For everyone widely using social media, RSS Feeds are a blessing. They have revolutionized the way we gather information and expand our knowledge and interests. We comfortably let data come to us; an attribute of utmost importance, when we imagine what vast constellations of data are inhabiting the streams of cyberspace. All we have to do, is to decide the sources, that will send us these information. So RSS Feeds are a very comfortable service, indeed.

Mainly due to my master thesis research, I have been using RSS Feeds extensively and have enjoyed its assistance. I have mentioned before, that I have been following almost 100 blogs and news sites; and I wasn’t just scanning the information coming, I really read them - and I still do. I don’t think the curse of RSS Feeds lies on the fact, that it provides too much information. I actually don’t believe there is such thing as too much information.

The Curse

No, the problem lies somewhere else. RSS Feeds are too comfortable. What does this mean?
Depending on our time and engagement, we settle down with 50, 70, 100 or more subscriptions. We read the news daily and get enough input and inspiration for our next blog posts. We also participate in most of the communities we are involved in and we have in a way succeeded in making our presence felt and even established a connection with the fellow bloggers.

But then the curse emerges, a curse we actually do not realize.
We stop worrying about other blogs, we stop worrying about new subscriptions, we have developed our nice, warm environment and we are satisfied with it.
This is bad for 3 reasons:

1. We forget the strength of weak ties

Strong ties are our close friends, while weak ties are mostly people we are acquainted with. Mark Granovetter’s research on people looking for a new job in 1973 concluded, that 27,8% of them found on from their weak ties, while 16,7 % from their strong ties. He didn’t disregard the value of strong ties, but he pointed out the importance of weak ones.
Having a steady, well established network of subscriptions constitutes a well founded, strong base, but it also makes us forget the value of weak ties.
How many of these subscriptions are actually well established connections of yours?

2. We lose the sense of a challenge

The fact that we are mostly participating in the blogs we are subscribed to, establishes our prestige in these communities. The author knows who we are and other regular commentators are also aware of our positions. But this evolves in a routine behavior: reading the same blogs, writing comments, starting an interesting discussion with (almost) always the same people.
The challenge of writing a great comment, of saying something really insightful is lost. These people know you, you don’t have to prove yourself. You are allowed to say something silly or not well researched; they will understand.

3. We disregard diversity

People have a natural tendency to start relationships with like-minded people. That is absolutely logical and understandable. But online diversity plays a fundamental role. It brings new voices into the discussion and helps in the correct aggregation of information.
When we constantly find ourselves in the same circles of discussion, we tend to associate with a biased group. That is not necessarily wrong, but it might not be that thought provoking.

Removing the curse

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the RSS curse. I’m very satisfied with the small network I have developed in the past months and definitely don’t want to lose it.
But when I remember on the first times I was blogging, things were much more intriguing. I was searching for new cool blogs, trying to decode the bloggers. I was cautious of my comments and remarks.
Now things are much more comfortable.
So I thought, that it is time to make things more interesting; to get ride of the RSS curse.

• I will start doing guest posts on blogs I like and of course am also opening my blog for guest posts. I’m already preparing an article for superbloggingtips and if you have any writings on your shelf you want to show to another public, contact me.
• I will delete all my subscriptions; by all I mean most of them. I can’t unsubscribe from my strong ties, I like their stuff and I like their feedback.
• Consequence of the above is that I will start searching for new blogs. This will expand my network and pose a challenge to me.

The RSS curse is like smoking. You get it out of your system for a month, but in the end you get hooked up again.
So I’m still thinking on new ways to use RSS in its full potential without getting stuck with its negatives.

As always I’m open for suggestions, feedback and from now on your articles.

Two very simple games of experimental economics can decode the rules of the blogosphere and the web. They expose basic functions of the society - of any society - and consequently teach us how to be better bloggers, surfers, users, contributors.

The Ultimatum Game

A very interesting game in experimental economics is the Ultimatum Game. It takes place between two players, who play it only once.
An amount of money (lets say 100$) is to be shared between the players. A coin is flipped to determine which player will decide how the money will be split. The other player, the “responder” can either accept the deal and the money is split as the first player proposed or he can refuse the deal and neither player gets any money. The game is simple, but the results stand against any rational thinking:

• 2/3 of the experimental subjects offer between $40-$50.

• Only 4% offers less than $20 and

• more than the half of the responders reject offers smaller than 20% of the total.

The Public Goods Games

A development of the Ultimatum Game is the Public Goods Game.
In this game 4 participants have to decide how much to invest in a common pot. Each one has a starting amount of money and the option to keep what they don’t invest in the pot. The total amount invested (each decides without knowing how much the others invested), is multiplied and then divided equally among the players.
But this game is played in rounds and after each round the amount invested by each player is revealed.
Also in some of the games, players were allowed to spend part of their pool for the privilege of fining each other.
In other games, the players were rotated among different groups, so that individuals did not have the opportunity to encounter each other again.
The results of the game are intriguing:

• In the games, where fining was allowed participators made more generous contributions in the pot, but without the punishment collaboration collapsed.

• Even though there was no possibility for future interaction, very often players punished free riders and reported that they did it because they were angry at the cheaters.

The hidden rules of the games

Someone who knows and has studied the games can extract 3 simple rules in order to understand them.

1. People tend to be more generous than a strategy of rational self-interest predicts.
2. People will penalize cheaters, even at some expense to themselves.
3. These tendencies tend to influence individuals to behave in such ways that benefit the group.

But the reactions of the participants are not only to be seen in our ‘cultivated’ society. They seem to follow a universal pattern.

In some organisms and some human societies, individuals have been so willing to cooperate that they apparently act against their own self-interest in order to provide benefit to others. Why do antelope hunters in Tanzania and turtle fishermen off Australia expend their energy providing game for tribal feasts, even at the expense of their own families? Biologists think the answer is something called “costly signaling”: The hunters are letting others know that they are good citizens and good providers and therefore food husband and partner material.

Very often the hunters are sharing their catch at the expense of their time and their shares in order to send this “costly signal”. The others, who perceive this signal, tend to trust it because of the cost the hunters paid to signal it.
In the end this evolves to a reputation contest.

To biologists Pollock and Dugatkin, reputation evolved as a measure of an individual’s willingness to reciprocate, thereby raising the probability that the individual will be chosen as a partner in reciprocally cooperative activities like food-sharing, mating and hunting together.

So, a fourth rule emerges: reputation is the secret ingredient in cooperation.

The Cyberspace

It seems, that the way we react, when being part of a community is something coded in our DNA.
But is it really so?
The web is a place, where the conventions of identity, rules, society, space and time are very flexible. If these fundamental rules of collaborative societies would have value in the cyberspace, then we - the cyberspace inhabitants - could learn a great deal about our interactions in this non-world.

If we were to see cyberspace under the perspective of rational self interest strategies, then bloggers and users would:

• link only their friends or people who linked them first

• they would submit someones content only if he/she submitted their own

• never participated in any open source or free project

• they would never post in forums

Is there penalization in the web?
I can easily have multiple accounts in any community. I can promote my content tenfold, I can leave annoying comments on other blogs, I can delete wiki submissions and with a simple change of my IP address, remain unpunished. The only punishment is not even in the realms of the cyberspace; it incorporates the real world.

If the group behaves generously and penalizing, then this tendency will influence the individuals to be also generous. But if there is no penalty for any misbehavior, then - the game rules say - users have no reason to be generous. Instead, they act according to their self-interest.
Luckily, that’s where the stabilizing factor comes along: Reputation.

Maybe the punishment laws of the cyberspace are loose, but it works so well due to reputation.

Users with high reputation are highly acknowledged and trusted by other users. If a user has low reputation he is not trusted by many users, but it is a trust he/she can built with generosity. Similarly, when a trusted, popular user ‘misbehaves’ may not be directly penalized, but he/she will lose his/her popularity.

The lesson

If you have reached reading so far, then the lesson is pretty self-explanatory. Consider your goals when being online. Why do you participate in all these communities? Why do you blog?
To reach your goals, you have to first give something to the community. You must start building on your reputation. It is a slow process, because web users are very cautious (remember they can’t really punish you), but it is worth. In the end you will get back what you gave. Your generosity will be repaid. If you want:
…more traffic to your blog, then start by sending traffic to other blogs. Help other users start their blog, participate in their discussions.
…your submissions to reach the front page, vote other submissions first.
…better software, help the community develop better software. Send your feedback, the bugs you find,your code.

To succeed your goals in cyberspace you must be generous and patient.

They don’t know it but the comments of Terry and Paul inspired me for this post.

Howard Rheingold’s book “Smart Mobs” has been a valuable resource.

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?

Think of the social web as a huge town.
Like each town it has central squares, where many road lead. It also has central authorities, which have enough connections to direct you almost everywhere. Finally, like any city it has your friends, acquaintances but also people you hardly know. Depending on who you know (the mayor, a police officer or a salesman), you can get some jobs done much faster, while others require days and days of hard work.
But if you have the right connections and know which roads to follow, the town lies in front of you, like an open book.
The best way to learn your way around this city (and any city) is to have a map of it.
This is a list of static and interactive tools, which will reveal how the town called social web work. The static tools are mostly visuals of well-known social networks. The interactive tools are free software, which will let you study your own social networks.
Purpose of this list is to provide the instruments to help you decode the social web. Maybe if you try a hard enough and read between the lines, you’ll understand how the social web is connected.
Now you have the tools to find who are the hubs in your networks.

Static Tools

Les Miserables: The network of interactions between major characters in the novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, divided in 11 communities represented by different colors.

Flickrland: Network analysis of the Flickr population, based on data collected on March 14th, 2005.
Vizster: Vizster is an interactive visualization tool for online social networks, allowing exploration of the community structure of social networking services such as friendster.com, tribe.net, and orkut.
Enron’s email pattern: This graph produced by The New York Times reveals a map of a week’s e-mail patterns in May 2001, when a new name suddenly appeared.
Mapping the new testament: One of hundreds of interesting visualizations in Many Eyes is the Map of social relationships in the New Testament.
Data Visualization of a social network: Different aspects of a real life social network.
The spread of obesity in a large social network: The prevalence of obesity has increased from 23% to 31% over the recent past in the United States, and 66% of adults are overweight. In order to better understand this phenomenon, the authors in this study performed a quantitative analysis of the nature and extent of the person-to-person spread of obesity as a possible factor contributing to the obesity epidemic.

Steroids network in major league baseball: Sen. George Mitchell’s 409-page report on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball describes a thriving underground market for steroids and human growth hormone. This is a visualization of Mitchell’s report.

Interactive Tools

Fidgt: A Social Networking Address Book, which keeps track of all your friends and their media across different social networks (flickr, last.fm, msn messanger and other network supported).
Social Circles: Social Circles intends to partially reveal the social networks that emerge in mailing lists.
LJNet: LJNet is an interactive visualization of LiveJournal.com (LJ) members’ social networks. It shows the friends and friends of friends of any given LJ member.
TouchGraph: Another LiveJournal visualization tool. Now for Facebook too.
Email Constellations: This project aims to be a free, flexible, and easily modifiable visualisation tool that allows a user to intuitively understand their online social group structure.
Tracking the threat: TrackingTheThreat.com is database of open source information about the Al Qaeda terrorist network, developed as a research project of the FMS Advanced Systems Group.
Map of MySpace Friends: This is a simple force-directed graph that maps the relationships between myspace users.
Comment Flow: Building upon a traditional force-directed network layout consisting of nodes (profiles) and edges (friend-links), the system shows the activity and the information exchange (postings in the comment box) between nodes, taking the sequence and age of the messages into account.
Mapping the digg community: Using the Digg API, Brian Shaler created a map of Digg users and how they’re connected to each other.
Facebook friend wheel: colorful wheel that maps all the links between Facebook friends.
Nexus: Nexus is a friend grapher for Facebook built on Graphviz twopi and neato. It calculates friend similarity by parsing profiles (through the Facebook API), and highlights links between friends who share interests and groups.

Before you start reading, take a look at your subscriptions and count how many blogs in there are problogs.
In my aggregator I follow 98 blogs and news sites; 84 of them are blog. 37 of these blogs are pro-blogs.

There are thousands how-to-become-a-problogger lists, which advocate for quality content and good design, that promotes usability.
I don’t know how you see it, but some of these pro-blogs are full of ads – so many that you sometimes miss the content; and the content isn’t of the highest quality. Still these pro-blogs, remain problogs.
Why?
A discussion I had with Paul M. Banas made me think about it. I concluded, their success relies on 5 reasons:

1. Authority

Pro-bloggers have established their position in the blogosphere. They have high ranks in PageRank, in Technorati in everything. Being linked from a problog is a guarantee of 15seconds of popularity and maybe some additional subscribers. A link from a problog increases your rank significantly.

2. Discussion

Due to their high popularity, they host the most interesting discussions. Even if a post is inadequate, poorly researched or naive, people will still comment. Either by expressing their disregard or by correcting the mistakes. They will provide additional links, so that the writer (and co-commentators) will get better informed. After all, an active participation in a pro-blog community increases your popularity in the blogosphere.

3. Buzz

Problogger posts can create a buzz; they can be the news. Several people were kicked out of Facebook before Scoble, but it was Scoble’s post that made the news and started such a buzz. If you follow pro-blogger news, you stay up-to-date. When ReadWriteWeb writes about an internet brain implant, it becomes the news of the day.

4. Information

Information comes to Probloggers. The best advertisement for you is to write a great article in a problog as a guest blogger. The same counts, for a new web platform: after a first launch, they send a link to probloggers and ask for a review. ProBloggers are the gate keepers. They are the Reuters of the blogosphere.

5. Quality

A direct consequence of ‘information’ is quality. I don’t mean writing quality content (that is not an absolute necessity anymore). I mean identifying quality. When all kinds of information come to them, they have a vast variety to choose. They choose the most interesting blog posts to link to and the most innovative services to promote. This keeps them on top.

Conclusion

Don’t take this as an assault to probloggers (I like Scoble’s news and am a fan of RWW). But, when I see the quality of a few problogs being so low it makes me wonder why they remain on top. Have you ever stopped a subscription in a problog? Me never.
I know, that if I want my blog to be heard, I have to follow these blogs. They will provide the right input, what ticks each day.
Paul M. Banas posed the question:

I guess I’m wondering if there isn’t a better way to identify quality, that’s all.

I think that’s the hard part. I believe to do that, you have to spend hours and hours researching the blogosphere, finding interesting niche blogs.
But I’m afraid the only way to get heard, is to listen to the problogs as well.

Stanley Kunrick Kubrick (love you; yes you) was once asked, why did he decide to make films. His answer was:
I saw the films produced and thought to myself: I can do that.

Do you say I can do that, when you read a problog post?
When you do it, does it bring similar results?