Versions for Apple devices, Android, and WebOS applications exist. This mobile solution injects adverts directly into the Wikipedia articles through HTML or in the applications. We think this search solution from the free-content giant is impressive and think other companies and app-developers should take note of the technology.
Andrea Hayden, September 09, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
BBC Olympic Web Site Focused on Automatic Curation
September 9, 2012
A technical blog post from the BBC Internet blog, “More Traffic, More Videos, More Screens: Building the BBC’s Olympic Site,” strives to inform readers of challenges faced in the development of the site and apps surrounding the Olympic online products. A high traffic load and consistent flows of content obviously posed some issues. Data needed to be live and comprehensive.
We learn from the article:
“The Dynamic Semantic Publishing (DSP) model, which understands relationships (triples) between all content and concepts, is the process that ensures everything automatically appears in the right place. All created content, including stories, medals, and world records, are tagged (normally automatically) with the appropriate athletes, sports and countries. This causes the content to appear on the appropriate page without human intervention.
In essence, it’s this automatic curation of pages that has allowed us to offer such a broad range of product.”
It seems that in the attempt to develop the site and apps, search was not emphasized and the focus was on automatic curation. We wonder if users were able to sort through this excess of data to find specific events at the correct times. We believe a higher focus on search and manual data management would be useful in these types of situations as opposed to automatic curation.
Andrea Hayden, September 09, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Gadget Makers Face Identity Crisis
September 9, 2012
The problem of convergence is now upon the slew of gadget makers in the tech world. HP and Samsung are just two companies that are part of a growing trend of “hybrid PCs” which are attempting to combine tablets and laptops. A Fast Company article, “HP, Samsung Face Identity Crisis With Tablet-Laptop Hybrids,” shares the woes of these purpose-confused devices. The makers of the products are attempting to ensure that consumers know that these are not simply tablets with removable keyboards, which they are.
The article asserts:
“Apple, from its perch high above as the top seller of tablets, has avoided this problem altogether, and watched as its competitors have struggled to differentiate their products. ‘Anything can be forced to converge,’ Apple CEO Tim Cook [said.] ‘The problem is that the [converged] products are about tradeoffs: You begin to make tradeoffs to the point where what you have left at the end of day is not pleasing to anyone. Some people will prefer to have both [together], but to make the compromise of convergence–we’re not going to that party. Others might, but we’re going to play them both [separately].’
Added Cook, ‘You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are not going to be pleasing to the user.’”
The identity crisis in the gadget world leaves consumers confused and unsure of what is really necessary for their needs. Vendors trying to solve the problem by combining products may overwhelm their target audience. If Mr. Cook is correct, these vendors are in for a long 2013.
Andrea Hayden, September 09, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Amazon and Search: Another Google Snub?
September 8, 2012
I have pointed out the problems I have encountered when using Amazon’s native search system. I read “Big Win for Microsoft: Bing Is the Default Search Engine on the Kindle Fire HD.” My hopes rose then fell. The search by Bing is for the new Kindle Fire’s Web search box. Amazon seems to be taking a baby step toward a more robust search solution but, if the story is accurate, not for those who have to cope with the native search system at Amazon.com.
One other thought: Amazon used Android to get rolling in the tablet sector. Then Amazon did its own app store and Android tablet users are only, sort of welcome. Now Amazon is embracing Microsoft Bing.
The dreams of some for a Google-zon seem to be out of reach now. The MBAs wanting the GOOG to buy Amazon to get a solution to the somewhat disappointing Google Shopping service may have to wait even longer.
Amazon seems to be willing to tangle with both Apple and Google. Who would have thought that ebook commerce would spawn a WalMart killer, a Netflix killer, and maybe an Apple and Google killer.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Multi-Billion Hewlett-Packard Loss is Sign of the Times
September 8, 2012
I can across some surprising news today while browsing The Inquirer about a worrying financial situation for Hewlett-Packard. In the article, “HP’s EDS Write-Off Hides Deeper Problems,” we learn that apparently servers, networking, and even ink sales are down. But the $8.9 billion third quarter loss is mostly attributed to the write-off of its purchase of Electronic Data Systems from General Motors in 2008.
The article informs us about the company’s situation:
“For HP, the only ray of light was its software business, to which [former CEO] Apotheker added the British based Autonomy. Given that many thought that HP had overpaid for Autonomy when it shelled out over $10bn last year for a company that barely makes $250m in profit a year, there could well be another write-down in the future unless HP does a better job of integrating the firm than it did with EDS.”
All but one of HP’s business units saw a decline in revenue, so the focus should likely be on more than just the mismanaged purchase of EDS. We think this serious problem is being masked by multi-billion dollar write-offs. It is apparent that server and PC vendors are all having trouble distinguishing themselves from the cloud crowd, and not even established brands are safe.
Andrea Hayden, September 08, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
KiteDesk Aggregates Cloud Services with Actionable Data
September 8, 2012
KiteDesk, a company focused on integrating multiple cloud services in one location, got a major redesign this week for the company’s official launch. According to the article released about the service on Tech Crunch, titled “KiteDesk Goes Where Greplin Failed: Aggregates Cloud Services for Search, Discovery & Interoperability,” the platform lets users connect email, contacts, calendar events, documents from social networking, and more in your KiteDesk account. From there, you can search all of these services at once and organize the data. KiteDesk is not the first company to try to aggregate the cloud, but most other startups have not fared well.
The article gives this insight:
“[…]KiteDesk co-founder and CEO Jack Kennedy says that he thinks companies that have attempted to compete in this space have been too narrowly focused to achieve the goals that are emerging for this class of software. ‘We see Personalized Information as a “Macro Trend” that’s buttressed by other trends like BYOD, consumerization of I.T., and a gradually diminishing line between personal and professional systems,’ he explains.”
KiteDesk may succeed where others have failed by focusing more on letting users move files between services and creating streams to customize data instead of simply searching and sharing. The company is currently taking sign-ups for the free service and we look forward to seeing more from this niche.
Andrea Hayden, September 08, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
WAND Releases New Taxonomy Word List
September 8, 2012
The Wand Inc blog recently reported on the newest addition to the WAND Taxonomy Library in the post “WAND Sales and Marketing Taxonomy Now Available.”
According to the article, the new taxonomy expands the foundation of sales and marketing terminology for WAND. It has 443 categories and 167 synonyms covering all important sales and marketing concepts including promotion, advertising, market research, pricing, product, market segmentation and sales channels.
The post recommends this taxonomy foundation as the most efficient way to tag your documents and expand upon it:
“If you are trying to tag and organize documents for a sales and marketing group, this taxonomy is ideal as a foundation to get you started. It can be easily customized for your organization with things like specific customer lists, specific sales channels and regions, and more.”
In addition to this it is ready for use right out of the box for SharePoint, Oracle Webcenter, Documentum, and more. WAND specializes in developing pre-built taxonomies that cover a wide variety of domains and fields. This is an excellent solution to try out if you are looking to expand your sales and marketing taxonomy.
Jasmine Ashton, September 08, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Findability and French Search Vendor Names
September 7, 2012
The findability crisis is escalating. There are three reasons. First, companies have ignored the importance of ensuring their company name is findable in the main search indexes. Second, companies have tried to be cute, using odd ball spellings or phrases which are ambiguous. Third, marketers assume that a Web site and some sales people will keep the firm’s identify strong.
I am working of a project which requires me to examine the positioning of several French-owned search, analytics, and content processing companies. I don’t want to isolate any single company, but I want to do a quick run through of what I found when I sat down with a team of researchers who were gathering open source information for me.
Tricky spelling may not help. A happy quack to TheChive.com and http://www.buzzom.com/2010/08/top-5-hilarious-brand-knock-offs-by-china-in-india/
Ami Albert. This is the name I have in my files. The company is now AMI with the tagline “enterprise intelligence software.” A search for AMI on Google for “ami” returned zero links to the company. The older name “Ami Albert” returned a hit to a person named Ami Albert and about six hits down, there was a link to “Ami Software” at the non intuitive url www.amisw.com. The phrase “enterprise intelligence software” returned no hits on the first page of Google results for the “enterprise intelligence software” vendor. Adding “ami” to “enterprise intelligence software” did return links to the company. Conclusion: to find this company in a Web search index one has to know the older name (ami albert) or use the phrase “ami enterprise intelligence software” as a string. Guessing the url is tough because www.amisw.com is short but opaque. No big deal for my researchers. One wonders how many more customers the company could attract if it were more findable.
Antidot. The company uses a variant of “antidote.” If one knows how to spell the name of the company, Google delivers direct links to the company’s home page at www.antidot.net. However, when I ran the query for “antidot” in Yandex, I got the French company and a link to Antidot in Switzerland and www.antidotincl.ch.
Exalead. This is a unique name of a company. The product is called CloudView. A search for Exalead will get the researcher to Exalead’s main site or its search system. However, CloudView does not return a product link to Exalead or its parent Dassault Systèmes. The linkage between the identify of the company and the brand is tenuous. Product name blurring may not be a good thing for some at 3ds.com.
Polyspot. This French vendor dominates the first four hits on Google and maintains this findability across the public Web indexes. The company is also the first four hits on the Chinese government’s Chinese language search engine Jike.com. Another company uses the same name “polyspot.” The search vendor pushes down the plastic dot company, so semantic conflict is resolved in favor of Polyspot. Obviously Polyspot is doing something that the other French vendors are not in terms of brand.
Sinequa. This is a Latin phrase meaning something that is indispensable. There is a drug called “sinequan” which Google displays as an autocomplete option. The French vendor comes up as the top hit in Google. The company uses the phrase “unified information access,” which is also used by Attivio. In this naming example, two vendors roughly in the same business sector are using the identical phrase to describe their business. What is interesting is that Attivio, not Sinequa, has the strongest semantic grip on this phrase.
More Content Processing Brand Confusion
September 7, 2012
On a call with a so-so investment outfit once spawned from JP Morgan’s empire, the whiz kids on the call with me asked me to name some interesting companies I was monitoring. I spit out two or three. One name created a hiatus. The spiffy young MBA asked me, “Are you tracking a pump company?”
I realized that when one names search and content processing firms, the name of the company and its brand are important. I was referring to an outfit called “Centrifuge”, a firm along with dozens if not hundreds of others in the pursuit of the big data rainbow. The company has an interesting product, and you can read about the firm at www.centrifugesystems.com.
Now the confusion. Google thinks Centrifuge business intelligence is the same as centrifuge coolant sludge systems. Interesting.
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There is a pump and valve outfit called Centrifuge at www.centrisys.us. This outfit, it turns out, has a heck of a marketing program. Utilizing YouTube, a search for “centrifuge systems” returns a raft of information timber about viscosity, manganese phosphate, and lead dust slurry.
I have commented on the “findability” problem in the search, analytics, and content processing sector in my various writings and in my few and far between public speaking engagements. My 68 years weigh heavily on me when a 20-something pitches a talk in some place far from Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky.
The semantic difference between analytics and lead dust slurry is obvious to me. To the indexing methods in use at Baidu, Bing, Exalead, Google, Jike, and Yandex—not so much.
How big of a problem is this? You can see that Brainware, Sinequa, Thunderstone, and dozens of other content-centric outfits are conflated with questionable videos, electronic games, and Latin phrases. When looking for these companies and their brands via mobile devices, the findability challenge gets harder, not easier. The constant stream of traditional news releases, isolated blog posts, white papers which are much loved by graduate students in India, and Web collateral miss their intended audiences. I prefer “miss” to the blunt reality of “unread content.”
I am going to start a file in which to track brand confusion and company name erosion. Search, analytics, and content processing vendors should know that preserving the semantic “magnetism” of a word or phrase is important. Surprising it is to me that I can run a query and get links to visual network analytics along side high performance centrifuges. Some watching robots pay close attention to the “centrifuge” concept I assume.
Brand management is important.
Stephen E Arnold, September 7, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
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