Wed, 2008-Nov-26 by nmw.

Google is not the End-All of Search

It is simply wrong to assume that the game is over.

Who? What? When? Where? How? …?

Anyone. Anything. Any time, anywhere and any way. But the best way would be to invite many segments of the population to participate and engage in reforming the way people search for information online. And I beleive the best way to do this would be to set up a system in which the “power” is distributed among a number of participants — and very open to including advertisers, consumers and publishers. Perhaps this “nomenclature” should even be revised — and a new system of “stakeholders” in the publishing process should be developed. Is this the right time and place for a “tabula rasa” type of fundamental reform? I would very much appreciate your feedback… — what do you think?

Posted in Discussions, Experts, Marketing, Advertising, Commerce | Print | No Comments »

Sun, 2008-Nov-23 by nmw.

Do we need to move / travel in order to succeed in reaching goals?

I think, perhaps, I heard Padmasree Warrior frame the statement that is the title of this post at the Web 2.0 Summit conference.

Is there an argument for wasting scarce resources (such as oil or gasoline) in order to shake someone’s hand?

If so, please list them below.

Otherwise, please take a look at http://Jobs.Firm.IN — maybe you can find a job, get a job, perform a job, do a job…  — whatever — virtually, online, as telework, by telecommute, … or simply: this way.

Posted in Projects, Marketing, Advertising, Commerce | Print | No Comments »

Sat, 2008-Nov-22 by nmw.

What? Where? Who Were They & How Did They Vote?

 Google violates its “don’t be evil” motto

1. Before the debate (For the motion: 21% ; Against the motion: 31% ; Undecided: 48%)

2. After the debate (For the motion: 47% ; Against the motion: 47% ; Undecided: 6%)

3. Saul Hansell’s article @ NYTimes Bit’s Blog — Comments (For the motion: 22% ; Against the motion: 28% ; Undecided: 50%)

“Rational” vs “Prejudiced”

Note that if it can be assumed that the 42% who apparently “made up their mind” as a result of the debate (well, it’s complicated ;) were simply “in addition to” those people who had previously made up their minds (and who subsequently stuck to their previous convictions), then this group (”rational” group) is markedly different from those who had made up their minds beforhand (”prejudiced” group).

These 2 (hypothetical) subgroups voted as follows (note that the “prejudiced” group [52%] is slightly larger than the “rational” group [42%], but the remaining “don’t know” group is relatively small [6%]):

“Prejudiced” group: For the motion: 40% ; Against the motion: 60%

“Rational” group:  For the motion: 62% ; Against the motion: 38%

Posted in Advertising, Commerce, Marketing, Statistics, Discussions, Games, Video (only), Plain Text, Text, HTML, Audio-Visual, Audio (only), Media Types | Print | No Comments »

Sat, 2008-Nov-22 by nmw.

Ah, yes, of course: New Media Works?

Well, sort of — but Professor Krugman was actually talking more about how bavarian motors work.

So what?

So with respect to the US auto industry, I think Paul recognizes that “creative destruction” may indeed be a good thing.

I believe the real malaise lies somewhere completely different (more about a particular instance of what I’m talking about in my next post): Thanks to the Internet / WWW, there is now widespread transparency — but so far, we have achieved very little or even no accountability whatsoever.

The future — the one that works –  is (IMHO) the one I saw decades ago already: It is largely shaped by contracts (i.e. contractual agreements). These can be very short-term agreements: the cost of data is nil, and the cost of “information technology” is about the same.

We need a world in which the “rules of the game” apply to here and now, not everywhere and forever. How can we achieve security in a world fully in flux? We can fix laws to each person’s date of birth. It’s a vision, an outlook, a goal to believe in — moreover: a basis for social stability to invest in… — and if we utilize cloud computing, such a pie in the sky can become a real world reality, and not merely remain some virtual pipe-dream.

Posted in Discussions, Experts, Commerce | Print | No Comments »

Tue, 2008-Nov-18 by nmw.

#2 Reason: You Have to Chop Down Trees to Make It

Wha? #2?!? So what’s #1?

#1: It Can’t be Edited as Easily as a Cloud

That’s right — and paper is not really all that good at leaving a “paper trail” either.

As a trained archivist, I know how photocopy machines can cause more confusion. And then came mailing lists, reply to all — you name it.

Wiki has really revolutionized publication — but it is still the darling of web entrepreneurs….

Where do we Go from Here?

Well, maybe we need to get back to the idea of “markup” — the original version. Well, I’m not talking about marking typos per se, but rather incorporating structure to revisions — for example, Authorship:Is it really “correct” to say that the last editor of a collaboratively created document is its “sole” or “primary” author? Probably not. How do we leave trace of authorship? When does a remark lose it’s relationship to the author, because one or more words have been revised, changed, deleted or additional words are included? These are all important questions — difficult to answer, but important nonetheless. Otherwise, we would be fooling ourselves into thinking we are behaving responsibly — quite the contrary would be the case: we would be about as responsible as the pack of children “toying” with power in the Lord of the Flies.

Posted in Video (only), Games, Commerce, Projects, Audio (only), Audio-Visual, Media Types, Text, Plain Text, HTML, Websites & Website Design | Print | No Comments »

Tue, 2008-Nov-11 by nmw.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Search…

Google will not release the true numbers: Porn is creeping up on Sex, but neither are as lucrative as Google.

Why?

Do you have any ideas? If so, please go ahead and post your answers, guesses or whatever below!

:) nmw

Posted in Marketing, Advertising, Commerce, Domains & Domain Names | Print | No Comments »

Tue, 2008-Nov-11 by nmw.

Web 2.0 — Padmasree Warrior (Cisco) and Shane Robison (HP) talk about Cloud Computing as the Future Web

One thing was missing (IMHO) from this nearly hour-long discussion — Charlene Li’s and Josh Bernoff’s notion of the “Groundswell”: Both Padmasree and Shane very strongly took the perspective of the organization apart from it’s stakeholders. This is a weak point — and one that needs to be addressed with a view to integrating the two.

Where does the Cloud meet the Groundswell?

The place where these 2 different perspectives meet is simple & straightforward: Language (an in particular keyword domain names).

One of my primary focus points in graduate school was the relationship between written and spoken language. Of course both are very closely linked, but these two “spheres” of language use are, perhaps a good construct for thinking about integrating the Groundswell (cf. spoken language) and clouds (cf. written language). Now of course these are crucial points related to knowledge management, the semantic web, cognitive structures and related issues that are important in the context of information storage and retrieval (aka “search”).

Posted in Marketing, Advertising, Commerce, Domains & Domain Names | Print | No Comments »

Mon, 2008-Nov-10 by nmw.

Please believe this, because I have SEO’ed / optimized it for “search engines” (aka Google ;)

Do you really believe this crap? Are you that gullible?

If the answer to the above questions is “no”,  then why do you pay attention to Google?

Simple: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, etc. — they all function according the wisdom of the language (because it’s more reliable than title tags or other SEO nonsense ( such as, for example: “4.3% of Wall Street Bailout Would End World Hunger [WTF?!]” — OMG: LOL!! ;)

Posted in Marketing, Advertising, Commerce, Domains & Domain Names | Print | No Comments »

Sat, 2008-Nov-8 by nmw.

The whois service listed at IANA is not working properly

So I can’t figure out who is responsible for Change.GOV.  :(

Why does Change.GOV link to Youtube.COM?

Should our tax dollars support ads by Google?

This is a worrisome trend

It ought to be checked out immediately.

Update: whois.nic.gov is also not responding — see also www.aboutus.org/Change.gov.

Posted in Statistics, Marketing, Advertising, Commerce | Print | No Comments »

Fri, 2008-Nov-7 by nmw.

We’re 100% Internet — We don’t have software :)

Mark Benioff (Salesforce.COM): “Look: You have choices — you can look at azure, you can look at force.com, you can look all of these different platforms that are available.”

What is the upper limit?

I think this is based on the vocabulary of terms humans can manage at any point in time — perhaps starting at around the size of the yellow pages (hundreds or several thousand) up to the vocabulary of an entire “natural” language (several hundred thousand). My gut feeling is that it’s somewhere in the middle… (and/but that Microsoft and Google (etc.)  feel that it might be less than a dozen or so ;)

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