Sowing Light

Just came across a link to a TED talk by Eli Pariser in support of his new book - The Filter Bubble.

From watching the video, the argument is interesting.  In short, he claims that the big gateway sites - Google, Facebook, etc. are increasingly using algorithms to tailor information to their viewers, only showing them what they want to see and ‘hiding’ from them all other information, be it boring or unpleasant or disquieting or what-have-you.  Ultimately, he claims, this threatens the dream of the Internet as the great connector.  These algorithms, he claims, are in the same seat as the Newspaper editors of the 20’s, and need to be programmed to include the lessons learned from those times - editorial balance, etc.

From this short presentation, though, it looks to me like he does a lot of his own filtering of facts in order to set up this equivalence between the newspaper editors of the ’20s and the algorithms of today.  The biggest difference is that in the 20s, most people saw exactly 1 newspaper, and that’s how they got their picture of the world.  On the web, you choose your sources of info.  Most people have many, and everyone can have as many as they like.

The Internet is an information marketplace and a filter marketplace.  There are any number of different kinds of filters - each person decides which ones they use, and the market as a whole decides which ones become popular.  Moreover - even the big ‘fitlerers’ that he fingers - Google and Facebook - don’t block out any information.  You want to see what your conservative friends are up to?  Click on their pages.  Facebook’s response?  It’ll show you more about them.  Want to learn about any topic at all in Google?  Search for it.  Nothing’s hidden.

The argument here boils down to a claim that lazy people who aren’t interested should be given a default mix that has broader boundaries.  Yet, there’s no reason to claim that once a particular website / filter / presentation of information becomes popular it suddenly has to change it’s magic-mix that made it popular in order to make sure people get a a balanced picture.  If people want a balanced picture there is no barrier to them getting it, besides habit.  Why does any particular website have to be paternalistic about what info it shows its users?  “They want Justin Beiber, but we’ll give them Greek Philosophy.”  It’s silly.

Should a website make it’s filter explicit and adjustable?  If people want it, then there will be websites that do.  All the rules of open markets apply.

Social Media, The Developing Future

Got some good help in SEO and advanced Google Analytics Techniques from Google Analytics Ninja.  Not sure if he says so on his blog, but he is available for consultation.   Knowledgeable and to the point.

Deeply Technical, The Developing Future analytics, seo

Flickr changed their photo page.  I haven’t even interacted with the new page yet, and I already like it.  Why?  The way they introduced it to me.   From the initial ‘want to see the future’ to the 5 step quick tour, to the surprise guest.

Go check it out.  I’ll wait.

I don’t know about you, but after seeing this, I immediately thought of Facebook.  Every time Facebook changes anything, all streams are a-flutter with people forswearing the new, pining for the old.

What did Flickr do right?

1. They didn’t force change on me, they let me choose it.  They even tempted me in and stimulated a desire for the new.
2. Once I jumped over, they helped me understand how to operate in the new environment.
3. They worked hard to put a smile on my face when it was all done.

Well done.

The Developing Future change, Facebook, Flickr, UI

My spider sense tells me that we’re looking at Web 3.0 on this one - the next big step up - and what could very well be a serious crimp in Facebook’s style. It’s a communication and collaboration platform. It’s open. It’s got an API. It’s open to community development. It’s got Google momentum and mass exposure to make it happen.

It’s email, it’s live chat, it’s a wiki, it drags and drops files from the desktop, it embeds itself everywhere. Garden walls comes down. And it’s open - it’s just the beginning. Think whiteboard, think document collaboration, think task tracking, think project management, think collective web browsing. Zing!

You can see a demo and dig deeper at the Google Wave Site. Mashable gives you a distillation.

My wheels are just starting to turn on this one…sensing big potential…bubble, bubble.

Social Media, The Developing Future

On the knowledge management front, it looks like Wolfram is about to take a major step forward.  I don’t make these predictions often - based on Wolfram’s track record and what it sounds like they’re set to deliver - this could be the next step in knowledge search, research, and computation.  Meaning - it looks like it’s going to make the Google/Wikipedia method look a tad bit dusty.  Wolfram Alpha is set to go live sometime in May. There’s a blog which gives us a bit of a tease.

Dr. Stephen Wolfram demonstrated Wolfram Alpha yesterday at Harvard.  The video (embed below) gives us tons of mouth watering scenarios, video of Dr. Wolfram typing, but almost no views of the product performing.  It sounds like it’s working.  It sounds like he’s demonstrating something quite amazing.

Hat tip to Joel Katz for the heads up.

Stay tuned…

Smart Folks, The Creative Process, The Developing Future Semantic Web

Nicholas Carr’s latest ponders the life of the book as it moves into its online incarnation.

I appreciate, as a observant Jew, that no matter how deep technology gets into our lives, there will always be one day a week where we will turn off the phones and the computers, get out of the cars, turn off the Kindle, power down the bionic retinal enhancers, and appreciate the simple world.  Barring major unrest, I’ll always have books on my shelves.
 

On Being Jewish, The Developing Future Media

Shai Agassi presents Better Place at this year’s TED conference. The finish - in particular - is quite powerful.

Poltics Unusual, Smart Folks, The Developing Future Better Place, Energy, Oil

My brain balks at fully understanding Twitter. I feel as if I can understand other media - newsprint, TV, Wiki, whatever. Twitter feels to me as if it’s half born - as if we haven’t yet seen what this baby is going to do.

In essence, it’s the pure social network - no frills, hobbies, books I’ve read, pokes, movie reviews. It’s just nodes, directed connections, and the ability to pass messages along those connections.

The power is multiplied when combined with URLs. Nodes, directed connections, and the ability to pass ANYTHING along those connections.

We’ve spoken for decades about electronic communication becoming the nervous system of the planet. This baby is laying it bare and bringing it out to the edges.

Organizational Dynamics, Social Media, The Developing Future twitter

These are Marshall McLuhan’s words (circa 1955) about the impact of electronic media on the human psyche and society.  Substitute ‘twitter’ for ‘teeter’ and virtually anything for Eisenhower and you have a compelling picture of the present age. Information moving instantaneously to all parts of the globe, he writes, is explosive. 

We can, and do, have world events pouring through us like electricity.  I can easily become a twitching, twittering nerve cell in a massive identity-robbing global network.

What are the emotional impacts of this for the individual?

Do we have a moral obligation to be present to all of this information - to feel it?

How can I live if I do not put up walls or selectively empathize?

Who do I become if I do put up walls and selectively empathize?

Poltics Unusual, Smart Folks, Social Media, The Developing Future McLuhan, twitter

This is the third in a series.  Part 1 covered the basics of the Semantic Web vision. Part 2 gave a brief overview of 3 problems in the way - all of them of a technical nature.  This post looks at a problem that is not just technical - Trust.

When it comes to computer agents answering questions for me, trust is an essential problem, not a technical one.  Whenever I ask a question and get an answer, I’m outsourcing trust.  I’m believing in the answer and in the source of that answer.  If I’m asking a computer, I’m trusting the computer and the results that it will return.

What’s Good to Eat Around Here?
If I’m asking a simple question like “where’s the nearest stop for the 17 bus”, there’s not much room for mistrust, but if the question is any more complex, trust becomes a serious issue.  Let’s say I’m asking the question - “Where is the nearest place I can get a good sandwich at a decent price?”  Of course there are issues of ontology, markup, and reasoning involved here (What’s qualifies as a sandwich?  Am I talking about food or construction supplies?  How does one determine ‘decent price’?  How does one define ‘nearest’?)  But let’s look at the one word which begs the trust question - good.

Nowadays, to find out if a restaurant has a good sandwich, I can hit a whole bunch of websites looking for reviews.  For each piece of information I see, I make a judgment about whether to trust that piece of information.  I’ll use all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle clues to decide to trust or not.  I look at what site it’s on, what else the person there has posted, how they express themselves, whether it’s balanced, whether it uses criterion I value - ultimately, there’s an element of intuition to it.  When I ask my computer the question and the computer comes back with an answer, the decisions of trust are left to the computer. 

Is there a Doctor Nearby?
The word “good” begs the trust question directly, but the question comes up even in less opinion-oriented questions.   The computer’s entire concept of reality is taught to it by people.  Who do you trust to teach your computer about what exists?  To teach it what is consequential and what is not, what is worthy of mention and what is not, what is part of reality and what is not?    

Let’s keep it simple.  If I own a restaurant that serves wraps, and I know that most of the world searches for “sandwiches”, not “wraps”.  I’ll publish an ontology that says “A wrap is a sandwich (a really valuable sandwich)”. My competitor down the street, a standard deli, will publish an ontology that says “Wraps aren’t sandwiches, people looking for sandwiches don’t want wraps, and wraps aren’t worth anything.”  Which one does the computer trust?  Similar questions will come up in all domains - politics, economics, news, medicine, nutrition, etc.

If businesses know that I am searching through semantic agents, they’ll do everything they can to optimize their business to be discovered by semantic agents.  This includes, of course, declaring themselves as fit in as many ways as they possibly can. With computer agents returning information, we can expect this to be standard practice by any business looking to attract customers.

As soon as we farm off our question answering to an outside agent, we can’t avoid this problem.  The definitions of everything will still be up for great debate - only we will have abdicated our right to answer the question and entrusted it to our computers. 

Who do you Trust?
There may be a first light of a solution to this question in the social network. The social network provides an explicit declaration of who I trust.  The computer can tell me “You can believe this review, because someone you trust (or someone who they trust) posted it.” 

The current networks are far too limited to cover the broad range of issues that will come up.  I may be interested in something that none of my friends know anything about.  To broaden the footprint of trust, we may see the formation of societies of mutual trust.  They will collectively form a vision of reality and self police to insure the lack of misleading information.  There would have to be many of these, as my conception of reality may not jive with yours.  The same question will have different answers depending on the differing underlying assumptions and network of trust.

In Summary
So that’s a capsule of my thoughts on the Semantic Web.  We’re making slow progress on each of these questions, but the questions are big and the progress is incremental.  The “Semantic Web” is growing organically - don’t buy it when the next start-up tells you they are delivering it to your door.  

Social Media, The Developing Future Semantic Web