Facebook, the Pain of Change, and the Web
December 3, 2010
I have been thinking about the sky-is-falling message in Tim Berners-Lee analysis of Facebook. Widely reported, the “inventor of the Web” sees Facebook as a flea carrying bubonic evil in the fur of entrepreneurs. In short, Facebook represents a shift from the Wild Web Web to a walled garden with security cameras and listening devices.
You can get a breezy run down of the anti-change message in the current Scientific American essay.
I can visualize a scene around the campfire in what would become Kansas. The conversationalists don’t have Facebook pages but both work for an outfit paying them to ride a bunch of horses in serial like Christmas tree lights from one cow town to another.
Cowboy 1: What’cha think of that tel-ee-graph thing?
Cowboy 2: I think it’s-a goin’ to be less personal than us’ns takin’ the mail to folks we know.
Cowboy 1: Yep, I think it is the end of the mail delivery as we know it.
Cowboy 2: I would like to shoot the varmints that want to ruin a perfectly good way to communicate.
I think I could have heard a grousing clay tablet expert yammer about papyrus. The print dudes are struggling with twisted knickers over digital today.
What’s a-goin’ on today, partner?
First, the good old Web is already gone. Email is collateral damage. The mantra of Gordon Gekko has enchanted enough people to make information the equivalent of manipulated messages. So, the Web is dead and it is not coming back. Ever.
Second, the pace of change is accelerating. The reason is money, not what users need or think each needs. Greed is good and greed is transformative.
Third, walled gardens solve a lot of problems. Customers are chained to specific vendors. Captivity is what makes accountants happy. Captive customers behave in a predictable way and for budgeting purposes, that predictability is the chief good.
One can take different sides of the argument. That diversity is what passes for critical thinking today. Before grousing about Facebook, I think it is useful to look at the data. Facebook has stickiness, 650 million users, and a growing arsenal of features. Why go anywhere else?
Research has been changed. I like the word “devolve”. The Web is on a long hill with a street named decline. Remember the telephone and its early supporters’ idea that it would be used to disseminate important news. The phone today is the stuff that makes 12 years old have goose bumps. Change. Already accomplished.
Just my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, December 3, 2010
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What’s going on?
Modern Monopolies: Looking the Wrong Way
December 2, 2010
Far be it from me, an addled goose, pushing 70, living in rural Kentucky to disagree with super-poobahs. You can point your browser thing at “Should We Be Afraid of Apple, Google and Facebook?” and get a damning indictment and a rousing cheer for big business.
Neither the guru nor the professor are looking at the issue in the light of day. I am. Here’s the scoop. Familiarize yourself with Jacques Ellul, a dude of little or no interest to gurus or professors today. Dude Ellul was a Catholic priest, a Marxist, and generally pragmatic about technology and its alleged benefits.
His writings about technology are not what attract clicks on Reddit or Digg. There’s no Facebook page for Le bluff technologique. Paris: Hachette, 1988. Not too many tweets either.
Dude Ellul’s view is that technology triggers a chain of events. Some events have unexpected consequences. The really bad consequences get fixed by applying more technology. There you have it.
The company’s that the guru and the professor impugn cannot help themselves. The context in which each operates rewards their actions in many ways. Technology is now an end in itself.
Forget Skynet and other crazy robot-alien fantasies. The world is plugged in. Paraphrasing another professor who was mostly wrong is plugged in and ungovernable.
For search and content this means, in my opinion:
- Consumers cannot discern or filter content. Whatever is out there is okay for most folks. Think a different type of serfdom.
- Political entities lack the tools to operate in any other way than tactical response. A plan is almost guaranteed to go off the rails but you can “manage” with Pivotal Tracker, not share context.
- Companies are like hapless sharks who can never rest.
There are what look like monopolies. Monopolies are an illusion. We have an environment produced by technology and those who would use it for instrumental purposes.
Dude Ellul is more right than the guru and the professor in my opinion. I am glad I am old. Dude Ellul is probably glad he has leveled up.
Stephen E Arnold, December 2, 2010
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The Search Conference Wars
November 24, 2010
I was in Washington, DC last week for the Mark Logic Government Summit. I estimated that there were between 450 and 550 people at the Tyson’s Corner-area event.
I learned from a colleague at a conference across town that there were 1,200 people at the Information Today multi-part search, knowledge management, and digital everything conference at the Renaissance Center in the District of Columbia.
Sys-Con’s “Endeca Government Summit: Important Context on a Key Mission Area” reported:
The Endeca Government Summit was yesterday. The agenda included some fantastic presentations from customers who have used Endeca to address issues requiring incredible scale (billions of records) and incredible scope (including the need to discover meaning in data in milliseconds) and human-focused interfaces (including, in every solution I saw, an ability to enable humans to interact with data in ways that search never enables).
I heard that there were “hundreds” at the Endeca event.
I don’t doubt that the encomia in the Sys-Con write up is accurate. The Mark Logic Conference was excellent, but I was a captive participant and anything in which I get involved looks great from my vantage point. I think Mark Logic’s speaker line up from the military was more timely than Endeca’s but that’s my opinion.
The Information Today event yielded little feedback, and I assume that like its other conferences, the Information Today event was like previous Information Today events.
My views on these competing events are as follows:
- Vendors definitely like to target November for conferences
- Stacking up search and content processing conferences at about the same time is like the medieval practice of grouping shoe makers on the same street
- There must be a heck of a lot of people in Washington, DC with an unquenched thirst for information about finding information.
What’s this tell me?
I think there will be more piling on. An anchor conference—say, for instance, the Information Today road shows with their predictable line up of topics and speakers—pulls attention to a window of time. Then the savvy vendors target a conference at the same time, offering possibly more compelling programs. The result is a conference competition.
Who wins?
My view is that the magnet conference is carrying much of the marketing cost burden. Once the anchor event publicizes what it is doing, it becomes somewhat easier for other organizers to offer another venue to customers and prospects.
What happens when the magnet loses some of its pulling power? Interesting question. For now, the conference wars are minor skirmishes in the fight for the hearts and minds of information access. What’s ahead? Interesting question.
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2010
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A Real Jab at Google: Facebook and Artificial Intelligence
November 18, 2010
I know that the poobahs swarming around the various summits and “numbered” conferences are excited about the future presented through Dollar General eye glasses. Not me. I am warm and comfy at the goose pond, reading “DST CEO Yuri Milner: Facebook Will Help Power Artificial Intelligence In Ten Years.” In my opinion the comments about Facebook and artificial intelligence are more important than the Beatles on iTunes, the wacky predictions of a bubblicious venture firm, and the last gasps of companies ready for the rest homes.
Here’s the passage I noted:
Milner believes that Facebook could be one of the platforms that drives the development of Artificial Intelligence over the next decade or so. AI probably isn’t the first thing you think about these days when it comes to Facebook, but he has a point — that the site processes an incredible amount of data, and it has the potential to develop powerful filtering tools using both this content and social signals.
Please, read the original write up. I want to offer three observations and then paddle back to the shore for a evening snack of day old bread.
First, the remark underscores the importance of “member” input where the crazed postings are complemented by whatever data the “member” provides. Data with these characteristics are likely to be better than numerical recipes that try to build data sets and fill in the blanks. Google is better at the numerical recipe work; Facebook is a leader in the crazed postings and “member” provided data. Facebook has an advantage.
Second, the comment adds another example of Google’s inability to regain the momentum the firm had in brute force search prior to 2006 or 2007. Until thee pivotal years, it was Google’s world. The emergence of Facebook as a player in a key technical activity is like an aging athlete who finally hears, “You can’t do it any more, bud.” Ouch.
Third, Facebook is now officially a technical problem for Google. The Xooglers at Google know the weak spots and I think Facebook will exploit them. After I learned about the Facebook “permanent distraction” approach to communication, the flaws of Google’s offerings become much more obvious.
Check out the interview.
Stephen E Arnold, November 18, 2010
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AOL Morphing into a Digital Publishing Company
November 17, 2010
Some publishing companies are trying to morph into mini-motion picture or video game companies. But AOL is an online company, and it is going a different direction.
The headlines about AOL’s financial performance are sobering: Heavy declines in search and display advertising caused AOL’s quarterly revenue to fall 26 percent.
“I would hope AOL is growing at industry advertising rates at the second half of 2011,” Tim Armstrong, AOL’ s Chief Executive(www.aol.com), said in “AOL Revenue Drops 26 percent on Slumping Ad Sales.”
Armstrong has been trying to turn AOL into a media and entertainment powerhouse instead of its typical and most known image as a dial-up Internet access business.
Will AOL find a pot of gold with its rich media and reinvention of traditional content?
The steep decline in revenue suggests that the company needs to find more advertisers who are willing to spend big bucks with AOL. Advertising revenue fell 27 percent from declines in search, display and third-party ads, totaling $292.8 million.
In addition, revenue fell to $563.5 million in comparison to the $557 million expected by analysts.
A warning from AOL to Yahoo: sell, sell, sell, or risk ending up as an online has-been. We predict a 50/50 chance that Yahoo’s next challenge will be similar to AOL’s advertising dilemma. AOL needs to find a path to the end of the rainbow. The company needs a pot of gold to cope with the presence of Facebook, Apple, and a couple of other “with it” companies.
Leah Moody November 17, 2010
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New York Times Wrestles with Online Fees
November 16, 2010
I still pay for daily home delivery of my local paper even though most of the content is available online. However, my local paper is a great deal cheaper than the New York Times, which is $14.80 per week if you’re not in New York. Felix Simon reports in “The NYT’s Subscription Strategy” that not only has the NYT’s subscription rate been rising much faster than inflation, but that its website makes it difficult to find exactly how much you’re paying. Simon asserts that “the NYT has been stealthily hiking rates for decades now, and has signally failed to get a bad reputation for doing so. Clearly, it’s going to continue doing this: it’s one of the few successful business strategies in the newspaper publishing industry, so it’s obvious that the NYT should adopt it.” He goes on to theorize that the New York Times will also attract subscribers to its online subscriptions with lower fees and then surreptitiously start charging more and more. Simon also points out that this is a strategy that only works with older subscribers. I wonder how successful a strategy this can be for the long-term. Not only will the subscriber base eventually age out, but with the economy as it is, how many people can continue glossing over the $769.60 a year on their credit card statements? With so much news, including much of the NYT, available free online, it seems to me that their audience will eventually reach a breaking point.
Alice Wasielewski, November 16, 2010
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Autonomy Outflanks Rivals with Push into Healthcare
November 15, 2010
A Beyond Search Exclusive: Interview with Fernando Lucini
The news in Harrods Creek arrives a day late and a dollar short. We heard that Autonomy, the search and content processing outfit with nearly $1 billion in annual revenues and more than 20,000 customers, has rolled out a new service.
Auminence delivers a vertical solution for the global healthcare industry. Like other Autonomy’s products and services, the solution’s heart is IDOL or what Autonomy calls an “integrated data operating layer.” I think of IDOL as a platform upon which solutions are constructed. Search is one use case for IDOL, which relies on smart numerical recipes. Autonomy IDOL now dispatches problems in video search, fraud detection, big data analytics, and business intelligence.
The firm’s Auminence offering is a vertical play, and it comes at a time when the US healthcare industry is being forced to look for new methods, new systems, and new ways of handling health, medical, wellness, and administrative challenges. Timing is one of Autonomy’s core competencies. The firm’s new healthcare service is as prescient as Autonomy’s move into eDiscovery and collaborative services.
Not surprisingly, Auminence delivers actionable information. The chief architect of the system is Fernando Lucini, an engineer with deep experience in delivering systems that crack tough “big data” problems. He told me:
Think of Autonomy Auminence as a powerful point-of-care analysis dashboard, designed to help the provider make better quality, data-driven, evidence-based, diagnosis decisions. Auminence allows a healthcare professional to combine his or her personal knowledge with the wealth of knowledge that exists on the patient and their symptoms, clinical features, and related diseases – contained in the vast volumes of “human-friendly” information that make up healthcare data.
The user does not require training to use the system. Instead of a laundry list Google-style, Autonomy presents the information in a dashboard and report format. Mr. Lucini said, “We want to reduce the time and cost of tapping into the needed information. We want to help a person rushing to solve a medical problem to maybe save a life. Who wants to work through a list of links. That’s more work. We want to provide answers. Fast.”
Another innovation is Autonomy’s implementation of the service in the cloud. Since the firm acquired Zantaz, Autonomy been advancing its cloud-based services and features at a steady pace. However, what struck me as particularly important was Mr. Lucini’s statement that the service, which is available now (November 15, 2010) supports mobile devices like the Apple iPad and Android phones and tablets.
You can read the full text of the exclusive interview with Mr. Lucini in the ArnoldIT.com Search Wizards Speak collection at this link. One thing is certain: other vendors will have to react and quickly to Autonomy’s well-timed move in the health vertical. For more information about this service, navigate to www.autonomyhealth.com.
Stephen E Arnold, November 15, 2010
Freebie, but Autonomy promised me a cup of tea when I visit the international online show in December 2010.
Linguarde Translation Download Available
November 15, 2010
Linguarde translation software is available via a no-charge download. Created by the MindSpec Corporation, Linguarde is powered by Google Translate (a for-fee Pro version is also available). According to the download site, users can “translate Web-pages, e-mail and other documents without opening online-translation sites and buying expensive bulky programs”.
Further, there is no need to open a separate program; Linguarde begins translating when a user simply selects the text to be translated. Linguarde supports more than 50 languages and features automatic language detection. Programs supported are Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Adobe Acrobat and others. So, why use Linguarde instead of Google Translate? Linguarde doesn’t require users to visit a separate webpage to get a translation. For those who like to have their translation service at the ready, Linguarde is a good alternative. We located links to TimeMeter here and a stub site for MindSpec here. We don’t have much information about this software at this time. A bit of a mystery I conclude.
Laura Amos, November 15, 2010
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Reflections on Ask.com
November 13, 2010
Ask.com used to be the premier search engine for the Internet. According to the article, “IAC’s Barry Diller Surrenders to Google, Ends Ask.com’s Search Effort” they don’t even break the Top Five. Because of this backslide, Diller’s corporation will be laying off 130 engineers and letting the competition take most of its brute force, Web search business.
In the era before Yahoo and Google you could type in any question and your trusty guide, Jeeves, would take you anywhere you needed to go. Not anymore. It seems that Ask.com can no longer keep up with the Jones’s or, in this case, the Google. The write up asserted:
It’s become this huge juggernaut of a company that we really thought we could compete against by innovating. We did a great job of holding our market share but it wasn’t enough to grow the way IAC had hoped we would grow when it bought us.
Google has grown to be the world’s top search engine, and it seems to control 65 percent of the searches performed in the United States.
Some observations:
- How long will Google be able to sustain brute force indexing? The more interesting services use human input to deliver content.
- Who will be the next Google? Maybe it will be Facebook?
- With the rise of “training wheels” on search systems, will most users fiddle with key words? Won’t “get it fast, get it good enough” may become the competitive advantage?
Google is now the old man of search. I see the company moving clumsily. There was the “don’t go to Facebook” payoffs earlier this week. There is the Facebook game and Google watching from the cheap seats.
Changes afoot. I fondly recall the third tier consultant who told me that Ask.com was a winner. I assume that young person is now advising the movers and shakers about search and content processing. Maybe Google needs an advisor to help the firm move from the cheap seats to the starting line up?
Stephen E Arnold and Leslie Radcliff, November 13, 2010
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Dyve Goes Deeper
November 13, 2010
DeepDyve has expanded the content on its interesting content rental service.
DeepDyve was launched in 2005 as a place for professionals in the fields of science, medicine, social science, humanities and information technology to rent the scholarly materials they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. The company asserts:
DeepDyve is continuing to advance its mission of providing affordable and convenient access to scientific and scholarly research articles for the tens of millions of users who are unaffiliated with a large institution.
In general only professionals who are tied to a large institution are able to use the big research engines that generate the most relevant information; DeepDyve is changing all of that by making available more than 30 million articles from thousands of reputable journals. At $9.99 a month it’s practically a steal and perfect for the start-up or individuals who need to learn more about a particular subject.
Leslie Radcliff, November 13, 2010
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