It's this years' "Long Tail" – the new book about how the Internet is shifting boundaries and distributing power. The book is called "Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder." David Weinberger, who touted the takeover of the geeks in an earlier book he co-authored with Christopher Locke, The Cluetrain Manifesto", has definitely hit the sweet spot this time.
Weinberger posits that we have entered into a third order, in terms of how we deal with ordering information. The first order is simply the physical organization of stuff – you have a bunch of books and you organize them according to theme. The second order brings in taxonomy. You start to develop classifications – meta-information about what is organized. So you have a bunch of books and you have a card catalogue. In the third order, the information has escaped all limits. The books at Amazon.com are more or less miscellaneous in their location. They don't need to be stacked in any section. The end user provides the taxonomy (or categorization) and hunts the books out. This is what's happening with all of our information. One of the tech guys at Wikipedia told Weinberger that he couldn't explain where a topic is located on his site. It isn't located. No matter how popular or obscure the topic, it is equally miscellaneously out there in wikipedian cyberspace along with everything else.
Resultantly, the end user supplies the taxonomy, makes the connections, and supplies the meaning. You might say that he or she strolls up to an infinite buffet of potential information, and chooses her "a la carte" combination plate in each and every circumstance.
But when I recently interviewed Weinberger for my NeoFiles podcast, he wasn't completely satisfied with the "a la carte" notion. For Weinberger, a la carte is only about an individual's selections. He related the metaphor to Negroponte's '90s concept that net dwellers would order up personalized news/information packages that could be called "The Daily Me." But Weinberger thinks that we are also – and more profoundly – gathering from the miscellaneous chaos of information through conversation and connection. We are engaged through social networks, blogs, del.icio.us lists, ad infinitum. We lead each other towards the stuff we want or need, and we start to notice and make meaning together.
It's also a six degrees of Kevin Bacon Virtual world in which everything links to everything else within six clicks. Location, to the extent that there is a location – a branded website perhaps – doesn't much interest us either. It is only the stuff that we can pull out of the miscellany that gets our attention. The only trusted "brand" is our circle of virtual friends – those with similar interests (or maybe , Boing Boing)
Everything is Miscellaneous
Everything is Miscellaneous Blog
My Interview with David Weinberger (sorry for the Skype fuzziness)
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Is Work Play? Can It Be?
One of the stated goals of Pajama Nation is that small entrepreneurs and freelancers enjoy an a la carte lifestyle working for themselves. An ideal has apparently been developing over the past decade or so – the ideal is that work can be play. In the industrial age, most of us worked in non-creative and rather mechanistic -- if not downright oppressive -- jobs. (Nobody would claim that coal mining is fun). Today, an increasing number of people work at gigs that involve some thought and creativity – design, participating in the invention of new tools, creating and being part of media; whether it's big media or decentralized net media.
Indeed, some of the biggest industries in the world are dedicated to fun and games… literally games. They're making fun out there, but they may or may not be having fun. One hopes that they are.
During the boom of the late 1990s, a certain percentage of young folk in the advanced nations lived, ate and slept at their dot com businesses and they enjoyed the hell out of doing it. Maybe you remember the media write-ups about young men with nose rings skateboarding to work; the in-house massages; the midnight raves and the all day hacking sessions. Work and leisure were no longer in nice little compartments – work being something you do from 9 am – 5 pm on weekdays, and leisure being something you do the rest of the time. Life was 24/7 and people worked hard and played hard. (It's fine if you're 25, of course. The rest of us may want to work easy and play easy, but we're still seeking that same internal state – life as undivided continuum.)
Social critics have noted that the very idea of a "work day" is an artifact of the 17th Century. One of the features of a Pajama Nation is that we no longer "punch the clock." The integration of work, life and play is one of the greatest hopes for human happiness.
One great place to start thinking about all this is by reading "The Play Ethic", a book and a website by England's Pat Kane.
Indeed, some of the biggest industries in the world are dedicated to fun and games… literally games. They're making fun out there, but they may or may not be having fun. One hopes that they are.
During the boom of the late 1990s, a certain percentage of young folk in the advanced nations lived, ate and slept at their dot com businesses and they enjoyed the hell out of doing it. Maybe you remember the media write-ups about young men with nose rings skateboarding to work; the in-house massages; the midnight raves and the all day hacking sessions. Work and leisure were no longer in nice little compartments – work being something you do from 9 am – 5 pm on weekdays, and leisure being something you do the rest of the time. Life was 24/7 and people worked hard and played hard. (It's fine if you're 25, of course. The rest of us may want to work easy and play easy, but we're still seeking that same internal state – life as undivided continuum.)
Social critics have noted that the very idea of a "work day" is an artifact of the 17th Century. One of the features of a Pajama Nation is that we no longer "punch the clock." The integration of work, life and play is one of the greatest hopes for human happiness.
One great place to start thinking about all this is by reading "The Play Ethic", a book and a website by England's Pat Kane.
What Are We SEARCHing For?
John Battelle of FM Media recently pointed out an academic paper that explores what people value in search engines, and what the creators of search engines try to achieve. The piece is titled, "Is Relevance Relevant?" -- which seems to be a great general question for the age of blurred focus. The piece points out that search engines have been criticized for providing too much and too little information and shows the conundrum faced by businesses due to the fact that users hate heavily monetized, busy search engines, but of course, the ads and the other monetary schemes basically ARE the business.
The piece also references the good old days when Alta Vista -- with its academic orientation – was the leading search engine and implies that relevance as an objective idea has perhaps been abandoned in favor of "satisfying users."
I sometimes wonder why it's so hard to find really intelligent interesting content on the web that was so easy to find back in the mid-90s. This might be the answer. Google has replaced real intelligence with a mixture of business interests and the "wisdom of crowds." Thus, when I ego surf – let's be honest here, who doesn't? -- I no longer seem to find fascinating complicated criticisms of my work. Rather, I find an endless circle jerk of sites pointing out that some piece that I've written exists – the posts point at the article and point at each other. There are no thoughts, just fingers pointing in various directions. (I think this idea was expressed in a scene in The Beatles' Yellow Submarine) In some ways, this is the way the net looks today.
Not that I want to bring back Alta Vista. But here's an interesting thought from an interview I did with Cory Doctorow a few years back:
"It's pursuing the deviance, what Bruce Sterling called 'Wooing the muse of the odd' that actually creates a system that has a lot of perceived value. I think that every single one of us is an edge case. There's this amazing Bill Gates quote from Davos last week where he was talking about how Microsoft was going to get back into search and compete with Google and someone said, 'You know you guys did a pretty crappy job with search the first time around.' And he said, [paraphrasing] 'Yeah. You know what we did? We focused on the 20% of the queries that represented 80% of what people were looking for instead of the 20% that were really odd. But what we found out is that the whole perception of value lives in whether or not it meets those little queries.'"
So the answer my friend is further down the long tail, not back toward an academic elite.
Read "Is Relevance Relevant"
The piece also references the good old days when Alta Vista -- with its academic orientation – was the leading search engine and implies that relevance as an objective idea has perhaps been abandoned in favor of "satisfying users."
I sometimes wonder why it's so hard to find really intelligent interesting content on the web that was so easy to find back in the mid-90s. This might be the answer. Google has replaced real intelligence with a mixture of business interests and the "wisdom of crowds." Thus, when I ego surf – let's be honest here, who doesn't? -- I no longer seem to find fascinating complicated criticisms of my work. Rather, I find an endless circle jerk of sites pointing out that some piece that I've written exists – the posts point at the article and point at each other. There are no thoughts, just fingers pointing in various directions. (I think this idea was expressed in a scene in The Beatles' Yellow Submarine) In some ways, this is the way the net looks today.
Not that I want to bring back Alta Vista. But here's an interesting thought from an interview I did with Cory Doctorow a few years back:
"It's pursuing the deviance, what Bruce Sterling called 'Wooing the muse of the odd' that actually creates a system that has a lot of perceived value. I think that every single one of us is an edge case. There's this amazing Bill Gates quote from Davos last week where he was talking about how Microsoft was going to get back into search and compete with Google and someone said, 'You know you guys did a pretty crappy job with search the first time around.' And he said, [paraphrasing] 'Yeah. You know what we did? We focused on the 20% of the queries that represented 80% of what people were looking for instead of the 20% that were really odd. But what we found out is that the whole perception of value lives in whether or not it meets those little queries.'"
So the answer my friend is further down the long tail, not back toward an academic elite.
Read "Is Relevance Relevant"
What are we SEARCHing For?
John Battelle of FM Media recently pointed out an academic paper that explores what people value in search engines, and what the creators of search engines try to achieve. The piece is titled, "Is Relevance Relevant?" -- which seems to be a great general question for the age of blurred focus. The piece points out that search engines have been criticized for proving too much and too little information and shows the conundrum faced by businesses due to the fact that users hate heavily monetized, busy search engines, but of course, the ads and the other monetary schemes basically ARE the business.
The piece also references the good old days when Alta Vista -- with its academic orientation – was the leading search engine and claims that relevance as an objective idea has been attended in favor of "satisfying users."
I sometimes wonder why it's so hard to find really intelligent interesting content on the web that was so easy to find back in the mid-90s. This might be the answer. Google has replaced real intelligence with a mixture of business interests and the "wisdom of crowds." Thus, when I ego surf – let's be honest here -- I no longer seem to find fascinating complicated criticism of my work. Rather I find an endless circle jerk of sites pointing out that some piece that I've written exists – one after another. No thoughts, just fingers pointing in various directions. In some ways, this is the way the net looks today.
Not that I want to bring back Alta Vista. But here's an interesting thought from an interview I did with Cory Doctorow a few years back:
"It's pursuing the deviance, what Bruce Sterling called 'Wooing the muse of the odd' that actually creates a system that has a lot of perceived value. I think that every single one of us is an edge case. There's this amazing Bill Gates quote from Davos last week where he was talking about how Microsoft was going to get back into search and compete with Google and someone said, 'You know you guys did a pretty crappy job with search the first time around.' And he said, [paraphrasing] 'Yeah. You know what we did? We focused on the 20% of the queries that represented 80% of what people were looking for instead of the 20% that were really odd. But what we found out is that the whole perception of value lives in whether or not it meets those little queries.'"
So the answer my friend is further down the long tail, not back toward an academic elite.
Read "Is Relevance Relevant"
Read the RU Sirius Interview with Cory Doctorow
The piece also references the good old days when Alta Vista -- with its academic orientation – was the leading search engine and claims that relevance as an objective idea has been attended in favor of "satisfying users."
I sometimes wonder why it's so hard to find really intelligent interesting content on the web that was so easy to find back in the mid-90s. This might be the answer. Google has replaced real intelligence with a mixture of business interests and the "wisdom of crowds." Thus, when I ego surf – let's be honest here -- I no longer seem to find fascinating complicated criticism of my work. Rather I find an endless circle jerk of sites pointing out that some piece that I've written exists – one after another. No thoughts, just fingers pointing in various directions. In some ways, this is the way the net looks today.
Not that I want to bring back Alta Vista. But here's an interesting thought from an interview I did with Cory Doctorow a few years back:
"It's pursuing the deviance, what Bruce Sterling called 'Wooing the muse of the odd' that actually creates a system that has a lot of perceived value. I think that every single one of us is an edge case. There's this amazing Bill Gates quote from Davos last week where he was talking about how Microsoft was going to get back into search and compete with Google and someone said, 'You know you guys did a pretty crappy job with search the first time around.' And he said, [paraphrasing] 'Yeah. You know what we did? We focused on the 20% of the queries that represented 80% of what people were looking for instead of the 20% that were really odd. But what we found out is that the whole perception of value lives in whether or not it meets those little queries.'"
So the answer my friend is further down the long tail, not back toward an academic elite.
Read "Is Relevance Relevant"
Read the RU Sirius Interview with Cory Doctorow
Monday, April 30, 2007
One Laptop Per Child Project in Trouble?
Many people who want to see the connectivity of the net more broadly distributed have been enthusiastically following Nicholas Negroponte's project "One Laptop Per Child." (OLPC) The idea was to get a laptop called "Children's Machine XO" out on the market at $100 per laptop, using open source software. From there, the long term ideal of the project would be to get one each into the hands of all the world's children. But on April 26, Negroponte announced a new deal. The OLPC machine is going to run on Windows and now the price is going to be $175. He also backed off their goal of an initial 5 million unit production run, and has instituted several other policy changes.
The politics behind it: It's generally understood that Microsoft had enough power in many nations across the globe to pressure them – indeed blackmail them -- from buying the open source versions of OLPC. OLPC enthusiasts feel that another "change the world" project has been turned into just another mass marketing opportunity for the Evil Empire.
On the independent "One Laptop Per Child News" site, Lee Felsentein – the computer revolutionary who – with Efrem Lipkin, started the Homebrew Computer Club that basically started Personal Computing, suggests that those who worked on the open source version of OLPC will now be excluded from participation and that they should take their work and run – try to do this as an independent project.
Felsenstein writes: "What is the status of the code base currently developed for OLPC? Is it accessible and freely available to be used by others? Someone closer to the project should make sure that this code base cannot be appropriated and kept from use by others.
"If the XO machine becomes unavailable to those who develop external software for it, then a replacement platform should be designed. This isn’t the hard part – the foundation of the project will be the software, especially the application software. I would recommend that a substitute platform for software development be specified and made available."
No doubt, if and when the OLPC machine starts getting distributed, it will be better than nothing (but not much better, considering Windows' famous vulnerabilities). And Bill Gates will be all over the media getting and taking credit for this idealistic project to bring computing to the world's poor. And the initial impetus behind the project will get no media coverage and will never penetrate the mainstream discourse. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, "And so it goes."
Read the entire Lee Felsenstein piece
The politics behind it: It's generally understood that Microsoft had enough power in many nations across the globe to pressure them – indeed blackmail them -- from buying the open source versions of OLPC. OLPC enthusiasts feel that another "change the world" project has been turned into just another mass marketing opportunity for the Evil Empire.
On the independent "One Laptop Per Child News" site, Lee Felsentein – the computer revolutionary who – with Efrem Lipkin, started the Homebrew Computer Club that basically started Personal Computing, suggests that those who worked on the open source version of OLPC will now be excluded from participation and that they should take their work and run – try to do this as an independent project.
Felsenstein writes: "What is the status of the code base currently developed for OLPC? Is it accessible and freely available to be used by others? Someone closer to the project should make sure that this code base cannot be appropriated and kept from use by others.
"If the XO machine becomes unavailable to those who develop external software for it, then a replacement platform should be designed. This isn’t the hard part – the foundation of the project will be the software, especially the application software. I would recommend that a substitute platform for software development be specified and made available."
No doubt, if and when the OLPC machine starts getting distributed, it will be better than nothing (but not much better, considering Windows' famous vulnerabilities). And Bill Gates will be all over the media getting and taking credit for this idealistic project to bring computing to the world's poor. And the initial impetus behind the project will get no media coverage and will never penetrate the mainstream discourse. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, "And so it goes."
Read the entire Lee Felsenstein piece
Friday, April 27, 2007
Glocal Dynamism & Immigration
We're thinking glocally here at Pajama Nation, but we also have to recognize the drift and exchange of human beings across the globe that has been growing with transporation and other technologies. Right now the drift is still towards people emigrating from the "third world" to the advanced nations like the US and Europe. Most people see this as a one way street, since the drift of bodies is basically in one direction. But a recent New York Times article -- "A Good Provider is One Who Leaves" -- shows a healthy dynamic between those who leave and those who stay. Immigrants are getting capital and shifting it back to their earlier locales, and we begin to see growth and development "back home: as the result. of that "redistribution" of capital.
Quoting the New York Times:
"About 200 million migrants from different countries are scattered across the globe, supporting a population back home that is as big if not bigger. Were these half-billion or so people to constitute a state — migration nation — it would rank as the world’s third-largest. While some migrants go abroad with Ph.D.’s, most travel ... with modest skills but fearsome motivation. The risks migrants face are widely known, including the risk of death, but the amounts they secure for their families have just recently come into view. Migrants worldwide sent home an estimated $300 billion last year — nearly three times the world’s foreign-aid budgets combined. These sums — 'remittances' — bring Morocco more money than tourism does. They bring Sri Lanka more money than tea does. ...In 22 countries, remittances exceed a tenth of the G.D.P., including Moldova (32 percent), Haiti (23 percent) and Lebanon (22 percent).
A nice little think piece by Alex Steffan on the WorldChanging website expands further on the possibilities of this glocal exchange of energy between those who forage out for resources and those who build the nest back home.
Quoting Steffan:
"inding better ways to connect migrants with the financial services they and their families and business partners back home need is key as well, many experts say. Particularly promising is the idea of productizing remittances -- sending goods instead of money.
"But a whole host of other innovative financial services might make migrants' checks home both more effective and more frequent, from micro-finance banks to micro-insurance, even meso-financial investment opportunities. Creating such new services will require a pretty rapid case of redistributing the future, helping nations to develop not only the proper laws and proper policies, but even the proper software.
"Now, imagine this: imagine all these enterprising, ambitious people, and all the money they send home (and all the institutions with which they interact to send it) being bent towards even more beneficial ends, becoming better, longer levers for really remaking the nations from which they're traveled into places of prosperity and sustainability. Imagine deciding to make migrant labor truly worldchanging."
"
Read Full NY Times Article
Read Full WorldChanging Article
Quoting the New York Times:
"About 200 million migrants from different countries are scattered across the globe, supporting a population back home that is as big if not bigger. Were these half-billion or so people to constitute a state — migration nation — it would rank as the world’s third-largest. While some migrants go abroad with Ph.D.’s, most travel ... with modest skills but fearsome motivation. The risks migrants face are widely known, including the risk of death, but the amounts they secure for their families have just recently come into view. Migrants worldwide sent home an estimated $300 billion last year — nearly three times the world’s foreign-aid budgets combined. These sums — 'remittances' — bring Morocco more money than tourism does. They bring Sri Lanka more money than tea does. ...In 22 countries, remittances exceed a tenth of the G.D.P., including Moldova (32 percent), Haiti (23 percent) and Lebanon (22 percent).
A nice little think piece by Alex Steffan on the WorldChanging website expands further on the possibilities of this glocal exchange of energy between those who forage out for resources and those who build the nest back home.
Quoting Steffan:
"inding better ways to connect migrants with the financial services they and their families and business partners back home need is key as well, many experts say. Particularly promising is the idea of productizing remittances -- sending goods instead of money.
"But a whole host of other innovative financial services might make migrants' checks home both more effective and more frequent, from micro-finance banks to micro-insurance, even meso-financial investment opportunities. Creating such new services will require a pretty rapid case of redistributing the future, helping nations to develop not only the proper laws and proper policies, but even the proper software.
"Now, imagine this: imagine all these enterprising, ambitious people, and all the money they send home (and all the institutions with which they interact to send it) being bent towards even more beneficial ends, becoming better, longer levers for really remaking the nations from which they're traveled into places of prosperity and sustainability. Imagine deciding to make migrant labor truly worldchanging."
"
Read Full NY Times Article
Read Full WorldChanging Article
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Contrarian Thoughts About the Long Tail
Famous tech entrepreneurial billionaire Mark Cuban offered some interesting takes on the downside of the Long Tail on his blog, and I can attest to the truth of what he's saying when he writes, "No Content Creator wants to be on the Long Tail." Or I'd amend that to read no professional content creator wants to be on the long tail. Content creators want to break through the "content ceiling" – we want our work to break through the clutter and attain economic value, and continue to bring in money. For us, the Long Tail is inflation of the worst sort. The market is flooded with free writing. It's mostly crap writing, but most people don't know the difference. Everybody can write up to a certain level of competence. In other words, if someone is not a piano player, they will sit at the piano and hit the wrong notes and nobody will listen. If somebody is not a "writer" in the sense that those of us who are writers mean it, they can still sit down and communicate.
Cuban writes, "If the goal is commercial, whether to make money directly or indirectly from the content, then the battle to fight through the Content Ceiling begins." And "Very few commercial content creators aspire to get 10k aggregate views from all the videohosting sites. Very few bands are happy with having 10k free downloads , or even 10k friends on Myspace as their endgame. Very few commercial content creators aspire to see their creations end up on Community Access TV. All content creators recognize each of these as a way to create incremental demand for their content, in hopes of breaking through the Content Ceiling, but none of these will reward the content creator with direct revenue. For content creators trying to make a living from their work, they all just represent the Long Tail Ghetto."
This is all about the downside of Long Tail economics. Those that build the thoroughfare, the aggregators make the big bucks. Those that fill in the content, mostly, do it happily… for free. The net is a playground for interaction. A few comfortable technophiles like Chris Anderson and Cory Doctorow (I love Cory and think he's a genius but I do think he's a bit glib about this) are excessively glib about how all this effects artists – musicians, writers, ad infinitum. The narrative is that you can use your music, writing, etc. to get people's attention and then offer them something else. WHAT? The lecture market dried up fifteen years ago, the mid-level book authors are being axed by a declining book industry, magazines are dying and most of the ones that exist are deadly to the imagination.
Speaking to those who are seriously trying to get ahead with content-based projects, Cuban writes, "For all the talk of the internet changing distribution, the reality is that in order to break through the Content Ceiling and to climb the Vert Ramp, 99.9 pct of content creators are going to do need OPM (Other Peoples Money). The internet alone is not going to get the job done. You can put your content everywhere and anywhere the net allows you to be hosted, but for most people the amount of revenues for that content you had before you started the hosting process will be the exact same as what you have after the hosting process."
Of course, there's no fighting the distribution of tools for communication to the great masses, and I'm in favorite it. PJ is part of this process. But it's worth remembering the downside. There is also a possible market here, servicing quality "content creators" and helping them to find new markets. It's something to think about.
Read the entire piece
Cuban writes, "If the goal is commercial, whether to make money directly or indirectly from the content, then the battle to fight through the Content Ceiling begins." And "Very few commercial content creators aspire to get 10k aggregate views from all the videohosting sites. Very few bands are happy with having 10k free downloads , or even 10k friends on Myspace as their endgame. Very few commercial content creators aspire to see their creations end up on Community Access TV. All content creators recognize each of these as a way to create incremental demand for their content, in hopes of breaking through the Content Ceiling, but none of these will reward the content creator with direct revenue. For content creators trying to make a living from their work, they all just represent the Long Tail Ghetto."
This is all about the downside of Long Tail economics. Those that build the thoroughfare, the aggregators make the big bucks. Those that fill in the content, mostly, do it happily… for free. The net is a playground for interaction. A few comfortable technophiles like Chris Anderson and Cory Doctorow (I love Cory and think he's a genius but I do think he's a bit glib about this) are excessively glib about how all this effects artists – musicians, writers, ad infinitum. The narrative is that you can use your music, writing, etc. to get people's attention and then offer them something else. WHAT? The lecture market dried up fifteen years ago, the mid-level book authors are being axed by a declining book industry, magazines are dying and most of the ones that exist are deadly to the imagination.
Speaking to those who are seriously trying to get ahead with content-based projects, Cuban writes, "For all the talk of the internet changing distribution, the reality is that in order to break through the Content Ceiling and to climb the Vert Ramp, 99.9 pct of content creators are going to do need OPM (Other Peoples Money). The internet alone is not going to get the job done. You can put your content everywhere and anywhere the net allows you to be hosted, but for most people the amount of revenues for that content you had before you started the hosting process will be the exact same as what you have after the hosting process."
Of course, there's no fighting the distribution of tools for communication to the great masses, and I'm in favorite it. PJ is part of this process. But it's worth remembering the downside. There is also a possible market here, servicing quality "content creators" and helping them to find new markets. It's something to think about.
Read the entire piece
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