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.

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.

I just read a very interesting post about data portability on Mashable.

In short the author argues, that data portability is boring because:

• the average internet user probably isn’t active in many web 2.0 sites.
• the average internet user probably doesn’t want to take his friends along every web 2.0 service he signs up for.
• what rights do users have to control where shared data goes?

So he says, that there is actually no demand for data portability.

I can see his point and I actually agree completely. Data portability is probably referring to extremely active users.

Moral Data Portability

The way I have understood data portability, it is about data. You can take your facebook friends and put them on kaioo. You then use kaioo as your platform, while not losing contact with your facebook friends.

So I see a moral side of data portability. If I want to move my data/friends from one site to another I want to be able to. It is not only about who owns the data, it is also about not monopolizing your network.
Data portability gives you the option to decide which platform suits you best. This doesn’t necessarily mean being active in 10 different social networks. It just means choosing how you communicate with your friends in the community you are in.

I believe that has a value, which every average user could understand.

Reaching the average user is another subject. Data portability must extend to data usability too. The process of moving your contacts from one network to another must become as easy as signing up.
That’s where data portability might lose the game.

I just finished listening to an interview of Tim Berners Lee on the Semantic Web (63min). Very insightful information on the future and development of the Web. The relation of web 2.0 and web 3.0, the technological development of the semantic web and privacy are some of his points, that I found mostly interesting.

He underlines the ability of the semantic web to connect data with metadata. A function, which will make our work easier, faster and therefore more productive.

It’s the connection from the data to the provenance of the data, and not just for the name of the document that it came from, but the actual properties of that - the licensing, what it’s supposed to be used for, what it’s appropriate to use it for, whether I got it because I’ve gone through an authentication process, and actually whether it’s private data, which I should not actually publish at all.

Tim Berners Lee already sees some of the most popular social networks taking advantage of semantics.

They haven’t just allowed you to tag something with somebody’s name, they’ve allowed you to capture the difference between somebody who took the photo and somebody who’s in the photo, so that the power of the reuse of the data has been much greater.

He also talks about the development level of the semantic web, saying that the technologies necessary are already there.

I think, really we’ve got all the pieces to be able to go ahead and do pretty much everything. I suppose, really you should be able to implement a huge amount of the dream, we should be able to get huge benefits from interoperability using what we’ve got. So, people are realizing it’s time to just go do it.

The only piece missing from the semantic puzzle is the actual implementation of these technologies to current systems. An effort, which - according to Tim Berners Lee - is easy and financially worthwhile.

But, the thing that’s holding us up is that, there’s data which the companies have got on this, sitting and going round and round on its disks. Or it’s in their SQL systems and needs to be exported in a way that we can get at it in linked RDF as a SPARQL. And then, that could be reused.

One more remark, that drew my attention was about privacy. Tim Berners Lee advocates for openness of data - at least in a company level. He supports exposure and integration; companies should give the ability to the people to do queries on their data. This can give them a great advantage against their competition.

If a company has got this feeling where people don’t want other people in the company to know what is going on, then, it has already got a problem, this just exposes the problem.

On a more individual level he argues, that users should get hold of their data. That’s where the semantic web really diverts from the web 2.0 model. The web 2.0 model incorporates sites, which have their data and they don’t share it. The Web 3.0 gives the power back to the user

Web 2.0 is a stovepipe system. It’s a set of stovepipes where each site has got its data and it’s not sharing it. What people are sometimes calling a Web 3.0 vision where you’ve got lots of different data out there on the Web and you’ve got lots of different applications, but they’re independent.

There are much more information to be collected in this interview. This were just the stuff I found most interesting. Marshall Kirkpatrick concentrates on other subjects.

So don’t be satisfied with any short summary, listen to the actual interview or read the transcript.

The explosion of the social web has redefined the way we perceive social connections, our individual role in the social grid (may it be online or offline) and the importance of the collective intelligence. We, the user of the social web, take full advantage of this revolution by promoting our blogs, our work, our affiliates, our software. To an extent all our practices in the social web are working for our self-interest.

Social Connections

before the social web, we were dealing with the interesting, intriguing theory of the ‘six degrees of seperation‘. The main principle of the six degrees theory simply says that

everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we’re so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we’re so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection… I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.

Anyone who is deeply engaged in the social web, will argue that this theory underestimates the power of the web. Blogs, social networks, forums and communities enable interaction between two individuals in less than six steps; or at least that’s how it feels like.

The role of the individual

Sometimes when we analyze the tree, we lose sense of the forest. If we observe social networks from really high above, we will notice that they have reestablished our trust to democratic procedures. How many times have your heard people saying: “one vote never made a difference”.
It seems, that in the social web one vote does make a difference. That’s why we put a ‘thumbs up’ at StumbleUpon, or digg a submission, or cast our vote in Mixx. It is just one vote; but we trust that collectively this vote will bring a change.

The collective intelligence

A direct result of our trust to the individual is our belief in the collective intelligence. That’s why we firstly read the top news of all these news aggregators. Because we know, that these news are the most important/intriguing/thought provoking/interesting ones.

Machines were not made to sleep

So just our interaction and participation in the social web, actually proves that we believe that one vote, one individual, one voice, one computer can make a difference - can provide to the commons. In one way or another our participation in the social web is self-interested. We vote other submission, because we hope people will vote ours too; we comment on other blogs to learn more about a subject and hopefully receive a comment on our work; we use news aggregators so that we will not have to search for the most interesting news in this sea of data.

Maybe it’s time to do something completely altruistic, which will prove that we really believe in the big difference one individual can make.
The first step is to leave your computer on, when you are not using it (it isn’t energy waste if the computer actually works). After all, machines were not made to sleep.

Distributed Computation

There are several scientifical, mathematical, ecological, biological, astrological projects out there, which could use the power of your computer for their research. You can actually use the idle time on your computer (any computer, any OS) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover life in other plants, etc. These projects are based on the ideals of volunteer computing and grid computing.

The projects are numerous, but here is a list of the ones I use:

• World Community Grid: humanitarian research on new and infectious disease, natural disasters and hunger.

• Rosetta@home: determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases.

• SETI@home: saying that we are alone in the universe is the most selfish thought I’ve ever heard. SETI’s goal is to detect intelligent life outside Earth.

A detailed list of the projects and their description can be found at boinc projects. This list doesn’t have all distributed computed projects; if your aware of any other, please let me know.

The process of participating in these projects is simple 3 step process:

1. You choose the project(s) you would like to participate and register.
2. You go to the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) site and dowload the software.
3. The software has an easy wizard to incorporate any project in it.

Both images taken from BOINC.

If you have been following the news lately, the web is undergoing a transformation. This transformation is a good thing; it simplifies the communication between man and machine, it breaks the rules of distance and introduces software which bring the cyberspace to unknown pathways. Surely, that is a good thing.
But there is a problem behind this transformation. It is not actually a transformation, it is “transformations”. Three different movements are striving to bring the web into its new phase and revolutionize it.

The semantic web

The semantic web has been online for quite some time now. We hear it, some even see it, but in the end it still isn’ t there. The semantic web will give the tools to the machines to understand and learn the semantic language of humans. It will be based on openness and it will bring software, which will work in a traditional emergent manner.
The semantic web (or web 3.0 or Giant Global Graph - GGG) is

about letting it be connected to data from peer sites. It is about letting it be joined to data from other applications.

The Data Portability project, OpenId and even google’s new social graph are certainly steps towards this direction.

Web of Data

Then we have the Web of Data. Something I first read about yesterday at Richard MacManus’ post. Richard writes about a speech Tom Coates gave, talking among other about the world of tomorrow. According to Coates’ vision the cyberspace will invade real life:

1. A physical object responds to or visualizes data from the network.
2. Interacting with a physical object allows people to change data stored in the network.
3. A physical object acts as a sensor that writes to the web of data.

This is surely an enlightening view of the future, a view we have probably only seen in science fiction movies. Still Tom Coates brings examples of software already succeeding in the field of web-real life interaction.

Revolutionary Software

Finally, Robert Scoble wrote yesterday about a new software currently under development in Microsoft, which will change the digital world. NetMeeting, Netscape and Photoshop were such software. Now Microsoft works on something similarly radical. We all have to wait unti the 27th of September for more information, but Scoble sounds fascinated already.

Decentralization of objectives

All these - and probably more projects that we’ve not heard of yet - are encouraging efforts to develop and evolve the web. I eagerly wait to see how things online will develop. But I also see a small problem here: decentralization.
I’ve already written, that I’m an advocate of decentralization. Many different agents working on a goal, without any central control. But here we are not seeing decentralization of work, but decentralization of goals.
Every institute is trying to change the web on its own way, without collaborating with others. I have the feeling they all have the same upper goal (revolutionizing the web), but different means to achieve it. Decentralization of objectives usually brings confound, disorientation and certainly failure.

Competition is always a parameter of evolution in any market. But if we see the development of the web’s next generation as a race, then we also agree on its commercialization.

Being supportive and being skeptical

Forgive me for being biased on this one, but I tend to trust more the vision of the semantic web for 3 reasons:

1. It is supported by the World Wide Web Consortium, an institution which constantly proves its belief in openness and innovation.
2. It is the only vision of the next Web, that we know so many about and therefore proves its openness.
3. It gives the tools for better commercial interactions, but it doesn’t make the web commercial.

Why I’m skeptical about the other innovations.

1. Tom Coates talks about the importance of openness of data (weblogs, RSS), but he directs his remarks to marketing: being open will drive people to your service, people will pay for it, make your service more attractive, etc.
2. Microsoft is a universal colossus based on providing software to the market and doing its best to keep them on top. I acknowledge Microsoft’s contribution to the web and digitalization in general, but I’m very skeptical on any software it provides. The United States vs. Microsoft case proves my skepticism.

I point out here, that the nature of the other visions (a presentation I didn’t attend to and a software not yet published) does not allow me to be subjective. My skepticism is based on prior experience and not on the current projects. So please any oppositions, feedback, additional information will be appreciated.

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.