Call me dissapointed or perhaps simply jaded but I am not so sure nonhierarchical news sites, despite their promises, are really what they are cracked up to be. I caught up with Joe Petvisashvili, creator of Jaanix.com, and an expert at tackling the problems.

In short, is there anyway to stop the system gaming that threatens to turn “citizen powered media” and free choice into marginalized popularity contests?

Wayne: Why did you start Jaanix?

Joe: I asked myself were there any alternatives to the problem you cited? Is there any way to have a community that can aggregate stories interesting to their users, and one that doesn’t encourage group think and trolling? Is it possible to create a destination that encourages different opinions even those not mainstream, and where the marginal opinions are not shut down and blocked out by trolls?

Wayne: Ok I have worked with Jaanix for awhile, after our conversations on Whuffie, so how is it different?

Joe: For starters there is no front page, there’s no karma, nor points to gain. In my vision users should value quality information and accurate news for the sake of quality and accuracy. This is something that is not only missing in nonhierarchical news sites, but in much of mainstream media. The Internet was supposed to liberate information!

Wayne: O.k. that is a lofty goal so how does it work then?

Joe: There is AI [artificical intelligence] behind the scenes that tries to learn what you find interesting, and tries to make a calculated guess to what’s important for you.

Wayne: I have eclectic tastes Joe. How would it know what’s important to me?

Joe: You’re not alone in the world Wayne, there are other people, and some of have similar interests- this is a matter of simple statistics. By comparing the patterns of likes, clicks and other activity with our technology it can find what is common between you and others and recommend accordingly.

Wayne: Why hasn’t Jaanix become as popular or mainstream as you like. Is it a matter of time, or are there other factors?

Joe: The plethora of other social news out there that have completely discredited the idea of social recommendations. There is no accountability and it is hard to stop group think.

Wayne: Can you give me an some examples or opinions?

Joe: Sure, reddit claims to be offer personalized recommendations while it is really employing simplistic vote counting. This is merely a popularity contest.

Wayne: How about the powerhouse- Digg. I have even managed to get a few stories, in my malware hunting days, on the front page.

Joe: It started out strong but now the front page is totally controlled by a tiny clique of power users while claiming to be a “democracy”. Perhaps the biggest loss is Hacker News – it was the last refuge for the reddit elite is now turning into “dictatorship” of sorts.

Wayne: O.K. Joe what can Jaanix offer users?

Joe: Jaanix is all about empowerment, stewardship and giving you back what you deserve. The more feedback you give - the more valuable information you receive. And there are so many ways you can give feedback: clicking only on things you like is already enough for the recommendation technology to know you, but you can also adjust your preferences dynamically with fast and easy to use sliders. You can even post and save things that you care about into your personal sub-jaanix.

Wayne: Cool. I will be giving it more attention. Thanks for your time Joe and good luck on your mission.

Users who haven’t checked out Jaanix might want to give it a try as an alternative to the household names of recommendation sites. Information is power and money in a virtual world and you are far better off if you are getting the best information. Quality beats quantity anyday in my book. Surf to: http://www.jaanix.com

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I have probably blogged more on Twitter than any other micro-chunking platform, or micro-blogging format if you wish. Call it an addiction, call it fandom, or just let it go.

I have listed some examples below and bold texted posts I felt had more “value”. e.g. Twitter & Social Proprioception

• Why I Stick With Twitter
• Memetic Codes and Games
• Twitter Collision Shocker
• Twitter Tips and Cycles
• Stainless Steel Rats Next-Gen Podcast
• Twitter, Trust and Nature
• Ebay powers Second Life and Live Gamer and Twitter Blackjack
• Second Life Avatar & SMS Language Barrier
• Con Jobs, Twitter, Open Source Self, Death Shovels and My Aftermath
• Twitter Tracking - Twitter does More
• Rube Goldberg, Micro Media and Chain Reactions
• News From Twitter - MTV, People Search, and Nelson the API guy
• iPhone, Second Life and Ambient Findability
• Twitter & Social Proprioception
• Ender’s Game- E’ving Obvious - Twin Fake
• Paying Attention, Earning Attention
• Robert Scoble, Wayne Porter- Scrabulous, Twitter, Blame Ev.
• Media and Social Collision- Crude Timeline
• Accountability, Freedom and Making Room for Micro Media and Our New Worlds
• The Eye of Providence and Video as a Change Agent- Microchunking is more efficient.
• Second Life, MySpace, Twitter and Wings of the Sounds of Thunder
• Japanese Twittering- Security and Coining a Phrase…
• Twitter- NanoBlog or MicroBlog early AM Round Up
• Dodgeball knocked out By Twitter? Google Snacks on DCLK- Is Twitter Next?
• Erik Drexler’s Engines of Creation- From Nano to Metaphor
• Attention Economy, Temporal Challenges of Vlogs - Open Source Revolution & Word Press Plugins
• Thoughts on Second Disability, Second Life, Empathy and a Second Chance?
• SLTWeets- Bleys Delivers Updated SL Twitter Client
• Second Life Disabilities and Second Life to Twitter
• Sermo - MySpace for Physicians? Why not Twitter Enterprise
• Twittering Jobs and Ethics of Twitter Outsourcing
• Twitter Mania- Slowing But Strong- Trends and Regions
• Twitter Gone Adsense? Nice targeting…
• Twitter and Social Media Chain Reactions
• Implicate this Twitter Plugin Professor Harrelson
• Frappr + Twitter = Twitterami.com

How Do You Know Who To Follow?

• The number one thing I look for and follow is the individual’s URL.
• I ask myself is this person aligned with my goals?
• I ask myself will this person contribute knowledge outside of my usual scope or comfort zone?
• I do a quick scan to gauge signal to noise ratio. Don’t get me wrong- I enjoy some of the noise. The “noise” is part of Twitter Proprioception. In layperson’s terms this is the neurological sense that allows one to know not only where one is in space, but also the position and location of each individual part and joint. Twitter Proprioception is knowing where one’s distributed network is and how they are feeling or responding.
• If the noise level is too high, I simply stop following.
• I turn to trusted influencers to see who they follow. A choosy Twitter personality will often have a greater number of followers to those followed. Not always, but for me it has held true.
• Sometimes a quick jump to their favorites gives me some core insight into what they value.
• Occasionally I turn to tools to zero in on quality contacts. http://www.whoshouldifollow.com/ is a good example. (You can follow them at http://twitter.com/wsif )

Twitter Mathematics

I have three Twitter accounts. My primary account shows the following statistics.

F/F Ratio: 285/468 = 0.609 with 1043 updates. My first Tweet was on March 12, 2007*. Given today’s date June 7, 2008 and assuming 30 days per month we get a rough 16 months or 16*30=480. 480 days / 1043 updates gives us approximately 0.460. Half a tweet a day or so.

Someone like Evan Williams, CPO of Twitter, has a F/F ratio like this: 664 / 13,663 = 0.0486or Robert Scoble 21119 / 26554 = 0.795 but you have to couple it with a staggering 12,429 updates. Whew.

I am sure an enterprising mathematician will come along and put these metrics to some sort of pragmatic use (Brian Caldwell?) perhaps a Golden Twitter Ratio so we don’t blow out our neocortex out before quantum computing comes along and allows us to defy Dunbar’s Number. Tactical Twitter Tips or Twitiquette (tweaked from a previous post)

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SL Business Magazine (Second Life)

In a previous entry I checked out Scribd. Scribd is a nifty service that lets you use “iPaper” to distribute your documents. It supports: Adobe PDF (.pdf), Adobe PostScript (.ps), Microsoft Word (.doc), Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps) ,Microsoft Excel (.xls), OpenOffice Text Document (.odt, .sxw) ,OpenOffice Presentation Document (.odp, .sxi), OpenOffice Spreadsheet (.ods, .sxc), All OpenDocument formats, StarOffice Documents, Plain text (.txt), Rich text format (.rtf) and I probably missed some.

So far I like the service, it is more robust than SlideShare which is more focused on the diabolical Power Point. You can use the shockwave ”iPaper” above or read this document, SL Business, December issue on Scribd: SL Business Magazine 05DEC. Thumbs up!

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In an effort to move on from more morose posts, I will do so. I thank everyone for the deluge of e-mail, comments, IM and even phone calls. Some people shared some very interesting, intense and often very personal stories- thank you.

For the record, I have not gone underground (thanks for paying attention Fleep), but I have been put on extended medical leave due to some unknown neurological problems. Right now my right hand and more my left hand have been greatly affected. Namely- no sensation and impaired fine motor movement in several fingers- continued tingling, pins and needles feeling and it is not as simple as carpal tunnel syndrome. A battery of tests commences, but it is very difficult to type and I have felt extremely fatigued.

I am trying out voice recognition software, so I can post occasional piece out of boredom, but the last post on Death and Shovels made me pay attention to what it is really important and for once I will shut my trap and follow my doctor’s sage advice to the letter- no work, zero out the stress, get proper rest and nutrition, and take my supplements. I still haven’t regained sensation in my hands which is very troubling as nerve damage can be irreversible, but I hope it is not permanent. But in case you have tried to reach me- now you know.

On that note I give you an interesting contraption and “does nothing” is good advice. Despite the name “The Does-Nothing-o-Matic”, this video of a Rube Goldberg-like-contraption (see below for extracts from Rube Goldberg’s biography) is perhaps a good “visual aid” to illustrate micro media and the sometimes obscure social chain reactions that can be evoked and traced. As Rosenberg says- video is frozen knowledge. At the very least this video is pretty entertaining and a good way to get someone’s attention (the comments about Congress are amusing too).

For those unfamiliar with Goldberg ( who did not make the crazy, complex contraption in the video above)…

*Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor, and author.

Reuben Lucius Goldberg (Rube Goldberg) was born in San Francisco. His father, a practical man, insisted he go to college to become an engineer. After graduating from University of California Berkeley, Rube went to work as an engineer with the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department.

He continued drawing, and after six months convinced his father that he had to work as an artist. He soon got a job as an office boy in the sports department of a San Francisco newspaper. He kept submitting drawings and cartoons to his editor, until he was finally published. An outstanding success, he moved from San Francisco to New York drawing daily cartoons for the Evening Mail. A founding member of the National Cartoonist Society, a political cartoonist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Rube was a beloved national figure as well as an often-quoted radio and television personality during his sixty-year professional career.

Through his “INVENTIONS”, Rube Goldberg discovered difficult ways to achieve easy results. His cartoons were, as he said, symbols of man’s capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results. Rube believed that there were two ways to do things: the simple way and the hard way, and that a surprisingly number of people preferred doing things the hard way.

Rube’s drawings depict absurdly-connected machines functioning in extremely complex and roundabout ways to produce a simple end result; because of this RUBE GOLDBERG has become associated with any convoluted system of achieving a basic task.

Hardly a day goes by without The New York Times, National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or some other major media invoking the name Rube Goldberg to describe a wildly complex program, system or set of rules such as our “Rube Goldberg-like tax system”. The annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University, which is covered widely by the national media, brings Rube’s comic inventions to life for millions of fans.

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I love e-mails from Ev at Twitter…the microchunking revolution marches on- thanks Sam for driving me nuts with those SMS calls at the Gonzo inspired summit.

I can’t wait to see what Don comes out with the next iteration of SLTWeets.com, as I understand it- something universities and educators like Fleep will love.

FLEEP AND STEVE

Ironically, as an aside, following the initial exposure via a video widget first injected by Steve, multiple Twitter back and forths over months, see timeline, Fleep and I had a brief waltz in the Church of Waltz in Second Life and weeks later she got to (lucky her) hang out late at night and listen to collegues in my social group ramble about pseudo-intellectual things. Even cooler we are meeting up in the educational track at the SL convention this weekend in Chicago (my wife’s anniversary gift)…..I really get excited about twitter/video chain reactions. Anything that makes me cut a video and buy an iPhone is significant- at least for me.

From the team at Twitter…

TWITTER PEOPLE SEARCH

It’s new feature season and we’re starting with People Search. This new Twitter feature is great for finding more people to follow because it searches profile information such as name, location, bio, and url. Come on by and find out if your friends are already Twittering and you just didn’t know it! The search field is on the right side of Twitter when you sign in:
http://twitter.com

TWITTER & MTV

We’re partnering with MTV for the Video Music Awards next month. They have some fun ideas which involve artists and celebrities including the MTV Moonman twittering from Las Vegas during the whole weekend leading up to the VMA broadcast on Sunday, September 9th. Also, Twitter’s gonna be on TV! We’re looking forward to it. The artists who will be joining Twitter are popular and you can get their updates by following the Video Music Awards
on Twitter.

Follow VMA: http://twitter.com/vma

NELSON, EX-GOOGLER, is NOW A TWITTER DUDE

Speaking of celebrities, the genius behind Google’s Search API is Nelson Minar. Nelson left Google a while back but joined Twitter months ago as a permanent advisor. Nelson continues to provide us with engineering advice, helps us work through scaling and infrastructure details, and in general brings more engineering “gravitas” to our operation. Nelson is a such valued part of the Twitter team we gave him an iPhone preloaded with all our phone
numbers.

So yeah, Nelson rocks. http://twitter.com/nelson

End of Mail……Emphasis added by me- excited by Twitter- where you can catch me…on your own schedule- that is the point.

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Deconstructing only on what I know. Stream that acts recursively to site or dated.

- Ponder Path of Widgets on February 2, 2007 via Steve.

- Go Gonzo and exposed to Twitter via Sam. Post at RN January 21, 2007

- Note Twit to Sam March, 16, 2007

- Twitter Tracking with Fleep date unknown.

- Fleep makes a tweet (short post) about a teacher’s conference on March 14, 2007

- I follow her stream, blog on March 18, 2007.

- Meanwhile, Fleep reads my old post on March 14, 2007

- Her Read based on my blog on Steve’s embeded widget dated March 26, 2007,

- Retrograde Note: Know Steve via Brian Clark’s (circa 1999) and series of posts- summed up August, 28, 2006.

- Fleep tweets about the video. March 18, 2007

- The entire loop prompts me to document the action in a blog entry March 18, 2007

- Injected back into Twitter March 18, 2007

- This inspired by Sam on Twitter adoption story via WSJ March 16, 2007

- Sam’s blog based on Wall Street Journal story March 16, 2007

- Circle completes and I “meet” Fleep July 27th, 2007

- Recap with addendum. August 2, 2007

- August 2, 2007 injected into facebook…perhaps via twitter.

There has to be more. I cannot see it all- maybe Steve can shed light on widget views of the video? It still sits at University of Cincinnati and on blogs. What effect continues to pulse from this “frozen knowledge”

Commonly called “social media”- it is really only media that we socialize around.

Note the players in the pattern- blog, video, widgets, twitter, conversation, inspiration, virtual meeting…and elements unknown.

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Biz Partner and business visionary Vinny Lingham has launched Synthasite into alpha. I know Vinny, I know he is damn smart (Yeah ok… Kwisatz Haderach smart), and I have high hopes for Synthasite…and while this news is a bit late on my blog- I am looking forward to the beta version.

Synthasite, an AJAX based Web Publishing Platform, emerged today from stealth mode. The 6-person startup based in Cape Town, South Africa was recently spun out from the incuBeta group as a separate stand-alone company that will focus on delivering a world class web based software platform for web publishing, focusing specifically on Widgets & Mashups. Synthasite looks and feels like desktop software, but remains firmly rooted in the browser with no reliance on client side technology.

Facebook Tangent Alert

I wonder if Vinny will tap into Facebook?…of course one might read the TOS behind Facebook, because it really is just that- your face, your life, your friends- like a book. Not that Web 2.0 hasn’t made it one already- think of it is more a Bible. But funds setup and earmarked to monetize Facebook? The value is in the data if you ask me. Time to go see I guess.

I mean imagine Google’s Grand Central fused with Facebook, caramelized with Google Analytics…uber social network. Ripe for engineers like Brian Clark and ripe for others…

Things are changing from widgetry to Nielson sobering up over pageviews (think engagement), and while some call it insanity…these dozens of fast-tracked, micro-investments are a pittance compared to what really sits in the value of Facebook- it is not insanity too me.

Check out this Video from Google and a talk from Fred from UNC Chapel Hill and his research into “The Facebook”. Yes according to Fred- Facebook owns your campus. Zoho has tapped in, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon (ebay) has tapped in, even colleague Steve Rosenbaum has tapped Magnify into FaceBook. (Steve- yes people taking JPGs of JPGs!)….

One takeaway from the research talk Fred finds that friends in Facebook “are not real”, they are not quite like the friendships we form off line. I see the SAME type of behaviors in Second Life- friendship formation is not the same as face-to-face friendship formation- even with an avatar as proxy. People are hanging out and learning about each other. Second Life is different though, in the Facebook you are identity sharing, in Second Life the identity you share is not quite the same…

Also pay close attention to the concept of situational relevance. IN particular freshman who must renegotiate their “social network” and identity formulation and reformulation. This is the hinge pin of Facebook’s success. Again similar principles with Second Life where people can “try on” different identities…in a “walled garden”…

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An early AM post…Wrap up the day before I start…special thoughts are with Twitter which is undergoing surgery: “We will be performing planned acupuncture of the Twitter server from 1AM-3AM PST, so if you’re typing an update between those times do it very slowly.”. Ouch.

- Congrats to JDA on entering fatherhood and reporting his child’s measurements like a fish.

- A nice discussion regarding Twitter Versus Blogger. The value is in the comments.

- Sam also goes on to write about Google and Gadgets. I wrote about that too- at leat a bit of history. I like Vista’s Gadgets…. Oddly enough Yahoo! was way ahead of the game, but I don’t think people got “Konfabulator”. Now Google will monetize them. I seem to recall Cashpile having an application circa 1998 or so that was much like a widget, but the high CPM’s killed it. It was called a “Pallate”, or something to that effect.

Sam says:

“The link is dead. Content customization based on a relationship (even as simple as user registration or co-registration) and micro-systems of delivery of that content is the new black. Affiliate marketing, with its ability to make relationships, has a great opportunity to make use of widgets and widget delivery to set the larger industry standard.”

Co-registration is pretty weak, in terms of a relationship, but a relationship it is. The race for your desktop and your cell phone are on.

- I have been playing Trendio a bit- now this is a game that is perhaps best played via a widget with a website to support it…i found it when the creator added me to his Twitter pool. Word of advice to guys in Stockholm- Geotarget IPs so Americans are served up ads where they can shop- or perhaps not- maybe exposure to other venues is good…I wish someone would tell me where to find the source code to Solar Realms Elite- an old BBS game.

- Which leads me to the “tagging meme” on productivity- per Andrew Wee. I paricipated in this one and was pleased to see it circle around and found this blogger in Malayasia- Cikgu Azleen. She writes, “I’ll share you one of my secret. Go to other blogs and write about their post. Don’t just write about anything they wrote. Choose something that is related to your niche and blogs about it. Create something sensational or curiosity.”

My humble advice is to write about what you are passionate about- what motivates you- in your own voice and style. Take chances and take risks with your thoughts and ideas. You won’t need the adsense blackhat book.

Part deux coming up.

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Sam again reports that Google is testing “Gadget Ads”. I find the choice of name interesting…and I still can’t figure this out.

Many of refer to these small applications as “widgets”, actually Google Labs refers to the Mac O/S flavor as a widget although lately we see their iterations as a “gadget”.

Microsoft calls them gadgets. When I search Google for “Microsoft widgets” I end up with a link to Microsoft Gadgets- a stand alone domain. In the MSFT world we have:

Web gadgets: run on a web site, such as Live.com or Spaces.Live.com
Sidebar gadgets: run on the desktop or be docked onto, run on the Windows Sidebar.
SideShow gadgets: run on auxiliary external displays, e.g. potentially mobile phones and other devices.

While we are on mobile let us not forget about ZenZui. Spun out of Microsoft as a separate company ZenZui’s mobile widget technology was developed by Microsoft’s Research lab, patented by Microsoft and Microsoft also helped the group raise funding and acquire tech.

Yahoo calls them widgets with their latest release- yes now it is simply Yahoo! Widgets. No more ‘Engine’. e.g. Yahoo Widget Engine (formerly known as Konfabulator).

If you want to really want to muck about in that debate you will note Apple’s Dashboard and Konfabulator. Here both programs used the term “widget” to describe the applications they ran. Apple was using the term “gadgets” to describe the widgets Dashboard ran before switching to “widgets” during the course of Mac OS X Tiger’s development for unknown reasons.

One one would think we could use a standard here? Perhaps the underlying technology they support, as well as the O/S, and their intended place of use (desktop, web page, mobile) helping define the debate. Which at this point might be irrelevant. Think-a-ma-bob might suffice for most.

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