Trial By Fire

Port Fairy

After 10 years, Australia still amazes me.  It is the ideal place for someone who loves to travel, and enjoy wilderness, water, earth, and sun.  We drove to Adelade on Saturday for business.  It was hardly business, but true enjoyment.  Brainstorming about new ideas, with exciting people, in splendid surroundings.  On the way back...

... Port Fairy, and a wonderful B&B called "Oscar's".   We just stumbled upon it, and really were just intending to stay the night as a stop-over on our way back to Melbourne.  Oscar's was situated right on the Moyne river, with fishing boats and quaint scenery.  There was no planning, it was totally impulsive, and it was wonderful.

In the evening, we walked down to Griffith Island, where we watched the Shearwaters land at dusk.  Such a carefree evening.  To our surprise, as we walked along the boardwalk, we looked down into the water to see a 2 metre Bull Ray resting.  We weren't sure he was resting at first.  We glanced down into the water, wondering if he was hurt.  Until he lifted up from the bottom and glided away.

I'll never take this place for granted.  In just a 12-hour stop at Port Fairy, we were taken back to an historic time when Westerners were first arriving in (invading?) Australia.  Port Fairy is older than Melbourne---the first stopping point for early travellers from England.

Maybe when I return to the USA I'll find similar reveries.  Certainly Port Fairy reminds me of New England, but there is a difference in history, in climate, and in the people.  Port Fairy is a sleepy town, and probably will be 100 years from now.  I like that.

It's rare that I make a travel posting.  I'll probably avoid it for the most part.  I'm still getting used to the blogging idea.  Not sure what I think about it.  But, after such a calm, wonderful rest stop, I can't help but be a bit happy that I live in a wonderful part of the world.  Sometimes you can't help but share it.

Perspective Search

A week or two ago I read with interest a series of blog debate postings which started with Tom Evslin's "There Won't Be Vertical Search Engines".  Fred Wilson was quick to parry with his "Vertical Search" article.

I think both sides of the debate have one serious flaw:  both see only two sides of the debate.

Technology always converges toward generic hybrids.  We used to have 100 different ways to search for information in periodicals.  I used to subscribe to a CDROM back in 1992 called "Computer Library".  It was an amazing tool (at the time) which had about 100 periodicals on a CD that you'd get every month.  It used a Lotus-built program to do the searching.  I was amazed at the amount of information at my fingertips.  500 megabytes!   The web made that obsolete through convergence and the ultimate generic hybrid is HTML over HTTP.  Who would have thunk it?

So, back to vertical search engines...

Right now, vertical search engines are like "Computer Library".  Wow, it's so cool that all this airline information is right here at my fingertips!  Wow, isn't it great that Chemical Abstracts are (still) available in a vertical search engine!  Wow, wouldn't it be cool if there were more vertical search engines!

As search engines become more sophisticated, and semantic information is incorporated into web nodes, we'll see the same convergence.  Tim keeps talking about the Semantic Web and I really believe someday it will happen.  Be patient.  Then, search engines will begin using the semantic information, and combined with your own particular interest, searches will become "vertical" automatically as you need them to, and then become more "horizontal" as you need them to.  Automatically.  Search engines will converge into a hybrid which has no horizontal-vertical continuum but instead is one integrated whole.

I'll call this "Perspective Search".

I'm about to travel to Las Vegas: Search will take that perspective into account.  I will find Las Vegas opportunities.  The engine knows I'm interested in Science.  The new Atomic Test Museum will appear.  My flights will be there too.  Oh look, I can upgrade.  I can get better rates.

A "perspective" is your view of the activity.  You might choose to take a "research", "planning", "travel", or "entertainment" perspective.  The search engine will cut across all available information based upon semantic cues so that you see the right angle.  It's like a n-dimensional data cube where each side of the cube is based upon parameters both collected and stated.

But, maybe vertical search will have a place for a while.  After all, people still write payroll programs.  Go figure that one out!

Talented People

As I've said earlier, I'm starting a new business.  Get on with it!  It's taking too long!

But, one wonderful thing about starting a business, especially when you have a bit of money to spend, is that you can, if you are wise, call on the greatest talents you've met to assist you.  Over the last 10 years in Australia, I have met some extraordinarily talented people.

One of them is Andy Grace.

Years ago, Spider Eye was fortunate enough to have produced and engineered the largest webcasts in Australia.  We had 18,000 people on chat at the Mushroom 25th concert in 1998.  We did fantastic programming, with good filler content, and some of the best music content in the world.  All produced here, in Australia.  We went on to do the Big Day Out, a truly amazing event, for 3 years in a row.  Much was learned.

But, out of all of it, I met Andy.  Andy did a great show on Fox FM called "Net at Night".  Where everybody else was just figuring out the Internet, Andy had a show that had live webcams, ICQ chat-to-live, and assumed his audience was smart, not dumb.  His callers were grateful, and Andy had a show that entertained and amazed, and was filled with the enthusiasm about the world to come, and how technology would change it.  This was mainstream radio meeting the Internet long before anybody knew how much of a clash was to come.

Because of my new business, I've got a chance to work with Andy again.  Thank you!  Working with bright, talented people is amazing stuff.  It's not easy.  I have been in business with many friends.  I'm lucky enough to be able to juggle such relationships.  It takes caution and care to make sure that you never lose a friend, and never do anything but the best for the business.  But, it can be done.  And it's worth it.  And most of all, because you're surrounded by talent, it gives you confidence.  You know you'll succeed.