Social is taking Search in a more Democratic direction...

Totally agree with this article published on Vator.tv.

We definitely saw this trend over the last few quarters as "social communities" emerged and relevant content started to show up in these communities without a lot of effort by an individual member.

Our nRich product offers relevant content from trusted sources as well as its social rank. Gaming - like what JC Penny or Overstock tried - is not a big factor because other community members have already done the initial filtering.

Check out the demo here.

Why the Basis of the Universe Isn’t Matter or Energy—It’s Data

Enjoyed reading this interview in Wired magazine with noted science author James Gleick.

He quoted Claude Shannon's views on information:

A string of bits has a quantity, whether it represents something that’s true, something that’s utterly false, or something that’s just meaningless nonsense.

He also made a very succint comment about how he (and perhaps more of us) should look at new technology:

When people say that the Internet is going to make us all geniuses, that was said about the telegraph. On the other hand, when they say the Internet is going to make us stupid, that also was said about the telegraph. I think we are always right to worry about damaging consequences of new technologies even as we are empowered by them. History suggests we should not panic nor be too sanguine about cool new gizmos. There’s a delicate balance.

Here's the link to the interview.

NLP based Search in the middle of Man vs Machine battle

IBM's Watson takes on Jeopardy champions tonight.

Interesting article by Bruce Upbin

Here's a brief video to give you the background.

Looking forward to it.

IDC - Desperately Seeking Differentiation

I got a chance to attend an IDC event last week where they shared their predictions for the Software market and discussed how companies can establish differentiation in 2011 and beyond.

Key themes:

1. Cloud/Near-Cloud - Differentiation by delivery model. [Not surprising. This is a well establish trend now.]
2. Mobile apps/Platform - Differentiation by Platform. [This is a significant trend and one whose impact will be felt for a number of years as a lot of applications will be re-built for the mobile platform. And not necessarily by the original owners. This will be very disruptive.]
3. Social Business - Differentiation by business process. [This is very interesting one as long as you are willing to open your mind to ideas from other people. Very disruptive internally, because you cannot control what/when/why conversations are happening - good or bad. So for paranoid people - this isn't good. But for open, progressive orgaizations, this can be very productive.]
4. Analytics/Big Data - Differentiation by Content/Information. [This is a logical progression. With content overload a well established issue, context-sensitive information packaged appropriately will definitely be well received by employees - especially senior executives.]

We'll share our perspectives in coming weeks and in the meantime would love to hear your predictions for 2011-2014.

Gartner publishes "Top 10 Technology Trends in Information Infrastructure in 2011"

Key Trends that are more germane to areas where we can help our customers:

- Social Search

- Content analytics

- Content Integration

You can download the entire report here.

2010 was very interesting. Companies started to realize that the "Voice of the Customer" can be heard in forums not controlled by the company. Can't control the format, can't control the timing, can't control the veracity - but - cannot ignore the content. If you want a leading indicator of customer sentiments about your products, brand or people - keep tabs on the social media forums - blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. The unstructured nature of this content has put a big question mark around the efficacy of existing IT strategy and investments in Master Data Management. These systems will need to evolve in 2011.

As the content continues to grow exponentially, context-aware applications will become more useful for customers. In addition, content analytics will provide better guidelines for content producers, aggregators and consumers.

Should make for an interesting 2011.

Changing Times - Who's Reading, What and Where

Excellent chart published today by eMarketer that shows the different platforms preferred by different age groups to get news. IMO, the duo-platform mode (both traditional print and new digital platforms) is indicative of the transition phase that we are going through right now.

In an year or two, more of us (even if we are not 21 years old) will let drop the habit of "traditional" platforms. I am trying to kick the habit of reading a newspaper in the morning and simply catching up on the news on my laptop, iPhone or my wife's iPad. (iPad is by far the most convenient platform - especially before the morning coffee kicks in).

Take the Wikileaks story. Its almost a waste of time to keep abreast of this interesting story in a newspaper. The videos, documentaries, documents themselves - compel you to follow the story from your nearest browser.

Our increasing tendency to get and share news with our trusted friends will only drive us further away from "static" traditional platforms like newspapers and magazines. What do you think - are you ready to "kick" the habit?

I am trying hard.

Google Ready to Move Microsoft Exchange Data to the Cloud

Here you go - More enterprise content being moved into the cloud - this Google luring Exchange data. Service isn't free - $25 per user per year and $13 per user for existing Postini customers.