The Technology Review posted the other day an article on the “10 Emerging Technologies of 2008“. Very promising technologies indeed, but the one that really caught my attention was the Probabilistic Chips currently studied by Krishna Palem.

The reason I find this particular research so interesting is, that

• it has the potential of extending current scaling laws - and particularly Moore’s Law
• it takes advantage of the principles of collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds.

The theory of Probabilistic Chips

According to the article

Palem has developed a way for chips to use significantly less power in exchange for a small loss of precision. [...] chips could be designed to produce the correct answer sometimes, but only come close the rest of the time. Because the errors would be small, so would their effects: in essence, Palem believes that in computing, close enough is often good enough.

Current Scaling Laws

From the beginning of the twentieth century until today, a series of laws has emerged concerning the growth of computers and networks. They all negotiate the value of a network according to the technological leverage of the time.

• Sarnoff’s law, which was interested in the growth of radio and television networks (the value of the network is proportional to the number of actors)
• Metcalfe’s Law describing the value and the growth of small scale networks (the “value” or “power” of a network increases in proportion to the square of the number of nodes on the network).
• Reed’s Law describing the value of Group Forming Networks (the value of networks, that support the construction of communicating groups create value that scales exponentially with network size).
• Moore’s law handling the evolution and expansion of computer microchips (the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years).

One can notice the evolution from Sarnoff’s Law to Reed’s Law.

While Sarnoff’s Law was suggesting, that the value of a broadcast station (television or radio) would increase proportionally to its audience it could not be applied to more complex networks, since the degree of interconnectivity was much higher.

So Metcalfe’s Law was an evolutionary step of Sarnoff’s Law, which better described the upcoming computer networks (ARPANET) in the 1960s. But Metcalfe’s Law could be easily be applied to small computer or telephone networks, but certainly not to huge networks like the Internet.

Reed’s Law emerged to describe the masive development of the web and more specifically of the social web.

Moore’s Law, on the other hand remains stable. Although it finds application on the expansion of computer microchip technology for more than 40 years, its validity is lately at stake. The reason is, that silicon transistors are becoming smaller and smaller and therefore less reliable.

But that’s where the probabilistic chips come in play, to keep the microprocessor technology rapidly evolving.

With probabilistic chips, tiny microprocessors may be designed in such way, that the individual parts might be imperfect, but collectively bring perfect results.

Collective Intelligence

The probabilistic chip technology actually takes advantage of the theory of collective intelligence.

As supported by the Condorcet Jury Theorem [pdf], the probability of a correct answer by a majority of the group increases toward 100% as the size of the group increases. The validity of the Theorem is based on the hypothesis, that the answers provided by each individual are not random - but instead there is a more than 50% probability to be correct.

The Condorcet Jury Theorem might be criticized when we are dealing with humans, but machines can be programmed to work in such a manner.

It seems to me, that this is how cultural revolutions emerge: combining disciplines, which at first seem irrelevant to bring forth innovative ideas and technologies.

Probabilistic chips, can change the scenery of energy consumption, mobile technologies and microprocessor development; and all that by applying an almost 200 old theory to a completely different research field.

This is the second, more detailed part of the readings, studies, lessons, articles and essays I have found online about the theory and analysis of the web. The first part was relatively small, I admit, but I hope this list will keep you reading for some time.

Copyright and the Commons

Free Culture [Lawrence Lessig] : A discussion on the current laws of copyright and their implication to innovation and exchange of ideas.

Free for All [Peter Wayner] : An introduction the cyberculture of linux and its results in free software development.

The Right to Read [Richard M. Stallman] : A political, ideological essay on SPA (Software Publisher’s Association).

Hacker Crackdown [Bruce Sterling] : The history of hacker subculture during the 1990s. Cory Doctorow made an audiobook of it, which I edited for better listening. You can download it here [torrent].

The wealth of Networks: How social production transforms market and Freedom [Yochai Benkler] : A look at the economical aspects of networks, property and the commons.

Communications Infrastructure Regulation and the Distribution of Control Over Content [Yochai Benkler] : With the argument, that current infrastructures of communication and distribution have a negative impact on individual autonomy and public, Benkler suggests a new model.

For more texts of Yochai Benkler, visit his homepage benkler.org.

Open University Seminars

Network security lesson : A Master’s level lesson on networks. How they function and therefore how can they be protected.

Information on the Web : An introductory lesson, teaching tactics to find what you are looking for online. As I said, introductory.

Sociological studies of virtual worlds

My tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World [Julian Dibbell] : A sort of ethnographic study on the social life of the LambdaMoo virtual world, which thrived in the early 1990s. If you have read Sherry Turkle’s “Life on the Screen“, you get the picture.

The Online World [Odd de Presno] : The structure of the online world and how to take advantage of your time and effort in it. Pretty basic.

Network Theory & Social Networks

Scale Free Networks [Albert Laszlo Barabasi] : A very good essay to understand the basics of scale free networks and how the internet is interconnected.

Taming Complexity [Albert Laszlo Barabasi] : Like “Scale Free Networks”, an introductory approach to the subject.

The physics of the Web [Albert Laszlo Barabasi] : The structure and dynamics of the Internet.

These three essays of Barabasi can give a very good overview of the way the web is connected, the role of hubs, the importance of linkage, etc. I really like his work and I definetely suggest his book “Linked” on the same thematology [not free to download].

That sneaky exponential [David Reed] : Why participation in social networks counts. The next step after Metcalfe’s Law is Reed’s Law. Very insightful and very good argumented.

The augmented social Network: building identity and trust into the next-generation internet [Ken Jordan, Jan Hauser, Steven Forster] : The six degrees of seperation seem just too many. “This paper proposes the creation of an Augmented Social Network (ASN) that would build identity and trust into the architecture of the Internet, in the public interest, in order to facilitate introductions between people who share affinities or complementary capabilities across social networks.”

Virtual Interactive Communication: A bicultural Surve [Dave Ambrose] : A theoretical study on Web 2.0 and social networks such as Facebook.

Attention economy of the Web

Propaganda [Edward Bernays] : To understand how attentiveness of the collective mind works, the strategies of propaganda are certainly the foundations.

The economy of attention [Georg Franck] : A very good essay on the attention economy, from an expert of the subject.

Attention and Participation in the social Web [Jiannis Sotiropoulos] : Narcissistically enough, this is my master thesis on the attention economy of the social web. Network theory, sociology, mass psychology and emergent behavior are used in this study. I always welcome your feedback. The thesis is also in wiki format.

Software vs. Hardware

There is no software [Friedrich Kittler] : A complex, but very interesting point of view, why there are no software but only hardware.

On the implementation of Knowledge - towards a theory of hardware [Friedrich Kittler] : Once again why the relationship between hardware and software remain a paradox.
More works of Friedrich Kittler. His writings are very theoretical and provocative, but always interesting to read. Some texts are in German.

I think this graph on privacy from the New York Times didn’t get the attention it deserved. Although the companies argued, that they are not collecting individual data but statistical information, it is still a case of data mining versus privacy.
While the web expands, the user’s need for privacy increases.

I just wrote a post at pandemic blog about the role of the avatar. Using pictorial examples, I point out how your popularity in the blogosphere and the social networks you participate, can be significantly increased by the avatar you select.

A more wise, careful selection of your avatar can significantly boost your position in the networks in which you participate and, consequently, the popularity of your blog.

Apart from the reasons why, I also provide the right ways to choose the right avatar. Some examples of eye-catching avatars are given to prove my points.

So if you are interested in more indirect ways to increase your popularity in the blogosphere, check out the post. It can be a good way to start.

Almost a week ago there was a great buzz about a relatively new wiki, called wikileaks. One of the reasons for this popularity burst was, that this wiki accepts submissions that are

classified, censored or otherwise restricted [...] of political, diplomatic or ethical significance. Wikileaks does not accept rumor, opinion or other kinds of first hand reporting or material that is already publicly available.

The emergence of a censorship issue about the content of wikileaks, boosted the wiki’s popularity even more. To summarize the story:

The case in San Francisco was brought by a Cayman Islands bank, Julius Baer Bank and Trust. In court papers, the bank said that “a disgruntled ex-employee who has engaged in a harassment and terror campaign” provided stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of a confidentiality agreement and banking laws.
According to Wikileaks, “the documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.” On Friday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco granted a permanent injunction ordering Dynadot, the site’s domain name registrar, to disable the Wikileaks.org domain name.

This case is not only interesting as one more censorship issue of the cyberspace but also as an example of the power and growth of the web. The indirect points that are raised are:

1. The decentralized nature of the web manages to overcome obstacles.
2. It seems that wikis are slowly evolving in authoritative resources.

Decentralization

The wikileaks domain was shut down, not allowing any users to visit the site. In any centralized network, shutting down the front door of a node would be enough to bring him down.
But the web’s decentralized nature, easily manages to overcome this issue. The wikileaks domain could be accessed

• by mirror sites across Europe [Wikileaks.be],
• the secure site of the wiki [http://wikileaks.cx/wiki/Wikileaks]
• and even by the sites IP Adress [http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks].

This proves the difficulty of local, real life laws to be applied in cyberspace. Internet has always been a self-organized place and efforts to control it haven’t brought any results until now.

Authority in Wikis

If we go back to December, we will find several discussions about the trustworthiness of wikis. The reason was Google’s announcement of their “unwiki” platform Knol.

The fact alone, that this wiki received such attention speaks for the role of wikis in knowledge and information.
If wikis were really not trustworthy sources, which provide unproved data then why did this Bank step up against wikileaks?

It seems to me, that this case shows the strength of wikis, the power of the collective intelligence and the decreased role of authority and authorship.

The result

Latest news say that wikileaks got its domain back. Not because the Julius Baer Bank found the wiki less trustworthy and decided to drop the case, but because of the hard work and engagement of several lawyers and institutions (Public Citizen, the California First Amendment Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Project on Government Oversight, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation).

It seemed to be a lost case anyway.

Have you ever wondered why the topics reaching the frontpage of some social networks are very often about the same subject?

When you read the frontpage of reddit, you will notice mostly political and world news articles. Propeller too concentrates on political topics. Digg in its turn, is full of technology news. This is something, every blogger knows and the analysis at SocialMediaTrader proves. But why is that?

I mean there is nothing in the Terms of Use at these social networks, saying that only submissions of a specific genre are required. Everybody is free to submit anything and the wisdom of the crowd, will bring a post up or bury it. But still in a magical way, the posts reaching the front page are not diverse.

In this post I will analyze and visualize the network of the digg users, to show why technology is the favorite topic in Digg.

How relationships define the popularity of a topic

There are 3 requirements for a submission to reach the frontpage of any social network:

1. The quality of content.
2. Who submits the posts.
3. Who are the friends of the submitter.

These are points we are all aware of. When a top user submits a post, he gives it - in a sense - an additional popularity boost. His authoritative figure in the social network, says to the other users, that this particular post is worth their time.

But a point we are sometimes missing out, is that the friends of a top user does not only define the popularity of a post, but sometimes also the popularity of a genre.

Lets take a look at the top users of Digg.

The Digg Example

I decided to study Digg, since it is one of the least diverse social networks. In order to find the reason of this, I took a deep look at the network of the top digg users (according to Chris Finke’s data on digg).

• Step 1. I concentrated on the top 10 Digg users and saw if they were friends with each other.

• Step 2. I selected a random user from the list with a high popular ratio. The user I chose was sepultura, 28th top user with a submission/popularity ratio of 61.1%.

• Step 3. I visualized the data into a network, to see how highly these users were connected.

• Step 4. I collected the most dugg topics of each user the past 30 days.

Click to enlarge

I wanted to see if the top users are mutual friends and therefore view and promote each others submissions.

I also chose a random user with a high ratio, in order to see if he also was befriended with those top users. If so the popularity of his submissions could also rely on his friends.

If the top digg users were all befriended and interested in the same topics, it would actually be the reason for this monotony in subjects.

Visualizing Digg’s top users

The result of the visualization shows that the top 10 digg users are actually mutual friends and are in fact creating a very condence network.

Click to enlarge

• Mklopez (rank:10) is mutually befriended with all the others apart from p9s50W5k4GUD2c6 (!!) (rank 7).

• supernova17 (rank:4) is mutually befriended with 7 others, while msaleem (rank:2), mrbabyman (rank:1) and digitalgopher (rank:5) with 6.

• In fact, when these top users are befriended it is always mutual friendship, with the only exception of CLIFFosakaJAPAN (rank:6), who is a fan of Zaibatsu (rank:3).

• Only aaaz - the 8th top user - is mutually befriended with only 2 other top diggers.

• Sepultura, (rank:28) the random digger with high popularity ratio, was mutually befriended with 5 others: mrbabyman, msaleem, supernova17, zaibatsu and mklopez.

So it seems, that Digg’s top 10 users are mutually befriended and therefore are aware of each others submissions. Sepultura, might not be that popular but his popularity ratio is extremely high (61.1%). Is it a coincidence, that he is mutually befriended with the most connected top diggers?
The next step was to see, what are actually the interests of these users. Not surprisingly, apart from P9 and aaaz, all the other users (including sepultura) have as one of their main interests Technology News.

P9 and aaaz seem to have mostly political interests (second most popular topic of digg) and are actually the least connected of the group. P9 is mutually befriended with 4 top diggers (aaz among them), while aaaz is befriended with only p9 and mklopez (the most connected).

The Conclusion

The information collected show how the top diggers are actually in position of controlling the whole thematology of Digg. They have the same interests and are therefore friends with each other. It is only natural that they also like the same content. There is nothing wrong with that.

The power of the top diggers doesn’t rely on the fact, that they are popular but mostly on the fact that they have formed their own network.

But since their influence is so obvious and Digg isn’t specifically a technology network, I am not surprised that Digg enabled couple of months ago a more strict algorithm for a submission to reach the front page.

Image from SocialMediaTrader

I tried to do the same research with StumbleUpon, to see if the top stumblers are also that befriended as in Digg. It is certainly not the case. I suppose that’s why StumbleUpon has a much more diverse range of topics.

We are all aware with Creative Commons. Flickr photos are under CC licences, web designs are licensed, blog posts have some rights reserved and even some wikis have licenses on them. Purpose of Creative Commons is to promote sharing of information and substitute the restrictions of current copyright laws.

Creators have several good reasons to publish their work under a Creative Commons license, but there are some negative implications of Creative Commons, that we don’t observe at first sight.

From new technologies emerge new restrictions

When new technologies emerge, new ways of protecting our work come long.

Before Copyright.
Marshall McLuhan said about copyright laws that

the invention of printing did away with anonymity, fostering ideas of literary fame and the habit of considering intellectual effort as private property. Mechanical multiples of the same text created a public - a reading public. The rising consumer-oriented culture became concerned with labels of authenticity and protection against theft and piracy. (from the medium is the massage).

Copyright.
So, before the absolute expansion of the Web, there was copyright. For an artist to put his/her work out to the public wasn’t as easy as it is today. There were no computers to produce cheap, quality work; there was no Web with its wide public.
Artists needed someone who would finance the whole production process. And even when they did find someone and although “all rights reserved” applied the moment a work was created, sometimes artist didn’t really care. The purpose wasn’t to protect their intellectual property, the purpose was artistic expression. So copyright protected the ones caring and run obsolete in any other case.

Creative Commons.
The explosion of the Web changed the scene. Production and publication were very easy and very fast. So was copying and distributing. Awareness of self-expression rose. Every producer - regardless what he/she produced - wanted to protect his work. This needed to be done in an obvious (the web is huge) and fast (the works produced are numerous) way. So Creative Commons emerged.

According to wikipedia’s description

Creative commons is a non-profit organization, which provides several free licenses for the owners to use when releasing their work on the Web.

The value of Creative Commons

• Free flow of information; It is true, that the minute you create a work, it is immediately copyrighted with an “all rights reserved” license. This means, that you are the sole owner controlling who may copy, adapt, redistribute, publish etc.
  Since this perspective can be very restrictive to sharing and providing information, Creative Commons comes as a new parameter, promoting innovation and free flow of information.Creative Commons, under that perspective, combines a moral with a legal objective (although it has been argued, that the moral objective of Creative Commons is of lesser priority - at least in comparison to the Free Software Movement).

• Choice; Creative Commons provides a wide variety of licenses. There are 4 major licenses, which can be mixed, producing 16 possible combinations.

• Ease of use; Licensing your work in Creative Commons is easy. Very easy. In one step you choose your license and in the next your work has “some rights reserved”.

Criticism on Creative Commons

Over time, Creative Commons has been considerably criticized.

• It has been argued, that the legal code of the CC licenses has additional information, that people don’t read - they stick only to the Commons Deed.
• There are still several misconceptions about Creative Commons and licensing in general.
• It has even been argumented, that Creative Commons is completely pointless - although I would not go that far.

The public’s sense of ownership

For me the value of Creative Commons is undisputable. The public is too vast and the need for the protection of intellectual property is very important. Creative Commons gave developers the option to keep their work more open, than traditional, standard copyright laws do.

But the ease of use and the wide popularity of Creative Commons has also increased the awareness of the our sense of ownership. Suddenly, everything we produce - may it be a funny 5minute sketch, a blog post, a program or a whole book - is subjected to licensing.
Why do we put everything under a Creative Commons license?

• Maybe we believe, that our work might some day achieve a great financial value and we don’t want to miss the opportunity.
• Or we believe, that the web is full of malevolent individuals wanting to take advantage of our work and republish and their own identity.

I don’t want to argument why or why not one should put his/her work under a license, this is a personal decision. But just let me point out, that

• giving something for free does not necessarily mean not having any gain
• if the web were full of copyists and thieves, it probably wouldn’t be that successful.

I am not putting my work under any license, firstly because I don’t mind if someone copies my content. Secondly, I have a lot to gain from the online community and maybe that’s my way of giving something back.

After all if we only take and don’t give something back we will end up exhausting the free resources as Garrett Hardin’s theory of “the tragedy of the Commons” explains.

Do you have your work under a Creative Commons License? Why or why not? I’m really interested in your opinions.