doodleporn - Latest Comments

Re: Status Updates in Search

KPfefferle — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:21:11 -0000

I think you make some valid points here and your concerns certainly have basis in reality, but I think you have overlooked one very important fact: search engines like Google and Bing must learn to filter out the spam in order to continue to provide quality relevant results.

One of the unique things about search engines harvesting content from Twitter and Facebook status updates is that these networks already have built-in metrics for gauging source reliability that have come about organically. If someone on Twitter has a high follower to following ratio, then they usually are providing a value that goes beyond any superficial mutual-follow mentality. Being retweeted by others is often another sign that the content (and/or link) you provide is valued by the user community.

Can these traits be faked? Maybe, but a false account would have real trouble matching up with all of the metadata that I am sure is available through Twitter's firehose feed (date of signup? rate of follower growth? number of tweets per day? reply rate? who knows what else?). As easily as I can look at a new follower's profile and decide whether they are worth my attention (or a block), it sure seems that search giants like Google and Bing will be able to filter the junk out from the good solid content.

Because these social networks are relational (and those relationships can be measured and quantified much better than relationships between web sites) I believe the search engines will be able to distill a lot of true value from the stream. I'm already encouraged by what I see in Bing's Twitter search results even though I don't know exactly which factors they are using to gauge value, I am impressed by their ability to pull just a few high-ranking tweets for each trending topic. I am sure they will do the same with all search terms.

I'll be interested to see if and how it has an effect on network behavior, but for now I'll keep doing what I do and let Google and Bing worry about doing the thing they must always do to remain a search leader: weed out spam and point to content of actual value.

Re: have doodle | meh porn

arvind — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:39:28 -0000

this is a common misconception about ethnography: it's about a lot more than observation. you can do observation without doing any ethnography.

here's a great talk that talks about some of these common misconceptions: http://www.vimeo.com/2216855

and you might find this paper enlightening: Forsythe, D. E. (1999). “It's Just a Matter of Common Sense”: Ethnography as Invisible Work. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 8(1), 127-145. doi: 10.1023/A:1008692231284.

Re: We've done it!

wyliemac — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:05:54 -0000

So did you submit the app to the app store?

Re: Suckers, Promos and Pimps, the current state of Social Media

Phyllis — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:39:05 -0000

Dan,
Love your style.

Re: Suckers, Promos and Pimps, the current state of Social Media

wyliemac — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:30:08 -0000

Who are you eating lunch with?

Re: For the Love of the Command Line

issackelly — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:38:47 -0000

From the beginning of Twitter, I've seen a huge ammount of its power locked up in being more of a platform than a messaging service.

I built mytwitternotebook.com (and a couple other of my own utilities) on that idea; that twitter was something that you could get at from your desk and your phone, and that in itself lends an opportunity to interact in interesting ways.

The command line aspects of it are both awesome and frustrating. You are unambiguous about what you want, and what you're getting back (a programmer's dream); but even for return data, you're limited to 140 characters, in that respect, it's nothing like a quality command line. You also can't do any kind of mashups with commands (In unix they called them pipes...mashups aren't a new idea at all) but you can't get what you want if you go like this

d stock AAPL | d tweetnote #stock

That would just confuse @stock, not send the stock to your personal notebook;

Twitter is at best a decent starting point for a mobile, shared command line.

Re: have doodle | meh porn

James — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:29:48 -0000

Yep. Thank you for sharing your perspective. It is very wise and I happen to agree with it.

Re: have doodle | meh porn

floozyspeak — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:29:43 -0000

very funny dan.. ha ha...