Facebook NLP Group Postings
August 30, 2011
ZDNet reports on the technical side of Facebook’s newest adjustment to the ubiquitous news feed in, “Facebook using natural language processing to group posts, link to Pages.”
Facebook has added a new type of story to its News Feed today: if more than one of your friends post about the same topic, and it has a Page on the social network, the posts will be grouped under a Posted About story, even if your friends don’t explicitly tag the Page. The story is posted in the following format: “[Friend] and [x] other friends posted about [Page]” where the last part is a link to the Page in question. It turns out Facebook is using natural language processing on status updates as well as the headlines of posted links to figure out if a topic mentioned has a corresponding Page, and then searches to see if your other friends have done so as well.
This is Facebook’s first attempt to match the “trending” ability of Twitter. I’m just not sure that it’s effective yet. As a librarian and a Facebook user, there’s a personal and a professional side to this story for me. The privacy aspect of the social network prevents a metasearch that would allow a user to find relevant posts by subject across the platform. So in its place, it seems Facebook is attempting to show you common themes among those within your friend group, those to whom you have access.
A sure complaint will be the mile-long list one has to scroll through when a friend’s birthday is being universally acknowledged. Sometimes the groupings don’t even make sense, as is the case when two people on different days post to the same person’s wall, but the news feed is grouped together. The only common denominator in that equation is the individual whose wall was being written on. The topics can be completely separate and yet somehow wind up grouped together.
The real power that Facebook should leverage with this feature is the ad revenue potential. The ZDNet article shows an example of several friends discussing the new Harry Potter movie, with a news grouping headline of “So and so and two other friends also posted about Harry Potter.” “Harry Potter” then acts as a link to the product page, in this case, the movie promotion page. So here there is potential to take casual conversation, use NLP to pick up on products or services that also use Facebook, and then direct those users back to the product pages for that particular product or service. If Facebook could find a way to do this effectively, and get companies to buy in on this type of targeted marketing, it could be much more effective than sidebar ads. Expect to see more experimentation from Facebook with natural language processing.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 30, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Plus Demographics
August 14, 2011
Here at the Beyond Search goose pond, we pay more attention to the less zippy aspects of search. The notion of asking someone and getting an answer is a method we learned at our orientation class at Halliburton NUS 40 years ago. The training went something like this.
When you need to know where the diagrams for the ECCS are, you need to ask the duty officer?
Not too fancy, but the method worked despite government and plant operator bureaucratic “efficiency.” Moving questions to another communication medium seems pretty understandable to us. Searching the digital artifacts is an obvious step. We can even get our tiny minds around the notion of knowing who asked whom, what, and when.
When we think about Google Plus, we see a new service which is changing. We think that the changes are coming less quickly than we anticipated. Google seems to be putting considerable effort into the new service. Once a person provides the who, what, why and when for routine communications one has a very interesting commercialization opportunity.
“Study Google+ Winning over Suburban Parents, Losing College Kids and Cafe Dwellers” caught our attention on august 13, 2011. The write up provides some early data about the demographics of the 20 million plus Google Plus users. (Am I the only one who eschews using the plus sign because of its role as an operator in some search systems?)
Here’s the passage we noted:
Google+ seems to be falling out of favor among the “colleges and cafes” crowd, generally younger people without children. However, it’s seeing an increase in interest from the “kids and cabernet” segment — defined as “prosperous, middle-aged married couples living child-focused lives in affluent suburbs.” That’s a group that hasn’t embraced Facebook as much as the rest of the population, according to the Experian Hitwise data.
My hunch is that Google is going to want hundreds of millions of users of all demographic stripes and hues. The inclusion of games is a first obvious step of what is a consumerizing move. The video stuff also points down market to me, but I am 67 and not too keen on the boob tube whether implemented on a big screen TV, a mobile device, or some intermediate gizmo like an iPad. A wasteland is a wasteland to me.
The more consumerized a service, the less utility that service has to me. Facebook is the ultimate consumer “space”, and I don’t spend much time in that service. (A couple of the goslings are working on a Facebook implementation for Augmentext.com, but I just watch and learn. I don’t “do.”) Google Plus seems more appropriate to me, but if it goes down-market, then I will drift away. LinkedIn has already become a crazy “hire me” and “I am an expert” place, and I am not too keen on that digital watering hole either. I am willing to be semi flexible, but since I can’t touch my toes, I don’t know how far I can go in this down-market type environment.
Stephen E Arnold, August 14, 2011
Google vs. Facebook: Peewee League or World Cup of Social
August 10, 2011
Search vs. Social Media. Google vs. Facebook. The two sides seem to be locked in what some pundits and “real” experts see as an epic battle for ultimate Internet supremacy. Slow news day? Brilliant insight?
Both sides have significantly changed the online landscape. With Google’s new Google + social network, the two are now fighting over essentially the same territory, and ultimately the same advertising revenue. The Guardian reports in, “Google and Facebook Get Personal in Battle for Social Networking Rewards.” We learned:
Ultimately the real battle is over cold, hard cash. Google made 97% of its revenues, or $32.3bn, in the past 12 months from advertising. eMarketer, meanwhile estimates that Facebook’s largely ad-generated revenues will grow from $0.74bn in 2009 to $5.74bn in 2012 – yet the site has hardly begun rolling out truly personalized, targeted advertising. If there is any of Google’s lunch to be eaten, it is here.
Google has admitted to being behind the curve in the social media game. Facebook is deeply entrenched and has momentum on its side. Google maintains that at its heart it is still a search company, but Google + can add another level to the personalization and identity of the searcher. They are not trying to recreate exactly what Facebook has done, and that’s exactly the problem.
World Cup?
We noted this passage:
Though Google+ is an intelligent attempt at a social networking tool, it seems a typical Google product in that it is brilliantly, heavily engineered but lacks the human focus required for a social network – the fuel that has propelled Facebook to 750 million users.
Is Google+ a Threat to Facebook’s Business Demographic?
July 16, 2011
EWeek.com informs us that “Google+ Will Target Businesses, Facebook Audience.” It seems that Google intends to entice businesses as well as personal accounts into its Google+ Web. This may pose a problem for Facebook, who has long encouraged companies to set up pages on its site. Recently, that company has even introduced new tools aimed specifically at businesses.
Google discourages businesses from setting up shop in its initial Google+ project. However, it is working on something just for them:
We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year,’ Christian Oestlien, a group product manager at Google, wrote in a July 6 posting on his Google+ profile page. ‘The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses.
If that’s true, Facebook had better continue to step up its game. Our view at Beyond Search is rotated about 12 degrees.
First, we think that social media is useful. It is less about the Internet and more about communication. No problem, but communication has a history of industry-centric regulation. As social media follows the path worn by AT&T, there will be some interesting changes coming.
Second, the novelty of social media may follow the pattern of behaviors in other group discussions; that is, intense use followed by declining use and then popping in and out of groups “to find out what’s happening”. The data backing my assertion were collected in the early days of online groups, and I am watching for signals that suggest a similar pattern. My hunch is that there may be some usage shifts coming which will be as interesting as the regulatory net that will be woven around social media.
Third, control of content within social media systems will impart enormous power to those who have a superior capability within the social media system. For this reason, social media will morph into products and services which have a built in magnetic quality. A user may leave one group, only to reengage with a different group later. Fragmentation of attention will be a defining secondary characteristic. The primary characteristic is that fragmenting of attention will be just hat Dr. Algorithm ordered to punch the user’s purchase, vote, think buttons. The users won’t have much choice. Some won’t even care.
Net Net: Both Google and Facebook may be chasing demographics. Neither service may be the end of the line. What’s next is likely to be even more Googley and Facebooky.
Cynthia Murrell July 14, 2011
Facebook Skype: Should Google Be Worried?
July 14, 2011
Nah, Google has legs. Actually it has the world’s premier online advertising platform. Google needs content and traffic. Anything that has traffic is going to light up Google’s radar. But worry? Not so much.
ITWire reports that “Ovum says Facebook+Skype is Google’s nightmare.” Really? Ovum is pretty quick on the trigger with a big prediction.
The azure chip firm insists that the Facebook deal with Skype must have Google worried. The article quotes Ovum’s Eden Zoller:
The Facebook/ Skype tie up brings together two of the most popular communications service providers online and the video chat feature should prove a hit with Facebook’s 750 million users. . . .A deepening Facebook, Microsoft and Skype alliance is on the cards and is a powerful prospect and one that will keep Google awake at night.
We think Ovum may be too quick to downgrade the GOOG. Its Google+ is generating buzz, especially since the company is hyping it by limiting initial invitations. As writer Alex Zaharov-Reutt notes, though, Google must be careful that such tantalization does not turn to food for resentment.
In our opinion, both Google and Facebook are perpetually vulnerable. In the fast paced world of online business, anything can happen at any time. We think the social revolution is ripe for change. Those MBA-ish exogenous forces are able to creep up and bite giants like Facebook and Google. The Skype function is a consumer service. Google will respond. We think there are larger forces at work that may make these high fliers come down a bit closer to earth.
Legal eagles come to mind.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Google: The Knee Capper
July 13, 2011
More Google+ excitement. Not much about search, but I gleaned an insight from a Wall Street Journal blog that is a definite keeper. “Google Makes Facebook Look Socially Awkward” struck me as one step towards Facebook’s demise. I mean if Google wants to kill Facebook, it is just good fortune to get the WSJ helping. Here’s the passage I liked reasonably well:
In what appeared to be a hasty response to the launch of Google‘s rival social-networking product, called Google+, Mr. Zuckerberg on Wednesday unveiled Facebook’s new video-chatting feature. He called it “super awesome.” Too bad Google made the same feature available in 2008. Indeed, Facebook suddenly looks vulnerable. This could be bad news for investors who have recently paid top dollar for stock in Facebook in private sales.
Pretty good. Knife inserted. Time out of joint. But the best factoid in the write up was this passage about limiting sign ups and creating demand:
Facebook should take note that Google used the strategy before to kneecap Yahoo in all-important email, a key driver of Yahoo’s traffic. Then Google rolled out Gmail—but only by invitation at first.
I have a tough time picturing Messrs.’ Brin and Page in zoot suits watching big folks shooting Yahooligans in the patella. Colorful. Interesting metaphor. The dust up or knee capping will be interesting. I think the Wall Street Journals is owned by the same group of “real” journalists involved in the News of the World. Nah, just a coincidence.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2011
This one is a freebie. I don’t want to be knee capped.
SEO, Curation, and Algorithms
July 13, 2011
I read an unusual blog post “Sometimes I Really Get It Wrong; My Apology to SEO Industry.” The sentence that caught my attention (albeit briefly) was:
I thought more human-oriented approaches, like Mahalo, would get better results than algorithmic approaches, like Google.
The write up points out a mea culpa:
it’s 2011 now and it’s clear that the Google way of doing things is still better for most people.
Fascinating. Google has a fan. The paragraph I tucked into my “Online Touchstones” was:
I went for cheap SEO tricks. Truth is, if you bash the SEO world they will all link to you, argue with you, etc. (Bloggers even have a name for this: “link bait”). Folks who do SEO as a profession love fighting about that stuff and it almost always works. But, does it really help you get the traffic you want? The reputation you want? No way. Putting up great content, like when I interviewed Mike McCue and told the world about Flipboard is a far more effective way to get good Google Juice. Taking shortcuts just tarnishes your reputation. Anyway, just wanted to say I’m sorry to the SEO industry.
Several observations on this sunny morning in Harrod’s Creek, far from the roiling popularity fish tanks on the left and right coasts.
First, I recall reading in the paper edition of the New York Times about Google’s apparent inability to filter certain types of content. My recollection is addled, but it seems finding a locksmith is allegedly a scam. I just look in the Yellow Pages, but I am in the intellectual dead zone. Use the Google and you may not get the old fashioned service still available in a rural backwater. I am not sure if the locksmith issue, if true, is search engine optimization or a slightly more sophisticated content operation. Doesn’t matter. Humans are doing these alleged actions and the Google algorithms are either on vacation or watching “Lizard Lick” reruns on Tru TV.
Second, the Google+ service is Google’s most recent attempt to get involved with human centric content generation. The social part is nice, and it is alluring to those looking for “connections”, but there is the content part. Humans are generating lots of data. The “lots of data” part translates to money because algorithms and scripts can generate ad revenue. The algorithm part makes money. I am not so sure about the relevance part anymore.
Third, my view of search engine optimization is that traffic makes jobs. When traffic to a Web site declines, search engine optimization kicks into gear. Adwords and Google love become an “organic” and logical response when organic methods no longer work.
Net net: information originates with humans via intent or as a consequence of an action. Machines can generate meta information. Now the trajectory of the Internet is moving toward broadly based human functions: talking. Finding is important, but it is a sub function. SEO is going to have to work overtime to recapture the glorious years of BP 2009. “BP” is before Panda. Brute force search is not where it is at. AltaVista-style finding will remain, but the datasphere is more human centric than algorithmic. HAL? HAL? What’s with the nursery rhyme.
Stephen E Arnold, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by ArticleOnePartners.com, the source for legal research.
The MySpace Method: Will It Apply to Facebook and Google?
July 11, 2011
The trials and tribulations of giant corporations are almost amusing as the antics of cash strapped non profit organizations. Here in good old Kentucky, the local orchestra is like a feature in Mad Magazine. The audience is not going anywhere except the rest home with a disco ball. I will be there soon, and it is easier to site in my mossy nook and gaze at the wonders of Insight cable TV.
I did enjoy the write up “The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace.” Not only did the Media Mogul, Rupert Murdoch, pay a half billion for an online social property, he sold it for $35 million. Yep, that online sector is a piece of cake. Here’s the passage I enjoyed:
Mismanagement, a flawed merger, and countless strategic blunders have accelerated Myspace’s fall from being one of the most popular websites on earth—one that promised to redefine music, politics, dating, and pop culture—to an afterthought. But Myspace’s fate may not be an anomaly. It turns out that fast-moving technology, fickle user behavior, and swirling public perception are an extremely volatile mix. Add in the sense of arrogance that comes when hundreds of millions of people around the world are living on your platform, and social networks appear to be a very peculiar business—one in which companies might serially rise, fall, and disappear.
The article provides a reasonably good analysis of the “externalities”, the tough world of digital stuff, and the task of keeping the attention deficit, entitlement crowd engaged.
Two factors were not given sufficient emphasis. Let me comment on these.
First, the trajectory of MySpace is similar to what has happened to Lycos and is happening to AOL and Yahoo. The point is that social networks, like search, are likely to live fast and die young. F Scott would drink to that. I just will point out that multiple revenue streams, constant reinvention, and all thumbs management cannot “save” an online property that loses its magnetism.
Second, failure today creeps up. Look at how much effort and money Mr. Murdoch pumped into the outfit. Start with a half a billion dollars. Look at what happened. As money goes in, cash cannot turn on the magnetism. Even when losing a million users per month, MySpace kept the lights on. I suppose hope springs eternal in the human breast, but when traffic heads south, getting traffic back is getting harder. Let’s hear it for the all thumbs approach to monitoring MySpace’s vital signs.
Bottom line: Today’s high magnetism sites may be losing power as the party goes on. The MySpace Method.
Stephen E Arnold, July 11, 2011
Sponsored by Rolling Research, the source for automotive technology information.
Seven Years: Has Google Been Wandering or Progressing?
July 6, 2011
I promised myself that I would do my best to push Google+ into the SSNBlog.com which we will be restarting in a month or so. But I read “Google’s Path to Google+ Took 7 Years” and was flabbergasted. I know that the real media is a land of sharp minds, keen analysts, and meticulous research. Sure, there are missteps like the story in a New York newspaper that earned to publication a libel suit from a hotel employee. But overall, real journalists are the Mt Everests of information.
The write up left me with the impression that Google was a bit like a college student. Four years of undergraduate and three more years to knock of an advanced degree. Google, of course, does not have to worry about student loans, but the idea is that one begins a journey and then arrives, presumably at a job and maybe intellectual enlightenment. Now that does not work out. A Yale graduate told me that most of this year’s grads were chasing jobs, not landing them. Who knows?
In the write up, I marked this passage as notable:
But look back in time and it’s clear that Google has been playing in the social world for years, but never quite put all the pieces together in one place. Here’s a chronological look at the long path Google has taken to form what could be the next big social network, if the company can pull off the mega-coup of convincing most of the half a billion Facebook users it has a better service.
Source: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/maze/mazecam.html
The walk down memory lane was Google’s management approach which relies on an interesting method called “controlled chaos” has produced some services that sure can look like social ramble. My view is that most of these services were islands, erupting from the “controlled chaos” of the Googleplex. Google’s most notable successes got their DNA outside of Google. Examples range from maps to Adsense itself. Now the company is hooking together services and asserting the mash up is a new Google. I see a 1998 style portal. So I don’t buy the hype. It is the same old Google, anchored in brute force search and selling online advertising.
The Google+ service seems to lack integration with Google search and Gmail, but I may have overlooked this obvious blend due to my nonchalant attitude toward social networking. Google+ is getting a jump start. Someone told me that those lucky bloggers with content on Blogger.com are going to be part of Google+.
My thought is that Google faces an interesting challenge. Facebook has defined its “space”, demonstrated an ability to move from one niche to others, and has information its users willingly provide. Despite privacy hassles and technical glitches, Facebook users appear to be loyal–for now. Can Google close the gap or will another company flow from one space into the areas dominated by Facebook and Google?
Microsoft’s rise and now its money-flush stagnation took a quarter century. Will the trajectory of Google or Facebook take less time to arrive at Microsoft’s location in the growth curve? My view is that time may be short for Google in the social space, and it may be even more compressed for Facebook. Happily I am approaching 67, and most of the people in the old age home eschew digital gizmos for a TV. Youngsters are going to make the decision for Google and for Facebook, not cheerleaders. I see wandering. With one revenue stream, I don’t see much progressing. Honk.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2011
This post is sponsored by Pandia.com, publisher of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
In Defense of the Google: Spray and Pray Is Run and Gun
June 28, 2011
I liked “Google’s SOE (Strategy of Everything).” The write up rather gently explains that Google is doing too much, has limited management expertise, and has managed to make its online ad business support everything from wind farms to algorithms. I did quite like this statement too:
In practice, “all things to all people” invariably becomes too many different services in too many market segments. “We don’t know what will work or for whom, so we’ll spray and pray. We’ll shoot arrows in the dark and when the sun rises, we’ll paint a target around the one that lands in a good spot. We’ll declare victory and raise a second round while claiming that this had been our strategy all along.”
I have shifted my research efforts in the last 18 months, so I am not immersing myself in Google’s goodness as I did in the period between 2003 to 2009. I grew impatient waiting for the Googzilla to give birth to the nifty products and services described in Google’s technical papers and patent applications. Google was in a position to bring more order to real estate, online video, professional directories, and many other content niches that were under served or ill served. I even spent some time courtesy of a client writing about Google’s video technology. I thought Google was going to be able to build connections across a fragmented, craft business because—gosh darn it—the technology was visible when I ran certain queries on Google’s public Web site. I loved demoing the recipe service, the Baltimore real estate service, the flight options service, the medical information service, and many more. But nothing ever happened. I grew bored and moved on to more interesting research areas. Sure, I bumped into the Google, but I don’t focus on Google. In fact, I don’t too much about the company any more.
Source of a Milton Paradise Lost illustration: http://www.inspirationalposter.org/poster-6635-6093242/paradise-lost-john-milton-satan-beelzebub-are-abyss-raging-fire-giclee-print/
From this uninformed and reasonably objective position, let me offer a partial response to the most accurate observations of Jean-Louis Gassée.
Focus and Competition
Google’s success in search had less to do with Google and more to do with the magnificent ineptitude of Hewlett Packard, the company that ended up owning AltaVista.com and some pretty smart folks and a ton of technology. But portal fever was upon the land in 1996. Google was able to get some loving insight from the Clever system, from the void created as Yahoo and others chased the portal rainbow, and from inattentive HP which provided disgruntled employees with a chance to do some search work for the Backrub/Google crowd.
Because Google had essentially zero competition, the company’s founders and some of the engineers rightly concluded the company was invincible. I am reminded of the John Milton line, “ Execute their airy purposes.” Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 430.
From the git go, Google saw its rush forward as evidence of the company’s essential rightness. Google concluded, “Organize the world’s information.” The “do no evil” angle was part of the hubris which Milton described rather well. Without competition, why not focus on using technology to herd the digital doggies into the Google Bar None corral?
Once the twig is bent and the tree grows, changing that tree is time consuming and may be impossible. That’s where Google is today: a big oak planted in the soil of today’s business climate. The focus remains like a forgiving 18 millimeter Olympus Zuiko lens. But` in today’s environment the competition is attentive, and Google is not mentally set up to accept that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and some other outfits are just better at marketing, technology, and innovation. I am confident Google can adapt. After all, managing a company is not much more that tweaking a numerical recipe. That’s just logical.
Quality and User Experience
One of the interesting findings from my research for my three Google studies was that Googlers do not understand why regular people have so much trouble performing “trivial tasks.” I quite like the phrase “a certain blindness,” and it does apply to Google. The SOE strategy uses the word “quality”, but that is a buzzword that has different meanings in different contexts.
For example, quality at Google is algorithmic. Let me give an example. If there are lots of users of Gmail and the usage is growing, the volume of data is growing, and the clicks on ads are growing, we have metrics. When quality is defined in terms of actions like clicks and data, more is better. Therefore, as the metrics rise, the quality is evident from the data. The fact that the interface is a mess does not correlate with the usage; therefore, the subjective comments about Gmail user controls are at odds with the metrics which define quality. So Google grades Web content via algorithm. If humans fiddle, then the unpredictability of Panda roils the search landscape. Google sticks by its view that its method is right. Tautological? Sure, but that’s how metrics Math Club members work.
My research surfaced a number of examples of the confusion Googlers experienced when the algorithms were not perceived as logical. I imagined hearing Spock on Star Trek remind humans that Captain Kirk or the good doctor was not logical. If a Googler can understand it, then the approach is “correct.” Disagree without data. The Google logic does not accept illogic. So if humans can’t figure out the interface, just use predictive search to give the non Googler what he or she really wants. Logical and not likely to change any time soon.
In Google’s defense, how can Math Club members relate to Facebook type services. These, as noted in the section above, are not logical. Google had a head start with social services. Remember Orkut? I do and so do some Brazilian law enforcement professionals. Google stumbled out of the gate. Buzz was supposed to be a fresh start. The Math Club muffed that service and then Wave. Google did not find a way to catch Facebook. Googlers began to jump ship, so now Google is “faced” (yes, bad pun) with having to compete with former Googlers who are helping Mr. Zuckerberg build a giant walled garden of members. There are many implications of the walled garden model, but Google does not have either the time nor the social touch to close the gap between it and Facebook quickly. The Math Club president may not have a date for the prom this year or next I fear. Google is trying, however. Effort, as in my grade school, deserves a grade too. Let’s give Google credit for trying. “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can” is echoing in my mind.
Fear Unfounded
People fear what they don’t understand. I am comfortable with Google. I know how to search without having my results filtered. I know how to enable the Firefox add in for anonymity. I know how to log out of my Google account no matter how many windows keep displaying my alleged user name. The backlash against Google is part of the rite of passage. ATT went through it. IBM went through it. Now Google will go through it. No one needs to fear Google. The company, MOMA, the Googlers, the need for so much brevity that Googlers cannot communicate effectively with one another—these are reasons to feel comfortable with Googzilla.
Google is now its own worst enemy. I think that as the hiring process continues, the legacy of the original Google will be diluted. As a result, the pride that Milton described as one facet of Satan’s character will diminish. The new Google will be a different company. Regulators have not much to regulate because Google will change more quickly than governmental inquiries can react. No worries..
Wrap Up
The SOE analysis is filled with provocative ideas. I think Google is home free, clean as a whistle, and just misunderstood. Maybe a Math Club member for president?
Stephen E Arnold, June 28, 2011
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