- Google Flu Trends | How does this work?
Simply based on what people search in Google, Google is able to estimate flu activity up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems. - Swine flu: Twitter’s power to misinform | Net Effect
I think it’s only a matter of time before that the next generation of cyber-terrorists – those who are smart about social media, are familiar with modern information flows, and are knowledgeable about human networks – take advantage of the escalating fears over the next epidemic and pollute the networked public sphere with scares that would essentially paralyze the global economy. Often, such tactics would bring much more destruction than the much-feared cyberwar and attacks on physical – rather than human – networks.
Author Archives: paolo
Designing Your Reputation System and Designing Social Interfaces
10 practical questions for designing a reputation system. This talk was (partially!) given at the 2008 IA Summit. By Bryce Glass on Slideshare
Designing Social Interfaces – workshop talk given at Web 2.0 Expo
Negativity: not shown, not present
From an old paper of mine, note the message by eBay founder.
In fact, Resnick and Zeckhauser (2002) consider two explanations related to the success of eBay’s feedback system:
(1) “The system may still work, even if it is unreliable or unsound, if its participants think it is working. (…) It is the perception of how the system operates, not the facts, that matters” and
(2) “Even though the system may not work well in the statistical tabulation sense, it may function successfully if it swiftly turns against undesirable sellers (…), and if it imposes costs for a seller to get established.”
They also argue that: “on the other hand, making dissatisfaction more visible might destroy people’s overall faith in eBay as a generally safe marketplace.”This seems confirmed by a message posted on eBay by its founder in 1996:
“Most people are honest. And they mean well. Some people go out of their way to make things right. I’ve heard great stories about the honesty of people here. But some people are dishonest: or deceptive. This is true here, in the newsgroups, in the classifieds, and right next door. It’s a fact of life. But here, those people can’t hide. We’ll drive them away. Protect others from them. This grand hope depends on your active participation” (Omidyar, 1996).On eBay, whose goal, after all, is to allow a large number of commercial transactions to happen, it seems that positive feelings and perceptions can create a successful and active community more than a sound Trust Metric and reputation system. This means that the fact that a Trust Metric or reputation system is proved to be attack resistant does not have
an immediate effect on how users perceive it and hence, on how this helps in keeping the community healthy and working.
Two talks by David Orban in Trento on April 8th: The Open Internet Of Things, and
The SoNet FBK research group is happy to invite you to two talks by David Orban on April 8th in Trento.
The first talk, “The Open Internet Of Things”, will be about OpenSpime. It will be interesting if you are interested in sensors, positioning devices and memory, social, Web 2.0-style services in the real world, green technology, tech applied to the environment, open hardware and software, communications protocols, and future in general.
The second talk, “Preparing Humanity For The Impact Of Accelerating Technological Change”, will talk about the Singularity University, a recent new initiative funded by Nasa, Google and more.
I’ll wait you on April 8th!
First talk: The Open Internet Of Things
8 April 2009 – at 10.00 – Conference Room – Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Povo (TN) (up in the hills, see the map)
If we want the the forthcoming Internet of Things to flourish, the distributed smart sensor networks which take the current infrastructures for granted and base their necessarily autonomous activities on massive data collection, then we have to adopt an open architecture. Only an interoperable approach to the design of the next generation of hardware and software systems is going to be able and leverage the dramatic effects, and express the value to human civilization that the network of tens, or thousands of billions of new objects, the spime network is going to shape. For more info see http://www.openspime.com
Second talk: Preparing Humanity For The Impact Of Accelerating Technological Change
8 April 2009 – at 15.00 – Conference Room – Fondazione Bruno Kessler – Trento (downtown, see the map)
The impact of advanced technologies on our societies is becoming more and more extreme, exposing new tensions in our models of human relationships, learning, and values in policies, politics, and business. While relinquishment has been recommended by some, it appears that the way ahead will be the use of more, not less technology, as billions of people aim to achieve a high quality of life for themselves, and their children. The Singularity University, recently formed on an open, international and interdisciplinary approach employs an advanced curriculum to analyze how the future leaders of enterprise, culture, and science can best prepare to face the serious challenges ahead.
About the speaker:
David Orban is an entrepreneur and visionary. In recognition of his lifetime contribution to exponentially advancing technologies, he has been honored with the position of Advisor and European Lead to the prestigious Singularity University.
He is a Founder and Chief Evangelist of WideTag, Inc., a high technology start-up company providing the infrastructure for an open Internet of Things. David cuts across the limits of deep specialization to contribute to the new renaissance. He explains, “My vision is at the crossroads of technology and society as defined by their co-evolution.” David Orban’s personal motto is, “What is the question I should be asking?” This concept is his vehicle to accelerating cycles of invention and innovation in order to build the new world ahead.
Links for 2009 03 25
- Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
Where there is no scarsity and a real free market, the denominator is infinite and the price is naturally 0.
"…the trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero." - Ethical Issues in Social Network
List of papers dealing with ethical issues that arise in collecting and analyzing social network data, particularly in organizational settings.
One identity (system) to rule them all
Lots of competition and activities for becoming the defacto identity system for the future Web.

Facebook pushes Facebook connect

Google pushes Google Friend Connect

While MySpace Embraces DataPortability, Partners With Yahoo, Ebay And Twitter.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Flickr was a game but users drove it into a photo sharing site.
The typical example of a socio-technical system heavily influenced by its user (prosumer!) is Flickr. Maybe not too many people know that in the beginning Flickr was a Web-based game, called Game Neverending (GNE). Best summary of early Flickr history I found is in this interview.
The original interface of GNE (see below) was heavily based on Instant Messagging. You could drag game objects into an IM conversation and it would send to all the other members of the chat an image of the object.
THAT was the key feature! The creators of GNE thought “what if instead of game objects, you could drag and drop other digital objects into these conversations, like Word documents, or PDFs? Or maybe photos?”
So the first version of Flickr was just a stripped-down Game Neverending interface, with photos instead of game objects.
I think this is the perfect example of user-driven design. “I created a web game site –> users use it for sharing objects –> then I create a site for sharing photos.”
A screenshot of Game Neverending (from GNE Museum)

And there was also a Social network explorer!


Data mining for judging the values of employees and how to stop it
BusinessWeek publishes an interesting article on how data mining and social network analysys (SNA) are starting to be used by human resources department in order to automatically determine the value of each employee.
The strong-worded beginning (speaking about a social network graph) is:
Each circle represents an employee. Those who generate or pass along valuable information within the company are portrayed as large and dark-colored. And the others? “On a relative scale, they don’t add a hell of a lot,” says Elizabeth Charnock, chief executive of Cataphora, the Redwood City (Calif.) company that carried out the study for a client. The upshot for managers faced with a mandate to downsize: Small and pale circles might be a good place to start cutting.
Is there a way to stop this? I think the correct way is to inform employees precisely about:
* the information the tech tools they use (email, intranet, …) they use is generating about themselves and which information is stored and how
* the use the management can do and cannot do of this stored information (for example, if it can be used for anonymous statistical analysis of performance of tech tools).
* their right to ask the removal of any information about them from the logs (in Italy there is a precise law that gives you this right).
It is surely a tricky topic but the possibilities of control and tracing will only increase with time so it is important to start discussing it asap. What are your thoughts?
International politics 2.0 and … Obama is a genious!
Obama left a message on YouTube for all Iranians!
Points to note:
* emphasis on directly (“speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran”)!
* message posted on Youtube!
Now imagine the President of Iran, Ahmadinej?d, leaving a directly video message to all Americans on the web!!! We live in interesting time, don’t we?
Download .mp3, .mp4, or .mp4 with Persian subtitles | Read the transcript in Persian
In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place.
So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.
There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”
Following the complete transcript:
Google Opens School of Personal Growth
Google wants to help Googlers grow as human beings on all levels. Emotional, mental, physical and ‘beyond the self’… (This) is why Google University instituted the School of Personal Growth, perhaps the first of its kind in a large corporation. We don’t just pamper Googlers, we want to help them fulfill their full human potential.”
With classes available entitled “The Neuroscience of Empathy” and “Search Inside Yourself,” Broecker said the end goal is to help Googlers be more creative by helping them be more relaxed and open to new ideas.
I found it as I was listening to one of the podcast of AudioDharma by Marc Lesser which lectures a course named “Search Inside Yourself” at Google. Quite a title! And I’m dreaming of setting up something like the School of Personal Growth in the research institute where I work…
From webpronews.

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