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Rants and Raves, Thought -- caught in the act!

Information fragmentation in the world of Web 2.0

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Web 2.0. Yes, that wonderful, wonderful world of Web 2.0. Where information and technology will solve all of the worlds problems, make it possible for us to communicate instantly with anyone, where all human knowledge will be instantly searchable in nanoseconds, and yes, it will also eradicate poverty, achieve universal tolerance, global literacy and intergalactic peace.

All hyperbole aside, Web 2.0 has been a wonderful thing. Today, we can search human knowledge using Google, we can communicate instantly with friends and family using Facebook, we can publish our thoughts and share our opinions (like I’m doing here) with the world using WordPress and we can publish/receive news (like a plane landing in the Hudson river) while it happens on Twitter, all among a myriad of other things. For the record, I love Web 2.0 (as a user) for its ease of use and for the so many immensely useful services it provides (though I must admit I’m not a fan of the business models that often accompany Web 2.0 companies, especially advertising related models).

Image from ConnectionCafe

But, “Houston, we have a problem.” The problem is what I would call “information fragmentation” in the world of Web 2.0. Yes, each Web 2.0/social media site in isolation may be very easy to use, but to try and get all of them to cooperate and more importantly keep track of all our information is becoming a complete nightmare. Here is just a short list of just some of my information assets:

Gosh, I can’t even keep track of them in a list, and I certainly don’t want to link to all my accounts on various services for privacy concerns. Just recently, I discovered that I had a MySpace page! I didn’t even know I had a MySpace page, and in fact, I used to take pride in saying that I didn’t have one (they built their network by being spammers in my opinion). Until I discovered that I did — probably one I set up years and years ago, and never thought about it twice after that. (I have since promptly deleted the MySpace page, so that I can stick to my assertion that I do not have a MySpace page!)

Our bits are spread out all over the web. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say that bits of us are spread out all over the web. Subtle difference. The deluge in the number of services out there has now resulted in new services (like FriendFeed and Ping.fm) which try to help you take control of all your media and interactions. However, aggregators only work in theory. In theory, the pitch for an aggregator is that “We will be the one stop shop for X.” The problem is that there are a dozen one stop shops. And so you ultimately end up building an aggregator to aggregate the aggregators! The travel industry is a great example of this with the airline sites, then sites like Expedia, Travelocity and Orbitz. Then sites like TripAdvisor, Kayak, Vayama. I’m just waiting for the next level up (Update: Didn’t have to wait too long, as soon as I finished this post and went back to check on my feeds, I found this on TechCrunch: Travelzoo’s Fly.com Launches Yet Another Travel Search Aggregator). It’s the Madoff scheme (Ponzi is becoming too old for people to know what it means any more!) of aggregators.

Likewise in social media, everyone is trying to aggregate everyone else. Till recently, I had my Twitter tweets being cross-posted to my Facebook status. I recently severed that connection. Now I have FriendFeed aggregating my tweets, my Google Reader shares, my blog posts all together. Oh, and I also have a FriendFeed tab in my Facebook profile. Everything is going in circles, I guess that must be the true indication that I have embraced Web 2.0 and social media, and more so, that I feel caught up in its embrace. An embrace of so many tentacles that it’s like being caught in, oh, oh, wait for it… a Web!

Lets make this more concrete with some examples:

  1. Blog comments: When you post to a blog, you typically have comments on the blog. But then you also have trackbacks and pingbacks. And now you also have tweetbacks. The conversation has been splintered. I can get comments on the post, I can get tweets back in response to the post, I can get an email, I can get a phone call, a direct message on twiter, a like on FriendFeed or now even on Facebook, a comment on Facebook. It’s just all over the place. Fred Wilson has argued in his posts that (paraphrasing) comments should be treated as a first class citizen — as a true part of the conversation that is ocurring. But, comments are now being splintered all over — on Twitter, on FriendFeed, on Facebook, on blogs, in emails and in direct messages. Capturing that conversation has become and continues to become more of a challenge. There have been some good steps like Disqus integrating FriendFeed comments, but that is only the beginning.
  2. Status messages: Status messages are everywhere. And the buzz on the web is that status is the hot thing, popularized by Twitter and Facebook’s “What are you doing?” question. (Fred Wilson says that “Status is the ultimate social gesture”) But there is also GoogleTalk status. When I update my GoogleTalk status it is seen by people in my contact list who are also on GoogleTalk. But there is no (simple) way of connecting that to my Facebook status (emphasis on simple, though Xoopit recently announced GMail and Facebook integration through a plugin), to my Plaxo status, to my LinkedIn status. Ping.fm provides some hope of being able to do this. And I’m sure if I took the time to figure out the map of where all I want my status messages propagated (and avoid any circular references) it may very well do the trick. But, all of these services are supposed to be mass-market services. It shouldn’t require this much effort and thinking to make it all work right. While on one hand I am pleased by the diversity of options, on the other hand I lament that there are simply too many options.
  3. Pictures: I made a conscious choice to not post pictures on Facebook. Even though Facebook is intended to be for friends, there is a huge amount of intermingling of family, friends, teachers, co-workers, professionals and business contacts on Facebook. Yes, they provide a way to keep all these lists separate, but it just takes to much work. So I have my pictures on Picasa, in private albums that I share selectively. But then I also have a Flickr account and I also have a TwitPic account for posting images to Twitter.

I think the point is clear by now and so I won’t keep beating a dead horse. Web 2.0 and Social Media are wonderful and great, but at the same time they provide us with a plethora of options accompanied by a lack of easy interoperability (the kind that my mom could figure out). Information is being produced and created in unprecedented ways and at an unprecedented rate. It is being shared in unprecedented ways at an unprecedented rate. But, it is being fragmented in unprecedented ways. This is problem and an opportunity (as always). However, this is one case where I’m skeptical if just yet another technology (Google!?) will be able to help vacuum together all our digital bits from all over the Web.

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Thought -- caught in the act!

The decreasing importance of longhand

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Last week, I was thinking about how sometimes change happens and we don’t really notice it. It’s the old story of how to boil a frog. One such change that I think is happening around us is in the very foundation of basic education and in the three R’s: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

The change in arithmetic started happening when we started giving kids calculators. When I went to school, calculators were banned. You had to learn how to do math in your head, at least basic math. But I won’t dwell on the poor state of basic math skills since that’s not the core point of my post.

The bigger realization has been in how reading and writing are changing. When was the last time you picked up a pen/pencil and wrote a page full? How about a paragraph? Or even a full sentence? The pen, though metaphorically mightier than the sword, is becoming useless for anything more than signing our name on the credit card receipt, on a check or on a legal document. Yes, we may hunt for one when we need to scribble down a reminder or a quick thought, but whenever it comes to writing anything meaningful or of substance, our tool of choice has become the keyboard.

What does this mean for education and for the children who are learning how to read and write today? Do they really need to learn how to hold a pen or how to write longhand? The importance of longhand has diminished to such an extent that I worry about its very existence in the near future. It is more important to know how to type today than it is to hold a pen. In fact, I bet that very soon when someone needs to scribble something, they won’t be reaching for pen and paper, but reaching for their phone or whatever device it is that is almost surgically attached to their hand. (BTW, in case you haven’t tried it yet, I would strongly recommend trying out ShapeWriter on the iPhone. Here is the iTunes store link for ShapeWriter Free and ShapeWriter Pro.)

Writing longhand is a skill that I compare to boiling a frog — with every passing day, with every blog post and with every tweet, we’re boiling the frog that is writing with an instrument that still vaguely resembles a quill.

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Thought -- caught in the act!

Running at periscope depth

For the past couple of weeks, for most of 2009 in fact, I’ve felt that I am running at periscope depth, meaning I feel that I am able to learn a little bit about a topic, but haven’t had the time to go deep. This is quite the opposite of the training you receive by being in a PhD program, where you are required to go deep and become the expert in a particular topic.

Taken during an Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) e...
Image via Wikipedia

I use the submarine analogy because it best describes what I mean. If you are on the surface and literally skimming topics, then you know very little and can easily be overthrown or thrown out of control by a wave or the wind. By contrast, if you are under the water, you have a little bit more control and are less susceptible to the wind and the waves, but you still lack the depth of knowledge. While I was at Stanford, I felt that I was able to stay at periscope depth, but still be able to make deep dives from time to time. It was a requirement of the role and the task at hand.

In my new role of helping startups, I find I spend a lot of time at periscope depth, but I haven’t been able to make as many deep dives as I would like to into various topics — sometimes topics that would be of benefit to the startups I’m working with and sometimes those for just my own edification.

A big part of the problem has been the glut of information created by social media (mostly useless information, but every so often there are a few gems). Keeping up with my feeds, trying to get a healthy dose of the twitter stream, and most of all managing the beast that is email takes up a large chunk of my week. The weekends have really become catch up days for things left over from the week. Fortunately, the information traffic on weekends decreases just enough to make it possible to write a blog post for instance!

Has the increase in social media activities such as Twitter, Facebook, blogging etc made all of us incapable of making deep dives? Most of the time the web is an “echo chamber,” as it has appropriately been described, for the self-absorbed. Innovation happens not only be being aware of the acitivity around you, but by being able to get a deep understanding of a particular topic. When are entrepreneurs working on building stuff, when most of the time they’re keeping busy just trying to keep up? These are just some of the questions I am pondering over, while I try to correct my own observation of being at periscope depth.

I hope to make some proactive changes to help correct this and carve out some time to still do the deep dives that I believe are essential for being fully informed and not just partially informed.

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Thought -- caught in the act!

On Saving vs. Consumer Spending

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I’m not an expert at economics — neither micro-economics nor macro-economics. In fact if anything, I’m slowly and steadily developing the belief that no one really understands the economy, and especially not the overpaid people who run this nation’s, and increasingly the world’s financial system.

I’ve often wondered about the disconnect that exists between the individual and the nation when it comes to economic policies and measures. As an individual, it is in your own personal self-interest to live within your means. While I was growing up (in India), credit for individuals was more or less unheard of. What was more common was “saving” — if you wanted to buy something, you would have to save up enough to make that purchase. Now I’m not arguing that that is the best approach, but a balanced approach is what I am arguing for.

By contrast, at the macro-economic level, the problem you hear the economists talking about is that “Consumer spending” is down and that has a trickle down effect on the economy — well, it does. But, should boosting consumer spending really be the way to improve the economy? Isn’t that at odds with the common sense of what is good for the individual!

In fact given the current supply chain in the US, boosting consumer spending will not necessarily stimulate the US economy as much as it will stimulate the Chinese economy. The current crisis has shown that the global economies are so tightly intertwined that that may indeed be what is necessary at a global level. Apparently, China reinvests all the excess dollars it earns into the US economy by buying up US treasuries, bonds and stocks and that is what makes money readily available in the US. If China stops buying up US assets with their surplus dollars, the US would be in even bigger credit/cashflow trouble.

Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky) wrote a great article titled: Watch out, world: Americans are saving again (hat tip to @timoreilly for the link). Having read this article and having recently watched I.O.U.S.A (highly recommended) I am pleased to see that Americans may be saving more again — it’s what they should have been doing in the first place. But that American’s saving again will have a adverse effect on the global economy just means that the micro and the macro are not working to reinforce each other, but against each other.

To summarize this post, in essence, I feel that there is a huge disconnect between “what is good for the individual” vs. “what is good for the United States” vs. “what is good for the global economy” and until these differences can be reconciled and the interests aligned, I fear that we will be pulling in the wrong directions.

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Thought -- caught in the act!

Counting Calories

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It is a well known fact that increased visibility or awareness of a phenomenon leads to behavior change. While you may consider this common sense there is real theory and research behind this as I learned when I took (and then helped teach) BJ Fogg‘s course in Persuasive Technology. Taemie Kim and I used this principle in our work on the Dynamic Speedometer. In that case, we hypothesized, and then showed that even an ambient awareness of the current speed limit can result in a change in driver behavior. We did this by showing the current speed limit as a visualization on the speedometer. Our studies showed that drivers drove closer to the speed limit more often when they were more aware of the the speed limit.

BJ’s class and and the principles of designing technology with the intent to change human behavior (for good) is a topic that I think about often. As a hobbyist of observing human behavior, I am fascinated by ways in which people get manipulated — sometimes consciously and sometimes sub-consciously. This happens everyday with marketing and advertising and is one of the reasons I hate being “marketed to” or “sold to” since then I know I am being manipulated. However, when this works to manipulate us in a positive direction, it can be a very compelling approach.

Yesterday, while I was in San Francisco to attend The Crunchies, a friend and I happened to walk into a Chevy’s restaurant on Van Ness Ave (an impulse decision and definitely not a pre-meditated one!). My colleague and I both noticed that their menu’s had nutritional information (calories, fat, carbs, and sodium) for every item on the menu directly below it. We were both shocked to see how most of the items on the menu also happened to be 1500 calories or over. So in one meal, you’re getting close to the entire days worth of calories! (I also noticed the limited number of options for vegetarians, unusual for most California restaurants, but then Chevy’s is a chain).

Turns out that the City of San Francisco, in its usual leading edge wisdom has required chain restaurants to post nutrition information on their menu’s:

“The law requires nutrition information – including calories, fat, carbohydrates and sodium – to be posted on menus or, for restaurants that do not have menus, on prominently displayed posters. Restaurants with menu boards would be required to list the calories per item on the board; other nutrition information could be listed on the posters.”

(Source: S.F. supes require posting of nutrition info)

Likewise, the State of California has also enacted a similar law to go into effect statewide:

“SB 1420 requires restaurant chains with 20 or more locations to post calorie information on their menus and indoor menu boards by January 1, 2011. And beginning July 1, 2009, brochures containing either calorie content information or other nutritional information, such as grams of saturated fat, grams of carbohydrates and milligrams of sodium, will be at the point of sale and drive-thrus for consumers.”

(Source: Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Legislation Promoting Nutrition and Healthier Options)

This is a brilliant move by San Francisco and California. It really needs to be adopted all across the US. Portion sizes in the US are ridiculously large. I think that this change will have an impact on at least some fraction of the people — those who may be well-intentioned about controlling their diet, but just have a hard time doing it (like me). It is an example of increased visibility and awareness being used to encourage behavior change.

One of my favorite books on the topic of eating behavior is Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think — it is a fascinating book about how and why we are not good at controlling how much we eat. The experiments in the book are eye opening, but even though I can read and rationalize them, changing behavior is inherently hard to do. I’m glad to see these laws that are designed to encourage positive behavior change — not with a stick, but with awareness and information.

And you had to read this whole post just because I ordered a salad!

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