Monthly Archives :

November 2008

Personalized Search Results – Huh?

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I just read in the Wall Street Journal about the personalized search results from Google. (Sorry, no link as I read the good ol’ paper edition.) I have heard about them and seen them before. This is probably one of the things I have a very, very hard time to accept. For me, the main characteristic of any search engine is objectivity and unbiasedness of the search results. The objectivity and unbiasedness that you get the “actual facts”. I do understand the philosophical issue with that statement – “actual facts” – in itself as an actual fact indeed “was” the sun orbiting around the earth and not the other way around. Yet we all really do know what it means. Getting the results that is not necessarily what we want to see, read or realize but what the “real” answer is.

There are many occasions where personalization makes makes perfect sense. Or let us put this as filtering as the true meaning. It puts an enormous “pressure” on the user to be critical and aware of their choices during the process. I doubt the common searcher will think in these terms. I would say it is rather foolish to believe the common searcher (regardless of educational level, experience or any other adequate characteristic of the searcher) to make this decision. We are lazy by nature. Yep, we are. Nooo, Erik! Sorry, but we are… At least the predominant part. :-)

I think this is a dangerous development even tough I see all the business reasons behind it. You satisfy the “customer”. They get what they want, you get what you want. But do we as a society get what we need? Not at all. I guess that is the core issue. Who should win here? The individual or the community?

That’s a tough one.

I do not have an answer, but I do believe it is not a healthy, sustainable path… But then again that is my opinion. Right or wrong. I guess I should ask Google for it. At least now I can prove that I am right. :-)

Location-based Mashups – Old News And A Bit Out-Dated?

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I would say so. I remember when I attended the first Where 2.0 conference in San Jose 2006. Location-based products and sites were just about to boom. The hype was really on. The conference was not the best ever, but became a milestone of a recognition of location-based mashups as something innovative and new. Since then it has been an explosion of services out there and several venture funded startups have come. The underlying tools such as GPS, Google Maps, Google Earth and Virtual Earth to mention some have been drastically improved, so have the concepts of mashing up. The amount of tutorials out there in location-based mashups is enormous. Just Google it and you will find page after page telling you how to do cool overlays in Google Maps in minutes or create and import pretty awesome KML file overlays in Google Earth.

However, we should now start to recognize this as a maturing concept and start to look for new angles in the coming and emerging new media arena. For instance I have looked at the Knight News Challenge. I find it a bit ironic they still have as a requirement that the project needs to benefit a specific geographical community. In my eyes that is not very innovative and a bit misplaced as a specific requirement. Preferred characteristic sure, but requirement no.

When the Knight News Challenge first started a few years back, the location-based mashups were new, exciting and interesting, but now in many ways pretty out-dated as an innovative aspect of a new media project. The media scene has moved on, and we should raise our vision. We will see more of content-based mashups where location will play a role, but will not be the sole differentiation. Of course there is room for more explorations in location-based services and mashups. However as a requirement in an (supposively) innovation stimulative news challenge, I would say it is narrowing the scope for possible projects down too much. For instance, if you would like to create a global borderless social network, based on interaction around news and opinions, it would not fit within the scope of the challenge as it doesn’t benefit a specific geographical community.

Does that really make any sense? I do not think so. Especially since the whole media industry is becoming more and more globalized. Is there room for local news and projects that aim to benefit specific geographical communities? Of course, but will they really benefit more of a niche geographical community? In a way probably. Taking out the constraint of a specific geographical community would enable the local issues are heard on a national, regional and even global level. Yet with the proper execution you can still benefit niche communities within the global one. Think of this as how much sense it would be to constrain YouTube to only one specific type of videos as for reach. Makes no sense there, so why would it make sense for geographical communities?

I would say we should have the guts and actually need to raise our eyes to see local issues in the context of other bigger issues. It is for sure an interesting balance not give the proper room for the local issues if you still consider the bigger picture. Yet that is the only way of really recognizing the local issue and give it the support it so often needs to have. In my eyes that is how you do create a substantial and sustainable change for people around the world who needs it. Especially in the media arena where the weak voices need to be amplified, not constrained.

Let the consumer be the judge whether an issue is “local” or not. They should be the true champions of that, not us creators of the projects or funders of the same. The important part here is really to realize that the more sustainable and incredibly successful projects around the world have been multipurposed ones, not the niched ones. It is about defining the right as vertical. A vertical that is as broad as possible.

The Human Story

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I thought of something this morning. Every morning when I walk to the train along University Avenue listening to music I see a few homeless people in the streets. Usually they sit in the sun to warm up. One has always caught my attention as he usually sit and write on a notepad. Sometimes he is numbering the sheets, sometimes he is writing. I am not sure what he is writing and what his story is. It however makes me curious. I want to know more. I also want to know how he ended up where he did.

This is really what media should be all about. For all topics. The human element. The human story. The personal, tangible, relatable touch from another person just as you and I. For all stories. With the context the story lives in presented. It is about presenting that human element of the story… It is about turning the concept of media upside down. Show the individual story with the context around it. Showing the diversity, yet giving it a voice. Giving room for humans, yet using traditional media aspects to provide the context.

Think of concert with Bono. Think of a demonstration on the squares of Minsk, Belarus. Think of the stories from Kenya during elections. Think of the stories from the streets around the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad. Think of the stories from China during the olympics. What really makes a difference is to hear those individual voices. That regular voice. Hearing the whispers on the streets. Feeling it. Think of it as being in the ultimate reality show where you participate, observe and experience it through the eyes of the people there. Only better as this is really real. Now that is cool.

To tell these human stories we will have to turn to multimedia, in particular photography and video. Why? Visual story telling is possible even for illiterates. The main issue with audio is the language barrier. If you do not know the language, the message is lost. Text is not a suitable medium of obvious reasons – langugae, illiteracy and also notoriously hard as most of us are not great writers. Sorry, guys and girls. I know we all want to be, but we are not. There are a few masters out there, but most of us are not. However, I am not saying that photography and video story telling is easy, but it is better media for the common person to tell their stories. The visual language is universal, more relatable and tangible for most people.

The really cool thing is that we have all the pieces – for instance cheap cellphone and digital cameras, 3rd party sites for videos and pictures, cheap and simple editing software and a cascade of publishing platforms. The pieces are there. The opportunity is there. Now let us see who will be the first to capitalize on the opportunity.

Sunday

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This weekend I went to the Green Gulch Farm in the mountains north of San Francisco. It is a Zen Buddhistic temple as well as an organic farm. I from time to time go there. It is an amazing ride over there, and a very peaceful place to be in. During the summers we go to the beach right after. It feels like childhood being at our country house in the summers. It also brings back memories from when I got confirmed and we went to a mediation center. (Imagine being thirteen years old ad having to be quite for two days. It was a challenge for sure.) Every time I am up at the Green Gulch I end up feeling like a little boy playing in the grass in the country during the summers, or eating cheese sandwiches and drinking O’Boy under the apple trees listening to sound of nature and horses. Showering with the cold, cold water from the spring. Or building Indian cottages in the forest near the house.

This Sunday, it was this amazing morning with the sun shining and the air was clear. It is something about early Sunday mornings. They are peaceful. The best part of the whole day was to sit on a bench after the meditation and lesson, sipping a nice Earl Grey tea with honey and milk in the sunlight. The company was amazing. The weather was amazing. The surrounding nature was incredible. Sometimes you would like time to just stop… Halt. Sometimes twenty minutes in the sun listening to the nature and enjoying the company is just timeless and priceless.

Life is incredibly good those days. You wish you could stay in that environment forever.