Search: The Dead Cat Bounces
October 6, 2016
I read two articles about the future of search. The first was a series of remarks in a podcast by Christopher Issac Stone, aka Biz. In a nutshell, one finds information by asking people.
The other write up was “If I Ran Google (Why the Future of Search Will Diverge from Its Present and Past.” The author of this article is a “multi time bestselling author.” The “A” was capitalized.
The two views of the future of search underscores the perception that keyword search is dead. Text is uninteresting. Search systems are bouncing like a dead cat; that is, typing words in a search box and looking for germane information is not where the world of users wants to go. Hence, search is going to change.
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Left clay tablet from the 4th millennium BCE. Right. clay tablets from 2016. Not much change it seems.
Here’s a statement which hits at the future of search. The quote comes from the multi time bestselling “Author”:
A lot of younger people don’t use Google as much as we might expect. They find things on YouTube (an Alphabet company), Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram or the like.
I agree. Pizza, cat videos, and even information about the future of search by many people will be sought and found using something other than the digital equivalent of a library card catalog. Thump. That’s the sound of the dead cat bouncing or hitting the pavement.
The thump means Google, the game changer, is going to have the game changed for itself.
The future is actionable intelligence. Ask a question and get an answer. Then order a pizza or watch a living cat video. Dead cats are not interesting.
Several thoughts:
First, there are numerous ways to look for information needed to answer a question. There are search boxes when one presumably is working on a research paper or maybe an article destined for publication. That is the old fashioned work which requires attention, note taking, and thinking about a topic and how to answer questions for which there is no single journal article or reliable data set. This type of research will not appeal to some people.
Second, there is the convenience of asking others for information. This is a useful type of information collection. Sometimes it works, and other times it forces the questioner to drag himself or herself back to the old fashioned method described in item one above.
Third, there is smart software which looks at behaviors and makes a best guess about what the person needs to know. When I drive to the airport, I want my GPS to show me which parking garage has an open space. No typing and no talking, please. Just the map with the answer.
In each of these broad categories of access — typing keywords, asking via text or voice, or smart software making best guesses — useful information can be located.
Most of the folks with whom I interact are not happy with search, a broad term used to describe a remarkable range of information access systems.
The problem with the future is that it is not going to bounce like the dead cat of the present.
If I have learned one thing in my years in the information access sector it is:
Information access methods do not die. Options become available.
Regardless of the future, some reading is necessary. Some talking to humans is necessary. Some smart software inputs are necessary.
Heck, here in Harrod’s Creek, people still use clay tablets to communicate. The message about the future is that “good enough” information access is more important than old fashioned checkpoints like precision, recall, provenance, and understanding.
Stephen E Arnold, October 6, 2016
Reverse Image Searching Is Easier Than You Think
October 6, 2016
One of the newest forms of search is using actual images. All search engines from Google to Bing to DuckDuckGo have an image search option, where using keywords you can find an image to your specifications. It seemed to be a thing of the future to use an actual image to power a search, but it has actually been around for a while. The only problem was that reverse image searching sucked and returned poor results.
Now the technology has improved, but very few people actually know how to use it. ZDNet explains how to use this search feature in the article, “Reverse Image Searching Made Easy…”. It explains that Google and TinEye are the best way to begin reverse image search. Google has the larger image database, but TinEye has the better photo experts. TinEye is better because:
TinEye’s results often show a variety of closely related images, because some versions have been edited or adapted. Sometimes you find your searched-for picture is a small part of a larger image, which is very useful: you can switch to searching for the whole thing. TinEye is also good at finding versions of images that haven’t had logos added, which is another step closer to the original.
TinEye does have its disadvantages, such as outdated results and not being able to find them on the Web. In some cases Google is the better choice as one can search by usage rights. Browser extensions for image searching are another option. Lastly if you are a Reddit user, Karma Decay is a useful image search tool and users often post comments on the image’s origin.
The future of image searching is now.
Whitney Grace, October 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
HonkinNews for October 4, 2016 Available
October 4, 2016
This week’s HonkinNews is available at this link. The feature story explores Palantir Technologies’ love-less love relationship with the US Army. Palantir’s approach to keeping its government customers happy is innovative. We also comment about Google’s blurring of cow faces in StreetView. Learn why SearchBlox is giving vendors of expensive, proprietary enterprise search systems cramps in their calves. Microsoft continues to pay users to access the Internet via Edge and use Bing to search for information. How much does the US government spend for operations and maintenance of its systems? The figure is surprising, if not shocking. This and more in HonkinNews for October 4, 2016.
Kenny Toth, October 4, 2016
You Too Can Be an Expert Searcher
October 4, 2016
One would think that in the days of instant information, we all would be expert searchers and know how to find any fact. The problem is that most people type entire questions into search engines and allow natural language processing to do the hard labor. There is a smarter way to search than lazy question typing and Geek Squad has an search literacy guide you might find useful: “Search Engine Secrets: Find More With Google’s Hidden Features.”
What very few people know (except us search gurus) is that search engines have hidden tricks you can use you find your results quicker and make search easier. While Google is the standard search engine and all these tricks are geared towards that search engine, they will also work with other ones. The standard way to search is by typing a query into the search bar and some of these typing tricks are old school, such as using parentheses for an exact phrase, searching one specific Web site, wildcards, Boolean operators, and using a minus sigh (-) to exclude terms.
Searching for pictures is a much newer search form and is usually done by clicking on the image search on a search engine. However, did you know that most search engines have the option to search with an image itself? With Google, simply drag and drop an image into the search bar to start the process. There are also delimiters on image search to filter results by specifics, such as GIFs, size, color, and others
Even newer than image search is vocal search with a microphone. Usually, voice search is employed with a digital assistant like Cortana and Siri. Some voice search commands are:
- Find a movie: What movies are playing tonight? or Where’s Independence Day playing?
- Find nearby places: Where’s the closest cafe?
- Find the time: What time is it in Melbourne?
- Answer trivia questions: Where was Albert Einstein born? or How old is Beyonce?
- Translate words or phrases: How do you say milk in Spanish?
- Define a word: What does existentialism mean?
- Convert between units: What’s 16 ounces in grams?
- Solve a math problem: What’s the square root of 2,209?
Book a restaurant table: Book a table for two at Dorsia on Wednesday night.
The only problem is that only the typing tricks transfer to professional research. They are used at universities, research institutes, and even large companies. The biggest problem is that people do not know how to use them in those organizations.
Whitney Grace, October 4, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google Drive Search
October 3, 2016
Google allows customers to save digital content to its Drive service. The hitch in the git along is that finding content can be difficult. Google, the search company which pays the bills selling ads, has introduced an information access utility to address this need.
I read “Google Updates Drive, Smarter Search Bar, Natural Language Processing and More.” The write up reminded me that with Google Drive I could “keep everything, share anything.” The article likes Google—a lot. I noted the words “fantastic.” That’s good. Fantastic.
The idea is that one no longer has to use key words. A person can ask a question; for example, I can “search like you talk.” Google is making search like “talk” because users requested this function.
The write up points out that “[Google] Docs:
will also now automatically save a copy of the non-Google file you open, convert and edit in Docs, Sheets or Slides, in its original format. This feature has been introduced considering the fact that work can happen across a spectrum of formats. Meanwhile, you can view or download the non-Google source file in its original format directly from Revision History in Docs, Sheets and Slides on the web.
The search function sounds perfect for the mobile user who finds keywords troublesome.
Several observations:
- Dumping digital content into a pile makes locating the specific item difficult when date, time, and other constraints are not available. Google does not “do time” very well.
- The notion of heterogeneous document types is an interesting one. What content types are supported and searchable? Framemaker or Analyst’s Notebook files perhaps?
- A search vendor introducing improved search is interesting to me. With precision and recall for Google Web search apparently eroded by other considerations, Google appears to be supporting multiple methods of locating information. Is this “let many flowers bloom” or a signal that search is Balkanizing?
As each user’s “pile” of digital artifacts grows, how will a person locate related content; for example, text, image, third party content in a way that makes sense? I do not see great progress in findability, but I like the marketing that inspires words like “fantastic.”
The convenience of Google Drive offers some useful information to those able to analyze a user’s content. Add in archived messages and search histories, and the “new” search creates an interesting concoction.
Stephen E Arnold, October 3, 2016
Solr: The Prestigious Bossie Winner
September 30, 2016
Beyond Search learned that open source search and retrieval solution Solr won a Bossie Award. The outfit involved in the awards said that Solr was a trusted and mature search engine technology.” Big outfits using Solr include Zappos, Comcast, and DuckDuckGo.
Also bringing home an award was Lucene. The description of Elasticsearch pointed out:
As part of the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, all developed by Elasticsearch’s creators, Elastic), Elasticsearch has found its killer app as an open source Splunk replacement for log analysis.
Users of Lucene include Microsoft and LinkedIn. (What’s the problem with SharePoint Search? What prevents Microsoft from using Fast Search & Transfer technology in lieu of open source search?)
Why are Solr and Lucene the go to search utilities? Free? Actual bug fixes and not excuses? No licensing leg shackles? Did I mention free?
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2016
Lexmark Upgrades Its Enterprise Search
September 30, 2016
Enterprise search has taken a back a back seat to search news regarding Google’s next endeavor and what the next big thing is in big data. Enterprise search may have taken a back seat in my news feed, but it is still a major component in enterprise systems. You can even speculate that without a search function, enterprise systems are useless.
Lexmark, one of the largest suppliers of printers and business solutions in the country, understand the importance of enterprise search. This is why they recently updated the description of its Perceptive Enterprise Search in its system’s technical specifications:
Perceptive Enterprise Search is a suite of enterprise applications that offer a choice of options for high performance search and mobile information access. The technical specifications in this document are specific to Perceptive Enterprise Search version 10.6…
A required amount of memory and disk space is provided. You must meet these requirements to support your Perceptive Enterprise Search system. These requirements specifically list the needs of Perceptive Enterprise Search and do not include any amount of memory or disk space you require for the operating system, environment, or other software that runs on the same machine.
Some technical specifications also provide recommendations. While requirements define the minimum system required to run Perceptive Enterprise Search, the recommended specifications serve as suggestions to improve the performance of your system. For maximum performance, review your specific environment, network, and platform capabilities and analyze your planned business usage of the system. Your specific system may require additional resources above these recommendations.”
It is pretty standard fare when it comes to technical specifications, in other words, not that interesting but necessary to make the enterprise system work correctly.
Whitney Grace, September 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google and the Future of Search Engine Optimization
September 30, 2016
Regular readers know that we are not big fans of SEO (Search Engine Optimization ) or its champions, so you will understand our tentative glee at the Fox News headline, “Is Google Trying to Kill SEO?” The article is centered around a Florida court case whose plaintiff is e.ventures Worldwide LLC, accused by Google of engaging in “search-engine manipulation”. As it turns out, that term is a little murky. That did not stop Google from unilaterally de-indexing “hundreds” of e.ventures’ websites. Writer Dan Blacharski observes:
The larger question here is chilling to virtually any small business which seeks a higher ranking, since Google’s own definition of search engine manipulation is vague and unpredictable. According to a brief filed by e-ventures’ attorney Alexis Arena at Flaster Greenberg PC, ‘Under Google’s definition, any website owner that attempts to cause its website to rank higher, in any manner, could be guilty of ‘pure spam’ and blocked from Google’s search results, without explanation or redress. …
The larger question here is chilling to virtually any small business which seeks a higher ranking, since Google’s own definition of search engine manipulation is vague and unpredictable. According to a brief filed by e-ventures’ attorney Alexis Arena at Flaster Greenberg PC, ‘Under Google’s definition, any website owner that attempts to cause its website to rank higher, in any manner, could be guilty of ‘pure spam’ and blocked from Google’s search results, without explanation or redress.
We cannot share Blacharski’s alarm at this turn of events. In our humble opinion, if websites focus on providing quality content, the rest will follow. The article goes on to examine Google’s first-amendment based stance, and considers whether SEO is even a legitimate strategy. See the article for its take on these considerations.
Cynthia Murrell, September 30, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
EasyAsk Has a Sticky Search
September 29, 2016
When I first began reading the EasyAsk article, “Search Laboratory: Rock ‘n’ Roll Lab Rats” it has the typical story about search difficulties and the importance about an accurate, robust search engine. They even include video featuring personified search engines and the troubles a user goes through to locate a simple item, although the video refers to Google Analytics. The article pokes fun at EasyAsk employees and how they develop the Search Lab, where they work on improving search functions.
One of the experiments that Search Lab worked on is “sticky search.” What is sticky search? Do you throw a keyword reel covered in honey into the Web pool and see what returns? Is it like the Google “I Feel Lucky” button. None of these are correct. The Search Lab conducted an experiment where the last search term was loaded into the search box when a user revisited. The Search Lab tracked the results and discovered:
As you can see, the sticky search feature was used by close-to one third of the people searching from the homepage, but by a smaller proportion of people on other types of page. Again, this makes sense as you’re more likely to use the homepage as a starting point when your intention is to return to a previously viewed product. We had helped 30% of people searching from our homepage get to where they wanted to go more quickly, but added inconvenience to the other two thirds (and 75% of searchers across the site as a whole) because to perform their searches, rather than just tapping the search box and beginning to type they now had to erase the old (sticky) search term too.
In other words, it was annoying. Search Lab retracted the experiment, but it was a decent effort to try something new even if the results could have been predicted. Keep experimenting with search options SearchLab, but keep the search box empty.
Whitney Grace, September 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Googley Spin-Offs Underwhelm
September 29, 2016
One might think that starting out as a derivative of one of the most successful companies in the world would be a sure path to profits. Apparently one would be wrong. The Telegraph reports, “Alphabet’s Spin-Offs are Struggling to Repeat the Google Success Story.” Readers will recall that Alphabet was created last year as the holding company for Google and its derivatives, like Calico, Google Capital, Nest, Google Ventures, Verily, and X. Writer James Titcomb explains the logic behind the move:
The theory behind Alphabet, when Page laid it out in August, made sense. Google had become more than just an internet services and advertising company, even though the main internet business still made all the money. Google had set up units such as Calico, a life sciences division trying to eradicate death; Project Loon, which is trying to beam the internet to rural Asia with gigantic space balloons; and Boston Dynamics, which is trying to build humanoid robots.
These ‘moonshots’ weren’t able to realize their potential within the confines of a company focused on selling pay-per-click internet advertising, so they were separated from it. Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s two co-founders, left the everyday running of the internet business to their trusted lieutenant, Sundar Pichai, who had been effectively doing it anyway.
Being liberated from Google, the moonshots were supposed to thrive under the Alphabet umbrella. Have they? The early signs are not good.
The article concedes that Alphabet expected to lose money on some of these derivative projects, but notes that the loss has been more than expected—to the tune of some $3.6 billion. Titcomb examines Nest, Google’s smart-thermostat initiative, as an example; its once-bright future is not looking up at the moment. Meanwhile, we’re reminded, Apple is finding much success with its services division. See the article for more details on each company.
Will Alphabet continue to use Google Search’s stellar profits to prop up its pet projects? Consider that, from the beginning, one of the companies’ winning strategies has been to try anything and run with what proves successful; repeated failure as a path to success. I predict Alphabet will never relinquish its experimental streak.
Cynthia Murrell, September 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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