Twitter Bashing Not
March 10, 2009
Network World’s “To Tweet or Not to Tweet, That’s Not an Option” is an interesting write up about Twitter here. Twitter is a micro blogging service much loved by the mobile phone crowd under the age of 24. Most oldsters in heart and mind don’t understand why anyone would want to know that someone is eating breakfast. I suppose an Athenian would express similar surprise after listening to a chunk of Iliad and then having a colleague point out the wonders of the haiku. The article includes a link to a video with tips for social networking. This is another one of those info pellets designed to eliminate the need for a person who in theory knows something to write a sentence or two. For me, the most interesting comment in the semi clever article was:
Even if my explanations so far aren’t enough to persuade you to put some serious effort into “getting” Twitter” just consider that according to a blog entry on Compete.com in February this year Twitter ranks as the third largest social network with 6 million users and 55 million monthly visitors (it is only beaten by Facebook and MySpace, No. 1 and No. 2 respectively).
A good snip for my Twitter file and maybe yours too. Hey, with a url that would be a Tweet.
Stephen Arnold, March 10, 2009
Searching Twitter
March 9, 2009
At dinner on Saturday night, the conversation turned to Twitter. One of the guests asks, “Why would I want to use Twitter?” Another asked, “What’s it good for?” I listened. I will forward to each person in the dinner party Chris Allison’s “Welcome to the Hive Mind: Learn How to Search Twitter” here. Mr. Allison does a good job of documenting Twitter’s real time search system. If you too are baffled by Twitter, read the article and give Twitter a whirl. Join the growing number of intelligence and law enforcement and business intelligence professionals who are also learning about real time search. Note: most of the information in a Tweet is inconsequential. Aggregated, the micro blog posts are useful.
Stephen Arnold, March 9, 2009
Twitter: SWAT or Sissy
March 8, 2009
Farhad Manjoo’s “What the Heck Is Twitter?” here joins the team suggesting that Twitter is a sissy; that is, Twitter can’t kill Google. Google is a tough customer. Underneath those primary colors, Google has a dark core. Mr. Manjoo points out that some blogeratti see Twitter as a SWAT team able to take out Google. Google has “special” search engines. Real time search is a category of search. Twitter has “a great future” (maybe) but it does have the T shirt that says, “Fail whale.”
You should read the Slate story because the online publication has considerable clout, certainly much more than the feather duster the addled goose brandishes.
I would offer several observations:
First, Twitter has a content stream and search is a relatively recent trendlet for Twitter. Twitter is primarily about inconsequential content that when passed through a user filter–that is, a query–can yield timely information. The point, therefore, is that the content can yield nuggets. These are not necessarily “correct”. Google doesn’t have at this time the content flow. Real time search is a logical jump to information that offers the pre-cognitive insights much loved by some analysts (business and intelligence).
Second, Google has been a company with great potential and game changing technology. Twitter may flop. But it has become for me an example of a segment that Google has not been quick to seize either with its own technology or with its Google bucks. Twitter is not my go to search engine, but it has become a case example of a company that has managed to make clear Google’s inability to decide what to do and then do it with the force of will the company demonstrated between 2003 (pre Yahoo overture settlement) and 2006. Since 2007, Google has been, in my opinion, showing signs of bureaucratic indigestion.
Third, users of Twitter see the utility of the service. My hunch is that if I showed Twitter to my father’s friends at his Independent Village lunch group, no one would know what the heck Twitter is, why anyone would send a message, or what possible value is a Tweet like “I am stuck in traffic.” Show Twitter to a group of sixth graders, and I think the uptake will be different. That’s what’s important. Who cares if someone over 25 understands Twitter. The demographics point to a shift in the notion of timeliness expectations of users. To me, Twitter is making clear an opportunity from micro blog message traffic.
Therefore, I am not a Twitter user. I have an expert on staff who sends Tweets as Ben Kent, so we can see how the system interacts with the Twitter-sphere. I am an addled goose, but I am coherent enough to look at the service and see possibilities. I would opine that unless Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo don’t respond to this opportunity, Twitter may become much more than a wonky service with a “Fail whale” T shirt.
Stephen Arnold, March 8, 2009
YAGG: Google Docs Sharing Quirk
March 8, 2009
TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid’s “Google Privacy Blunder Shares Your Docs Without Permission”, if on the money, revealed yet another alleged Google glitch here. The issue pertains to inadvertent sharing of Google Docs. Mr. Kincaid wrote citing a Google generated message:
this sharing was limited to people “with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document” – a vague statement that sounds like it could add up to quite a few people. The notice states that only text documents and presentations are affected, not spreadsheets, and provides links to each of the user’s documents that may have been affected.
To be on the safe side, sensitive Google Docs might be happier on your local computing device. The addled goose loves things Google. YAGGs make the goose nervous. You may be different–at least until the alleged matter is clarified.
Stephen Arnold, March 8, 2009
Good SharePoint in the Cloud Forecast
March 7, 2009
I try to look at what’s new from the Microsoft SharePoint, Fast Search, and related content processing units once a week. Since the Fast Forward 2009 road map, there’s been not too much to grab my attention. I am fascinated with road maps. These are easier to create and deploy than software. I did come across a very useful set of PowerPoint slides here. The focus is SharePoint from the cloud. My hunch is that Microsoft will be packing SharePoint with search technology when the road map converts to shipping code. If this url doesn’t work for you, navigate here and click the faint Download link at http://cid-0ddc65de8785e94e.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/mpdc-bpos%20-%20DIWUG20090217.pdf. Note that this information is on a Microsoft Sky Drive in Adobe PDF format, a fact I find amusing. The presentation is by Serge van den Oever of Macaw. Parts of the talk are in Dutch, but the meaty stuff is in the diagrams. Here’s an example of the type of information available. Note: this is a portion of a single slide; there’s more on the original:
Another useful slide shows the pricing in US dollars. Navigate to the original for this information. I don’t know how touchy the Microsoft legal eagles are about folks reproducing non a Dutch presentation with US SharePoint costs. There’s a screen shot of an application from Metavistech which looks interesting as well. There’s even a “pimp my SharePoint” slide for those with a yen to customize SharePoint and a sense of the California car culture. Instead of a hot tub, the slide suggests adding a wiki to SharePoint. Sounds cool.
Stephen Arnold, March 7, 2009
Clouds Dissipate at HP
March 7, 2009
Hewlett Packard joined Yahoo is bailing out of the cloud storage business. You can read the ComputerWorld story “HP Shuts Down Upline Online Storage Service” here. HP has the distinction of going zero for two in the online game. First, the company muffed the bunny with AltaVista.com. When the wizards escaped the HP Compaq DEC set up, Google and other companies surged forward. Now HP pulls the plug on a service that did not work as well as Amazon’s service. HP beaten by an eCommerce company. The most interesting comment in the write up in my opinion was:
HP’s Upline service had trouble from the start. Three weeks after opening in April last year, it went down for a week. Users at the time reported problems in the client software to upload and synchronize files with the hosted service — calling Upline a good idea that was horribly executed.
HP has some big customers, one of which is alleged to be Microsoft. I thought HP was an ink company.
Stephen Arnold, March 7, 2009
Twitting Ain’t Search and Google Used to Suck
March 6, 2009
I am an addled goose, an OLD addled goose. I liked some of the points in “Twitter Ain’t Search” but I had some qualms about accepting the assertion that Twitter is not search. You must read the article here. For me the most interesting comment in the write up was:
I kind of view Twitter as dead simple blog platform for the masses (hence the adoption of it by the masses). Blog platforms like the one for this blog (Movable Type) can be complicated – especially for the mainstream folks who don’t know/ want to learn html commands.
My view is that Twitter is indeed micro blogging. But the significance of Twitter is in the information flows and the access thereto. Here’s why:
I have learned that electronic information generates enough paradoxes to give Epimenides a headache. Example: online information gave way to CD ROMs. The commercial online giants said, “CDs suck. Too small.” Yep, CDs then changed some unexpected sectors of the information industry and this was in the 1983 to 1985 time period. Then Lycos came along and people said, “Lycos sucks. No updates.” AltaVista.com came along, figured out the update thing and HP said, “AltaVista.com sucks.” So Google.com came online. Some people said, “Google sucks. It’s not a portal.” On and on.
Twitter is an example of the type of information opportunity that occurs when a sufficient number of users generate information flows. Who cares whether an individual Twitter message is “right” or “wrong”? Who cares if Twitter crashes and burns or whether it is bought by Verizon and turned into a subscriber only service. The US is not where the action is in information flows in case you haven’t heard.
Twitter is important because it represents a model of what one or more companies can use as an example. Google cracked Web search, but the real time SMS flows are new territory, and if you don’t understand that where information flows, money exists. Quick example: you are a law enforcement professional. You are dealing with a person of interest aged 17 in Rio de Janeiro. The person of interest coordinates a group of eight to 10 year olds. The “pack of kids” distracts a tourist, probably a complacent American pundit. Whilst engaged, the kids take the passport, billfold, and camera and scamper off. The whole deal is organized by text messages sent on disposable mobile phones thoughtfully provided by the person of interest. A system that permits searching of these SMS messages or Tweets in Twitter speak * could * be helpful to law enforcement. The messages could be baloney. But a search takes a short amount of time. If useful info0rmation becomes available, that’s a plus. If none becomes available, the law enforcement professional has learned something useful about the person of interest. I am sure one can think of other examples of the benefit of real time information flows generated by the technically hip, the permanently young, and middle school to college people who just see Twitter as another part of the everyday dataspace.
I am coming around to the view that Twitter-type systems are important and are likely to reshape the notion of real time search.
Stephen Arnold, March 6, 2009
Google Latitude: Warrant Needed
March 6, 2009
eWeek’s “Google Promises Memory Loss for Latitude” here asserted that Google will respond to concerns about privacy with its Latitude service. Latitude, as you may know, shows your “friends” where you are in almost real time. Google’s service, like Loopt, will require a warrant before providing location based data to law enforcement agency. That is good news because it means that Google will cooperate when appropriate documents are in place. Law enforcement officials are overwhelmed, understaffed, and asked to do more with fewer resources. The hassle that some online services make when legitimate requests for information are thwarted does not, in my opinion, do much more than clog an already overburdened system. This addled goose is perfectly okay with rapid innovation in geospatial services. The addled goose is quite happy that a warrant will provide data that can be used by law enforcement.
Stephen Arnold, March 6, 2009
Vyre: Software, Services, Search, and More
March 6, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a link to Vyre, whose catchphrase is “dissolving complexity.” The last time I looked at the company, I had pigeon holed it as a consulting and content management firm. The news release my reader sent me pointed out that the company has a mid market enterprise search solution that is now at version 4.x. I am getting old, or at least too sluggish to keep pace with content management companies that offer search solutions. My recollection is that Crown Point moved in this direction. I have a rather grim view of CMS because software cannot help organizations create high quality content or at least what I think is high quality content.
The Wikipedia description of Vyre matches up with the information in my archive:
VYRE, now based in the UK, is a software development company. The firm uses the catchphrase “Enterprise 2.0” to describe its enterprise solutions for business.The firm’s core product is Unify. The Web based services allows users to build applications and content management. The company has technology that manages digital assets. The firm’s clients in 2006 included Diageo, Sony, Virgin, and Lowe and Partners. The company has reinvented itself several times since the late 1990s doing business as NCD (Northern Communication and Design), Salt, and then Vyre.
You can read Wikipedia summary here. You can read a 2006 Butler Group analysis here. My old link worked this evening (March 5, 2009), but click quickly. In my files I had a link to a Vyre presentation but it was not about search. Dated 2008, you may find the information useful. The Vyre presentations are here. The link worked for me on March 5, 2009. The only name I have in my archive is Dragan Jotic. Other names of people linked to the company are here. Basic information about the company’s Web site is here. Traffic, if these data are correct, seem to be trending down. I don’t have current interface examples. The wiki for the CMS service is here. (Note: the company does not use its own CMS for the wiki. The wiki system is from MediaWiki. No problem for me, but I was curious about this decision because the company offers its own CMS system. You can get a taste of the system here.
Administrative Vyre screen.
After a bit of poking around, it appears that Vyre has turned up the heat on its public relations activities. The Seybold Report here presented a news story / news release about the search system here. I scanned the release and noted this passage as interesting for my work:
…version 4.4 introduces powerful new capabilities for performing facetted and federated searching across the enterprise. Facetted search provides immediate feedback on the breakdown of search results and allows users to quickly and accurately drill down within search results. Federated search enables users to eradicate content silos by allowing users to search multiple content repositories.
Vyre includes a taxonomy management function with its search system, if I read the Seybold article correctly. I gravitate to the taxonomy solution available from Access Innovations, a company run by my friend and colleagues Marje Hlava and Jay Ven Eman. Their system generates ANSI standard thesauri and word lists, which is the sort of stuff that revs my engine.
Endeca has been the pioneer in the enterprise sector for “guided navigation” which is a synonym in my mind for faceted search. Federated search gets into the functions that I associated with Bright Planet, Deep Web Technologies, and Vivisimo, among others. I know that shoving large volumes of data through systems that both facetize content and federated it are computationally intensive. Consequently, some organizations are not able to put the plumbing in place to make these computationally intensive systems hum like my grandmother’s sewing machine.
If you are in the market for a CMS and asset management company’s enterprise search solution, give the company’s product a test drive. You can buy a report from UK Data about this company here. I don’t have solid pricing data. My notes to myself record the phrase, “Sensible pricing.” I noted that the typical cost for the system begins at about $25,000. Check with the company for current license fees.
Stephen Arnold, March 6, 2009
Google Twitter: Miscommunication
March 5, 2009
Henry Blodget’s “Google’s Schmidt: I Didn’t Diss Twitter” made me laugh. When I saw the blogosphere lightning strikes about an alleged remark by Google’s top wizard, I wondered if the reporters heard correctly. I don’t do hard news. I point to stories I find interesting. Mr. Blodget wrote on March 4, 2009, a story that allegedly set the record straight. You can read it here.
Which interstellar object is growing? Which is dying? Which is the winner? Which will become a charcoal briquette in a manner of speaking?
Please, navigate to Silicon Valley Insider because the good stuff is in capital letters with some words tinted red in anger. For me, the most interesting comment was:
In context if you read what I said, I was talking about the fact that communication systems are not going to be separate. They’re all going to become intermixed in various ways.
Several comments:
- The quote sounds like something I heard George Gilder say years ago. (For the record, the fellow who paid Mr. Gilder and me for advice sided with me about convergence. I prefer the term “blended”, and I still do.) Think a digital Jamba cooler.
- Google’s top Googler comes across as more politically sensitive. In Washington, DC, saying nothing whilst saying something that seems coherent is an art form. Mr. Schmidt is carrying a tinge of Potomac fever in my opinion.,
- The Twitter “thing” is clearly on Mr. Schmidt’s mind. My conclusion after reading the capital letters and red type is that Twitter has become a wisdom tooth ache. The pain is deep and it is getting worse.
No one is more interested in real time search than sentiment miners, intelligence professionals, and some judicially oriented researchers. The more the Twitter and real time search gains traction, the older and slower Google looks. In case you missed my post here, is this another sign of a generation gap between Google’s “old style” indexing and Twitter’s here and now flow? Note: Facebook.com is getting with the program too. eWeek has an interesting article here.
In my opinion we have a fuzzy line taking shape like those areas between galaxies that NASA distributes to show the wonders of the universe.
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