Category Archives: Web 2.0

Novamente – teaching virtual entities to “fetch”

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A sign that things are starting to hop in the field of artificial intelligence is how a topic of conversation that would have been considered fanciful – or even insane – some 20 years ago would now be fair game at any Silicon Valley pub or coffee shop.    Novamente is a fascinating company doing fascinating development and research guided in part by the idea that the best path to computer general artificial intelligence (that is, intelligence much like we humans have) is through a similar-to-human-intelligence  learning path.    To this end Novamente is teaching virtual entities to fetch, recognize themselves, and other early stages in human learning.   This is taking place in part in the Second Life virtual world.  

Sounds crazy?   Just a game?  I don’t think so.  It may be optimistic to think that AI thinking can come about in this way, but it’s sure worth a try.   

Novamente

Why Blogs are better than Google.

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Today, as I searched for some breaking news and technology insights, I was struck by how much better informed you tend to be after reading a few blogs targeted to a topic (and following related links and sites and ask questions) than when you simply search Google (or Yahoo or MSN or, if you enjoyed the silly and short lived TV campaign, ASK).    

Don’t get me wrong – I like the search engines and I love the way you can quickly winnow through billions of pages down to the handful that are relevant and good for your topic.     But I’m noticing how increasingly I wind up turning to blogs *first* for the best news, links, and insight.    I’m beginning to understand why I’m doing that, and why it’s a big deal.

There are the obvious advantages to blogs over websites.   They are fresher (ie recent and new content) – especially compared to Google searches that often yield so much old content.   They usually offer some community components so you feel like you are “where the action is” on topics.   This is usually true for major blogs.  TechCrunch is a key watering hole for startups, HuffingtonPost.com for liberal political folks, etc.

However these advantages are secondary to the fact that as blogs mature they offer an excellent “human powered search engine” for your niche of interest, and as we all know humans still beat out computers in terms of understanding what information is most relevant to our inquiry when it is a broad field of interest.

Again, the TechCrunch Technology blog is a great example of this.  A search in Google for “startups” or “technology news” or “venture capital” will give some good results, but even a careful study of those results won’t give you nearly the insight you’ll get from a one hour session at TechCrunch.     Even a Silicon Valley startup new arrival – or distant silicon startup wannabe, could sound like a veteran if they simply kept up with the parade of posts from Mike Arrington and his clever crowd at TechCrunch.

I think this blog advantage breaks down as you move into very specific topics, but it’s going way up as an advantage in the study of general topics as blogs explode and gather traction and community.     Of course there are caveats to this.   Learning in any form takes time, and you would never simply stuble into a blog about a topic without checking other blogs and sites related to that.   But my point is that once you find “the key blogs” about a topic, even if it is a contentious one, you’ll find through those blogs links, references, breaking news, and a community of other interested parties.   This complex, interactive, cross referenced community experience is how humans learn best, and the internet is making that type of learning exponentially easier to obtain.     

Google Phone – gPhone’s Android is landing?

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Google is *incredibly* good at keeping secrets, and the rumors of a new gPhone or Google Phone have been flying for some time.   However CNET’s Tom Krazit is reporting tonight that Google, on Monday, will unleash “Android”, an open source approach to mobile phones.     As they have with Open Social, Google will unveil an open source approach to development of mobile software.    How do you know it’s going to be good?    Google does not do bad software.   In fact the Apple iPhone’s most compelling feature – mapping – was driven by Google software.

As I noted before about  Google’s Phone ambitions this is another brilliant move which is clearly seeking to dominate the mobile advertising space rather than try to develop and market new hardware.   

Google’s mantra could not be clearer if it was listed on every home page on earth:  “Free software by anybody and for everybody.  Monetization by ….. Google.

The Social Network Reality Show: High stakes, big money, false rumors.

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The game is social networks.  The stakes are very high, and the news and rumors are flying fast, furiously, and inaccurately.   Here is the latest in the saga of Google’s Social Networking entry which, with Myspace’s participation, is the new Social Networking juggernaut (though it remains to be seen how all the participants will use it). 

More on the Open Social vs Facebook battle for the hearts and minds of developers and, far more importantly, users:

1)  After a 240,000,000 partnership with Microsoft the blogs (including here) lit up soon after suggesting that Facebook recieved another 500 million from two other private groups.   This was false.   It is very conspicuous in my view that the rumor rose and spread so fast, and that Facebook did nothing to quell that rumor.  This news is still shaking out over at TechCrunch which reported the rumor of the 500 million and now reports it was false.   Another example of how news at the speed of real time may not be news at all.

2) Google says Open Social is open to Facebook and all are welcome (I believe them).

3) Facebook says Google was not keeping them in the loop on Open Social (I believe that as well)

4) Facebook says they may join the Open Social movement, but suggest they have their own great stuff coming shortly.    I’m skeptical they can “out open” Google, though they probably could come up with some great new social networking applications quickly.  

However on balance I think Facebook really is in big trouble here.     Much of the recent hype – which was overdone anyway – assumed that Facebook would be the key beneficiary of the boom in social networking.   The reasoning suggested that although Myspace is  bigger than Facebook it was a “closed” environment, favored by a demographic that has far less value to advertisers.    Facebook, that thinking went, will continue to grow explosively, open up gradually, target advertising very directly, and become the dominant social networking platform. 

Then there was Facebook’s refusal to sell to Yahoo for a reported 1+ billion.  This was followed by big negotiations with many key players, culminating a (much overhyped) 240 million deal with Microsoft to cooperate, run MS Live searches, and drive some MS and Facebook advertising.    Then came the false rumor of 500,000,000 more in capital which for many seemed to solidify Facebook’s valuation of 15 billion – a somewhat sloppy projection of the Microsoft partnership price.

So, what is Facebook worth in an Open Social world where even Myspace is a Google partner?   No, the answer is not 15 billion.

Myspace to join Google’s Open Social. Facebook’s value plunges.

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It is a mildly risky but potentially brilliant counterstrike against Facebook’s rising popularity.  Myspace will announce shortly that they are joining the Open Social movement spearheaded by Google and which is now officially a social juggernaut of global proportions.    TechCrunch seems to have the latest on this breaking story.

If Facebook was worth 15 billion yesterday I’d suggest it just dropped by more than 50% in value.   Why?   Without Myspace’s hundreds of millions of users Open Social looked like it would be a third player in the field, struggling to catch up with the user bases of Myspace and Facebook and keep up with Facebook development.   But  not any more.  With Myspace, Open Social instantly becomes the key social network, dwarfing Facebook by any reasonable measure of prominence.   Can new Facebook partner Microsoft help sway onliners and developers to stick with Facebook’s “partly open” architecture instead of defecting to what appears to be a very open Google architecture?   No way.

Google Open Social – wazzup?

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It seems like the code for Google’s 3 “Open Social” APIs should be at Google Code but I can’t find the Open Social APIs, or even any mention of Open Social, at Google yet.   Maybe it’s been delayed or maybe TechCrunch’s earlier reports of a Nov 5 launch, rather than today, were correct?

It’s a typical internet deal where everybody is talking about something that has not even hit yet. 

  

Google Social Challenge – users do not follow developers, developers chase users.

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Tech is buzzing with Google’s plan to enter the social network space today with Google OpenSocial, a set of APIs that will allow rapid development of social networking applications across several sites that are working with Google now, such as Friendster and LinkedIn.   UPDATE:  and Myspace

At this point it appears Google Social will not allow better convergence of applications with Facebook, and it seems unlikely (let’s assume a zero percent chance) that Facebook and their new partner Microsoft are going to work hard to make the social network space a big, open, happy family run by Google via Google Social.   UPDATE:  Myspace just joined the Google Open Social Network.

Myspace is still the key player here with some 5x as many users as Facebook, depending on which metric you use to figure out traffic, users, subscribers, pageviews, or attention.

This will certainly lead to a surge of initial activity as developers chase the users of those sites – a user base that is substantial – Marc Andreessen says 100,000,000 users which would be more than twice Facebook’s user base.  Update – Google is now accessing far more of the key users than Facebook.   

  Can Google social resurrect Friendster?    Maybe, if the APIs are good enough that we can carry profiles in and out of sites seamlessly. 

I’m speculating here but would guess that the Google move is going to quickly shake up the Social space into three camps:  Two?  One camp?    Facebook+MSN, and Myspace+Google Social which will tie together thousands of existing and new social environments.    

Facebook is obviously the key player to watch.  The stakes are about as high as they can get and I bet Marc Zuckerberg and his brilliant Facebook gang have corked the champagne bottles and deciding how to move ahead.   Prediction:  They’ll stay the course with moderatly openness and will reject Google Social.

Given that many have been looking for a ‘one stop’ social network stop is there room for more players in this space?   Certainly yes given this open approach.    It’s even possible (though I think unlikely) that enough users would insist on the new open standards that they could push Myspace and Facebook to line up with Open Social.   Update: Myspace is on board now.

Here’s a simpy *superb* summary of the emerging landscape by Google partner and web pioneer Marc Andreessen of Netscape and now Ning.   

Google as Social Network = THE killer application?

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Google’s acting social at the Googleplex and this could become an earthquake in the social network landscape.   TechCrunch reports that Maka Maka appears to be the Google codename for their social network integration, which may be a way to tie together existing Google stuff in a seamless and user friendly way.   For many of us Google aleady has a lot of info.   I use Gmail, Google Toolbar, and more.  If they simply say to me “click here and we’ll make it all work great” I’m going to do it.    If it works, I’ll keep it.  If I, and 50,000,000 other users keep it Google will be bigger than Facebook….almost overnight.  If they integrate it all with the upcoming Google Phone?   Wow.

TechCrunch:
The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network.

Hey Yahoo!   Why don’t you DO THIS!    Use Mash to get all Yahoo users going.  Don’t ask others to sign them up – simply have a  one click Mash page creation thing where YOU set up a page for all Yahoo users…..right NOW.    If people want to delete it, fine.  If not, rock on with the new largest social network, and populate it with people …. later.

User content myth?

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Chuqui 3.0 has a nice piece challenging the hype over “user generated content”.   He suggests that it’s inappropriate to call simple profile pages at Facebook or Myspace “user content”, and that only about 1% of users are generating most of the content in social network sites.    

I’m torn between wanting to agree that things are overblown about this and my basic assumption – social content of both high quality (serious bloggers) and low quality (myspace TV show notes from a 12 year old)  is driving the new web and will continue to do so for some time.     Tons of content is pouring in and even by a high measure of “quality” people already have more than they could read in a lifetime.    It’s hard to make a case that the popular YouTube videos are quality, yet they are generally viewed far more than most quality web pages talking about relevant news or science or yada yada.

So, is the importance of user content of mythological proportions?  

No, but thanks for a thoughful post Chuqui!  

San Jose Mercury News – A Cautionary Tale from Business Week

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There is a great summary at Business Week of the  remarkable rise and pending fall of Silicon Valley’s newspaper – the San Jose Mercury News.     They note that in many ways the Mercury News saw it all coming, but still failed to position itself to profit from the migration of offline info to online info.  

Although the article does not make this point, to me the failure supports the idea that paradigm shifts do not come from old systems evolving into new ones even when the old systems “get it”, rather they come from new folks thinking out of the old boxes and building the next generation of innovative solutions basically from scratch.  

Obviously new technology rests on the shoulders of old technology, but it seems reasonable to assume that the next big things are not going to come from the previous big things, they are going to spring up from the harsh, quirky, and shifting sands of technology and innovation.     I would suggest that IBM might be an exception to this notion but clearly Microsoft, then Yahoo and Google, now YouTube, Myspace and Facebook all fit this model of major changes coming more from scratch than from a slow simmering of existing ideas.     This also helps explain the challenges of Venture Capitalism in finding “the next big thing”, which may right now only be known by the glimmer in a college kid’s eye.

If so, who is next?