Yandex Profit Goes Up
April 24, 2014
Bloomberg’s real journalists reported some Web search news I found interesting. Navigate to “Yandex Profit Rises 19% on Russia Internet Advertising Demand.” Google gets the spotlight. Yandex warrants more attention. The English language search service at www.yandex.com is okay. The gem is the Yandex Russian service at www.yandex.ru. Content in this index is not easily available via US Web indexing services without the searcher’s performing some acrobatics. Yandex, however, is doing the me too thing. My hunch is that its usefulness will erode as the advertising revenue gains more traction. Precision, recall—just a distant memory for Bing and Google. Yandex’s utility may decline as the money rolls in. By the way, what happened to the Yandex search appliance?
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2014
Hadoop Bridges Gap between IT and Business
April 24, 2014
The IT side of the coin and the business side of the coin never really seem to be looking in the same direction, do they? Which is a shame, because so much productivity is lost over this battle at work. Thankfully, we are not the only ones thinking so. Some even have solutions, as we found in a recent Information Week story, “Big Data Forces IT and Business to get Synced.”
The answer, according to the story:
Hadoop, the foundation of HGST’s BDP, is particularly well suited to breaking through data silos. Traditional relational databases store their data in well-defined table structures, and therefore require detailed data modeling before a single row of data can be loaded. Hadoop, on the other hand, simply stores its data as files on its distributed file system, greatly streamlining the data loading process.
Hadoop does seem to be a solid example in our book, too. This is evidence, as is a recent story in InfoWorld about Lucidworks teaming with Hadoop to bridge that gap even more. We like what we are seeing and have no doubt the business and IT worlds will mesh if they keep thinking like this.
Patrick Roland, April 24, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Gets Political
April 24, 2014
It’s not often in this day and age that a Fortune 500 company rattles any political cages. In most cases, companies keep their noses out of Washington, or at least disguise their motives behind lobbyists. However, Google seems to be making some striking political waves, as we discovered in a recent NBC News story: “Google Exec: Technology is Not a Silver Bullet to Solve the World’s Problems.”
According to Jared Coen, director of Google Ideas:
[T]echnology is not a silver bullet answer to the world’s problems.
It generates awareness, it gives us visibility, it offers enormous opportunity – but at the end of the day, the world is still run by states and their military apparatus. States are going to continue to be the dominate unit in our lifetime and likely lifetimes to come.
Wow, we were shocked at the candor here. Even if this is just an independent view, it is still attached to the search giant, so it’s a gutsy thing to say anything political. We were impressed and then found other Googlers, like Eric Schmitt telling the Guardian that “politicians are failing us.” This is not the canned, public relations speak we are used to and applaud Google for standing for something of value, instead of just concerning itself with the company’s value.
Patrick Roland, April 24, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Flexibility Key to SharePoint ECM
April 24, 2014
Enterprise content management through SharePoint requires consistency – sticking to the plan. Most importantly is having a goal in mind, knowing what the organization needs to achieve through implementation. SearchContentManagement addresses this topic through an interview with Erica Toelle in their interview, “Better User Adoption of SharePoint ECM Needs a Flexible Approach.”
Their article begins:
“SharePoint offers enterprise content management features that can help companies turn large volumes of disorganized content into a business asset. However, investing in these features will pay off only if people use them correctly and consistently. To discuss the challenges surrounding user adoption of SharePoint enterprise content management (ECM), SearchContentManagement sat down with expert Erica Toelle, SharePoint Practice Manager at Caiman Consulting, a Seattle-based business consulting firm.”
Toelle’s sessions at SPTechCon 2014 will delve further into the topic. Stephen E. Arnold of ArnoldIT.com is a longtime leader in search. He is interested in SharePoint, but also in the third-party solutions that improve the user experience. In his SharePoint coverage he has found that a goal and a plan are critical to a usable, efficient implementation.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 24, 2014
New ArnoldIT Search Video: Jargon and Its Impact
April 23, 2014
Stephen E Arnold’s new enterprise search video is no online. You can view the six minute video via YouTube. The lingo and argot generated by enterprise search vendors helps make sales. An unfortunate side effect is confusion and obfuscation. Is a product really a “killer”? Do you need linguistics, semantics, and analytics to find a presentation by the CEO? The short video, based on a talk given by Mr. Arnold at a conference in Boston several years ago, strikes at the heart of a fundamental problem for procurement teams—Figuring out exactly what a system can really do.
Kenneth Toth, April 23, 2014
Small Analytics Firms Reaping the Benefit of Investment Cycle
April 23, 2014
Small time analytics isn’t really as startup-y as people may think anymore. These companies are in high demand and are pulling in some serious cash. We discovered just how much and how serious from a recent Cambridge Science Park article, “Cambridge Text Analytics Linguamatics Hits $10m in Sales.”
According to the story:
Linguamatics’ sales showed strong growth and exceeded ten million dollars in 2013, it was announced today – outperforming the company’s targeted growth and expected sales figures. The increased sales came from a boost in new customers and increased software licenses to existing customers in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. This included 130 per cent growth in healthcare sales plus increased sales in professional services.
This earning potential has clearly grabbed the attention of investors. This, is feeding a cycle of growth, which is why the Linguamaticses of the world can rake in impressive numbers. Just the other day, for example, Tech Circle reported on a microscopic Mumbai big data company that landed $3m in investments. They say it takes money to make money and right now, the world of big data analytics has that cycle down pat. It won’t last forever, but it’s fun to watch as it does.
Patrick Roland, April 23, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Wisely Going Slow with Glass
April 23, 2014
Beta testing technology is never pretty. The first Apple computer was famously housed inside a wooden shell, for instance. Often times, we are impatient for our new toys to fully evolve, which is why someone like Google has a graveyard of forgotten offerings. However, they seem content to let Google Glass grow naturally, especially after releasing a hilarious photo recently in Business Insider’s article, “What Google Glass Looked Like Three Years Ago.”
The picture features a Google Glass that looks closer to a proton pack than a mobile search device. As the article comments:
There’s hope for those who are intrigued by the idea of Google Glass but, for vanity’s sake, wouldn’t wear today’s version in a million years. In three more years, Google Glass will probably look like Ray-Bans!
We are equally optimistic that the Google Glass that is released to the public will not be the gawky frames we know today. That’s why we like the time the company is taking releasing the product. Unlike the days of, say, the Google Music Player which followed the Beta testing plan of throwing a product against a wall and if it sticks keep with it, otherwise abandon it. If Google wants to revolutionize mobile search, taking their sweet time with Glass is the right thing to do.
Patrick Roland, April 23, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Information Governance Concerns
April 23, 2014
Most users of SharePoint know about the struggles and concerns of governance. CMS Wire covers the issue in their article, “The SharePoint Information Governance Problem.”
Speaking to those experienced with using SharePoint as a document management platform, the article begins:
“You’re also likely familiar with the negative impacts that typically result from using SharePoint ineffectively: a proliferation of sites, often on a proliferation of SharePoint versions, with no clear standards on what documents should (and shouldn’t) be stored there or how, no clear guidelines for users on how to classify their documents, little to no capabilities for promoting effective information lifecycle management, little to no end user governance or oversight for things like site and document library structures, security and access settings, or document hygiene, and dozens, hundreds or even thousands of orphaned sites that, taken together, represent a digital landfill of staggering proportions.”
The article then goes on to assert that most of these issues are due to SharePoint’s lack of ease of use. This is a topic that Stephen E. Arnold often covers on his information site, ArnoldIT.com. Specializing in all forms of search, Arnold has a lifetime of experience. Tune in to his SharePoint feed for tips and tricks on increasing ease of use.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 23, 2014
Glass: Looking through the Obvious
April 22, 2014
I read “How Google Screwed Up Google Glass.” The capitalist tool does not have its heart in the analysis. Here’s the tip off: “It really is a great idea.”
What exactly is great about a virtual reality headset? As I wrote in Information Today, I have two or three devices that connect on my shelves. What became of them? Not too much.
In my view, Glass is less about wearing crazy eye glasses and more about dragging red herrings across real journalists’ paths, than a different play. I a report I prepared for an investment bank, I focused on the technology which is used to create the headgear and the contact lens demonstration.
The key figure in this technology is a fellow named Dr. Amir Parviz (aka Babak Parvis, Babak Parviz, Babak Amirparviz, and other variations). He studied at the elbow of Dr. George Whitesides at Harvard. This dynamic duo has demonstrated some chemistry in their research and patents. The contact lens work has roots which reach back to Dr. Parviz’s days at the University of Washington and its research group.
I am not going to rehash the information presented in the Information Today article and the financial institution’s report. Suffice it to say that Glass is less about wearing wonky headgear and more about nanoengineering. Is this self assembly work related to robots. By the way, yummy photos of Google’s X Lab at http://read.bi/1hkHTKl do not include the biomedical facilities. Slight oversight or Loon misdirection?
Seeing through Glass is important. There are strong personal motivations for Google’s top dogs behind the biological engineering research. Maybe running a query on Glass will sharpen the focus?
Stephen E Arnold, April 22, 2014
Hakia Building Momentum Again
April 22, 2014
Hakia has been a little quiet lately, but that doesn’t mean the upstart search engine isn’t still gaining fans. We found a really enthusiastic review in a recent Christiano Kewna post, “Proof! Haika.com Works Better than Google Search on Long Tail Keyphrases.”
According to Kwena:
If you are searching using natural language phrases, then I urge you to check out Hakia.com. You can still revert back to Google for some other searches, but if you have a 10 word phrase that you are searching for, then the big Giant Google will likely take you round and round.
Actually, things aren’t so quiet around Hakia headquarters. According to a recent PR Newswire piece, Hakia partnered with FLOW to work on social media marketing. According to one exec, “We are excited that Flow has chosen to integrate [Hakia] into its social commerce platform. We expect many other technology innovators to move in this direction.” We think the world of Hakia and look forward to them making routine splashes again. This is one of the sharpest enterprise search companies on the block and always worth watching.
Patrick Roland, April XX, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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