Coming soon: the Mac'apult - a high power catapult designed to accommodate any version of the Mac to help you get the thing as far away from your production environment as possible.
Comparing GScholar to MUSE or JSTOR is apples and oranges. Those resources are limited to what they host.
It should be remembered that there is relatively little Humanities and Social Science content online. A couple of reasons: 1) it doesn't pay the bills the way Scientific, Technical, Medical (STM) content does. 2) the users of such content are less interested in online availability. Therefore, there is less to find.
The Google services is simply a means of discovery. Full text content hosted by publishers or their contracted third parties usually resides behind authentication layers. In most cases, an academic library will be ip authenticated thereby allowing users to 'pass through' from Google links to the abstract, to the full text.
University Press (UP) publishers will have increased exposure if they open their content to Google crawlers at the abstract level. This presents the user with access to those items to which their institution subscribes, and the option to pay-per-view (if offered by the host) or look elsewhere for the desired resource.
The biggest problem in getting UPs online is the expense in online publication and hosting. As far as compensation for indexing...they should be thanking Google for the exposure.
Despite your well intentioned caution, I had been looking forward to a 'buy and dump' strategy all week. However, I was terribly (and happily) distracted by Valentine's Day activities with my wife...although not altogether unrewarding, I missed the IPO and didn't clear the $6.50 a share I would had I followed through on my own advice.
Caution is well founded in the long term with respect to this particular company. Although, the fact that this company is utilized by a number of shady characters, which does give it the advantage of stability, they will be the target of litigation and regulation unlike most businesses. Being in such a position may well add to the cost of doing business beyond what they are able to recover from users.
In the short term, however, I'm sure they will enjoy good profits. They are one of the very few business models out there capable of taking a little piece of illegal industries, and dipping into the huge underground economy supported by black markets around the world. Not a bad bet in my opinion.
re:Lots of reasons. AD operated out of Cambridge MA because they wanted proximity to MIT graduates. Maybe you want to be near your customers, to better understand their market, or provide hands-on support. The Internet doesn't make location irrelevant, exactly the opposite, if you can do business anywhere, it only means you have a greater choice of precisely where that is. You could head out to where the rent is cheap, sure, but could you get all your employees (the most valuable part of the business) to relocate? What about travel to meet customers (and yes, you do need to do this, no-one does serious business without meeting face to face first)?.
I'm sure you're right about many of the reasons about why ArsDigita chose Cambridge, but you didn't answer the question about the other offices. My company has other offices, but they aren't real, just sales-persons' homes. We still say we have offices in DC, NY, etc...but they aren't brick and mortar investments. Yes, you have to meet face to face, but that's what airplanes are for.
One prestigious office in one location is a very good idea, for all the reasons you point out, but there is a point of overkill. It's less expensive to fly well trained, high level sales people to a customer rather than try to put an office near what you think might be a group of likely prospects.
As far as close proximity to MIT grads-- that was certainly a reason for operating out of Cambridge, and another in a long line of miscalculations made by aD; don't believe everything you hear churned out by the Boston media engine--I've been here long enough to know that a lot of the 'value' coming from institutions like MIT or Harvard is pure hype. Besides, most grads leave the Boston area upon graduation.
If you want the best value for tech personnel you're better off recruiting out of the UC system, University of Washington at Seattle, or the University of Idaho at Moscow. The west is the best in tech.
Quite right-- if someone feels they can contribute something of value, but only on a condition of anonymity, fine. I still want to hear what they have to say.
Eve's comments are so well put together, that I tend to believe her side of things. I've seen this kind of thing unfold myself. Of course, there's a lot we don't know. It's clear that everyone fell into a few traps. I am sorry that Eve and the other well meaning, true believers at ArsDigita had to suffer through the demise of what they helped to build. I hope the feelings of loss and betrayal don't haunt you for too long.
It's all quite sad, really, it's clear that Eve still longs for the days when she sat in front of a humming CRT, with her dog at her feet, solving problems and pounding code all night. Unfortunately, I've seen this a number of times in recent years. It's really quite disturbing. i.e.Talented geeks being pulled into management positions because the company has grown, and no one else knows enough about the underlying process/code/whatever to manage it's production and implementation efficiently. It's a bad reason to fix what isn't broken.
The result being an inexperienced business manager, and one less expert, fully devoted, programmer--loose loose. Never mind the fact that the poor programmer often feels more stressed, less fulfilled and removed from their art.
This transformation of individual character isn't unlike what appears to have happened at ArsDigita, and many companies. The core of the company is cast aside once it's realized that there's real money to be made. Then the ambition fuels greed, perspective gets lost, and what made the organization special seems to dissipate, leaving unmotivated, unfulfilled people behind in a plain vanilla, soulless environment.
Slashdot Mirror
That's what makes it cool.
Coming soon: the Mac'apult - a high power catapult designed to accommodate any version of the Mac to help you get the thing as far away from your production environment as possible.
It should be remembered that there is relatively little Humanities and Social Science content online. A couple of reasons: 1) it doesn't pay the bills the way Scientific, Technical, Medical (STM) content does. 2) the users of such content are less interested in online availability. Therefore, there is less to find.
The Google services is simply a means of discovery. Full text content hosted by publishers or their contracted third parties usually resides behind authentication layers. In most cases, an academic library will be ip authenticated thereby allowing users to 'pass through' from Google links to the abstract, to the full text.
University Press (UP) publishers will have increased exposure if they open their content to Google crawlers at the abstract level. This presents the user with access to those items to which their institution subscribes, and the option to pay-per-view (if offered by the host) or look elsewhere for the desired resource.
The biggest problem in getting UPs online is the expense in online publication and hosting. As far as compensation for indexing...they should be thanking Google for the exposure.
Caution is well founded in the long term with respect to this particular company. Although, the fact that this company is utilized by a number of shady characters, which does give it the advantage of stability, they will be the target of litigation and regulation unlike most businesses. Being in such a position may well add to the cost of doing business beyond what they are able to recover from users.
In the short term, however, I'm sure they will enjoy good profits. They are one of the very few business models out there capable of taking a little piece of illegal industries, and dipping into the huge underground economy supported by black markets around the world. Not a bad bet in my opinion.
I'm sure you're right about many of the reasons about why ArsDigita chose Cambridge, but you didn't answer the question about the other offices. My company has other offices, but they aren't real, just sales-persons' homes. We still say we have offices in DC, NY, etc...but they aren't brick and mortar investments. Yes, you have to meet face to face, but that's what airplanes are for.
One prestigious office in one location is a very good idea, for all the reasons you point out, but there is a point of overkill. It's less expensive to fly well trained, high level sales people to a customer rather than try to put an office near what you think might be a group of likely prospects.
As far as close proximity to MIT grads-- that was certainly a reason for operating out of Cambridge, and another in a long line of miscalculations made by aD; don't believe everything you hear churned out by the Boston media engine--I've been here long enough to know that a lot of the 'value' coming from institutions like MIT or Harvard is pure hype. Besides, most grads leave the Boston area upon graduation.
If you want the best value for tech personnel you're better off recruiting out of the UC system, University of Washington at Seattle, or the University of Idaho at Moscow. The west is the best in tech.
Quite right-- if someone feels they can contribute something of value, but only on a condition of anonymity, fine. I still want to hear what they have to say.
It's all quite sad, really, it's clear that Eve still longs for the days when she sat in front of a humming CRT, with her dog at her feet, solving problems and pounding code all night. Unfortunately, I've seen this a number of times in recent years. It's really quite disturbing. i.e.Talented geeks being pulled into management positions because the company has grown, and no one else knows enough about the underlying process/code/whatever to manage it's production and implementation efficiently. It's a bad reason to fix what isn't broken.
The result being an inexperienced business manager, and one less expert, fully devoted, programmer--loose loose. Never mind the fact that the poor programmer often feels more stressed, less fulfilled and removed from their art.
This transformation of individual character isn't unlike what appears to have happened at ArsDigita, and many companies. The core of the company is cast aside once it's realized that there's real money to be made. Then the ambition fuels greed, perspective gets lost, and what made the organization special seems to dissipate, leaving unmotivated, unfulfilled people behind in a plain vanilla, soulless environment.