The Metaverse Challenges
Metaverse challenges: 1. limits in computational methods, 2. economic/political barriers; http://eicker.at/MetaverseResearch
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Search
Google: Another look under the hood of search – the evolution of Google Search; http://eicker.at/GoogleSearch
Gerrit Eicker
Google Plus: Failure to Launch?
Chitika: Google Plus growth spurt short lived after it went public. – What’s its USP? http://eicker.at/GooglePlusLaunch
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Gerrit Eicker
Chitika: “Mid-morning September 20th, Google+ officially entered public beta, drumming up the level of interest of the site far and wide across the web. Although able to boast 25 million unique visitors after only four weeks of operation, Google’s newest attempt at a social network saw its user base dwindle as shown by a recent article from Chitika Insights. … Reportedly, Google+ saw a surge in traffic of over 1200% due to the additional publicity, but the increased user base was only temporary, as was projected in an earlier insights post. – The data shows that, on the day of its public debut, Google+ traffic skyrocketed to peak levels. But, soon after, traffic fell by over 60% as it returned to its normal, underwhelming state. It would appear that although high levels of publicity were able to draw new traffic to Google+, few of them saw reason to stay. … The supply of users for social media sites is limited. To survive you must stand out and provide a service that others do not. – Features unique to your site must be just that – unique and difficult to duplicate – if they are not, the competitive advantage quickly disappears.”
RWW: “We at RWW can informally corroborate Chitika’s findings that interest in Google Plus is on the wane. Our monthly referrals from there are down 38% since their peak, while Facebook referrals are up 67% and Twitter referrals up 51% over the same period. – As we reported last week, the +1 button isn’t gaining much traction, either. Despite all the new features and responsiveness to user feedback, Google Plus just doesn’t seem to be catching on. There’s only so much time in a day for social networking, and this newcomer isn’t converting many users.”
Inquirer: “Google’s problem is not getting users in the first place, it seems, but rather keeping them after they have arrived. For now it appears that a lot of users are merely curious about Google+, but return to the tried and tested format of Facebook when the lustre fades. … While the jury is still out on which firm will win this battle, there’s no denying that the intense competition could make both social networks considerably better than they were before.”
RWW: “Many people say they don’t find [Google Plus] compelling though. We asked on Twitter and on Facebook and most people said that the value proposition was too unclear, that it wasn’t valuable enough to warrant the investment of time relative to the already heavy burden of Twitter and Facebook engagement. Google knows it needs to make changes to the service to increase its user retention. But you know who else has always struggled with new user retention? Twitter!”
UG: “While this is interesting, Chitika doesn’t provide much information about its data-gathering technique. Because it is an ad-network, one may suspect that it can see the referrer (Google+) to sites using its ad code. If that’s the case (and I’m not saying that it is), the method is not very accurate but one could argue that they should be able to pick up a (very) gross trend snapshot.The bottom-line is that Google+ saw a traffic spike during its public opening and that it subsequently faded, and I can believe that. This sound quite ‘normal’ to me, though. Secondly, second-hand data sampling on a 10-day period is hardly enough to tell if Google+ is a ‘failure to launch’ as Chitika puts it, so I think that there’s a bit of over-dramatization here. – It will take months (or years) and many evolution before we realize how well (or not) Google+ does/did. In the meantime, and as long as we don’t know how this data was measured, I would advise taking this with a grain of salt.”
Gerrit Eicker
Understanding and Learning
Drexler: How to understand; http://eicker.at/2a – and learn about everything; http://eicker.at/2c (via @Optimistontour)
Gerrit Eicker
WikiLeaks: Pros and Cons
The impact of WikiLeaks? Duty to basically reconsider and agree on informational self-determination; http://eicker.at/WikiLeaks
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Gerrit Eicker
WikiLeaks: “…is a not-for-profit media organisation. Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box). One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth. We are a young organisation that has grown very quickly, relying on a network of dedicated volunteers around the globe. … WikiLeaks has combined high-end security technologies with journalism and ethical principles. Like other media outlets conducting investigative journalism, we accept (but do not solicit) anonymous sources of information. Unlike other outlets, we provide a high security anonymous drop box fortified by cutting-edge cryptographic information technologies. This provides maximum protection to our sources. We are fearless in our efforts to get the unvarnished truth out to the public. When information comes in, our journalists analyse the material, verify it and write a news piece about it describing its significance to society. We then publish both the news story and the original material in order to enable readers to analyse the story in the context of the original source material themselves.”
Wikipedia: “The term informational self-determination was first used in the context of a German constitutional ruling relating to personal information collected during the 1983 census. – In that occasion, the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that: ‘[…] in the context of modern data processing, the protection of the individual against unlimited collection, storage, use and disclosure of his/her personal data is encompassed by the general personal rights of the [German Constitution]. This basic right warrants in this respect the capacity of the individual to determine in principle the disclosure and use of his/her personal data. Limitations to this informational self-determination are allowed only in case of overriding public interest.‘ – Informational self-determination is often considered similar to the right to privacy but has unique characteristics that distinguish it from the ‘Right to privacy’ in the United States tradition. Informational self-determination reflects Westin’s description of privacy: ‘The right of the individual to decide what information about himself should be communicated to others and under what circumstances‘ (Westin, 1970). In contrast, the ‘Right to privacy’ in the United States legal tradition is commonly considered to originate in Warren andBrandeis’ article, which focuses on the right to ‘solitude’ (i.e., being ‘left alone’) and in the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which protects persons and their belongings from warrantless search.”
Democracy Now: “Goodman: ‘…not all transparency advocates support what WikiLeaks is doing. Today we’ll host a debate. Steven Aftergood is one of the most prominent critics of WikiLeaks and one of the most prominent transparency advocates. … We’re also joined by Glenn Greenwald. He’s a constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger for Salon.com who’s supportive of WikiLeaks.’ … Aftergood: ‘I’m all for the exposure of corruption, including classified corruption. And to the extent that WikiLeaks has done that, I support its actions. The problem is, it has done a lot more than that, much of which is problematic. It has invaded personal privacy. It has published libelous material. It has violated intellectual property rights. And above all, it has launched a sweeping attack not simply on corruption, but on secrecy itself. And I think that’s both a strategic and a tactical error. It’s a strategic error because some secrecy is perfectly legitimate and desirable. It’s a tactical error because it has unleashed a furious response from the U.S. government and other governments that I fear is likely to harm the interests of a lot of other people besides WikiLeaks who are concerned with open government.’ … Greenwald: ‘If you look at the overall record of WikiLeaks – and let me just stipulate right upfront that WikiLeaks is a four-year-old organization, four years old. They’re operating completely unchartered territory. Have they made some mistakes and taken some missteps? Absolutely. They’re an imperfect organization. But on the whole, the amount of corruption and injustice in the world that WikiLeaks is exposing… I criticize them, for instance, for exercising insufficient care in redacting the names of various Afghan citizens who cooperated with the United States military. They accepted responsibility for that, and in subsequent releases, including in the Iraq document disclosures, they were very careful about redacting those names.'”
Reporters Without Borders: “Wikileaks has in the past played a useful role by making information available to the US and international public that exposed serious violations of human rights and civil liberties which the Bush administration committed in the name of its war against terror. … But revealing the identity of hundreds of people who collaborated with the coalition in Afghanistan is highly dangerous. It would not be hard for the Taliban and other armed groups to use these documents to draw up a list of people for targeting in deadly revenge attacks. … Nonetheless, indiscriminately publishing 92,000 classified reports reflects a real problem of methodology and, therefore, of credibility. Journalistic work involves the selection of information. The argument with which you defend yourself, namely that Wikileaks is not made up of journalists, is not convincing. Wikileaks is an information outlet and, as such, is subject to the same rules of publishing responsibility as any other media. … Wikileaks must provide a more detailed explanation of its actions and must not repeat the same mistake. This will mean a new departure and new methods.”
Reporters Without Borders: “…condemns the blocking, cyber-attacks and political pressure being directed at cablegate.wikileaks.org, the website dedicated to the US diplomatic cables. The organization is also concerned by some of the extreme comments made by American authorities concerning WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. … We stress that any restriction on the freedom to disseminate this body of documents will affect the entire press, which has given detailed coverage to the information made available by WikiLeaks, with five leading international newspapers actively cooperating in preparing it for publication. – Reporters Without Borders would also like to stress that it has always defended online freedom and the principle of ‘Net neutrality,’ according to which Internet Service Providers and hosting companies should play no role in choosing the content that is placed online.”
Preston/Guardian: “Be clear, right from the start. Any editor presented with a quarter of a million US State Department documents on a WikiLeaks plate has a duty to sift, check – and publish. Newspapers exist to get news into print, not shilly-shally around as pompous (and, alas, often American) champions of the public’s right not to know too much. And if, thus far, the most unexpected story of the lot is Washington’s inability to keep its diplomatic traffic secret, that’s a public service, too. … At which point – casting aside assorted bits of legislation, editing codes and sheaves of moral guidance – a more basic test applies. Do you, printing the WikiLeaks bumper bundle, feel queasy or certain you’re trying to do the right thing? How would you feel if you didn’t print them? And, equally, would you feel chastened, angry, maybe ashamed, if your telephone hacking exploits were laid out to the full by Private Eye?” (Guardian’s WikiLeaks-coverage)
Gerrit Eicker
Agil?!
Herwarth von Bittenfeld: Die agile Revolution. Was bringt die Umstellung von klassisch auf agil? http://j.mp/cp5no8
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Gerrit Eicker
Herwarth von Bittenfeld: “Was bringt die Umstellung von einem klassischen Wasserfallmodell in der Softwareentwicklung auf agile Prinzipien? Sie kann bei konsequenter Durchführung geradezu einer Revolution gleichen, wie ich mit zwei Fallbeispielen zeigen möchte.”
Wasserfallmodell: “Das Wasserfallmodell ist ein lineares (nicht-iteratives) Vorgehensmodell in der Softwareentwicklung, bei dem der Softwareentwicklungsprozess in Phasen organisiert wird. Dabei gehen die Phasenergebnisse wie bei einem Wasserfall immer als bindende Vorgaben für die nächst tiefere Phase ein. – Im Wasserfallmodell hat jede Phase vordefinierte Start- und Endpunkte mit eindeutig definierten Ergebnissen. In Meilensteinsitzungen am jeweiligen Phasenende werden die Ergebnisdokumente verabschiedet. Zu den wichtigsten Dokumenten zählen dabei das Lastenheft sowie das Pflichtenheft. In der betrieblichen Praxis gibt es viele Varianten des reinen Modells. Es ist aber das traditionell am weitesten verbreitete Vorgehensmodell. – Der Name ‘Wasserfall’ kommt von der häufig gewählten grafischen Darstellung der fünf bis sechs als Kaskade angeordneten Phasen.”
Agile Softwareentwicklung: “Agile Softwareentwicklung ist der Oberbegriff für den Einsatz von Agilität (lat. agilis ‚flink, beweglich‘) in der Softwareentwicklung. Je nach Kontext bezieht sich der Begriff auf Teilbereiche der Softwareentwicklung – wie im Fall von Agile Modeling – oder auf den gesamten Softwareentwicklungsprozess – exemplarisch sei Extreme Programming angeführt. Agile Softwareentwicklung versucht mit geringem bürokratischen Aufwand und wenigen Regeln auszukommen. – Das Ziel Agiler Softwareentwicklung ist es, den Softwareentwicklungsprozess flexibler und schlanker zu machen, als das bei den klassischen Vorgehensmodellen der Fall ist. Man möchte sich mehr auf die zu erreichenden Ziele fokussieren und auf technische und soziale Probleme bei der Softwareentwicklung eingehen. Die Agile Softwareentwicklung ist eine Gegenbewegung zu den oft als schwergewichtig und bürokratisch angesehenen traditionellen Softwareentwicklungsprozessen wie dem Rational Unified Process oder dem V-Modell.“
Google: “Over the past few years, we’ve released a series of blog posts to share the methodology and process behind our search ranking, evaluation and algorithmic changes. Just last month, Ben Gomes, Matt Cutts and I participated in a Churchill Club event where we discussed how search works and where we believe it’s headed in the future. – Beyond our talk and various blog posts, we wanted to give people an even deeper look inside search, so we put together a short video that gives you a sense of the work that goes into the changes and improvements we make to Google almost every day. While an improvement to the algorithm may start with a creative idea, it always goes through a process of rigorous scientific testing. Simply put: if the data from our experiments doesn’t show that we’re helping users, we won’t launch the change. … In the world of search, we’re always striving to deliver the answers you’re looking for. After all, we know you have a choice of a search engine every time you open a browser. As the Internet becomes bigger, richer and more interactive it means that we have to work that much harder to ensure we’re unearthing and displaying the best results for you.”
Google: “Following up on our video on how we make improvements to search, we wanted to share with you a short history of the evolution of search, highlighting some of the most important milestones from the past decade-and a taste of what’s coming next. – Our goal is to get you to the answer you’re looking for faster and faster, creating a nearly seamless connection between your questions and the information you seek. For those of you looking to deepen your understanding of how search has evolved, this video highlights some important trends like universal results, quick answers and the future of search. – For more information, go to Google.com/insidesearch”
SEL: “Google released a short video today highlighting some of its key milestones in search over the past decade. It’s both a fun blast from the past and a worthwhile reminder of how much things have changed over the years. The video is also a nice follow-on to the look under the hood of search that Google released in August.”
TC: “One anecdote centers on the attacks of September 11: in the wake of the attacks, many people were searching for ‘New York Twin Towers’ and related queries as they attempted to get the latest news – only to find that Google’s index didn’t have any relevant news stories because it was weeks old (Danny Sullivan has written more about this failure). Google’s quick-fix was to post links to relevant news articles on its homepage, and its stumble eventually led to the launch of Google News.”
ATD: “So, what would be a hard query that Google wants to answer in the future? Complex questions that take reasoning, says Google Fellow Amit Singhal. ‘In my ideal world, I would be able to walk up to a computer and say, ‘Hey, what is the best time for me to sow seeds in India, given that monsoon was early this year?’‘ Singhal says in the video.”
RWW: “4 Big Trends in the Evolution of Google Search … Univeral Search – Google’s introduction of universal search in 2007 was the beginning of a trend away from separating Web search results by type and toward putting it all in one place. … Google Goes Mobile and Local – Before long, Google was deep into the business of local commerce. With the rise of Android, Google had an end-to-end business of finding location-based results for local businesses, restaurants and destinations. … Google Search and Time – Google has changed the impact of time on search, as well as place. It has tweaked the way timeliness of content appears in search multiple times, and its latest update calculates when a search is probably looking for recent results rather than historical ones. … Google+: Google’s New Identity – Identity is the final piece of the puzzle. Google has personalized results for a while using Web history and sharing data. But with the launch of Google+, Google has introduced a form of social SEO. Social activity is now a fundamental part of how search results appear for users logged into Google’s ubiquitous Web services.“