Tuesday, June 25, 2002

"Cogent and pithy" is high praise! (see?) I liked both of John Gregorio's essays A LOT! "Cogent and pithy" is high praise!  I liked both of Joe Gregorio's essays A LOT! (He wrote...) Cogent and Pithy. Jon Schull has posted a response to my Heisenberg and Google. At least he liked my other essay The Internet and GPL as a text-file ecosystem. [BitWorking]   comments? [] 10:39:22 PM     Small World Converging: Alan Reiter, Starbucks, PBS, and Wireless Promotion On the road:  Using T-Mobile at Starbucks I'm ashamed to admit this, but I have never used MobileStar (now T-Mobile Wireless Broadband)....until now.  There just weren't hotstpots where or when I needed them.  But I'm in San Francisco now, attending the PBS annual conference, and knew that you practically trip over Starbucks in downtown SF, and they all (most?) have WiFi.  ... (Now that I think about it, there is a wireless tie-in to the PBS conference.  Thomas Wheeler, the president of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, is on the board of PBS.  Whew, that was close -- how can I do anything without mentioning wireless?) ... Update!  I went to Glenn Fleishman's 802.11b Networking News, the god of WiFi Weblogs, and found...Warchalking!  The Warchalking site is about "collaboratively creating a hobo-language for free wireless networking"!  Glenn's ready!  He's getting out his laptop, external antenna, Macstumbler and chalk!  ... Speaking of promoting WiFi... Frankly, there needs to be better highlighting of WiFi locations.  Indeed, I am working on one consulting project to help develop something like that and to build community awareness. The T-Mobile flyer promotes WiFi as well as T-Mobile's relationship with Compaq.  The Compaq Web site listed on the flyer points to a page that declares:  "Compaq Wireless and Starbucks Coffee....fresh, hot and ready to go."  You can purchase Compaq WiFi-enabled notebook computers, IPAQs, 802.11 PC Cards and access points. The flyer notes that, "Over the next few months, you will notice many changes to the T-Mobile Wireless Broadband service that will enhance your experience at Starbucks.  You will be notified as progress is made so you can take advantage of the service and new features."  Okay, I'm waiting. I'm not a big coffee drinker.  Diet Coke is this man's poison!  But with WiFi at Starbucks, perhaps I will begin to increase my caffeine intake a bit more. Discuss   comments? [] 2:53:56 PM     Heisenberg, Dawkins, Democracy, Quality, and Linktoitiveness Joe Gregorio's cogent and pithy article (below, complete) argues that links should be, and are, the sine qua non of page relevance and page quality.   I think I disagree, but I hesitate to say so, because he also does such a great job on one of my favorite ideas in a an essay on "The Internet and GPL as a text-file ecosystem" (follow the link.) Here's what we need to think about regarding"linktoitiveness":  are the most frequently cited journal articles, frequently invoked beliefs, and copiously compensated individuals also the most worthy?  Only if you have a circular (and cheapened) definition of worthy.   The problem is related to that of defining "fitness" in evolutionary biology (about which more later maybe).  But regardless in memespace, we are part of a self-defining, self-designing system, and we should exercise our power.   We can do more than just hope that "the best meme wins" Here are three systems I am familiar with whose internal dynamics help make for a better game.  American democracy augments the principle of linking (er, voting) with checks and balances, republican representational democracy, and the journalistic fourth estate.  Gandhian satyagraha ("truth force" or non-violence) embeds the inevitable dynamic of conflict within a framework in which willingness to suffer for the truth (as you see it) has a fighting chance against the willingness to impose the "truth" through violence.  And the "scientific method"uses external realities, and peer review to will help determine which ideas are most popular are most true (within the scientific community at least). The dynamics of meme flow are much more important than they used to be, and they are facts of nature that we get to influence.  As great as it is, is intellectual mob rule ("blog rule"?) really the best we can do? And now, Joe Gregario's cogent and pithy article... Heisenberg and Google. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you can't measure a thing without changing it. What google does is measure the web. This topic came up obliquely at the RTP bloggers lunch yesterday. The topic turned to the fact that Google loves bloggers, ranks us highly and that eventually they would tune their ranking parameters to put us bloggers back down further on the list where we belong. Google rewards good web behaviour: changing, linking and being linked to. It rewards those sites with higher page ranks. Don't want to play nicely on the web, like NPR and their idiotic policy about linking to them or the NYTimes and their dearth of links in stories, and you will be punished with low rankings. Don't believe me? Then why does the NYTimes, with all their content and all their reporters only have a page rank of 8 while Mark Pilgrim has a page rank of 7 and Dave Winer a page rank of 8? Since the blogger lunch I have mulled this idea of Google changing it's ranking system to de-rate bloggers. Should Google change to accomodate the web, or should the web change to accomodate Google? For example: right now bitworking.org has a much higher page rank than the web site of my employer. [Do not bother looking, I have never mentioned them, their industry or their location in this blog. Ever.] I do know that I could put together a website for them that is structured like a blog, with frequent entries of links to news items from their particular industry, and short notes attached about how the company relates to that news item, maybe publish some white papers and mix in some press releases all done regularly on the home page. They could very quickly rise to a higher page rank and become authoritative in their industry, at least as far as Google is concerned. Is this better than the current static brochure-ware website? Yes. Everybody including current customers, future customers, shareholders, employees, and the web in general would be that much richer for a site like that. So no, Google shouldn't change. The web needs to change to accomodate Google. Link, link to, be authoratitive on a subject, keep current and offer information others want and need and you'll succeed in Google's eyes. Let page-rank stand as the carrot and the stick of good web behaviour. [News by CodingTheWeb.com] comments? [] 10:17:21 AM

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