Comments on: Vivisimo, Please Keep It Real

By: Miles Kehoe

Miles Kehoe — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:30:48 +0000

With you on this Daniel. I read SearchDoneRight as well, and it’s usually got good content. I’m disappointed by the ‘tongue in cheek’ approach as well…

By: Transparency or FAIL | The Noisy Channel

Transparency or FAIL | The Noisy Channel — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:27:08 +0000

[...] might say I’m a bit overzealous on the subject of transparency in social media. But, as it turns out, I’m not the only one. [...]

By: Stan the Man Roils Search Fabric : Beyond Search

Stan the Man Roils Search Fabric : Beyond Search — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:04:10 +0000

[...] sorely tempted to identify the blogs and include snippets from the flames. For one example, click here. My view is that the economy is not doing any favors for most search and content processing [...]

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:54:12 +0000

My idea of enterprise search humor done right is this Google ad. I strongly disagree with their approach (and I assume Vivisimo would too), but the ad, which paints a caricature of large enterprise search companies (presumably Endeca, FAST, and Autonomy) is pretty funny.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:54:09 +0000

This site still feels off to me & I have a great sense of humor.

By: Shad

Shad — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:30:14 +0000

In Rebecca’s defense; all that was needed was a winking smiley to show she was joshing us. The context (the search done right blog site) made it very un-obvious that she was kidding around.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:32:09 +0000

In case anyone missed the launch, http://meetstan.com/ is now live and clearly represents itself as advertising for Vivisimo. The FAQ reflects some of the discussion here, and the video is cute. Hopefully we can now let past be prologue.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 23:38:48 +0000

Again, thanks to all for the moral support. And, in my own defense, I'd like to note that industry analyst Stephen Arnold also read the post, and I don't see any indication that he read the post as tongue-in-cheek: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2009/03/14/confused-puppies-chewing-on-enterprise-search/

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:03:40 +0000

I too read this the same way Daniel did. I think inventing fictitious characters is fine; but please provide some way of letting us know they’re not real.

I guess the marketing folks went a little too far here.

By: MarkH

MarkH — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:05:05 +0000

FWIW, I read Daniel’s blog for the thought-provoking content. In contrast, the Vivisimo post was ~400 words of marketing puff at best or deceitful at worst.

Maybe Daniel assumed the worst but care to guess which blog draws my attention in future?

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:59:22 +0000

Chris, thanks for the moral support. And to the Vivisimo folks here, if any of you are interested in writing a guest post here, let me know. I’m sure readers here would be interested. All I ask is that it be substantive and not a sales pitch.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:04:03 +0000

Stan (Bielski not cartoon character),

Before you’re next comment you may want to do some research and look at past posts from Daniel.

His posts on peers and competitors alike has been balanced and complete. While you may not agree with his assessment of the marketing ploy Vivisimo is using a slightly veiled character attack is a pretty sad rebuttal.

On the substance of the post, I have to agree with Daniel, the linked content simply feels fishy and if anything is disingenuous it is this type of marketing.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:22:20 +0000

Let me explain why I wrote this post. I came home and checked my blog alerts for “enterprise search”. I saw the post on the Search Done Right blog and read it immediately based on the title. It read to me as something fishy, not as a joke. I clicked through to the meetstan.com site. and saw no indication that it was a Vivisimo-affiliated site, nor did I take the cartoon character accompanied by a “coming soon” message as an indication that the site was a joke.

And I did visit the site, looking to see any mention of Stan. I didn’t see any. I also tried searching on the Vivisimo site and using Google. Nothing turned up other than the blog page.

After reading Stan’s comment, I went back to the site and looked harder. I then realized that I wasn’t looking at the animated Flash on the home page, which was blocked by my Flashblock Firefox extension. Even enabling Flash, however, “Stan” doesn’t show up until quite a ways into the animation.

If I lack a sense of humor about this stuff, I stand guilty as charged. In any case, I stand by the sincerity of my criticism. Beyond that, I’ll let readers form their own opinions, both of the merits of my arguments and of my personal integrity.

By: Max L. Wilson

Max L. Wilson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:29:03 +0000

ooo burn – looks like you started something with the vivisimo guys. the rebuttals from the vivisimo corner of the ring (one who appears to do PR for them) are very convincing. back to the blogger in the red corner.

(providing commentry for the tonights big fight)

By: Stan Bielski

Stan Bielski — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:52:58 +0000

Daniel, did you actually visit the site in question? If you had, you would have noticed that the home page is an image of a cartoon character for crying out loud .

Your criticism, if not blatantly disingenuous, is predicated on the assumption that enterprise search customers are on the same developmental level as infants who think Barney is something other than a guy in a costume.
Does Endeca really hold its prospects in such low esteem?

By: Leo Tignini

Leo Tignini — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:28:22 +0000

Poor Stan, just a baby and he is already causing trouble. All kidding aside, anyone who follows Vivisimo would see that Stan is an extension of the brand and has already been promoted on the Web site. Kudos to Vivisimo for bringing fun and humor into enterprise search and introducing Stan who clearly recognizes the pains of the common customer.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:00:38 +0000

Rebecca, perhaps we simply have to agree to disagree as to what is reasonable marketing. While I’m not a marketer, I appreciate the need to be provocative and edgy to generate buzz. Nonetheless, I think you’re playing with fire by posting something that was not obvious as tongue in cheek, especially given the current state of industry education.

I think of myself as something of an industry expert, and I’d never seen this “Stan” character before. Even now I can’t find any mention of it on the Vivisimo site.

Maybe this will resolve itself in a few days when you launch the site. I hope so; I like to debate technology and vision, not marketing tactics.

By: Craig VerColen

Craig VerColen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:13:47 +0000

Tongue and cheek is, ahem, one way to put it. At best, this is a distasteful stunt. At worst, it’s a cardinal sin in social media-style marketing. I agree with Rebecca that you need to try fresh approaches, and with you that Vivisimo has historically punched above its weight when it came to marketing. But from the company and team that brought the world the first clustering showcase in Clusty — a brilliant marketing move — this seems like an awful big step backwards.

By: Pedro Campos

Pedro Campos — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:42:38 +0000

It’s called astroturf marketing, and it’s definitly unethical. But then again, imoral marketing is kind of a pleonasm, right?
I remember ask.com did a stunt like that on London Underground, anarch red and black posters saying “One source isn’t choice” and a link to a website with anti-Google propaganda.
It’s interesting how search (lack of) ethics are getting closer to marketing ethics every day: Google is becoming a more and more evil ad company; most search engines interfering with their ranking algorithms for business reasons, and using the web and link structure to advertize themselves. I am not expressing myself very well, but there’s a growing link there, don’t you think?

By: Steve Ardire

Steve Ardire — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 14:08:59 +0000

Daniel – agree that this comes across as weak ‘hype marketing’

By: Rebecca Thompson

Rebecca Thompson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:56:04 +0000

Daniel,

You are correct in guessing that the “Meet Stan” site that I blogged about is in fact by Vivisimo – when it launches next week it will be obvious that it is as our logo will be on the site and addressed in the site FAQs. In fact, if you go to the Vivisimo site, you’ll see we have are promoting him there, making it pretty clear he is a creation of ours. My quip about Stan being a new industry pundit was tongue in cheek , of course.

The Vivisimo team created Stan as a way to help explain the benefits of enterprise search to folks who may not know much about it in a simple, but fun manner.

Vivisimo, like Endeca, uses a variety of traditional methods to try to educate the market about search in general, which can be challenging given how many in our space shy away from the use of the word “search” in describing their products. Despite the ubiquitousness of web search, enterprise search still hasn’t cracked Gartner’s top ten list of technologies CIOs care about. Maybe a fresh marketing approach can help explain why it should be.

At any rate, why not give Stan a chance? We launch him next week – stop by then and check it out.

Rebecca

By: Max L. Wilson

Max L. Wilson — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:28:21 +0000

disgraceful and also very stupid. registering meetstan to vivisimo. Yknow, I had an email from someone called Will Maxson who said my research was the best he’d ever seen.