Google Knol Gets an F
August 12, 2009
TechCrunch published “Poor Google Knol Has Gone from a Wikipedia Killer to a Craigslist Wannabe” by Erick Schonfeld and elicited a happy quack from the addled goose. Mr. Schonfeld points out that Google’s Knol (a unit of knowledge in Google speak) is a traffic magnet without much oomph. For me the killer statement in the write up was:
Sadly, Knol just never panned out. Google should just end its misery, just like it did when it killed other under-performing projects such as Lively and Google Notebooks. Knol will never come close to Wikipedia. It can’t even cut it as a classifieds listing site.
I agree with Mr. Schonfeld’s argument, but there were several thoughts that the write up triggered here in the pond choked with rain water and mine run off.
- Perhaps Google allowed resources to flow away from Knol because it was a publishing play on the surface but a test of a method for obtaining content from experts. Authoritative information from an expert is just the Googzilla food that smart algorithms feed upon. Publishing is a hot potato for the Google. Knol is better left as a sideline lest it draw enemy assaults.
- Google has a number of similar tests / betas underway. Are these products, or are they trials of key components of a less visible, more potent system? The terms of service and the various developer tools make it possible to shape Knol in interesting ways. Which of these “ways” is the one that Google wishes to encourage?
- What happens if Google, not eager users, hook together multiple Google beta services into one cohesive product that delivers and monetizes information? That is a question to which I don’t have an answer.
Google may have another Web Accelerator on its hands. On the other hand, Knol may be a cog in a larger machine. TechCrunch seems to be leaning toward giving the Knol service an F and may toss in a week in the Web detention hall based on performance to date.
Stephen Arnold, August 12, 2009
AP to Restrict Some Content
August 12, 2009
An eager beaver reader of the addled goose’s Web log sent me a link to “Why the Associated Press Plans to Hold Some Web Content Off the Wire”. The author is Zachary M. Seward, and the source is the Nieman Journalism Lab. (I assume that this is an outfit similar to Google’s Lab.) The story reports that owners—oops, members—of the AP will not be permitted to publish some AP content on their Web sites. The idea is that the owners—oops again, members—would link to content that resides on an AP repository. You will have to read this write up yourself. The words “confidential” and other legal sounding words are used in the document. These cause the addled goose to shed some feathers. There is also a reference to “link value”, a term which seems to refer to Google’s method of determining ranking in a search result list.
Several questions flitted through the addled goose’s tiny brain:
First, the AP is owned by its members or at least that is what I thought when Barry Bingham Jr. explained the relationship to me in 1980 or 1981. If the AP is owned by members, why can’t a member do what he or she wishes with the content produced by the organization he or she owns? I suppose the notion is similar to the home owner’s association which restricts what a home owner can do. Maybe this is more like the owner of a mall, which operates as an independent entity with regard to certain rules and regulations. Tenants—oops, members—give up some rights for the benefits the mall delivers. Maybe the mall analogy is infelicitous. The malls not far from Harrod’s Creek have fallen on hard times but I suppose the mall owner will continue to exercise its legal suzerainty over Trixie’s Nails Shoppe.
Second, what happens to an owner—oops, member—who gets out of line. The likelihood of the AP finding another outfit willing to pay for ownership—oops, membership—seems as if it would be time consuming and expensive to replace a fallen owner—oops, member. If that owner—oops, member—is a big gun outfit struggling to keep its powder dry, will there be a legal dust up?
Third, will the Internet users who read a high value content story somewhere expend the energy to summarize, reference, or describe that story? Posting such a summary may require the AP to defend its conceptual and fungible turf. What if the offender is a high school student? What if the alleged violator is an errant blogger?
In short, I applaud the AP for putting on its thinking cap. However, if Mr. Seward’s write up is understood by me and accurate, I think there will be some interesting consequences of this action.
Stephen Arnold, August 12, 2009
TechDirt Kicks Sand on the Association Press
August 12, 2009
I have a simple solution to the Associated Press’s policy regarding addled geese quoting from AP news stories. I may mention a story, but I point out that I am not going to quote from a story so the reader can scurry to the AP source and get the news strait from the horse’s mouth. TechDirt’s “Rewriting an AP Story Just to Show We Can” took a different approach. TechDirt deconstructed an AP “news” story and revealed to my surprise that most of the story was a rehash. The addled goose was stunned. TechDirt said:
You can’t copyright facts nor can you claim copyright limits anyone’s right to restate the facts."
The AP has had sand kicked in its face, digitally and logically, of course. Actual sand would have been assault.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Baseline: A Magazine on a Diet
August 11, 2009
I have saved some back issues of Baseline, a publication aimed at enterprise information technology executives. The January 2005 issue contained what I lovingly describe as “crazy numbers”. What this phrase means to me is an analyst / journalist prepares cost estimates for an enterprise software system. The January 2005 article was “Calculating Costs of Installing a Work Flow Management System”. The analysis appeared between pages 44 and 45 as a foldout. The cost for the system was presented as two numbers and the editorial content showed where those numbers originated. Robert McNamara would have been proud of the zero base approach. The assumptions were not as precise as I would have liked, but I did find these estimated costs most useful:
- The start up applications cost was $1,574,720. I don’t know what this phrase means exactly, but, please, keep in mind these are 2005 dollar estimates.
- The operations applications cost was $174,460, which was about 10 percent of the start up applications costs.
- The total applications costs were $1,749,460.
To this total, Baseline’s analysts added:
- Startup infrastructure costs of $247,160
- Operations Infrastructure costs of $39,320, about one-sixth the total infrastructure costs.
I found these numbers useful to explain why a different and more detailed cost analysis was needed. The reason was the various costs that are not included in the Baseline analysis. One example: where is the provision for indirect costs associated with managing the IT crowd when an outage causes extraordinary expenditures. And, where are those provisions for urgent fixes, opportunity costs when the system fails, and the cost of manual workaroiunds as the workflow system undergoes surgery.
Baseline is in rough seas. Image Source: http://www.yourglobaltravelguide.com/wp-content/gallery/namibia/abandoned-boat-in-rough-seas.jpg
I loved this feature in Baseline; it was my stalking horse to show why and ArnoldIT analysis was needed to avoid another information technology cost surprise.
The publication in 2005 had high production value as well. The charts and graphs were painstakingly illustrated. The magazine had 84 pages, some interesting advertisers like Hitachi who paid for a booklet glued into the magazine itself. The editorial was interesting. There was a good mix of features on old shoe subjects like customer service and some briefer items I found interesting like “Jail Break”, which told about a prisoner who compromised secure information.
The Baseline that arrived on Thursday, August 6, 2009, caused me to ask the question, “Why bother?”
The publication was 34 pages and lacked the features that prompted me to save issues for years. The stories were very similar to ones that appeared in earlier issues. The ads, well, were skimpy. The cover showed an illustation about risk but the magazine came in a second cover that said:
Maybe you were out of own. So we are sending you another reminder to renew your subscription to Baseline.
Nah, I was not out of town. I just don’t find the publication compelling any longer. The feature I liked was long gone. If the publication shrinks, what is the justification for paying for paper, ink, printing, distribution, and the entire non editorial work force. Post the information on SquareSpace.com and call it a day.
I did click on the renew button and I was greeted with one of those number online surveys. I know that much of the data collected in this way is bogus. I used to click on the first choice in order to qualify for a free subscription when I used to read trade magazines. Now I look elsewhere. If I want an opinion, I can find a podcast and listen to a pundit.
I think the trade magazine sector may be in for some rough seas. Those numbers were crazy but they helped me sell more sophisticated analyses. I suppose creating those flights of fancy, like the nifty graphcs, were too expensive. Like those professionals, I fear I am a gone goose from the Baseline subscription list.
Stephen Arnold, August 11, 2009
Traditional Media Explains Why It May Be Marginalized
August 10, 2009
Short honk: Navigate to the New York Times’s article “Breakfast Can Wait. The Day’s First Stop Is Online”. In my opinion, the article does a good job of explaining why traditional media are being marginalized. Note the pattern. Up. Online. Leave. No time for the newspaper. Not a hint of interest in a magazine. A book. Not a source of fun for anyone except grandmother. How will traditional media respond? Hybrids; that is, a marriage of traditional publishing and new technology. Great idea. How will these solutions be fit into a day that begins with email and ends with surfing YouTube.com?
Stephen Arnold, August 10, 2009
Washington Post Riffles Google Books
August 10, 2009
First, the source: the Washington Post. A traditional newspaper. Presumably the Washington Post is aware that Google has become the poster child of the network-centric world in which traditional media must operate. Second, the Google: a company that has destabilized Yahoo, annoyed telecommunications executives, and operates by playing three D chess in a world happier with Tic Tac Toe.
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The editorial “Google’s Fine Print” identifies one of Google’s chess moves in a Tic Tac Toe world. Traditional media want the game to be Tic Tac Toe. There is an elegance to it and the business model predicated on taking intellectual outputs, putting them on paper, selling ads, and charging enough money to build information empires like those enjoyed by William Randolph Hurst, among others.
The problem, however, is that in order to win at Google’s game, the folks on the other sides of the 3 D chess board have to know what game is being played. Google has been grinding away at indexing and archiving information for quite a while. The Books interest kicked in a year or so before Google hired a wizard and Caere executive to move the Google parade toward books.
Then Google invoked fair use and started digitizing with some partners who were sufficiently Googley to figure out that playing Google’s game was a reasonable undertaking. Folks objected. Google negotiated. A deal emerged. Now, after the fact, the Tic Tac Toe crowd wants to play their game.
I have written many times that dealing with Google requires a different understanding. The traditional media are one group of Google contestants lagging in the game playing expertise. Keep in mind that Google is an “as is” outfit. The Tic Tac Toe crowd is working on the “to be” scenario. Publishing will be in the same two person raft as Microsoft and Yahoo. That craft is not going to close the gap, let along leapfrog the Google.
Let me think. Google said it would index the world’s information 11 years ago. Since that time, Google has been playing its game of 3 D chess. Now more than a decade later, the Washington Post wants to play Tic Tac Toe. Well, maybe the lawyers will pull off the Greek deus ex cathedra play. Will that change the fact that no other entity can do what Google is doing to preserve and make accessible books and research information. A national library? Right, good luck with that one. How about a commercial database company? Fat chance. Some of thsee outfits would sell out to Google in a Kentucky Derby minute so the lawyers and accountants who run these information sweat shops can buy a house in France.
Tell me how wrong I am. Just keep the “as is”, the signed deal, and the available archive in mind. “To be” arguments will not hold the addled goose’s attention. The Christian Science Monitor has weighed in as well.
Stephen Arnold, August 10, 2009
Publishing Fantasy: The Hybrid Solution
August 10, 2009
I can visualize the meeting that sparked the idea for “Staving Off A Spiral Toward Oblivion”. You can read the essay by Mary Tripsas in the hard copy of the New York Times in the Business section, August 9, 2009, page 3, or poke around online until you locate a link to a digital version.
The argument references hot metal typesetting, sailing ships, and other chestnuts from the buggy whip approach to business analysis. In today’s world, these examples are intriguing. I recall meeting a talented professional writer named Fred Czufin, who used history to illustrate modern technology. We used his firm to create a remarkable historical view of energy for Eric Zausner, then the head of Booz Allen’s energy practice. This was in the era of a single Booz, Allen & Hamilton at a time when the firm was competing to be among the top two or three management consulting firms in the world.
Ms. Tripsas has used the same method to explain that publishers can save themselves by becoming hybrids. The idea is that by bolting on whizzy new functions to the proven methods, an organization has time and opportunity to make further changes.
Wrong.
Hybrids are at best a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, neither fish nor fowl.
Consider Google. The company focused on solving fundamental problems using available hardware. The company’s focus was on solving known problems and using quite different business methods and processes to achieve the firm’s objective of making the world’s information available.
Google along with Facebook and a handful of other companies have come to define the next generation in information services and systems. Sure, these outfits use established technology but the companies have blended technology with business methods, processes, and models.
The New York Times’s Web site renders its content incorrectly in Firefox. The page displays in Internet Explorer. Perhaps the New York Times will make it possible for Firefox users to view a properly rendered page generated from its hybrid system? I know that’s a detail and probably not meaningful to a company embracing Frankenstein methods.
The problem for publishers and other last-generation information companies is that kicking the habits formed in the past is proving really tough.
I want to mention a couple of examples that hit my radar this week. You may, of course, agree or disagree. Keep in mind I am not in the same kettle of fish as the information companies that are fighting for their lives:
ITEM 1: A large organization cannot deploy a Web site that works. The fix was to ignore the business management and process issues and fix the blame for the problem on the information technology contractor.
ITEM 2: A publisher has reduced its work week from five days to four days. In order to save money, the accounting department makes “errors” that delay the payment process.
ITEM 3: A tabloid publisher cannot create a new online service because the editorial procedures are set up for print and management lacks the appetite to make changes.
ITEM 4: A new media company exits one technical field which makes money to focus on electronic content which does not make money.
What does each of these “items” have in common? Management problems. Hybrids don’t fix management problems. Period.
Each of these outfits has whizzy new technology. Each of these outfits is a hybrid. If that’s the way to save publishing, I must be missing something.
Stephen Arnold, August 10, 2009
Murdoch Spam
August 8, 2009
Short honk: Just wanted to document that I continue to receive at my mail email address Wall Street Journal spam. I am a print subscriber, yet the company despite my phone calls, my email, and these “short honks” continues to bombard me with email offering me a discount to subscribe to the newspaper. Too bad you are not my customer so I can return the favor. I guess the rich are different.
Stephen Arnold, August 8, 2009
Amazon Losing E Book Grip
August 8, 2009
Mark Long’s “E Book Market Is Shifting Away from Amazon’s Target” puzzled me. Amazon “kindled” the e book frenzy. Sony has missed the shrimp boat again. Its new models don’t have WiFi. The Sony e book store is a crazy place. Amazon’s Kindle store looks positively elegant when I examined both. Mr. Long reported:
Amazon’s dilemma is that the next wave of potential customers is more likely to “buy and borrow books from multiple sources, as opposed to buying lots of books online,” Rotman Epps said. And this could spell big trouble for the market leader should its rivals elect to make moves “to better serve the later waves of adopters who don’t have as strong a relationship with the e-commerce giant,” Rotman Epps said. Moreover, demographics aren’t the only challenge Amazon faces. “Open platforms are also an effective strategy for battling Amazon,” Rotman Epps said.
Let’s assume these data and the statements of the consulting firm are spot on. My thought is that books are not going to be the money makers they have been since the olive and wine press was put to work smashing out words on paper. Right now books are quite a bargain. The number of remainders and used books on offer in a town which prefers basketball and horse racing to reading is remarkable. If I want a book deal, I can get a “used” book on Amazon at prices I find tasty.
The shift from books is not likely to be stopped with long form content shifted from print to electronic forms. Clay tablets are not too useful for reading. An art fair has clay with writing on them, but Babylon’s favorite form of recording corn harvests won’t be making a comeback.
Mr. Long makes some good points. Too bad books seem to be a method of sharing information that appeals to very narrow segments of the US population. Cheap Kindle type devices won’t expand the market. Neither will more sources of e books.
Stephen Arnold, August 8, 2009
More Wall Street Journal Spam
August 5, 2009
My main email account is now in the hands of the Wall Street Journal’s marketers. I am a subscriber. I have called. I have clicked on the link to remove my name. Right now, WSJ needs paying customers like me. Spamming me is a quick way to lose a customer. Newspapers, magazines, and book publishers don’t understand the antipathy created by stupid use of Web marketing tools to * paying customers *.
August 4, 2009 spam from the Wall Street Journal
This addled goose has a crusade: get off the spam list operated by the Wall Street Journal. I will post as often as I receive spam. I bet I have to do a lot of posts. Those WSJ wizards are too busy to worry about one customer I wager. Is irresponsible an appropriate word? Is ham handed appropriate?
Stephen Arnold, August 5, 2009
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