On a rainy Friday, here are some follow up tidbits to some previous posts that have been collecting in my mental Inbox. I think it’s a good practice to follow up on posts. In both blogging, even more importantly traditional journalism, the story after the story is too often neglected.

1. A few kind readers have asked me about the other youtube famed video, D.A.N.C.E., by French techno duo Justice. While it is a great track and video, I still like DVNO better. Superimposing motion graphics on a shirts is a brilliant idea, however the visual effects prowess of the creators overtakes the visual imagery. The viewers spends a lot of time thinking, how did they do that? and what a cool effect. DVNO required a similar level of design skill (with albeit less rotoscoping.) As stated before, in the case of DVNO, the technology is invisible and the viewer can focus on the imagery.

2. The game designer who created Passages, which I alluded to as work of interactive fiction, has created a new work called, Gravitation.

3. From March 1 to March 31, Google blog search reveals: 16,526 results for awesomenessand 706,055 results for awesome, which is lower than the results from my original post:February-2008: Awesomeness: 17,182 ; Awesome: 736,783 ; Are: 61,531,049
January-2008: Awesomeness: 9,627 ; Awesome: 429,769; Are: 57,214,958

Is the use of “awesomeness” leveling of?
I’m not sure. The results that Google is now giving me is different results for previous months when I first collected data, which is a little troubling.

However, if I really want to understand how search engines work, I may have to try to read this suggestion from Wojciech, Introduction to Information Retrieval, by Standford profressors, Christopher D. Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan and Hinrich Schütze.

Image source: flickr

David Weinberger gave a description of a link in a panel last year at the Hyperlinked Society Conference. A link is a conscious act of generosity. These acts is moral, and they form the architecture of the web. He goes on to explain that the syntax of a link (i.e. the href HTML tag) has no meaning within itself, it is merely an instruction which points to another location. The meaning of the link, which can be agreement or disagreement, is found in the text surrounding the link.

While these links have no meaning, they do have value, which is the reason by creating a link performing generosity. Google ranks pages by the number of links other sites point to a page. Appearing early in a search result clearly has value over a later listing. You can only have a reputation if other people can find you. A page and her owner’s reputation then relies on the generosity of others linking to her page. If an author disagrees with the contents of page and wishes to dispute it, linking to the page adds to its value and reputation. The author is then left to not link. However, this practice which the status quo forces people to use still leaves the reader at a disadvantage.

There have been suggestions to create a newer kind of syntax and link taxonomy which would add to the current binary options of link or no link. The simplest system would be to have three choices, positive link, negative link and no link. This system would actually be very easy to for users. All you need to do is add a tag to the link.

Flipping forward one year, I was struck when Jonathan Zittrain pointed out in his talk last Saturday, the use robot.txt files for telling search engines not to spider a file or directory started in the early age of the web as an adhoc measure by individual which became an internet standard. Today, it is much harder to get a standard adopted, but the story of robot.txt reminds us that it is possible to create grassroots change in internet standards. Endorsement links allude to aspects of the Semantic Web, but frankly, I’m not sure if it will every come. Contextual syntax might evolve over time with gradual implementations.

The idea of rated links get even more interesting when you consider how search engines might use links that interpret reputation and authority. Of course, gaming the system would occur, but that happens now and should not deter the implementation of a link taxonomy. It might also encourage search engines to become open to annotating listings, as Frank Pasquale has suggested. Generally, search results are given by relevance or time of creation. New categories could be ranked in terms by agreement, disagreement or even controversy. The end result would be better ways for author to link, for readers to under the context of the link, and for searcher to usage links in the aggregate.

Image source: John Hoffmann’s Weblog

I’m back from a short trip to the beach, only to return to a massive thunder storms which lead to an extra long commute due to flooding and the sweet smell of raw sewage in Soho that was percolating in 90 degree summer heat. Ah… it’s good to be home.

With that said, let’s get back to Google. (Did you think I could go five posts without directly mentioning them?)

It’s funny because the spectrum auction has been a big deal in telecommunications circles every since the FCC made television broadcasters switch from analogue to digital, which freed the 700MHz band of spectrum in the first place. But Google makes news, and their public announcement of their concerns about the auction turns a business section article into front page news on the New York Times (albeit below the fold.) All this analysis leads to a lot second guessing. The what ifs and predictions can be fun and are an important part of the game, however separating the signal from the noise is difficult. More over, after a week passes, most people will move along with the rest of the blogosphere to the next bright and shinny news item, like the new iMacs. In the short window of coverage, it is easy to forget that Google has been concerned about access and pipes for a long time.

On that note, let’s return to 2005, when the internet was abuzz with rumors of Google buying up “dark fiber” and their mysterious job postings.

At the time, Robert X Cringely (who made the great documentary Triumph of the Nerds, not to be confused with the movie about a nerd fraternity of a similar title.) commented upon the dark fiber speculation and the even cool super-secret plans to building their own Internet using home grown US$500 million mobile data centers housed in shipping containers.

Two years later, we haven’t seen or heard much more about these plans. It is also interesting to note how Cringley opened his article:

“Google’s strengths are searching, development of Open Source Internet services, and running clusters of tens of thousands of servers. Notice on this list there is nothing about operating systems. There are many rumors about Google doing an operating system to compete with Microsoft. I’m not saying they aren’t doing that (I simply don’t know), but I AM saying it would not be a good idea, because it doesn’t play to any of the company’s traditional strengths.”

Two years later, Google hasn’t created a new internet, nor they have entered the desktop OS market. Although, they have rolled out word processors, spreadsheet, photo album and calendar tools to join their email service which launched on April 1, 2004, which overs a lot of people software application needs, even it isn’t specifically called an OS (but if it walks like a duck…) And Sun created something that looks a lot like what Cringley was talking about.

The internet is full of rumors and wild guesses at future actions. Cringley is smart enough to know that he can’t see into the future. Further, he is humble enough to put a section which lists his predictions and review his track record when he does make a prediction. He is currently batting 0.533, which is say that he is right a little more than half the time.

This abundant media speculation is good when it focuses national attention on important, but often dry, issues as interoperability and access to wireless networks and services. Getting people to wonder why they can’t use their mobile handset on a carrier of their choosing and why they can’t control their on-deck applications are important first steps to insuring fair and reasonable telecommunications policy. However, the telecommunication industry can change surprisingly quickly. Historic perspective helps put these changes in context. Amid these changes, we have to remember where we’ve been before, and even where we thought we were going.

Images source: upgrade:travelbetter.com

With all this Google and spectrum talk swirling the internet and news media, I keep coming back to Wi-Fi as a good way to contextualizing the importance of having open networks and services, as well as open applications and devices. There are of course, many differences which I’ll identify, but the similarities are important and insightful.

Wi-Fi has exploded in the past few years. As with many overnight success stories, this one was twenty-five years in the making. In 1985, FCC opened several bands of high frequency wireless spectrum for unregulated use. This move allowed people to transmit over these frequencies without a license, as you would for radio or television. The spectrum 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz was (in hindsight) amusingly named “garbage bands.” Because they were used by medical equipment and home appliances including microwave ovens, they were considered to have limited telecommunications value.

In 1997, the turning point of Wi-Fi was the adoption of IEEE 802.11 standard by the Institute Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which was nearly ten years in the making. With a standard in place, developers could make devices and applications that were interoperable with each other. Developers chose the 80211b flavor in the first wave of products, because it was least expensive, albeit slow. Faster flavors of the standard, such as 802.11g and 802.11n, are now being developed and brought to market. The early application of 802.11b shows that the agreement on of a standard is just as important as what is agreed upon. As commercial products began rolling out, “Wi-Fi” was settled upon as a term for this new technology, because “IEEE 802.11b compliant” wasn’t as sexy.

Two points to take away from the spread of Wi-Fi concern standards and the open spectrum. First, the adoption of the IEEE 802.11 standard allowed for interoperability. Because products could easily to talk to each other, the chances for wide-spread use increased. Second, providing open spectrum expanded development, because
anyone from the size of Cisco and to the individual members of the Toronto Wireless Users Groups to develop and experiment with Wi-Fi. As well, it vastly expanded its usage by people. (Imagine if everyone who wanted to set up a Wi-Fi network needed to apply and pay for a broadcasting license.)

Wi-Fi will soon face competition from other wireless alternatives, like the results of the 700 MHz auction or WiMax, which is faster and has roughly 100 times wider range. These telecommunications technologies require towers and infrastructure, which have price tags that run in the billions of dollars to implement in the US. Big upfront costs means that big entities are involved like telecoms, industry disruptors like Google or Apple, or governments. Even if the FCC mandated open networks and services (which it did not,) standards and truly fair pricing would remain challenges to seeing levels of innovation and adoption on par with Wi-Fi.

Some good, accessible readings on the topic:
A Brief History of Wi-Fi, Economist, June 10th, 2004. (subscription required)

“How Wi-Fi Works”