And so Microsoft and Yahoo! finally agree terms of a partnership which will change the face of the web search market. Historically – and let's face it, this story has been ongoing since January 2008! – Microsoft always wanted to take over Yahoo!; but on reflection both parties probably felt that forging a partnership was most likely to give them success against the market leader. So this has to be good news, no?
Well, it'll do some good to have the dominance of Google properly challenged by the next two biggest fish - and Google will probably be concerned. But their partnership entails that Yahoo! Search be powered by Bing and, in return, Yahoo! will become the sales force for both companies' premium search advertising. We've noted recently that Bing is good and was an admirable adversary for Yahoo!, but will a Yahoo! front-end powered by a Bing back-end mean an end to some of Yahoo!'s excellent retrieval tools (often documented on this blog, see this, this, this and this, for example) and, more importantly, an end to their innovative research strategies to better harness the power of structured data on the web? Is the innovative SearchMonkey Open Search Platform to be jettisoned?
The precise details of the partnership are sketchy at the moment, but it would be tragic if this intellectual capital was to be lost or now neglected...
Wednesday 29 July 2009
Thursday 16 July 2009
Broken business models again...
In a tenuous link with several previous blog postings (this one and this one), the latest BBC dot.life posting by Cellan-Jones discusses the future of the music industry. It's an interesting summary of recent research on the music habits of the British public. Surprisingly, CDs remain by far the most popular music format, even amongst teenagers. This pleases me because – although I am a man that enjoys his eMusic downloads - I am also a chap that enjoys the CD, its artwork, its liner notes, its aesthetic qualities, etc.
Of course, the big finding that people have been latching onto is the large reduction in illegal file sharing. This is indeed good news; however, whilst many of these music fans will have switched to legal download services (e.g. iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, take your pick....), many have reverted to legal streaming services like Spotify. The trouble is, as Cellan-Jones points out, Spotify is another service lacking a robust business strategy. Advertising doesn't bring home the bacon and Spotify is relying on users upgrading to their pay-for premium service. Unfortunately, nobody is. Without this revenue stream Spotify is doomed in the longer term. Nothing new in this; Spotify simply joins the growing number of Web 2.0 services that are failing to monetise their innovations.
By coincidence Guardian columnist, Paul Carr, authored an article a few days ago entitled, 'I'm calling a 'time of death' for London's internet startup industry'. The article laments the failure of London based Web 2.0 companies to experience any modicum of successful or profitability. Many of his arguments have been applied elsewhere, but the London focus makes it compelling reading, particularly because Carr was around during the first dot.com boom and has personally witnessed the mysterious nature of revenue within new media. His book, 'Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions Of A New Media Whore', says it all. Like Cellan-Jones, Carr also singles out Spotify, although professing to be "discreet with names". Says Carr:
Of course, the big finding that people have been latching onto is the large reduction in illegal file sharing. This is indeed good news; however, whilst many of these music fans will have switched to legal download services (e.g. iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, take your pick....), many have reverted to legal streaming services like Spotify. The trouble is, as Cellan-Jones points out, Spotify is another service lacking a robust business strategy. Advertising doesn't bring home the bacon and Spotify is relying on users upgrading to their pay-for premium service. Unfortunately, nobody is. Without this revenue stream Spotify is doomed in the longer term. Nothing new in this; Spotify simply joins the growing number of Web 2.0 services that are failing to monetise their innovations.
By coincidence Guardian columnist, Paul Carr, authored an article a few days ago entitled, 'I'm calling a 'time of death' for London's internet startup industry'. The article laments the failure of London based Web 2.0 companies to experience any modicum of successful or profitability. Many of his arguments have been applied elsewhere, but the London focus makes it compelling reading, particularly because Carr was around during the first dot.com boom and has personally witnessed the mysterious nature of revenue within new media. His book, 'Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions Of A New Media Whore', says it all. Like Cellan-Jones, Carr also singles out Spotify, although professing to be "discreet with names". Says Carr:
"You see, the sad but true fact – and I've said this before, albeit in less aggressive terms – is that the London internet industry is increasingly, and terminally, screwed. I'll be discreet with names so as not to make things worse but since I've been back in town, I've met no fewer than three once-successful entrepreneurs who admit they're running out of money at a sickening rate (personally and professionally) with no prospect of raising more. I've seen two businesses close and one having its funding yanked suddenly because, basically, it was going nowhere fast. Everyone I speak to has the same story: investors aren't investing, revenues aren't coming, founders are being forced out – or leaving of their own accord – and no one seems to have the first idea what to do about it. Even Spotify, the current darling of London startups (which is actually from Sweden), might not be doing as well as it appears. The company says it's projecting profitability by the end of the year, with a senior staffer boasting about that fact to the geeks at the Juju event. Unfortunately, when one blogger challenged him to provide numbers to back it up, he was forced to admit that the profitability is less "projected" and more "hoped for". Meanwhile, rivals (and fellow London poster-children) Last.fm just saw all three of their founders depart the company leaving a huge hole at the top during a time of massive uncertainty. However you dress it up, that's not good."No - it's not good; but when is the madness all going to end? Like many others, I keep on thinking the end is 'just round the corner', but it never comes. How many insane venture capitalists are left? Will it be a house of cards, and, if so, which card is going to be removed first? Perhaps a little schadenfreude is order of the day - shall we have a sweepstake?
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Welcome to my (Search) Pad
Search innovators at Yahoo! have today launched Search Pad. Search Pad integrates with the usual Yahoo! Search interface and allows users to take notes while conducting common information seeking tasks (e.g. researching a holiday, whether to buy that new piece of gadgetry, etc.). Search Pad can track the websites users are visiting and is invoked when it considers the user to be conducting a research task. On the Yahoo! Search Blog today:
The only problem is that I can't get it to work!! I have tried conducting a variety of 'obvious' research tasks which I anticipated Search Pad would recognise, but the Search Pad console hasn't appeared. Perhaps the 'intelligent detection' isn't has intelligent as promised? I'll keep trying, but please let me know if anyone has better luck. Still, it demonstrates the state of permanent innovation at Yahoo! Search.
"Search Pad helps you track sites and make notes by intelligently detecting user research intent and automatically collecting sites the user visits. Search Pad turns on automatically when you're doing research, tracking sites to make document authoring a snap. You can then quickly edit and organize your notes with the Search Pad interface, which includes drag-and-drop functionality and auto-attributed pasting."Nice. From the website and Yahoo! blog (and this video), Search Pad is in many ways reminiscent of Listas from Microsoft Live Labs (and discussed on this blog before). It's possible to copy text, images and create lists for sharing with others, either via URL or via other services (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Delicious). Search Pad also has an easy to use menu driven interface. Whilst it was useful in some circumstances, Listas lacked a worthy application; however, Search Pad builds on Listas functionality and instead has incorporated an improved version of it within a traditional search interface to do something we often do when we are searching (i.e. take notes about a search task).
The only problem is that I can't get it to work!! I have tried conducting a variety of 'obvious' research tasks which I anticipated Search Pad would recognise, but the Search Pad console hasn't appeared. Perhaps the 'intelligent detection' isn't has intelligent as promised? I'll keep trying, but please let me know if anyone has better luck. Still, it demonstrates the state of permanent innovation at Yahoo! Search.
Wednesday 1 July 2009
When Web 2.0 business models and accessibility collide with information services and e-learning...
Rory Cellan-Jones has today posted his musings on the current state of Facebook at the BBC dot.life blog. His posting was inspired by an interview with Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer) and was originally billed as 'Will Facebook ever make any money?'. Sandberg was recruited from Google last year to help Facebook turn a financial corner. According to her interview with Cellan-Jones, Facebook is still failing to break even, but her projections are that Facebook will start to turn a profit by the end of 2010. If true, this will be good news for Facebook. Not everyone believes this of course, including Cellan-Jones judging by his questions, his raised left eye brow and his prediction that tighter EU regulation will harm Facebook growth. Says Cellan-Jones:
The adoption of Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter (and the rest) within universities has been rapid. Many in the literature and at conferences evangelise about the adoption of these tools as if their use was now mandatory. Nick Woolley voiced sensible concerns over this position. An additional concern that I have – and one I had hoped to verbalise at some point during the proceedings – is whether it is appropriate for services (whether e-learning or digital libraries, or whatever) to be going to the effort of embedding these technologies within curricula or services when they are third party services over which we have little control and when their economic futures are so uncertain.
The magic word at the MmIT event was 'free'. "Make use of this tool – it's free and the kids love it!". Very few of the tools over which LISers and learning technologists get excited about actually have viable business models. Google lost almost $500 million on YouTube in the year up to April 2009 and is unable to turn it into a viable business. MySpace is struggling and slashing staff, Facebook's future remains uncertain, Twitter currently has no business model at
all and is being propped up by venture capitalists while it contemplates desperate ways to create revenue, and so the list continues. Will any of these services still be here next year? Well published and straight talking advertising consultant, George Parker, has been pondering the state of social media advertising on his blog recently (warning – he is straight talking and profanities are order of the day!). He has insightful comments to make though on why most of these services are never going to make spectacular amounts of money from their current (failed?) model (i.e. advertising). According to Parker, advertising is just plain wrong. Niche markets where subscriptions are required will be the only way for these services to make decent money...
A more general concern relates to the usability and accessibility of social networking services. Very few of them, if any, actually come close to minimal W3C accessibility guidelines, or DDA and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) 2001. Surely there are legal and ethical questions to be asked, particularly of universities? Embedding these third party services into curricula seems like a good idea but it's one which could potentially exclude students from the same learning experience as others. This is a concern I have had for a few years now, but I had thought it would, a) have been resolved by services voluntarily by now, and, b) institutions wishing to deploy them would have taken measures to resolve it (this might be not using them at all!). Obviously not...
There are many arguments for not engaging with Web 2.0 at university, and - where appropriate - many of these arguments were cogently made at the MmIT conference. But if adopting such technologies is considered to be imperative, should we not be making more of an effort to develop tools that replicate their functionality, thus allowing control over their longevity and accessibility? Attempts at this have hitherto been pooh-poohed on the grounds that interrupting habitual student behaviour (i.e. getting students to switch from, say, Facebook to an academic equivalent) was too onerous, or that replicating the social mass and collaborative appeal of international networking sites couldn't be done within academic environments. But have we really tried hard enough? Most have been half-baked efforts. It is also noteworthy that research conducted by Mike Thelwall and published in JASIST indicates that homophily continues within social networking websites. If this is true, then it is likely that getting students to make the switch to locally hosted equivalents of Facebook or MySpace is certainly possible, particularly as the majority of their network will comprise similar people within similar academic situations.
Perhaps there is more of a need for the wider adoption of social web markup languages, such as the User Labor Markup Language (ULML), to enable users to switch between disparate social networking services whilst simultaneously allowing the portability of social capital (or 'user labour') from one service to another? This would make the decision to adopt academic equivalents far more attractive. However, if this is the case, then more research needs to be undertaken to extend ULML (and other options) to make them fully interoperable with the breadth of services currently available.
I don't like putting a downer on all the innovative and excellent work that the LIS and e-learning communities are doing in this area; it's just that many seem to be oblivious to these threats and are content to carry on regardless. Nothing good ever comes from carrying on regardless, least of all that dreadful tune by the Beautiful South. Let's just talk about it a bit more and actually acknowledge these issues...
"And [another] person I met at Facebook's London office symbolised the firm's determination to deal with its other challenge - regulation.This is all by way of introduction, because a few weeks ago I attended the CILIP MmIT North West day conference on 'Emerging technologies in the library' at LJMU. A series of interesting speakers, including Nick Woolley, Russell Prue and Jane Secker, pondered the use of new technologies in e-learning, digital libraries and other information services. Of course, one of the recurring themes to emerge throughout the day was the innovative use of social networking tools in e-learning or digital library contexts. To be sure, there is some innovative work going on; but none of the speakers addressed two elephants in the room:
Richard Allan, a former Liberal Democrat MP and then director of European government affairs at Cisco, has been hired to lobby European regulators for Facebook.
With the EU mulling over tighter privacy rules for firms that share their users' data, and with continuing concern from politicians about issues like cyber-bullying and hate-speak on social networks, there will be plenty on Mr Allan's plate.
So, yes, Facebook suddenly looks like a mature business, poised for steady progress towards profitability and ready to engage in grown-up conversations about its place in society. Then again, so did MySpace a year ago, until it suddenly went out of fashion."
- Service longevity, and;
- Accessibility
The adoption of Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter (and the rest) within universities has been rapid. Many in the literature and at conferences evangelise about the adoption of these tools as if their use was now mandatory. Nick Woolley voiced sensible concerns over this position. An additional concern that I have – and one I had hoped to verbalise at some point during the proceedings – is whether it is appropriate for services (whether e-learning or digital libraries, or whatever) to be going to the effort of embedding these technologies within curricula or services when they are third party services over which we have little control and when their economic futures are so uncertain.
The magic word at the MmIT event was 'free'. "Make use of this tool – it's free and the kids love it!". Very few of the tools over which LISers and learning technologists get excited about actually have viable business models. Google lost almost $500 million on YouTube in the year up to April 2009 and is unable to turn it into a viable business. MySpace is struggling and slashing staff, Facebook's future remains uncertain, Twitter currently has no business model at
all and is being propped up by venture capitalists while it contemplates desperate ways to create revenue, and so the list continues. Will any of these services still be here next year? Well published and straight talking advertising consultant, George Parker, has been pondering the state of social media advertising on his blog recently (warning – he is straight talking and profanities are order of the day!). He has insightful comments to make though on why most of these services are never going to make spectacular amounts of money from their current (failed?) model (i.e. advertising). According to Parker, advertising is just plain wrong. Niche markets where subscriptions are required will be the only way for these services to make decent money...A more general concern relates to the usability and accessibility of social networking services. Very few of them, if any, actually come close to minimal W3C accessibility guidelines, or DDA and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) 2001. Surely there are legal and ethical questions to be asked, particularly of universities? Embedding these third party services into curricula seems like a good idea but it's one which could potentially exclude students from the same learning experience as others. This is a concern I have had for a few years now, but I had thought it would, a) have been resolved by services voluntarily by now, and, b) institutions wishing to deploy them would have taken measures to resolve it (this might be not using them at all!). Obviously not...
There are many arguments for not engaging with Web 2.0 at university, and - where appropriate - many of these arguments were cogently made at the MmIT conference. But if adopting such technologies is considered to be imperative, should we not be making more of an effort to develop tools that replicate their functionality, thus allowing control over their longevity and accessibility? Attempts at this have hitherto been pooh-poohed on the grounds that interrupting habitual student behaviour (i.e. getting students to switch from, say, Facebook to an academic equivalent) was too onerous, or that replicating the social mass and collaborative appeal of international networking sites couldn't be done within academic environments. But have we really tried hard enough? Most have been half-baked efforts. It is also noteworthy that research conducted by Mike Thelwall and published in JASIST indicates that homophily continues within social networking websites. If this is true, then it is likely that getting students to make the switch to locally hosted equivalents of Facebook or MySpace is certainly possible, particularly as the majority of their network will comprise similar people within similar academic situations.
Perhaps there is more of a need for the wider adoption of social web markup languages, such as the User Labor Markup Language (ULML), to enable users to switch between disparate social networking services whilst simultaneously allowing the portability of social capital (or 'user labour') from one service to another? This would make the decision to adopt academic equivalents far more attractive. However, if this is the case, then more research needs to be undertaken to extend ULML (and other options) to make them fully interoperable with the breadth of services currently available.
I don't like putting a downer on all the innovative and excellent work that the LIS and e-learning communities are doing in this area; it's just that many seem to be oblivious to these threats and are content to carry on regardless. Nothing good ever comes from carrying on regardless, least of all that dreadful tune by the Beautiful South. Let's just talk about it a bit more and actually acknowledge these issues...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)