cXense: Context Understanding
September 13, 2012
I received a heads up from a reader about a company founded in 2010. The firm is cXense, which can be pronounced in several ways. My source called the company “sea sense”. The spelling of the company’s name is wisely tuned to the findability challenges which less distinctive company names fall victim; for example, Expert System and Sinequa, to cite two company names which can introduce ambiguity to a user’s query.
The firm is under the able management of John Lervik, who was one of the founders of Fast Search & Transfer. I have written extensively about Fast Search, so I won’t go back over well-trodden ground.
cXense delivers to its customers: more control, improved relevance, and more revenue. For companies struggling to generate more income from their online activities, cXense appears to be just what the doctor ordered.
cXense provides several services. These include cX::Ad, cX::Analytics, cX::Recs, and cX::Search. Each of these “promises” to online businesses real time information, complete audience analysis, and a search engine. The search engine is described as “the first contextual search engine.” The assertion about the first caught my attention. I recall that a number of other companies have developed search systems which could figure out the context of content; for example, the DR LINK developed in the late 1990s by a venture firm, consultants, and engineers from Syracuse University.
The cXense search system is described this way:
Imagine a search solution that quickly and easily allows you to implement a customized, state-of-the-art search feature with all the fancy matching and navigation features your visitors expect, but without the costs and hassles of having to invest in, deploy and operate a complex on-premises enterprise search engine. Now, stop imagining and take a look at cX::search: A simple-to-use search solution securely hosted in the cloud. Search on a website shouldn’t be static. It needs to be highly dynamic and continuously adaptable to work well. Searchable documents and their popularity change, but also what people search for and what they consider to be relevant changes over time. In addition, people searching your site move from place to place and often use different devices to interact with your web content. When you think about it, managing all this continuous change in content, content relevance, access locations, time and user devices really boils down to being able to properly understand and manage the context of any user interaction. Source: http://www.cxense.com/cXsearch.html
cXense is offering an alternative to hosted site search which is available from Blossom Software, Google, and a number of other companies.
If you are looking for hosted solution which offers site search, recommendations, analytics, and customizable ad modules, cXense warrants a close look.
Stephen E Arnold, September 13, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite Boasts Information Pairing
September 13, 2012
Web site search can be a struggle from the user’s viewpoint. Navigating a Web site, particularly a commercial one, can be arduous at best. And yet organizations have had a hard time better designing a site to users’ needs. However, Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite offers a solution. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers a wide variety of smart solutions for the enterprise, but InSite is particularly geared toward smart public-facing Web site search.
Read an explanation of the information pairing technology behind the product’s success, written by Daniel Fallmann, in the entry, “Information Pairing Makes Websites More Intelligent!”
Fallmann describes the InSite product’s success:
Behind this ‘magic,’ however is a great deal of digital know-how. The key term here is information pairing, under the motto ‘bringing together what belongs together.’ To put it in concrete terms, the current Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite release enables a maintenance-free, always up-to-date conflation of information from different areas. Always relevant. Always interesting. Always to the point. For both you and your website’s users.
Information pairing technology is secure and award winning. Best of all, it improves your company’s Web presence without a huge investment in time or development hours. For organizations that know the importance of grooming their online appearance, Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is an easy investment.
Emily Rae Aldridge, September 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Wajam Plug In Offers Social Search Capabilities
September 13, 2012
The endless data users are providing to social networks via statuses and check-ins is being harnessed by a new search tool, Wajam. A review of the service, “Review: Wajam, a Tool for Searching Socially,” on Technology Review tells us how the approach works. Queries will yield results from related posts from your friends on different social networking sites. The free plug-in brings in up a pop-up containing this data and is also available in an iPhone app.
The review tells us more about the service’s capabilities:
“Wajam bests the big guys with its availability and flexibility. You can use it on all four major browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari), and it pulls up relevant social data on both the obvious websites and less-expected ones like IMDb, TripAdvisor, and Shopping.com. Once you sign up on the site and download the plug-in, your Wajam results show up as a pop-up on the page, sometimes with ads (although you can turn ads off in Wajam’s settings).”
Although the reviewer cites some kinks (sluggish, only works on 3G,) it’s easy to see this type of search becoming the norm because we tend to care about and value opinions and experiences of people we know. Companies like Google and Microsoft are also harnessing this data to personalize results and we are curious to see where social search will grow and improve.
Andrea Hayden, September 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Honk Tackles Black Swans in Search and Content Processing
September 12, 2012
We have just completed the lead article in Honk for September 25, 2012. The essay takes a look at the lone black swan in the information retrieval sector and asks the question, “Can black swans in search and content processing be identified before the bird flies away?” The answer may surprise you. In the article are references to companies which looked like black swans but upon closer inspection were healthy, but ordinary swans. A dead robin is discussed as well. If you have not signed up for the Beyond Search opt-in newsletter, you can. It is free and issued each week. Here’s the link to get on the mailing list: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/honk/.
Donald C Anderson, September 12, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Attivio vs Sinequa: Who Does What?
September 12, 2012
When I was assembling the Attivio company profile for IDC (http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=236514), I noted a catchphrase conflict. I ran the query “unified information access” and got a hit on Wikipedia. The phrase seems to have been coined by Sue Feldman, an IDC expert in search. The phrase “unified information access” is also strongly linked to Attivio within a Google search results list. In our research for the IDC Attivio profile, Attivio had made extensive use of the phrase for several years.
What was interesting was that we noticed that Sinequa, a vendor of enterprise search technology, was using the same phrase. You can see Sinequa’s use of the phrase in the banner of the Sinequa Web site.
Other companies are using the phrase as well; for example, BA-Insight, Endeca, Exalead, MarkLogic, PerfectSearch, and Palantir.
What is the value of a phrase if a number of vendors use it to describe what their systems deliver? Does this create confusion? Can Attivio’s strong grip on the phrase be eroded? Like “search enabled applications,” a phrase can lose its meaning when a number of companies use it. The words “search,” “information,” “big data,” “taxonomy,” and “semantics” have become almost impossible to define. Marketers “assume” that the words are understood by the reader or listener. Are they?
Search and content processing vendors continue to “look alike.” Little wonder. Each company seems to be piggybacking on other wordsmiths’ positioning ideas. Unlike Apple Samsung, there is no physical product involved. The words, therefore, are probably more easily repurposed and shaped. Does this help one understand what a company’s products actually do?
My view is that search, analytics, and content processing vendors are repeating the marketing approach which helped make traditional enterprise search vendors into almost identical systems.
Are the systems identical? In my experience, the systems are quite different, but licensees do not know what difference is meaningful until the license deal has been signed and the license fee paid. Is differentiation no longer important? I thought a unique selling proposition was important, but with vendors recycling terminology, perhaps the USP is old school, and, therefore, irrelevant.
Stephen E Arnold, September 12, 2012
Sponsored by Augmentext
Improving the Search Experience in SharePoint
September 12, 2012
Connecting employees to the right information improves workflow. J. Peter Bruzzese discusses the importance of search in his post, “Bring Better Search to SharePoint.” Search challenges are explained:
If only SharePoint’s search capabilities were better. If only users weren’t spending so much time searching for relevant data or the appropriate personnel in the company. If only users weren’t re-creating data they already have ‘somewhere.’ The problems with search have been an absolute failure point for many users of SharePoint 2007. The more they pushed data into SharePoint and grew their farm environment, the more they ran into the wall of search results being less relevant.
In response, Microsoft brought in Fast in hopes to add better results relevance and previews. The author points out that despite Fast, many companies looked to other tools to improve search including BA Insight‘s Longitude Search which attempts to rank content based on user behavior.
Another search solution that may be worth considering is is Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise. Mindbreeze Enterprise Search lets you “be well informed – quickly and accurately. The data often lies distributed across numerous sources. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise gains each employee two weeks per through focused finding of data (IDC Studies). An invaluable competitive advantage in business as well as providing employee satisfaction.” Boundless data search and clearly structured search results as just two of the solution’s benefits worth taking a second look at.
Philip West, September 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Google Results Only Small Percentage of Page View
September 12, 2012
Google has been the reigning king of search since the early 2000s, yet it seems its services are slacking and that may change. According to a blog post on Jitbit titled “Google Search is Only 18% Search,” the actual organic results you immediately see on your screen when you search Google are very few. The blog poster’s example includes a 1280×960 pixel screen, with search results being 535×424 pixels. That’s 18.5% percent of the window.
The article informs us of the shortcomings:
“Let’s count the links – the clickable text UI elements.
The page has about 45 different links in total. Only 5 of them are the actual search results (I do not count the ‘sitelinks’ – the sub-links shown under some results and ADs). Which makes it about 11%. Only 11% of the total links on the page are the actual search results.
(If we do include the ‘sitelinks,’ it makes 57 links, 10 of which are the results, which is 17.6%).”
With real results losing very strongly in area size to advertisements, we wonder how long it will take for avid Google users to become fed up with the ratio. Google became search leader with its relevant and quick results, but with those attributes diminishing, the Goog may flounder in Yahoo form.
Andrea Hayden, September 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Enhance a Public Facing Site with Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite
September 11, 2012
A public facing Web site is a digital business card and often the first way potential customers meet your company or organization. Messe München International (MMI) realized the opportunity in powerful site search and so employed the Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite solution. Patrick Kapfer discusses the MMI decision in the post, “Global Trade Show Organizer Opts for Mindbreeze InSite.”
Kapfer explains,
The product stands out with its intuitive, user friendly search. As a Cloud service it’s ready to use straight away! Further advantages lie in the fact that it’s more than just a search. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite recognizes connections using semantic and dynamic search procedures. In this way it delivers a pinpoint accurate ‘finding experience.’ No installation, no configuration, no maintenance. What more could a company wish for?
Consider taking advantage of the no obligation 14 day free trial InSite demo and test the enhanced finding experience for your Web site. As the Messe München International (MMI) attests the fast search and clear results make Insite a viable search option for customers seeking functionality and ease of use. Other customer comments can be found online if you are seeking additional testimonials about the capabilities of Mindbreeze. The search service “runs on high performance servers in the Cloud and can be up and running in a few days. There’s nothing to install – Mindbreeze InSite is available straight away via our self-service.”
Philip West, September 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
SharePoint 2013 Looks to Improve the Web Content Management Experience
September 10, 2012
Niraj Tenany discusses Microsoft’s evolution in Web Content Management environments in the Netwovenblogs.com article, “Is SharePoint 2013 Ready for Prime Time Web Content Management (WCM)? You be the Judge!”
Tenany explains the development:
Microsoft acquired a company called nCompass back in 2002. nCompass’s Content Management System (CMS) become the foundation of the WCM capabilities in SharePoint. Since then, Microsoft has been adding features to support WCM in SharePoint.
The launch of SharePoint 2013 preview presents an interesting opportunity for companies to consolidate all of their web infrastructure to SharePoint 2013…this can provide a great of value to companies by reducing the overall management costs as well as having a focused team.
Tenany also provides a summary of SharePoint 2013 improvements to support WCM, including the ability to work easily with video content, multi-lingual site support, and analytics and recommendations.
When it comes to creating Web site content and managing a Web presence, organizations may also want to look closer at their site search. With no installation, configuration or maintenance required, Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite is designed to intuitively find information on your site with a user friendly interface. Here you can read how InSite “recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise finding experiences.”
Philip West, September 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
New Google Search Algorithm Aims to Stop Piracy
September 10, 2012
Afterdawn.com recently reported on more changes in the Google search algorithm in the article “Just Search Reviews Google Anti Piracy Algorithm.”
According to the article, 2012 has been marked as a year of changes for Google’s search algorithm. The release of Google Panda and Google Penguin updates, which are responsible for targeting low quality link updates and spammers, have resulted in major changes to the algorithms affecting those who submit search queries.
However, Panda and Penguin are only two of the updates that Google has already made this year. The article states:
“The latest update, which is yet to be christened with an official name, is chiefly geared towards demoting sites in the search results that are continually linked to copyright infringement complaints. The new search results will be organised according to the current wide range of algorithm factors, but their order also take into account the number of valid copyright removal notices Google has received about a specific domain. Sites with a large number of notices should start to be placed lower down in the SERPs once the changes take effect.”
While Google has been criticized for using its latest algorithm to wipe out competition along with piracy sites, according to a recent statement from the Search Giant, this update applies to all websites even YouTube and Blogger which are owned by Google. I’m looking forward to see if Google holds true to their word or if this is just another scheme to stay on top.
Jasmine Ashton, September 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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