Advocate's Studio

They say that knowledge is power, and rightly so, particularly in the Digital Information Age (my term, FWIW). Access to information is important, but being able to leverage via machines the extra step that links the pure data to contextual relevancy is the current Holy Grail of Search. Pioneers in the digital knowledge game like Wolfram Alpha and Siri have been making extraordinary inroads in pairing correct answers to natural language questions. Semantic search – the ability to parse contextual meaning from a search inquiry by making connections across data sets – is the key to the next step in the evolution of search.

So, where is Google, the de facto King of Keyword Search, in all of this? Well, as of yesterday, right in the thick of it apparently. Google has introduced a major new refinement of its venerable Search Product called Knowledge Graph. Knowledge Graph appears to be a matrix of contextual connection behind the pure search terms that assist Google in showing results that make sense, as well as direct answers to queries right on the search results page. Instant results will highlight the answer Google believes you intended to find, as well as other possible answers to your question that make sense based on context – the connections between data points. The example from Google’s blog post debuting Knowledge Graph is the phrase “Taj Mahal”, which could be a monument, a Grammy award winning singer, a casino or the Indian restaurant down the street. Before, Google’s search would simply turn to its vast store of crawled data to find sites where the words “Taj” and “Mahal” appeared near each other, putting the sites that had the most clicks for those keywords at the top of the list. With Knowledge Graph, Google takes the next logical step by “guessing” the meaning you intend when you type “Taj Mahal” and presumptively returning relevant results. Pretty freaking cool.

To make this happen, Google is leveraging content stored in trusted sites, such as Wikipedia, Freebase, the CIA World Fact Book and other locales. Not unlike Wolfram Alpha, which turns to its own internal knowledge base comprised of data from official public or private websites, and systematic primary sources.

There are three main features of the new Knowledge Graph.  First, searchers will see different collections of results accessible via one click – click over instantly and tell Google which segment you are interested in researching. New summary info provides information on people, places and things right on the search page, obviating the need to click through to Wikipedia – good for quick bits of information, leaving you free to click through to get more detail if you need. Finally, Knowledge Graph takes it all one step further by providing the second tier information that users tend to look for after making their initial search. Google apparently is able to map those secondary searches and make the information easier to tap into, collapsing first and second searches down and improving search efficiencies. Google also shows other searches that people commonly made when searching for the same information. Google has accomplished the corralling of data in such a way that it can parse likely intent and direct searchers along the search path in a reliable fashion.

Is this all good? Well, not quite and definitely not for power searchers. Yet. Google’s new toy will work best with people, places and things and mostly likely with well-known people, places and things. More arcane and obscure information likely hasn’t been properly mapped yet, particularly since it appears Google’s tool depends on what lots of other searchers tend to do. Which raises an additional question regarding what lots of other searchers tend to do – if you are not your average searcher looking for not your average information, you might find the Knowledge Graph more hindrance than help at this point. However, I wholeheartedly applaud Google’s efforts (as well as Bing’s similar effort released earlier). There is definitely a place for instant, contextually-relevant results in everyone’s search plan. My sense is that it will REALLY get interesting when contextual, semantic search can delve the deeper recesses of data and make finer connections. Like the connections our billions of neurons make when we cogitate on a problem or try to recall key information. I can hear Majel Barrett’s voice now. Is the age of Artificial Intelligence upon us? Maybe. Just maybe.

Leaving no part of the business software suite untouched, Google has recently introduced its new e-Discovery product within its Apps for Business offerings. Called Vault, it serves to automatically store and save emails and chat sessions of users within a Google Apps ecosystem. Like any good e-Discovery product, Vault allows you to easily preserve, retain and retrieve information that may be needed in the course of litigation.

Vault is, like most Google offerings, cloud-based and quite easy to deploy according to reviewers. It is instant on and provides access to all  Gmail and on-the-record chats. It’s a bit different - instead of making copies of the tracked content and storing them in a separate storage locale, Vault merely changes how users “see” their content – when an end user “deletes” emails and IM sessions, they are removed from the user-interface view but retained on the Google Apps servers.

Vault costs $5 per user per month, on top of the $50 per user per year, $5 per user per month Google Apps fee. While it certainly isn’t “free”, like many Google products, the price is doable from a small business perspective.

Vault is not the only Google product that can be used for e-document preservation and retrieval – Google Message Discovery is already available and being used by Apps users, at a cost of $33 per user per year. Message Discovery operates more like a traditional e-discovery solution – with copies of docs stored in a separate section of the server. Google advises that the differences between Vault and Message Discovery include:

(1) Google Apps Vault is built natively in Google Apps and provides a true manage-in-place capability

(2) Vault can archive on-the-record chat messages

(3) Vault plans to support additional data types in the future (stay tuned for more information). GMD only supports email.

(4) There is no time limit on retention. GMD has a maximum retention period of 10 years

(5) Easy set-up through the Apps CPanel. GMD has a separate, non-integrated user interface

(6) Vault supports archiving email and on-the-record chat messages in all languages that Google Apps supports. GMD does not support as many languages, particularly double-byte languages.

(7) Vault can leverage existing migration tools for Gmail which gives customers more flexibility and can lower costs.

(8) Vault can be deployed “on-demand” and immediately begin applying information governance policies to the data that exists in your domain’s Gmail inboxes (legacy and newly created data). GMD starts capturing messages from the time that it is deployed and requires Historic Message Journaling to load historical email into the GMD archive.

At release, Vault is available to new Apps customers only. Google assures that it will be available to existing Apps customers in the future, with automated data migration for Message Discovery users. Google likely will expand Vault to other Google products as well, such as the Google Talk client and perhaps even Google voice transcripts.

Google has released the video below outlining it’s Vault product. Take a peek:

Hardcore Gmail users will love this – Gmelius is a cross-browser extension that offers lots of options for customizing and  improving your Gmail experience. First and foremost: Gmelius will allow you to excise the ads that show at the top of your inbox! Right now, it appears Gmelius has extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera – hopefully they will come to the aid of some  of those other browsers  soon.

Some of the other great features that are selectable within the extension include the ability to make the header auto-expandable, remove the People Widget, customize the navigation icons, add a row highlight, clear formatting from incoming emails to make them look-alike, add attachment icons for different types of docs such as Word or Powerpoint, disable the “consider including” box if you don’t want Gmail to suggest recipients to you, make the Google logo clickable (but watch out when you have multiple sign in’s activated), auto scroll to the top of your inbox when you click the black bar, and move email labels to the right in the inbox. In total, Gmelius is all about creating more space in the interface so that it becomes easier to work with your Gmail, definitely a good thing.

Gmelius insists that it will never access, read, store, alter or transmit your personal data. Gmelius code meets the latest Content Security Policy (CSP) recommendations, making sure its users can keep browsing the Web safely.

Gmelius is constantly updating the extension, with new features in settings shown with a “new” tag. Plus they appear committed to cleaning up bugs as quickly as possible.

The extension is free, but the developers ask for a donation. With the advent of Google Drive and an increase in storage size in your Gmail from 7 to 10 GB to celebrate, Gmelius offers yet another good reason to move your emailing activity to the Gmail cloud. Hope you enjoy this great new extension as much as I do.

Finding the needle in your content haystack can be a troublesome affair. I have thousands of old messages in my Gmail, over 11,000 tweets, and lots of other stuff that I have collected over the past few years and have shoved into the virtual shoebox at the back of the closet. The difference between efficiency and wandering aimlessly often comes down to how fast you can retrieve that bit of information you need for a particular matter at a particular time. That is where CloudMagic comes in.

CloudMagic is an Android (and iOS) application that indexes your Google and Twitter content and can retrieve it for you instantaneously with predictive search suggestions as you type. It retains search history for when you may need to come back to your search. It works with  Gmail correspondence, calendar events, Google Docs documents, contacts, and tweets and sports some very effective filtering tools. It comes in an Android app and browser extensions for on-line, desktop use. And it’s free.

The application reminds me of Greplin on iOS, but falls short in terms of services it can access. However, it is more than a decent start, particularly if you are tied to an Android platform.

Check out the video below to learn more about this great, cross-platform mobile search tool.

Yes, I said spiffy. One of the questions most frequently asked of me is how to work on documents across devices and ensure that changes made in one place show up everywhere. There are plenty of different options for reaching this result, but one of my favorites is Google Docs. In its early days, Docs was a super-stripped down word processor that primarily offered the ability to access the document from anywhere. Heavy on the access, light on the processing feature set. But Google has been steadily improving the interface and the tools, making Docs more like a replacement of your local processor, rather than a supplement. And mobile improvements are high on the priority list.

Case in point. Google Docs Blog has just announced a few nice new features specifically designed for Android, including the ability to designate certain files as available for offline access and write-ability and improved view on Android-powered tablets. For files that you’ve selected to make available offline, Docs will automatically update the changes when you enter Wi-Fi. Or manually update when you are in a data connection by simply opening the file. For tablet users, get ready for a high-definition version of your document when viewing online. Swipe left and right to navigate through pages or use the slider at the bottom for quick maneuvering.

Some people are put off by working with their documents on their phones or tablets, but I have found the ability to do so very helpful in certain circumstances. Google Docs and Android users now have even more to love about mobile word processing.