Comments on: Seeking Details About Mystery Discovery Layer Company

By: the Jester

the Jester — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:21:23 +0000

It could be Serials Solutions / WebFeat, but I don’t think Serials Solutions has much in the way of experience with large indexes of actual content. As I recall, the survey spoke of a pre-computed index solution over a federated-only solution, so it would potentially be a big leap in capability for them.

I also took a look at the picture of the building, but thought it was just generic artwork rather than a picture of the actual entity creating this.

By: Roger Hiles

Roger Hiles — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:39:47 +0000

I wonder if this isn’t the merged Serials Solutions/Web Feat product due out next year?

That building looked familiar, too.

By: the Jester

the Jester — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:42:02 +0000

Good thoughts, Susan. I thought some of the questions in the survey were sort of bazaar, too. It was asking me to evaluate a product based on a textual description of what they want you to think it is plus a screenshot. (Which is one of the reasons why I wanted to have a more in-depth conversation with this entity.) I wasn’t as put off by the financial questions — it just sounded like overt techniques to figure out exactly what the market will tolerate for a product like this. And I, too, had to fib about my organization (“consortial office” wasn’t a choice for classification of my employer) so as not to be dismissed after the first screen.

Also, in case it needs to be explicitly mentioned, the sponsoring organization is welcome to out itself here or contact me privately for an off-the-record conversation.

By: Susan Knoer

Susan Knoer — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:34:36 +0000

Hmmm…my first guess was OCLC, right off the bat. Has the age, has the clout, has WorldCat. But WC can be mashed up. Obviously , the person who wrote the survey is clueless- what user cares if the OPAC is OS? Who would ask?

The question about how much of a price increase was bizarre – either a declaration that we don’t have the product yet, or that they’re dishonest and seeking big bucks. Of course, the fact that you’re dismissed if you don’t claim to be from a large library and have considerable influence over purchasing hints that way.

Next question is, who would have this kind of survey done? I think the big dogs are a little more sophisticated than this survey is. I would fire a research team that used this as a starting point for marketing or development. I totally made up my “library”, no check that I wasn’t don saklad.

I almost felt like it was a Turing test.

My guess is that it’s a flagpole – someone has a fairly bright idea – a Google Scholar/Books/WC mashup that filters by your subscriptions. They run a “survey” to see what the market will bear before looking for venture capital or taking it to a big dog and trying to sell it. Too many red flags to be someone with “decades” of experience, too many business terms (ROI on a OPAC?), just doesn’t smell right. Even the Amazon certificates doesn’t ring true.

I’ll be curious to see what shows up in my spam mailbox ; )

By: Seeking Details About Mystery Discovery Layer Company | LISNews

Seeking Details About Mystery Discovery Layer Company | LISNews — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:48:12 +0000

[...] information on the survey; obviously the entity that commissioned it wants to remain private. The Disruptive Library Technology Jester, however, wants to know who this organization is. (Jester has some questions to ask.) Think of it [...]