The Duck Quacks 12 Million Queries
January 14, 2016
DuckDuckGo keeps waddling through its search queries and quacking that it will not track its users information. DuckDuckGo has remained a small search engine, but its privacy services are chipping away at Google and search engines’ user base. TechViral shares that “DuckDuckGo The Anti-Google Search Engine Just Reached A New Milestone” and it is reaching twelve million search queries in one day!
In 2015, DuckDuckGo received 3.25 billion search queries, showing a 74 percent increase compared to the 2014 data. While DuckDuckGo is a private oasis in a sea of tracking cookies, it still uses targeted ads. However, unlike Google DuckDuckGo only uses ads based on the immediate keywords used in a search query and doesn’t store user information. It wipes the search engine clean with each use.
DuckDuckGo’s increase of visitors has attracted partnerships with Mozilla and Apple. The private search engine is a for profit business, but it does have different goals than Google.
“Otherwise, it should be noted that although he refuses to have the same practices as Google, DuckDuckGo already making profits, yes that’s true. And the company’s CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, stop to think it is necessary to collect information about users to monetize a search engine: ‘You type car and you see an advertisement for a car, Google follows you on all these sites because it operates huge advertising networks and other properties. So they need these data for search engines to follow you.’ ”
DuckDuckGo offers a great service for privacy, while it is gaining more users it doesn’t offer the plethora of services Google does. DuckDuckGo, why not try private email, free office programs, and online data storage? Would you still be the same if you offered these services?
Whitney Grace, January 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Advice for Marketers, Not Consumers, on the Present and Future States of Location Data Technology
January 14, 2016
The article on Mashable titled Location Data’s Dirty Secret: How Accuracy is Getting Lost in Today’s Data Shuffle relates the bad news for marketers, and hugely relieving news for paranoid consumers, that location data quality is far from precise. The money being funneled into location-targeted mobile ad revenues is only part of the picture, but it does illustrate the potential power of this technology for marketers, who want to know everything they can about shopping habits and habits in general. But they may be spending on useless data. In fact, the article states,
“Studies indicate that more than half of mobile location data is inaccurate. In fact, a report from the MMA offers a laundry list of variables that negatively impact location data quality. Culprits include a “lack of accuracy standards and market education,” “urban density,” “inaccurate interpretations” of location data that have been translated into a latitude/longitude coordinate and poor “data freshness.”
The article is largely optimistic that if marketers do a little research into the source of their locating data, they will know whether it can be trusted or not. That, and an objective third party will help marketers avoid big money-wasting mistakes. Must be nice to be a marketer instead of a consumer, the latter has little chance to avoid being a pawn followed around the chess board by her cell phone.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Quote to Note: The Future and Niche Magazines about Issues
January 13, 2016
I find “real” publishers a source of entertainment. In this particular incident, I want to highlight two themes:
- A Silicon Valley success believes that a dead tree publication can be given the digital rework and succeed
- Pumping $20 million into a dead tree outfit says something about money management and common sense in the digital world
Navigate to “Owner of New Republic Puts IT Back on Market.” If you have to pay to view the story, hunt down the January 12, New York Times (dead tree edition) and look for page B 5.
The main idea is that a Facebook whiz bought a magazine, reorganized, pumped in dough, and apparently failed.
The notion of “saving” an outfit is one that gives new life to stakeholders, employees, and others involved in the operation. Think Yahoo and the Xoogler. How is that working out?
The reality is that success in a digital endeavor may be a matter of luck, timing, and the missteps of some other competitors. Google emerged from a pretty disappointing Web search idea when it was inspired by the Overture/GoTo pay to play model.
Tucked into this mini business case about a financial black hole was this quote to note:
“The New Republic has been a money-losing proposition for 100 years,” said Jacob Weisberg, who once worked for the magazine, and is now the chairman of the Slate Group. “The idea that anyone is going to turn it into a business now, when it has never been harder, is implausible.” In his letter, Mr. Hughes said that his aim “is to place The New Republic in the hands of the most promising and dedicated potential steward.” That might take many forms, he said. “Perhaps it should be run as part of a larger digital media company, as a center-left institute of ideas, or by another passionate individual willing to invest in its future,” he wrote. “There are many possibilities.”
Perhaps Jeff Bezos or Sheldon Adelson quality as potential buyers?
Are there management lessons to be learned from this experiment in Digital Age management? Yep.
One might be having cash to invest in a money losing magazine may not generate a fungible return. One upside is that business schools can create an interesting case for future MBAs to consider.
Stephen E Arnold, January 13, 2016
Google X Has a New Logo! And Revenue? Nah.
January 13, 2016
More on the Alphabet Google front this morning (January 13, 2016). I have been working on my new webinar about Dark Web investigative tools but I had to comment on “Google X Has a New Logo and a New Plan to turn Moonshots into Actual Businesses.”
That should be encouraging to the stakeholders wondering about balloons and solving death, among other Google activities.
The write up says:
After the Alphabet reorg, Google X will not stop backing moonshots, but it is sharpening its focus to quell some of this anxiety. It’s framing itself as Alphabet’s incubator, taking ambitious projects, taming them into viable businesses, then “graduating” them into standalone operations. It has also creating tighter criteria for deciding when these projects should be put to rest, assembling a new group — called the Foundry — designed to steer moonshots through the life-or-death throes.
That’s encouraging. More bureaucracy. More after the fact planning. More logos.
Progress is evident at the Alphabet Google thing. I still marvel at balloons, however. And the death thing. Wow. Bell Labs mostly focused on stuff somewhat related to telephones. But the Alphabet Google thing has more scope and sweep. Balloons. At times, even IBM Watson’s wonkiness looks pretty solid. Death.
Stephen E Arnold, January 13, 2016
Google: Autos and Virtual Reality. Search? Not So Important?
January 13, 2016
I read two stories about the new Alphabet Google thing and its foci for 2016.
The first report comes from McPaper in the story “Google Forms Virtual Reality Division As Facebook Rivalry Heats Up.” The main idea is that Facebook is pitching virtual reality and getting lots of media coverage. The response for the Alphabet Google thing has been to do a reorganization.
Now I don’t much about virtual reality and I know zippo about modern management theory. I do think that when a giant company with many interests outside of the firm’s core technology does a reorganization after the Consumer Electronic Show, that’s a signal of note.
Has Google pulled a “let’s buy Motorola” or a “let’s reorganize now” maneuver?
Sure, looks like a knee jerk.
Meanwhile the Google is showing some signs of promiscuity. I read “Google Self-Driving Car Boss to Automakers: ‘We Hope to Work with Many of You Guys’.” I presume that the Alphabet Google thing will answer phone calls from those who want to work with the GOOG. The write up points out that there is a new president of the “self driving car project.” Hmm. President of project. I thought the title for that type of work was “project manager.”
The new Alphabet Google thing seems to be batting its Jack Benny blue eyes at anyone who finds the cachet of the search vendor alluring.
Zebras can change their stripes one assumes.
And search. Er, what?
Stephen E Arnold, January 13, 2016
Big Data Shows Its Return on Investment
January 13, 2016
Big data was the word that buzzed through the IT community and made companies revaluate their data analytics and consider new ways to use structured and unstructured information to their benefit. Business2Community shares how big data has affected companies in sixteen case studies: “16 Case Studies Of Companies Proving ROI Of Big Data.” One of the problems companies faced when implementing a big data plan was whether or not they would see a return on their investment. Some companies saw an immediate return, but others are still scratching their heads. Enough time has passed to see how various corporations in different industries have leaned.
Companies remain committed to implementing big data plans into their frameworks, most of what they want to derive from big data is how to use it effectively:
- “91% of marketing leaders believe successful brands use customer data to drive business decisions (source: BRITE/NYAMA)
- 87% agree capturing and sharing the right data is important to effectively measuring ROI in their own company (BRITE/NYAMA)
- 86% of people are willing to pay more for a great customer experience with a brand (souce: Lunch Pail)”
General Electric uses big data to test their products’ efficiently and the crunch the analytics to increase productivity. The Weather Channel analyzes its users behavior patterns along with climate data in individual areas to become an advertising warehouse. The big retailer Wal-Mart had added machine learning, synonym mining, and text analysis to increase search result relevancy. Semantic search has also increased online shopping by ten percent.
The article highlights many other big brand companies and how big data has become a boon for businesses looking to increase their customer relations, increase sales, and improve their services.
Whitney Grace, January 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Feeding the Google AI Beast and Keeping in Mind, You Are What You Eat
January 13, 2016
The article titled We are All SkyNet in the Googlesphere on Disinformation refers to the Terminator’s controlling A.I., SkyNet, who determines the beginning of a machine age in the movie, and the conspiracy that Google is taking on that role in reality. Is it easy to understand the fear of Google’s reach, it does sometimes seem like a gigantic arm with a thousand hands groping about in cyberspace, and collecting little pieces of information that on their own seem largely harmless. The article discusses cloud computing and its relationship to the conspiracy,
“When you need your bits of info, your computer gathers them from the cloud again. The cloud is SkyNet’s greatest line of defense, as you can’t kill what is spread out over an entire network. Since the magnificent expose of the NSA and their ability to (at least) access every keystroke, file or phone call and Google’s (at minimum) complicity in managing the data, that is to say, nearly all data being collected, it’s hard to imagine the limitations to what any such Google AI program could learn.”
The article ends philosophically with the suggestion that the nature of a modern day SkyNet will depend on the data that it gathers from us, that we will create the monster in our likeness. This may not be where we expected the article to go, but it does make sense. Google as a company will not determine it, at least if literature has taught us anything.
Chelsea Kerwin, January 13, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Boolean Search: Will George Boole Rotate in His Grave?
January 12, 2016
Boolean logic is, for most math wonks, the father of Boolean logic. This is a nifty way to talk about sets and what they contain. One can perform algebra and differential equations whilst pondering George and his method for thinking about fruits when he went shopping.
In the good old days of search, there was one way to search. One used AND, OR, NOT, and maybe a handful of other logic operators to retrieve information from structured indexes and content. Most folks with a library science degree or a friendly math major can explain Boolean reasonably well. Here’s an example which might even work on CSA ProQuest (nèe Lockheed Dialog) even today:
CC=77? AND scam?
The systems when fed the right query would reply with pretty good precision and recall. Precision provided info that was supposed to be useful. Recall meant that what should be included was in the result set.
I thought about Boole, fruit, and logic when I read “The Best Boolean and Semantic Search Tool.” Was I going to read about SDC’s ORBIT, ESA Quest, or (heaven help me) the original Lexis system?
Nope.
I learned about LinkedIn. Not one word about Palantir’s injecting Boolean logic squarely in the middle of its advanced data management processes. Nope.
LinkedIn. I thought that LinkedIn used open source Lucene, but maybe the company has invested in Exorbyte, Funnelback, or some other information access system.
The write up stated:
If you use any source of human capital data to find and recruit people (e.g., your ATS/CRM, resume databases, LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, Github, etc.) and you really want to understand how to best approach your talent sourcing efforts, I recommend watching this video when you have the time.
Okay, human resource functions. LinkedIn, right.
But there is zero content in the write up. I was pointed to a video called “Become a LinkedIn Search Ninja: Advanced Boolean Search” on YouTube.
Here’s what I learned before I killed the one hour video:
- The speaker is in charge of personnel and responsible for Big Data activities related to human resources
- Search is important to LinkedIn users
- Profiles of people are important
- Use OR. (I found this suggestion amazing.)
- Use iterative, probabilistic, and natural language search, among others. (Yep, that will make sense to personnel professionals.)
Okay. I hit the stop button. Not only will George be rotating, I may have nightmares.
Please, let librarians explicitly trained in online search and retrieval explain methods for obtaining on point results. Failing a friendly librarian, ask someone who has designed a next generation system which provides “helpers” to allow the user to search and get useful outputs.
Entity queries are important. LinkedIn can provide some useful information. The tools to obtain that high value information are a bit more sophisticated than the recommendations in this video.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2016
Search Is Marketing and Lots of Other Stuff Like Semantics
January 12, 2016
I spoke with a person who asked me, “Have you seen the 2013 Dave Amerland video? The video in question is “Google Semantic Search and its Impact on Business.”
I hadn’t. I watched the five-minute video and formed some impressions / opinions about the information presented. Now I wish I had not invested five minutes in serial content processing.
First, the premise is that search is marketing does not match up with my view of search. In short, search is more than marketing, although some view search as essential to making a sale.
Second, the video generates buzzwords. There’s knowledge graph, semantic, reputation, Big Data, and more. If one accepts the premise that search is about sales, I am not sure what these buzzwords contribute. The message is that when a user looks for something, the system should display a message that causes a sale. Objectivity does not have much to do with this, nor do buzzwords.
Third, presentation of the information was difficult for me to understand. My attention was undermined by the wild and wonderful assertions about the buzzwords. I struggled with “from stings to things, from Web sites to people.” What?
The video is ostensibly about the use of “semantics” in content. I am okay with semantic processes. I understand that keeping words and metaphors consistent are helpful to a human and to a Web indexing system.
But the premise. I have a tough time buying in. I want search to return high value, on point content. I want those who create content to include helpful information, details about sources, and markers that make it possible for a reader to figure out what’s sort of accurate and what’s opinion.
I fear that the semantics practiced in this video shriek, “Hire me.” I also note that the video is a commercial for a book which presumably amplifies the viewpoint expressed in the video. That means the video vocalizes, “Buy my book.”
Heck, I am happy if I can an on point result set when I run a query. No shrieking. No vocalization. No buzzwords. Will objective search be possible?
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2016
Dickens, the Dark Web, and IDG 2016
January 12, 2016
I read “The Dark Web & Business Report: A Seedy Dickensian Underworld Online.” It appears that this is a distillation of a longer and probably not free document from the mavens at IDG.
I noted this passage:
In reality, the dark web is a set of services, accessed via special gateways or software configurations that leverage encryption technology to make access or communication anonymous to a greater or lesser extent.
This is a statement from one of the employees / executives at one of the 31 companies interviewed for the report.
The full write up is a helpful summary for a person who wants to gave the chestnuts about the “hidden” Internet roasted with literary chestnuts.
What made the write up less than appetizing was the string of references to Charles Dickens. I am not sure that the Dickensian underworld was a reality, but it was a wonderful literary convention and helped sell books.
Is the inspiration for IDG anchored in reality or a Dickensian fiction? I thought of American Notes and this statement offered by Mr. Dickens:
“All that is loathsome, drooping, or decayed is here.”
No problem. Charlie ran into some money difficulties when reality collided with his made up world. Consulting firms, particularly the mid tier variety, face an interesting challenge in 2016. My appetite for Dark Web information is unsated.
Stephen E Arnold, January 12, 2016
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
