A VC - Latest Comments in Making The Web Smarter

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:08:57 -0000

I don't think so but I do get the point you are making

Re: Making The Web Smarter

iamronen — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:14:42 -0000

I have been using Zemanta for some time ... when it comes to the tagging I realized two qualities in my user experience: (1) Zemanta usually does a fairly good job at suggesting tags; (2) I don't care!

Tagging is a burden to me because it is useless and of no value (at least no short term value/satisfaction). Actually adding any Meta-data to something I publish is a burden. My key incentive is usually to make things more accessible to readers - human readers - in which case one or two categories will do the trick. This got me thinking that maybe there is something wrong with the "timing of tagging".

I believe that a wonderful quality of mind is the ability to re-frame and create context. You can feel this happening when you are placed in unknown circumstances - like landing in an airport/coutrny you've never visited. Your mind does an amazing job if applying what you already know (I am in an airport) to what you don't know. It does it amazingly fast!

Words (tags) have no meaning until they are placed in context. When I am creating something the context is very clear to me (I would hope) - so I have no need to "state the obvious". When I am looking for something (especially online) - most of my work is to formulate the right question - to create a relevant context.

With web-search so readily available, the challenge remaining for me as a user is to choose a good set of words - that will generate search results that are relevant for me (this can be a challenging task). When I find a good result I have essentially tagged it. These are the tags I think we should be creating. This is when I am, as a user, motivated to create tags.

Could it be that we are trying to apply tagging in an inefficient point of leverage?

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:09:13 -0000

Let me know what you think of zemanta's api

Re: Making The Web Smarter

ddavison — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:29:35 -0000

Fred's suggestion of a semi coordinated way of getting the benefits of human/machine tagging "on the way" to the "intelligent" web is the most intelligent I've run across. i will explore the Zemanta API as a possible contributor to a Linked Data startup I am supporting. Thanks, Fred.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

DooEye — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:04:36 -0000

Tcsertoglu's comment (about the echo-chamber problem of recommendation become self-fulfilling leaving relevant pieces out) seems to me to be a solvable problem. The phenomena is akin to feedback, and is probably addressable using signal processing techniques, a few nifty algorithms, some FFT...

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:27:24 -0000

I very much agree with that last point

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:27:22 -0000

Unless you make it easy or even fun for them

Re: Making The Web Smarter

Jim Johnson — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:38:20 -0000

If you are betting on it - then you need to determine how you can account for pride, greed, gluttony, sloth, envy, anger, jealousy, hatred, naivety, ignorance, apathy, and more.

Just like the alchemists who practice in "search engine optimization" and similar voodoo, there will be "semantic web optimizations" consultants who attempt to game the system you are creating.

Humans suffer from base emotions and the 'deadly sins.' They are easily persuaded (see conspiracy theories). They prefer to have their own beliefs supported rather than questioned (changing the Internet to a series of echo chambers).

To truly succeed requires more psychology than technology.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

Jim Johnson — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:28:43 -0000

The more important issue is: why on earth should users ever tag?

Isn't it hard enough to get people to do one thing on a given website that we now have to have a call to action to get them to tag?

Relying on website visitors to tag is wholly unreliable because it's too much work.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

kidmercury — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:21:05 -0000

too bad he's using his bobbing and weaving skills to bob and weave around the truth, doubt he'll get anywhere with that approach.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

Andraz Tori — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:17:06 -0000

+1 vote from me :)

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:54:30 -0000

I'm sorry to hear that.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

David Semeria — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:44:47 -0000

Technology?

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:44:14 -0000

jdawg is a master of weaving and bobbing. He will figure out the right angle of attack someday

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:42:44 -0000

I'm not into numerology very much. I actually don't much go in for anything that ends in ology

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:42:37 -0000

I wonder if we should replace intelligent with smart in our six words

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:34:38 -0000

That's exactly how I think about it

Re: Making The Web Smarter

fredwilson — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:34:34 -0000

I agree. The web is the platform

Re: Making The Web Smarter

Carl Rahn Griffith — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:21:48 -0000

Altruism is evident when the web works best re: tagging, recommendations, links, etc. This is good.

If everyone was just a little bit more altruistic, we'd all benefit - and most importantly in life itself, not just in 'net life terms.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

zburt — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:47:42 -0000

Hey Fred,

So I signed up for Glue upon your recommendation (Adaptive Blue). I'm crazy about a few bands and I thought I could use it to get a list of all the websites about them that I could scour for content. The plugin is lame. It sent me to three websites in a row that I actively despised, and then there was no way for me to train it. I uninstalled it, maybe I'll try again in a year

Best,
Zack

Re: Making The Web Smarter

shiondev — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:31:32 -0000

I feel that one of the main problems is scalability. Can a single company process enough content in a timely, useful manner? Acquiring enough raw power (bandwidth/compute) is difficult.

..of course, I probably think this way because getting that power is what I'm working on now :)

Re: Making The Web Smarter

Mark Essel — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 16:31:37 -0000

Just a follow up Jim since you got me thinking. Semantic Web, Can it Happen? I'm a big fan of how opposing viewpoints can spur on more serious thought and I look forward to getting a stronger vision of what is and isn't possible in this arena.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

aditya — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:34:23 -0000

Not sure if that counts as much is hidden behind the word smart.

Here's some food for thought which will perhaps explain where I'm coming from. A subtlety that is easy to miss - when you say - "I am pretty sure we'll get there. " - what exactly is 'there' ? Or even - what approximately is 'there'?

Re: Making The Web Smarter

imrananwar — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:36:17 -0000

This is another great article but I respectfully disagree with the six words in use at present.

I am not even nitpicking whether all sites and services are global and/or intelligent or not. I think the word playful does not belong and I'd definitely propose replaced "playful" with "instant" or something more related to the time element of it all.

All the best.

Re: Making The Web Smarter

Peter Cranstone — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:09:28 -0000

Shana,

We've designed the solution to be as flexible as possible. It's eminently customizable so if you only wanted three boxes that could be done. Right now there are multiple boxes under each set of preference (Owner, Location, Device, Search & Advanced).

For example we've integrated 7 search engines (Our own demo, AOL, Google, MSN, Yahoo, True Local (Ca) and Yellow Pages. If you have our software installed and have activated the check boxes to say share real time location information and then navigate to one of those search engines they will receive your data.

Building a White List is as simple as adding a favorite. Lets say you want to send your data to Fred at AVC... all you have to do is enter www.avc.com in the white list and when you go to that web site Fred gets to know, Who, What and Where you are (assuming you've sharing the data with him).

There are currently 24 options for the white list. If you want more than that we can add more fields, but most people never go to more than 24 sites. On WM you even have an option to share your data with every site you go to.

Regarding your comment on "are they really going to check the box and understand what the box means?"

The answer is I don't know. Do people really understand what happens when they click on a link and all of the data that moves in the background?

We started with a simple premise... people want convenience first and then privacy second. We've made it as simple as we can - the default is to behave like the current browsers do and send no data... you can then share as much as you feel comfortable with.

To me it's all about the customer experience - it has to follow the 0-1-2-3 rule. Zero behavioral changes, one log-on, 2 second response time, and 3 clicks to relevant content. If you can do that in a cross platform environment then I believe it has value.

The good news here is that as you add more "meta-data" to the Web the smarter it becomes about Who you are, What you are (the device) and Where you are.

After that it's all semantics.