Never Forget a Radio Station Again
November 29, 2013
Last Christmas I was ready to annihilate my regular radio stations, because they kept playing the same carol mix over and over again. There was not one new song introduced within a twenty-four hour period. Looking for some relief, I surfed the FM waves in hopes of finding a new station. My efforts were rewarded with a station I had never heard before and I was filled with new musical glee. While I never found the station again, Michael Robertson can help me avoid WHAM’s cover of “Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart” by “Introducing the World’s First Radio Search Engine.” Robertson recently launched his beta version of RadioSearchEngine.com.
The article explains:
“There are other directories of A-Z lists of radio stations, but this is the first search engine where any song or artist can be located on stations playing from anywhere in the world. A universal web player for the first time connects to and plays nearly every station offering immediate audio satisfaction and unprecedented user control.
The search engine updates in real-time, so users will be able to track a song and instantly play it. The search engine indexes all the songs every three-five minutes for an instantaneous searchable music. Robertson’s creation also makes recommendations to the user based on the song selection, allows users to skip songs, and view popularity rankings.”
Before finishing the article, I was about to say that YouTube is just as easy, but the ability to fast forward, skip songs, and add new content is the search engine’s major selling point. Robertson might have just launched the newest music trend.
Whitney Grace, November 29, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
HP Autonomy: The Beat Goes On and On and On
November 27, 2013
I read “HP’s Meg Whitman Ordered to Face Autonomy Charges.” Hard on the heels of Hewlett Packard’s quarterly results, the company has to explain to one disgruntled shareholder why the Autonomy deal went south.
The write up states:
In the latest $1 billion (£647m) lawsuit, HP shareholders accused HP’s management team of ignoring warnings before it bought Autonomy for $11.3 billion (£7.3bn) in 2011 and that the company’s financial numbers had been exaggerated. It is also claimed that HP tried to get out of the deal before it closed. The company later took a nearly $9 billion write-down largely connected with the purchase.
The deal put a burr under some digital cowpokes’ saddles. HP paid $11 billion for Autonomy. At the time of the deal, Autonomy was an $800 to $900 million a year company. Some months after the deal closed, the canny HP management took an $8 billion write down on the Autonomy deal.
According to the Tech Week Europe article:
The investors allege that HP’s management was negligent because of the $8.8 billion (£5.7bn) write-down on the deal HP announced in November 2012. HP officials blamed ‘accounting irregularities’ by Autonomy executives in the months leading up to the deal. The investors allege that the resulting drop in HP’s stock price effectively wiped billions of dollars from the company’s market value. The FBI are said to be investigating the allegations, as is the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
In the meantime, the HP deal has not generated the big time payoff that someone at HP assumed would result from the deal. HP, like many other search vendor buyers, seems to be learning that:
- Search is an expensive business to fund. Those marketing, research, and support costs are brutal. Most of the failed search vendors ran into financial trouble despite the ministrations of different CEOs. Maybe Autonomy was managed better? Interesting question.
- Search, by itself, is not a compelling product or service to many potential customers. As a result, search is no longer search. Search embraces dozens of functions from text mining to the ubiquitous and fuzzy Big Data. HP is now trying to market lots of search related products and services. My hunch is that this is a bigger job than trying to sell $11 billion worth of key word search licenses.
- Companies that are not really software centric do not understand the oddities of the enterprise search sector. My view is that MBAs at outfits like HP assume that their Swiss Army knife budgeting and managing skills are going to “fix up” an outfit like Autonomy. Billions will flow as a result of the MBA approach. Who needs a PhD with an aptitude for math to run a mere search company. HP is coming to grips with its own shortcomings in the vision and motivation departments of Autonomy.
An ironic twist to the tale is that HP licensed the hugely complex, expensive, and cumbersome Verity system. With the purchase of Autonomy, HP became the owner of Verity’s technology. The six figure license deal for Verity is now free when viewed one way. On the other hand, that Verity technology cost HP billions of dollars.
And what about the founder of Autonomy? Dr. Michael Lynch has set up an investment company called invoke capital. The company took an interest in Darktrace, a security firm. Dr. Lynch, according to the Financial Times,
…is also a defendant in a suit by HP’s shareholders relating to the acquisition. A court in San Francisco this month gave HP a deadline of January to complete an internal audit, a decision welcomed by Mr Lynch.
The year 2014 may hold more fodder for business school case studies about Hewlett Packard and Autonomy. I am eager.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2013
Coveo Explains: Complex Enterprise Search Delivered in a Day
November 27, 2013
The subtitle is the keeper, however: “No, I’m not insane.” The insane person is Wim Nijmeijer or Nicky Singh. Interesting semantic connection to either entity I believe. I learned this “insanity” stuff in a candidate chunk of possible PR ersatz http://goo.gl/ogVgIe. Since the publication of the New York Times’ story about Vocus and its PR spam, I have started a collection of search vendor messaging that may be a trifle light in the protein department.
Here’s the passage I noted:
Today Coveo announced that it will lead a session at Search Solutions 2013 on Wednesday, November 27 in London, UK.
No problem except that Coveo itself announces that its staff will explain the nuances behind “No, I’m not insane.” A third party “voice” might help.
There were some supporting “facts”. Here’s an example of a fact:
The reality is that many enterprise search implementations are far from simple, and often match the complexity of the systems they need to interface with. Coveo understands the complexity and challenges of enterprise search. Our revolutionary Search & Relevance Technology securely connects with all of an organization’s systems, and harnesses big, fragmented data from any combination of cloud, social and on-premise systems — without complex integrations.
Okay. Okay, well, “facts” may be too strong a word. I think the “revolutionary” and the “all” are going to be tough for me to accept. In a large organization, figuring out what not to make available can be time consuming in my experience. Toss is the information that will cause the company to feel a bit of heat, and you have some heavy lifting.
For instance, is “all” possible in today’s regulated environment. What about employee medical records, documents related to secret contracts and research work, salary information, clinical trial data, information related to a legal matter, and “any combination of cloud, social, and on premises systems”? Insane? Okay.
Well, maybe Coveo can deliver?
My observations:
- On a conference call with an enterprise search vendor, I pointed out that marketing enterprise solutions has changed. Hyperbole and cheerleading have replaced the more mundane information that answers such questions as, “Will this system work?” There continues to be skepticism in some circles about the claims of search vendors.
- Sending messages about oneself are interesting but even Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga employ publicists. Sure, Lady Gaga uses a drone dress to get media coverage, but she doesn’t issue a news release that says, “No, I’m not insane.”
- Enterprise search groups on LinkedIn are struggling with the question, “Why do vendors get fired?” The reason goes back to the days of Verity. That company charted the course that many vendors wittingly or unwittingly followed; that is, promise absolutely anything to get the job. The legacy of Verity’s mind boggling complexity are marketing assertions that enterprise search works and can be up and running in a day.
Not even Google can make that eight hour assertion stick for the new Google Search Appliance with 100 percent confidence in my experience.
Anyway, by the time you read this, the lecture “No, I’m not insane” by a Coveo expert will be over. I suppose I can catch the summary in the Guardian. Stop the presses.
Stephen E Arnold, November 27, 2013
Exclusive Silobreaker Interview: Mats Bjore, Silobreaker
November 25, 2013
With Google becoming more difficult to use, many professionals need a way to locate, filter, and obtain high value information that works. Silobreaker is an online service and system that delivers actionable information.
The co-founder of Silobreaker said in an exclusive interview for Search Wizards Speaks says:
I learned that in most of the organizations, information was locked in separate silos. The information in those silos was usually kept under close control by the silo manager. My insight was that if software could make available to employees the information in different silos, the organization would reap an enormous gain in productivity. So the idea was to “break” down the the information and knowledge silos that exists within companies, organizations and mindsets.
And knock down barriers the system has. Silobreaker’s popularity is surging. The most enthusiastic supporters of the system come from the intelligence community, law enforcement, analysts, and business intelligence professionals. A user’s query retrieves up-to-the-minute information from Web sources, commercial services, and open source content. The results are available as a series of summaries, full text documents, relationship maps among entities, and other report formats. The user does not have to figure out which item is an advertisement. The Silobreaker system delivers muscle, not fatty tissue.
Mr. Bjore, a former intelligence officer, adds:
Silobreaker is an Internet and a technology company that offers products and services which aggregate, analyze, contextualize and bring meaning to the ever-increasing amount of digital information.
Underscoring the difference between Silobreaker and other online systems, Mr. Bjore points out:
What sets us apart is not only the Silobreaker technology and our commitment to constant innovation. Silobreaker embodies the long term and active experience of having a team of users and developers who can understand the end user environment and challenges. Also, I want to emphasize that our technology is one integrated technology that combines access, content, and actionable outputs.
The ArnoldIT team uses Silobreaker in our intelligence-related work. We include a profile of the system in our lectures about next-generation information gathering and processing systems.
You can get more information about Silobreaker at www.silobreaker.com. A 2008 interview with Mr. Bjore is located at on the Search Wizards Speak site at http://goo.gl/f7niAH.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2013
The Future of Search: Incomprehensible Visualizations?
November 24, 2013
I have watched time shrink in the last 50 years. I recall having time in my first job. I did not feel pressured to do the rush rush thing. Now, when I accept an engagement, the work has to be done in double time in half the time, maybe faster.
As a result, reports have to be short. Graphics have to point out one key point. Presentations have to be six or eight PowerPoint slides. Big decisions are made in a heartbeat. The go go years were the slow slow years.
I took a look at Kantar Information Is Beautiful Awards. I think I saw the future of search. Users want information presented with Hollywood style visuals. Does it matter that the visualizations are incomprehensible? I don’t think so. Style takes precedence over clarity. I can visualize senior managers telling their colleagues, “I want graphics like these Kantar winners in my next PowerPoint.”
Here’s a winning visual.
Source: http://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/2013-winners/
The confusion of clarity with visual zing is interesting. As search vendors struggle to find a formula that generates top line revenue growth and yields net profits, are visualizations like the Kantar winners the future of search? I think the answer may be, “Absolutely.”
Vendors are not sure what they are selling. Whether it is BA Insight’s effort to get LinkedIn search group participants to explain the key attributes of search or other vendors slapping on buzzwords to activate a sales magnet, search is confused, lost maybe. Coveo is search, customer support and more. MarkLogic is XML data management, search, and business intelligence. Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft search does everything one would want in the way of information access. Open source ElasticSearch, LucidWorks, and Searchdaimon are signaling a turn into the path that proprietary Verity blazed in 1988. Vendors do everything in an all out effort to close deals. Visualization may be the secret ingredient that gives search focus, purpose, and money.
Why not skip requiring a user to read, analyze, and synthesize? Boring. Why not present a predigested special effect? Exciting. Everyone will be happier.
Decisions making seems to be in a crisis. Pictures instead of works may improve senior managers’ batting averages.
Relying on incomprehensible visuals to communicate will be more fun and prove to be more lucrative. I assume audiences will applaud, cheer, and stomp their feet. Conferences can sell popcorn and soft drinks to accompany the talks.
Go snappy graphics. Will I understand them at a glance. Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2013
Database Ranking Includes Search Engines
November 24, 2013
I read “DB-Engines Ranking.” What struck me is that search engines were included in the list. More remarkable, some of the search systems are not data management systems at all. One data management system bills itself as a search engine. I was surprised to find the Google Search Appliance listed. The system is expensive and garners only basic support from the “search experts” at Google.
Let me highlight the search related notes I made as I worked through the list of 171 systems.
- At position 12 is Solr. This is the open source faceted search engine that can be downloaded and installed—usually.
- At position 21d is ElasticSearch. The person who created Compass whipped up ElasticSearch and made some changes to enhance system performance. With $39 million in venture funding, ElasticSearch can be many things, but for me the company does search and retrieval.
- At position 27 is Sphinx Search. This system makes it easy to retrieve information from MySQL and some other databases without writing formal SQL queries.
- At position 38, MarkLogic is the polymath among the group. The company bills itself as enterprise search, XML data management system, and business intelligence vendor. The company also enjoys some notoriety due to its contributions to the exceptional Healthcare.gov project.
- In position 44 is the Google Search Appliance. The system is among the most expensive appliances I have examined. Is the GSA an end of life project? Is the GSA a database system? My view is that it is a somewhat limited way to get Google style results for users who see Google as the champion in the search derby.
- At position 104 is Xapian. Again, I don’t think of Xapian and its enthusiastic supporters as card carrying members of the database society. For me, Xapian evokes thoughts of Flax.
- At position 124 is CloudSearch. Amazon’s somewhat old fashioned search system. Frankly I think of Amazon as more of a database services outfit than a search outfit.
- At position 127 is the end of life Compass Search. This was the precursor to ElasticSearch. There are those who are happy with an old school open source solution. Good for them.
- At position 149 is SearchBlox. Now SearchBlox uses ElasticSearch. Interesting?
- At position 163 is SRCH2. This vendor is one that has some organizational challenges. The focus of the company seems to be shifting to mobile search.
Quite an eclectic list. Some of the systems mentioned are search engines; for example, Basho Riak. In terms of list “points”, ElasticSearch looks like the big winner. Shay Bannon made the list with Compass. ElasticSearch is moving up the charts. SearchBlox uses ElasticSearch in its product. What happened to LucidWorks and reflexive search?
Which of these systems would you select for data management? My thought is that one should check out the software before taking a list at face value.
The confusion about search is evident in this list. No wonder the LinkedIn discussion groups want to do surveys to figure out what search means.
Stephen E Arnold
Search Tech May Shift West from Silicon Valley
November 22, 2013
I read “Chinese Supercomputer Retains ‘World’s Fastest’ Title, Beating US and Japanese Competition” may be nothing more than street racing with silicon. According the the write up:
A Chinese supercomputer has retained the crown of world’s fastest supercomputer, beating competitors from both Japan and the US.
There are several ideas to put the Chinese supercomputer in the back row. Questions about data transfer suggest the new champ has lousy lungs. It is also possible the graphics card makers’ performance enhancing drug—jiggled and manipulated test suites. Yes! Winner!
The Chinese have won the race two years in a row. In terms of my interests, the Chinese performance is one more datum supporting the notion that engineers from other countries have some work to do.
In terms of search, the reality is that most search systems are pretty much the same in terms of what they deliver to users—frustration and off point results. To improve the search and retrieval systems, more computing horsepower is needed.
With zippy computers and their various technologies, will the innovations in search come from the traditional drag race winners? Perhaps faster machines will allow more sophisticated methods of processing text and the magical “Big Data” will come from the Middle Kingdom?
Fast computers are enablers. Worth watching? Probably.
Stephen E Arnold, November 22, 2013
Elasticsearch Boasts a Gild Cheerleader
November 22, 2013
Luca Bonmasser, the co-founder and chief product and technology officer of Gild, recently presented at RubyConf about the best ways to build Elasticsearch in Ruby. PRWeb details the panel in “Gild’s Luca Bonmasser Presents At RubyConf On The Future Of Search.”
Here is a summary of Bonmasser’s speech:
“A consummate innovator and serial entrepreneur, Bonmassar will discuss how to build an Elasticsearch cluster, create indexes, load data, and format and execute robust search features using the Ruby Tire library. With end users expecting a high-level search experience wherever they go, Elasticsearch allows developers to keep up with UX demands by incorporating auto-suggest, spell-correcting, and personalized search on Ruby applications more easily. For Ruby developers who want to incorporate the highest level search features on their platform…”
Gild uses Ruby in its Gild Source tech hiring software. Gild Source helps companies hire skilled IT professionals, especially Ruby experts. Bonmasser is very passionate about the Ruby Tire framework and advocates for open source. In a personal quote he notes that search is a very difficult concept for engineers, but the technology available, such as Elasticsearch, makes it easier to make search simpler. To further spread his love for open source, he started an open source project on how to utilize Elasticsearch’s power.
Whitney Grace, November 22, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Are Yahoo and PRWeb Confusing SEO and Enterprise Search?
November 21, 2013
I get a Yahoo Alert. My single Alert topic is “enterprise search.” I want a bound phrase match. Like the other alert services I use, there are usually some obvious “false hits.” A “false hit” is an off topic story. The problem with key word alerts is that words have different meaning. A story with the word “search” for a new president often turns up with a story about Oracle’s Secure Enterprise Search system. Most of these “false hits” are easily ignored. Another problem is that some “experts” want a user to see something, so the query is relaxed. That’s a problem for me. For you, maybe not. For spammers, relaxation means more content baloney whether generated by an azure chip consultant, search engine optimization maven, or an organization desperate for visibility. In case you have not noticed, traffic to most Web sites is undergoing quite a change. One Web site owner told me, “We averaged 250,000 uniques a month in 2012. This year we are down to 48,000. What am I going to do?”
Go out of business? Change your Web site? Get a different job?
Perhaps the answer is, “Anything.
Desperation generates some darned interesting business actions in my experience.
There is another problem, particularly with the word “search.” I am interested in enterprise search, and I want to learn about new, substantive information related to information retrieval. The poor word “search” has been sucked dry of meaning. The wispy husk carries zero meaning. For most people search means Google or taking what an app delivers.
I noticed in my Yahoo Alert this morning these two items listed as the number one and number two most relevant stories for me:
Both of these are about an outfit that delivers search engine optimization services. The problem is that this sense of the word “search” is of little interest to me.
What is more interesting is that the outfit generating these items for Yahoo is called PRWeb. I don’t know much about PRWeb. My hunch is that one of the PR professionals I have used over the years knows about this firm.
I wanted to capture several thoughts about what I call “alert corruption.”
Lost and desperate for relevance. Those in the woods are probably evil. See Canto One of the Divine Comedy.
First, Yahoo is not doing a particularly good job providing me with new information about enterprise search. Today I saw items related to OpenText, an outfit that owns a number of search engines. The story, however, talks about enterprise information management. I do not know what that phrase means. There was a story about Imprezzo, a company that purports to “overcome the problem of traditional text based search.” Well, maybe that is worth a look. Of the five items sent me, one was possibly of interest. Does a score of 20 percent warrant a pass or a fail.
Second, four of the items in the Yahoo Alert were from the PRWeb outfit. One thing is certain. PRWeb can get its clients’ content into the Yahoo system. The problem is that two of these stories are about practices that I find like tight shoes. I suppose the shoes look okay but I am uncomfortable. But SEO outfits and those who assist them make me uncomfortable. A buck is a buck, but content manipulation is like wearing small shoes that are damp.
Third, after 40 or 50 years of search innovation, endless surveys from outfits like azure chip consultants and morphing vendors like BA Insight, Smartlogic, and LucidWorks, I am not sure if significant information retrieval progress is evident. One would think that Yahoo would tap some super sophisticated new technology to filter out baloney, deliver on point alerts, and work with vendors who exercise some judgment about what passes for search related content.
My hunch is that PR is in a bit of a sticky wicket. It joins content management, governance, search, and Big Data. These disciplines have to find some way to call attention to themselves. Perhaps these “legitimate” disciplines should emulate the search engine optimization crowd. Visibility without a thought about precision and recall is their game.
I would like to receive alerts that actually match the string “enterprise search.” I think that is just too much for those who think that a user absolutely must have a “hit” whether that item is relevant or not.
Search and marketing may be a match made in heaven. Those who are interested in precision and recall occupy one of Dante’s less salubrious regions.
Stephen E Arnold, November 21, 2013
Healthcare.gov Blog: Content Gap?
November 20, 2013
Healthcare.gov has a blog. You can find it at this link. There is a link for October posts. There is a link for September posts. I was not able to access the full set of posts for either month. Here’s what I saw:
I thought the content would be at this link.
Oversight, content management problem, content removal, or my error? Interesting. It is tough to search when content is not available for indexing.
I wanted to read the posts to the blog before and after the launch. No joy. Should I be suspicious?
Stephen E Arnold
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