LinkedIn: You Search or It Finds?
August 30, 2013
One of the ArnoldIT goslings manages my social media presence. We try to provide information via automation or by asking questions. The “Stephen E Arnold” profile provides some information, but the detail located at www.arnoldit.com/sitemap.html is not included.
I am not sure what my area of expertise is. As I approach 70 years in age, I have worked in fields as diverse as machine shop janitor to advisor to the world’s largest search and software company. Along the way, I have labored inside nuclear facilities, sat in meetings which considered the fate of Fortune 500 companies, figured out how to make an online database produce a profit, and running laps for a person with $9 billion in personal assets.
I am surprised when my social media gosling reports that people are endorsing me for a wide range of capabilities. The most popular is analytics, which is okay. But my focus in analytics is how to make money. My relative, Vladimir Ivanovich Arnold, was into fancy math, which is supposed to “run in our family.” Whatever. The people recommending me are those who are “linked” to me. My view is that when someone wants to be my LinkedIn pal, the person should be involved in some way with content processing. I don’t recall most of the people, but some of the names are familiar. I stick close to Harrod’s Creek, Kentucky, and avoid the bright lights and big city.
Am I a monkey in a cage for those who pay LinkedIn for access to my “content”? Image from Alamogordo.
I was not surprised to read “Why Am I Being Endorsed for Skills and Expertise I Do Not Claim on my Profile?” (Note: I have no idea if you will be able to view this community post on LinkedIn. Your problem to solve, not mine.)
The main point of the post is:
I am receiving notices that I have been endorsed for skills that I have not listed on my profile. I have over 20 years of experience and may done these tasks at some point, but these are not necessarily the same skills I want to highlight currently on my LinkedIn profile and I have not claimed expertise in these areas. Why are any of my contacts being asked to endorse me for skills I don’t want highlighted?
My answer to this question is, “Generate revenue.” But the most interesting item in this community thread comes from someone whom I assume is a LinkedIn employee, cheerleader, or amanuensis. Use the search function in your browser to jump to this snippet once you are in the community post I have cited, please:
Thank you all for the valuable feedback. Our team really appreciates it and we definitely take it into account as we continue to improve the user experience across all of our products and features. With that said, I wanted to clarify a few things regarding endorsements:
1. You can only be endorsed by a 1st degree connection (a LinkedIn member you already know are directly connected with), and you can always manage which endorsements to show.
Blippex Takes a Fresh Approach to Web Search
August 29, 2013
This is an interesting angle: search that considers time users spend on each site, rather than the usual indicators, like link quantity and quality. GigaOM informs us about this unique approach in, “How Blippex Handles the Data Behind its Time-Driven Search Engine.” The premise is that users spend more time on sites that offer more value.
The budding Blippex is still working with a fairly small index, which is understandable considering it launched this year and has just started to get some traction. Though the Berlin-based company could have chosen to use one of the clouds floating over Europe (not literally), they are going with the web-startup flow and choosing Amazon Web Services. They are also relying on several open-source components, like MongoDB, Elasticsearch, and Redis. See the article for more details on Blippex’s use of those resources.
Writer Jordan Novet explains the unique approach, and points out one possible hitch to the time-spent model:
“The database Blippex uses keeps track of how much time users spend on a given website. The system has a way of making sure pages that sit idle — think of the tab that’s been open on your browser for three days — don’t get incorrectly interpreted as being the most valuable. . . .
“The thing is, web surfers might spend much more time poring over dense content, such as a paper in an academic journal, than on, say, a succinct news article about the same subject, even if the article is more successful at giving people just the information they’re looking for. In that case, time spent is not the best indicator of value.”
Novet makes a good point; we happy geese understand the value of a short, informative article. I checked out the site, and there is a slider aptly named “dwell factor,” with which the user can adjust how much influence time spent has on the results. If I don’t want to rely on dwell-time, though, why shouldn’t I just use Google? Well, privacy is one reason. Like DuckDuckGo, Blippex refuses to collect and share users’ information. In fact, they say, the Duck inspired their privacy policy.
Curiously, Blippex has yet to reveal how they plan to make money on the service. In fact, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, the company claims to have no business model in mind at all. Now that is a daring approach!
Cynthia Murrell, August 29, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Source Code Search Engine Meanpath
August 25, 2013
I am surprised it took this long; we have learned about a relatively new search engine dedicated to ferreting out source code: meanpath. Each day, the service crawls some 220 million sites to capture text, page sources, and server headers. Their website explains:
“Meanpath is a new search engine that allows software developers to access detailed snapshots of millions of websites without having to run their own crawlers. Our clients use the information we gather from your site to help solve problems in these areas: Semantic analysis; Linguistics; Identity theft protection; Malware and virus analysis; We also request your favicon and apple-touch-icon if available for our favicond.com service.”
Well, okay. Meanpath goes on to explain how it accesses sites, and diligently supplies instructions for those who would keep its bot at bay. Also included is a disclaimer, noting that spammers and other unethical operatives might refuse to heed the directives specified in a robots.text file, but advises that a reverse DNS lookup will suss out any bad actors.
Founded last year, meanpath serves a variety of internet-savvy businesses, from SEO consultants to hosting companies. The company makes its home in California.
Cynthia Murrell, August 25, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Surveillance Organization Unable to Search Own Employees Email
August 24, 2013
An article titled NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own Emails on ProPublica brings up an interesting glitch in the NSA’s surveillance technology. In spite of having the capability to sort through big data with a supercomputer, when it comes to doing a search of NSA’s over 30,000 employees they are at a loss. The article explains,
“There’s no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately,” NSA Freedom of Information Act officer Cindy Blacker told me last week. The system is “a little antiquated and archaic,” she added… It’s actually common for large corporations to do bulk searches of their employees email as part of internal investigations or legal discovery.”
The article also brings up the point that federal agencies often don’t have the funding they need for public records. However, if any agency should have the capability to keep tabs on its employees, it is the agency charged with surveillance of the nation. Lacking that ability limits NSA operatives to searching emails by individuals one at a time instead of searching for keywords or in bulk. This is very interesting in light of recent events, no further comment.
Chelsea Kerwin, August 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Shortcut Available for Text Searches Online
August 23, 2013
An article titled SearchClip Searches the Web for Text You Select with a Keystroke on Lifehacker addresses a Windows utility that enables easy search of highlighted text. The utility runs in the background once installed and enables the user to simply select text, hit Ctr+C twice in order to do a web search on the highlighted text. The utility, named SearchClip, sounds like a variant on the Autonomy Kenjin app developed over five years ago. The article explains some specifics of the program,
“You may need to add an exemption to your anti-malware tool for SearchClip to work—it does need to capture keyboard input to work, which can set off your antivirus app’s alarms. If you’re worried, Scott Hanselman was the one who turned us on to this one, and the code is freely available for inspection at GitHub. Also, you need Microsoft’s Visual C++ installed for the tool to work.
The article also states that on the first attempt to use SearchClip a DLL error code may appear. This problem disappeared once the package was installed. This utility seems like a shortcut of a shortcut, since copy and pasting Visit GitHub to try SearchClip out. Most of the responses to the post were critiquing the awkward hand position pictured in the article.
Chelsea Kerwin, August 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
IT Market Forecasting Increasingly Tricky
August 22, 2013
How big is cloud search? No one knows, because it is changing too fast to measure. That is the takeaway from eWeek‘s, “IT Marketing Forecasting Gets Dicey in Cloud Services, BYOD Era.” Forecasting firms have been recalibrating their tech-market predictions left and right. The article notes:
“In 2013 the major trends of mobile, cloud, social and bring your own device are rapidly altering the enterprise technology market. When you consider Microsoft reorganizing itself into a services operation, Dell working desperately to go private, Lenovo as the new leader in a declining personal computer market, and Samsung and Apple as the smartphone leaders, you get an idea of just how rapidly the tech globe is spinning.”
Writer Eric Lundquist supplies examples of forecasts that have been adjusted. He also examines specific developments, like the growth of Amazon Web Services and the bring-your-own-device trend, that have cast a fog around predictions. He concludes:
“All this goes to highlight the difficulty of forecasting a market that is changing beneath your feet. While you can add up actual spending, measuring lost opportunities, shifts in customer preferences and the attributes that cause corporate IT to abandon, for example, in-house development projects in favor of contracting with cloud services is not something that can be easily plugged into a spreadsheet.”
Indeed. The write-up suggests that researchers can overcome this difficulty once they capture enough customers’ thoughts about future spending. I am not so sure. Can we ever expect this market to settle down? Or is the pace of innovation only going to continue growing exponentially, leaving our tech prognosticators forever in the dust?
Cynthia Murrell, August 22, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Some Wonder if Chinese Search Partnership is Good
August 22, 2013
Some very smart people have speculated that as the Chinese market for, well, just about everything, goes so will go the rest of the planet. While nothing specific is said, that can likely extend to search. If that statement is true, there’s a lot of thinking to be done after reading a recent Search Engine Watch article, “Chinese Search Engine Quihoo to Buy Sogou for $1.4 Billion?”
According to the story:
Qihoo 360 launched its own search engine in August of last year, and is second only to Baidu in terms of market share in China. Purchasing Sogou would mean the company would have nearly 25 percent of the search market share compared to Baidu’s eroding market share, which is now slightly under 70 percent…If the deal happens, it will definitely shake up the Chinese search engine market.
This sounds like an interesting turn of events, but it begs the question: is this good for consumers? That’s another story. As this video illustrates, Chinese partnerships are happening across the spectrum. But whether or not they are good for customers depends on who’s buying and what is being sold. In the case of search, we think this will be a good thing that creates a more powerful tool for users.
Patrick Roland, August 22, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Discovering Google Search Weaknesses
August 21, 2013
Much like a giant in an ancient parable, is it possible Google’s blind spots will cost them as the world becomes more analytic and big data savvy? While that currently sounds like a stretch, it seemed less so after reading a fascinating article in Technology Review, “Filling a Search Engine Blind Spot.”
The article spoke directly of Google and it’s blindspots, namely:
This information blackspot consists of location-specific information that is only useful for people for short periods of time. An example would be a question such as whether an advertised bargain is still available at a particular shop. Another is to ask whether parking spaces are available at a public event such as an air show, music concert or such.
This, coupled with the idea that Google’s blindspots are actually much more serious. The SF Gate reported back in 2010 that the search giants actual troubles lied in “Privacy and complexity.” Now that is something to ponder. Have we seen any evidence in the last three years that that has changed? No, what we have are the likes of Tech Review pointing out more blindspots. While Google dabbles in every side business under the sun it is starting to look like they are ignoring their bread and butter. Don’t be surprised if someone else is able to swoop in.
Patrick Roland, August 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Search Keeps Getting Smarter
August 21, 2013
The Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval is a part of the Association for Computing Machinery. They host a yearly conference where a “state of the union” of search is presented. And while some may argue that search is an old technology, it is definitely not stagnant. Read more in the CMS Wire article, “Search is Getting Smarter All the Time.”
The author begins:
“There is a tendency to be critical of the fact that the core technology dates back to the work of Gerard Salton in the mid-1960s, and that therefore search is broken and is going nowhere. The same could be said of the internal combustion engine so long as you ignore the level of sophistication in Formula 1 and Indy cars. The reality is that search has never been in a better place in terms of development and there is a lot of exciting stuff sitting well below the horizon because of the disconnect between academic research and enterprise search development.”
Grant Ingersoll has posted some good reviews of this year’s conference. Ingersoll is the CTO and co-founder at LucidWorks. LucidWorks is part of the dynamic open source movement to which the article gives a great deal of attention. If search continues to get better, open source plays a large role in that, and the industry is noticing.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Raritan User Interface on Amazon Web Services
August 19, 2013
Raritan Technologies has announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to launch a dynamic search user interface on the popular cloud platform. PR Newswire covers all the details in their article, “Raritan Releases Dynamic Search User Interface on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace.”
The article begins:
“Raritan Technologies announced a new relationship with Amazon Web Services to expand its search solutions through the CloudSearch Plus User Interface (UI). This search solution, which interacts with Amazon’s CloudSearch product, is now for sale on the AWS Marketplace. Raritan’s search UI is easily configured to access any CloudSearch collection, customizable for each company’s unique interface requirements and enables mobility for content retrieval and accessibility.”
Raritan is a partner with many open source solution providers, including LucidWorks. LucidWorks is known for their expertise in Apache Lucene Solr, and for their award winning customer support and training. Raritan will benefit from the partnership with LucidWorks, as well as other open source providers with a broad spectrum of expert areas. Open source is definitely an unstoppable force in enterprise, and partnerships like these are just one reason why the commercial search solutions should be afraid.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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