Paper technologies

So I’m going through thousands of author files taking out contracts and amendments so they can be scanned and OCR’d for the future owner of our company’s benefit. It’s amazing looking through some of these ancient files from the 60’s. I’ve been wearing jeans because I just feel ick with 60’s fifth when I’m through sifting over all this paper. There are contracts written on slick old fax paper, there are the (now hilarious) dot matrix printouts, there are the type written contracts, and the now over-templated versions.

One student blogger discusses the issues above and is similarly amazed these ancient pieces of paper can get OCR’d for preservation and search capabilities.

Mark Frauenfelder finds the advantages of the latest technology preserving great books from the turn of the century. I always put things into context of my Great Uncle Pat. He was born in 1907 and passed away just a couple years ago. He was an avid reader and likely read these series of books and I think it’s great that these now frail books can be preserved and enjoyed.

Just for fun I’ll attach a photo of my Uncle Pat using what in his view, was the greatest technology of his time, a glass eye washer.

Search Part II

Yup, I’m a believer. Google, with its powerful search capabilities, has far reaching effects: it can be both a small business owner’s friend in securing new customers but it can also take that prosperity away just as quickly. In the second half of the Search, Battelle brings up the notion of the long tail. Although Amazon’s revenues in 2000 were $2.76 billion dollars, countless small family operated businesses accounted for a combined total of $25 billion. The significance of this long tail must not be lost. It’s not just the large companies who carry all the financial clout. Now with the abilities of search, small companies with little to no ad budgets are able to step up to a market they were once locked out from.  

Long tail aside, the example of Neil Moncrief’s plus shoes shows the danger of building a reliance on Google’s search. At first without even placing an ad, Moncrief benefited from high search results, but after a while this trailed off. Moncrief bought AdWords for the mere fact that “(p)aid search ads worked,” but it failed to produce his desired results (p. 166).

Customer intentions are a valuable asset as seen in the profitability of Google. Our class conversations about the future use of cell phones and bar codes will allow us all access to all the benefits of Google’s search in something we carry with us everywhere already. The idea of scanning products for more information and rebates is a brilliant measure that will revolutionize the way we shop. At the time Battelle’s book was published, bar codes were a resource not yet made for public consumption, but I have a feeling the capabilities will soon be realized.

Ironically I was on a local listserve today for book publishers, DC Pubs, and read a woman’s post inquiring how quickly she should expect a press release to be searchable on Google. A clever, fellow publisher replied that there’s “an entire industry dedicated to search engine ranking; it’s an art, a science, and a moving target, as Google et al. constantly change(s) their algorithms.” Battelle points to the updated indexes and algorithms as Google’s attempt to stop spammers from proliferating their site. The term “editorial judgment” used for how Google creates these algorithms is quite interesting. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are playing god, but these algorithms have the potential to shape success and failure for many businesses.

Copyright infringement for Google has long been an issue. Battelle brings up specific cases brought to trial when companies found their copyrighted names being used for competitors search terms. Google has also tested the limits of fair use by digitizing entire collections from a handful of libraries regardless of copyrights. As part of their agreement they are supplying the libraries the digital files they amass from their work. The audacity is that Google asks for publishers and copyright holders permission for their works to appear in Google Print for Publishers, but negates this step entirely for their library project.

Having gone beyond the idea of search, Google has changed the landscape of business. As Google creates more applications and acquires new ventures, this power will grow infinitely. I am looking forward to seeing what’s next, but would also hope for a Google that is not higher than the law.

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Search Engines

John Battelle’s The Search explains the birth of online search engines and its growing capabilities and far reaching societal impacts. I enjoyed the author’s conversation with Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google in its early days, where Schmidt scoffed Battelle’s categorization of his company as a media entity. Fast forward only a year and we see the same CEO now realizing the power of his technological and media entwinement. Battelle gets into the nitty gritty of searching. He describes the crawls, the indexing, and the tagging that takes place before a user finds the resources they are looking for. What was a little scary (read big brother) was the virtual trail we all leave behind. That Google (and other powerful search engines) has its disposal the ability to market the data for other purposes. This information, with the passing of the Patriot Act, also forces search engines to comply with the government’s need for information, putting them in a sticky place with their loyal users.

When I worked at eToys after college I too had experience applying the same concept behind our common day search engines to my world of an e-retailer. Once copy was written for a product my fellow copywriters and I would load it into a database and before “going live” we would list not only the various categories for the product, but also any variations of those spellings. These tags would expedite our customer’s search not only on our own site, but more broadly throughout the World Wide Web. At the time, I thought nothing of this process since it was regular protocol. But now as I peruse Amazon.com and other sites and almost immediately find what I am looking for after a search, I see the great power to this process. However, glitches in the categorizations also present real issues for e-retailers. Customers are used to searches working correctly and when they provide wrong information, customer frustrations can lead to lost income for companies.

As with all technological advancements Google is not the only competitor, but its innovativeness has it leading the pack. Spam became a real problem after it infiltrated indexes and jeopardized searches. Google instigated the idea of a pricing model to thwart spam and in the end create a search engine with relevant searches and happy searchers.

I see the power of the search expanding to other areas of Internet commerce. The resources available online are indeed vast, and a users ability to reach the specific will always be an important commodity.