Therefore, while tonight you will see online the next section of GMN2009, GMN2009: Metascripting, now something connected more with my bookworm attitude than business.
But, after publishing the article and sharing some ideas in another private forum, I decided to sit on the fence and watch how the discussion would develop around different venues.
Which discussion I am referring to? The one about the new “search” engine, Wolfram Alpha, and how it fares vs. Google.
Well, first and foremost: what is a search engine?
A place where you can search through material available online.
If you use Google’s Map service, you like zooming around.
But: the maps that you see are not in real time- get the paid service, as I did long ago for a short time to test it, and you will see the truth: the information is processed, digested, and… delayed.
I remember some maps showing that they were from six month before.
Therefore- useful to see the general position and location of a building, but not necessarily useful for, say, real-estate presentations.
And if you wanted to use it for cultural heritage protection- forget about it.
But every tool has a purpose.
The alternative? Pay for the services of a commercial satellite service, like Spot, and reserve a “slot” of time, and so on. An expensive proposition.
But what is WolframAlpha competing against?
Well, if you read my article from the 19th, you will see that at the bottom I advocated using WolframAlpha side-by-side with Google and other search engine platforms to allow creating new services.
As you know, I prefer to be practical, whenever possible.
Well, Wolfram itself gives as a sample a GDP search- so, I did what would matter to me: search the GDP for EU (a library-style question) and then search for the trends (an Internet-style question).
As a bookworm, I was used to carry out searches like this one in old-fashioned, paper-based libraries, by looking into generalist directories (like Google), “niche” publications (like Eurostat), and generalist encyclopedias (like Wikipedia), to get a general presentation framework.
And where does WolframAlpha come into the picture?
I wish I could publish online directly the screenshots from the 2 searches in the 4 engines, but there are logos scattered everywhere- so, I did something easier (I do not want to get through all the legal mumbo-jumbo just for a quick report ).
The interesting result is: WolframAlpha behaves as an encyclopedia, not as a search engine. Instead of scouting for information based on what you enter, it searches what it has already been digesting. Therefore, the search for GDP EU returns results, while the one for GDP EU TREND does not.
On Wikipedia, another encyclopedia-like engine, what happens is closer to my model: it founds material on GDP EU, but GDP EU TREND returns no articles; nonetheless, Wikipedia returns also material from the “Wikimedia” project (that is closer to Google than to an encyclopedia)- material that is relevant to the request, but requires that I do the structuring.
On Google, both searches return plenty of links- not necessarily relavant, as expected.
On Eurostat, both searches return relevant material, but instead of a summary, you get (as you would expect from a “niche” information provider) plenty of detailed information. It is up to you to sort out.
In summary: what could be an interesting evolution?
If you were reading just occasionally the news over the last 12 months (online or offline, doesn’t matter), you noticed that there are multiple initiatives to move anything in the public domain online.
Or, if you want, online libraries.
Wikipedia is interesting as a model, as it generates processed knowledge- like the old encyclopedia.
Because any encyclopedia, from the original “Encyclopédie” of Diderot and D’Alembert on, is a selection that follows a model of knowledge (and, usually, a political/social project).
For the French in XVIII century, the “The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres” the keyword is: “by an association of literate people” (I try to avoid using the word intellectual as much as I can!).
Interestingly, you can find the original online both under a subscription-based project, from the University of Chicago (ARTFL), and under the new, consolidated free online library of European culture, Europeana.Eu
Europeana.Eu operates as a search index and gateway to the material, that is stored in the library of each country (in this case: gallica.bnf.fr).
The search results on Europeana.Eu are impressive- but overwhelming.
My idea is an hybrid “private/public” model, where some tools are provided to the public, but the underlining information is accessed not via a central “filter” of pre-processed information, like WolframAlpha, but via multiple “knowledge avenues“.
Each knowledge avenue would provide a specific “theme”, maybe mapped on the UDC (Universal Decimal Classification).
But then, within each “knowledge avenue”, there would be specific “knowledge venues“, focused on a niche- and each niche could actually be linking to other “knowledge avenues”.
It is as if Geocities meets the mindmap
As you can see, I registered two domains, .info.
Why? Because these two concepts will evolve, and more material will be posted there.
Probably, including some examples.
In late 1990s, I decided to spend a month during the Summer to learn a programming language, called Visual Basic. So, I bought the Visual Studio platform from Microsoft, and started studying a tutorial. But I do not like those “push the button here” worthless projects, so I analyzed what I found missing.
I had then over 10 year of professional experience in DSS/EIS/and so on.
Plus about 10 years in methodologies (not just applying- designing them), including the associated organizational development.
An issue that I always found is: timed and timely distribution of knowledge to the interested parties via a subscription framework- so, that was my summer experiment.
Actually, it became an application, and I found a partner who had customers- but I stopped the development few years later for lack of time and funds, as the partner provided customers, but no funding, and my funds were generated by my own consulting activities around Europe
But the concepts are still there. And technology, I hope, will make irrelevant the completion of that SaaS (it started as a Windows+FTP, before Internet was available in Italy to commercial users), and will instead allow to use the concepts without any technical knowledge requirement.
The website? Eventually I registered KnowledgeDist.Com, but it is re-directed to the knowledge-sharing platform built on Joomla, PartnershipIncubator.com, where I publish articles for startups and business development.
As you can see on the front page of my blog, this blog was meant as a kind of personal shared navigational tool through knowledge.
As a kid, I was once in a while attending Communist party meetings. While I was also attending Church (father Communist, mother Catholic).
In Italy, both used control on knowledge as a tool for discipline and social order.
And that has some benefits.
But, in my humble view, in the XXI century moving back to a monolitic “Encyclopédie” model, where selected few filter knowledge and nobody else has any say, can be described by a single word: wrong.
The power of the Internet is also the 90% rubbish that is out there.
Rubbish, in my view. But maybe, in your view, some of my 10% useful is rubbish, and some of my 90% rubbish is gold.
I do understand that any IT business with somebody at the top is tempted by Plato’s Republic vertical model (roughly: at the bottom, the workers/merchants/etc; then toward the top the philosophers).
But worldwide citizen journalists using their mobile phone to report on suspected election frauds and events have shattered that model.
I think that we still need experts and companies that focus on “niches of expertise”- but multiple ones, with a vested interest in their own position, not a single one.
I do not know you- but I would never sign for a centralized online store of my passwords and keywords online (well, Google does it, anyway).
Why should I use the Internet as an old style library, where somebody decided what I can or cannot read?
WolframAlpha technology can be a powerful tool to help all the new repositories of information allow better access, using serendipity and mindmaps as navigational tools.
The first, is based on the idea that, as I do in bookstores and did in libraries, you walk through the “knowlege avenue” (e.g. “philosophy”, “marketing”), and maybe something will attract you.
The second is that you start from one point (a specific “knowledge venue”), the focus of your quest for knowledge (e.g. “where are the books written by X?”), and then move around.
In both cases, you need somebody building the connections for you.
In a bookshop, the connection is the physical layout, along with the… references at the end of each book
In the Wikipedia model, any new connection that you find can actually increment the existing connections.
And this is where you need the experts.
Not at the front gate, but in the backroom, processing data and connecting knowledge within their own domain of information, allowing then more intelligent tools using WolframAlpha or Google algorithm or anything else to navigate knowledge.
Be it a “top-down” (from general to specific) structure like an UDC-based “Knowledge avenue” or a more “bottom-up” (from specific to general) structure like an expert-based “Knowledge venue”.
If you want- Google uses an algorithm based on associations existing in the material, known through the linking of a page with another. Everybody now knows that. And every search shows you how Google “thinks”.
And WolframAlpha?
Well, I will let them talk for themselves:
As of now, Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains. Built with Mathematica—which is itself the result of more than 20 years of development at Wolfram Research—Wolfram|Alpha’s core code base now exceeds 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code. Running on supercomputer-class compute clusters, Wolfram|Alpha makes extensive use of the latest generation of web and parallel computing technologies, including webMathematica and gridMathematica.
…<snip>
Wolfram|Alpha is being introduced first in the form of the wolframalpha.com website. But Wolfram|Alpha is really a technology and a platform that can be used and presented in many different ways. Among short-term plans are developer APIs, professional and corporate versions, custom versions for internal data, connections with other forms of content, and deployment on emerging mobile and other platforms.
What I would like to see is the new crop of open online libraries to use the API for Wolfram onto their own well structured data knowledge repositories.
They spent inordinate amounts of money to collect and classify and structure.
What better testing ground for these concepts, and see if I can get a structured answer to my queries above, instead of a list of links?
This entry was posted
on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 11:53 and is filed under commentary, everything.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
XXI Century libraries and search engines
Today here is a public holiday.
Therefore, while tonight you will see online the next section of GMN2009, GMN2009: Metascripting, now something connected more with my bookworm attitude than business.
I will continue on evolving the subject that I discussed on Searching & Machine intelligence & Decisions two days ago, I would like to focus on a bookworm concept.
Everybody knows what is a library.
But, after publishing the article and sharing some ideas in another private forum, I decided to sit on the fence and watch how the discussion would develop around different venues.
Which discussion I am referring to? The one about the new “search” engine, Wolfram Alpha, and how it fares vs. Google.
Well, first and foremost: what is a search engine?
A place where you can search through material available online.
If you use Google’s Map service, you like zooming around.
But: the maps that you see are not in real time- get the paid service, as I did long ago for a short time to test it, and you will see the truth: the information is processed, digested, and… delayed.
I remember some maps showing that they were from six month before.
Therefore- useful to see the general position and location of a building, but not necessarily useful for, say, real-estate presentations.
And if you wanted to use it for cultural heritage protection- forget about it.
But every tool has a purpose.
The alternative? Pay for the services of a commercial satellite service, like Spot, and reserve a “slot” of time, and so on. An expensive proposition.
But what is WolframAlpha competing against?
Well, if you read my article from the 19th, you will see that at the bottom I advocated using WolframAlpha side-by-side with Google and other search engine platforms to allow creating new services.
As you know, I prefer to be practical, whenever possible.
So, I did two searches:
And the selected searching platforms?
And why did I choose these four?
Well, Wolfram itself gives as a sample a GDP search- so, I did what would matter to me: search the GDP for EU (a library-style question) and then search for the trends (an Internet-style question).
As a bookworm, I was used to carry out searches like this one in old-fashioned, paper-based libraries, by looking into generalist directories (like Google), “niche” publications (like Eurostat), and generalist encyclopedias (like Wikipedia), to get a general presentation framework.
And where does WolframAlpha come into the picture?
I wish I could publish online directly the screenshots from the 2 searches in the 4 engines, but there are logos scattered everywhere- so, I did something easier (I do not want to get through all the legal mumbo-jumbo just for a quick report
).
I saved in two zip files the results from “gdp eu” and “gdp eu trend”
The interesting result is: WolframAlpha behaves as an encyclopedia, not as a search engine. Instead of scouting for information based on what you enter, it searches what it has already been digesting. Therefore, the search for GDP EU returns results, while the one for GDP EU TREND does not.
On Wikipedia, another encyclopedia-like engine, what happens is closer to my model: it founds material on GDP EU, but GDP EU TREND returns no articles; nonetheless, Wikipedia returns also material from the “Wikimedia” project (that is closer to Google than to an encyclopedia)- material that is relevant to the request, but requires that I do the structuring.
On Google, both searches return plenty of links- not necessarily relavant, as expected.
On Eurostat, both searches return relevant material, but instead of a summary, you get (as you would expect from a “niche” information provider) plenty of detailed information. It is up to you to sort out.
In summary: what could be an interesting evolution?
If you were reading just occasionally the news over the last 12 months (online or offline, doesn’t matter), you noticed that there are multiple initiatives to move anything in the public domain online.
Or, if you want, online libraries.
Wikipedia is interesting as a model, as it generates processed knowledge- like the old encyclopedia.
Because any encyclopedia, from the original “Encyclopédie” of Diderot and D’Alembert on, is a selection that follows a model of knowledge (and, usually, a political/social project).
For the French in XVIII century, the “The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une Société de Gens de lettres” the keyword is: “by an association of literate people” (I try to avoid using the word intellectual as much as I can!).
Interestingly, you can find the original online both under a subscription-based project, from the University of Chicago (ARTFL), and under the new, consolidated free online library of European culture, Europeana.Eu
Europeana.Eu operates as a search index and gateway to the material, that is stored in the library of each country (in this case: gallica.bnf.fr).
The search results on Europeana.Eu are impressive- but overwhelming.
My idea is an hybrid “private/public” model, where some tools are provided to the public, but the underlining information is accessed not via a central “filter” of pre-processed information, like WolframAlpha, but via multiple “knowledge avenues“.
Each knowledge avenue would provide a specific “theme”, maybe mapped on the UDC (Universal Decimal Classification).
But then, within each “knowledge avenue”, there would be specific “knowledge venues“, focused on a niche- and each niche could actually be linking to other “knowledge avenues”.
It is as if Geocities meets the mindmap
As you can see, I registered two domains, .info.
Why? Because these two concepts will evolve, and more material will be posted there.
Probably, including some examples.
In late 1990s, I decided to spend a month during the Summer to learn a programming language, called Visual Basic. So, I bought the Visual Studio platform from Microsoft, and started studying a tutorial. But I do not like those “push the button here” worthless projects, so I analyzed what I found missing.
I had then over 10 year of professional experience in DSS/EIS/and so on.
Plus about 10 years in methodologies (not just applying- designing them), including the associated organizational development.
An issue that I always found is: timed and timely distribution of knowledge to the interested parties via a subscription framework- so, that was my summer experiment.
Actually, it became an application, and I found a partner who had customers- but I stopped the development few years later for lack of time and funds, as the partner provided customers, but no funding, and my funds were generated by my own consulting activities around Europe
But the concepts are still there. And technology, I hope, will make irrelevant the completion of that SaaS (it started as a Windows+FTP, before Internet was available in Italy to commercial users), and will instead allow to use the concepts without any technical knowledge requirement.
The website? Eventually I registered KnowledgeDist.Com, but it is re-directed to the knowledge-sharing platform built on Joomla, PartnershipIncubator.com, where I publish articles for startups and business development.
As you can see on the front page of my blog, this blog was meant as a kind of personal shared navigational tool through knowledge.
As a kid, I was once in a while attending Communist party meetings. While I was also attending Church (father Communist, mother Catholic).
In Italy, both used control on knowledge as a tool for discipline and social order.
And that has some benefits.
But, in my humble view, in the XXI century moving back to a monolitic “Encyclopédie” model, where selected few filter knowledge and nobody else has any say, can be described by a single word: wrong.
The power of the Internet is also the 90% rubbish that is out there.
Rubbish, in my view. But maybe, in your view, some of my 10% useful is rubbish, and some of my 90% rubbish is gold.
I do understand that any IT business with somebody at the top is tempted by Plato’s Republic vertical model (roughly: at the bottom, the workers/merchants/etc; then toward the top the philosophers).
But worldwide citizen journalists using their mobile phone to report on suspected election frauds and events have shattered that model.
I think that we still need experts and companies that focus on “niches of expertise”- but multiple ones, with a vested interest in their own position, not a single one.
I do not know you- but I would never sign for a centralized online store of my passwords and keywords online (well, Google does it, anyway).
Why should I use the Internet as an old style library, where somebody decided what I can or cannot read?
WolframAlpha technology can be a powerful tool to help all the new repositories of information allow better access, using serendipity and mindmaps as navigational tools.
The first, is based on the idea that, as I do in bookstores and did in libraries, you walk through the “knowlege avenue” (e.g. “philosophy”, “marketing”), and maybe something will attract you.
The second is that you start from one point (a specific “knowledge venue”), the focus of your quest for knowledge (e.g. “where are the books written by X?”), and then move around.
In both cases, you need somebody building the connections for you.
In a bookshop, the connection is the physical layout, along with the… references at the end of each book
In the Wikipedia model, any new connection that you find can actually increment the existing connections.
And this is where you need the experts.
Not at the front gate, but in the backroom, processing data and connecting knowledge within their own domain of information, allowing then more intelligent tools using WolframAlpha or Google algorithm or anything else to navigate knowledge.
Be it a “top-down” (from general to specific) structure like an UDC-based “Knowledge avenue” or a more “bottom-up” (from specific to general) structure like an expert-based “Knowledge venue”.
If you want- Google uses an algorithm based on associations existing in the material, known through the linking of a page with another. Everybody now knows that. And every search shows you how Google “thinks”.
And WolframAlpha?
Well, I will let them talk for themselves:
What I would like to see is the new crop of open online libraries to use the API for Wolfram onto their own well structured data knowledge repositories.
They spent inordinate amounts of money to collect and classify and structure.
What better testing ground for these concepts, and see if I can get a structured answer to my queries above, instead of a list of links?
Tags: alpha, analyst, artfl, artificial, bbc, bookworm, business, chicaco, citizen, classification, competitive, d' alembert, decimal, diderot, encyclopedie, eu, european, europeana, eurostat, game, gdp, geocities, google, intelligence, journalism, knowledge, library, map, mindmap, model, niche, online, plato, project, republic, serendipity, spot, training, udc, universal, university, web, wikipedia, wolfram
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 11:53 and is filed under commentary, everything. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.