Acquisition of Gigablast by Yippy Leaves Some Questions Unanswered
July 19, 2013
An article on Yahoo titled Yippy, Inc. (YIPI) to Acquire Gigablast, Inc. And Web Research Properties, LLC to Expand Consumer Search, Enterprise, and eDiscovery Products reported on the important acquisition by the young company. Yippy, Inc. is a search clustering tech company based in Florida with some innovative eDiscovery resources. Matt Wells, the founder of Gigablast states in the article,
“Gigablast and its related properties can provide advanced technologies for consumer, eDiscovery, and enterprise big data customers. Gigabits, a related program, is the first operational enterprise class clustering program which I put into service in 2004. Yippy’s Velocity platform was essentially based off of my original work which will allow Yippy to sell behind the firewall installations for all types of search based applications for enterprise and eDiscovery customers.”
Yippy’s Chief Executive Rich Granville claims that the acquisition will not only benefit customers through technological innovation but by low costs. He directed interested parties to a demo that might illustrate the massive potential in the merger of these companies. The demo shows that the combined indexing of billions of pages of data has already begun, although not when it will be complete. What is less clear is who is indexing what in this tie-up?
Chelsea Kerwin, July 19, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Vertical Search Apps as Champions Against Google Dominance
July 18, 2013
With a reminder that many tech predictions fail to come true, Traffick posits, “Remember Good Old ‘Vertical Search Engines Will eat Google’s Lunch’?” The article recalls a time years ago when some said specialized search portals were poised to give dominant, broader platforms some hefty competition. Google weathered that storm just fine.
Now, Google critics are again saying the search platform is too generalized, and that it is in danger from more specialized solutions (mobile apps this time.) While for many of these tools going public has supplied a financial edge, that advantage pales in comparison to Google’s stranglehold in the mobile environment. Still, writer Andrew Goodman observes:
“But with direct pipelines to their user bases, wisely built through timely and large cash infusions, this new generation of ‘vertical portals’ seems better positioned to stand firm than the flimsy attempts we saw a decade ago. . . .
“Some of the results could be surprising, heavily dependent on the type of ‘lens’ users prefer to see the world through. . . . Does everyone want to be subject to an opinionated ‘master lens,’ a giant Google Glass, if you will? An AOL, Facebook, or Apple style walled garden? Or will folks find ways of enabling more neutral platforms (or somehow using the above technology in a neutral way) that will help them do a better job of enabling many ‘starting points,’ a postmodern collection of ‘lenses,’ in the manner of their choosing?”
Good questions that only time can answer. Goodman suggests that Yahoo can help in the anti-monolith effort by shaking up their business model and snapping up some of these Google-free apps. He suspects a lot of users want to see vertical search engines take Google down a few notches. Hmm. . . we’ll see.
Cynthia Murrell, July 18, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Cloudera Releases Search Application
July 17, 2013
Cloudera is joining the ranks of those who offer open source enterprise search solutions. They are powering the new offering, Cloudera Search, with Apache Solr and combining with the storage of Hadoop. Read more in “Introducing Cloudera Search.”
The introduction begins:
“Powered by Apache Solr™, the enterprise standard for open source search, Cloudera Search integrates with the 100% open source Big Data platform, CDH, to bring scale and reliability for a new generation of search – Big Data search.
Speed to Resolution: Get to answers quickly with user-friendly search and drill-down navigation and find relevant data across large, disparate data stores of mixed format and structure.
Accelerated Exploration: Discover the “shape of data” quickly and easily during modeling and data exploration with faceted search interfaces and free-text query APIs.”
There are many more features that are covered in the remaining write-up. Readers can find more information by registering for a free webinar or viewing an introductory video. It is not surprising that Cloudera wants to expand their market share by moving into enterprise search. LucidWorks has had much success in this area, building their products on Apache Solr as well, combining it with emerging technologies like Hadoop. So while Cloudera’s news is exciting, and shows great momentum in the market, industry-vetted solutions like LucidWorks might be the tried and true option.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 17, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
is There a Red Bull in Search and Content Processing
July 16, 2013
After a series of meetings on the Left Coast, I sought respite in my newsreader. What caught my eye was an article about Red Bull. This snippet caught my eye:
Red Bull as a lifestyle, a kind of belief system, a religion in which that can of liquid was necessary and functional. From the beginning, Red Bull, the belief system, and Red Bull, the product, were inextricably intertwined.
You can read more in “Red Bull Gives You a Business Strategy.”
This article sparked this question, “Which search and content processing vendor is implementing the Red Bull business strategy?” My knee jerk reaction was to say, “Google.”
Google embodies a life style at least for those who want quick and easy access to relevant information as determined by the Google system. But what about less high profile companies and, narrowing still further, companies not built on advertising and free services?
Here’s another snippet:
Thirty years later, Red Bull has become a company that is hard to describe in conventional terms and perhaps the premier global example of a business that combines story and action — something I call a storydoing company. Instead of “telling” its story using advertising, Red Bull conveys its story through the creation of compelling experiences, all carefully crafted to “give you wings.” Because of this, Red Bull has become a packaged-goods company that is also a content creation company that is also an events company that is also an adventure sports lifestyle company.
Measured against “storydoing”, most search and content processing vendors fail. One example is a company which landed two big accounts and managed to miscommunicate the nature of the problem solved and the fact of the deals themselves. I receive PR missives each days which recycle the same limited vocabulary of buzzwords. When I inform the earnest spammers that I don’t care, I get PRatronization back.
The fact is that I could not think of a single current search and content processing vendor which is implementing a Red Bull strategy. Based on the information available to me, search and content processing boils down to:
- Recycled assertions
- Overused buzzwords
- Frantic jumping from market to market in hopes of making a sale
- Executive churn
- Angry investors, customers, and users.
I do know about some exceptions, but in the large scheme of things, search and content processing executives cannot implement “storydoing.”
Well, there are some options. These include webinars, Google Adwords, and one shot marketing efforts. I tune out of most webinars. I have webinar fatigue which seems to be communicable. I ignore online advertising, including the annoying pop ups which are reappearing. And I try to dodge one shot marketing efforts.
Are there other reasons why search and content processing, which is maybe 50 years young, has no Red Bull. (At lunch, a colleague pointed out, “Search does produce a lot of bull. I am not sure of the color.”
Good observation.
Stephen E Arnold, July 16, 2013
Sponsored by Xenky
Topology Configuration for SharePoint 2013
July 16, 2013
We’ve found an interesting how-to on topology configuration. The Team Blog of MCS @ Middle East and Africa posts, “Configuring SharePoint 2013 Search Topology.” Blogger and Microsoft employee Issa Ayyash begins:
“When creating the Search Service application, a default topology will be built automatically where all Search components are assigned to the server which is running the Central Administration, in multi servers farm scenario you need to change this topology, the only available way currently is through PowerShell which will provide more flexibility in configuring the topology, (you can NOT modify the topology through UI like you used to do with SharePoint 2010)”
Yes, that change could be frustrating if one didn’t get the memo. For a rundown of the differences between SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013, click here.
Ayyash goes on to guide us through an example five-server setup, complete with a helpful diagram, a screenshot, and snippets of code. The model dedicates three servers to query processing and two as application servers. This post is a concise and informative resource for anyone who may be called upon to configure a SharePoint 2013 search topology.
Cynthia Murrell, July 16, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Many Projects of SumoBrain Solutions
July 15, 2013
Often times we come across companies so interesting that they deserve a write-up of their own — news or no current news. We stumbled upon SumoBrain Solutions and were intrigued enough to delve into their About Us.
SumoBrain Solutions participated in last year’s PE2E (Patent End-to-End) pilot project and developed a solution to the US Patent and Trademark Office that they integrated into the non-search architecture.
Also of note is their technology to support complex search optimization for their chemical industry client. We learned:
“A matrix query is particularly powerful when a user desires a dataset based on 2 or more dimensions. For example, rather than asking for all patents where the assignee is IBM, Intel, or Microsoft, the user might request all datasets where the assignee is IBM, Intel, or Microsoft, by year for the last 20 years. Other use cases include mapping term lists against assignees or … The conventional way of running such queries was to run each permutation – and depending on the number of dimensions and the number of possibilities in each dimension, this approach can quickly become intractable. Our innovative approaches to this challenge and many other complex search problems have given us the most powerful and scalable capabilities on the market.”
Their projects don’t stop there. They are also working on a project with Harvard University Business School on historical and geographical trends in patenting activity in the US.
Megan Feil, July 15, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Twitter Shortcut for Search Results Related to Products and Services
July 13, 2013
The article titled How to Find People Asking For Your Products Or Services on Twitter on Market Intelligence offers a simple tip that might yield results for certain services. Typing –http ? “Keyword” into Twitter’s keyword search will discover the stream of search results for any given keyword. The article explains,
“Imagine you are a company selling cosmetics and are launching a new face cream. By entering the query -http ? “face cream” into Twitter search, you will see a stream of all people who mentioned face cream in a tweet… The first girl is asking for suggestions for a night time face cream. Do you offer a similar product? If so, hit reply and send her your recommendation.”
The article goes on to look closely at the first few hits, noticing that, (voila!) one of them is a blogger who might write about her interaction with the face cream touted on Twitter. I imagine in real life this would take a lot more combing through inane and irrelevant posts. Whether or not it works when the product or service is not popular on Twitter, or even non-existent, is not mentioned in the article. Perhaps this advice is aimed only at mainstream services, making it, like Twitter, useful to some, but useless to many.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
DuckDuckGo Offered as Private Alternative to Google
July 12, 2013
The article titled “Search Engine Privacy; DuckDuckGo Does Not Track Its Users” on Slate is an interview with DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg. This search engine was created as an alternative to Google with the benefit that while Google stores the all of the data you give it, DuckDuckGo does not. Due to the leaks about NSA’s widening monitoring practices, DuckDuckGo’s traffic exploded, rising from 2 million queries before the story broke to over 3 million. The article explains who this search engine is aimed at,
“Different people prefer different experiences and user interfaces. Google is trying to appeal to the average user—we are trying to carve out a niche for the serious person who knows what they’re doing and wants their privacy protected and a great result. We have servers around the world, and we can see how much traffic is coming in from which areas, so we know our users are about 50 percent United States, 50 percent international. “
Painting Google as Walmart and DuckDuckGo as a boutique search engine seems to be a working strategy for Weinberg. His emphasis on privacy appeals to a great number of individuals. Weinberg mentioned just a few examples of common searches, medial and travel related, that no one wants made public. Of course the two search engines are not impossible to use together- perhaps reserving DuckDuckGo for searches that are potentially embarrassing or personal.
Chelsea Kerwin, July 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
MaxxCAT Launches Program for Nonprofits
July 11, 2013
MaxxCAT has implemented a program designed to help nonprofits, we learn from “MaxxCAT Hopes to Bring Search Appliances to Nonprofit Organizations with NPO Buyers Program,” posted at PRWeb. The limited-time NPO Buyers Program pairs a choice of search appliances (the EX-5000 enterprise search or SB-350 search) with extended integration and support services.
The program aims to fill one particular gap NPOs often face; the press release tells us:
“While all MaxxCAT search appliances are easy to integrate, nonprofits often face resource shortages in their IT departments. To address this concern, MaxxCAT will include three hours of Integration Services with each appliance purchased under the NPO Buyers Program. The Integration Services Group provides top-level service from the experts who design and build MaxxCAT’s appliances, and three hours is typically enough time to implement a search.
“Each MaxxCAT appliance comes with a year of email support plus software updates as well as a one year hardware warranty. In addition, nonprofits will receive an extra year of email support plus software updates.”
This is a limited-time offer, so interested NPOs should check out this link soon. Perhaps if they get a good response, the company can be persuaded to extend the program.
Based in Pittsburg, MaxxCAT was founded in 2007 to capitalize on the high-performance, specialized hardware corner of the enterprise search market. The company also provides integration services and managed hosting. A focus on performance, simplicity, and ease of integration keeps MaxxCAT at the fore of the high-performance field. This foray into serving nonprofits can only help the company’s standing.
Cynthia Murrell, July 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A Call for Answers to SharePoint Mystery
July 10, 2013
SharePoint pro Marc D Anderson believes Microsoft has some explaining to do, he asserts in his blog post, “SharePoint 2013’s Search Continuous Crawl: an Enigma.” While updating one intranet system, he was working with the continuous and incremental crawl settings. He describes his confusing results, complete with screenshots, so see the write-up for the technical details. He summarizes:
“Continuous Crawl seems to be working, but at some underlying schedule which isn’t visible. There have been some suggestions that the Continuous Crawl schedule is set to every 15 minutes by default, and the evidence above seems to support that since the second piece of content showed up in 12 minutes, about 15 minutes after the last crawl that was visible in the logs. There is some PowerShell you can use to get at properties of the Continuous Crawl, but it’s not totally clear what impact they have on the schedule. . . .
“Another thing that’s not clear is how many Continuous crawl threads might stack up if things get backed up. One person has suggested an unlimited number and someone else told me there’s a maximum of 8 threads.”
Anderson calls for Microsoft to put out documentation that will clear up the confusion. He does list a few links that may be of some help to some SharePoint users, and calls for readers to share any information they have in the comments section. If this enigma might be of concern to your organization, you might want to check back there for more answers.
Cynthia Murrell, July 10, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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