Small Analytics Firms Reaping the Benefit of Investment Cycle
April 22, 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 22, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Video at SPTechCon
April 22, 2014
The SharePoint Technology Conference takes place in San Francisco, starting today and running through the end of the week. Virtual Strategy covers some of the vendors and exhibitors in their article, “SharePoint-Videos.com Invites the SharePoint Community to Visit Booth 607 at SPTechCon in San Francisco.”
The article begins:
“SharePoint-Videos.com (SPVideos), provider of online SharePoint training, consulting and end user support, will exhibit at SPTechCon, San Francisco next week. From Thursday, April 24 – Friday, April 25, SharePoint-Videos.com invites attendees to stop by booth 607 for a number of exciting activities.”
Stephen E. Arnold of ArnoldIT.com is a longtime leader in search and covers not only SharePoint, but also the third-party solutions that users are increasingly turning to. He finds that companies like SharePoint-Videos can improve adoption and efficiency as they can simplify the bulky and complicated software so that users and managers are more confident and satisfied.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 22, 2014
Open Source Search: Just Like Good Old Proprietary Search
April 21, 2014
The last few days have given me some food for thought. I read”Splunk Exec Defects to Tech Disruptor ElasticSearch.” The article points out:
Elastisearch co-founder and chief technology officer, Shay Banon, said the company focus was all about products. “Elasticsearch is building something bigger than any one technology and so I’m excited to have someone like Gaurav [a former Googler] on board, who shares our vision and is going to play an instrumental role in taking our products to the next level,” he said. In the past four months, the company launched its first commercial product, Elasticsearch Marvel….Bloomberg, The New York Times, Facebook, GitHub, Netflix, Yelp, Verizon, McGraw-Hill, WordPress, Atlassian and SoundCloud all use Elasticsearch to store, search and analyze any type of data in real time.
Poor Splunk. The company offers tools to help licensees “listen to their data.” First, Lucid leaves one writer with the impression that felonious behavior is coming down the Information Highway. Splunk was the target of some enthusiastic writer at the IDC combine who apparently became entangled in some Mad Men type of advertising. That article appeared in InfoWorld as “LucidWorks Preps Solr Stack as Splunk Killer.” Now ElasticSearch has allegedly hired a Splunk wizard to herd products down the busy digital trail.
What I find interesting is that open source search is starting to look more like the good old proprietary enterprise search sector. Me too products and executive churn mix with MBA think. The lingering effects of search controversies past like those swirling around Fast Search and Autonomy remain fresh in my mind.
Will ElasticSearch and Lucid Works become the new combatants in the search sector? Today both companies have chosen Splunk as the punching bag.
The more search changes, the more it remains the same it seems. Come to think of it: Most of today’s vendors are following the scripts written for Fulcrum Technologies and Verity who stomped around the C suite in the 1980s. Is the search sector running an endless loop?
Stephen E Arnold, April 21, 2014
Google Promptly and Quietly Erases Lists of Government Partners
April 21, 2014
A pair of articles at PandoDaily tell an interesting story. First they published a piece titled, “Google Distances Itself from the Pentagon, Stays in Bed with Mercenaries and Intelligence Contractors.” In that article, reporter Yasha Levine reveals that, despite Google’s attempts to dissociate itself from the military-industrial complex after last year’s NSA kerfuffle, the search giant is still working closely with several of those agencies, and their contractors. He writes:
“In some cases — like the company’s dealings with the NSA and its sister agency, the NGA — Google deals with government agencies directly. But in recent years, Google has increasingly taken the role of subcontractor: selling its wares to military and intelligence agencies by partnering with established military contractors. It’s a very deliberate strategy on Google’s part, allowing it to more effectively sink its hooks into the nepotistic, old boy government networks of America’s military-intelligence-industrial complex.
“Over the past decade, Google Federal (as the company’s DC operation is called) has partnered up with old school establishment military contractors like Lockheed Martin, as well as smaller boutique outfits — including one closely connected to the CIA and former mercenary firm, Blackwater.”
Levine goes into detail, and that article is an interesting read. However, it was his follow-up piece, “Google Apparently Scrubs Military Contractor Partner Listing, After Pando Report” that really caught our attention. This story shares screenshots taken before and after the revelatory article was posted a couple days before. These images show Google’s Enterprise- Government page displaying lists of government partners. The second shows a page in perpetual-load mode. Levine tells us:
“Later [on the day the first article was posted], I noticed a strange thing: The official Google ‘Enterprise Government’ webpage that had listed some of the company’s military contractor partners no longer loaded. The page worked just fine less than a week ago, but now all it shows is some text up top telling government agencies to ditch their dinosaur IT services and get with Google — ‘Help your agency move fast and innovate’! — and then nothing but empty white space….
“I’ve asked several people to access the page from different parts of the United States and they all come back with the same answer: the page framework partially loads, but all the information is missing. It appears to be the only Google Enterprise page that does not load. I’ve looked around, but could not find this missing list of contractors displayed anywhere else on the Google Enterprise website.”
So, was this glitch purposeful? Well, as of this writing, the page is functioning. However, it no longer includes lists of partners, just links to more info for potential customers. Like Levine, I can find no such list elsewhere on the site. (The closest I found is a page where city reps laud Google for use in running local governments — much less controversial.) Good catch, Pando.
Cynthia Murrell, April 21, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Norvigs Law
April 21, 2014
The computing field has developed its fair share of laws, with Moore’s perhaps the best-known. Now, we’d like to bring your attention to a lesser-known example, coined in 1999 by computer scientist and AI expert Peter Norvig., which states that “any technology that surpasses 50 percent penetration will never double again (in any number of months.)” Norvig has a page on his site dedicated to Norvig’s law; there he explains:
“In July 1999, there was a news article stating that PC usage had doubled yet again, reaching penetration of 50 percent of homes. People were hailing this as yet another sign of the inevitable climb of technology, but I saw it as a warning sign that the glass was half empty, and coined [Norvig’s law].
“To be clear, it all depends on what you count. If you’re counting units sold, you can double your count by selling everyone 1 unit, then 2, then 4, etc.…If you’re counting the total number of households that own the product, you can double your count by doubling the population, or by convincing everyone to divorce and become two households. But if you’re counting percentage of people (or households), there’s just no more doubling after you pass 50 percent.”
Norvig closes with a reminder to think of his law next time we hear that another technology has doubled its reach. The scientist has lead research teams at several prominent institutions, and now serves as Google’s Director of Research. We wonder how Norvig’s law shapes Google strategy.
Cynthia Murrell, April 21, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Survey Reveals SharePoint Users Breach Security
April 21, 2014
Security is central to any SharePoint installation, but a new study shows that security breaches may be more widespread and more severe than previously thought. At the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, CryptZone conducted an anonymous survey of SharePoint users. Read the full report in DarkReading.com’s article, “Cryptzone Survey Reveals SharePoint Users are Breaching Security Policies.”
The article begins:
“A study, conducted amongst attendees at last month’s Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas (USA), has found that at least 36% of SharePoint users are breaching security policies, and gaining access to sensitive and confidential information to which they are not entitled. It also found that . . . nearly a quarter of them later confessed they knew of individuals who had accessed content that they were not entitled to, demonstrating that users were ignoring this directive. Most alarmingly of all, the majority of administrators perceive their ‘permission’ to be unrestricted.”
Stephen E. Arnold is a longtime leader in search and a follower of all things SharePoint. He reports his finding on his Web site ArnoldIT.com. He has found that security is among the top concerns of all SharePoint managers. Although users don’t typically want to share about their security weaknesses, greater transparency about security concerns can lead to more secure practices and implementations.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 21, 2014
Concern about the Future of Technology
April 19, 2014
I suggest you read two articles.
The first is from folks who make their living cheerleading technology. The article “What Does the Recent Tech Stock Downturn Meant? The Truth Is Nobody Knows.” is an admission that the future of technology is—well—not too clear. With increasing class tension in the City by the Bay, I suppose some reflection is warranted. I sort of knew this when I was a wee lad. Apparently for those surfing technology, the notion that the fancy analytics systems with their clever predictive methods are clueless is interesting. I assume not even insider information is illuminating the dark corners of what seems to be a somewhat trivial issue compared with some of the national and international news.
The second is “We got Bookies to Predict the Future of Tech.” Crowdsourcing the future is not too interesting. I checked out the investment and threat markets and concluded that the Ivory Tower folks had time on their hands. This article contains a quote I noted. The comment is about Google Glass. Few items of headgear trigger assaults, so I was intrigued:
“Simply put, we don’t feel like this will catch on with the wider consumer base in remotely the same way as the iPhone since we feel the majority will still perceive it as something of a gimmick not relevant to their daily lives, especially for the cost. Therefore we are happy to make it a long shot that this item ever outsells the latest iPhone in any year until the end of the decade.”
Maybe self assembly will be more productive?
Stephen E Arnold, April 19, 2014
Norman Rockwell Museum Leaves Behind Twentieth Century
April 18, 2014
Normal Rockwell is associated with his artwork of mid-twentieth century American life and the Saturday Evening Post. Most collector’s items carrying his artwork from plates to wall calendars are making their way to thrift stores as his fans age. Computerworld’s article, “How Big Data Helped The Norman Rockwell Museum Grow Revenue” details how data offered insights into reaching a younger audience.
The Norman Rockwell Museum used DigiWorks’s services to capture transactional data and then create a shopping profile for individual users to recommend products.
“The principle is simple: If you offer someone something they need, right before they need it, they’re more likely to buy. To do that, you need to understand your customers as individuals. If a customer once bought something for an infant six months ago, you need to understand what that means.”
Big data has saved Norman Rockwell from obscurity and even made it better. Could they do the same for the old masters?
Whitney Grace, April 18, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Unlocking The Key To YouTube Success
April 18, 2014
YouTube has its own celebrities that have become famous from their videos. It has long been a mystery about how they obtained their Internet celebrity status and how an individual could attain it. Search Engine Watch explains the history and mystery of YouTube content in “YouTube Reveals The Secret Formula To Content Marketing Success.”
Google’s managing director of brand solutions Suzie Reider has given key insight into how to create YouTube content and the future of advertising in The YouTube Creator Playbook For Brands. The new playbook contains updated information and new insights on the best ways to utilize and create content that will be watched.
It doesn’t stop there. The Google Head of Audience Development YouTube Vanessa Pappas offers advice on how to use YouTube for advertising and branding.
“Pappas then says, ‘To demystify what makes these top channels tick and help you better understand how to create a successful strategy for your brand on YouTube, we developed the new YouTube Creator Playbook for Brands. Similar to the Creator Playbook, which has helped over 2 million of our creators grow their audiences, the Creator Playbook for Brands walks you through the steps to help you create, plan, and implement a YouTube content creation strategy; from tips on how to create videos to video promotion.’”
There is not an exact formula for YouTube success, but there are strategic plans budding YouTube stars and organizations can make to increase their video appeal. The best videos, though, are usually short and funny.
Whitney Grace, April 18, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Box Claims to be a Better SharePoint
April 18, 2014
SharePoint has an increasing amount of competition in both the mobile and collaboration market spaces. And while most services cannot complete with SharePoint as a complete solution, they do pinpoint select functions in which they believe they can out-perform SharePoint. Read more about Box and how they view their role in the competition in the article, “Box CEO: ‘We’re Sort of Like Microsoft SharePoint Done Right.’”
“Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie on Tuesday took a swipe at Microsoft (MSFT), one of his company’s main competitors in the cloud-based collaboration software market space. During a cloud leadership panel at the Ingram Micro (IM) 2014 Cloud Summit in Hollywood, Fla., Levie promoted the Box platform to more than 1,000 channel partners in attendance by comparing it to Microsoft SharePoint.”
Stephen E. Arnold has made a career out of tracking and reporting on all things search on ArnoldIT.com. SharePoint has become a particular point of interest and is often covered. His findings do prove that users want an improved experience that many smaller solutions can offer, but the drawback to smaller solutions is having to patch together a lot of pieces to even come close to the comprehensiveness of SharePoint.
Emily Rae Aldridge, April 18, 2014
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