Add On Support Continued for SharePoint 2010
December 4, 2013
While many enterprises were eager to make the update to SharePoint 2013, others were reluctant. For that reason, many supplemental vendors who offer SharePoint add-ons decided to continue support for SharePoint 2010. Extedo added their name to that list. Market Wired covers their news in the latest release, “EXTEDO Releases Extended SharePoint 2010 Support.”
The release begins:
“EXTEDO, a key Regulatory Information Management solutions provider for life sciences firms, today announced the release of a new SharePoint 2010 connector for its regulatory submission management solution eCTDmanager. EXTEDO’s eCTDmanager is an off-the-shelf electronic submission management solution that satisfies requirements for eCTD, NeeS, eCopy, DMF, ASMF, and many other submission structures. Users can build and review submissions, add, edit and delete elements or even set hyperlinks and comments at any time during the submission compilation.”
There are a lot of decisions that go into running an enterprise, especially when it comes to document management and enterprise search. Knowing the supplemental vendors that offer support is a great benefit, but having a one-stop shop for the latest in all things enterprise search is even better. Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime expert in search, and his Web presence, ArnoldIT gives a lot of attention to SharePoint and other enterprise options. Keeping an eye on ArnoldIT is a good way to stay informed without all of the hard work.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 4, 2013
Bing Continues Making Changes to Shopping Search Experience
December 4, 2013
An article titled Bing Sunsets Shopping Search, Integrates Directly Into Web Results on Search Engine Watch offers some insights into Bing’s attempts to improve its shopping experience. Bing announced in August that they are working to improve shopping results and more recently that they are retiring the “dedicated shopping experience” in favor of a user intent model.
The article explains:
“Using Bing Snapshot technology, certain search queries will return snapshots of various products in the right side column. Clicking on these products will produce a different result set of vendor sites that sell that particular product. Those results will also contain a carousel of similar products or models directly under the search box. Reviews, product specs are also included as snapshot information in the sidebar, as are prices from various vendors who purchase Bing ads.”
Bing is working to gain on Amazon, the company to beat worldwide when it comes to online shopping. Bing’s user intent plan is shaped around logical connections between queries and product comparisons. Bing is trying to move away from keywords and toward understanding what the user really wants. The integration of shopping results into the main experience is meant to provide for an improved proficiency.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Splunk Announces More Customers, Acquisitions and Earnings for Q3
December 4, 2013
An article on ZDNet titled Splunk Shares Rise After Hours Thanks to Q3 Revenue Surge, Strong Outlook explains the progress of the San Francisco based software corporation Splunk. After upsetting estimates of losses on shares with the news of a record third quarter, Splunk announced the addition of 450 new customers, making the total 6400 customers internationally.
The article quotes Godfrey Sullivan, CEO of Splunk:
“ “More customers are adopting Splunk software as their enterprise standard. We expanded our product portfolio this quarter with the release of Splunk Enterprise6, Splunk Cloud and Hunk: Splunk Analytics for Hadoop, providing more power, functionality and flexibility for our customers.” For the fourth quarter, analysts were expecting Splunk to deliver non-GAAP earnings of six cents a share on revenue of $86.12 million. Splunk responded with revenue guidance of $88 million and $90 million.”
The upgrades Sullivan mentioned only skim the surface of the increased potential of the latest software. Splunk claims that the Enterprise 6 is 1,000 times faster than old versions. Quarter 3 also included the acquisition of BugSense Inc. and an expanded partnership with Amazon Web Services. Internal changes were also made, with Stephen Sorkin made chief strategy officer and Todd Papaioannou as chief tech officer for C-level appointments.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Can’t Shake Foundem, “Abuse of Dominance” Charges Still Loom
December 4, 2013
The article titled ‘Fatal Flaws’ in Google’s Revised Search Antitrust Overhaul, Says Foundem on The Register reports that Google has still not made sufficient concessions to the European Union’s demands. Google has been defending itself against allegations of ‘abuse of dominance’ in Europe, an argument which circles around the tendency for search results filtered through Google to often lead to its own services. The latest attempt to reach a deal resulted in Google’s proposals being leaked. The article explains that this new proposal has been found wanting:
“UK-based price comparison site Foundem has long battled against Google’s alleged abuse of dominance in Europe. It is one of the best known complainants in competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia’s long-running investigation into the multinational Google. The company’s co-founders Adam and Shivaun Raff said today the revised proposals “suffer from all the same flaws” as Google’s previous submission to the EC – which was rejected after a formal market test attacked the fundamental weaknesses of that offer.”
Especially attacking the Paid Rival Links addendum to the proposal, the Raffs made it clear that they felt Google was stifling the competition. They even suggested that the Paid Rival Links were assumed to be for show, an outlandish request by Google that could be thrown out in the second proposal in order to show that some concessions had been made. Apparently Google saw things differently.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 04, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Short Honk: Topsy
December 3, 2013
Before I lose the thought, I want to capture one of the important lessons from the Topsy sale. You can get the basic story at “Apple Acquires A Social Media Analytics Company For ~$200 Million.” None of the write ups emphasized the important shift at Topsy that made the deal possible. The company abandoned its Web log and social media index and focused on Twitter. Once the change was made, Topsy had something to sell; namely, an easy to use system that made figuring out what was hot and what was not on Twitter. With the shift, an important search and retrieval resource was lost to people like me. For the investors in Topsy, the shift delivered $200 million big ones.
Was it technology? Nope.
Was it better search? Nope.
Was it spiffier analytics? Nope.
It was positioning. As I learned at a recent conference, the same old Topsy is still there covered up with the Twitter baked on enamel and clear coat. And Apple bit.
Moral: Figure out the positioning. That seems to be one key to big paydays. In short, words matter.
With one less resource to use, Google’s control of “information” grows stronger. I will review my initial thoughts in a few months to see if I was right or wrong. In the meantime, party on, Topsy.
Stephen E Arnold, December 3, 2013
SchemaLogic Profile Available
December 3, 2013
A new profile is available on the Xenky site today. SchemaLogic is a controlled vocabulary management system. The system combines traditional vocabulary management with an organization wide content management system specifically for indexing words and phrases. The analysis provides some insight into how a subsystem can easily boost the cost of a basic search system’s staff and infrastructure.
Taxonomy became a chrome trimmed buzzword almost a decade ago. Indexing has been around a long time, and indexing has a complete body of practices and standards for the practitioner to use when indexing content objects.
Just what an organization needs to make sense of its text, images, videos, and other digital information/data. At a commercial database publsihing company, more than a dozen people can be involved in managing a controlled term list and classification coding scheme. When a term is misapplied, finding a content object can be quite a challenge. If audio or video are misindexed, the content object may require a human to open, review, and close files until the required imnage or video can be located. Indexing is important, but many MBAs do not understand the cost of indexing until a needed content object cannot be found; for example, in a legal discovery process related to a patent matter. A happy quack to http://swissen.in/swictingsys.php for the example of a single segment of a much larger organization centric taxonomy. Consider managing a controlled term list with more than 20,000 terms and a 400 node taxononmy across a Fortune 500 company or for the information stored in your laptop computer.
Even early birds in the search and content processing sector like Fulcrum Technologies and Verity embraced controlled vocabularies. A controlled term list contains forms of words and phrases and often the classification categories into which individual documents can be tagged.
The problem was that lists of words had to be maintained. Clever poobahs and mavens created new words to describe allegedly new concepts. Scientists, engineers, and other tech types whipped up new words and phrases to help explain their insights. And humans, often loosey goosey with language, shifted meanings. For example, when I was in college a half century ago, there was a class in “discussion.” Today that class might be called “collaboration.” Software often struggles with these language realities.
What happens when “old school” search and content processing systems try to index documents?
The systems can “discover” terms and apply them. Vendors with “smart software” use a range of statistical and linguistic techniques to figure out entities, bound phrases, and concepts. Other approaches include sucking in dictionaries and encyclopedias. The combination of a “knowledgebase” like Wikipedia and other methods works reasonably well.
SharePoint Planning with Office 365
December 3, 2013
SharePoint is perhaps the most expansive software that an organization will implement. At the same time, SharePoint touches almost every member of an organization. So when changes happen with SharePoint, anxiety is a given. CMS Wire covers the latest cause of concern, and gives a few reasons to relax, in their article, “‘Have it Your Way’ SharePoint: Two Paths, Many Options.”
The article begins:
“Many of the conversations I’ve had over the last year were filled with questions and concerns about the future of SharePoint and what the addition of Office 365 would bring to the mix. Microsoft answered some of these questions late last week and provided some insight into its plans going forward. With this information, organizations can breathe a little easier and plan a little better for the future.”
And planning is central to an enterprise search implementation, regardless of the software chosen. Stephen E. Arnold has made a longtime career out of critiquing the landscape of enterprise search. Follow him at ArnoldIT to keep up with the latest in the field and make your plans for the future of your enterprise.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 3, 2013
Big Data Choices at Government Agencies
December 3, 2013
The explosion of big data continues to put pressure on IT departments. GCN examines how government agencies are approaching the challenge in, “As Big Data Grows, Technologies Evolve Into Ecosystems.” Writer Rutrell Yasin frames the issue of deploying big-data platforms and analytics:
“But what is the best way to accomplish this: By cobbling together various ‘point products’ that address all of the big data processes, or by building a ‘big data platform’ that integrates all of the capabilities organizations need to apply deep analytics?”
The article goes on to examine the most prominent solutions competing for institutional big-data dollars. Not surprisingly, IBM‘s Eric Sall advocates a comprehensive platform, like his company’s InfoSphere. It looks like many organizations, though, are responding to the lure of open source. Though it is often the cheaper approach, the disparate nature of open-source solutions can pose its own problems. The article looks at efforts from outfits like Red Hat and Cisco that aim to consolidate apps and systems from different sources (both open source and paid). It is worth a look if your organization is at or approaching the big-data-solution crossroads.
The article concludes:
“The bottom line is that organizations need these massively parallel processing systems and other big data tools that can scale out to address the volume, velocity and variety of big data, whether they come from a proprietary vendor’s platform or a platform based on open technologies. It makes life simpler for organizations if their workforce can unlock the value of their data via an ecosystem of integrated tools, industry experts said.”
Indeed, simpler is usually better. Even if saving money is your main goal, do not dismiss paid solutions that help manage open source resources; the savings in time and frustration often more than make up for the added cost.
Cynthia Murrell, December 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Mathematical Modeling Applied to Folk Tales
December 3, 2013
A new application of mathematical modeling reminds us how versatile the approach to data can be. Phys.org reports that “Mathematical Modeling Provides Insights Into Evolution of Folk Tales.” Anthropologist Jamie Tehrani at England’s Durham University approaches folk-tale development with methods used to examine biological evolution.
The article tells us that his study:
“… resolves a long-running debate by demonstrating that Little Red Riding Hood shares a common but ancient root with another popular international folk tale The Wolf and the Kids, although the two are now distinct stories. ‘This is rather like a biologist showing that humans and other apes share a common ancestor but have evolved into distinct species,’ explained Dr Tehrani.”
Other stories share this literary ancestor, like the Tiger Grandmother tale found in Japan, China, and Korea. Dr. Tehrani performed his phylogenetic analysis on 58 variations of the story, focusing on 72 specific plot variables. He made a branching map of the variants (an illustration is included in the article).
Of the results, he states:
“This exemplifies a process biologists call convergent evolution, in which species independently evolve similar adaptations. The fact that Little Red Riding Hood ‘evolved twice’ from the same starting point suggests it holds a powerful appeal that attracts our imaginations.
“‘There is a popular theory that an archaic, ancestral version of Little Red Riding Hood originated in Chinese oral tradition…. My analysis demonstrates that in fact the Chinese version is derived from European oral traditions, and not vice versa.'”
Tehrani notes that this research could do a good deal more than satisfy literary curiosity. He hopes that it will help clarify migration patterns of ancient humans by tracing where and when certain stories, and story variants, appeared. It is always nice to see someone successfully using an established tool in a new way.
Cynthia Murrell, December 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Surpasses Print Periodicals in Ad Revenue
December 3, 2013
Google has passed an ad-revenue milestone, Business Insider reveals in, “Google Is Now Bigger than Both the Magazine and Newspaper Industries.” Writer Jim Edwards tells us that Google is expected to rake in about $60 billion this year, mostly from advertising. The article includes a chart which compares Google’s U.S.-based ad revenue to that of U.S. magazines and newspapers since 2004. The graph shows Google pulling ahead last year.
Edwards writes:
“In part this is because the print media has suffered such a precipitous decline. But note that Google’s last full year results from 2012 are approaching the historic maximum that all magazines combined achieved back in 2007 before the crash. It’s won’t be long now, in other words, before Google not only eclipses magazines but also becomes bigger than magazines ever were — even when there was no Internet to compete with. That’s staggering.”
Is it? Personally, I don’t find this revelation that surprising, though the chart is worth a look if only to examine how the fortunes of newspapers have fallen over the last nine years. Is it really so surprising that Google is on track to dominate the information field?
Cynthia Murrell, December 03, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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