Have I Found A New Love?



Yes, I found this at TechCrunch and this thing is hot! I am going to have a lot of fun with this tool and i recommend you check it out. It is a next level vertical search and social bookmarking tool.


Out of all the great tools the first thing that struck me as totally new was its ability to auto tag sites that you have been to a given number of times. For those not interested in taking the time to leverage the power of del.icio.us, but want to take advantage of social bookmarking and the seeds of the semantic web, this may be for you.



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The Semantic Web

I realize you can just as easily go to wikipedia and get this info yourself but, I am going to bring it to you anyhow!


The Semantic Web is a project to create a universal medium for information exchange by putting documents with computer-processable meaning (semantics) on the World Wide Web. Currently under the direction of the Web's creator, Tim Berners-Lee of the World Wide Web Consortium, the Semantic Web extends the Web through the use of standards, markup languages and related processing tools.


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The Jeff in Action

First of all, you should be listening to the Businessweek Covercast if you you are interested in business. It is one of the best major media podcasts out there as, it takes advantage of the medium by extending the cover stories with additional content. Some major media companies have decided to merely read their own printed word into a mic and call it a podcast. While I see the value in this, it is not truly exploiting the medium.


 Businessweek's podcast however is not perfect. I think they could do more by opening the conversation up to their readers but, Covercast is certainly headed in the right direction.


This story was on the cover of Businessweek and all over the blogosphere so, what better reason to share it with my readers (perhaps some have not seen it already, cmon). Also, I just listened to the podcast that went along with the story and it was pretty cool.


"Bezos aims to transform Amazon into a kind of 21st century digital utility. It's as if Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) had decided to turn itself inside out, offering its industry-leading supply chain and logistics systems to any and all outsiders, even rival retailers."


By lowering the barriers to entry even further for online retailers, I think that Bezos' move is very exciting. Furthermore, the concept of building an online platform in place of  things that were once done in part on the desktop is perfectly aligned with the way the what seems to be the future of the web.


Elastic Compute Cloud (as the service is named) could either revolutionize business or be a very expensive failed experiment.



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I ain't no jive turkey!







Mockben Makes A Turkey Fly at the Morpheus Ice Chanty_001, originally uploaded by bunstin_.rm.



Thanks to Frans Charming for the turkey, i love it!

"We Are Not A Passive Pilgrim"



I am not quite sure who said the above quote but it is very profound in light of the world that it exists in. I had an amazing night last night!


My new friends Rhiannon Chatnoir, Frans Charming and I had a great night in Second Life and on Ventrilo (which by the way has much better sound quality that Skype).


They took me to amazing places including "The Big Easy" (which is something that they had worked on for Katrina relief). We spoke about copybot issues and other issues pertaining to Second Life.


We came to this island where I saw the statement pictured above and I thought, how perfect! Although I am not one of the earlier adopters of Second Life (in comparison to my new friends) all night I felt like a pilgrim traveling in search of intellectual stimulation and the future of mediated spaces. The difference between my pilgrimage and the common concept of a pilgrimage is quite obvious but no less profound.


We are ACTIVE pilgrims in a world still dominated by passive media spaces!


I owe a lot to my new my friends (Frans, thanks for the turkey, I will treat it well) and offer the same experience to those who have not yet discovered Second Life.


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Second Life and Web 2.0

What the hell is Web 2.0 anyway??


I can more easily define what Second Life is because it is a tangible platform with certain definitive attributes while web 2.0 is a memetic discourse that takes different forms depending on who you are speaking with.


I just read a great account of how Web 2.0 and Second Life fit in our world together (or separately depending on who you ask) by Tateru Nino. I agree with most of it. Here are some of my highlights although I urge you to read the whole thing.



  • In reference to creation, "That ... spark leaks through the cracks and crevices of all our worlds, a relentlessly postmodern agglutination of the conscious and the subconscious; the life and the times.

  • Working in space

  • When you're in Second Life, you're in the world. This world

  • ...it takes something like Second Life to lift you out of your chair and give you that crucial juxtaposition that makes you more than just a few words on a page.


The last point is amazing!


 The idea that Second Life is more of an active medium than the Internet at large is truly profound.


 People are still getting used to the fact that the interactive space is lifting people from their TV sofas while Tateru is one step ahead talking about how Second Life is bringing people out of the lurker mode of the 2d web.


Great Stuff!


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Business Communications in Second Life

Question:


Should you enter Second Life?


 The Answer will invariably be yes. I have yet to find a brand that would not be able to make a name for themselves in Second Life


Better Question:


What should we do once we get there?


Get this answer from Linda Zimmer of Business Communicators of Second Life



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Collarity

It was recommended to me by Aimee of Relevant Noise that I check out Kinetic results and Collarity. Being the backwards dude that I am started with Collarity.



I did not spend a lot of time with it and will certainly spend more time in the future. It seems like a very interesting product although, I am not quite sure I am happy with the search results but, as is the case with social media it takes time for the engine to learn.


There is a great flash video to demonstrate the powers of collarity and they use the example two people searching for the term Java. It was quite obvious where this video was headed however this example does a great job of illuminating what it is the product is all about (a concept not new to the digerati and while it is not fully unique, if collarity has built a better mousetrap, they still have a shot at gaining some market share, or more likely selling out to Google :) )


The demo brings up a concept called Core Links, this is a new concept for me!


I am going to spend some time on collarity and report back


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The Subject of Media

In a recent article that I wrote for Adotas I touched upon the subject of Second Life and the distrust that many felt towards the idea of virtual worlds. I likened the virtual space to reality television in an attempt to give a common point of reference so as to disabuse people from their trepidation.

I have done a lot of thinking about virtual worlds since this article was published and I think that there were many other possible angles that I could have entertained in order to address the notion of fear (in relation to virtual worlds).

This brings me to my point; who is the subject of media?

1. Television- Consumers play a passive role and the subjects of the program are objectified by on lookers

2. Terrestrial Radio- Once Again, we apply our "gaze" and play the role of the third person

3. Magazine

(I think you get my point)

...and now for something completely different!

4. The Telephone- Scholars like McLuhan were obsessed with the decentralized and democratic nature of the telephone. The telephone was potentially the first time that "we" were an active subject

5. The Internet- Those who know how to leverage the power of the Internet are able to make active subjects of consumers although, some still treat the Internet as a passive medium

...virtual worlds do something different. They put us in the drivers seat with a visualization of ourselves as subject matter. THIS IS NEW!

I can talk about this for days but...I want feedback. BLOGGING IS NOT A PASSIVE MEDIUM DAMMIT!!! The reason blogging is revolutionary is due to the fact that is does not fossilize content and make it a special to merely look upon.

Join in, be active!

 

 

Search Everything

I never get tired of looking at the search space!

Here are two new products that look really cool. One is Amazon's new paid search platform on the other is a start up that I am still trying to wrap my head around but, the technology looks really cool. It is a visual search product and the potential for retailers seems huge!