Author Archives: JoeDuck

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About JoeDuck

Internet Travel Guy, Father of 2, small town Oregon life. BS Botany from UW Madison Wisconsin, MS Social Sciences from Southern Oregon. Top interests outside of my family's well being are: Internet Technology, Online Travel, Globalization, China, Table Tennis, Real Estate, The Singularity.

Collective Intelligence at MIT’s CCI.

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The new MIT Center for Collective Intelligence is a really interesting idea with *potentially* earth shaking implications. Or maybe I should say Climate shaking implications since Global Climate change collaboration is one of their first efforts.

The basic concept is simple: Use the internet to create global collaborations to solve problems.

My knee-jerk reaction after very briefly perusing the website is that some of the effort may get bogged down in it’s own somewhat beauracratically flavored “sign up here” approach:

Participation in the Handbook of Collective Intelligence is completely voluntary and participation will be subject to terms and conditions that will be added at a later date. While you should feel free to participate after registering by adding your contributions via additions, deletions, or edits of Handbook materials at this time, you should be aware that any such contributions will be subject to the terms and conditions that will be added at a later date. Once the terms and conditions are added, you will be required to re-register and assent to the terms and conditions. If you fail to assent to the terms and conditions within forty-five (45) days of their addition to the Handbook, all of your input will be removed from the Handbook. Upon your assent to the terms and conditions, you will be free to re-enter your contributions.

Given that the internet itself is already starting to resemble something of a collective intelligence entity, I hope MIT also works on ways to wire people in directly (or at least participate by simply doing things online) such that the collective contributions online become part of the collective intelligence network.

Yet however it all shakes out I can think of nothing more compelling than huge global collaborative intellectual efforts to solve the many pressing problems we feeble humans have wrought as a result of our inadequacies.

Google Gorg replacing Microsoft Borg? Don’t be P/E vil?

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Chris “Factory Joe” Messina of Flock has a provocative post about how Google is …. continuing to take over the internet world.

Although I’m more concerned about the virtual monopoly on search rather than Google’s assualt on Microsoft’s virtual monopoly on operating systems and office applications, everybody is well served to start thinking, as Voltaire sort of suggested hundreds of years ago “Is an all-Google world the best of all possible worlds?”

The answer, of course, is NO. Google’s brought great stuff and should keep on bringing great stuff. Google’s been rewarded with almost unimaginable riches and that’s fine. It may even be true that the Google juggernaut has some juggernauting to do before it needs to be brought in check. Sometimes it’s great to let super clever people just run with things until they run out of steam.

But like Chris I think it’s now clear that stock prices and commercial considerations have considerable influence on Google and their decisions and operations. You don’t have to think Google is running around intentionally doing monopolistic things to worry that if the going gets tougher and they no longer have so much of the search market and are fighting to maintain the stock Price Earnings ratios and options values the “don’t be evil” mantra may be interpreted more as “don’t be P/Evil-keep Google on top”! Wait. I think that Mantra change is already under way.

Google is a great company, but as Chris suggests that doesn’t mean we should stop keeping our eyes on them.

Disclaimer: I’m hardly a market mover but should say I do have stock in Google competitor Yahoo and puts on Google because I thought it was overpriced.

Blog readers vs writers, redux VIII

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My Cicarelli test of a few weeks ago, where I blogged about the top Technorati search term, sent a few hundred  visits total over the two week period.    It’s not clear they were “extra” visits though I think they were, but it would take more analysis than I want to do to determine if placing high for that term meant I was lower ranked for the more common technology themes you’d find on this blog.

 

Technorati still shows that very  interesting imbalance between readers and writers.  In fact I’m again hard pressed to explain many of these top searches without looking them up:

Top Searches

  1. Larry Craig- Congressman accused of having gay affairs
  2. Edelman- Wal-Mart’s Ad Agency accused of fake blogging
  3. In Vodka Non Ve… ?
  4. Barney and Baghdad – Tom Friedman on GW Bush in Iraq
  5. Torbe ?
  6. Youtube- Video sharing bought by Google
  7. Google- HEY everybody knows this one
  8. Video – Generic, presumably YouTube
  9. Internet Explorer – Microsoft.  I’ve heard of them.
  10. Paginas Da Vida – ?
  11. Iraq – don’t go there
  12. Myspace-Social network extraordinaire
  13. Ipod- Apple’s Music Gadget
  14. Second Life- Virtual lives online, Congress may tax this online, somewhat nonexistent world.
  15. Project Runway.  Heidi Klum’s fashion hit

Top Tags –

See, these technorati top tags (below) are really different from the searches, reflecting the tech emphasis of most bloggers.   In fact  I find that I tend to blog about tech stuff in great disproportion to things I find more interesting simply because that’s the most common theme in the blog community and the conferences I blog about.    I’m reading and living that stuff more than, say, political stuff which in many ways is more intriguing.

Blogs and tech sort of “go together”.     I’d like that to change.

  1. wordpress
  2. WP
  3. youtube
  4. Bush
  5. iPod
  6. tagshare
  7. Microsoft
  8. Iraq
  9. web-20
  10. Advertising
  11. rss2
  12. Security
  13. showjournal
  14. China
  15. Yahoo

DMOZ … heal thyself! Wait, you can’t… you are beyond any criticism.

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Well, after about 10 requests at least I got a reply from DMOZ , the ironically named “Open Directory Project”.  Usually requests to become an editor, or comments, or requests for site corrections or additions to this influential but seriously broken directory simply vanish or get scant treatment. At least this time somebody wrote to me:
“I politely request that you do not reapply”

The irony of DMOZ is that they so persistently fail to choose a course to fix the directory, now riddled with bad links, old links, and opportunistic editing. The fix would simply involve accepting more well qualified editor candidates combined with using a more transparent and more PLIGG/DIGG like approach to screening editors and sites (so they could process the huge volume of submissions and corrections effectively).

Yet DMOZ seems to spend much of their time just rejecting editors and defending the project. Over at WebmasterWorld I’ve seen threads with long, careful posts devoted to nothing other than persistent arguing about the merits of DMOZ’s frustratingly inefficient approaches. I’m guessing my posts over there critical of DMOZ’s glaring inadequacies are what got me nixed as an editor.

Would I be a competent Travel Editor for a subcategory of “Oregon Travel”? Seems reasonable given that I’ve worked in the online travel field for over 15 years, have extensive contacts and knowledge of the online landscape in Oregon, and have a Masters of Science in Social Sciences with extensive tourism and online research in my academic and professional background. Yet I’m informed by DMOZ that I’m not worthy because I have …. criticized their project.

The (unsigned) and bipolar reply to my request to be an editor:

Your willingness to volunteer is greatly appreciated and perhaps we will be
able to utilize your talent in the future.
Regards,
The Open Directory Project

Reviewer Comments:
Dear Joseph,
Thank you very much for your application and your interest in the ODP.
However, I feel that given the negative views you appear to have of the project, that this probably isn’t the right hobby for you.
I politely request that you do not reapply,
Kind Regards, [ the email was not signed]

Yahoo – maybe they should change the exclamation point from ! to ?

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It’s getting harder to be bullish on Yahoo even though I personally remain bullish on their long term prospects. Yahoo remains the number one website in the world, the number one video streaming site, and has the best and coolest picture posting community (Flickr). Yahoo has the best understanding and support for the new web aka “Web 2.0” and a robust developer network.

SO WHAT’S the PROBLEM YAHOO ?

Unfortunately for Yahoo and for shareholder me, Google and not Yahoo has been the overwhelming beneficiary of the swelling pots of online advertising money. Google’s contextual matching of websites and searches to advertisements has yielded better returns for publishers and advertisers, creating a very profitable win-win scenario that has made Google the hottest advertising agency…whoops I mean technology company, in history.

Yahoo’s Panama was released yesterday and may help reduce the contextual matching advantage Google has enjoyed for years.

Wall Street doesn’t seem impressed so far, but what do they know anyway?

Picasso’s “La Reve” $139,000,000. Hole in Picasso’s La Reve: Priceless.

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OK, so I’m not a fan of Picaso and really should not think it’s kind of funny that Las Vegas Mogul Steve Wynn wound up elbowing his own masterpiece, planting a large hole in the middle of one of the world’s most valuable paintings.

In fact one of the most enjoyable things I did in Las Vegas last year was tour Wynn’s Bellagio Museum of Art, at that time showing a fantastic impressionist collection with a nice audio tour covering the history of impressionist paintings.

Phew, lucky I kept my Elbows to myself.

Wal-Mart. I like ’em!

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Non-disclaimer:

I have NO stock in Wal-Mart.
I don’t work at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is NOT paying me to blog about Wal-Mart.
I don’t Work for Edelman, Wal-Mart’s Advertising Agency.
I’m not getting paid by Edelman to Blog about Wal-Mart.
I’m not getting paid by Wal-Mart to say I’m not getting paid by Edelman.
I did buy several gallons of paint and some brushes at Wal -Mart, and …
I plan to shop there … again.

Hey, I like Wal-Mart, mostly just for the selfish reason that they are convenient, open most of my waking hours, and have many products at very low prices. I also like the fact that it’s much easier to return things to Wal-Mart than to mom and pop shops.

I’m intrigued that none of the many Wal-Mart detractors I’ve read seems to come up with criticisms that take all factors into account. I want to see people in China, Canada, and Mexico working as well as my fellow Americans. Clearly Wal-Mart’s low pricing, somewhat low wages, and hyper-efficiency make products, and jobs, accessible to those who would otherwise have less. Does the Wal-Martification of commerce lower our averages here in the USA? Perhaps a bit, but not nearly as much as it raises them elsewhere. I’m happy to give up 10% of my standard of living so that India and China standards can rise by 50%. If somebody can direct me to a study showing that Wal-Mart *just looking at the USA job market* puts more people out of work than into work please let me know.

Yes, Wal Mart is going to put some businesses that would charge more for the same stuff out of business, but I think that’s part of the grand plan that’s been working well in the USA for over 225 years. I’ll take a Wal-Mart to a Kim-Jung-Il-Mart any day, any time.

With all the furor surrounding the disclosure that Wal-Mart, via Edelman, funded the “already planned” cross country trip by some bloggers you’d think they’d funded Bonnie and Clyde in a murderous rampage.

I reviewed the controversial blog (now taken down) using cached pages in Google and found it was not only tame, the blog was a high quality, nicely done travelog that reflected the spirit of the road and of American Travel. I’m sorry it’s been taken down!

I think I’m basically in agreement with the points made here by Andrew Young who *does* work for Wal-Mart.

Hey Andrew, when you have a minute can you mix a couple of cans of paint for me?
Whoops – he wound up resigning over wilted lettuce.
I’ll be shopping Wal-Mart, and guess what? So … will …. you.

Guerilla Travel Tips

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A great post by Paul K, who looks spookily like Adam L, with some travel tips. I liked the one about parking yourself outside of an airport lounges for a hit of WIFI access, though if you traveling in more enlighted places like PDX Portland Oregon or MFR Medford Oregon notice that there is WIFI throughout much of the Airport and is … free.

In a little known study – in fact unknown study – it was found that God actually blesses free WIFI Airports with fewer accidents, less terrorism, no crying babies, and happier travelers.

Paypal – now I know where all those usurious fees go!

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A few years back, when I was making more money online, PayPal was a great way to receive payments from advertisers, especially if they were out of the country which otherwise meant you had to wait a long time for checks to clear. But Paypal charged a lot for this – a $1000 dollar transaction from England would cost, as I recall, something like $60 in fees.

The New York Times explains where some of my hard-earned-by-the-sweat-of-my-online-brow money went. After hitting the pockets of Paypal insiders it’s now spreading the gospel of YouTube, LinkedIn, and other Web startups.

I guess that should make me feel better about my little part in feeding funding to the PayPal behemoth, but somehow…. it doesn’t.

Wal-Marting Across America or RVs parking their blog ethics at the door?

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I’m still confused about what seems like a significant overreaction in the blogosphere to Wal Mart’s PR agency Edelman’s decision to sponsor a couple in their RV trip across America. The blog, now called a “fake” by many but not the authors, is WalMartingAcrossAmerica

Onliners, especially bloggers, get more pissed about this type of thing than about, for example, thousands of far, far more significant issues of global significance and ethics, death and destruction and I find that upsetting, intellectually narrow minded, obsessive, and superficial.

So, a big PR firm sponsors a blog that they see will wind up being favorable to Wal Mart? This is surprising? Unethical? If they’d set up the whole thing I’d see it differently, but that does not appear to be the case. They simply were not transparent *enough*, failing to have the bloggers disclose their financial relationship to Wal Mart.

Sure, they deserved to be chastised and called out on this as a breech of transparency, but is this more of a breech than, say, downloading illegal music and videos? Or, for that matter, building entire companies around concepts of illegal downloading? Those guys get cheers and applause and hundred-million dollar paydays.

That said maybe I’m just not reading this right and it was some major ethical breech by Wal Mart/ Edelman.

Here’s my reply to Edelman’s (too thin) apology about all this even as it becomes the top online story by far:

With all due respect this apology seems too thin, and ironically itself sounds like part of the PR-driven rather than the “blog community” approach to the issue which would outline the scoop for everybody and explain how this got so out of hand.

It’s not even clear to me that you seriously defied WOMMA guidelines assuming that things are exactly as described over at the WalMarting Across America blog. Rather it looks like somebody at Edelman saw an excellent and legitimate opportunity and then chose to fund it in a way that turned this into a blog that was too sponsored to retain credibility.

Sheesh – I think I’m articulating your position at greater length than you are?!