Meryl Streep won the Oscar for Sophie’s Choice, a film that hinges on (spoiler alert) a woman having to choose which of her children will live and which will die. Microsoft is for that kind of choice. In a blog post later copied to GovLoop, Microsoft’s Dan Kasun lays it out. “Choice has been one of Microsoft’s strongest messages for years,” ... [
Once again, Google has bought something only to open source it. This time it’s ReMail, first acquired, then put on Google Code as open source under the Apache 2.0 license. (It previously did the same thing with DocVerse.) ReMail was more efficient in terms of system resources than Apple’s own mail.app, it offered full text searching, and it had other neat ... [
Apple’s suit against HTC could end one of two ways. Either Apple becomes the next SCO, which ran itself aground claiming rights to Linux, or it becomes the next Microsoft, which is prospering while claiming to own Linux. The answer depends on how hard Apple presses its case. You can get a clue by looking at who Apple has sued. While ... [
The low-hanging fruit in the renewable energy business still lies with efficiency. Cutting your energy use without crimping your lifestyle gives you a faster payback than turning into Ed Begley Jr. It’s still good to be a little Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) on energy use, even if your politics are to the right of Rush Limbaugh, because there’s money in saving, ... [
The 311 service has been a “red headed stepchild” for American cities practically since it was launched in the mid-1990s as a phone service. (Picture from Moonbattery, a conservative blog.) The idea was to make 311 the 911 for non-emergency calls. A burning building call 911, a burning question call 311. But that charge was so broad that most cities did ... [
In all the talk about New York financier Paul Singer’s plan to go all Gordon Gecko on Novell, one word has not been mentioned nearly enough. Microsoft. Microsoft needs a viable Novell, and Novell’s Linux business was on the verge of becoming viable when Singer’s Elliott Associates swooped in with an offer to break up the company, seize its cash, split ... [
Dries Buytaert of Drupal and Acquia is warning that Software as a Service is becoming a threat to open source and that clouds could create the same vendor lock-in customers sought to avoid with open source. (This is Dries at last year’s Drupalcon in Paris, in a close-up of a photo by Pedro Lozano. From buytaert.net.) Even where SaaS companies let ... [
That first step is interoperability. Getting proprietary gear to work together, to transform reports among proprietary standards, is the first step on the road to an open world. The HIMSS show takes that step every year with what it calls its Interoperability Showcase. At this year’s show in Atlanta it occupied the whole end of one hall of the Georgia World ... [
The announcement by Twitter that it is switching to Cassandra for its database lookups puts new attention on a project that has yet to reach Version 1.0. Cassandra had been underway long before Oracle bought Sun and mySQL. Facebook first launched it in 2008 to power their inbox search feature. It was released on Google Code in 2008 and became an ... [
Today Matt Asay urges government buyers to support open source, open data and open standards. Why? Because it’s better. Because it promotes competition. Because it gives government flexibility. But after watching government on every level, in various countries, for over half my lifetime, I can tell you the last thing any government wants is to make a decision its successor can ... [
Since I began writing this blog in 2005 I have watched open source move from a fringe idea to something embraced by the IT mainstream. But there are still extremists out there who want to destroy open source. Some of their names may surprise you. What they have done is retreat into a group where they seek not to be identified. ... [
No. Matt Asay hits the nail on the head. In full “knock this board off my shoulder mode,” the Ubuntu COO dares Microsoft to sue Canonical, or Google, or someone else over its Linux claims who might fight back. To torture my recent analogy (analogies can’t fight back), Microsoft isn’t Neville Chamberlain. It’s the guy on the other side of the ... [
In response to my piece yesterday, my Italian friend Roberto Galoppini referenced a piece he did last August called the Open Source Innovation Backbone. Packaged software companies may just use open source to build a common base on which they can innovate. Or they may copy a proprietary product, competing against it together in order to drive out a competitor’s monopoly ... [
Open source may become the default position of customers, but it is still not the first option when a market is new. This is a point open source executives like Matt Asay continue to struggle with, one that closed-source advocates continue to hammer on. (Picture from the Breakthrough Institute.) Open source is shared freeloading. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ... [
Another day, another Microsoft patent deal. This time with Amazon. And more whining from Linux advocates that this is a “Microsoft tax” aimed at making Linux users pay Microsoft for the open source operating system. I have thought that too. But let me play devil’s advocate a moment, using as my text Marshall Phelps’ Burning the Ships. Isn’t Microsoft just buying ... [Peoka.com has an interesting twist on the search idea. Rather than aggregating results from other sources or specialized engines [as so many others do], they are developing their own network with an interesting approach for B2B enterprises.
The company is headquartered in the UK and they have about 200,000 business subscribers to date. They are just entering the US market at the SES 2008 conference that I attended in NYC. The functionality is that a business can select a keyword or keyword phrase and have any “Go Direct” search link directly to the company website. This is not a link or a listing like you would get using a Google or other search engine, Peoka “Go Direct” search sends the user directly to your website.
There are a number of aspects about this that could be really cool if they get enough of a client base using the product:
- The direct page presentation aspect is really desirable if you’re a business. It brings qualified customers to your site and your site only.
- For the user, they are not faced with the prospect or need to sift through thousands of irrelevant search results to find what they are looking for. One click gets them right to a qualified and targeted vendor. Great way to save time and I expect to see more variations on this from others in the future.
- The business can select targeted keywords and have a “Go Direct” response for search terms that would be difficult or impossible to get even above the fold from a normal search engine due to the sheer number of listings. This is a huge benefit. I could see Peoka setting up some sort of bidding scenario on keywords in the future. Different approach than placing ads.
Peoka also has tool bar software that you can download that will install a Peoka “Go Direct” toolbar on Internet Explorer which will help get adoption up too.
I picked and am experimenting with a couple of keywords including Glyphius and Copywriting Software. I actually place pretty well on Google with Gylphius but Copywriting Software is a little trickier.
Given that more than 50% of my Glyphius sales have been international, I think Peoka might prove to be a good platform for the market. I expect taht I will be picking up other forms of copywriting software and web analysis packages in the near future, so the copywriting software phrase will be a good fit.
To try Peoka.com
To install the Peoka Toolbar for IE, click the Download Toolbar option on the page above.
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