London Times Says Google’s Unhealthy Dominance Will End
May 6, 2008
A cultured journalist, David Rowan, argues that “Google’s unhealthy dominance will end”. Read the story here, before it becomes unfindable in the murky depths of the (London) Times Online, “the news site of the year”. I don’t agree with the conclusion nor do I agree with the reasoning in the article, but it will be important, particularly in London’s financial sweat shops.
The points that jumped out at me cluster under this statement, “They [Google management] feel pretty damn lucky over in Google’s Mountain View headquarters this week.” Here’s my take on the argument presented in this article:
- The Microsoft Yahoo tie up would have been good for Microsoft and bad for Google
- Google’s monopoly is “in none of our interests”
- The changes in information will be significant and Google will play a big part in them
- Microsoft and Yahoo have a chance to develop more products and services “that people actually want”
My thought is that notions of Microsoft and Yahoo building products that people want is partially correct, almost like horse shoes where getting close to the stake earns a point. The problem is that Google is an infrastructure company, and it has an operational advantage and a cost advantage.
You have to be “pretty damn lucky” if you develop a product and expect it to run fast, run economically, and run at scale on the plumbing Microsoft and Yahoo now depend upon. Google’s products and services are a by product of its infrastructure and its engineering. Until the competition figures this out and responds to it with a leap frog solution, Google faces no significant competition from Microsoft or Yahoo. As I argue in Google Version 2.0, Google faces many challenges. These range from keeping staff on the team and productive to inter personal relationships among Messrs. Brin, Page, and Schmidt. A focus on products and services won’t narrow Google’s engineering lead, which I estimate at 12 to 24 months and increasing.
Stephen Arnold, May 6, 2008
MuseGlobal Adheres to Google
May 5, 2008
MuseGlobal, a rapidly-growing content platform company, has teamed with Google integrator Adhere Solutions to deliver next-generation content solutions.
The companies have teamed to create an All Access Connector. With a Google Search Appliance, a bit of OneBox API “magic”, and the Adhere engineering acumen, organizations can deploy a next-generation information access solution.
You can read more about the tie up here. (Hurry, these media announcements can disappear without warning.) This deal will almost certainly trigger a wave of close scrutiny and probably some me-too behavior. Traditional content aggregators and primary publishers have lagged behind the Google “curve” for almost a decade. MuseGlobal’s aggressive move may lead others to take a more pro-active, less combative and defensive posture toward Google. Content providers, mostly anchored in the library world of “standing orders” are struggling as much as traditional publishers to figure out how to generate new revenues as their traditional cash foundations erode beneath them. For some, it may be too late.
You can read about IDC’s “success” here. On the other hand, you can read about the “non success” of the New York Times, for example, here.
Discloser: My son is involved with Adhere. Even more interesting is that I delivered a dose of “Google realty” to a MuseGlobal executive at the recent eContent conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. Obviously some of my analyses of Google as an application platform hit a nerve.
Stephen Arnold, May 5, 2008
The Microsoft Yahoo Fiasco: Impact on SharePoint and Web Search
May 5, 2008
You can’t look at a Web log with out dozens of postings about Microsoft’s adventure with Yahoo. You can grind through the received wisdom on Techmeme River, a wonderful as-it-happened service. In this Web log posting, I want to recap some of my views about this remarkable digital charge at a windmill. On this cheery Monday in rural Kentucky, I can see a modern Don Quixote, who looks quite a bit like Steve Ballmer, thundering down another digital hollow.
What’s the impact on SharePoint search?
Zip. Nada. None. SharePoint search is not one thing. Read my essay about MOSS and MSS. They add up to a MESS. I’m still waiting for the well-dressed but enraged Fast Search PR wizard to spear shake a pointed lance at me for that opinion. Fast Search is sufficiently complex and SharePoint sufficiently Microsoftian in its design to make quick movement in the digital swamp all but impossible.
A T Ball player can swing at the ball until he or she gets a hit, ideally for the parents a home run. Microsoft, like the T Ball player in the illustration, will be swinging for an online hit until the ball soars from the park, scoring a home run and the adulation of the team..
Will Fast Search & Transfer get more attention?
Nope. Fast Search is what it is. I have commented on the long slog this acquisition represents elsewhere. An early January 2008 post provides a glimpse of the complexity that is ESP (that’s enterprise search platform, not extrasensory perception). A more recent discussion talks about the “perfect storm” of Norwegian management expertise, Microsoft’s famed product manager institution, and various technical currents, which I posted on April 26, 2008. These posts caused Fast Search’s ever-infallible PR gurus to try and cook the Beyond Search’s goose. The goose, a nasty bird indeed, side-stepped the charging wunderkind and his hatchet.
Will Microsoft use the Fast Search Web indexing system for Live.com search?
Now that’s a good question. But it misses the point of the “perfect storm” analysis. To rip and replace the Live.com search requires some political horse trading within Microsoft and across the research and product units. Fast Search is arguably a better Web indexing system, but it was not invented at Microsoft, and I think that may present a modest hurdle for the Norwegian management wizards.
A Word’s Meaning Expanded: Microsoft’s Been Googled
May 4, 2008
It’s a Sunday morning in rural Kentucky. The animals have been fed. Mammon’s satisfied with the Kentucky Derby: victory and tragedy.
In the post-race excitement in Harrod’s Creek, I pondered the one-sided flood of postings on Techmeme.com and Megite.com. The theme was the collapse of Microsoft’s plan to thwart Google via a purchase of Yahoo. I’m no business wizard. The entire deal baffled me, but I found one aspect interesting.
As the most recognized brand in the world, the word “google” is the name of a company and it is a synonym for research. It’s a noun, and it’s a very handy way to tell someone how to find an answer; for example, a person tells another, “Just google that company”.
But, the meaning of the word “google” has another dimension. Permit me to explain this
As the Microsoft-set deadline ticked to zero hour. Yahooligans tried to find a way to thwart Microsoft’s intentions. Yahoo announced a “test” with Google for ad sales. Pundits picked up the idea, expanded it, and spiced it with legal shamanism. Yahoo’s executives hinted that working with Google would be interesting.
Google, on the other hand, maintained the Googley silence that makes competitors uncertain of Google’s intentions, Wall Street analysts crazy from hints and lava lamps, and insiders chuckle while chugging Odwalla smoothies.
However, behind the scenes Google and Yahoo decided to cooperate to an as-yet unknown degree in advertising sales.
In the 11th hour meeting in Redmond, Washington, Yahoo mentioned the “g” word. Microsoft’s appetite was spoiled. The meaning of the word “google” has been dilated.
Allow me to illustrate a unary version of this expansion: Yahoo “googled” Microsoft. The meaning is derived from the verb “google” which in this context means derailed Microsoft’s ambitions by utilizing an un-Machiavellian ploy: an advertising deal.
Thus, “Microsoft’s been googled” means that “Microsoft has been given the shaft” or “Microsoft has been thwarted” or “Microsoft has been hosed”.
Synonyms for “google” in this new meaning are screw, befoul, muck up, and toy with.
By extension, we can craft this statement: Google googled Microsoft. In this usage, Google (the company) managed in Googley ways to foul up the Yahoo acquisition. Colloquially, this becomes, “Dudes, Google got you again”.
Stephen Arnold, May 4, 2008
Mobile Search: What Users Now Do
May 3, 2008
I reported on the update to Sergey Brin’s voice search patent earlier today. ClickZ (May 2, 2008) provided a bit of color for user search behavior on mobile devices. You can read–for a short time at least–ClickZ’s item is derived from Nielsen Mobile and Nielsen Online data in a report called “Total Web”. The summary of the data is here.
The first point I noted is that high-traffic Web sites benefit from mobile users. ClickZ’s “number” is a 13 percent increase in traffic. The absolute value is less important than the uptick. More mobile users translates into more traffic. That’s a good thing.
The second point is that mobile users have some specific mobile access content preferences. I found these data somewhat surprising but upon reflection, I think the ClickZ analysis makes sense. The five services used most frequently by mobile users are:
- Weather
- Entertainment
- Games
- Music
- Email.
The first three–weather, entertainment, and games–account for usage bumps of more than 20 percent. Music and email pump up usage by 15 percent and 11 percent respectively. Shopping on a mobile device is almost a non-starter.
Search returns a mere two percent increase in traffic. The questions that these data, if we assume them to be close enough for horseshoes, are [a] What’s the impact of voice search on mobile search? and [b] If voice search doesn’t goose usage from its miserable position, what happens to business models predicated on strong mobile advertising? It’s possible that voice will not improve search. After all, who wants to browse results on a tiny display? Voice may open new usage opportunities. Then the challenge becomes the one that has long-plagued online service providers–generating money from users who don’t want to pay for information unless it’s of the “must have” variety.
Stephen Arnold, May 3, 2008
IBM’s Slow Moving Cloud
April 28, 2008
In late 2007, IBM announced it “blue cloud”. If you don’t recall the announcement, you can read the IBM announcement here.
The key points that jumped out at me last year when I learned about this initiative are:
- The start of a shift from on-premises computing to cloud computing and Salesforce.com-type
- solutions for some of the IBM enterprise, government, and not for profit clients
- A series of cloud computing offerings that include hardware, services, and systems
- Distributed, globally accessible fabric of resources targeted for existing workloads and emerging massively scalable, data intensive workloads.
Last week, IBM revealed additional blue cloud component. The firm’s iDataPlex hardware is designed for cloud computing specifically for distributed data centers. Engineered to reduce power consumption and air conditioning load, the servers put the IBM “seal of approval” on network-centric or cloud computing solutions for business and large organizations. The zippy hardware can be managed with IBM’s Tivoli-based Blue Cloud software, which helps allays some organizations fears about “out in the cloud” solutions.
Infoworld’s story “Battle Brewing in the Cloud”, which you can read here, does a good job of summarizing similar initiatives from Amazon, Google, and EMC.
IBM’s push into cloud computing is interesting. The company says, “Cloud computing is an emerging approach to shared infrastructure in which large pools of systems are linked together to provide IT services…Blue Cloud will particularly focus on the breakthroughs required in IT management simplification to ensure security, privacy,reliability, as well as high utilization and efficiency.”
My take on IBM’s November 2007 announcement and last week’s iDataPlex and management software availability is that cloud computing is the next application platform. IBM’s verbiage says with authority what Webby companies have been arguing for several years. Largecompanies often pay little attention to innovations from upstarts like Amazon and Google. Industrial giants do notice when IBM gets behind an information technology trend.
Here’s the kicker. I don’t think cloud computing is going to be an overnight sensation. Large organizations are by their nature slow moving. IBM’s announcement certifies that cloud computing is a viable enterprise systems option.
The next IT struggle for dominance, mind share, and revenues is officially underway. Just slowly and for some organizations that pace won’t permit the behemoths to adapt quickly enough to avoid some consequences of the coming shift in enterprise computing.
Stephen Arnold, April 28, 2008
Newspapers: Hastening Their Own Demise
April 24, 2008
I dreamed of Darwin. I think my semiconscious was mulling about survival and adaptation. The financial news from the newspaper publishing world was interesting. Losses at Gannett, McClatchy, and the New York Times suggest continued worsening of their financial weather. You can point and click through the remarkable financial picture by running this query on Google News.
To add insult to injury, Moody’s Investors Service, according to CNN.com, downgraded the New York Times Company’s senior unsecured ratings to ‘Baa3’ from ‘Baa1′ and its commercial paper rating to “Prime-3” from “Prime-2”. This is the difference between a premier league soccer team and a third-division squad playing for beer. The news story I read reported that Moody’s said the New York Times had a “stable” financial outlook. If the first quarter results are stable, I must not have a good grasp of how financial whiz kids think. (Please, read this story quickly. These CNN.com links disappear quickly.)
Enterprise search systems can ingest news and information from third-parties. Some news organizations sell live feeds directly into companies. The information is then indexed and made available to employees within the enterprise search system. Over the last few years, I’ve seen an increase in the use of news on Internet sites first as a supplement to commercial vendors’ news and now as a replacement in some organizations. Are commercial news vendors, newspapers, and legitimate commercial aggregators losing their grip in this important market?
I think newspapers are. It may be too soon to tell if outfits like the Associated Press or giant combines will be affected as well. The digitally adept may be able to deal with Darwinian forces. Others won’t be so fortunate.
Every few months I bump into an executive from a New York publishing company. Some of these titans of information work for media companies with newspapers; others labor within the multi-national combines that own professional publishing companies. A few ride the air currents rising from the burning piles of unsold books, magazines, peer-reviewed journals, and controlled-circulation publications.
Viewed as a group, the financial picture is clear. Consolidation is inevitable. I dropped my subscription to the Financial Times because I was getting three deliveries a week, not six. The FT’s hard copy distribution system was incapable of delivering the paper on a daily basis to my redoubt in rural Kentucky. No apologies and no explanations were forthcoming after three years of complaining to my elusive delivery person. My emails to the FT customer center went unheeded. At a trade show, a chipper Financial Times’s booth worker tried to give me a tan baseball cap with an embroidered “FT” logo. I returned the hat to the young person saying, “No, thanks. I have a Google cap and that is already broken in.”
Three Sources of “Real” News
I want to steer clear of the well-worn theme that Web logs provide an alternative to “real” journalism. The best Web logs from my point of view are those written by individuals who were or could have been cracker jack journalists. I worked at the Courier-Journal & Louisville Times in its salad days. I also worked for the fellow once described to me as “the most hated man in New York publishing,” the sharp-as-a-tack Bill Ziff. Mr. Ziff created three media conglomerates and sold each at the peak of their valuation. He would still be working his magic if age and illness had not side lined him. The best Web log writers could have found a home at either the CJ or at Ziff when these outfits were firing on all cylinders.
I want to take a look at three exemplary news services in a cursory way and then offer some observations about why the newspaper publishers who are losing money are probably going to continue losing money for the foreseeable future. If Rupert Murdoch’s legal eagles are reading this essay, calm down. I am not discussing News Corp., the Wall Street Journal, or the likely takeover of Newsday.
First, navigate to a site called Newsnow. I haven’t kept up with the company after speaking with executives a couple of years ago. The service provides a series of links to news grouped by categories. The center panel presents headlines and one sentence summaries of the major story. When I visited the site this morning (April 24, 2008), I had a tidy line up of items relating to the mortgage crisis affecting Europe. An important point is that even on my real lousy Verizon high-speed, use-it-anywhere wireless service–Newsnow loads quickly and is not annoying.
Indexing Dynamic Databased Content
April 20, 2008
In the last week, there’s been considerable discussion of what is now called “deep Web” content. The idea is that some content requires the user to enter a query. The system processes the querey and generates a search result from a database. This function is easier to illustrate than explain in words.
Look at the screen shot below. I have navigated to Southwest Airlines Web page and entered a query for flights from Louisville, Kentucky, to Baltimore, Maryland.
Here’s what the system shows me:
If you do a search on Google, Live.com, or Yahoo, you won’t see the specific listing of flights shown below:
Traditional Publishers: Patricians under Siege
April 19, 2008
This is an abbreviated version of Stephen Arnold’s key note at the Buying and Selling eContent Conference on April 15, 2008. A full text of the remarks is here.
Roman generals like Caesar relied on towers spaced about 3000 feet apart. Torch signals allowed messages to be passed. Routine communications used a Roman version of the “pony express”, based on innovations in Persia centuries before Rome took to the battlefield.
Today, you rely on email and your mobile phones. Those in the teens and tweens Twitter and use “instant” social messaging systems like those in Facebook and Google Mail. Try to Imagine how difficult it would be for Caesar to understand the technology behind Twitter. but how many of you think Caesar would have hit upon a tactical use of this “faster that flares” technology?
Data Bunny Unmasked
April 16, 2008
Earlier today, a well-paid, somewhat insightful senior executive ripped the fur off a 27 year charade. The keen investigative mind of the anonymous investigator revealed that the data bunny has been Stephen E. Arnold.
The shocking discovery dismayed the two known fans of Mr. Arnold. One chagrined client said:
We had no idea that Mr. Arnold was the data bunny. When he lectured at our company, we did not notice the ears. The information he conveyed was more important than his appearance. I’m not sure what he was wearing during the briefing. But now that the truth is revealed, we will not listen to his analyses if he wears those ears. I hope we don’t confuse substance and appearance again. Proper dress is more important than real information.
When Mr. Arnold learned that his secret was out of the hutch, he blinked his pink eyes and said, according to Donald Anderson, an engineer who has worked with Mr. Arnold for more than 15 years: “Those bunny ears are not funny. Mr. Arnold doesn’t wear them all the time or I just don’t notice them anymore.”
According to Mr. Anderson’, Mr. Arnold’s reaction was to stamp his paw and twitch his nose in frustration. Added Mr. Anderson, “I guess he thought the secret was safe. It’s sad. Almost like Lois Lane learning the identity of Superman. It’s sad, but the truth must come out.”
According to another member of the Beyond Search team, Mr. Arnold removed his bunny ears in disgust and slipped on his new Beyond Search rubber goose mask. A photograph of Mr. Arnold in his goose disguise is the basis of this Web log’s logo here.
Beyond Search will publish more details about this startling investigative discovery as they become available. Mr. Arnold’s attorney told Beyond Search, “Although the revelation is shocking, I have advised Mr. Arnold to not reveal the name of the genius who disclosed this 27 year old mystery.”
According to his attorney, Mr. Arnold’s final comment was, “Honk. Honk.”
Stephen Arnold, April 16, 2008
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