Tuesday, March 30, 2004 :::
The Elements of a Web of People, rather than Documents
It seems to me that there is a web of documents, and there is a web of people. They overlap, but they have two distinct and separate focal points. The web of documents is long since established. Its the web that google searches, that IE browses. The web of people is still in its infancy, and as successful as the web of documents has been, it would seem to me only a taste of the usefulness of a web of people. On the web of people, destinations are not documents, but other people, although they obviously need to be represented in some digital form-- a blog, for example, a profile and privacy-protected means of contact. Social networks, wikis, chat rooms, message boards, buddy lists, and so on are examples of the need for a web of people, but together they don't constitute the web of people itself, which really doesn't exist yet except as an idea. The web of people will exist only when you can browse it, search, make a directory of it, etc. When you can go to a people-web search engine, type in a keyword, and everyone in the world associated with that keyword comes up, complete with a means to contact them (if they wish to be contacted) then the people-web will have arrived. Note: Technorati actually does this already, and in a limited sense the blog community is the first step towards a people-web.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:51 PM
Monday, March 29, 2004 :::
A Social Network for Information Exchange
Dave Weinberger summarizes a social networking conference worth checking out. So far I see dating networks, professional networks and friend networks. Many combine all three. But what many of us want is a social network for information exchange. In other words, meet-people networks are about making relationships rather than exchanging information. There's nothing wrong with the former but if you want information, and there's someone out there who has it, wouldn't it be great to have a network that faciliated an exchange?
When we run a search at Google, we are generally looking for information. And as great as it is, Google doesn't always deliver. This is because it's searching documents. If there were a way to search the world of people as resources, a searchable social network of willing and able minds, then information exchange could become that much more efficient. Technorati is perhaps the next best thing outside of the social network model.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 2:53 PM
Friday, March 26, 2004 :::
The Debate over RELATIONSHIP
There's a fair amount of talk in the blog community about RELATIONSHIP a proposed vocabulary made to define the myriad categories of relationship one can have. Here's Danah Boyd and Clay Shirky, criticizing its limitations eloquently. Others feel this a step towards a meaningful consensus that the social software and social networks crowd should consider picking up on.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:59 PM
Thursday, March 25, 2004 :::
Explanation of Identity,
David Weinberger gives a clear summary of what the Identity movement is all about. At the heart of all of this is "single sign-in," meaning that wherever you go online, all the information you'd need to give to join any group, purchase any product, fill in any profile, goes with you. What makes that different than a commercialized expedient like Gator, is that the Identity packet is not only several magnitudes more sophisticated than simple password/login/contact/credit card information, but the sites themselves have agreed with eachother to set themseves up to be prepared to receive your Identity cluster when you arrive. This way they recognize you, know what you want and what you don't want. Andre and others are looking at ways this will apply to social networks, and that's where Wondir could engage.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:29 PM
Wednesday, March 24, 2004 :::
The Identity Movement
I checked out both the David Weinberger and Doc links Britt sent me. I'm still an infant when it comes to the intricacies of the identity movement, not to mention Britt's own emerging contribution, but I feel that social networks, and Wondir is a social network at one level, need to cooperate with the movement because as Durand points out social networks have to extract information from each new member, and that information is almost always minimal, immediately outdated and almost never renewed, a very inefficient system (but until an identity standard comes along it's the only one we have). Looking forward to learning more. I wonder if it would make sense for Wondir to sign up with Ping ID, and if that's compatible with participating in XpertWeb. All the identity contributions should be compatible I would think. Hopefully a standard will emerge that's open-source, decentralized, perhaps p2p and self-controlled. Maybe too idealistic but one can at least have an aim.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:43 PM
Monday, March 22, 2004 :::
Durand on Social Networks
Durand makes a valid point on the limitations of social networks. He feels that social networks will always struggle with their member bases because they have to manually pull information out of their members. Their member information will be outdated "almost immediately." In a world of identities and single-sign ups, a member's self-controlled information would be uploaded to any social network that user joined. It would not only be automatically updated, but a great deal more accurate and detailed.
Of course, the problem is that there isn't an infrastructure for identities yet, and until then social networks need to do the best they can with the way the Internet works at present. But that may change as the Identity movement gains traction, and Andre's PingID may be at the forefront of that traction.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:43 PM
Tuesday, March 16, 2004 :::
Wondir's Most Difficult Question of the Day Awared Goes to...
The most likely place to find abundant manganese nodules is?
::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:25 PM
Andre Durand's Identity Waterfall Effect
Andre's idea is that IT issues of management, security and integration eventually cascade down into the pool of Idenity issues as he defines it, with Identity solutions, one of which is PingID.The reason Identity is important to Wondir is that once it catches on to the point that every person has an identity packet, so to speak, that they carry with them to every account they open on the net, identities, that is, people, will become as important as URLs, business, as destinations, as ends-in-themsevles, on the net (see Doc's World of Ends).Then the people portals, such as Wondir, alongside the URL portals, such as standard search engines, will have an equal place.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 2:56 PM
Sunday, March 14, 2004 :::
Question of the Day Goes To...
Who is the Govenor of the United States?
::: posted by Allen Searls at 6:06 PM
Friday, March 12, 2004 :::
The Problem with Planning
Here's Danah Boyd on the problem with planning, especially at conferences. She says "if it can't happen on the fly, it's not going to happen."To me this relates to Wondir and formely GlobeAlive, at least in concept, because they are part of the world live web, where the interactions, in our case the questions and answers, take place on the fly, in real time, as fast as instant messaging but as handy in terms of functionality as a search engine.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:42 PM
Thursday, March 11, 2004 :::
Britt and Political Action Software
Britt Blaser has my vote to lead the movement. He outlines the political action software project with urgency and clarity, and is willing to commit himself entirely.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 3:25 PM
RSS, Wondir and the World Live Web
It looks like Wondir is yet another site in the rising crowd of sites focused on getting information as it appears on the web, without delays. Doc mentions that Technorati searches the world live web rather than the somewhat dated web that standard search engines search. Phil Windley mentions the importance of RSS is this movement and emphasizes the rise of the live web. Will this change how we search? Apparently in some circles it already has.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:21 PM
Wednesday, March 10, 2004 :::
Update on Random Question of the Day
The previous Wondir random question of the day has been asked again with a new twist. The plot thickens: if a 12 year old guy throws a died frog at you and shows you his cuts from skateboading WHAT DOES THAT MEAN ? and i'm 11 ( 1 response )
::: posted by Allen Searls at 4:28 PM
Monday, March 08, 2004 :::
Random Question of the Day
The Wondir random question of the day award goes to: This guy I like threw a frog at me do you think he likes me? Please link through and help this person before it's too late.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 5:30 PM
The Head Lemur on Identity Management Gone Nuts
Here's a post from the Head Lemur regarding the dark side of identity management.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 11:51 AM
Saturday, March 06, 2004 :::
RSS versus Atom
Anyone know what the difference is in terms of feeds between rss and atom? Is blogger the only one that uses atom? I've switched to rss, which seems to be the standard in the blog community at this point, but wasn't sure. Thanks to Kyle , who found me through the blogger new blogs list I believe, I've been able to optimize my blog for exposure/availability. Thanks Kyle.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:08 PM
Blog devoted to Expert Sites
Good to see a blog devoted to expert sites. Wondir is showing up on their radar, at least according to technorati, although I don't see the data at the blog. They mention Answerline and a site called Answers, neither of which I know anything about. I'll have to check them out. A few days ago I used Alexa and some other resources to survey the expert space. Looks like there are about 10 truly active expert sites, and perhaps as many as 200 minor ones with little or no activity. With AskMe and Yahoo Experts gone, there is no verified leader in the space, although Wondir's growth curve puts them in position to take on that role in a few months perhaps. But Wondir is not really an expert site, but a q&a search forum, which is a new animal.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 11:25 AM
Wednesday, March 03, 2004 :::
Defining the Landscape of Wondir Land
Wondir gets its first critique from the blog community here. Several good points are brought up.
First, there is indeed nothing new essentially about posting questions and posting answers to them. It's the format that's new. I agree that on the surface Wondir does appear to be similar to a user group, mailing list or message board, not to mention expert sites like AllExperts, PointAsk, AskAnExpert and so on. The difference lies in the ease of use and the timeliness of interaction, and it's a substantial difference. For example, one doesn't need to join any group to use Wondir, anymore than one needs to join a group to use Google. One simply types a question in the search box and it appears on the instant message board for anyone to respond to right then and there. And the responders need not join a group either. The questions are posted instantly, the answers are as well and the responders are quick, usually getting an answer on the board often within a minute or less (far more timely than standard message boards), so that one gets one's answers at Wondir from real people almost as fast as one gets website results at Google. If one chooses the IM-option, the answer can be instant and interactive. If timeliness and ease of use doesn't seem like a big deal, imagine running a search on Google and getting the message "you'll need to provide us with a user name and email address, then your search results will be emailed to you shortly."
The second critique essentially revolves around whether you can trust Wondir answers. That's a good point-- you don't know these people, and they don't know you. However, Wondir is really offering itself as an alternative to search engines, which is the first place most people go for quick information, and entrusting one's search/question to an automated system involving no human involvement that simplays displays web pages according to a algorithm would seem equally, if not more, suspect with regard to trust than a human-interaction q&a forum. Also, it's pretty clear using Wondir whether the responder is someone making sense or talking nonsense, someone who wants to help or someone who's pulling your leg, as with any interaction in the world. Most of the responders are there because they like to look for incoming questions in real-time that they have an answer to. It gives them a sense of worth and has a high fun factor, not unlike the general or category-specific trivial pursuit craze.
::: posted by Allen Searls at 1:38 PM
