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
Beefing Up Google Blogger Search
June 3, 2009
Short honk: if you have a Web log on the Google Blogger.com service, Search Engine Watch reported in “Google’s Blogger Makes Search Box Available to All Users” here a bit of code magic. Google can make some things dead easy. Wave and the Google Search Appliance are not yet in this “dead easy” category though. The Search Box, said Search Engine Watch:
Search Box automatically detects new posts that it can incorporate into the search results. The gadget also picks up on a blog’s style and colors. Search Box uses AJAX Search APIs to create a tight look that integrates well with the blog. Custom Search helps serve up the results.
Search Engine Watch provides a useful summary of the steps one follows to make us of this service. Coding made easier than Visual Studio. Slick.
Stephen Arnold, June 6, 2009
Successful Enterprise Search: The Guidebook
June 2, 2009
The reviews are coming in for the study by Martin White and me about enterpriser search. The publication is “Successful Enterprise Search Management”. The study brings together a method for implementing an enterprise search solution. The publisher is Galatea in the United Kingdom. You can find the reviews, information about the study, and a page of links to the reviews of the study. If you are involved in enterprise search, you may find the monograph useful. We take care to identify ways to gather information so that decisions about search can be based upon facts. We cover the entire process of planning, procuring, implementing, and enhancing a search system. We do mention some vendors, but the monograph is not a rehash of the unwieldy Enterprise Search Report nor is it as technically top heavy as my three analyses of Google’s mind boggling technology.
I had one copy which disappeared in a procurement team meeting. If you want a copy, you like me will have to pony up some cash to get this useful roadmap, guidebook, and search Baedeker. The monograph contains information not generally included in the breezy analyses of vendor-specific reviews and the fly overs of the industry that consulting firms generate for their paying customers.
One of the reviewers said:
“Martin White and Steve Arnold have created the authoritative guide for executives and business managers to understanding enterprise search from top to bottom. This book covers the players in detail, as well as emerging technologies that promise to improve the search experience in corporations in the coming years.”
Martin and I have made an effort to be clear, concise, and pragmatic. I wish I had had this monograph when I did my first project in the mid-1970s. I did not know then what I know now. You may be able to get a leg up on a what is a quite interesting and challenging application with our study.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Google Local and Yellow Pages
June 2, 2009
Updated: June 2, 2009, 5 pm Eastern
We still get two or three giant books with bright yellow covers. I remember thinking about the phrase “Let your fingers do the walking” each time I lug one of these 1,000 page publications to the recycle bin.
I read this morning Erick Schonfeld’s “Google Local Lures Small Businesses with Their Own Web Dashboard” here. Google upgraded its Local Business Center’s offerings. You can read about this publishing play in my Google: The Digital Gutenberg and participate in the service without a fee.
My thoughts:
- Google insists that it is not a publishing company. I accept that statement, but I note that the entries in the Local Business Center are, in my opinion, the new “yellow pages”
- Google pushes the job of populating its directory to owners like me. If you poke around zip code 40241, you may be able to locate the ArnoldIT.com “world headquarters”, impressive operation that. The result is that the editorial content is not much more than an incremental cost to Google, which is not always the case for a traditional directory publisher.
- The content in the Local service performs some useful services quite apart from making it easy to locate a pizza delivery company in Prospect, Kentucky. Think knowledge base and frequent updates.
The traditional directory folks may want to figure out how to ride the Google wave before it swamps their row boat filled with paper.
Stephen Arnold, June 2, 2009
Free of AOL, Time Identifies the Future of Online
June 2, 2009
When you own an online loser, it’s tough for the organization to make bold statements about the future of online. Cast off the boat anchor and the writers are liberated. Check out this essay / report from Time here. The write up is called “10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business” by 24/7 Wall Street but it’s Time for this addled goose. The idea was to get a bright journalist to identify the ways in which Twitter.com would affect an American business. The fact that Twitter.com has a fail whale deters not essay Douglas McIntyre. The ten examples are not that surprising, and I will leave it to you to analyze them. What struck me is that if Twitter.com was the future and had such compelling applications, why didn’t America Online jump into this new search sector with both feet. It’s easier to write about the future than deliver it in my opinion. One thing is clear to me. Finding the ten items is an exercise in patience. Start here.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
Documenting the Demise of Newspapers
June 2, 2009
The write up carries the name “Harvard.” Bow down. It is also branded Nieman. Another genuflection, please. And, to top it off, there is a reference to the Washington Post. I had to read this essay by Dan Froomkin, whose name is not a household word in the goose pond. You can find “Why “Playing It Safe” Is Killing American Newspapers” here. For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was this passage:
If we were to start an online newspaper from scratch today, we’d recognize that toneless, small-bore news stories are not the way to build a large audience — not even with “interactive” bells and whistles cobbled on top. One option might be to imitate cable TV, and engage in a furious volume of he-said/she-said reporting, voyeurism, contrarianism, gossip, triviality and gotcha journalism. But that would come at the cost of our souls. The right way to reinvent ourselves online would be to do precisely what journalists were put on this green earth to do: Seek the truth, hold the powerful accountable, expose the B.S., explain how things really work, introduce people to each other, and tell compelling stories. And we should do all those things passionately and courageously — not hiding who we are, but rather engaging in a very public expression of our journalistic values.
A couple of thoughts:
- Aggregation methods are the newspapers for the Web set
- Big publishing companies have experimented their hearts out for decades. Anyone remember the original Wall Street Journal Online service with BRS search? Didn’t work then, and the system doesn’t work now. The business model is the little crippler I think.
- Check out Google Wave. That’s a publishing platform in my opinion.
In short, good essay. Hose off the tumbrels.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
Google: Reading the Books Saga
June 1, 2009
You can flit from post to post about Google’s decision to sell books. Sigh. The New York Times presented the story as one of those summer blockbusters. You know. A single information product that floats the motion picture industry. If you missed Motoko Rich’s write up, you may be able to find it here. I will leave it to you to decide if this is the end of the studied indifference to Amazon or a stepping stone for “the digital Gutenberg”.
My views are set forth in the final installment of my Google trilogy: The Google Legacy (everyone will do what Google did to reduce the cost of online services), Google Version 2.0 (the shift from human and human centric methods of delivering information to mathematical precepts), and Google: The Digital Gutenberg (Google is the new River Rouge of electronic information). If you want to look at these studies which date from 2005, you can find more information here.
My take is that the Amazon-Google dust up is a David and Goliath skirmish. The Google Books affair is one step in a broader undertaking. The real action will be monitoring the dataspace of Google Wave. Wave is “new”, fuzzy, and interesting to nerds.
My suggestion is that publishers, journalists, pundits, and mavens will want to shift from shock and awe to the main theater. One needs to know at what to look and then prioritize Google’s activities. Sue Feldman and I prepared a report in September 2008 that provides additional insight. If you have access to IDC research reports, you may want to review Report Number 213562.
I used an illustration in Google Version 2.0 showing Sergey Brin as a magician, holding fire in his hand. In my opinion, folks are watching the fire, not the play itself.
Stephen Arnold, June 1, 2009
Google Maps and User-Created Content
May 28, 2009
WebProNews here published a story that provides some color to the symbiotic relationship between Google the service provider and users who create content. Doug Caverly’s “Google Maps Embraces More user Generated Content” provides a good example of how Google as a platform pops an umbrella over what were separate publishing functions. Mr. Caverly wrote:
Three months ago, Google took a big step by “graduating” data on 16 countries from Google Map Maker to Google Maps. Now, comparatively speaking, the company’s performed a long jump by following suit with another 64 countries and territories. This move means that the maps are transitioning from a smallish, private sort of program into public view. It acts as a big endorsement of user-generated content, since regular users are indeed the source of all the geographic info. And they’ve contributed a whole lot.
The question in my mind is, “When does the next shoe drop?”
Stephen Arnold, May 28, 2009
Open Access Pricing
May 27, 2009
A happy quack to the reader who sent me a copy of a presentation given by Andrew Wray, Group Publisher, Institute of Physics. He gave a talk called “How the Web Has Transformed Scientific Journals” in June 2007. I flipped through the PDF and noted one slide that struck me as important in my online research. You can find the talk online here. The information I noted appeared on slide foils 35 and 36.
Mr. Wray pointed out that new pricing models for online journals could have these characteristics:
- Discounts to subscribers who take only the electronic edition of the publication
- Tiered pricing by size of university subscribing to a journal
- Discounts for consortia
- Discounts or free access for small institutions or institutions in developing countries.
I also noted four interesting points on slide 36. He noted that the Web facilitates “open access models”. The brief description of this notion provides a check list of ways to generate revenue from digital publications; specifically:
- The author pays
- Institution pays a “membership fee” to join the publisher’s community
- Sponsorship which I think means an organization pays the publisher
- Advertising; that is, something like the Google model.
As I thought about these points, several ideas occurred to me:
First, Google at any point in time could morph from a “finding” service to a full-scale publishing service. Google has the intake, monetization, and distribution mechanisms in place, just not knit into a digital publishing enterprise.
Second, traditional scholarly publishing companies may find themselves in a tough spot if a sponsorship for a particular line of research runs afoul of a social or regulatory guideline. I don’t want to get into specifics of journals publishing material that may not hold up to additional scholarly scrutiny, but sponsorships have upsides and downsides.
Finally, the shift to real time research may disrupt some of the expectations about advertising. Are scholarly publishers ready for the dynamic free-for-all that may be emerging for new social information services. A scholarly article, like a video or MP3, can be Tweeted. Ads may not work in that medium as they do in Web search.
Stephen Arnold, May 27, 2009
Newspapers Seem to Be Facing Four Wolves
May 25, 2009
If you are a former employee of a major newspaper, you will want to read the Open Democracy essay “Journalism’s Many Crises” by Todd Gitlin here. Mr. Gitlin does a good job of summarizing the plight of this business sector. For me, the core of the article was this passage:
Four wolves have arrived at the door of American journalism simultaneously while a fifth has already been lurking for some time. One is the precipitous decline in the circulation of newspapers. The second is the decline in advertising revenue, which, combined with the first, has badly damaged the profitability of newspapers. The third, contributing to the first, is the diffusion of attention. The fourth is the more elusive crisis of authority. The fifth, a perennial – so much so as to be perhaps a condition more than a crisis – is journalism’s inability or unwillingness to penetrate the veil of obfuscation behind which power conducts its risky business.
These wolves are not like to huff and puff. These wolves will devour. The senior managers are likely to escape. The unfortunate ones are those who have often devoted their lives to the newspaper.
Stephen Arnold, May 25, 2009
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