Many 2 Many mentions some new statistics on the use of the terms blog and weblog. As they note:

“Blog” outpaces “weblog” in 2003, 687 to 389; that’s a big change—in scale as well as preferred term—from 2002, where the respective numbers were 270 and 274.

Source: Out of the Crooked Timber, “Blog coverage” via Many 2 Many

I’ve found most often that if I use the shortcut term blog, I generally have to backpedal a little bit going to weblog as the next step. Assuming that point of explanation fails, then “online diary” seems to get it clear. What are you using?

Google has launched some new services into its search routines. The Google Personalized service. To use the service, user’s must first create a simple profile which involves the selection of categories of interest. Once completed, users perform a search and filter their results.

The system makes use of a slider along the top that throttles the personalization effect — by default the filtering is minimized. Increasing the slider seems to show/hide different results. As it turns out, by looking at the underlying code, the system makes use of some Javascript to load and unload the items. More results are returned than shown on the page and selectively shown. Don’t let the smooth slider fool you, though. There’s only 9 actual levels from what I can tell.

Of course, this categorization is fairly limited in nature. One can only wonder when all that other data they’ve started amassing on the user will be put to “good” use.

I was reading over at Eric Jones’ Blog about his thoughts on the potential perils facing SNS in the probably not too distant future. Eric raises a very relevant point concerning the development of social capital. As he notes:

The new formed relationship has got to seem as if it can give a relatively similar amount of social capital as one formed without meditation, incentive or pressure. I mean lets face it once a relationship is established arbitrarily there is a certain assurance and trust that follows as opposed to one formed with an ulterior motive.

Source: Eric Jones’ Blog, “Social Capital II”

This is really another axis of evaluation that is common to all relationships but not yet analyzed for the exponentially formed SNS kind. In our regular lives, we know when relationships are valuable versus trivial. When we use text and computers to display them, unfortunately, we run into the “All Look Same” scenario where differentiation of relationships requires a domain of knowledge far outside of the organization system (SNS) to determine value.

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Google, Eurekster, and pretty much everyone in the SNS space needs to start looking over their shoulder from this point forward. Although it was anticipated that the larger players would eventually enter the space, this is finally confirmation. As News.com reports:

peaking at the company’s annual online advertising conference, Yusuf Medhi, MSN’s corporate vice president of information and merchant services, spoke about the company’s “big investment” in search. He highlighted MSN’s recent release of a search toolbar for the browser and its new News Search, which aims to deliver more relevant results using personalization.

In addition, he flagged planned Web log and social-networking products, and said the Microsoft division plans to develop natural language-processing algorithms. This technology would permit visitors to ask questions such as “What’s the highest mountain?” instead of using simple keywords.

Source: News.com, “Microsoft’s aggressive search plans revealed”

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting both Stowe Boyd (A Working Model, GetReal) and Judith Meskill (Social Software Weblog, Knowledge Notes) in real life, that is away from the keyboard and face to face. Interestingly enough, despite never having met in person before, the conversations were detailed and familiar.

As it turns out, a great deal of internalization occurs as one subscribes and imbibes the daily thoughts of another person. Conversations begin to happen not as spoken dialog but instead as written screenplays. As I explained last night what a blog was to one of the other folks there, the best description I could provide was it was a personal journal with discussion — a flattened forum if you will. This definition seemed to work enough to convey the general point. However, when pressed who wrote things, I noted that there is usually only one author, however, there are often times when multiple authors create. I did mention, though, that comments were usually open, which, is another form of authorship. The last form mentioned was this screenplay effect where one author used their own blog as a pulpit for responding to others — a virtual game of tag as it is.

Indeed, our conversations last night continued where the blogs had ended. There was no discussion about the source of the subject matter as everyone already “knew” what we were talking about. There was never a need, though we might have out of habit, mentioned that the information was in the blog. Perhaps we mentioned it more so for those around us that weren’t part of the online conversation and, now, somewhat bewildered.

One of the last comments on the “blogging thing” was that it seemed to disjointed. I had to disagree, however. My main assertion is that blogs have their own DNA, derived from the wills and motives of their authors. Although topics range, categories provide roadmaps to the thought process. This also serves as one of the biggest challenges for new readers. Understanding the though process (a.k.a. why it’s not disjointed) requires, at a minimum, more context. Unfortunately, blogging today generally lacks the visual and informational pointers to generate context, instead reporting only on the “timely”.

Yesterday, Clay posted several remarks on his difficulties with the RELATIONSHIP grammar. Also yesterday, danah boyd added some of her own thoughts to the discussion. danah is very much in agreement with Clay. Her key points cover the notions of context, culture, and power. I must admit that I definitely agree more with Clay and danah than those that wish to introduce rigidity into the system.

I think of these matters, as they relate to SNS, as a conflict between User Needs and Network Needs (Computational Needs in the larger sense). For the most part, SNS is focused on that first S, Social. As a result, SNS 1.0 is primarily concerned with the network, the bundle of nerves and strings that connect those nodes together. On the other hand, I am more interested in the Users, those things that provide meaning and substance to the lines between them.

Everyone who has actually worked with the SNS applications or examined any proposed standard is quick to realize that there are inherent difference and problems with the representations concocted for us. This is not necessarily a value judgment or statement of quality, but rather it is an encounter with the difficulties of mapping organic systems to computational ones. The most stark reason for this abstraction is network grooming. As the networks try to foster their notion of relationship, they need reliable, rigid data to make that happen. Identity is generally tacked on as “modules” outside the main “core” system.

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Over at Many 2 Many, Clay Shirky discusses some recent criticism relating to his comments on the RELATIONSHIP, a vocabulary designed to express the nature of human relationships. It seems that many people took issue with Clay’s dismissal of the language as highly flawed — a reflection of the far-too-varied nuances of relationships as a whole. This discussion exemplifies the struggle between the two, often discordant, forces: business and academia.

I should clarify that when I refer to business, I indeed mean the attempts to commoditize or otherwise compute and leverage principles for the achievement of an external goal. implementors often become quickly offended when academic opinions and analysis are applied to their creations, while academics tend to have far less flexibility in interpreting implementations. Clearly, judgement tends to get clouded when one is focused on a series of thoughts. The question is which force should we listen to and in what proportion?

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David Weinberger mentions the Flash-based visualizer built into the ICQ Universe SNS. Intrigued by the possibility of an usable network visualizer (mostly because I’m in the process of developing one for the SparkCard System), I immediately headed over to see how big the universe really was.

After finally registering for the service, I was invited into the network after about twenty minutes by a complete stranger — someone I did not even proposition for an invitation. I’m still very skeptical about the practical uses of this whole Universe thing, but I will admit that this visualizer is very interesting.

The visualizer utilizes a Start Bar like module that allows you to track the path to the user universe you are currently viewing. Each user’s universe is represented in a rectangular area that has small card-like profiles for individual contacts. The contacts are shown in a scaled-down size which is zooms in on mouseover. A great deal of information is visible in the scaled-down size. The card contains an icon (possibly a photo) for the user, the age of the user, a flag indicating their country, an ICQ bloom indicating their online status, a small counter indicating their total friends in the universe, and a statement of the relationship the center user holds with the contact.

Clicking on a card drills down into the universe of the selected individual. For the entire universe, the owner is centered in the space with a little bit more information about the user including links to send a message and view a profile. Unfortunately, messaging is performed outside of the Flash application, which tends to ruin the continuity.

I recommend that anyone interested take a look for themselves. If anyone would like to add me (1648879) or to be added, please let me know.

Fernanda Viegas, a PhD candidate at MIT’s Media Lab (Sociable Media Group) has completed a survey on the demographics of the “typical” blogger. As his findings conclude:

Formerly viewed as a marginal activity restricted to the technically savvy, blogging is slowly becoming more of a mainstream phenomenon on the Internet. Thanks to much media hype and some high profile blog sites, these online journals have captured the public’s imagination. As novice authors plunge into the thrilling world of blog publishing, they soon realize that publicly writing about one’s life and interests is not as simple as it might seem at first. As they become prolific writers, more bloggers find themselves having to deal with issues of privacy and liability. Accounts of bloggers either hurting friends’ feelings or losing jobs because of materials published on their sites are becoming more frequent.

Source: Fernanda Viegas, “Blog Survey: Expectations of Privacy and Accountability” via GetReal

I had a conversation on this topic a few nights ago as I explained some of the motivations for the blogging system I was designing. One of my main assumptions in the development of the blogging application was that a tidal wave of activity was on the horizon. The force behind that movement – entrepreneurs. While the inital wave of bloggers were tech-savvy individuals, followed by a smaller burst from individuals and increasingly teens and young adults, the next rising will see business people reaching out to these technologies for a number of reasons, least of which being a creative mix of editorial and sales content.

There seems to be great interest in utilizing social networks, personal contacts, and related technologies to cut back on SPAM. Although there has always been the white-list and challenge-response type solutions, these have undesirable effects for most people as they lock out too many potentially valid messages.

Many 2 Many reports on LOAF, the a new e-mail extension designed to utilize personal contact lists as a filtering mechanism for SPAM messages. The best part is that, despite the sharing of contacts across individuals, the information remains in a format that does not compromise those contacts.

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