This Blog has Moved to NovaSpivack.com

Idea: Driving Through Virtual Soundscapes

This is an idea for a new way to navigate interactively through large audio sets, such as collections of thousands of music tracks, and to automatically or interactively learn and evolve interesting trajectories through such spaces.

Safer Air Travel: Separate Flights for Luggage?

Here's an idea to help reduce the threat of terrorism against airplanes, and to speed up those long lines at airport security: Separate flights for luggage on high-risk routes.

Detailed Analysis of GoMeme 1.0 Results

Greg Tyrell, a PhD student with a strong interest in bioinformatics, has put together a detailed analysis and report on the GoMeme 1.0 experiment, containing several visualizations and results of the survey. Nice work Greg!

Also in other news, Google has started indexing the results. Currently there are 733 results when searching for sites with original, super-long GUID. There are 867 results when searching for the unique string "To add your blog to this experiment, copy this entire posting to your blog, and fill out the info below, substituting your own information in your posting, where appropriate" which was in the instructions -- this number should include sites that did not put the whole GUID in. Technorati, which seems to be working better today, finds 58 sites with the long GUID, and none for the instructions text above. So I guess Google wins so far. But I am glad that Technorati is starting to get their bugs fixed! I noticed that blog stats are starting to be updated again.

I also got an interesting link to another Meme visualization, which although having nothing to do with our experiment as far as I can tell, is a nice concept. It takes forever to build out the full visualization and the tree appears to be almost white on my white background making it hard to see, but still worth a look -- Meme Tree

New Fad - Parkour - Coming Soon to a Street Near You

All you consumer marketers out there -- there's a new fad in the tradition of breakdancing and skateboarding that's going to be big called Parkour. Parkour is gaining traction around the world and will soon become mainstream. It involves death-defying acrobatic stunts on the street, parts of buildings, and various landmarks. Here are some videos and there's more at Urban Freeflow.

Idea: GRASP -- The Statistics Portal

If you've ever tried writing a business plan, you know what a chore it is to locate statistics about industries, markets and products. While there are many market research firms that charge huge sums for their reports on particular segments, one quickly realizes that the wide degree of variance in their statistics means that just getting reports from one source is not very useful -- one really needs to see all the statistics normalized across all the sources that project them about a market. For example, if writing a business plan for a collaborative software application, you need stats from IDC, Gartner, Forrester, and several other sources in order to estimate the average value across them all.

The same is true not just for writing business plans, but for all kinds of research and reporting that requires the use of statistics. But nobody has the time or budget to buy or even just read all the reports that are constantly coming out all over the place. So the problem is that:
- Statistics are too hard to find
- Reports containing statistics are expensive
- Statistics are not normalized

One solution to these problems would be the creation of a new kind of search portal specifically for finding statistics: The Global Reports and Statistics Portal ("GRASP")

Transparent Alumina!

Cool. Scientists in the US have figured out how to make transparent alumina. The link includes pictures of alumina glass. OK, it's almost aluminum, but not quite!

Security Idea: One-Time Passwords

Typing your password into a website is increasingly risky, especially when logging in via a wireless device or from an Internet terminal. The primary risk is interception of your login information and password by an eavesdropper or via a keystroke-capture spyware installed on the machine you are using without your knowledge. Fortunately there is a way to defend against this issue, and to protect your passwords from hackers in general. The concept is a "one-time password" and is based on the concept of a one-time pad that is used in cryptography.
onetime password.

Micah is Free

(8/23/04 -- Update: Good news! Micah was freed by his captors yesterday!)

---------------------------
Some of you might have heard about Micah Garen's kidnapping in Iraq. If you haven't already, check Google News: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&tab=wn&q=Micah+Garen

I worked with Micah at Earthweb. He's a really great guy and needs our support. I'd appreciate it if you could call your local government representatives and ask them to assist in helping with his release. Ask them to contact Jenny Fu at the State Department. She's the one monitoring the situation.

(Via Tristan!)

New Study Shows Measurable Effects from Homeopathy

Interesting new research has found a measurable effect from homeopathic medicines on inflammation. The research has been published in a respected peer-reviewed medical journal. The authors admit they cannot explain the cause of this effect, and they are hoping others will join them in trying to figure it out. The basic issue is that homeopathic solutions contain such extremely dilute quantities of the "active ingredients" that there is almost no probability that enough molecules remain after dilution to have any effect at all. But for some reason, these extremely dilute solutions, which are for all intents and purposes just water or just sugar, have demonstrable medical effects that in some cases outperform that of a placebo. One hypothesis is that somehow water molecules are able to retain a "molecular memory" -- perhaps in a quantum field -- of other substances that they come into contact with, essentially enabling the "active ingredient" to "program" the water molecules with its "molecular imprint." But who knows!!! It's interesting though. I really enjoy these exotic unexplained frontiers. Magic is the future of science waiting to be understood.

Change This

I am helping Change This, a project to spread manifestos on new ideas by key thinkers. They have asked me to help host one of their manifestos, Creating Customer Evangelists. You can also download it directly from

Posted on August 16, 2004 at 10:27 AM in Business, Memes & Memetics | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (3)

Reblog (0) |

A very cool new nanotech material has been invented called Metal Rubber. It is conductive and metallic yet pliable and shape-retentive like rubber. An amazing array of new products could be created with this stuff.

Well the Channel Mob seems to have picked up 1 posting, but not the others yet. We are looking into why this is the case. I have contacted the people at pubsub.com that make Mystack, which is the agent we are using for the Channel Mob -- as you can see by the comments on this post, they are now working on the issue and hopefully we will have this up and running shortly.

Minding the Planet Channel Mob

Following up on my earlier post about storing messages in DNA it might be interesting to explore ways to encode large volumes of data directly into parts of the human body. Messing with DNA is risky -- it may be safer to store data in other parts of the human body (with the one potential disadvantage that such data would not be passed down via heredity). Here are some suggestions for parts of the human body that might be good media for data-storage:

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/starting_a_chan.html

In August of 2003, I posted an article that suggested the SETI folks ought to look at our own DNA to see if there happens to be a hidden message from aliens in there waiting to be discovered. Putting a message in human DNA, particularly in the junk DNA regions, is guaranteed (a) not to degrade significantly over long periods of time and (b) to be found by humans when we reached a suitable level of technological development, and (d) to go with each of us wherever we went on earth and beyond. So, thinking like an alien, DNA would be a much better place to leave a message for future humans than just about anywhere else. Now, the well-known science writer, Paul Davies has come up with the exact same suggestion.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if we look and actually find just such a message. Most likely it will read, "Property of Microsoft Corporation, patent-pending" or something to that effect.

Over the next few days, my friend Tristan Louis is unrolling a series of entries under the heading of "Modular By Design", and looking into the impact of modular approaches in the convergence business. Some of the areas he's looking into are music, music downloads, telephony, broadcast TV, cable TV, news gathering, and software. He's already posted a few entries. Check it out at the link above.

This article provides a good overview of the Weblog tools market, products, and market share.

There has been much recent discussion lately about alleged evidence that the Bush administration is issuing terrorist alerts for political gain. While I am not taking a position on this issue, I do have a suggestion that could eliminate any doubts, and in the process protect our upcoming elections.

In order to prevent the possibility that national terrorism alerts might be issued for political gain by an incumbent Presidential administration, the right to issue or imply terrorism alerts and the right to postpone elections, should be given to a bi-partisan committee. This policy change should be instituted immediately.

There are several reasons behind the GoMeme concept which shed some light on why this is potentially interesting.

First of all, whenever a site links to an article they find on the Web, they are essentially helping to then promote that article to others. This means they are relevant to the content of that article in some way. The use of the Path List at the end of the GoMeme enables every site that helps to market the article to then get some of the credit for the article's spread. The credit comes back to them in the form of links to them from other downstream sites that later post the article. This has the effect of increasing the each site in the path's visibilty for the terms in the article as well as for the terms in the sites in the path list. If a site helps to syndicate content around the Web, doesn't it make sense that they ought to appear in the history of that content as it spreads beyond them? Isn't the path of information useful?

Current Results of GoMeme 4.0, in Google

OK, we are having some technical difficulties getting the Channel Mob to work. It should work -- I am looking into it and will have an answer and possibly updated HTML sometime next week. I think it's probably just a minor glitch -- we should have this thing up and running in a few days.

Someone sent this to me. It's disturbing but also hilariously funny in a stupid sort of way. I never saw anything like this on the Web so I'm posting it. I have to admit I fell for it and have been laughing about my reaction for several hours!

(WARNING: You are either going to think this is very funny or you are going to hate it and be really angry. Also, if you have a heart condition or are very sensitive, or you are enjoying a very relaxed moment, do not follow the link below. This is definitely not for everyone -- it is only for those with a rather twisted sense of humor. Don't say I didn't warn you!!!)

OK, ready? Look very closely at these two photos. Can you spot the 3 differences between them??? It's hard -- but just keep looking very closely and you'll find them....

Philipp Lensen has made a cool visualization of the Meme spread results data-set. Check it out! It only shows a visualization of a limited subset of the sites that participated. Very nice Philipp. So can we visualize the full set of results?

I have an idea to start a "Channel Mob." Wanna try it with me?

What's a Channel Mob? It is a new way to automatically syndicate links to articles on your own sites to other sites that participate in the group. A link to any article that you "post" to the channel mob will be automatically displayed in any site that displays the Channel Mob headlines.

How to Post to the Channel Mob

To "Post" an article in your site to the Channel Mob, simply include this link in the HTML the article you want the Channel Mob to find:

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/starting_a_chan.html

How to Display the Channel Mob Headlines in your own Site

To display the posts in the Channel-Mob on your own site, just add the following script to your own site's HTML (preferably to your sidebar, where your blogrolls or other lists appear, since it will be a rather long list of article headings potentially)

<div class="mystack">
<style type="text/css">
.mystack TD {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;
font-size:small;}
</style>
<span id="stka5e8937173ef2764f86b6860064d0de7"></span>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://mystack.com/stack.php?stackid=stka5e8937173ef2764f86b6860064d0de7&max=50&hide.nntp=true"></script>
</div>

Please note that it may take a day or two for the data-mining to catch up before posts will start appearing in the Channel-Mob list.

How does it work?

1. Every day a data-mining agent automatically scours the Web for any pages that include the exact above link. For any page that is found to contain that exact link, a link to that page is then added to the Channel Mob. In other words, if you post something on your blog and you want it to appear in the Channel Mob, just include the above link in your post and it should be found by the mining agent and included.

2. Next, a list of links to the pages that were found by the mining agent are automatically displayed on any page that includes the Channel Mob script in their HTML (see below to add this to your page). So if you include the above link in a post on your blog, a link to your post will automatically appear on every site that includes the Channel Mob script in their HTML.

For an example of how the Channel Mob displays, see the bottom left of this blog page where I have included it in my site.

The channel miner runs automatically at least once every 24 hours, so it catches any articles you post that contain the above link and updates the Channel periodically.

Policies

I invite anyone who is interested to post to this Channel Mob and to display the headlines for this Channel Mob on your own blog (using the instructions above).

It's an experiment and could be interesting. Please join the Channel Mob if you want to try it out. You can take the Channel Mob out of your site at any time.

But, since many sites may join this, please do not post anything potentially offensive, or anything not suitable for all age groups, to the Channel Mob. If people abuse the channel, everyone will simply remove the Channel Mob from their sites.

Topics

This Channel Mob is focused on a few key topics ONLY, so please only add postings that are relevant to these topics:
- Emerging science and technology
- Improving democracy
- Envisioning the future
- Cool technology products
- Innovation
- Weblogs and Web-tech
- Brain-Mind science
- Search engine technology
- AI and machine learning
- Tech companies to watch
- Memes and Memetics
- Opinions about current events/issues
- Travel and adventures off the beaten path

Also please respect others and do not over-post to the Channel Mob -- only post articles that you really think the Channel Mob members will be interested in reading. (ie. Don't just post everything you put in your blog to the Channel Mob -- that will just cause everyone to ignore your blog!)

The Channel Mob is not an effective vehicle for advertising or doing anything generally annoying, so don't bother, if that is what you were thinking of doing with it. If anyone sends ads or spam or anything in appropriate, it will simply shut down the Channel Mob by causing members to remove it from their HTML. So don't bother. We won't read your ad anyway, so all you will be doing is annoying us.

The Channel Mob is NOT a way to get links to your blog and raise your Google standing. So there is no point just sending links to it in an attempt to increase your Google rank. Why is this? Because the list of headlines in the Channel Mob is built dynamically in browsers when they load a page containing the Channel Mob. Therefore, the links in the Channel Mob headlines list DO NOT appear in anyone's HTML and search engines cannot see them. So if you are a spammer, don't bother trying to spam the Channel Mob -- it will not help increase your search engine rankings in any way.

If everyone respects the basic social contract and does not abuse the channel, it should persist, spread, and remain spam-free. And that would be interesting because it creates an open list of headlines that is automatically syndicated across any number of blogs. It's a nice way to let one another know about our best posts to our blogs, and to help one another promote those posts to other readers.

There are by some estimates more than 3 million weblogs. But most of them get no visibility in search engines. Only a few "A-List" blogs get into the top search engine results for a given topic, while the majority of blogs just don't get noticed. But this posting could solve that. Let's help the smaller blogs get more visibility!

This posting is GoMeme 4.0. So far we have tried 3 earlier variations. Our first test, GoMeme 1.0, spread to nearly 740 blogs in 2.5 days. This new version 4.0 is shorter, simpler, and fits more easily into your blog.

Why are we doing this? We want to help thousands of blogs get more visibility. How does it work? Just follow the instructions below to re-post this meme in your blog and add your URL to the end of the Path List below. As the meme spreads onwards from your blog, so will your URL. Your blog will be part of the pat for everyone downstream from you. That way they can see where they got this message from. Everyone in the Path List below benefits in a similar way as this meme spreads. Try it!

Instructions: Just copy this entire post and paste it into your blog. Then add your URL to the end of the path list below, and pass it on! (Make sure you add your URLs as live links or HTML code to the Path List below.)

Path List
1. Minding the Planet
2. (your URL goes here! But first, please copy this line and move it down to the next line for the next person).

(NOTE: Be sure you paste live links for the Path List or use HTML code.)

A GoMeme is a specially modified piece of content that spreads virally along social relationships in a manner that benefits every site that helps it spread. Any piece of content can be transformed into a GoMeme.

What is a GoMeme?

A GoMeme is a specially modified piece of content that spreads virally along social relationships in a manner that benefits every site that helps it spread. Any piece of content can be transformed into a GoMeme. It's a piece of content, or a meme, that is specially modified to spread virally along social networks.

This funny article is Gomeme strain 3.0. We're perfecting the method. The GoMeme has evolved so that now it can attach to any blog posting! See if you spot it!

Now we are getting somewhere. This is a fundamentally useful way for bloggers to benefit by syndicating posts for other bloggers. See what I mean? It's so easy to do, and it's very much in the spirit of the Net. Get it? Ok, good, now join it!

Note: This experiment is now finished.

(GoMeme 3.0 - Note: This is not an ordinary article. We have added some special information at the end. Read this entire article, and then follow the instructions at the end to pass it on in a new way...)

Note: This experiment is now finished.

GoMeme 2.0 -- Copy This GoMeme From This Line to The End of this article, and paste into your blog. Then follow the instructions below to fill it out for your site.

Steal This Post!!!! This is a GoMeme-- a new way to spread an idea along social networks. This is the second generation meme in our experiment in spreading ideas. To find out what a GoMeme is, and how this experiment works, or just to see how this GoMeme is growing and discuss it with others, visit the Root Posting and FAQ for this GoMeme at www.mindingtheplanet.net .

I have been blogging literally all night. You know how it is. I don't actually feel tired but my brain is telling me that I should probably sleep now. If you comment on the previous posts tonight or tomorrow AM, I will get back to you around noon USA Pacific Standard Time (California). Sorry for the slight delay while I recharge my batteries.

I am willing to offer a $500 prize to the Webmaster, other than myself, who spreads the new GoMeme most successfully, by midnight Pacific Standard Time, September 1, 2004. But first, I need your help to define the rules for this contest, and a method for juding the competitors. We need to design a contest that can be measured objectively using existing tools, like Google or Daypop, and that can't easily be cheated on. Also, I would suggest a few stipulations: (1) Qualifying contestants' Gomemes must not alter the content of the Gomeme (other than by providing the correct answers to their questions and their entry in the Path List) -- but NOTE they *could* spread their Gomeme indirectly, for example via a link back to their blog from something else that spreads virally, like a joke, a music track, a cool image, a story, etc. (2) Qualifying contestants must not engage in email spam, comment spam or any other form of spam -- if we get any verifiable evidence of such misbehavior about a contestant, we will disqualify them from the competition.

Can anyone think of anything else I forgot? If we can design a good contest, I'll put up the prize money. Meanwhile, if you think you might want to compete, get started building your new Gomeme network now. Hopefully we will have a contest rules definition in a matter of days at the most. Please add your suggestions as comments.

Also, if you would like to put up some additional prize money as a co-sponsor of the contest, let me know (and yes, even if you are a commercial entity, we'll consider accepting your sponsorship money for the contest and could even give you contest sponsorship branding on a contest page. But we won't put your brand on the GoMeme so don't even ask. The Gomeme is not an ad.)

Aha, now I understand it! Nick, from Netpolitik has posted an insightful analysis of the dynamics that make the GoMeme experiment work. Nick calls our species of meme a "Bloggie Meme." That's pretty cute. I thought of some names too, by combining blog + meme -- such as a "Bleme" or "BlogMe" or "BlogMeme" -- or how about a "BloMe" (ha ha). OK, but seriously, I think we should call this a "GoMeme" (pronounced go-meem) because it's a meme that is designed to go -- and also because that's what we've been calling this idea for several years (yes, in fact, some friends, including Kris Thorisson, and I, dreamed this up several years ago and are only now trying it out -- now that blogs are widespread its "time has come.").

I wonder if anyone from MoveOn.Org or the Republicans will notice our GoMeme experiments? (Not that I'm taking sides -- I'll simply be happy if somebody wins the election!) Grassroots political campaigns could potentially really benefit from the techniques we're testing here. For example, imagine a "blog meme" for a political campaign -- a meme that states some useful facts about a candidate and their opponent, perhaps has some survey questions and a GUID, and has the added benefit of a cool Improve-Your-Google-Ranking-By-Hosting-This-Meme candy coating? Wow -- it could spread the message to a lot of blogs pretty quickly if done right. That might actually work. But I try to stay out of politics, so I'm not taking sides here or endorsing anyone. If you read this and know the "right people" -- feel free to suggest the idea to them.

This posting is the FAQ and introduction for a new, improved, second-generation meme experiment that is designed to spread faster and more broadly than the first meme experiment. We call this kind of meme a "GoMeme" (pronounced Go-Meem), because it is a meme that is designed to Go. The actual GoMeme, which you can add to your Website is located, here. Before you do this, please read this FAQ so you know how it works.

A Meme is Born

The Meme is certainly spreading nicely in its second day of life. There are nearly 200 blogs participating that we know of -- possibly more that we can't see trackbacks for. Once Google indexes everything (in a few days to a few weeks), we should have a better idea of the true numbers.

So far the Meme has consistently been in the top 10 posts of the day on several key indices -- including Daypop and Popdex. Meanwhile Technorati is still broken -- their top list hasn't changed -- also their stats for blogs don't seem to change.

An interesting stat: the Meme has moved up to the number 5 slot in Daypop -- it's gunning to overtake Matt Drudge who is still clinging onto number 4 against our onslaught. The Meme is even scoring higher than the hilarious spoof clips for White House West and Team America, even higher than the NY Times Big Expose, The Washington Post's article on the The Kerry Doctrine and good lord, no it cannot be true: The Meme is even scoring higher than an article about Marc Canter who is the only guy on the Web as (more?) networked than Joi Ito (Marc is a member of the Meme, he helped start it spreading, in fact). So all in all the Meme is doing pretty well.

Matt Poepping has come up with an interesting idea for how to create a fully distributed searchable database on the Net. It's a cool enough idea and approach that people should see his RFC and comment on it. He may be onto something important here.

Here's an idea I've had recently that is related to the Meme Propagation experiment (see posts below on this blog for more about that ongoing experiment). The concept is for a new, meme-based, way to syndicate content across blogs. Here's how it might work:

1. You join a "meme syndication network" by joining at a central site. You get an account where you can profile your blog. You also set your blog's syndication inputs -- a set of other blogs that are also in the network that you are willing to automatically syndicate content from.

2. When you complete this, you are given an automatically generated HTML element containing a script to put in your blog sidebar, or anywhere else in your layout. This script is auto-generated for you from a central site that manages the network. The script automatically displays short excerpts for blog postings (pieces of microcontent) that have been "picked up" by your site from your registered "inputs" in the network. You place this script in your layout.

3. In the area created by the script in your site, you see a listing of blog postings that have been syndicated to your site from your inputs. You can post to your network by going to your account at the central network site and posting (or copying in the URL for anything you want to post) there. Any network-member sites that treat your node in the network as an "input" will then *automatically* pickup your posting and display it on their page.

Meme Update: The Meme is already global and the rate of growth is showing signs of exponential increase. It's made the Daypop top list, also same with Blogdex. It's made its way onto several early-adopter sites and lists. Already the results are interesting. One thing that is clear is that there is quite a lag time in Blogspace: This applies not just to blogs, but also to aggregation sites and search sites -- which don't update nearly as often as one might think.

Comments:

It seems that certain bloggers read and post much more frequently than others -- we could call their blogs "hot zones," to borrow a term from epidemiology.
.

Well one interesting early result from the Meme Propagation test is that Technorati doesn't seem to be working quite right. I have been tracking trackbacks there and I noticed two things. First of all, Technorati is not updating the number of links and sources to blogs properly -- because I know the number of citations to the Meme Propagation test, and to my blog before and after the test, and the change is not reflected in Technorati's stats. So if you are looking at the technorati results for your own blog or a posting, whatever number you are seeing is definitely *not* accurate. This in turn means that Technorati's "Top 100" list is also not accurate. Therefore I suggest that Daypop, Blogdex and Feedster are more reliable places to get current blog statistics for your (or any) blog.

Secondly, Technorati has not indexed the GUID for the test -- which is interesting -- even though it *has* indexed several blogs that participate. The GUID is just a keyword like any other, so it should be findable by entering it into Technorati's search field. I sent email to Dave Sifry about this. Let's see what he says.

As for Google, it will take some time before Google re-indexes everyone and then we'll see whether they do a decent job of locating the GUID. Some folks have commented on the length of the GUID. Yes, it probably ccould have been shorter but I wanted to guarantee that it would be a unique string for a long time to come. In any case, even searching on a substring of the GUID (or unique text from the original Meme post, or the URI for the post) should turn up all results for the experiment. The unique GUID is just an added protection so that the data can be found even if for some reason parties who participate don't link back to the original post.

Here are some further thoughts on the potential uses of the open dataset that may result from the Meme Propagation experiment.

If enough sites participate in the Meme Propagation experiment, I plan to offer a $1000 prize for the best analysis and visualization of the results -- but only if we get at least 10,000 blogs participating. Let's see how this develops over the next few days, and if enough sites participate then I'll put my money where my mouth is on this one. I would really like to see some student projects that visualize the data in interesting ways. Perhaps this will help to spur the development of innovative ways to track the spread of ideas through cyberspace. I will invite a good panel of independent judges to determine who should get the prize.

NOTE: This experiment is now finished.

This is an experiment in spreading ideas across weblogs using the principles of viral marketing and social networks using a new method for making content more viral, which we call a "GoMeme."

"Metal Rubber" Invented

A very cool new nanotech material has been invented called Metal Rubber. It is conductive and metallic yet pliable and shape-retentive like rubber. An amazing array of new products could be created with this stuff.

Channel Mob Debugging

Well the Channel Mob seems to have picked up 1 posting, but not the others yet. We are looking into why this is the case. I have contacted the people at pubsub.com that make Mystack, which is the agent we are using for the Channel Mob -- as you can see by the comments on this post, they are now working on the issue and hopefully we will have this up and running shortly.

Minding the Planet Channel Mob

Storing Data In the Human Body

Following up on my earlier post about storing messages in DNA it might be interesting to explore ways to encode large volumes of data directly into parts of the human body. Messing with DNA is risky -- it may be safer to store data in other parts of the human body (with the one potential disadvantage that such data would not be passed down via heredity). Here are some suggestions for parts of the human body that might be good media for data-storage:

Channel Mob Working Now

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/starting_a_chan.html

Messages in DNA: You Saw it Here First

In August of 2003, I posted an article that suggested the SETI folks ought to look at our own DNA to see if there happens to be a hidden message from aliens in there waiting to be discovered. Putting a message in human DNA, particularly in the junk DNA regions, is guaranteed (a) not to degrade significantly over long periods of time and (b) to be found by humans when we reached a suitable level of technological development, and (d) to go with each of us wherever we went on earth and beyond. So, thinking like an alien, DNA would be a much better place to leave a message for future humans than just about anywhere else. Now, the well-known science writer, Paul Davies has come up with the exact same suggestion.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if we look and actually find just such a message. Most likely it will read, "Property of Microsoft Corporation, patent-pending" or something to that effect.

Modular by Design

Over the next few days, my friend Tristan Louis is unrolling a series of entries under the heading of "Modular By Design", and looking into the impact of modular approaches in the convergence business. Some of the areas he's looking into are music, music downloads, telephony, broadcast TV, cable TV, news gathering, and software. He's already posted a few entries. Check it out at the link above.

Current State of the Weblog Tools Market

This article provides a good overview of the Weblog tools market, products, and market share.

How to Save the Upcoming Elections from Terrorism Alert Manipulation

There has been much recent discussion lately about alleged evidence that the Bush administration is issuing terrorist alerts for political gain. While I am not taking a position on this issue, I do have a suggestion that could eliminate any doubts, and in the process protect our upcoming elections.

In order to prevent the possibility that national terrorism alerts might be issued for political gain by an incumbent Presidential administration, the right to issue or imply terrorism alerts and the right to postpone elections, should be given to a bi-partisan committee. This policy change should be instituted immediately.

Some Thoughts on the Benefits of GoMemes

There are several reasons behind the GoMeme concept which shed some light on why this is potentially interesting.

First of all, whenever a site links to an article they find on the Web, they are essentially helping to then promote that article to others. This means they are relevant to the content of that article in some way. The use of the Path List at the end of the GoMeme enables every site that helps to market the article to then get some of the credit for the article's spread. The credit comes back to them in the form of links to them from other downstream sites that later post the article. This has the effect of increasing the each site in the path's visibilty for the terms in the article as well as for the terms in the sites in the path list. If a site helps to syndicate content around the Web, doesn't it make sense that they ought to appear in the history of that content as it spreads beyond them? Isn't the path of information useful?

Current Results of GoMeme 4.0

Current Results of GoMeme 4.0, in Google

Update on Channel Mob

OK, we are having some technical difficulties getting the Channel Mob to work. It should work -- I am looking into it and will have an answer and possibly updated HTML sometime next week. I think it's probably just a minor glitch -- we should have this thing up and running in a few days.

Can You Spot the 3 Differences?

Someone sent this to me. It's disturbing but also hilariously funny in a stupid sort of way. I never saw anything like this on the Web so I'm posting it. I have to admit I fell for it and have been laughing about my reaction for several hours!

(WARNING: You are either going to think this is very funny or you are going to hate it and be really angry. Also, if you have a heart condition or are very sensitive, or you are enjoying a very relaxed moment, do not follow the link below. This is definitely not for everyone -- it is only for those with a rather twisted sense of humor. Don't say I didn't warn you!!!)

OK, ready? Look very closely at these two photos. Can you spot the 3 differences between them??? It's hard -- but just keep looking very closely and you'll find them....

Nice Visualization of Results of Meme Spread Experiment

Philipp Lensen has made a cool visualization of the Meme spread results data-set. Check it out! It only shows a visualization of a limited subset of the sites that participated. Very nice Philipp. So can we visualize the full set of results?

Let's Start a Channel Mob (HTML Updated)

I have an idea to start a "Channel Mob." Wanna try it with me?

What's a Channel Mob? It is a new way to automatically syndicate links to articles on your own sites to other sites that participate in the group. A link to any article that you "post" to the channel mob will be automatically displayed in any site that displays the Channel Mob headlines.

How to Post to the Channel Mob

To "Post" an article in your site to the Channel Mob, simply include this link in the HTML the article you want the Channel Mob to find:

http://novaspivack.typepad.com/nova_spivacks_weblog/2004/08/starting_a_chan.html

How to Display the Channel Mob Headlines in your own Site

To display the posts in the Channel-Mob on your own site, just add the following script to your own site's HTML (preferably to your sidebar, where your blogrolls or other lists appear, since it will be a rather long list of article headings potentially)

<div class="mystack">
<style type="text/css">
.mystack TD {
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;
font-size:small;}
</style>
<span id="stka5e8937173ef2764f86b6860064d0de7"></span>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://mystack.com/stack.php?stackid=stka5e8937173ef2764f86b6860064d0de7&max=50&hide.nntp=true"></script>
</div>

Please note that it may take a day or two for the data-mining to catch up before posts will start appearing in the Channel-Mob list.

How does it work?

1. Every day a data-mining agent automatically scours the Web for any pages that include the exact above link. For any page that is found to contain that exact link, a link to that page is then added to the Channel Mob. In other words, if you post something on your blog and you want it to appear in the Channel Mob, just include the above link in your post and it should be found by the mining agent and included.

2. Next, a list of links to the pages that were found by the mining agent are automatically displayed on any page that includes the Channel Mob script in their HTML (see below to add this to your page). So if you include the above link in a post on your blog, a link to your post will automatically appear on every site that includes the Channel Mob script in their HTML.

For an example of how the Channel Mob displays, see the bottom left of this blog page where I have included it in my site.

The channel miner runs automatically at least once every 24 hours, so it catches any articles you post that contain the above link and updates the Channel periodically.

Policies

I invite anyone who is interested to post to this Channel Mob and to display the headlines for this Channel Mob on your own blog (using the instructions above).

It's an experiment and could be interesting. Please join the Channel Mob if you want to try it out. You can take the Channel Mob out of your site at any time.

But, since many sites may join this, please do not post anything potentially offensive, or anything not suitable for all age groups, to the Channel Mob. If people abuse the channel, everyone will simply remove the Channel Mob from their sites.

Topics

This Channel Mob is focused on a few key topics ONLY, so please only add postings that are relevant to these topics:
- Emerging science and technology
- Improving democracy
- Envisioning the future
- Cool technology products
- Innovation
- Weblogs and Web-tech
- Brain-Mind science
- Search engine technology
- AI and machine learning
- Tech companies to watch
- Memes and Memetics
- Opinions about current events/issues
- Travel and adventures off the beaten path

Also please respect others and do not over-post to the Channel Mob -- only post articles that you really think the Channel Mob members will be interested in reading. (ie. Don't just post everything you put in your blog to the Channel Mob -- that will just cause everyone to ignore your blog!)

The Channel Mob is not an effective vehicle for advertising or doing anything generally annoying, so don't bother, if that is what you were thinking of doing with it. If anyone sends ads or spam or anything in appropriate, it will simply shut down the Channel Mob by causing members to remove it from their HTML. So don't bother. We won't read your ad anyway, so all you will be doing is annoying us.

The Channel Mob is NOT a way to get links to your blog and raise your Google standing. So there is no point just sending links to it in an attempt to increase your Google rank. Why is this? Because the list of headlines in the Channel Mob is built dynamically in browsers when they load a page containing the Channel Mob. Therefore, the links in the Channel Mob headlines list DO NOT appear in anyone's HTML and search engines cannot see them. So if you are a spammer, don't bother trying to spam the Channel Mob -- it will not help increase your search engine rankings in any way.

If everyone respects the basic social contract and does not abuse the channel, it should persist, spread, and remain spam-free. And that would be interesting because it creates an open list of headlines that is automatically syndicated across any number of blogs. It's a nice way to let one another know about our best posts to our blogs, and to help one another promote those posts to other readers.

Help Make Blogs More Visible!

There are by some estimates more than 3 million weblogs. But most of them get no visibility in search engines. Only a few "A-List" blogs get into the top search engine results for a given topic, while the majority of blogs just don't get noticed. But this posting could solve that. Let's help the smaller blogs get more visibility!

This posting is GoMeme 4.0. So far we have tried 3 earlier variations. Our first test, GoMeme 1.0, spread to nearly 740 blogs in 2.5 days. This new version 4.0 is shorter, simpler, and fits more easily into your blog.

Why are we doing this? We want to help thousands of blogs get more visibility. How does it work? Just follow the instructions below to re-post this meme in your blog and add your URL to the end of the Path List below. As the meme spreads onwards from your blog, so will your URL. Your blog will be part of the pat for everyone downstream from you. That way they can see where they got this message from. Everyone in the Path List below benefits in a similar way as this meme spreads. Try it!

Instructions: Just copy this entire post and paste it into your blog. Then add your URL to the end of the path list below, and pass it on! (Make sure you add your URLs as live links or HTML code to the Path List below.)

Path List
1. Minding the Planet
2. (your URL goes here! But first, please copy this line and move it down to the next line for the next person).

(NOTE: Be sure you paste live links for the Path List or use HTML code.)

What is a GoMeme -- The Shortest Explanation

A GoMeme is a specially modified piece of content that spreads virally along social relationships in a manner that benefits every site that helps it spread. Any piece of content can be transformed into a GoMeme.

FAQ for GoMeme 3.0 -- A Social Network Based "Trackback Multiplier"

What is a GoMeme?

A GoMeme is a specially modified piece of content that spreads virally along social relationships in a manner that benefits every site that helps it spread. Any piece of content can be transformed into a GoMeme. It's a piece of content, or a meme, that is specially modified to spread virally along social networks.

GoMeme Strain 3.0 Has Evolved: Can You See How it Works?

This funny article is Gomeme strain 3.0. We're perfecting the method. The GoMeme has evolved so that now it can attach to any blog posting! See if you spot it!

Now we are getting somewhere. This is a fundamentally useful way for bloggers to benefit by syndicating posts for other bloggers. See what I mean? It's so easy to do, and it's very much in the spirit of the Net. Get it? Ok, good, now join it!

GoMeme 3.0 - So Funny: CIA Asks Bush to Stop Blogging

Note: This experiment is now finished.

(GoMeme 3.0 - Note: This is not an ordinary article. We have added some special information at the end. Read this entire article, and then follow the instructions at the end to pass it on in a new way...)

GoMeme 2.0 - Help Test This Meme

Note: This experiment is now finished.

GoMeme 2.0 -- Copy This GoMeme From This Line to The End of this article, and paste into your blog. Then follow the instructions below to fill it out for your site.

Steal This Post!!!! This is a GoMeme-- a new way to spread an idea along social networks. This is the second generation meme in our experiment in spreading ideas. To find out what a GoMeme is, and how this experiment works, or just to see how this GoMeme is growing and discuss it with others, visit the Root Posting and FAQ for this GoMeme at www.mindingtheplanet.net .

Must... Sleep ... Now

I have been blogging literally all night. You know how it is. I don't actually feel tired but my brain is telling me that I should probably sleep now. If you comment on the previous posts tonight or tomorrow AM, I will get back to you around noon USA Pacific Standard Time (California). Sorry for the slight delay while I recharge my batteries.

Help Me Think of the Rules for a GoMeme Competition

I am willing to offer a $500 prize to the Webmaster, other than myself, who spreads the new GoMeme most successfully, by midnight Pacific Standard Time, September 1, 2004. But first, I need your help to define the rules for this contest, and a method for juding the competitors. We need to design a contest that can be measured objectively using existing tools, like Google or Daypop, and that can't easily be cheated on. Also, I would suggest a few stipulations: (1) Qualifying contestants' Gomemes must not alter the content of the Gomeme (other than by providing the correct answers to their questions and their entry in the Path List) -- but NOTE they *could* spread their Gomeme indirectly, for example via a link back to their blog from something else that spreads virally, like a joke, a music track, a cool image, a story, etc. (2) Qualifying contestants must not engage in email spam, comment spam or any other form of spam -- if we get any verifiable evidence of such misbehavior about a contestant, we will disqualify them from the competition.

Can anyone think of anything else I forgot? If we can design a good contest, I'll put up the prize money. Meanwhile, if you think you might want to compete, get started building your new Gomeme network now. Hopefully we will have a contest rules definition in a matter of days at the most. Please add your suggestions as comments.

Also, if you would like to put up some additional prize money as a co-sponsor of the contest, let me know (and yes, even if you are a commercial entity, we'll consider accepting your sponsorship money for the contest and could even give you contest sponsorship branding on a contest page. But we won't put your brand on the GoMeme so don't even ask. The Gomeme is not an ad.)

NetPolitik Explains What I'm Doing

Aha, now I understand it! Nick, from Netpolitik has posted an insightful analysis of the dynamics that make the GoMeme experiment work. Nick calls our species of meme a "Bloggie Meme." That's pretty cute. I thought of some names too, by combining blog + meme -- such as a "Bleme" or "BlogMe" or "BlogMeme" -- or how about a "BloMe" (ha ha). OK, but seriously, I think we should call this a "GoMeme" (pronounced go-meem) because it's a meme that is designed to go -- and also because that's what we've been calling this idea for several years (yes, in fact, some friends, including Kris Thorisson, and I, dreamed this up several years ago and are only now trying it out -- now that blogs are widespread its "time has come.").

Can You Imagine What Would Happen if MoveOn.Org Used the GoMeme Concept?

I wonder if anyone from MoveOn.Org or the Republicans will notice our GoMeme experiments? (Not that I'm taking sides -- I'll simply be happy if somebody wins the election!) Grassroots political campaigns could potentially really benefit from the techniques we're testing here. For example, imagine a "blog meme" for a political campaign -- a meme that states some useful facts about a candidate and their opponent, perhaps has some survey questions and a GUID, and has the added benefit of a cool Improve-Your-Google-Ranking-By-Hosting-This-Meme candy coating? Wow -- it could spread the message to a lot of blogs pretty quickly if done right. That might actually work. But I try to stay out of politics, so I'm not taking sides here or endorsing anyone. If you read this and know the "right people" -- feel free to suggest the idea to them.

FAQ for GoMeme 2.0

This posting is the FAQ and introduction for a new, improved, second-generation meme experiment that is designed to spread faster and more broadly than the first meme experiment. We call this kind of meme a "GoMeme" (pronounced Go-Meem), because it is a meme that is designed to Go. The actual GoMeme, which you can add to your Website is located, here. Before you do this, please read this FAQ so you know how it works.

Go Meme, Go!!!

A Meme is Born

The Meme is certainly spreading nicely in its second day of life. There are nearly 200 blogs participating that we know of -- possibly more that we can't see trackbacks for. Once Google indexes everything (in a few days to a few weeks), we should have a better idea of the true numbers.

So far the Meme has consistently been in the top 10 posts of the day on several key indices -- including Daypop and Popdex. Meanwhile Technorati is still broken -- their top list hasn't changed -- also their stats for blogs don't seem to change.

An interesting stat: the Meme has moved up to the number 5 slot in Daypop -- it's gunning to overtake Matt Drudge who is still clinging onto number 4 against our onslaught. The Meme is even scoring higher than the hilarious spoof clips for White House West and Team America, even higher than the NY Times Big Expose, The Washington Post's article on the The Kerry Doctrine and good lord, no it cannot be true: The Meme is even scoring higher than an article about Marc Canter who is the only guy on the Web as (more?) networked than Joi Ito (Marc is a member of the Meme, he helped start it spreading, in fact). So all in all the Meme is doing pretty well.

RFC for a New Distributed Data Exchange System

Matt Poepping has come up with an interesting idea for how to create a fully distributed searchable database on the Net. It's a cool enough idea and approach that people should see his RFC and comment on it. He may be onto something important here.

A New Blogging Feature: Automated "Social Syndication" Networks

Here's an idea I've had recently that is related to the Meme Propagation experiment (see posts below on this blog for more about that ongoing experiment). The concept is for a new, meme-based, way to syndicate content across blogs. Here's how it might work:

1. You join a "meme syndication network" by joining at a central site. You get an account where you can profile your blog. You also set your blog's syndication inputs -- a set of other blogs that are also in the network that you are willing to automatically syndicate content from.

2. When you complete this, you are given an automatically generated HTML element containing a script to put in your blog sidebar, or anywhere else in your layout. This script is auto-generated for you from a central site that manages the network. The script automatically displays short excerpts for blog postings (pieces of microcontent) that have been "picked up" by your site from your registered "inputs" in the network. You place this script in your layout.

3. In the area created by the script in your site, you see a listing of blog postings that have been syndicated to your site from your inputs. You can post to your network by going to your account at the central network site and posting (or copying in the URL for anything you want to post) there. Any network-member sites that treat your node in the network as an "input" will then *automatically* pickup your posting and display it on their page.

Is Your Blog a Hot Zone?

Meme Update: The Meme is already global and the rate of growth is showing signs of exponential increase. It's made the Daypop top list, also same with Blogdex. It's made its way onto several early-adopter sites and lists. Already the results are interesting. One thing that is clear is that there is quite a lag time in Blogspace: This applies not just to blogs, but also to aggregation sites and search sites -- which don't update nearly as often as one might think.

Comments:

It seems that certain bloggers read and post much more frequently than others -- we could call their blogs "hot zones," to borrow a term from epidemiology.
.

Technorati Bugs?

Well one interesting early result from the Meme Propagation test is that Technorati doesn't seem to be working quite right. I have been tracking trackbacks there and I noticed two things. First of all, Technorati is not updating the number of links and sources to blogs properly -- because I know the number of citations to the Meme Propagation test, and to my blog before and after the test, and the change is not reflected in Technorati's stats. So if you are looking at the technorati results for your own blog or a posting, whatever number you are seeing is definitely *not* accurate. This in turn means that Technorati's "Top 100" list is also not accurate. Therefore I suggest that Daypop, Blogdex and Feedster are more reliable places to get current blog statistics for your (or any) blog.

Secondly, Technorati has not indexed the GUID for the test -- which is interesting -- even though it *has* indexed several blogs that participate. The GUID is just a keyword like any other, so it should be findable by entering it into Technorati's search field. I sent email to Dave Sifry about this. Let's see what he says.

As for Google, it will take some time before Google re-indexes everyone and then we'll see whether they do a decent job of locating the GUID. Some folks have commented on the length of the GUID. Yes, it probably ccould have been shorter but I wanted to guarantee that it would be a unique string for a long time to come. In any case, even searching on a substring of the GUID (or unique text from the original Meme post, or the URI for the post) should turn up all results for the experiment. The unique GUID is just an added protection so that the data can be found even if for some reason parties who participate don't link back to the original post.

Thoughts on Uses of the Meme Propagation Dataset

Here are some further thoughts on the potential uses of the open dataset that may result from the Meme Propagation experiment.

Potential Prize for Meme Propagation Visualization Announced

If enough sites participate in the Meme Propagation experiment, I plan to offer a $1000 prize for the best analysis and visualization of the results -- but only if we get at least 10,000 blogs participating. Let's see how this develops over the next few days, and if enough sites participate then I'll put my money where my mouth is on this one. I would really like to see some student projects that visualize the data in interesting ways. Perhaps this will help to spur the development of innovative ways to track the spread of ideas through cyberspace. I will invite a good panel of independent judges to determine who should get the prize.

GoMeme 1.0 -- Testing Meme Propagation In Blogspace: Add Your Blog!

NOTE: This experiment is now finished.

This is an experiment in spreading ideas across weblogs using the principles of viral marketing and social networks using a new method for making content more viral, which we call a "GoMeme."