gdp's Comments

Real Story Group: Content Management, Enterprise Search, and Portal Reports : Trends: Vivisimo - still searching for real social marketing

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:11:17 +0000

You're brutal, but I see where you're coming from. Being funny requires a fair amount of edge, and I think it's hard for a corporation to take that chance. I thought Google did a great job with it in their "Complexity is Good" ad: I find the actual content of the ad misleading, but it's genuinely funny. Netezza's Data Liberators isn't bad either, at least now that they've made clear it is by Netezza. But none of these hold a candle to viral campaigns aimed at mass consumer audiences. I don't see an enterprise software company coming out with a campaign like Burger King's Subservient Chicken--though wouldn't that have been great for an NLP company?

The FASTForward Blog : With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Multiple Blogs, is There Any Reason to also use FriendFeed?

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:02:42 +0000

Bill, I'm with you. I have accounts on Facebook and even on FriendFeed, but I only use them to syndicate my posts to the social networking platforms I do use: my blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Not passing judgment either--just using what works for me. And I also made fun of Twitter for months before using it. I still do on occasion. :-)

The FASTForward Blog : The Future of Web Search

Sun, 5 Apr 2009 23:44:59 +0000

Indeed, if Google should be worried about Twitter, the threat comes from Twitter's success at building community, not from Twitter;s access to better content or superior search functionality. Google already knows what you're thinking. Social search is an interesting space. But Twitter has a ways to go before it before it truly enables social search. If you're interested in the space, keep an eye on startups like Aardvark and Hunch.

The FASTForward Blog : CNBC Sourpuss disses 'networking'

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 04:17:59 +0000

I think you and Mason a're saying almost the same thing in different ways. Mason criticizes “Introducing yourself to as many random people as possible" because clearly such "networking" is meaningless. You (and Godin) emphasize that networking should be about real connection. The implication, at least in my view, is that you should reach out to people if and when you have a real basis for connecting--something that makes the two of you more than just a random pair of human being that happen to be in the same virtual gin joint at the same time. Of course, you have something in common, by all means you should connect. Cultivating relationships with the people with whom you share interests is what real networking is all about. Indeed, people who take this approach build valuable social networks, while people who fill up their virtual dance cards with meaningless connections quickly find that their "network" doesn't actually do anything for them.

PRWeek US : FT Search plans outreach around search tool launch - PRWeek US

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:34:46 +0000

Lots more info on the Newssift blog: http://blog.newssift.com/

The FASTForward Blog : Should you update your Facebook status from Twitter?

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:01:11 +0000

I'm not a big fan of Facebook, so I'm incline to think that status updates should go *to* Twitter, not from it. That said, I question all five of your supporting points: 1) Twitter is who I am. No masquerade: I use my real name, and so do all of the people I follow. Facebook is just a way for people to find me if they can't figure out how to find my email address. 2) If you're that concerned about your ex tracking what's going on in your life, then you shouldn't be posting about any of your life in public. If anything, Facebook is much more of a walled garden than Twitter, and its privacy controls are far more sophisticated than Twitter's--in my opinion too sophisticated for mere mortals. 3) Most posts on Twitter do not elicit a response--as with all social media, the majority of messages are ignored. Attention is scarce, and demand exceeds supply. I don't know how Twitter compares to Facebook in this respect. 4) My boss is on Twitter. Moreover, since Twitter isn't a walled garden like Facebook, my boss doesn't even have to be on Twitter to watch me there. I'm not sure where you get the idea that Twitter is more private than Facebook. 5) You can be a fake on Twitter, but the social norm is for users to be real people or real companies. And even corporate users often have real people representing them. I think you're confusing Twitter with Friendster. In short, I agree with your conclusion that there's no need to update your Facebook status from Twitter, but not the steps that lead you to that conclusion. Are you just not into Twitter?

The FASTForward Blog : Social Networking Collides with the Justice System

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:18:50 +0000

It's more like the legal and judicial system don't like the idea of jurors doing their own research or violating the confidentiality of the proceedings. Search engines and social networking are just the latest means to that end. http://thenoisychannel.com/2009/03/17/law-vs-the-...

The FASTForward Blog : Steve Rubel Says Forrester Says Paying Bloggers is OK Provided There are Disclosures

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 12:41:23 +0000

Bill, you might want to read (and perhaps address) the reactions to Forrester on this subject, most of which haven't exactly been positive. You can see a collection of such reactions on : Techmeme.

Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing : Create 50,000 companies for $1B

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:44:20 +0000

I have no doubt that people would volunteer to be mentors, but I don't think it's realistic to expect the quality of TechStars / YCombinator to scale. Maybe it doesn't have to. But I suspect that these start-ups-on-a-shoestring only work when both the entrepreneurs and the mentors are top-notch, and I'm skeptical that a government program (at least in the United States) would play well with this need. Just look at how the politicization of the public schools has made it so hard to improve their quality. I say let start-ups be start-ups and investors be investors.

The FASTForward Blog : FASTforward09: Clay Shirky

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:56:58 +0000

Thanks for sharing! You note that Shirky doesn't call out the need for search tools to bring order to the chaos of informally generated content. Did anything interesting on the subject come up in the Q&A or discussion? Seems like a natural question to ask at an enterprise search event! Also, I'd love to see research documenting the productivity gains associated with enterprise tagging tools like IBM's DogEar--as opposed to ethnographic studies simply describing their use. Everyone tries to generalize from the success of Wikipedia, but no one ever seems to offer another example with hard data to back it up, particularly within the enterprise. What I have heard anecdotally suggests that social tagging in the enterprise has mixed results. That's why my own team has focused on developing tools that bootstrap on minimal investment to maximize ROI.

Feld Thoughts : My Quest for WordPress Plugins

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 06:57:33 +0000

I'm happily using Akismet, Popular Posts, Similar Posts (the last two require the Post-Plug-in Library), ShareThis, and Twitter Updater, and WP Super Cache over at The Noisy Channel (http://thenoisychannel.com/). I also found WP Easy Uploader to be a convenient way to install them.

Feld Thoughts : A New Approach To The US Election Process

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:28:41 +0000

In addition to reviewing the history of the electoral process in the US and in other democracies, folks here might consider folks reading up on Arrow's impossibility theorem, which mathematically proves that no voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide ranking while also meeting a certain set of reasonable criteria with three or more discrete options to choose from. Granted, some of Arrow's assumptions can be questioned. And the electoral college system--not to mention the primary / caucus process--is hardly anyone's idea of an optimal expression of popular choice. But, if you're serious about electoral reform, at least read the theory. It's a much harder problem than you might think.

: Re: Enterprise Search Still Sucks...

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:45:10 +0000

I've been blogging about this for a while at The Noisy Channel, but here is the summary version: enterprises need to accept that there is no free lunch when it comes to making information findable, and enterprise search providers need to make this process as painless as possible. There's blame to go around to all parties.

If you want to hear more of my thoughts on the subject, I encourage you to check out http://thenoisychannel.blogspot.com/search/label/...

: Findability - What Solutions Are Missing?

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:28:52 +0000

What about NLP solutions? There are the folks at alias-i, which not only offers an excellent toolkit themselves (http://alias-i.com/lingpipe/index.html), but are also nice enough to provide a comprehensive listing of industrial and academic offerings in the space: http://alias-i.com/lingpipe/web/competition.html....