Web 2.0

Originally published December 16, 2006

Content is not worth much in this new sphere - but I think this was bound to happen anyway. In the old sphere of Broadcast Television which turns 60 years old in America this year, the amount of content amassed by producers is mind-boggling. Supply and demand economics function in the world of media too. Already this content is being recycled into history productions; every new-year we see The Year in Review shows that re-use content from the day before at one point; popular culture 'retros' the recent past with an almost a scientific precision. As the content silo gets higher, old content becomes new again - so supply will increasingly outweigh demand. Content will get cheaper and cheaper until it is worth about as much as it costs to make - which is declining.

Network television created a need for the remote control; we all know one voice above others in a conversation can be annoying, not worth much at all. But we also know a conversation where people are listening to each other can build nations. New media applications enable the voices in a conversation among equals. Applications that help everyone become producers is not the end, it is the Road to a new world.

Web 2.0 is a vision of where we are on that Road. I believe we are at the point in the Road where uni-directional media ceases to exist.

The lessons learned in the first generation of mass media can show the way forward. The thing that makes television work is the magic of story telling and the fascination with the medium it's being told through - an application of imaging craft that effectively illustrates a magical story.

Young audience are taught and are socially conditioned for lineal thinking; the Story through magic media is mesmerizing.

Now, with all things on demand - the challenge is to make new again the fascination. The theory goes, an application of imaging craft to tell a story is a synergy of three elements: video, audio and story; now the forth and fifth element is introduced to the experience; You the watcher adding content; and the Other, watching You adding content, adding content also. So production, going forward will more and more be self producing by the(not viewer) participants.

Content will be cheaper to make and to buy; the profit margins will be in Interactive Content Interfaces, the gadgets like the Apple iPhone and the pc by IBM. When applications become like toasters and cars or in other words 'infinitely friendly' - (which will happen over time through increasing Tech 'IQ' and the better engineered interfaces and a familiarity with the Road we're all on) - manipulation of it will become autonomic like breathing or watching TV. The engineering of friendly technology is being driven forward brilliantly today, with only a tiny part of the potential market in play. New gyro-game-controllers that bring the gaming experience into the physical world; music production and recording; publishing interfaces for spread sheets, text and photo and now live motion production and distribution are making media truly interactive. Verbal interface is on the horizon.

Tailoring applications to serve the clients manipulation arts is the key to a profitable business model. Grouping tools, types of content, accessibility and aesthetics in an Interactive Content Interface will be important. More important may be understanding of who the client is and Branding particular Interactive Content Interfaces to maximize specific market segments.

Tim O'Reilly at O'Reilly Radar who's group coined the term Web 2.0; thinks all these applications will end up as down loadable widgets from cyber space, rather than applications you will hold in your computer; at any rate, all must be inter-lockable and available on demand as tools in a fluid manipul-space that is accessible.

More importantly Tim O'Reilly points out that great applications get better the more people use them. Collective intelligence will create new applications and ways of linking them.

(For example the feed back loop in Google's search engine that tailors your search to your history of searches is wonderful. Tag Clouds offer visualizations of subject content for an article or entire blog. Blog Logs network web sites that have similar web search patterns.)

Advertising space sold on these Interactive Content Interfaces will continue to be the profit engine as applications and perhaps this global computer Tim O'Reilly envisions, are developed. The old industrial-tangent business model, those who make hand held devices or table top 'things' and market them to a large middle class will underpin new business in the short term. The value of this Web 2.0 Road we're on comes as researchers link better, communicate better and solve problems faster.

A great example of this is the project to find a solution to the grand unified theory, a problem so complex it demands this new technology.

For developers of new business, content should be seen as the playing surface in boardgames - it sits there and does nothing - the fun is in learning the tactics, faster, better or different than the other players who gather to play it.

If the end user can manipulate the game by combining tools and content in their own way, the game story takes on an algorithm of complexity like real life.

New business models should enable the end user to manipulate information or content. Link new applications in combination that allow them to manipulate content in ways the developer hadn't considered. Like the wrench in a Socket set - no matter what size bolt you want to turn there's a Socket(application) that snaps onto the wrench (interface). One size fits all; or in this case; All applications fit one interface(and all interfaces).

All applications should 'snap' into place like Leggo or work together like a Mechano Set. For example, the 13 year old can: synthesize a sound he recorded; added it to a video; that plays only after his Sister triggers the motion detector; that activates the web cam; and the face recognition software; that then chooses and runs the video he knows will scare her out of the room.

Or not.

Update February 27 2007:


The correct word is "repurposed"



mh

CBC Radio Science Show 'Quirks and Quarks' Goes Web 2.0 With Interactive Web Pages, Podcasting

The long running science radio show, Quirks and Quarks has taken a step beyond their normal broadcast bracket. The show is now connected to an interactive web page; and as such, is a Qualitatively new experience.

Quirks and Quarks and other programs are using Applications to improve the consumer experience. These new format are stepping stones towards Convergence.

The experience we are beginning to have on the net - via various applications that allow us to upload, download, link, search, and blog - are leading edge tools in a fast changing universe called Web 2.0.

Together the tools of Web 2.0 are sketching out a schematic that will define the convergence of all media into one.

What exactly is the Web 2.0?

Tim O'Reilly the founder of O'Reilly Media, Inc. - the people who coined the term Web 2.0 - says, " The Internet as platform is the sum of all connected computers and devices. "

If you think about that statement, you begin to realise that the consumer of the Internet chooses which nodes or pages to connect. You're the missing silicone(carbon) switch that chooses which of the billions of sites are linked.

What is Convergence?.

Convergence is the coupling of the web with all media. Futurists envision a single piece of furniture that is a TV but also a computer, a game station, a phone, a printer etc..

Here's how you can connect links to create a Web 2.0 media experience at Quirks and Quarks:

1. First go to Quirks and Quarks; now click on 'Click here for our most recent program', this weeks show will come up; now click on the podcast for this weeks show. (The page your on will disappear and become the podcast window, so open a new browser start page and open Q & Q's web page again.)
   
2. Right under the podcast prompt is the first item in this weeks show. Each subject in the hour has it's own introduction, pictures and links to related sites.
3. As the participants on the radio show bring up points, click the appropriate links to see more info.

Soon, Quirks and Quarks will have a Blog, so while you listen, search, bookmark and take notes; you can also start creating; or start a discussion with other bloggers.

If your brain is better wired than mine, multi-task all six at once!

Image: Bob McDonald, host of Quirks & Quarks.




mh

NASA's Themis Rocket Blasting Off To Get Us 'Hover Cars'

Originally published February 12, 2007

NASA Video! of Themis lift-off (Quick Time Player)

February 16, 2007 6:08 PM EST
NASA's Themis Mission Lift Off - Hi Resolution Pictures
Mapping The Bow Wave Of Planet Earth
(to get us hover cars)
Lauch Photo: NASA

The bands of iridescent light we see as the Northern(or Southern) Lights are the collision of the solar wind and the earths magnetosphere. The Themis Mission will deploy five satellites equipped with ultraviolet sensors that will study this phenomena in more detail than ever before.

Once the satellites are in their proper orbits, they will line up above the north polar region every four days for 2 years. The Thimes mission will thoroughly map the northern lights; from the light we can see here on earth to the distant wave nodes they create beyond the orbit of the moon. NASA will gather data that could be used to create a four dimensional map of solar wind deflecting off the earths magnetosphere(x,y and z axis plus time).


Up until recently(1970s) space was thought to be mostly empty; now scientists are finding all kinds of stuff up there. The Themis Mission is one of several first steps humans are taking to map the medium of space. The European Space Agency has several mapping expeditions under way using different elemental particles as media.

Like a boat through the water, scientists theorize that the planet, the solar system and even the milky way galaxy create 'bow waves' in front of them as they move through space.(see image at the bottom of this story)

As the earth orbits the sun it creates a bow wave in front of it as it swings through space. The earths bow wave creates electrical storms above the north and south polar regions we see as 'Arora borealis'.

An understanding of how large masses effect the medium of space will help illuminate what Space is made up of.

A better map of the invisible matter in the universe will help cosmologists with their modeling. If they can't find all the 'dark matter' that their models predict is out there, we'll have to throw out Newtons law of Inertia and much of Einsteins Relativity. That would set us back a hundred years in our search for the Grand Unified Theory.

The Grand Unified Theory (G.U.T.) is a model that can describe both massive events like the the rotation of the solar system; and nano events like how molecules change.

If solved, the GUT will get us those 'Hover Cars' Sci/Fi has been predicting since the genre was invented.

That's what this is really all about you know, Hover Cars.

We want Hover Cars!

Image courtesy NASA





Themis gets a pay load, Feburary 10,2007

May 27, 2007
New link at NASA just came to my attention -- with event/time data.
NASA Video! of Themis lift-off (Quick Time Player)

NASA Heliophysics Division (Missions)



mh

Why Amanda Marcotte had to quit the John Edwards campaign

" The right-wing noise machine's favorite trick, possibly its only trick, is to select a target and start making a fuss, hoping that by creating the appearance of smoke, just enough people will be fooled into thinking there's a fire.
Unfortunately, it works. "

-Amanda Marcotte

Image: Lindsay Beyerstein

Amanda Marcotte relinquished too much power when she decided that "(she'd)..be happy to move to North Carolina " and work with in Edwards Campaign. She was expected to create a colossus like Daily Kos but with out the power and responsibility she needed to separate her self enough from the Campaign; so that when she did battle with the neo-con relativists, Edwards didn't catch any shrapnel.

Short Term Blog Development is a new technology, a new form. I don't have all the answers, but here's some ideas on what went wrong in this first try at a Short Run Blog Production Campaign.

This new form is pre modern; the challenge in marketing in the bloggosphere is to formulize the process. That hasn't happened yet, it's still a crafting process.

Bloggers are creative people, not Formula Badgers(Walmarts scalable retail business model). I think for the Campaign Blog to be effective, Blog Producers need to be independent creative producers. Success is in control of the site; most importantly control of the crafting of style and content - final cut if you will. Amanda Marcotte is one of a growing number of specialists, they are Creative Producers and should be paid like Producers.

I don't understand why Amanda had to move to North Carolina. The blogosphere is a virtual interactive experience - you don't need to stand up from your keyboard to build another one.

Blog Production will soon come to be seen as important as a National Campaign Organizer. When the power of the thing is fully appreciated the power and responsibility will come, that may happen with-in the next two years.

It ain't over yet Bloggers! Get back in there!


When your party taps you to create that 'Daily Kos' they want; here's some terms you might begin with:

1. The concession earned should be based on results from site meter data over the length of the campaign.
2. The Blog Producer should set a signing bonus; $250,000 per year for 'x' years; Producer keeps ad revenue.
3. Fund Raising is in the Candidates name; the candidate gets exclusive fund raising rights on the site; donations transferred directly through Electronic Banking.

'Independent Blog Producer' sound good as a Title?



mh

Nihilist Relativism: Wealthy Arizonians Talk Themselves Out of Morality

Lawyers. Let's Blame it on the lawyers.



Image

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 16, 2007,

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 13 — Just to be clear, Patrick Flynn says he loves public education. He just does not like the idea of paying for it.

So when it came time last November for the expanding, unincorporated desert community of Troon to choose between joining a nearby school district, and paying higher property taxes to help finance it, or starting its own, Mr. Flynn led the movement that created the Christopher Verde School District.

Not that the Christopher Verde district will have any schools, teachers or, apparently, students.

The children of Troon will continue to attend nearby schools. And thanks to a loophole in Arizona law, the grown-ups of Troon will continue to avoid paying property taxes in those districts, which makes officials in the districts less than mirthful.

...full article from NYT Archives

The only way these people can claim they have a shred of morality is by looking at it like it's Creative Destruction.

The logic would go like this:

"Because the Government waists so much and spends money on things I don't agree with; I believe it's my responsibility, my duty to rape the public school system. That way, when my kids find themselves illiterate and unemployed in a ruined American Dream - they'll be sure to fix it."




mh

Cosmology Interactive Mash up Fun

Q) What do these links have in common? (check out each colored link and try your Answer A, B, C and D, at the bottom).

Themis Mission
Advanced Concepts Team
Bow Wave of the Solar System
Aurora Borealis
Grand Unified Theory
Curved Space
The Jetson's

ANSWER: click the red letters

A. PBS show ZOOM?
B. Karl Rove's plan to Win in '08?
C. Goddesses?
D. Hover Cars?


Interactive learning technology mashup
mh

We're all going to Hell.

Jessica Hagys site is Wonderful! Here's her 'about me':

This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math.




Link is in the Title.

MY Super Bowl Proposal Worked!

This is Your Brain on Super Bowl Ads


From 10:14:17 PM on February 4th to 6:07:22 PM on February 5th Filter Blogs was visited by dozens of people searching for the results of a marketing campaign called "My Super Bowl Proposal". This was the second such numbers peak created by an article I posted in January that was designed to 'Hook-on' to a large Corporate Marketing Plan.

I came across the campaign in an article posted in DIGG called "I'm Blogging! Pay Attention to Me!". It linked back to the "My Super Bowl Proposal" a product placement/Internet video idea being spun by a company called Storybids.com.

I was incensed by the idea that marketers were using the democratically edited DIGG to create BUZZ around product marketing.

So I wrote an article about this new way of selling things and posted it in DIGG. "The Marketing of I'm Blogging! Pay Attention to Me!" was carefully worded, I was pulling a double reverse on the advertisers who had tricked me - I was marketing Filter Blogs by 'hooking-on' to the spin created by a company called SEOmoz.org

As I had hoped Filter Blogs got a peak in traffic; but the fun never stopped! The Super Bowl Proposal didn't happen in the end, but people who were looking for it while they watched the Game on Sunday caused another flood of traffic to Filter Blogs as they searched the subject after the game!

And, as you can see The Fun hasn't stopped yet!


Links: MICHAEL HOLLOWAYS FILTER BLOGS: The Marketing of "I'm Blogging! Pay Attention to Me!"/"Super Bowl Marketing on DIGG"



mh

Stephen Colbert interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor,

Bill O'Reilly plays Stephen Colberts' shtick and between the lines admits to being all about Hartred and War.

And then on Comedy Central later that night, confirms as much admitting the role playing had exposed his evil plan... "...this was a huge mistake, me comin' on here..".

Billy O'Reilly is a fascist. Yes. That's right, you heard me. I'm not listening. I can't hear you...

..lalala, lalala, lalala, lalala...



mh

6.4 billion digits of Pi

How long would it take to recite Pi
using the following Java applet?

Push to Start

Click on the Harpsichord version in the list - it's funny!

mh

The Birth of My First Widget: I'm officially a Geek!

Today I am happy to announce the birth of my first widget.

Completely self taught we've been trying to conceive for 2 months now.

Conceived in bed late night a day and a half ago; I rushed to the keyboard yesterday morning and began writing the code on my blogger template. The birth was smooth, with few complications. Other than the fact the blogger code over ruled my color choice on the buttons, and the bigged up letters kept appearing off the button; but we got that fixed and simpled it down pretty good I think.

I've been so busy I forgot to send out an announcement, or cards to anyone or anything like that until today; Thanks everyone for your support. Have some code! Enjoy!

I'm officially a Geek!

I know it's nothing new, but it's my widget and I love it!

LIST

SCIENCE