I have expressed before my belief on Gladwell’s tipping point. I just found a very interesting post on the tipping point, where Duncan Watts (network thoerist, wrote ‘Six Degrees’) poses his disregard on Gladwell’s thesis. Take a look at it, it is very thorough and well argumented.

In other news, I will probably not submit any new post for the next days, since I’m finishing my master thesis. I’m planning though, a post on the semantic web. I think I’ll have it ready on Monday. So see you then.

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is over and surely left very good impressions to everyone. The subjects discussed varied from the future of mobile technology to water shortage and even a new kind of collaborative leadership and a new form of capitalism. All very interesting and intriguing points for the improvement of the world. This year, as most of you remember, the davos question was also hosted in youtube.

Davos on YouTube

The davos youtube channel reached 1,593 subscribers and 349,617 viewers, getting the 3rd place of the most subscribed channel this month. The purpose of the davos youtube channel was to get the voice of the public out to the economic leaders. In fact the concept of the channel got so popular, that attracted celebrities and leaders (from Bono to Tony Blair) to submit their own proposals. So google’s idea of this channel worked out pretty well.

The illusion of interaction

I have an objection here, an objection supported when the davos channel was first launched. The whole concept was to promote the views and ideas of the public; to get the word out to the economic leaders, who probably do not have much connection with the greater public.
I followed the daily davos blog with the hope of finding a single mention of a youtube video from a ‘normal’ user. I didn’t find any.
Did you? Were all submissions in the davos channel so crappy, is the public so stupid?
I find it hard to believe.
The only attempt for interaction was made by Robert Scoble, who streamed live video to his readers and asked the questions that came directly to his mobile phone (I suppose via twitter; the single reason to stay on twitter).

I’m expressing my skepticism here not generally against the Davos question, but specifically against the effort of the davos youtube channel. I get the impression, that it was just a PR move.

What do you think? How did you find the development of the davos discussion and its interactive perspective?

Today is International Privacy Day. I always wonder why we always have one day to celebrate something (peace, literacy, freedom, privacy, etc.), when these are subjects we should daily consider and honor. I suppose these International Days act as reminders to the forgetful ones, for the importance and weight of these ideals.

So International Privacy Day. Online privacy is a very vague subject. The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) has published some very interesting presentations explaining how can our privacy be harmed and how we can protect ourselves. Although researches show that our online privacy concerns have increased google points out that

70% of Europeans did not understand how their personal data was being protected.

So let’s see what one can learn and do on a day like this.

Privacy Harms

• Intrusions: When “they” come to your space to tell you what to do or where to point your attention. In cyberspace, SPAM is the most common example.
• Information Collection: Sadly, our world today. Visual surveillance we experience in our everyday life and don’t complain anymore. Of course asking for private information is considered a privacy breach (do your remember the TorrentSpy trial?).
• Information Processing: The curse of web 2.0. We are willingly opening our private data to anyone. Data mining can be considered as the mildest consequence. Letting marketers to develop patterns and decide if you are a good customer (if not, how can you become one).
• Information Dissemination: When services or software disclose more information about you as they should.

Protecting your Privacy

There are four basic ways to protect your privacy online:

• Technology: use firewalls and spam-filters
• Law: The CAN-SPAM act; an act which establishes certain requirements for those who send commercial email. For example using false headers is illegal.
• Markets: You choose a safe mail provider or a safe Operating System

Of course there are simple actions you can do yourself now to increase the protection of your private data and your system.

6 simple ways to protect yourself

1. Delete cookies after each session. Cookies are a nasty thing. They are the trace of your surf activity on your computer. This means that anyone can see which sites you lately visited. But some sites require cookies to work. So be smarter. Customize your browser to delete the cookies after you close him.In firefox just go to Preferences and to the “Privacy” Tab. Have the ‘accept cookies from sites’ clicked, but in the ‘Keep until:’ chose ‘I close Firefox’. If you think some cookies are really nasty and you don’t want them at all, just add them in the ‘Exceptions…’
2. Delete your web history. While you’re at the same tab (Privacy) select the ‘Always clear my private data when I close Firefox’ box. On ‘Settings’ you can customize that. I Clear everything apart from my saved passwords. (Remember, if you have saved passwords on firefox, ALWAYS keep a master password)
3. Change your passwords often. This might seem like an extreme measure, but it is very important one. Most users (me included) are participating in so many communities, they just have one password for all. The password for gmail, wordpress, ubuntu, yahoo, mixx is just the same. I know it is difficult changing the password for all these services, but it is necessary. I learned it first hand: Almost 3 years ago, while I was still running Windows, I logged in to my MSN Messanger just to see my username changed to “I have been hacked…yeah truly”. I immediately changed the password of my hotmail (and eventually stopped using it) and all other services I currently used. Or just get an OpenID and wait until it gets more popular.
4. Hide your IP when surfing. There are software that can hide your IP. Although, it is not 100% guaranteed hidden IP it is the best you can get. You also get this great feeling of freedom. Some free software to hide your IP are Tor and Smarthide.
5. Read The Terms of Service. I know it is boring. But sometimes you will find something in the Terms of Service that goes completely against your beliefs.
6. Use Encryption: Don’t protect your privacy only from marketers and spammers but also from identity theft, surveillance, system crackers or even espionage. A good place to start is the Pretty Good Privacy project. It is absolutely free and it runs almost in every computer (I think even Atari!)

What will you do today to protect your privacy?

Additional resources:

• Privacy Rights ClearingHouse
• Electronic Frontier Foundation on Privacy
• Tutorial to make a PGP key on Ubuntu for evolution

After last.fm, the 4 big music labels (EMI, Sony BMG, Warner, Universal) are supporting a new service. This one is called Qtrax and it launches tomorrow. In comparison to similar sites (pandora, imeem, slacker), this one is a p2p network, meaning that users are able to legally download copyrighted music. Sarah Perez wrote an article about the ups and downs of qtrax.

But why would qtrax succeed?

Don’t get me wrong, I find it a step to the right direction but it provides a service users already have (they just have it “illegally”). Using last.fm is for me clear: it is streaming music and is highly community driven. But Qtrax? I think Mashable is right on this one: qtrax will not last.
I’m just a bit skeptical. Maybe RIAA must take even harsher measures to convince the wider public to use such services instead of the sweet torrents.
I don’t know, what do you thing?

Do you have any good reason, why we should prefer Qtrax over all the other services we are used to?
I mean, I have none so far. I’ll think about it and post on the comments if something comes up.

Thanks to Robert Gordon for drawing my attention on imeem.

These are the blogs that give a fresh view to the blogosphere. Some of them follow the current news and provide a different perspective. Others are simply out of any trends and tactics and just blog for the fun of it. And then there are the ones, that are just very well informed; you say something and their answer is right on spot.

In simpler words, these blogs do the boogie-woogie.

1. Digital Media World. An extensive study of social media and social networks. His insights on online fooling-around are very intriguing. Can your sex-life online influence your real-life relationship? A VR user once said: “RL [real life] is just a window among others, and not necessarily my favorite one”
2. CyberStreetReport. Although Reno wants his blog to evolve into “the ultimate link dropping station”, he still suggests to reduce your posting rate.
3. Social Networking Articles. Live from the field. All the nasty stuff you need to know about social networking. Even the, sometimes ‘unsocial’, web designers get some juice here.
4. Blogging Bits. This guy has found a way to get your blog more traffic and subscribers will you’re sleeping. Forget writing, just have a nap.
5. Dembot. Staying true to traditional blogging. A variety of issues covered (from the Kenya crisis to the Gilmore Girls).
6. Kasi-Blog. One more traditional blogger, with a revolutionary flare. Hope he continues blogging, while writing his Master Thesis. Hang in there Karsten. It’s just a phase, it will pass.
7. The Ed Techie. I can’t really explain it, but this blog is always on the top in my RSS Feed aggregator. Maybe because he sometimes mentions Wittgenstein and you just can’t argue with that.
8. Social Media Trader. When we surf the web, he rides it. His lists are just incomparable.
9. RoboRobert. He is robots and you can too! Great name, great header, great robots.
10. EpiBlogger. If you hate teletubbies as much as I do, maybe it’s time to reconsider. There is knowledge everywhere.

So that’s the list of my freshest subscriptions in the blogosphere. I’m always trying to expand my feed, so stay tuned in. More dancing blogs will be introduced.
If you want some more boogie-woogie blogs, take a look at my blogroll. They sure can dance.

I tried repeatedly yesterday to log into bloggingzoom and it just didn’t work out. I thought it was a typical maintenance or something of that kind. But it seems it was cracked. Cortney Tuttle ascribes this act to the fact that

BloggingZoom is growing very quickly and that obviously poses a threat to quite a few different people. I’m not going to name any names but there are a few different groups and individuals that would stand to benefit if they could slow down the growth of the site.

A couple of bloggers have also posted about this, but it seems there hasn’t been a big fuss about it. Digg didn’t have any post about it (I just submitted one), stumbleUpon’s post was liked by 13 people and I just posted the subject on mixx. I wonder why.

Maybe BloggingZoom isn’t the kind of site that will bring waves of traffic to your blog, but the community is serious enough and is really participating in the blogging process.

By participating I mean, that users are actually reading the posts, subscribing and adding comments. Something that happens very seldom in digg for example. Also the fact that a submitter must write an at least 350letter description, speaks for the earnestness of the users.

Anyway, hope they get out of the problem soon.

Just a small footnote here: Hackers are people who enjoy exploring the potential of software and technology without any malicious intent. Crackers are the nasty ones.

What defines the value of a social network? Is it its users or is it the network itself? Who should have the last word in a self-organizing community? The users or the administrators?
The digg debate, although resolved raises some very important issues on the future of self-organizing platforms.

The users

The top diggers yesterday revolted against Digg, because it enabled a new, more ’strict’ algorithm. The debatable part of this algorithm is, that when a post is dugg by you and your 100 friends, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will reach the frontpage.

So what the algorithm brings in, is diversity. Top diggers disregarded this variable, since it treats their posts (and consequently their network) unfair. The logic behind this revolt is, that

Top users are top users because they submit high qaulity material. They should not be required to get more diggs simply because of the great job they have been doing to reach that top user status.

I don’t see this as a plausible argument. These communities give control to the end user; every end user and not only a ruling few. Regardless of the quality of content these top-users provide, they are considered authorities in their platforms (may it be digg, stumbleupon, slashdot, etc) and their opinion is highly praised. This authority alone, is a reason for their content to be promoted. Sometimes regular users are digging top-user content, just because it is top-user content.

The network

Digg (and all sites of the kind) started out with a main principle of self-organization. They provided the tools for the creation of an active community, which discovers and promotes content - and let it self-organize.
Indeed, the presence of administrators is very subtle in most cases.

But the functionality of such communities doesn’t rely only on self-organization.
Indirect control is sometimes required. When users post spam, when they have multiple accounts, when they behave improperly, an administrator is needed to set things right.

Similarly when these networks are actually managed by few top users, then another main principle of the system is at stake. Diversity.
Without diversity, the content is usually about the same subjects and very often from the same sources.
But when Digg decided to control this behavior and give the opportunity to other users to bring content forward, the ruling diggers revolted.

It is of course logical. They have worked hard to create a steady friends network, which in a way guarantees lots of diggs for every post they make.

The resolution

After this mini-revolution, digg founders came forward and explained their position. The way I see it, they diplomatically remained on their position on the subject, saying that content will not be directly undermined when posted by a top digger, but it will have trouble reaching the front page if it is promoted only by their friends. I find it fair.
In the drilldown, where the discussion was held the question posed at their last post is:

If Digg is a game then we are ready to play for keeps. What happens if the most powerful users in the community decide to leave? Will others join? Is Digg anything without us? Let’s prove it.

Would the community fall apart because the top users aren’t a part of it anymore? Would the quality of the content degrade?
I don’t think so. Digg is a very popular social network. The move, that digg did opens the road

• for more users to submit content
• for more users to join the network (hence more diversity)
• for more users to participate actively in the community

The issue

I believe that the value of a network is mostly defined by the users participating in it. But the way the network indirectly regulates the community is a fundamental aspect for the success of the system.
What do you think? Should digg stay out of the way and let the community evolve the way it was evolving, or was it a good decision to endorse a more strict perspective of popularity?