Time Sees Tweetness in Twitter
June 5, 2009
Fresh from dumping the AOL-batross, Time Magazine’s editors have developed a Tweet tooth. Twitter is useful and it warrants a round up of buzzwords. How does “ambient awareness” grab you? Maybe “Twittersphere”? You can read the beatific write up “How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live” here. Steven Johnson finds utility in the service that is getting close to three year olds and having a revenue model… sort of. Never mind, the point that struck me was:
Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience into what would have been a private exchange. And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web. Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles.
I am all for real time messaging, but I come from the intercept and analysis side of the coin. The flow is interesting, but I want to find the diamond amidst the pebbles. I am not too interested in “a suspension bridge made of pebbles”. My engine rev with the notion that for the first time, non governmental entities can monitor, analyze, and extract information from real time flows.
Twitter is important to me because it provides a “nowness” lacking in Web log indexes and traditional Web indexes. I love Bing, Google and Yahoo, but at this time, the notion of real time gains extra dimensions of usefulness for quite different reasons that juice Time’s editors and Mr. Johnson.
With Twitter now quite obvious, why didn’t the managers of Time Magazine snag Twitter or create a Twitter like service? It is easier to write about three year old services than recognize their potential I opine. So much for Time’s ambient awareness of online.
Stephen Arnold, June 5, 2009
Exalead’s Vision for Enterprise Search
June 4, 2009
I had a long conversation with Exalead’s director of marketing, Eric Rogge. We covered a number of topics, but one of his comments seemed particularly prescient. Let me summarize my understanding of his view of the evolution of search and offer several comments.
First, Exalead is a company that provides a high performance content processing system. I profiled the company in the Enterprise Search Report, Beyond Search, and Successful Enterprise Search Management. Furthermore, I use the company’s search system for my intelligence service Overflight, which you can explore on the ArnoldIT.com Web site. Although I am no expert, I do know quite a bit about Exalead and how it enables my competitive intelligence work.
Second, let me summarize my understanding of Mr. Rogge’s view of what search and content processing may be in the next six to 12 months. The phrase that resonated with me was, “Search Based Applications.” The idea, as I understand it, is to put search and content processing into a work process. The “finding” function meshes with specific tasks, enables them, and reduces the “friction” that makes information such an expensive, frustrating experience.
Mr. Rogge mentioned several examples of Exalead’s search base applications approach. The company has a call center implementation and an online advertising implementation. He also described a talent management solution that combines search with traditional booking agency operations. The system manipulates image portfolios and allows the agency to eliminate steps and the paper that once was required.
The company’s rich media system handles digital asset management, an area of increasing importance. Keeping track of rich media objects in digital form requires an high-speed, easy-to-use system. Staff using a digital asset management system have quite different needs and skill levels. Due to the fast pace of most media companies, training is not possible. A photographer and a copyright specialist have to be able to use the system out of the box.
But the most interesting implementation of the SBA architecture was the company’s integration of the Exalead methods into a global logistics company. The information required to tell a client where a shipment is and when it will arrive. The Exalead system handles 5GB of structured data to track up to 1M shipments daily. Those using the system have a search box, topics and clients a click away, and automated reports that contain the most recent information. Updating of the information occurs multiple times each hour.
Finally, my view of his vision is quite positive. I know from my research that most people are not interested in search. What matters is getting the information required to perform a task. The notion of a search box that provides a way for the user to key a word or two and get an answer is desirable. But in most organizations, users of systems want the information to be “there”. That’s the reason that lists of topics or client names are important. After all, if a person looks up a particular item or entity several times a day, the system should just display that hot link. The notion of Web pages or displays that contain the results of a standing query is powerful. Users understand clicking on a link and seeing a “report” that mashes up information from various sources.
Exalead is winning enterprise deals in the US and Europe. My hunch is that the notion of the SBA will be one that makes intuitive sense to commercial enterprises, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations. More important, the Exalead system works.
Stephen Arnold, June 5, 2009
Microsoft Health: A New Thrust
June 4, 2009
Shift your attention from Bing.com to a sector that is a must-win for Microsoft. Ina Fried reported here that Microsoft acquired Rosetta Biosoftware from the struggling pharmaceutical company, Merck. Rosetta Biosoftware is a unit of of Rosetta Inpharmatics. Based in Seattle, the 300 person firm had been hit with cutbacks due to the financial climate. The software unit, which had about 60 employees, was expected to keep it lights on. According to Ms. Fried’s “Microsoft Buys Merck Unit in Life Sciences Push” here,
Microsoft, which has a separate Amalga product family for hospitals, announced in April that it would offer Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences as an effort to help in the drug research software arena. The tools are designed to help manage and analyze the large amounts of data gathered in the process of designing new drugs.
What’s Rosetta Biosoftware’s business? According to a profile here, the company
develops informatics solutions and provides services that enable research organizations to efficiently and effectively conduct life-saving discoveries and develop drugs.
Microsoft’s Amalga, according to Microsoft here, the company
develops its own powerful health solutions, such as Amalga and HealthVault. Together, Microsoft and its industry partners are working to advance a vision of unifying health information and making it more readily available, ensuring the best quality of life and affordable care for everyone.
Looks to me as if the dust up between Microsoft and Google in the health sector is likely to become more intense.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
Mahalo: More Spin on Search and Money
June 3, 2009
Peter Kafka’s “Jason Calacanis Tries Turning Mahalo into a Wikipedia that Pays” here provides some insight into how an entrepreneur thinks about search and content. The Mahalo search engine was a notable social approach to building an information resource. The idea, like Wikipedia before it, was to rely on humans to provide links and content. For whatever reason, that model does not seem to have the traction needed to keep traffic soaring. Mr. Kafka summarizes the two changes Mahalo has made in its approach. One tweak is for young eyes only; that is, more info on each screen. The second is to implement a Mahalo “bucks” plan. I don’t grasp the notion because I am used to paying people for their services and then doing my thing with the content. As Mr. Kafka explains the Mahalo idea, I sighed. Mr. Kafka wrote:
But now he’s hoping to get Mahalo users to do the work, Wikipedia-style, with a twist–he’ll pay them. The pitch: Calacanis will offer users the chance to “own” a results page, and split any advertising revenue the page generates, primarily via Google (GOOG) AdSense. He’ll be paying users with “Mahalo bucks,” which cash out at 75 cents on the dollar, so users are really keeping 37.5 percent of each dollar their page generates. Calacanis says some of his pages are generating up to $10,000 a year, but most will make far less. Will that be enough to encourage people to build and maintain Web pages on a piecework basis?
I will be releasing a free compilation of my series “Mysteries of Online”, information that originally was developed for talks at various venues. I have a couple of sections about monetization of online information in that 34 page PDF, which becomes available on July 1, 2009. The bottom-line is that unless an information service generates what I call a “clean stream” of revenue, the costs of marketing and administering online services can suck the life out of a useful online service. Paying for content works if the information is “must have” stuff. Examples include certain chemical information, actionable intelligence for financial services firms, and “keep us out of jail” info for a legal matter. Once that high value info is captured, then the marketing and administrative costs kick in. The editorial costs never go away. Lower value info fall prey to the cost of keeping info fresh (hence long update times for certain info) and keeping pace with new info (hence the urgent need to monetize real time info).
I am not sure where Mahalo falls on the spectrum of “must have to nice to have to everyone has”. Perhaps the approach with create lots of eyeballs which can be monetized courtesy of ad outfits. In my opinion, the new improved Mahalo has quite a few moving parts. I like the “clean stream” approach. With the Bingster and the GOOG improving their ad supported results, Mahalo may face a long, hot summer without money for lemonade.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
Criticizing GOOG and MSFT with Angel Feathers
June 3, 2009
ComputerWorld lives on advertising and happy tech companies. However, throwing praise at Microsoft’s Bing Kumo and Google’s Wave does little to set the publication’s “voice” apart. An article that finds fault with Bing and Wave is just what is needed. But there’s a problem. Get too critical and ad dollars and hot tips may go elsewhere. Even more chilling is a letter from Bing Kumo’s or Google’s legal eagles. The result is what I call “angel feather” analysis. A downside is identified but presented in a very upbeat, chipper way. After all, who wants hassles if you are trying to make a go of a publishing business today.
Check out “Bashing Bing, Whacking Wave” here. The weakness of Bing Kumo is that it makes decisions for a user. Too many decisions leave the user in the dark about what’s included and excluded. The flaw in Wave is that it arrives with Google’s legacy and a new fondness for bloat.
Both of these are important points, but ComputerWorld stops short of spelling out what the business implications are of these increasingly similar companies’ approach to online information.
I am going to follow in ComputerWorld’s footprints. I think both services are just swell. The addled goose does not want to know how results are shaped. Furthermore, the need to arm wrestle complicated systems as Google sucks metadata from the human interactions with data is super cool.
Love both services to death.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Twitter and Facebook Go Army
June 3, 2009
“US Military Jumps on the Twitter Bandwagon” appeared in the New Zealand 3News.co.nz online publication. You can read the story here. I don’t know how accurate the details are, but I wanted to document the write up. According to 3New.co.nz:
The US military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday. The effort, which officials described as a way to counter Taliban propaganda, represents a sea change in how the military can communicate its message to foreign and American audiences.
I stumbled upon an interesting Web log several years ago called Company Command. I have lost track of that. I am not sure about the work flow required to get content on these services. Company Command offered some gems and then became a less interesting read. I wonder if the posting process will smooth.
Stephen Arnold, June 5, 2009
Microsoft Fast ESP Revealed
June 3, 2009
Need an enterprise search system? Have four months? Microsoft Fast Enterprise 360 is for you. You can read a case study of a lightning fast (no pun intended) search implementation in a new Microsoft Fast white paper called “Enterprise Search 360: Achieving a Single Search Platform across the Enterprise”. I had a bit of trouble locating the document but I am an addled goose and your, if my Web log usage analysis system is working, are a 40 something, proud, confident, and an expert in search. If you have a user name and password for ZDAsia, you can download it here. If you get a 404, shave the url, register, and search for “enterprise 360”. If you are persistent, you can snag this one page write up. Here are some keepers from this remarkable “white paper”:
- “National Instruments was quickly attracted to the FAST platform’s versatility, flexibility, and capability to expand. Inside four months the FAST Enterprise Search Platform solution was fully implemented by National Instruments’ team without the assistance and added cost of professional services personnel for the installation.” My thought, “Wow.”
- “FAST’s impact was apparent from the get-go.” My thought, “Wow again.”
- “When customers do seek out customer support, the FAST-supported online support request functionality gives application engineers vital information about the customers and their needs before the support conversation even begins.” My thought, “ESP. Extra sensory perception. I knew the meaning of the acronym and thought it meant enterprise search platform.“
I downloaded this document. Much food for thought and analysis.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
More Bing with 4.5 Cherries
June 3, 2009
I was trepedatious when I saw the headline “Microsoft Bing” with a link to PCMag.com. I used to labor in the Ziff vineyards, and I find the present Web only approach to the PC Magazine franchise somewhat unsettling. But I am an addled goose, and I put away my concerns and dived into a Bing review here garnished with 4.5 spheres. I rate by geese, but spheres with red ink are okay even though these look like bing cherries.
The full review includes a useful slide show. The writer summarizes some queries and then offered what I found a useful comment:
Bing’s most effective tool for bringing you info directly from the results page is its rollover page preview. Hovering the cursor to the right edge of any Web result brings up a small window containing text from the linked page. It can even find relevant deep links within that page. It’s great for getting a peek at pages that are relevant, and for helping avoid clicking through to pages that aren’t. When your mouse is anywhere on top of a result, a vertical rule shows up at its right edge to visually clue you that this preview is available. It’s one of those features that you quickly get used to and come to expect. I now find myself missing it on Google search results pages.
The review is a long one and covers interface, travel, maps, images, and some miscellaneous features such as news. I thought news was pretty important, but that’s my age interfering with my understanding.
Bottomline: the reviewer finds Bing useful. If you want a thorough walk through of the Microsoft system, this is the place to start.
My tests of features surfaced some annoyances which are not included in this write up. Perhaps I will jot them down, but I am not too wired into the Web search scene. I do know that Google enjoys a 60 to 70 percent market share. Microsoft has a more modest share. If PCMag.com’s view set fire to its readership, Bing might narrow the gap a bit.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
Socrata: Mash Up and Analytical Wonderland
June 2, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who alerted me to the June 2, 2009, announcement about Socrata’s “social” public data sets. The company behind this collection of data sets is Socrata (formerly Blist), based in Seattle. You can read the company’s news release here. The news release said, “[Socrata is] a social network that aggregates public data from around the world in a single destination.” The news release stated:
Socrata.com enables anyone with a Web browser to find understandable and sortable datasets on a myriad of topics including healthcare, energy, retirement, education or the environment, just to name a few. Users can create customized views and filters of the data based on any criteria in the dataset such as state, zip code or income. Most importantly, these personalized views can then be saved and socialized through an entire social network, whether it be business colleagues, families or others supporting the same cause. As in other social networks, users can create profiles, post comments, rate content, and establish groups for sharing information privately.
When I looked at the service, I thought about Wolfram Alpha and a series of documents I read by Ramanathan Guha, now at Google. I will explore the service in more depth because it looks interesting. I wonder what vendors of data sets think about the sudden interest in this type of information.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
AOL 1.1, Not 2.0 Yet
June 2, 2009
CBSNews.com ran “AOL 2.0: Is There a Future as a Solo Act?” here. The headline carried the same type of numbering problem I noted with a Yahoo 2.0 article. The “new” AOL, like the “new” Yahoo, is not too far from its 1.0 roots in my opinion. Christopher Lochhead begged to differ, insisting on the 2.0 designation. He wrote:
AOL should become more than a portal or search engine. It needs to aggregate everything you and I use on the Web into one central place. The truth is that the Web is still too hard to use and it takes too long. If they were able to become a personalized, uber-portal that manages everything we do on the Web in one simple front-end, new users would flock to them. It appears that Google may be taking a stab at this with its new Wave communication offering. Creating a new user experience needs to be done in the context of the social computing revolution. AOL must find a way to combine social networking, user-generated content, email/messaging and traditional media content so that we are compelled to use their services.
There are other remarkable assertions in this CBS story. You can wade through them, but let me cut to the end of the chase when the fox is panting and ready for the taxidermist: AOL after changes will still be AOL. The addled goose believes that a remarkable turn of events will be needed. Technology, people, luck, money, and innovation must come together. Then I will agree to an AOL 1.5 designation.
Stephen Arnold, June 3, 2009
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