Google Remains a Habit for a Reason
January 13, 2013
Despite Google’s current stronghold in Internet search, there are still a few other companies that believe they have a way to disrupt what has become status quo. A recent article published in Everything PR called “Interview Exclusive: Bing Search’s Stefan Weitz” discusses Bing Search’s goals.
The Q&A with Bing Director Stefan Weitz dives into a question about how to what extent the negative stigma that Bing has proved challenging in gaining a larger audience. Weitz believes that it is not a stigma that Bing faces, but rather they deal with people’s already formed habits.
“[We want] to get people to demand more from search than presenting a bunch of links in response to a keyword. It’s why we’re investing so much in multimodal experiences where Bing simply becomes part of the fabric of your day whether it’s on your television, within your productivity suite, on your mobile device, or on your tablet. We think the act of search should weave itself into the fabric of your daily experiences – not be something you ‘go do’.”
Weitz has a chance to direct the conversation on Bing with this interview and the choice word throughout it, habit, was a smart one for him to use because of the sometimes negative connotation associated with it that he wanted to drive towards Google. However, the word inherently recalls how habits are facilitated: through an efficient and intuitive user experience. Google created that and has logically become the norm and the standard.
Megan Feil, January 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
The FTC and the Google Effect
January 12, 2013
I have been in Chile and Argentina. I have not had much time to follow the light paintings created by Google and its cohorts. I did read “FTC Chairman Defends Google Settlement: We Did What the Law Required.” Due to my well known lack of information when running around remote regions, I am not sure what the FTC did, why it did “something,” or how the world perceives the FTC “something.”
I do know what I read:
It’s been just over a week since the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a historic settlement with Google, wherein they declined to press antitrust charges after a 19-month-long investigation into the Internet giant’s search and mobile businesses. Now, after facing a barrage of criticism, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz is speaking out, defending the regulatory agency’s decision-making as legally sound and beneficial for competition and consumers in an exclusive telephone interview with TPM.
Okay. Here’s the snippet which interested me:
Still, after the FTC’s Google settlement was announced, major U.S. news outlets characterized it as a win for Google: “U.S. Ends Inquiry On Web Search; Google Is Victor,” read the headline on the front page of the Jan. 4th print edition of The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal’s headline read similarly: “Google Dodges Antitrust Hit.”
A fellow named Leibowitz, a top dog at the US FTC allegedly said:
“Perhaps to some extent we helped to build up expectations,” Leibowitz said. “But I also think complainants created great expectations of their own. I think that as time goes on, more and more people will recognize we did justice.”
I find the phrase “we did justice” intriguing. Is this similar to “doing macramé”, “doing time,” or “doing laundry.” Perhaps we need a verb, to justice. Therefore, the FTC was “justicing”, which may be somewhat more accurate.
I don’t have a dog in the fight, nor do I at the advanced age of 69 care too much about online search results. When I was in Patagonia, online was not pervasive. To get information, one has to ask another human, assuming one can find one amidst the penguins and sheep.
The delightful part of the write up is this passage:
“I will say I’m really happy with my job,” Leibowitz told TPM. “I love my colleagues and we have done and are doing great things. At some, of point of course, I will think about doing other things. But I have had a number of great jobs in Washington, and I have never had a better or more fulfilling job than this one.”
Will Google offer the justicing Leibowitz a job? Maybe Foundem needs an advisor?
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2013
Elasticsearch Pins Big Hopes on New Marketing VP
January 12, 2013
The complex Elasticsearch, with their recent investment infusion, seems to be tapping into proven marketing strategies. In “Elasticsearch Expands Executive Team to Drive Adoption of Big Data Search,” BusinessWire reveals that the company is welcoming tech-marketing expert Elyse Phillips, who has spent fifteen years in the field. The write-up summarizes the new vice president of marketing’s experience:
“Elyse has spent her career rapidly evolving innovative technologies and services into market game changers. Prior to Elasticsearch, Elyse was director of marketing at Appcelerator, the leading mobile development platform provider, where she launched Titanium, the number one open source mobile development platform in the world, and helped build a community of 350,000 mobile developers worldwide. Prior to Appcelerator, Phillips was the head of marketing and investor relations for First Virtual Corporation, a pioneer in Internet video, where she took them from start-up through IPO.”
Elasticsearch CEO Steven Shuurman believes that Phillips’ history of creating savvy marketing positions and strong visibility will help drive his company to big-data success. Will marketing be enough to overcome the complexity of their system?
Elasticsearch recently benefited from $10 million in Series A funding. Though their headquarters are in Amsterdam, Phillips will reportedly be working in the SanFrancisco Bay offices. The company was formed in 2012 specifically to develop and support the open-source elasticsearch solution, which several of its founders helped establish through Apache.
Cynthia Murrell, January 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PolySpot Uncovers and Delivers Vital Enterprise Information
January 11, 2013
We’ve heard it before and we’re hearing it again: computers and data are nothing without the intelligence and analysis skills of data scientists. This time the age-old insight comes from a recent GigaOM article called “Why Big Data Might Be More About Automation Than Insights.”
The author discussed how attorneys are using big data technologies to sift through terabytes of electronic documents with Recommind CEO Bob Tennant.
The following insight was shared from their conversation:
Predictive coding, as it’s called, frees them up to focus more on case strategy than on the tedium of analyzing every single PDF and email message to figure out if it’s relevant to a case. However, he noted, although the software typically does a better job than a person alone would do, most law firms still use a hybrid man-machine approach to leverage the strengths of both and ensure nothing gets missed.
While big data technologies are certainly replacing the need for employees to manually read huge stacks of documents, we would not say that automation is where these technologies end. Key insights are delivered from business intelligence software like PolySpot that, through connectors, has the capability of uncovering information from over 100 different file types.
Megan Feil, January 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Open Source Equals Great Job Opportunities
January 11, 2013
According to a December 2012 survey, 2013 is going to be a great year for technology in terms of employment. Even better yet are the prospects for technologists who have experience in open source technology. ReadWrite Enterprise discusses the survey and its implications for the 2013 job market in, “Tech Jobs In 2013: Open Source All The Way Down.”
The article opens with the survey results:
“According to the December 2012 Dice hiring survey, 64% of hiring managers and recruiters surveyed expect to hire more tech employees in the first six months of the year, versus 47% for non-tech roles. Life looks even better for tech professionals with open source experience. That’s because the industry’s hottest trends are being driven by open-source software. Big Data, cloud computing and mobile are all intimately connected to open source. Hence, it’s not surprising that of the top-10 tech skills in demand on Indeed.com, listed in order of how fast these keywords are growing in online job postings, six of them are explicitly open source.”
Open source is driving technology in a lot of areas, if not all major areas of innovation. Even if you are not a developer on the inside of open source technology, you and your organization can still benefit from open source by utilizing one of the great out-of-the-box solutions on the market. Open source shines particularly bright in enterprise solutions, with trust longtime leaders like LucidWorks putting out excellent product suites to address enterprise search and Big Data solutions.
Emily Rae Aldridge, January 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
HP Autonomy Problem Larger than Accounting Snafus?
January 11, 2013
Nigel Cannings at The Global Legal Post believes HP has a more crucial Autonomy-related problem than one of financial analysis, we learn from his article, “HP and Autonomy—Lacking the Innovation Sauce.” Cannings asserts that HP’s real issue is one of squashing the potential of the company it just purchased. He writes:
“My father is a 45-year veteran of the software industry and a serial entrepreneur. His last business was acquired for a substantial sum by a North American company, so he was speaking from experience when he commented: ‘When will these large corporations learn the three golden rules of acquiring an entrepreneurial company? First, work out what it was that made it so successful and bottle it. Second, tie in the technical and marketing resources that achieved that success. Third, allow the founders to do what they do best — don’t try to reinvent them.’
“HP has ignored these rules.”
Cannings argues that had HP stayed out of the way of Autonomy’s Mike Lynch and his team, the investment would have paid off handsomely. Instead, not only did the tech titan level their startling accounting charges, they are focused on the wrong aspect of their asset. While HP seems intent on pursuing the voice retrieval technology, they would do better, he says, to go after co-processer—fueled supercomputers. This, he insists, is the path to maximize profit from the Autonomy buy. Navigate to the article to see how he makes his case.
Cannings also says that this failure is a symptom of HP’s larger lack of innovation. Specifically, he charges, the company lacks the drive to re-innovate frequently, a quality that helped propel companies like Oracle, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM to the heights of success. Is HP on the road to mediocrity?
Cynthia Murrell, January 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
DON Two for the Mathematically Inclined
January 11, 2013
We’ve found a couple of treats for all you math lovers. “The Lambda Calculus,” presented to us by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, delves into this function-representing notation. Then there’s Math ? Programming’s piece on a landmark algorithm from 1964, “The Fast Fourier Transform.”
The lambda calculus piece by post-doctoral researcher Jesse Alama is extensive, covering everything from specifics like the use of the notation in multi-argument operations to the history behind the concepts and their applications. The article describes:
“The syntax of basic ?-calculus is quite sparse, making it an elegant, focused notation for representing functions. Functions and arguments are on a par with one another. The result is an intensional theory of functions as rules of computation, contrasting with the traditional extensional approach one of function as a set of pairs of a certain kind. Despite its sparse syntax, the expressiveness and flexibility of the ?-calculus make it a cornucopia of logic and mathematics.”
The article on Fast Fourier Transform algorithm emphasizes that our modern reliance on digital signal processing rests on the legacy of this breakthrough. Writer and mathematics PhD student Jeremy Kun explains:
“It’s often said that the Age of Information began on August 17, 1964 with the publication of Cooley and Tukey’s paper, ‘An Algorithm for the Machine Calculation of Complex Fourier Series.’. . .
“Digital audio and video, graphics, mobile phones, radar and sonar, satellite transmissions, weather forecasting, economics and medicine all use the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm in a crucial way. (Not to mention that electronic circuits wouldn’t exist without Fourier analysis in general.) Before the Fast Fourier Transform algorithm was public knowledge, it simply wasn’t feasible to process digital signals.”
This thorough article takes us through the derivation of the algorithm, then describes how Kun applied it to the task of filtering white noise from a sound clip.
Both these posts are full of details that are, I’m afraid, over my head. If such calculations are your thing, though, enjoy.
Cynthia Murrell, January 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A9 Search May Be on the Verge of Improvement
January 11, 2013
Sometimes tidbits of information come from unexpected places. A job posting at LinkedIn for a “Principal Software Engineer- Contextual Relevance” suggests that Amazon may be trying to fix up A9 Product Search. It is good to make use of existing assets, but I do hope any new hire understands what they are getting into. A9 has been panned as a disappointment so far.
The job description reads, in part:
“This is an exciting opportunity to develop the next generation of technologies for understanding unstructured textual content. Leveraging Amazon’s unique assets, we are building industry-leading systems to comprehend textual data and solve challenging contextual relevance problems like key concepts extraction, text classification, and sentiment analysis. Our systems need to operate at internet scale and serve billions of requests every day in a fault tolerant manner and under stringent latency requirements. You will thus need to aim high and invent revolutionary technologies that have a large and direct impact on one of the largest businesses on the web.”
Well, at least they are not downplaying the challenge. Naturally, the credentials required are pretty hefty, but if you think you or someone you know has what it takes, check it out.
The posting also emphasizes that A9.com combines the advantages of a small-business culture with the resources of their parent company. A9 is, not surprisingly, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, and was formed in 2003 as an Amazon subsidiary. Though perhaps not (yet) all that Amazon hoped for, the search platform is in place and functioning on their site and many other e-commerce sites.
Cynthia Murrell, January 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Nexans Licenses PolySpot Search Engine
January 10, 2013
We learned that the Nexans Group, a global player in the infrastructure, industry, building, and local area network data markets, uses the PolySpot search engine to cross-reference its internal sources of information and all of its information portals.
According to information provided to Beyond Search:
The goal of the roll out was to streamline collaborative processes while ensuring the integrity of security regulations. The strong point of the solution lies in the simplification of access to information regardless of the source. Using the PolySpot engine, users, customers, partners, and employees of Nexans can now easily access the product catalog and at a level of information consistent with their right of access.
Nexans tested various competing solutions on the market. PolySpot told Beyond Search:
PolySpot stood out because of the performance and strength of its Microsoft SharePoint connector. The PolySpot connector for Microsoft SharePoint is characterized by a very large tolerance of isolated errors (corrupt data, crashes, micro network outages, etc).
PolySpot supports the indexing of an entire SharePoint farm and provides fine-grained filtering. The PolySpot approach limits the the maximum load on the application and network.
As a result, Nexans Group users have access to faceted navigation within the relevant Group directory. Information access is pivotal to Nexans Group’s business which offers an extensive range of cables and cabling systems to raise industrial productivity, improve business performance, enhance security, enrich the quality of life, and assure long-term network reliability.
For more information about PolySpot’s technology and services, visit www.polyspot.com.
Stephen E Arnold, January 10, 2013
SharePoint 2013 Offers Improvements in Search
January 10, 2013
An overall architecture for SharePoint 2013 Search can be found on the Search Technologies’ Web site.
As new releases tend to do, SharePoint 2013 has made some tweaks that users would do well to explore, we learn in “Search Engine Changes in SharePoint 2013” from iT Pro. SharePoint consultant Veena Sarda details the search-related changes and presents them in a handy chart.
The first thing to note is that FAST Search has now been worked into the SharePoint code base. That means that FAST capabilities like metadata extraction, visual search, and advanced linguistics are now part of the package. Content and analytics processors have been added to the logical architecture, and a specialized Search Administrator now manages these and other search-related components. Also new is a dedicated analysis engine, which performs both search and usage analytics.
Crawling has been improved; it is now possible to crawl http sites anonymously, and the time for the index to merge and present those results has been dramatically shortened. Results rendering has been moved from the server to the client side. Document parsing is now much more refined, relying on a set of new parsing features, rather than on file extensions to do the job.
Other welcome improvements affect the user experience. The UI has been revamped to accommodate the new features, with a re-design based on nested layout templates defined in JavaScript and HTML. This change allows for easier extensibility. Furthermore, end users now have an easier time of it; the write-up notes that the platform now provides:
“Direct access to the most granular information inside of sites and documents, and then enables users to act on the results without having to leave the results page. Every search box in every team site offers full access to enterprise-wide search, people search, and other specialized search experiences in addition to the traditional scoped site search.”
Part of this simplified workflow is the new Hover feature, which presents a visual preview of sites, documents, and conversations at the pause of a mouse.
A few more search-related improvements: Authors are identified as experts based on document content, where before they were identified by My Site profiles. People Search (which used to be independent of document search) has been integrated with the core results and can be targeted by name, location, phone number, and other properties.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy shifts is the new Query Rules feature. SharePoint 2010 only allows for simple queries—one query, one set of results. Sarda writes:
“Query Rules are a new feature in SharePoint 13 that help act upon the ‘intent’ of a query – Query Rules are composed of three top level elements: Query Conditions (i.e. matching rules), Query Actions (i.e. what do you do when you find a match), Publishing Options (i.e. when should this rule be active). Query Rules allows to have search requests from a user trigger multiple queries and multiple result sets.”
A welcome addition. For more information on SharePoint 2013, see the “brief functional walk-through” posted at Search Technologies. It contains, among other things, an easy-to-understand flow chart. The SharePoint experts there also promise to post future updates at that link.
Search Technologies leverages search engines to provide business advantages to their clients. With over twenty years of experience in the field, the company asserts that it is the largest IT services company dedicated to search engine implementation, consulting, and managed services. For information on the firm’s SharePoint 2013 Search Services, visit www.searchtechnologies.com. Search Technologies is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.
Cynthia Murrell, January 10, 2013
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