SEO Articles Have Confused the Search Goose
July 17, 2012
SEO and search go together like a goose and water, but two recent articles had this goose swimming in an oil spill. Let me tell you, getting oil outta feathers is a task.
Have some degreaser nearby if you are taking a swim through Search Engine Journal’s recent article, “Local SEO with Google+.” During the initial paragraph, one rejoices at the possibility of SEO enlightenment for the Google changes. However, disappointment soon follows as repetitive statements lead to the same conclusion, bogging this goose in techie sludge.
That conclusion was:
“These modifications have had a few, subtle impacts on Local SEO. As the integrations between Google+ Pages and Google+ Local pages begin to roll out, we’ll undoubtedly see more changes in terms of the best practices small businesses need to undertake in order to maximize their local SEO.”
Search Engine Watch’s article “The New Mobile SEO Strategy” leads geese to believe Google came out and supported a mobile strategy with specific SEO friendly recommendations, fee free. The article promises three simple steps to serve mobile content to users with recommendations.
The article explains:
“Google supports three ways of serving mobile specific content to users and have provided distinct recommendations for each. Using the starting point of a mobile user requesting a desktop URL, here are some details for the three options listed above.”
Both these reads start out simple, but end up as clumsy as a goose stuck swimming in oil. If you understand these articles, you are smarter than the geese who work at Beyond Search. All I could do was honk at the puddle…
Jennifer Shockley, July 17, 2012
Do the Math Before You Purchase
July 16, 2012
Time’s Moneyland cautions us to pay more attention when shopping in “Consumers Prefer to Get More Rather than Pay Less—Because They’re Bad at Math.” Though the article focuses on retail shoppers, the lesson can certainly be applied to search and content processing “offers.”
Writer Brad Tuttle reports on a recent study from the Journal of Marketing which found that, given a choice between getting a 33% discount and getting 33% more product free, the vast majority of shoppers perceived the options as equal. They are not, as a few simple calculations reveal. The article explains:
“But let’s do the math, using some easy round numbers for the sake of simplicity. Say the initial price is $10 for 10 oz. of coffee beans. Hopefully, it’s obvious that the unit price is therefore $1 per oz. An extra 33% more ‘free’ beans would bring the total up to 13.3 oz. for $10. That $10 divided by 13.3 oz. give us a unit price of $0.75 per oz. With a 33% discount off the initial offer, though, the proposition becomes $6.67 for 10 oz., for a unit price of $0.67 per oz.”
The joy of getting something extra for free probably has a lot to do with this consumer blind spot. The mistake of paying little or no attention to unit price even has a name: base-value neglect. So be mindful, and do the math.
We wonder, though. With open source search providing “free” or “low cost” options, will discounts on search or content processing software prove to be an exception to this rule? Hmm. You’d have to run some calculations to be sure. How much does that free search system cost?
Cynthia Murrell, July 16, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
Using InfoPath 2010 to Develop File Planning Solutions
July 16, 2012
John Holliday breaks down the process of configuring a SharePoint 2010 records center site in his post, “Building SharePoint-Friendly File Plans using InfoPath 2010.” Holliday explains the challenge,
As an example, most records management solutions use content organizer rules to route incoming records to a particular document library or folder so they can be associated with specific information policies and retention schedules. But configuring the content organizer requires that the site columns, content types, document libraries, folders and other components are constructed beforehand. The situation is even more challenging when working with target locations external to the site collection being configured.
In the included slide presentation, the author demonstrates how to use InfoPath 2010 to simplify the records center configuration by capturing all of the required elements in one place and pushing them out accordingly given your overall information architecture strategy. The presentation covers basic file plan definitions, goals and retention considerations for file planning, and tools available to you for file planning, along with pros and cons of each. A link is also provided to download the code for the solution.
The slide show may be worth checking out if you’re looking for some basic info on file planning or if you are considering the InfoPath method. It may be worth a try to save some time.
One other way to save time is by employing a third party solution to extend your SharePoint system. To boost your ROI, consider adding Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Here is a highlight:
The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance is the optimal basis for highly efficient enterprise-wide search and easy configuration. To utilize the full potential of a software solution it is essential that hard- and software are fully aligned. Even more, the required time for deployment to the user is critical for gaining the highest ROI. The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance components have been optimally synchronized in numerous tests. The Fabasoft Search Appliance cuts down the time-to-user dramatically.
A strong ROI is imperative for the sustainability of your enterprise search investments. Learn more about the Fabasoft Mindbreeze solution at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, July 16, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Autodesk Helps Morgan Cars Reach New Success
July 16, 2012
The automobile industry is perhaps one of the most effected by product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions. The latest company to bask in the glow of accomplishments due to PLM is Morgan Cars. According to Enhanced Online News in the article, “Autodesk Helps Morgan Cars Produce One of Its Most Successful Designs Yet”, the British car company is seeing large profits thanks to Autodesk’s 3D PLM solutions.
As the article describes the current circumstances,
“Before Autodesk products were introduced, 2D sketches were interpreted by eye into panel-beaten aluminum bodies; a time consuming process requiring high skill, while providing little margin for in-process evolution. Now Autodesk Alias software helps to rapidly transform concept ideas into 3D digital prototypes and then into actual concept cars. Visualised using Autodesk Showcase and Autodesk 3ds Max software, designs can be evaluated and refined until the design is well-established. The surface data is then 5-axis machined directly from the Alias data. Once painted and scanned, this model enables further evaluation and adjustment to be made in Alias software.”
PLM has not only enabled the automobile industry through such advances as 3D visualizations; these solutions are reinventing many industries. One of the most exciting aspects of modern PLM solutions is that thanks largely to the cloud it is now affordable to small and midsized businesses. Historically, only the largest, most successful enterprises could afford and utilize PLM but now PLM is transforming businesses of all sizes around the globe in all industries. New data management solutions are changing the way business is done and eliminating waste and duplication of processes.
Catherine Lamsfuss, July 16, 2012
Lexmark and Hewlett Packard: The Coming Discovery about Search
July 16, 2012
I read “Hewlett Packard Falls on Lexmark’s Warning.” Bad economic news is not going to get me too excited. The economy has been heading downhill since late 2007 or early 2008. Despite the talking heads’ optimism on CNBC, the recovery, turnaround, or upswing strikes me as disconnected from reality. Well, I suppose it is television, which has its own reality. But the financial asphalt does skin the knees of some big outfits.
Which brings us to this passage in the MarketWatch story:
Lexmark’s warning also suggests problems for H-P in its own printer business. Once considered the Silicon Valley giant’s crown jewel, H-P’s printer business has struggled with slower growth. One reason is the overall decline in demand — but there’s also the growing sense that users simply aren’t printing as much as they used to.
HP paid $10 billion for Autonomy Corporation and watched as the founder and some other Autonomy professionals walked out the door eight months after the deal closed. I have written about the messages HP has been sending about its plans to make Autonomy a big data powerhouse. When I check on Autonomy in my Overflight service, I notice that Autonomy is not generating the media and blog coverage it did prior to its acquisition by HP. My hunch is that HP does not appreciate the excellent marketing Autonomy did over the last decade. I think HP believed the marketing.
Wake up indeed. A happy quack to Warshjipsifr.com.
Lexmark paid unknown amounts for Brainware, the trigram search vendor and back office forms processing company, and for ISYS Search Software, founded more than a decade ago by Ian Davies. You can read a Search Wizards Speak interview with a Brainware executive and with an ISYS executive on the ArnoldIT.com Web site. Lexmark like HP believed that search and search related services would generate big money quickly and consistently.
I think both HP and Lexmark are in for some skinned knees and bloody noses. Here’s why:
First, search is a tough enterprise function to squish into a tidy little box. I enjoy pointing out that Solr / Lucene offers a viable alternative to for fee proprietary search systems. My hunch is that HP and Lexmark do not understand that the costs of maintaining proprietary systems, the costs of integrating proprietary search into on premises or cloud solutions, the costs of customer support, and the costs of effective marketing quite literally could break the piggy banks. Fortunately I am not the person who has to make these deals pay for the purchase price, cover costs, and generate sufficient revenue to make up for lost printer and ink revenue. I think the challenge is too much for a goose in rural Kentucky. I think it might be too much for high powered hardware executives at HP and Lexmark, but that’s just my opinion.
Second, search does require services. What’s interesting is that fixing a broken search system is not the same as repairing a printer or an ink cartridge. The costs associated with troubleshooting and remediating a problem are tough to control. With headcount for skilled engineers getting more and more expensive, open ended problem solving is going to cause some CFOs to get a bad headache. The challenge will be figuring out how to keep customers on the reservation while preventing disenchanted licensees from embracing an alternative. Open source search, maybe?
Third, the amounts of money involved almost force HP and Lexmark to find a way to stack high prices on anything using or touching their respective search technologies. Even if the competition is available at a lower price, HP and Lexmark may not be in any position to cut prices. With few pricing options, both companies may find themselves in a Microsoft aQuantitative bind. The market does not care and the money is just not recoverable.
Uncomfortable position? You bet your bippy.
Stephen E. Arnold, July 6, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
How to Replace All Occurrences of SharePoint Web Part
July 13, 2012
SharePoint 2010 Web Parts are a modular unit of information that consists of a title bar, a frame, and content. They are the basic building blocks of a Web Part page. In “Replace SharePoint 2010 Web Parts by Type,” the author provides a cmdlet that allows you to replace all occurrences of one web part type with another type.
The author explains his PowerShell solution:
The Replace-SPWebPartType cmdlet accepts an URL to a web part page (or an instance of an SPFile object) and a string or Type object representing the type of web part to replace and what to replace it with; you can further restrict what web parts are updated by providing a web part title to filter on and you can pass in additional properties to set via a Hashtable object (closed web parts are ignored).
This tool may come in handy in a number of different situations, such as discovering a buggy web part. Let’s say you deploy a custom web part and remove the out of the box web part from the gallery, but then you need to replace the existing instances that are deployed on pages throughout your farm. The cmdlet and full help are provided in the article. You may want to bookmark the solution for an easy fix in those occasional Web part replacement occurrences. One way to avoid some Web part replacement needs is by employing a reliable third party solution. To maximize your SharePoint investments beyond implementation, consider Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Part of the full suite of solutions is the Fabasoft Folio Connector, which provides uniform, reliable management of your digital content.
With on-premise and Cloud information pairing capabilities, Mindbreeze provides a comprehensive and enterprise-grade solution that adds rich value to your business knowledge. Read more at Mindbreeze, where they seem to have the benefits of a proper installation down pat.
Philip West, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Dassault Unveils New Solution for Auto Industry
July 13, 2012
Traditionally, the manufacturing industry have been the primary implementers of product lifecycle management (PLM) because of the enormous losses that can occur when production lines and teams duplicate processes and fail to revise concepts in a timely manner. The automobile industry is one of the manufacturers with the highest stakes – especially in today’s economy. That has led one of the leaders in PLM solutions, Dassault, to offer a new solution aimed specifically at the auto industry. The ‘Smart, Safe & Connected Car’ is highlighted in the CFO World article, “Dassault Systèmes Launches “Smart, Safe & Connected Car” Industry Solution Experience”.
As the article explains,
“Dassault Systèmes’ “Smart, Safe & Connected Car” industry solution experience is comprised of multiple applications implemented in a modular approach and focused on early virtual vehicle validation. With this solution, automakers can successfully manage vehicle complexity by uniting various disconnected domain specific tools on a single platform, thus enabling dynamic testing of multiple systems engineering disciplines. Users can achieve knowledge re-use, safety targets and reduction of embedded electronics development time and cost.”
Even if one’s company isn’t in the automobile industry or manufacturing at that PLM solutions can have quite a positive effect on the bottom line. Innovative PLM providers understand the demands of all industries and strive to create solutions that get to the heart of the problem – data management. By creating efficient, new data management solutions PLM can streamline any enterprises processes and eliminate waste and duplication.
Catherine Lamsfuss, July 13, 2012
Washington Hires Researchers to Spot Leakers Through Search
July 13, 2012
Wired’s Danger Room recently reported on “Fog Computing,” a spin off term from the cloud computing craze in the article “Feds Look to Fight Leaks With Fog of Disinformation.”
Gripped by a frenzy to capture insider leaks, in addition to going through the traditional methods of tapping phone lines and emails, Washington has hired researchers to come up with a plan to spot leakers by how they search. Darpa,the pentagon’s research arm, has also created prototype that will create decoy documents of believable misinformation to trap leakers in the act.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of faith in the effectiveness of this system. One of the tactics is to bury potentially useful information in worthless data which makes it more difficult for the leaker to know what to disclose.
Steven Aftergood, who studies classification policies for the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in an email:
“If only researchers devoted as much ingenuity to combating spurious secrecy and needless classification. Shrinking the universe of secret information would be a better way to simplify the task of securing the remainder. The Darpa approach seems to be based on an assumption that whatever is classified is properly classified and that leaks may occur randomly throughout the system. But neither of those assumptions is likely to be true.”
While the system still has some bugs, it does seem like this new technology has the potential to prevent another Wikileaks.
Jasmine Ashton, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by IKANOW
Some Search Solutions Difficult to Comprehend
July 13, 2012
Some bold assertions were made on Hortonworks which will likely be understood by azure chip consulting firms and “real journalists,” but were a little over this wee gosling’s head.
The article, “Search Data at Scale in Five Minutes with Pig, Wonderdog and ElasticSearch,” states how the three search solutions mentioned in the title make search easy, and then uses pieces of code and email to prove exactly how easy. However, the proofs given for Pig, Wonderdog, and ElasticSearch come up short. The article asserts:
“ElasticSearch makes search simple. ElasticSearch is built over Lucene and provides a simple but rich JSON over HTTP query interface to search clusters of one or one hundred machies. You can get started with ElasticSearch in five minutes, and it can scale to support heavy loads in the enterprise. […]
Apache Pig makes Hadoop simple. In a previous post, we prepared the Berkeley Enron Emails in Avro format.[…]
Wonderdog (contributed to open source via the Apache 2.0 license by Infochimps) makes searching Pig relations easy.”
The pieces of code and broken emails along with the general statements about simplicity above were not enough to convince us. We are struggling to comprehend Pig, Wonderdog, and ElasticSearch. However, we are just geese so our limitations are easily understandable.
Andrea Hayden, July 13, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
The Ideal SharePoint User is You
July 12, 2012
Is everyone touched by SharePoint in their professional life, or does it just seem that way? The latest SharePoint infographic provides pretty good evidence for just that fact. If SharePoint wants to cater to their ideal user, and broaden their appeal to additional users, how do you define those user groups? Rackspace Hosting tackles the topic in, “Who Is The Ideal SharePoint User?”
The author makes the case:
Regardless of business size or industry, SharePoint’s vast tool set and custom application ecosystem is being used by both small and large industries in diverse business segments. More than 78 percent of Fortune 500 companies use SharePoint and 62 percent of workers use it everyday, according to numbers reported in our recently published SharePoint infographic. The Library of Congress, Viacom and Citibank all use SharePoint for different uses in their businesses. With such broad market penetration, SharePoint has found a way to deliver value to diverse types of organizations with highly specialized needs.
SharePoint has gained broad appeal and usage, but does it truly perform all of the specialized functions that different organizations need? Well yes, if you are willing and able to customize. For those who cannot afford a SharePoint consultant or a fulltime on-staff developer, a third party enterprise solution might be a good bet.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can work alongside an existing SharePoint deployment, or serve as a standalone solution. More importantly, it is highly intuitive and comes with the full support of the award-winning Mindbreeze team.
Emily Rae Aldridge, July 12, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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