Google TV Experiences Consumer Dimming
August 13, 2011
Who would have thought a search engine company would have more success with their social networking platform as opposed to TV service? Technology Review reports “Google’s Vision for TV Proves a Turnoff.”
Despite public perception that it would be impossible for any social networking site to rival the giant Facebook, it seems that it is fact harder to reinvent the wheel when people have been enjoying it comfortably and complacently for half a century.
Distributors and stores selling single flagship Google TVs actually returned more than they sold. We learned from Technology Review that Google’s search features couldn’t cut it for consumers:
Google TV devices have gained little traction. They launched to poor reviews citing them as difficult to use, and met opposition from broadcast and cable networks wary of the Web content might undermine their hold on viewers.
Without a user following, Google TV is proving that search is not the killer app for rich media. Assuming demand will remain low, what does this mean for Google’s advertising efforts?
If they can add value to the largest social media site and convert users, they must be able to rethink how to add value to something as archaic as a television set.
Logitech has cut prices. We learned that Sony is also rethinking its pricing tactics for Google TV. Interesting. WalMart failed in online music. Could Google suffer a similar fate?
Megan Feil, August 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
FCC Close Captioning: Unintended Side Effects?
August 8, 2011
In July, the Federal Communications Commission inadvertently handed a gift to indexers of Web content. Broadcast Engineering reported, “FCC sets six-month deadline for Internet closed captioning.”
The goal, of course, is improved accessibility to video content for the hearing impaired. The new rules continue the spirit of the 1996 Telecommunications Act which required closed captioning for most TV shows. Now that Web programming has become central to modern life, the requirements bring this accessibility up-to-date. Writer Michael Grotticelli states,
“Next January, captioning for live and near-live programming must be online. By next July, all prerecorded programming ‘substantially edited’ for the Internet must be captioned. The report recommends performance objectives, technical standards and regulations. No information can be lost in the transcoding process, including spelling, positioning, timing and presentation.”
We would like to point out the side effect this will have on the search industry: this development will makes it much easier for content to be indexed. Speech to text is not so hot, so putting the burden on the video maker shifts costs.
It will also create a legal gotcha for those who violate the guideline, so watch out. See here for the text of the report.
Cynthia Murrell, August 8, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Rich Media Search May Become Expensive and Slow
August 5, 2011
Bandwidth hogs, watch out! ReadWriteWeb warns, “AT&T to Start Data Throttling, How Will It Affect Users?”
The impending throttle will begin on October first. AT&T 3G users who have “unlimited” data plans (hah!) will see their speeds artificially reduced if they reach a certain bandwidth threshold. Just what that threshold will be is still a mystery, but writer Dan Rowinski dug up some details:
“9to5Mac gives some guidelines on to what kind of usage will achieve reaching the throttling threshold. The site says 12,000 emails or website visits, four streaming movies or five hours of streaming music. That all makes sense except for the last bit, which may be a typo as five hours of music certainly will not eat anywhere near 2.5 GB of data that is expected to cue the throttling.”
AT&T helpfully points to some activities that tend to gulp down data: streaming video, remote web camera apps, sending large files (like uploading to cloud storage), and online gaming. In other words, everything that makes the Web what it is today.
Bottom line: tiered data plans (you know that’s where this leads, right?) are a money machine and AT&T wants to have its share. Ironically, better search leads to more data flow, so more search is good for AT&T; what’s good for AT&T is good for America.
Consumers who just let background processes update, download rich media without much thinking, and gobble up chunky online apps will be paying a lot for their data gluttony. Users will just have to cope.
What are the implications for rich media search? “Free” will come with a price. Welcome to the new datasphere!
Cynthia Murrell August 5, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Facebook Skype: Should Google Be Worried?
July 14, 2011
Nah, Google has legs. Actually it has the world’s premier online advertising platform. Google needs content and traffic. Anything that has traffic is going to light up Google’s radar. But worry? Not so much.
ITWire reports that “Ovum says Facebook+Skype is Google’s nightmare.” Really? Ovum is pretty quick on the trigger with a big prediction.
The azure chip firm insists that the Facebook deal with Skype must have Google worried. The article quotes Ovum’s Eden Zoller:
The Facebook/ Skype tie up brings together two of the most popular communications service providers online and the video chat feature should prove a hit with Facebook’s 750 million users. . . .A deepening Facebook, Microsoft and Skype alliance is on the cards and is a powerful prospect and one that will keep Google awake at night.
We think Ovum may be too quick to downgrade the GOOG. Its Google+ is generating buzz, especially since the company is hyping it by limiting initial invitations. As writer Alex Zaharov-Reutt notes, though, Google must be careful that such tantalization does not turn to food for resentment.
In our opinion, both Google and Facebook are perpetually vulnerable. In the fast paced world of online business, anything can happen at any time. We think the social revolution is ripe for change. Those MBA-ish exogenous forces are able to creep up and bite giants like Facebook and Google. The Skype function is a consumer service. Google will respond. We think there are larger forces at work that may make these high fliers come down a bit closer to earth.
Legal eagles come to mind.
Cynthia Murrell, July 13, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Are Webinars the Backbone of Concept Searching Marketing?
July 5, 2011
On the surface, Concept Searching looks like some of the other analytics company that asserts steady growth. What is interesting is that when some value adding software co9mpanies market, webinars or online lectures and demos are a component of a broader marketing program, Concept Search seems to rely heavily on webinars. We find this interesting.
We looked into one search company which was using Twitter to make the text processing service a hot trend. From our vantage point, it seems that Concept Searching is using social media in a more modest way.
Though it sounds like Spiderman should be involved, a webinar is simply an online seminar or workshop. The great thing about a webinar is that it is usually interactive and allows all participates to give, receive and discuss the topics at hand. Additionally, geographical boundaries are not an issue and these presentations are very low in cost.
When perusing Concept Searching’s Web site, you will find an entire events page dedicated to their upcoming exhibitions and a list and description of their current webinars. Some titles include: “Designing Information Architecture for SharePoint: Making Sense in a World of SharePoint Architecture” and “De-mystifying Content Types: Four Key Content Types of Leverage.” You simply register and voilà, you join in on all the fun. They also have a page dedicated to previously recorded webinars that you can access at your leisure.
I moderate webinars for a couple of outfits, and these are often expensive programs. There is time, often lots of time, required to prepare the text, create the graphics and demos, and then build an audience. I participate in webinars when I am paid to do so. However, I do not participate in webinars. The reason is that I am receiving inputs, experiencing interruptions even when the door is closed, and working to respond to ad hoc requests from clients.
I do think that webinars are somewhat more useful than attending certain conferences. Over the last couple of years, conferences are more like fraternity and sorority parties. But that perception may be a function of my age and distaste for rock and roll, mixed media events with lots of 20 somethings opining about social media and organic search. Yikes, digital bonsai.
This leads me to the question, “Who has time to participate in webinars?” If these are buyers of high end solutions, great. However, if I were the boss of a company where webinars consumed staff time, I would be asking some questions about the efficacy of the method.
I find reading a Web page and using an online demo or downloading code useful. Webinars may be too zippy for an old goose like me. One thing for sure: lots of companies are using webinars to hold down the cost of on site sales calls and getting individuals “interested” in a product or service to cough up an email address.
Stephen E Arnold, July 5, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of the New Landscape of Enterprise Search
The GOOG MSFT User Experience
June 23, 2011
One of the goslings asked me to take a quick look at US7966638, “ Interactive Media Display across Devices.” Here’s the abstract:
A computer-implemented method includes identifying a computer-based portable program module, automatically altering code in the portable program module to permit display of the module on a television-based display so that the displayed module has a substantially similar appearance on the television-based display as on a computer display, and providing the altered code for execution on a processor connected to a television-based display.
The question today at lunch is, “How likely is it that Google will be on the same Windows 8 interface bicycle?”
My view: Google has struggled to make use of its plethora of interesting inventions. Assume this invention moves to the “one interface” across any of a user’s devices or veers in another direction. Will Google be forced to buy a company that has been able to connect the dots? The example of which I am thinking is the Sage TV buy. The issue may be internal communication about available technology regardless of the team originating the system and method.
Stephen E Arnold, June 23, 2011
From the leader in next-generation analysis of search and content processing, Beyond Search.
Google and Sage TV: What Went Awry with In House Tech?
June 22, 2011
I am not into television and videos like some of the goslings here in Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky. We took a field trip to the big city when the Google TV became available. I was baffled. I like reruns of Lawrence Welk and some sports programs. The rest of the programming does not resonate. I still like printed books.
I read “Google Revives TV Buzz with SageTV Buy.” I understand that Google had to reverse the poor showing of its original factory. The idea of buying a company in business since 1999 had not occurred to me. Google has a bundle of patent applications and technical papers about rich media. I worked on a monograph about Google’s rich media efforts, but I shifted gears in order to write “The New Landscape of Enterprise Search.” I am glad I did. Google’s product for the masses did not excite the goslings, and, according to the article, not too many other people either. I noted this passage:
Google announced that it had transformed television last year, but TV somehow remained stubbornly un-transformed. People are still perfectly happy to use YouTube, and even watch it on their TVs, but didn’t flock to unify the entire experience under Google’s guiding hand. Additionally, the paucity of devices hasn’t embedded Google TV into the consumer electronics world.
What strikes the Math Club crowd as cool does not connect with a large segment of television content consumers.
The question, I want to capture is, “With Google’s significant investment in rich media, why has the company been unable to gain traction?”
I have a notion that Google does have high value technology for rich media. However, the company’s management set up makes buying a company easier than figuring out which in house technology to productize. Apple, on the other hand, seems to be able to generate gallons of lemonade no matter how sour the music, motion picture, and TV industry seem to be.
With Google pushing Sage TV to center stage, how long will advertisers feel okay with Sage TV’s ability to skip commercials? Google lives by ad revenues. Happy advertisers are, therefore, important.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Facebook Face Play No Big Surprise
June 14, 2011
You might be living under a rock if you haven’t heard about Facebook’s newest addition to its social network–facial recognition software. That’s right – the beloved social network is building a database of their user’s faces and telling us it’s all to make our lives easier. As discussed in “Facebook Quietly Switches on Facial Recognition Tech by Default” the controversial feature allows users “to automatically provide tags for the photos uploaded” by recognizing facial features of your friends from previously uploaded photos. Yet again, Facebook finds themselves under fire their laissez-faire attitude towards privacy.
This latest Facebook technology is being vilified. It has been called “creepy,” “disheartening,” and even “terrifying.” These are words that would usually be reserved for the likes of Charles Manson or Darth Vader, not an online social network. The biggest backlash seems to come from the fact that the didn’t “alert its international stalkerbase that its facial recognition software had been switched on by default within the social network.” This opt-out, instead of opt-in, attitude is what is upsetting the masses. Graham Cluely, a UK-based security expert says that “[y]et again, it feels like Facebook is eroding the online privacy of its users by stealth.”
To be fair, Facebook released a notice on The Facebook Blog in December 2010that the company was unleashing its “tag suggestions” to United States users and when you hear them describe the technology it seems to be anything, but Manson-esque. In fact, it invokes thoughts of Happy Days. They say that since people upload 100 million tagged photos everyday, that they simply are helping “you and your friends relive everything from that life-altering skydiving trip to a birthday dinner where the laughter never stopped.” They go as far as to say that photo tags are an “essential tool for sharing important moments” and facial recognition just makes that easier.
Google has also been working on facial recognition technology in the form of a smartphone app known as Google Googles and celebrity recognition. However, now Google is claiming to have halted the project because, as Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said “[p]eople could use this stuff in a very, very bad way as well as in a good way.” See “Facebooks’s Again in Spotlight on Privacy”.
So who’s right? Facebook by moving forward or Google by holding up its facial recognition technology?
It seems to me that Google is just delaying the inevitable. Let’s face it. As a Facebook user my right to my privacy may be compromised the second I sign up in exchange for what Facebook offers.
Technology, like the facial recognition software, is changing the social media landscape, and I suppose I should not be surprised when the company implements its newest creation even when it puts my privacy at risk.
Is it creepy?
Probably and users should be given an opportunity to opt-in, not out. Is it deplorable. No. It’s our option to join and Facebook is taking full advantage of it.
Jennifer Wensink, June 14, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
Protected: Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and SharePoint
June 13, 2011
More on Google and Digital Music
June 8, 2011
I don’t get rich media. I find it fascinating that Google is working hard to develop street cred in rich media, which includes audio, video, and immersive representations like its newest map features.
“Google Was Ready To Pay $100 Million To Record Labels” contained an interesting statement:
Google is one of the most powerful and successful companies currently in existence. They have delved into nearly every facet of the internet and have been successful. Yet they have never attempted to enter the digital music world, or have they?
According to sources Google was prepared to pay $100 million to record labels to start its music service last December. This large number shows that any startup music web sites could not afford the initial fee it would take to get into the digital music market. According to Billboard, “talks broke down because some labels demanded that Google do more to eliminate pirated music sites from its search results. Google couldn’t agree to compromise its crown jewel, search, so instead it launched with an imperfect service.”
For now Google may have to settle with the current stranglehold they have on the world and allow Apple to continue to be top dog in digital music market. It is after all the search engine that makes Google such a successful company and any tinkering with that formula could spell trouble for Google.
We revisited this article after we saw Apple’s stock take a hit when Apple announced its cloud music service. Maybe lots of people don’t get the online music angle. Google is not alone.
Here’s a thought. Google generates most of its revenue from search. What if there is no “next big thing” for Google? What if the Apple cloud play flops?
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2011
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, the resource for enterprise search information and current news about data fusion
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