Innovation/Strategy/The Narrative

Nice little video of Socialthing

Posted on by charlie

Yup. These social network aggregation services are popping up all over.

Check out this video Socialthing made of what they are offering (link below, too). Pretty cool. Though I already see a few big holes.

Link [via Alex]: socialthing!: Get your digital life in order

socialthing! is a digital life manager that puts what you do online into one place. See everything that’s going on with your friends in all the sites you use, post stuff to multiple places at once and more!

Link: Socialthing! blog » Blog Archive » st!cast 01 – Friends and Adding Services:

This is the first screencast showing some of Socialthing!’s features. In it I show you how to add services to your Socialthing! account, how to group a person’s many online identities into one identity (that person) and how to leave us feedback.

Innovation/Strategy/The Narrative

Yahoo! Design closed down?

Posted on by charlie

I just can’t believe that Yahoo! Design closed down (link to rumour below). I think the department might have closed and that there are designers elsewhere in the company. Or do they just outsource it? I’ll have to follow this story.

Some days I think _our_ company can be rude to our Design group. But, we still value them – design is in the company’s blood (heh, it’s a Finnish company, right?).

Link [via David Smith]: RIP: Yahoo! Design closed down – data visualization & visual design – information aesthetics:

an anonymous source just informed me the entire Yahoo! Design Innovation team (once coined yHaus) has been laid off, part of a closing-down of all innovation teams at Yahoo. in addition, their work has been completely removed from their original website. infosthetics has posted their work here & here, & luckily had stored some copies of their works locally.

infosthetics feels bad for the people involved. how does Yahoo! wants to increase their share price by firing creative, talented people? Google, Swivel, Many Eyes, Stamen: are you hiring?

Innovation/Strategy

Yahoo does social-network aggregation with OneConnect

Posted on by charlie

Hm. Social networking aggregation fused with mobiles is THE thing of 2008. I saw this coming from a long way off, but am surprised that Yahoo was able to come out with something already.

But, it’s good to see the heat getting turned up. I think there will be many ways to do this and everyone will be able to learn from those that come before them.

There’s also a video (see below) showing what it’s all about.

Link [via atmasphere]: Yahoo launches OneConnect | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone:

On Tuesday, the company announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress here OneConnect, a new tool that allows mobile phone users to aggregate their social-networking updates and messaging in one spot on their phones. The service integrates directly with a phone user’s address book and allows people to share status updates and messages from a variety of messaging and social-networking platforms. This means it can provide status updates from Facebook or MySpace.com as well as provide access to e-mail and archived instant-messaging chats.

Uncategorized

links for 2008-02-13

Posted on by charlie
Philosophy/Science

Data does not equal knowledge

Posted on by charlie

At LIFT 08 last week, François Grey gave a great talk about the intersection of grid computing, crowdsourcing, and science.

One thing that miffed me was when he was talking about the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) creating huge amounts of data per collision of protons. I don’t agree with people who stress the amount of data an experiment produces, comparing it to all the knowledge humanity has produced.

Data is not knowledge.

The LHC indeed will produce oceans and oceans of data, but the amount of knowledge will be much smaller. Indeed, when they make their big discoveries, each will be expressed in a simple hyperlinked publication – a regular scientific paper.

Long Now/Philosophy/Science

Alex Wright and the history of information systems over the past few billion years

Posted on by charlie

I got through another amazing Long New Seminar (long dog walks are great for that). This one was by Alex Wright, author of ‘Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages’.

What I thought was really well done is how he charts the course of the evolution of social systems from bacteria to humans today and showed how such evolution influenced information systems. Very interesting. He also reveals some lost nuggets of history, re-introducing some information systems visionaries that are not well known (particularly Otlet’s Mundaneum).

One other interesting thread of his talk was a discussion of literal and oral culture and information. In one of those Long Now kinda of twists, he points out that literal culture is actually not too old. But also, the way the Web is going, there are plenty of analogies to oral culture in terms of how we share and communicate in social networks.

Very interesting.

Link: Long Views » Blog Archive » Alex Wright, The Deep History of the Information Age:

That’s the pattern for the evolution of information, Alex Wright

said. Networks coalesce into heirarchies, which then form a new

level of networks, which coalesce again, and so on. Thus an unending

series of information explosions is finessed.

The Narrative

PR like this you can’t buy: Great videos from the N810 Giveaway Contest

Posted on by charlie

This is what marketing is about these days – don’t do it, just make great products that people are passionate about and let them tell everyone why they should get some.

ThoughFix had a N810 Giveaway Contest with really cool videos. They are from real people talking about what they want to do with the N810. From stay-at-home mothers, to adventurers, to comedians, the videos are clever, funny, and inspiring. Makes me feel good about our products.

And this is at the heart of the new marketing, the conversation.

Go and view the winning videos (link below).

Link: TabletBlog.com by ThoughtFix: N810 Giveaway Contest:

Congratulations to those who entered the Nokia N810 Giveaway Contest. There was a tie but the winners sent in their preferences on what they wanted more so they were given whatever was highest on their list.

General/The Narrative

Scobleized!

Posted on by charlie

Robert Scoble was at LIFT and I saw him using an N95. He and I had crossed at many an event and have many folks in common, but I had yet not introduced myself to him.

Well, partly because he was using an N95 and partly due to wanting to tell him my new role, I walked over to say ‘Hi’.

He then whipped up his phone and started recording live, with questions coming from his audience.* I basically told him what we were up to in Social Media Communications and such.

In any case, I got a ton of emails and SMSs soon after the broadcast. For those who missed it, here it is (below).


Alas, I haven’t seen it yet, only now sitting down at my computer since the interview. And qik is not being quick and I’ll just have to trust the positive comments from others until I get a chance to see it for myself.

Finally got to see it. Not half bad. Lays out our vision. Let’s see now if we get to see it all.



*Heck, this was real interactive TV and no one is calling it that. Interactive TV dies and then was reborn and no one noticed.