Clear Night Sky explores themes of digital communications and culture from a variety of sources and points of view and is brought to you by Clear Ink.
social media
Search as a Social Medium -or- The 800-Pound Gorilla of Gorilla Weights
Submitted by Steve Nelson on Fri, 2008-09-19 12:29. emergent properties | gorillas | Search | social mediaI'm working a presentation that includes the concept of search as social media, both in terms of ranking algorithms that are based on socializing links, as well as how search results can expose emergent properties of social consensus. An example of the latter arose as I was writing about the gorilla among wikis, and deciding how much that gorilla should weigh. Let's check Google:
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Obviously, "800-pound gorilla" is the 800-pound gorilla of gorilla weights, even though adult males average about 400 pounds, are about 500 pounds at the extreme in the wild, and obese gorillas tip the scales at about 600 pounds in captivity.
Why 800? Maybe someone out there knows. What do you see in the other values? A 100-pound gorilla? Really? The values are higher around realistic gorilla weights, then drop off at 700 before spiking at 800. At 900 they are relatively high but then drop at again 1000. Why not 1000? Is it because people want to say an "X hundred pound gorilla" and not a "thousand pound gorilla" - so "ten hundred" doesn't work? Then, past 1000, there are some little spikes. Not 1100, but 1200. Not 1300 or 1400, but 1500 and 1600. I guess 1600 is two 800-pound gorillas. Then not a single 1700 pound gorilla to be found, but when you get to a ton, you're up there again.
This is a silly example, of course, but with a little thought, I'm sure you could construct some searches that show you social consensus points for other kinds of data.
Social Media: Loosening the Grips on Personal Identity
Submitted by Steve Nelson on Tue, 2008-08-05 12:44. employment | Facebook | identity | social media | Social Networking | soulI'm starting to form some ideas about online projections of personal identity and the degree to which an employer can say "yea" or "nay". Here’s a post by a fired CNN blogger Chez Pazienza that includes CNN's new "Policy Regarding Personal Writings Online”, where CNN spells out what an employee can and can’t say on a site such as Facebook.
In my collection of Facebook profiles of friends and colleagues I see very few that are designed to represent only their corporate side; something about the medium induces them to project a more complete view of their character in full.
Yet companies such as CNN interpret this view through a very special filter: this soul is mine.
Personal blogs by people who also happen to work for someone have been around all decade (and then some), and their mass may be mined to determine what’s in the head of any individual. But the physiology of Facebook is based on a structure that reveals more about an individual in fuller context, very digestible. Yes, you’ll see someone’s work network and associates, but alongside their college buddies, neneighbors and lifelong friends. You’ll see the business books they’ve read on the same shelf as their manga or pulp novels. You’ll see their next business conference and their next kegger. You’ll see who they work for and who they’ll vote for. You’ll see who they really are.
Among other things CNN doesn’t want you to list your political affiliation on your Facebook page, because they don’t see CNN as being a part of you, but you are a part of CNN.
I don’t think the new social media is going to work that way; I see people developing a wider sense of free agency. Their character does include their employer, but is more widely defined. Of course, CNN is ultimately free to make their own rules as to who they will hire or fire, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.
Perhaps the middle ground (at least in the case of Facebook) is that an employer can establish standards for employees who wish to identify with the employer’s network (a Facebook-specific construct requiring a company email address). Identifying with a network is voluntary, but can also be seen as a privilege based on accepting certain conditions. You don’t accept them, OK, you’re free to express yourself, but not fly the network tag.
Is this actually a new turn of the page, has the medium changed the rules, or does the old work-life balance still prevail?
In my collection of Facebook profiles of friends and colleagues I see very few that are designed to represent only their corporate side; something about the medium induces them to project a more complete view of their character in full.
Yet companies such as CNN interpret this view through a very special filter: this soul is mine.
Personal blogs by people who also happen to work for someone have been around all decade (and then some), and their mass may be mined to determine what’s in the head of any individual. But the physiology of Facebook is based on a structure that reveals more about an individual in fuller context, very digestible. Yes, you’ll see someone’s work network and associates, but alongside their college buddies, neneighbors and lifelong friends. You’ll see the business books they’ve read on the same shelf as their manga or pulp novels. You’ll see their next business conference and their next kegger. You’ll see who they work for and who they’ll vote for. You’ll see who they really are.
Among other things CNN doesn’t want you to list your political affiliation on your Facebook page, because they don’t see CNN as being a part of you, but you are a part of CNN.
I don’t think the new social media is going to work that way; I see people developing a wider sense of free agency. Their character does include their employer, but is more widely defined. Of course, CNN is ultimately free to make their own rules as to who they will hire or fire, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.
Perhaps the middle ground (at least in the case of Facebook) is that an employer can establish standards for employees who wish to identify with the employer’s network (a Facebook-specific construct requiring a company email address). Identifying with a network is voluntary, but can also be seen as a privilege based on accepting certain conditions. You don’t accept them, OK, you’re free to express yourself, but not fly the network tag.
Is this actually a new turn of the page, has the medium changed the rules, or does the old work-life balance still prevail?
Ask.com and iLike combine to make something beautiful.
Submitted by Chris Wilhelmi on Thu, 2007-06-07 09:51. Advertising | Analytics | social media | Social NetworkingAsk.com recently released their updated interface, and I have to say it's quite amazing. The initial screen is nice esthetically but it seems like any other search engine, however once you submit things begin to change rapidly from google and yahoo. A three paned page emerges with search modification options/suggestions on the left margin, and then paid and natural search results emerge in the body pane. Then, depending on what your searching for the right pane will either not appear for obscure searches, or will present a depth of content for broader searches. If you search for a band you will see images first, followed by music (with samples built in) powered by iLike.com, then it will show videos (which begin playing in place when you hover over them), or encyclopedia listings from wiki. The new interface is pushing google to launch a similar change in the near future where search results will be a mix of videos, images etc. since google users have been avoiding using the tabs/categories...even after google recently made the menu bar like approach common through most of their applications.
But the most impressive thing is that the new ask.com turned me onto iLike.com. For a while I've heard music geeks like myself complaining about missing one of their favorite bands when they were in town, or being out of touch with new music since they only listen to their iTunes... iLike uses the facebook platform with a plugin for iTunes and contact importing from the major web email providers to make one of the most holistic social music sites out there. Right away you send invites to your friends, then you install the iTunes plugin and populate what kind of music you like and your favorite artists. From there the fun begins, all of those artists you imported from iTunes are now displayed when you want to find out who is going to be on tour in your area...and it's directly connected with ticketmaster. The other really interesting feature is that it's tied into garageband.com so when you're listening to some of your old standby artists it will recommend similar new artists and let you download their mp3s for free. Compared to the other social music options out there...I like iLike.
How all of this will come together and who may or may not buy iLike and whether the new ask.com interface will grow their 5% search share are TBD...but I know the data implications are amazing for whomever may snatch up iLike considering the advertising opportunities...and the search behavior on Ask.com as well as video advertising opportunities could be quite revolutionary.
