November 6, 2007

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Seeing the wrong things

November 6, 2007 in Science | 2 comments

It’s happening again, only this time it’s my right eye that’s giving me blue flashes and vision filled with floaters. Very annoying.

New World Disorder

November 6, 2007 in Journalism, News, problems, Uncategorized, VRM | 2 comments

Chaos theory: advertising cash will soon decrease, by Jeff Jarvis in the Guardian. I get quoted:

  Advertising is no one’s first choice as the basis of a relationship. For marketers, it’s expensive and inefficient. For customers, it’s invasive and annoying. And targeted advertising is only slightly more efficient and slightly less annoying. Clearly, the direct relationship between a customer and a company is preferable. But that direct connection cuts out the middlemen – that is the media.

  The Advertising Age media critic Bob Garfield dubs this the “chaos scenario”, arguing that total advertising spending – which long stayed stable and merely shifted among media – will now decrease. Blogger Doc Searls contends that on the internet, “supply and demand will find each other . . . Advertising will still be part of that picture, but it won’t fund the whole thing.” Beth Comstock, a digital exec at NBC Universal, complains that every business pitch she hears is ad-supported. “It’s just not going to be possible,” she said recently. “There are not going to be enough advertising dollars in the marketplace – no matter how clever we are, no matter what the format is.”

  There won’t be enough to support us in media in the manner to which we’ve become accustomed. And it’s hard to imagine what other business models will come along to fund us.

It’s hard, but necessary. And far from impossible.

Toward a new search engine, powered by you

November 6, 2007 in Future, Places, problems, Science | 15 comments

I ran into Jeremie Miller yesterday in an elevator here at the hotel where is happening in Denver. I last spoke to Jeremie while working on a story/interview with him for Linux Journal. Atlas: Hoisting a New World of Search is now up, and things have been moving along on the Atlas project, now titled Search Wikia.

Jeremie is the father of Jabber and its protocol, XMPP. I see he’ll be among those talking this morning. He’s always sensible and provocative at the same time. Looking forward to what he says. As for where he wants to take search, here’s an excerpt from one of his blog posts that I used in the piece I wrote as well:

  Meaning, the process of converting Information into Knowledge. To give meaning to information, is to make it useful, to have context, to enable understanding, to empower. Information simply exists, a commodity, dimensionless. When information has meaning it can become knowledge, and that is perhaps the most important process humankind has ever practiced, to learn…

  The future of search is in open cooperation (and competition) based on a Meaning Economy—create meaning, exchange meaning, serve meaning.

  My vision begins with an open protocol, allowing independent networks of search functions (crawling, indexing, ranking, serving, etc.) to peer and interop. All relationships between these networks are always fully transparent and openly published. Networks exchange knowledge between them, each adding new meaning to the information, each of them responsible for the reputations of their participants and peers. This is the very foundation of a Meaning Economy.

By coincidence last night I had a chance to talk with JC Herz about a range of topics that broadly revolve around what I’m beginning think is The Same Thing, though I’m not sure what that Thing is yet. Meanwhile JC will be speaking here as well today, on Visualization of Social Intelligence. Visualization is not a strength of search as we’ve come to know it. (Though I’m glad Technorati has brought its results-over-time chart back. Here’s the one for defrag conference.) So I’m imagining possibilities here.

Yesterday afternoon’s rapid round of mini-keynotes, by Dick Hardt, Esther Dyson, myself and Ross Mayfield (in that order) brought suggestions afterwards that we had attempted to talk about the same basic thing, which was people. At lest we all seemed to be coming at tech from the people perspective. There was, however, no collusion at all. Just coincidence, or something like it. For in-depth reports on this and other Defrag Stuff, look here, here, and here.

The high point for me, by the way, came early with David Weinberger’s opening talk, about what’s implicit, rather than explicit. David’s an outstanding speaker, and this was the best of his best. Deep, moving and just amazing. The first remark from the audience was from a woman who said “I didn’t expect to cry at a tech conference keynote”.

David outlines his talk here, concluding,

  Defrag — our generational project, not just this conference — isn’t about reassembling pieces. It’s not about clarity and simplicity. It’s about how we are finding ways to let the world matter to us together. For that we need to enable, cherish, and protect the unspoken between us.

Is there a thread that connects between all that he and the rest of us said, and are saying, especialy about search? I think so.

Meanwhile, here’s JP on the a rare convergence.