is There a Red Bull in Search and Content Processing
July 16, 2013
After a series of meetings on the Left Coast, I sought respite in my newsreader. What caught my eye was an article about Red Bull. This snippet caught my eye:
Red Bull as a lifestyle, a kind of belief system, a religion in which that can of liquid was necessary and functional. From the beginning, Red Bull, the belief system, and Red Bull, the product, were inextricably intertwined.
You can read more in “Red Bull Gives You a Business Strategy.”
This article sparked this question, “Which search and content processing vendor is implementing the Red Bull business strategy?” My knee jerk reaction was to say, “Google.”
Google embodies a life style at least for those who want quick and easy access to relevant information as determined by the Google system. But what about less high profile companies and, narrowing still further, companies not built on advertising and free services?
Here’s another snippet:
Thirty years later, Red Bull has become a company that is hard to describe in conventional terms and perhaps the premier global example of a business that combines story and action — something I call a storydoing company. Instead of “telling” its story using advertising, Red Bull conveys its story through the creation of compelling experiences, all carefully crafted to “give you wings.” Because of this, Red Bull has become a packaged-goods company that is also a content creation company that is also an events company that is also an adventure sports lifestyle company.
Measured against “storydoing”, most search and content processing vendors fail. One example is a company which landed two big accounts and managed to miscommunicate the nature of the problem solved and the fact of the deals themselves. I receive PR missives each days which recycle the same limited vocabulary of buzzwords. When I inform the earnest spammers that I don’t care, I get PRatronization back.
The fact is that I could not think of a single current search and content processing vendor which is implementing a Red Bull strategy. Based on the information available to me, search and content processing boils down to:
- Recycled assertions
- Overused buzzwords
- Frantic jumping from market to market in hopes of making a sale
- Executive churn
- Angry investors, customers, and users.
I do know about some exceptions, but in the large scheme of things, search and content processing executives cannot implement “storydoing.”
Well, there are some options. These include webinars, Google Adwords, and one shot marketing efforts. I tune out of most webinars. I have webinar fatigue which seems to be communicable. I ignore online advertising, including the annoying pop ups which are reappearing. And I try to dodge one shot marketing efforts.
Are there other reasons why search and content processing, which is maybe 50 years young, has no Red Bull. (At lunch, a colleague pointed out, “Search does produce a lot of bull. I am not sure of the color.”
Good observation.
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Topology Configuration for SharePoint 2013
July 16, 2013
We’ve found an interesting how-to on topology configuration. The Team Blog of MCS @ Middle East and Africa posts, “Configuring SharePoint 2013 Search Topology.” Blogger and Microsoft employee Issa Ayyash begins:
“When creating the Search Service application, a default topology will be built automatically where all Search components are assigned to the server which is running the Central Administration, in multi servers farm scenario you need to change this topology, the only available way currently is through PowerShell which will provide more flexibility in configuring the topology, (you can NOT modify the topology through UI like you used to do with SharePoint 2010)”
Yes, that change could be frustrating if one didn’t get the memo. For a rundown of the differences between SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013, click here.
Ayyash goes on to guide us through an example five-server setup, complete with a helpful diagram, a screenshot, and snippets of code. The model dedicates three servers to query processing and two as application servers. This post is a concise and informative resource for anyone who may be called upon to configure a SharePoint 2013 search topology.
Cynthia Murrell, July 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Many Projects of SumoBrain Solutions
July 15, 2013
Often times we come across companies so interesting that they deserve a write-up of their own — news or no current news. We stumbled upon SumoBrain Solutions and were intrigued enough to delve into their About Us.
SumoBrain Solutions participated in last year’s PE2E (Patent End-to-End) pilot project and developed a solution to the US Patent and Trademark Office that they integrated into the non-search architecture.
Also of note is their technology to support complex search optimization for their chemical industry client. We learned:
“A matrix query is particularly powerful when a user desires a dataset based on 2 or more dimensions. For example, rather than asking for all patents where the assignee is IBM, Intel, or Microsoft, the user might request all datasets where the assignee is IBM, Intel, or Microsoft, by year for the last 20 years. Other use cases include mapping term lists against assignees or … The conventional way of running such queries was to run each permutation – and depending on the number of dimensions and the number of possibilities in each dimension, this approach can quickly become intractable. Our innovative approaches to this challenge and many other complex search problems have given us the most powerful and scalable capabilities on the market.”
Their projects don’t stop there. They are also working on a project with Harvard University Business School on historical and geographical trends in patenting activity in the US.
Megan Feil, July 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Twitter Shortcut for Search Results Related to Products and Services
July 13, 2013
The article titled How to Find People Asking For Your Products Or Services on Twitter on Market Intelligence offers a simple tip that might yield results for certain services. Typing –http ? “Keyword” into Twitter’s keyword search will discover the stream of search results for any given keyword. The article explains,
“Imagine you are a company selling cosmetics and are launching a new face cream. By entering the query -http ? “face cream” into Twitter search, you will see a stream of all people who mentioned face cream in a tweet… The first girl is asking for suggestions for a night time face cream. Do you offer a similar product? If so, hit reply and send her your recommendation.”
The article goes on to look closely at the first few hits, noticing that, (voila!) one of them is a blogger who might write about her interaction with the face cream touted on Twitter. I imagine in real life this would take a lot more combing through inane and irrelevant posts. Whether or not it works when the product or service is not popular on Twitter, or even non-existent, is not mentioned in the article. Perhaps this advice is aimed only at mainstream services, making it, like Twitter, useful to some, but useless to many.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
DuckDuckGo Offered as Private Alternative to Google
July 12, 2013
The article titled “Search Engine Privacy; DuckDuckGo Does Not Track Its Users” on Slate is an interview with DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg. This search engine was created as an alternative to Google with the benefit that while Google stores the all of the data you give it, DuckDuckGo does not. Due to the leaks about NSA’s widening monitoring practices, DuckDuckGo’s traffic exploded, rising from 2 million queries before the story broke to over 3 million. The article explains who this search engine is aimed at,
“Different people prefer different experiences and user interfaces. Google is trying to appeal to the average user—we are trying to carve out a niche for the serious person who knows what they’re doing and wants their privacy protected and a great result. We have servers around the world, and we can see how much traffic is coming in from which areas, so we know our users are about 50 percent United States, 50 percent international. “
Painting Google as Walmart and DuckDuckGo as a boutique search engine seems to be a working strategy for Weinberg. His emphasis on privacy appeals to a great number of individuals. Weinberg mentioned just a few examples of common searches, medial and travel related, that no one wants made public. Of course the two search engines are not impossible to use together- perhaps reserving DuckDuckGo for searches that are potentially embarrassing or personal.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
MaxxCAT Launches Program for Nonprofits
July 11, 2013
MaxxCAT has implemented a program designed to help nonprofits, we learn from “MaxxCAT Hopes to Bring Search Appliances to Nonprofit Organizations with NPO Buyers Program,” posted at PRWeb. The limited-time NPO Buyers Program pairs a choice of search appliances (the EX-5000 enterprise search or SB-350 search) with extended integration and support services.
The program aims to fill one particular gap NPOs often face; the press release tells us:
“While all MaxxCAT search appliances are easy to integrate, nonprofits often face resource shortages in their IT departments. To address this concern, MaxxCAT will include three hours of Integration Services with each appliance purchased under the NPO Buyers Program. The Integration Services Group provides top-level service from the experts who design and build MaxxCAT’s appliances, and three hours is typically enough time to implement a search.
“Each MaxxCAT appliance comes with a year of email support plus software updates as well as a one year hardware warranty. In addition, nonprofits will receive an extra year of email support plus software updates.”
This is a limited-time offer, so interested NPOs should check out this link soon. Perhaps if they get a good response, the company can be persuaded to extend the program.
Based in Pittsburg, MaxxCAT was founded in 2007 to capitalize on the high-performance, specialized hardware corner of the enterprise search market. The company also provides integration services and managed hosting. A focus on performance, simplicity, and ease of integration keeps MaxxCAT at the fore of the high-performance field. This foray into serving nonprofits can only help the company’s standing.
Cynthia Murrell, July 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A Call for Answers to SharePoint Mystery
July 10, 2013
SharePoint pro Marc D Anderson believes Microsoft has some explaining to do, he asserts in his blog post, “SharePoint 2013’s Search Continuous Crawl: an Enigma.” While updating one intranet system, he was working with the continuous and incremental crawl settings. He describes his confusing results, complete with screenshots, so see the write-up for the technical details. He summarizes:
“Continuous Crawl seems to be working, but at some underlying schedule which isn’t visible. There have been some suggestions that the Continuous Crawl schedule is set to every 15 minutes by default, and the evidence above seems to support that since the second piece of content showed up in 12 minutes, about 15 minutes after the last crawl that was visible in the logs. There is some PowerShell you can use to get at properties of the Continuous Crawl, but it’s not totally clear what impact they have on the schedule. . . .
“Another thing that’s not clear is how many Continuous crawl threads might stack up if things get backed up. One person has suggested an unlimited number and someone else told me there’s a maximum of 8 threads.”
Anderson calls for Microsoft to put out documentation that will clear up the confusion. He does list a few links that may be of some help to some SharePoint users, and calls for readers to share any information they have in the comments section. If this enigma might be of concern to your organization, you might want to check back there for more answers.
Cynthia Murrell, July 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Poor Puffer
July 10, 2013
Columnist Scott Kirsner has found the perfect symbol for the disruptive cultural shifts that take place when a large company acquires a smaller one; Boston.com posts, “Firing Nemo: Endeca, Oracle, and the Cultural Aftershocks of an Acquisition.” Much like a new homeowner who razes a lovingly-tended, decades-old flower bed to make room for a gravel driveway, new corporate overlords can impose heart-aching changes that end up devaluing the property they just bought.
The symbol that embodies this unfortunate tendency is one lovely fish named Puffer, who for a decade enjoyed the plum position of Endeca mascot. However, because Oracle maintains a no-pets provision for all of its properties, Puffer was forced into retirement. I find it amazing that large organizations, even ones run by smart people, tend to produce bureaucracies unable to distinguish between a puffer fish and a Great Dane. But I digress; the issue here is changing corporate culture, not that red tape smothers common sense. (Right?)
Kirsner writes:
“All the employees loved Puffer. They put her picture on posters that promoted companywide parties. And when she puffed up — which was not very often — people took pictures and e-mailed them to their co-workers. The employees who helped take care of Puffer, feeding her krill and algae, loved her even more. She would follow them whenever they walked past her tank, sometimes bonking into the glass.
“But one day in 2011, one of the richest men in the world decided to buy Endeca. . . . And that’s when things changed for Puffer and her friends.
“This is the story of Puffer, but it’s also the story of those thousand tiny changes that big companies often make when they acquire smaller ones. And about how those changes often lead to the loss of the very same talent the big company hoped to bring on as part of the deal.”
How big a problem is this loss of talent through such tone-deafness? Well, Kirsner for one says he knows far more folks who have left Endeca than stayed since the Oracle deal. That is just one example, but I can think of one or two others. Is this sort of shake-up necessary, or could more common sense and sensitivity be applied? It seems like a low-cost way to maximize the ROI on corporate acquisitions. (The good karma is an added benefit.)
Cynthia Murrell, July 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Search Circle Subscription Service
July 10, 2013
In the increasingly complex world of enterprise search, particularly open source enterprise, good information flow is essential to staying on top of the latest trends and updates. New information services are popping up to help keep developers and enterprise managers in the know. The Search Circle is the latest on the market. Read more about the service:
“The Search Circle is the first subscription information service for managers and developers with responsibility for enterprise search and website search applications. It was launched on 1 July 2013. The annual subscription is £250 plus VAT, €300 plus VAT or $400. Payment can be made against an invoice or by credit card. For an application form email membership@thesearchcircle.com.”
The service is based in the UK, but there are other means of obtaining similar information in the states. For instance, Steven E. Arnold produces The Honk, a free weekly opt-in newsletter focused on online search and analytics. Or, users can go another route by choosing an enterprise solution that builds in support and training, like LucidWorks. Their support and services mean that users will never be behind the curve.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Endeca Does SEO
July 9, 2013
Web services firm Thanx Media reveals, within their Site Search solutions menu, the existence of a product we find quite interesting: apparently, Endeca has entered the search engine optimization (SEO) space. The description tells us:
Oracle Endeca’s Search Engine Marketing (SEM) technology provides a proven method for accelerating the optimization of websites and improving natural search results. The technology automates the process of exposing your content to Web search engines in a highly consumable and search engine friendly format.
Your business can boost the value of your Oracle Endeca investment and benefit from:
- Higher website traffic.
- Increase the number pages indexed by search engines by more than 500%.
- Improved quality of indexed pages.
- A 60% reduction in development hours spent optimizing landing pages for SEO.
- Improve Natural Search sales by as much as 50%.
A curious move from Endeca. The module generates sitemaps as well as optimizing and redirecting URLs. Even before it was snapped up by Oracle in 2011, the company was at the fore of the faceted search field, with hundreds of customers in areas from ecommerce to intelligence. Endeca was formed in 1999, and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Cynthia Murrell, July 09, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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