The End of Google?

OK, that's a little bold, but there is a new trend of organizing information on the web that I feel will ultimately trump Google's algorithm. The trend is called Social Tagging or Folksonomy. Essentially it involves asking users to "tag" (i.e. bookmark) various web pages and assign key words to them. Instead of the bookmarks being stored in their browser's favorites menu, they are stored online. Sites like del.icio.us and ma.gnolia.com have made this trend wildly popular.

This system offers several advantages over traditional bookmarking. First, since your bookmarks are stored online, you can access them from any computer (i.e. they aren't tied to your browser. Second, bookmarks/tags can be shared with others. So you can see your friends' bookmarks and they can see yours. Most importantly, tags can be aggregated together and plugged into a search engine. This system has huge advantages over traditional search engine spiders (i.e. Google).

Tag-based classification is done by human beings, who truly understand the content of a web page, as opposed to spiders which algorithmically attempt to determine it's meaning. The more people who tag a web page with a particular word, the higher the tag-based search engine will rank it. This provides for semantically classified information, which is much more dependable and powerful than a computer's interpretation of what content means.

This model can easily be brought into the Enterprise with very little investment. A simple distributed bookmarking service can be created that allows your employees and/or clients to tag any content that exists on your internet/intranet. This information can be aggregated together to be fed into your enterprise search engine, or a new tag searching service can be created. There's no reason to retire your search engine spidering on day one, but over time as more and more people see value in using the tagging service to share tags with one another and accessing their tags from any computer, that aggregated categorization will trump your search engine's spidering interpretation of your firm's proprietary content. It also allows your employees to you use your firm's vocabulary for classifying information (i.e. think acronyms). I mean, what algorithm is going to know that a particular document is the EAM to support the TAS product's RUP requirements for the Vertigo release?

-J

Online Social Capital

The web is increasingly becoming a standard way to organize relationships. Traditionally, we managed our social and professional networks manually, either in a paper or electronic based address book. Now, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have entered the scene, creating new ways for people to exchange personal contact information and stay connected. What makes these tools even more powerful than a personal address book, is that you have access to your "friends'" address books as well. All of a sudden your social network is raised to another power (i.e. your 100 contacts have 100 contacts, thus giving you access to 100,000 contacts).

Professional networking sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo have seen the value of these tools and have rebranded them to a professional networking audience. They provide easy tools to find people in your immediate and extended network that have particular interests, skills, relationships, etc.

An example of the power of this in action: One of my technical consultants had a desire to work at a particular client that we had not yet formed a relationship with. I did a search in my LinkedIn network for that company name. I found an individual in a management position at that company that happened to be a graduate school classmate of one of my college fraternity brothers. Without this utility we never would have been connected or realized we had this common relationship. Pretty powerful stuff. Solstice uses this same platform for finding talented individuals that have a particular skill set we're looking for.

Fast Forward: There is a real-time social networking trend out there that is evolving from the idea of "virtual worlds". Companies like Second Life create a venue for you to create a three-dimensional representation of yourself and explore a virtual earth where you can interact with other individuals, real time. Second Life is quickly expanding and has an online economy with currency that you can use to buy and sell virtual goods and virtual land. There is even an exchange rate between the virtual currency (Linden Dollars) and the US Dollar. Some individuals have utilized this economy to become Real Life Millionaires. Companies are starting to see the potential of this platform for commerce purposes. Forward thinking companies like Sun Microsystems and IBM have set up virtual corporate headquarters. Reuters has a news center in Second Life that reports on virtual world news. Real life politicians are giving speeches in Second Life.

So what's the big deal? OK, picture this. You're online buying a camera from Amazon.com. Given the popularity of Amazon, as you're looking at that Nikon, a couple dozen other people are online at the same time, looking at that same camera at Amazon.com. Imagine if you could just look around you and see all the virtual users that are looking at that product and ask them a question "Hey, I noticed you're looking at the Nikon, have you compared it to the Cannon?". Hard to fathom that in the 2-D web, but a virtual world web makes this more palatable. Amazon could even have a sales rep walk up to you and ask if you'd like any assistance. A lot less intrusive than a pop up flashing in your face.

Virtual worlds are a real-time social networking platform that have great commerce potential. We may be a few years away, but wouldn't now be a good time to buy some virtual real estate and set up your virtual corporate headquarters?

A little too "Matrix-y" for you? OK, for now, let's just get LinkedIn.

-J

Collective Intelligence over the web

I have always been fascinated by the concept of collective intelligence, or the "wisdom of crowds", as coined by James Surowiecki. Surowiecki says "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.” This concept is evident in everything from the stock market (i.e companies being valued based on the thoughts of collective investors buying and selling companies shares), to sports betting (i.e. the "spread" on games is inevitably decided by the collective community betting on one team or another).

In order to have a dependable platform for collective intelligence, Surowiecki says you need four things:
1) Diversity of opinion
2) Independence of members from one another
3) Decentralization
4) A good method for aggregating opinions.

Can you think of a better platform for this than the Web? I think we're just skimming the surface of utilizing the power of the internet, not just as a mechanism for exchanging information, but for aggregating information from all of it's users and packaging it up in a collective way that offers something even more valuable than any one person's insight. Sites like PredictWallStreet.com or Motley Fool's CAPS application have put together collective intelligence systems that will predict stock prices of companies. Wikipedia destroys the assumption that books are written by a single author and utilizes collective user contributions to publish factual topics and (ultimately) record history. How could you use collective intelligence in your business? Where will this trend take the next generation of internet services and content? I'd be interested in your thoughts. Perhaps collectively, we can come up with the answer. . .

-J