ForbesOnTech

Search Engine Input as a Predictor of Election Results? --Oh My!

Up in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon, I listened as two major radio hosts aired a claim by Yahoo could predict primary election results by monitoring incoming queries.

            The two talk show hosts immediately jumped on Yahoo’s claim, getting a Yahoo spokeswoman on the phone during their broadcast to explain how search could be used to predict election results..

            I listened with amazement as the two radio hosts completely missed what the Yahoo spokeswoman was saying.  What annoyed me is that they seemed incapable of understanding that Yahoo was only talking about incoming searches it was fielding, not all Internet searches.

            At first, I thought their excitement over Yahoo’s claims might have caused them to overlook what Yahoo said. I listened carefully as the spokeswoman again explained Yahoo’s discovery.  And yes, at the end of one spoken sentence, the drill down: searches on our service had been said.

             The two talking heads on KFI AM radio still missed what Yahoo had said and motored on to talk and speculate about the implications of using search results as an election prediction tool. Looking at search queries, as a predictor is a fascinating idea, particularly when it includes the top-ranked search engine.

            It’s just too bad that the talking heads didn’t have either the sense, or the job-related experience to take their thinking a step further by calling Google’s PR department for comment or to get comparable results from their searches.

            All of this makes me wonder: At a time when legions of print reporters are out scrambling for a handful of PR jobs, why aren’t more of them looking to talk radio news for employment?.

            As I listened to the banter on talk radio about Yahoo’s claims, 35 years of reporting experience went into overdrive. The bottom line, however, was very clear, KFI’s two on-air talkers didn’t realize they had just glossed over a topic that could fill an entire week’s worth of shows. More’s the pity though, cause it’s just this sort of topic that keeps me interested in the long-term implications of search engines and how they are changing our lives.—Jim Forbes 05/07/2008

TechCrunch50 to Overlap DemoFall 08

Some say, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” For others, however, imitation is merely a shortcut to a bank’s merchant window without investing first in creativity, original thought, or shouldering the load of those who popularized a category or event.

            All of which brings news that a competitor to Demo has announced its event will overlap DemoFall08, in early September. The competitor is TechCrunch 50, the second incarnation of a show that first appeared on the scene last year after its founders, Jason Calacanis of Tech Crunch and Michael Arrington, used Demo 2007 to announce that they too were hosting a technology showcase. One big difference between the two shows is this: Unlike Demo, Tech Crunch doesn’t charge its featured stage presenters a Demonstrator’s fee..

            Let me digress a moment and make a mandatory disclosure: My name is Jim Forbes and I am a retired Demo producer who developed DemoMobile (now known as DemoFall) and helped Chris Shipley, the executive producer of Demo, select companies for and produce the larger Demo shows. I had a stroke moments before I was to have opened Demo in Phoenix and am now retired. I have no fiduciary relationship with Demo or its direct and indirect parent entities: IDG (which owns Network World) and the GuideWire Group, which Chris Shipley co-founded.

            In a statement posted on the GuideWire Group’s blog Wednesday, here Demo’s Ms. Shipley questioned the timing of Tech Crunch50, suggesting it would force entrepreneurs to chose one event over the other and suggesting that forcing start-ups to make such a choice wasn’t a good decision. Ms. Shipley also posted that Demo08 generated more than 200 million media impressions for its hand-selected spots and explained how Demo supports its companies in preparing for the event. Ms. Shipley also questioned why TechCrunch50 was copying Demo’s “rulebook and other guidelines.”

Michael Arrington says that he and Jason Calacanis “liked the Demo model but don’t like the ‘payola’ idea of demonstrators paying.”

A call to TechCrunch 50 co-sponsor Jason Calacanis was not returned.

In various blog postings on sites such as ValleyWag last year, other writers have come to acknowledge the benefits of Demo’s high production values as well as the effort its support staff take to train demonstrators. Last year a ValleyWag editor suggested Demo’s demonstrator fee showed audiences that its companies had “skin in the game” and were well prepared for the event.

At 18 years, Demo is the oldest technology showcase. TechCrunch isn’t the first competitor that’s tried to unseat Demo.  Three other events have come and gone, and Demo now also faces some competition from the Wall Street Journal’s All ThingsD conference, which is produced by WSJ staffer Walt Mossberg and former WSJ staffer-turned-author Kara Swisher. Another contract staffer involved in AllThingsD previously had been the president of IDG Executive Forums, which produced Demo before it was incorporated into IDG’s Network World business unit.

            Both Demo and TechCrunch appear to have the same format: stage presentations by companies with products grouped by category, and panels of VC or business development executives. In its first five years, Demo had a slightly different format that allowed audience members to ask onstage demonstrators questions (a format borrowed from Agenda, which like Demo was also started by industry pundit Stuart Alsop but was produced through much of its life by IDG Executive Forums).

            Under Ms. Shipley, Demo has become a “community” with a high number of returning attendees and serial entrepreneurs who have used the show to launch multiple companies. One of the major changes Ms. Shipley has made to increase Demo’s presence and sense of community has been the addition of a video library of Demo presentations that can be viewed at www.Demo.com.

            Competition makes for better products. While Demo may be the oldest show, there’s still enough room in the technology industry for new blood. I have no problem with competition, the real issue here is when competition is based on cookie cutter marketing plans that don’t give credit where its due. —Jim Forbes 04/02/2008

Watch Out, Google May be Terraforming TV Advertising-Hot Analysis from Churbuck.com

Dave Churbuck’s Real Life with Google’s Media Server

David Churbuck, one of the preeminent voices on all things interactive, starts off a post on Google Interactive television advertising methodology with:

Last fall and early this year I’ve been exposed to an interesting beta test at Google involving the insertion of television ads into the Dish satellite network using Google’s auction model and browser interface. The results have been very interesting, but the process carries some ramifications for an entire ecosystem of agencies, media planners, clients and broadcasters.

Immediately read the rest by clicking here

David Churbuck’s post on Google’s abilities to change an existing business model is incredible. First, Churbuck isn’t merely regurgitating talking points from a canned Google presentation. He’s speaking with the voice of an “informed consumer” and as one of the countries leading interactive marketers. Moreover, Churbuck’s weekend post has the authority of someone who is objectively observing an ongoing ad serving test from inside the box.

After reading Churbuck’s post several times this Sunday, I want to know why none of the other so-called Google “authorities” (those who have written books, countless articles and hundreds blog posts about Google) haven’t come as close to detailing the impact of a Google revolution on television advertising as Dave Churbuck?

If there’s one thing you need to read to gain a basic understanding of what’s beyond “disintermediation,” Then Churbuck’s “The 30-Second Spot Ain’t Dead Yet” is the piece to read now.—Jim Forbes 01/10/2008.

(Mandatory disclosure: David Churbuck and I were coworkers at PCWeek.  We are friends.—jmf)

Chris Shipley's GuideWire Group Launches Blog--A Technology "Must Read"

     When veteran tech analyst and long time Demo producer Chris Shipley started her analyst company, the Guidewire Group, one of the products I really wanted to see her produce was a public blog. Chris has one of the busiest jobs in all of technology, so her blog was a project that had to set on the back burner until other, much more important tasks had been completed.

     Well, Chris and her staff are now blogging and the result is something very special here. What I've always loved about Ms Shipley's writing and most of all her editing, is its clarity and voice. While others in the technology blog space thunder on, Shipley's calm voice and clear explanations make her rise above the crowd.

     Guidewire's blog isn't just Shipley's work. it's other staffers as well. And among those, Karla Thompson is using the new blog to develop her own unique voice. Karla's musing on the semantic web here  caught me by surprise.  Her honesty is refreshing and the points she raises are things that need to be specifically resolved by any company in this category.

     I added Guidewire's feed to my list of "must reads" today. If you're a technology watcher, you should too.--Jim Forbes01/16/2008

(mandatory disclosure: I worked with and later for Chris Shipley at two points in my career, Immediately prior to my retirement, I produced Demo events with Chris and wrote the two printed versions of DemoLetter as well as the weekly online version of DemoLetter. I just wished that blogging had been around back then, life may have been less stressful. jmf)

CES Producers Take Action Against Gawker/Gizmodo Prankstrer

The Consumer Electronics Association (producers of the Consumer Electronics Show) has responded to Cnet’s Rafe Needleman on his coverage of Gizmodo’s CES pranks here.

We have been informed of inappropriate behavior on the show floor by a credentialed media attendee from the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media. Specifically, the Gizmodo staffer interfered with the exhibitor booth operations of numerous companies, including disrupting at least one press event. The Gizmodo staffer violated the terms of CES media credentials and caused harm to CES exhibitors. This Gizmodo staffer has been identified and will be barred from attending any future CES events. Additional sanctions against Gizmodo and Gawker Media are under discussion…

What Gizmodo’s staffer did at CES is inexcusuable.  What remains to be seen is whether or not his superiors at Gawker Media had foreknowledge of his intent or aided him at CES.  I suspect that Gawker Media will pay a price for the prank, and for its extraordinary lapse in judgement in publicizing it on the web.—Jim Forbes 01/13/2008

Bloggers and Social Media Gone Terribly Wrong-- CNet's Rafe Needleman Shows how To Do News blogging Correctly

A series of pranks attributed to members of the Gizmodo technology news/blogging site who attended CES this week could shutdown future CES press accreditation to bloggers, predicts to CNET’s Rafe Needleman click here.

            Needleman claims Gizmodo’s staff wandering CES in

Las Vegas

this week were using custom remote control devices to turn off televisions and other display technology of exhibitor who paid CES to rent exhibit space at the giant show.

            Gizmodo’s staff apparently found it necessary to capture their infamy by making and releasing a video record of the prank. In the video Gizmodo folk are seen pointing a TV-b-gone infrared controller at televisions and other display devices and then reacting when the displays turned off.

            Needleman reports that he got Gizmodo’s uber executive, Nick Denton to admit Gizmodo’s responsibility for the pranks in an instant message from the show. Needleman then went on to speculate that the pranksters might be held financially responsible for their acts.

More important, I believe, is Needleman’s belief that as a result of Gizmodo’s prank, the Consumer Electronics Association could block bloggers’ accreditation at future CES confabs.

Maliciously interfering with a paid demonstrator’s technology at CES or any other event where companies invest thousands of dollars to show off their products and technologies goes way beyond the realm of “harmless pranks” and ventures very close to a criminal act.

Tip of my hat to Rafe Needleman and CNet for investigating and reporting this story.  Rafe’s quick work from the harried floor of CES (which included getting an getting an online text admission of the act from Neck Denton) proves the positive power of news blogging in near real time. The behavior of the Gizmodo staff proves the very real differences between professionals and rank amateurs.

What I really admire about Needleman’s piece on News.com is this: In addition to doing a superior job reporting and documenting the facts, he went an extra mile and told his readers how to defeat devices like TV-b-Gone.

If anyone did what Gizmodo during CES at any one of the technology showcase events I produced, I would do my best to see them escorted from the premises, arrested, and then see they were never issued press credentials again. Furthermore, as an event producer, I feel I would be obliged to bring a civil action against the pranksters and their employers.

Furthermore, that a “publishing executive” would allow his staff to pull such a prank and to document their guilt casts a cloud of doubt on all his enterprises. And with that I send my hair shirt out to the cleaners.—Jim Forbes, 01/10/2008.

Editors, Get Back to Basics: News Before Blogs

There’s a problem in technology journalism today. Editors and reporters seem to have forgotten that they’re supposed to be writing about companies, products and trends, not about what they’re doing after hours or in the pressroom of the LasVegas Convention Center at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

            I had to laugh yesterday when I read three separate reports about the CES pressroom running out of food at lunchtime. Oh the horror, no food. The old reporter in me wants to know why the reporters were gabbing in the press room when they should have been out on the showroom floor getting the information they needed to write stories about products, technologies and how they might effect me.

            Given a choice between Boopsie Gomez’s experiences partying at the bar of Hooters in Las Vegas and her breathless description of what some obscure computer luminary was wearing and a tight 250-word piece on how new notebooks with hybrid drives that boot from flash memory, the former is a waste of space and the latter will help my purchasing decisions in the coming six months.

            As a consumer of information I’ve begun to think editors have allowed their news gatherers to put basic newsgathering skills behind their abilities to write colorful event-themed blogs.

            It’s time to get back to basics: aligning the cart  (news and trends) behind the horse (reporters’ blog-like stories). Jim Forbes, 01/08/2008 wearing a neatly pressed hair shirt.

            

            

Why is Fake Steve Job's the Only Site Showing the Emperor's Nudity

Until the arrival of the blog the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, penned by one of the best reporters I’ve ever worked with, Dan Lyons, satire as high art was completely missing from nearly all Silicon Valley coverage.  Good satire is hard to come by.  It takes perceptive observations, the ability to glean and effectively use real life color as a backdrop, and the willingness to go out on a limb to make a point.

This morning Dan Lyons, using his alternate Fake Steve Jobs voice, wrote one of the most perceptive takes I’ve ever read here on the coming Microsoft v Google fight.

Lyons offers three prescient observations about competition between the two companies: Google’s ability to generate seemingly great stories in the mainstream business press without considering how reporters really think may have ended; the fact that Google’s Chairman Eric Schmidt has the distinction of being one of the very few people Microsoft has kicked to the ground in at least two of his last executive posts is so on target that it left me wondering how long Google can continue soaring on its present course; and Google’s belief in the “appcloud in the sky” is flawed because many people don’t have persistent connectivity.

Lyons post makes me wonder: Why is Fake Steve Jobs the only outlet that’s pointing out Google’s potential fatal flaws?  Furthermore, why is it that slick business magazines like Fortune insist on publishing stories that by and large only point to successes, and not corporate strategic shortcomings?

Moreover, why have these rhetorical questions appeared mostly on blogs and in satire?

For too long, I believe, the Valley has been focused on the next big score and a quest for the mythical kingmakers who make it possible. Too much attention has been paid to icing on the cake, not on the balanced meals that are needed to grow sustainable businesses.

It’s ironic that a skilled satirical blog may become one of the forces to make us laugh at the emperor’s nakedness.   Satire is a wonderful tool for exposing our foibles to the cold light of day and I find it astounding that it hasn’t appeared until recently. And it’s great that blogs have become the vehicle for such an introspective form of humorous criticism.

But what really makes me smile is that this pioneering use of satire comes from a reporter who could deliver great news and features while making his co workers laugh till they damn near cried.  —Jim Forbes back after a writing dry spell on 12/17/2008. B’okay?

Fire Blogging, A Refugee's Observations and Why I Love my Ultra Portable and Verizon Broadband

The “prepare to evacuate order” came by phone at 9 a.m. this gray ultra smoky morning.  So, off I went through the house rounding up my two useless cats, and my bug-eyed road buddy Perro, making sure I loaded cat food, cans of Mighty Dog and sundry bedding for my pets, just in case I had to abandon my home here on a little mountain top in Escondido. I also made sure  my X60 notebook with its WWAN Verizon data network was charged and in the back of my trusty little Prius, along with my cell phone and “get out of town in a hurry bag.”

By 11 am, the visibility was down to less than one-quarter mile and a second fire had erupted down by Lake Hodges, which is south of me.  The main blaze however is less than one mile away and it’s being supercharged by 55 mph Santa Ana winds.

            First and foremost I am fire aware southern California boy. So right after the first notification came in, I fired up the tractor and cleared a 100by 75-foot safety spot away from my house. I cleared everything down to BME (bare mineral earth, then moved my SUV to the its separate safety spot and covered my boat’s 6 gallon gas tank and my two-gallon gas can in a potato mound I excavated this weekend. Then I covered it with a shake and bake fire blanket and soaked my garden, hastily picking up blown down palm fronds that have come off my 70 foot palm tree in the windstorm. 

            The big out call came from the police department around 1 p.m. so I loaded up my useless cats and my road dog and off I went to an evacuation center at the north end of Escondido. I stayed there until about 6 tonight and decided to haul ass for Azusa, where I know my dog and useless cats will be safe for the night.

As I write this the eastern and southern sky are cherry red and the smoke is pretty intense. I’ve thought a lot about what’s left up at the house. My gianty ag water canons are hooked up and on a timer.  At 8:30 tonight they’ll start soaking my lower yard and the front of my house.  There’s a lot to be said for having 135 PSI water pressure. Well at least, if the fire gets to my house, I’ll come home to some nice black sooty mud.

            My attitude about fleeing my house is simple: other than my pets, I don’t have anything I can’t replace. Been there done that in life. But I may appear like some grizzled super salty vet, I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that I’m very afraid of being seriously burned, again. I was burned pretty seriously as a kid. I had 3^rd degree burns on about 50 percent of my legs.  The pain is something you have to experience to believe. It’s quite unforgettable.

            So I don’t take chances with fire. If the Witch Creek fire takes my house, I can always rebuild. I can’t replace my buddy Perro or my two useless cats, so I keep them close at hand and safe.

            But I wanted to write tonight about some things I observed at the evacuation center and by watching local and regional media (particularly a.m.talk radio). The evacuation center had a computer room set up. It was filled to overflowing with kids, playing interactive games. Not one kid has his browser parked on the local newspapers web site, or on websites belonging to any of the San Diego news radio stations. Had it been me, I would have put a responsible kid in front of a computer with strict orders to relay any news to the 2,000 or so of us at the evacuation center. There was almost no incoming news prior to 630 p.m, so I pulled out my cell and called the North County Times and got in touch with the deputy M.E., explaining who I was and asking what news they had. I was particularly interested in what routes out of Escondido were open since I-15 has been closed all day and th east west arterials to I-5 were also closed because of the more than half dozen fires raging down here now.

            I can’t begin to say how much I don’t like being in a valley surrounded on three sides by fire with no surface routes out of here. Hey if I were a reporter working the fire story, the second set of questions I would have asked the highway patrol commander is “when do you expect to allow traffic through and what exit routes are open?” It took until 6:15 tonight for the local Fox station in San Diego to get their traffic reporter to say “ yes, you can get out northbound, isfyou take I-15 to the Pala exit east to the Pala Casino, then turn left on Temecula Road and take it north to the big casino in Temecula where you can get on I-15 north again.”

            But back to the process of being an evacuee: The volunteers at the overflow evacuation center I was directed to were incredible. They provided treats. Chilled beverages, water and hope to the 2,000 or so people who were there, and who ate dinner and spent the night on the gymnasium’s floor. I mean I can’t praise them enough. They put on nice spaghetti feed and provided games and television for kids and adults.  And no pet at the evacuation center went without water and at least a knish and a reaffirming stroke between their ears.

            With the one exception of the San Diego AM radio fox affiliate, the new has been incredibly superficial. There have been almost no details on what routes are open or how to get to the Fallbrook Gate of Camp Pendleton to drive across the base and get on I-5, which is open to Los Angeles. But there has been a lot of sniveling from one specific radio talk show host, Roger Hedgecock on the lack of air tanker support for the San Diego firestorm. Never mind that the winds make it unsafe for tankers to fly, or that the voters of San Diego turned down a bond measure that would have provided organic air tanker support in 2003. The bond was turned down because it would have increased taxes. Well D’oh!

            The inability or unwillingness of AM radio to provide detailed information on the status of communities effected by the fires in San Diego is one of the most damning comments that can be made about talk radio today. There are more than 200,000 residents of this county that have been evacuated to centers tonight and all talk and news radio can do is provide superficial overviews of fire status and not one scintilla of granular detail.

            It’s enough to make me weep. Or maybe that’s just the particulate solids in the smoke filled air tonight in San Diego County.         

            Well, I’ve got to tend to my grove and then set my alarm clock for midnight, to make sure that my mountaintop is still safe.

            To my friends and family that read my sometimes odd ramblings; every one is tucked in and safe, here on my little mountaintop in rural northern San Diego County where I can move my water canons by the fiery light of the Witch Creek Fire. Cough cough, Jim Forbes on 10/22/2007.

Thank God for Great Portable Computers and Persistent Connectivity.

            I literally never go anywhere without my ThinkPad X60 convertible notebook. It’s become such an integral part of my life that I now automatically keep it charged when its noit in use so it’s always ready to go.

            Tonight, at an evacuation center I booted it up and quickly bought a $15 day pass on the Verizon broadband network to get up to the minute news on the fires that surround the little town where I live (Escondido ,CA).

            Arriving at the evacuation center I was pleased to see that they had set up a “computer room” with a wireless network.  My pleasure quickly turned to anger after I noticed that the room was filled with unsupervised kids playing games on the computers.  Not one of the youngsters was checking web sites for fire information. So, I sat down with a cup of coffee and checked road closures on the Cal Tran web site as well as looked for bulletins on my local paper’s web site.

            Cutting and pasting information into a Google Docs document, I wandered over to the information board and had someone—a teacher who worked at the school which was the over flow evacuation center to which I had been directed —write the updates on an information bulletin board. My handwriting is illegible; her’s was schoolmarm perfect.

            I’m writing this on my trusty X60 tablet now. It has about four hours of battery life remaining and I my day pass on Verizon is good until tomorrow night.  Me, my notebook and persistent wireless connectivity, it doesn’t get any better and it makes me feel all snuggly safe, as I watch a crimson sky through incredibly thick smoke. So here I am, same bat time, same bat channel_ JMF

The Need to Take Time for Disclosure Questions by Reporters

Reading online reports of the acquisition of Gateway by Acer this morning left me somewhat uneasy. First, there was little meat to the stories that appeared on line, and second, there were glaring omissions in the stories. And by  the time I had read the second story on the acquisition  my slow burn bad become a full fledged wild fire.

            First off, Monday morning stories can be difficult for reporters (a trade at which I worked for more than 30 years). You roll into work, unload the stuff from your computer case that you thought you might have worked on over the weekend. Then you sit down at your desk and suck down your favorite alkaloid-based beverage and begin reading incoming news feeds. Suddenly an item jumps up at you from the feeds that form the basis of your workday. In this case it was the news from Taiwan that Acer had bought Gateway.

            News is by definition a 24-hour business, so you grab a few facts, frame a  lead, and make a few phone calls to flesh out your first take on the story. Monday morning breaking news can be taxing. Chances are, anybody you need to talk to about your story is in some damn staff meeting and can’t be disturbed.  But you try anyway and eventually you get down to second and third-tier sources (by which I mean analysts at market tracking and forecasting firms) one or more of which happen to answer your frantic call and give you some basic filler such as where a specific company may fit in a global or domestic market.

            If you’re really lucky you may have enough for the Monday morning big score, a salient “nut graph” that enhances the story enough to get it posted and the hell off your desk so you can finish your cup of coffee and move on to more important things.

            The problem with this type of work is that important disclosure questions don’t get asked of sources. And when quoting an analyst at a research firm, the most important question you can ask after receiving market data is: “Is company (“A” or “G”) one of your clients?”

            At the very least, the answer to that simple question adds another sentence to your story and hopefully increases its credibility.

            Virtually every story I read about the Acer Gateway merger today quoted IDG analysts. But not one of the stories disclosed whether Acer or Gateway was an IDG client. The reporters who wrote those stories this morning missed an important point that would have added a smidgen of credibility to their posts.

            Meanwhile, I have to press and hang my hair shirt so it will be ready tomorrow. —Jim Forbes, un reporterro viejo ( literally “an old reporter”) on 08/27/2007.

(Mandatory disclosure: I worked for IDC properties on two occasions in my career. The same company owns IDG and IDC.)