Jeffro's Net Adventure

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2136950061&size=l

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 01:08:00 -0500

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WORKIN FOR GOOGLE (via )

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:44:36 -0500

WORKIN FOR GOOGLE (via )

Does Digg Pursue Wisdom or Profits?

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:45:13 -0400

Does Digg Pursue Wisdom or Profits?:

The Guardian did a pretty decent job of interviewing Jay Adelson today. Jay is the CEO of Digg and co-founder of the video podcasting outfit Revision 3. Personally, I would have like to see the Guardian broach some of the developmental aspects of Revision 3, but learning a bit more about Digg was interesting, as well.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Digg on a number of levels. I love it as a news source, but I hate it as a community to interact with. I’m a firm believer in the concept of “wisdom in crowds,” one of the founding principals of Digg. It has very solid statistical roots, is a very old concept, and in most cases work. Unfortunately, I think that Digg, for a while now, has been headed in a direction that breaks the “wisdom of the crowds” paradigm (and I’m not talking about bugs in the system that may make Digg subject to gaming). To understand why I think it is broken, I’m going to have to engage in a short history lesson; bear with me.

The anecdote that is the genesis for the concept of wisdom of crowds I’ve heard many times over is the story of scientist and statistician Francis Galton from the late 1800’s, who was surprised that the crowd at a county fair accurately guessed the butchered weight of an ox. What made it interesting was not that any one individual came close to guessing the actual weight, but that the crowd did. When their individual guesses were calculated to the median, the resulting number was much closer to the ox’s true butchered weight than the estimates of most individual crowd members, and perhaps most surprisingly also closer than any of the estimates made by cattle experts. Bringing it around to Digg, the idea is amongst the 21.5 million unique users to Digg per month, the wisdom of the crowds will tend to dictate that the most important, relevant, and interesting stories will rise to the top.

There’s a distinct difference, though, in what Digg tries to utilize the Wisdom for, and how the Wisdom was discovered in the first place. On Digg, what answers are being solved? The hypothetical question with only subjective answers. In Galton’s case, where the Wisdom was discovered, it was a very objective answer that was being sought. The answer wasn’t what most folks would *like* the butchered weight of the ox to be, it was what it actually is.

Another place I think the Wisdom is being misapplied is in that even if you think you can apply Wisdom to a subjective answer situation, you aren’t using a true crowd in Digg’s case. They’re trying to apply sound business strategy to a situation where philosophical questions should take priority, as is evidenced towards the end of the interview when the Guardian asks what Digg is doing to protect their various verticals. “There’s value in vertical focus, [and] there may be a vertical we choose not to go into. I would rather empower someone else to go down that route rather than do it myself,” said Adelson.

But by limiting Digg to certain niches (like technology news, or only certain types of media advantageous to the interlocking board members of the company with organizations like Rev3 and Pownce), you’re limiting your crowd to folks only interested in the niches and mediums you’ve defined as important. Galton didn’t survey just experts - it was everything from the scullery maid down to the butcher who probably had a much better idea. The Wisdom arose from the average of the stupid guesses to the educated ones.

Climbing out of the world of hypotheticals and philosophy, and into the real world for a moment, I’ll use an example from my life. A very good friend of mine, one with conservative viewpoints, recently made several comments on an article that, if memory serves, had to do with Al Gore and global warming (or maybe it was partial birth abortions - all I remember is that it was a hot-button topic, and that the premise of the article was based on completely fabricated facts).

I watched the comments build up starting from about minute two or three from the story being posted to Digg. Overwhelmingly, the comments were coming from those of a liberal bent, agreeing blindly with the article without doing a lick of homework to check out the facts involved (a lot of back slapping, Bush-bashing, and Christian-hating took place). My friend tried several times to engage other commenters on the issues of substance the article raised, questioning the authenticity of the facts and such. My friend is a very well-spoken individual, not known for a propensity for vulgarity or smug commentary, yet consistently his comments were “dugg down,” by the herd mentality, without so much of a substantive debate taking place.

Here’s my point (and I do have one): if you pull your entire crowd from which you wish to derive Wisdom from the same monoculture, it will skew your median results toward a place that is very unwise. Based on the strategy Adelson divulges in the Guardian interview, everything Digg does to upgrade the system moves towards further niching and herding of it’s users into smaller and smaller monocultures, thus further diluting the system’s Wisdom.

Tumblr 3.0 & Interview with Founder on Read/WriteTalk

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:32:21 -0400

Tumblr 3.0 & Interview with Founder on Read/WriteTalk:

— jeffisageek — chris24

"Netcraft said that it detected 142,805,398 web sites during its monthly web server survey. The..."

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 03:41:04 -0400

“Netcraft said that it detected 142,805,398 web sites during its monthly web server survey. The October result is about 7.6 million sites higher than in the previous month. The internet is currently growing at a rate of 5% a month and is adding more sites per month than in any other month in the survey’s history. The main drivers behind this new growth are MySpace, Microsoft Live and Google Blogger, which gained more than 1 million sites each in the last month alone.”

- TG Daily

"PCM: You did call yourself a journalist on the panel. MA: Sometimes I am, depends. But sometimes..."

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 08:09:40 -0400

“PCM: You did call yourself a journalist on the panel. MA: Sometimes I am, depends. But sometimes I’ll say “according to a source,” but I’ve learned all this stuff. I’ve learned that sometimes you’ve got to cover your ass. But, you know, sometimes I wake up and I’m in a pissed off mood and I trash a company. You’re never going to do that when you have an editorial process. And while maybe that’s unfair to the company, it adds a little bit of color and flavor to what we do, which I think engages the readers so far. And you know, they call me on it. They call bulls*** on me. It’s just more raw and more authentic and I find … like, do you guys have computers hooked up to you main TV in your living room?”

- TechCrunch’s Arrington Talks Disruptive Tech - News and Analysis by PC Magazine

iPhone explodes after unlock attempt. Via iPhone Atlas.

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:14:37 -0400

iPhone explodes after unlock attempt. Via iPhone Atlas.

Where the fuck is Tumblr? (reBlog this)

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:24:04 -0400

The following is a reblogged entry that is part of the Wheres Tumblr Reblogging chain.

Its three, THREE, months since the last update to the Tumblr Blog.

Here’s a quote from that post:

“What’s still missing? Plenty. This is still only a tiny bit of the vision, and we still have lots more to launch over the next few weeks.”

Weeks? Does twelve count as a few? I love Tumblr, but the lack of new features is really starting to get to me. I want comments. I want tagging/categorizing/labeling. Most of all, I want to hear something from the developers to let me know its worth my time to stay on their platform.

Reblog this if you are as annoyed as I am about Tumblr, and maybe they’ll come out of the rock they are hiding under.

"The power of ideas and the ability to turn them into useful things is what propels us forward as a..."

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 05:46:11 -0400

“The power of ideas and the ability to turn them into useful things is what propels us forward as a society. It is exciting and humbling to realize what we are capable of.”

- The Digestion Phase: How We Got Here And Where We Are Going Next

"My software never has bugs. It just develops random features."

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:24:06 -0400

“My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.”

- Computer Sayings

Translated (via The Global Geek Podcast)

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:04:47 -0400

Translated (via The Global Geek Podcast)

"Every time you get a call you consider junk, just ask the questions in this script. If they answer..."

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:15:32 -0400

“Every time you get a call you consider junk, just ask the questions in this script. If they answer no, you may be able to sue them. Be sure to put your phone number on the National Do-Not-Call registry by visiting http://donotcall.gov or by calling 1-888-382-1222”

- Junkbusters Anti-Telemarketing Script

TG Daily - GPS rival to integrate tech for global search and rescue system

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 13:41:42 -0400

TG Daily - GPS rival to integrate tech for global search and rescue system:

Representatives of the Galileo project, Europe’s effort to establish a civil global positioning system, have presented an ambitious plan to equip its satellites with a future worldwide search and rescue technology to be able to locate and communicate with individuals in emergency situations anywhere on the globe.

TPN :: The Global Geek Podcast » Blog Archive »...

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:49:43 -0400

TPN :: The Global Geek Podcast » Blog Archive » Microsoft Employees Laughing at Ballmer (What’s New?)

MySpaceTV: Get Khum Dhan! by Happy Bagel

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:57:26 -0400

MySpaceTV: Get Khum Dhan! by Happy Bagel:

One of the funnier videos I have seen in a long time

"We tried this out, and while Facebook does reject the last name “Gay”, it also provides contact info..."

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:40:14 -0400

“We tried this out, and while Facebook does reject the last name “Gay”, it also provides contact info for the Customer Support Team if you really do happen to be called Ima Gay. ;)”

- Mashable! - Facebook Blocking Gays

Energy Drink Packed With More Than Caffeine

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 04:08:36 -0400

Energy Drink Packed With More Than Caffeine

Google Banning - Are You At Risk?

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:36:54 -0400

Google Banning - Are You At Risk?:

Google banning occurs when Google removes your site from its index and flags your domain as ‘banned’, so it won’t spider your site anymore. It is actually a serious disease and may be even life threatening specially for small websites.

This Time's For Real by Ill Nino

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:57:27 -0400

This Time’s For Real
Ill Nino

Album: Confession (Explicit)
Station: Earshot Radio
Favorite Created on: July 25, 2007

(via Pandora Bookmarked Songs: jeffc45)

"With nearly $1 billion in venture capital invested in new web startups from April - June 2007 alone,..."

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:52:15 -0400

“With nearly $1 billion in venture capital invested in new web startups from April - June 2007 alone, its clear that silicon valley is rolling in money again. With all the hype around Facebook, second tier (but still huge) social networks are an easy bet to get big money. Let’s all just hope for a soft landing.”

- Big Money For Tagged, Too