Category: IO Impotency

Misinformation and Truth: An Issue in Play

Navigate to “Italian Newspaper Creates Fake Restaurant to Prove TripAdvisor Sucks.” The story tells the story of a real journalistic operation which created a non existent restaurant. Then the real journalists contributed reviews of the vaporous eatery. TripAdvisor’s algorithms sucked in the content and, according to the write up,

declared La Scaletta the best restaurant in the town, beating out another highly-regarded restaurant with over 300 reviews (most of them positive).

Ah, real journalism, truth, and the manipulation of socially-anchored systems.

Full article with more links.

Google, Search, and Swizzled Results

I am tired of answering questions about the alleged blockbuster revelations from a sponsored study and an academic Internet legal eagle wizard. To catch up on the swizzled search results “news”, I direct your attention, gentle reader, to these articles:

• “Google Manipulates Search Results, According to Study from Yelp and Legal Star Tim Wu”
• “Study Offers New Evidence That Google Skews Search Results”

I don’t have a dog in this fight. I prefer the biases of Yandex.ru, the wonkiness of Qwant, the mish mash of iSeek, and the mixed outputs of Unbubble.eu.

Read complete reflections.

Is Time Running Out for Non Performing, Venture Funded Enterprise Search Vendors?

Gee, impatient venture capital firms, grousing partners hungry for a payday, and agitated stakeholders, are these usually cheerful folks worrying about getting their money back with a hefty profit? My hunch is that some who wrote checks might be thinking about a vacation at WalMart instead of a couple of weeks bouncing around Europe or looking at animals in Africa from a Land Rover.

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Venture Investments in Search Go Up In Smoke — Way Opens for Open Source Everything Solutions”