I have a growing fondness for experimental economics (feels more like science to me) and the fact that Google considers most of its search operations as an auction and can alter results to perform economic trials is heartening. Let’s just hope they publish some of it.
If the current Twitter isn’t the right Twitter, what is? Is it in a bubble (I think yes)? Is it killable by Google (certainly)? Does the Suggested User List cause it problems (yes)? What is the right length for a Tweet (summary: 2x the length of a NYT or BBC description in their feeds)?
There’s a whole raft of ways of further securing your machine against malware. At present, I go for Avast and the PSI software inspector. Dave has a pile of useful applications, as does Windows Secrets.
Well, you couldn’t be one just by reading this article, but there are some great pointers for those who have to help others design or develop software.
Lots of long, deep reading on the future of journalism collected by and commented on by Charles Arthur.
- Why paywalls might or might not work
- The past and future of journalism
- If journalism is the process, what is the business?
Fair points from Nielsen: how easy is it for someone to look over my shoulder when I’m tapping in my password into SplashID on my phone? Not very: which is why it has a show password option. Why shouldn’t this be the default on the web. To work effectively, it should be a per site setting that the sites remember for me. Then again, how many people have four standard passwords that they use for different things (with the most secure having the least commonly used and hardest to remember passwords)? If someone catches you logging in to Facebook and you use the same password for your bank, then you might have a problem.
NY schools find a substantial jump in grades after they pay school kids for results. I can see why this might seem shocking to some (”learning should be its own reward”) but if it works and is cost-effective (better engagement, lower drop outs and delinquency, say) then why not do it?
Interesting that Google uses a substantial number of human searchers to ensure that its results continue to be of high quality. How could you open source the data deriving from this kind of process? Not part of Google’s business model, but good for anyone else who wants to get value from crowdsourcing / ensure their crowdsourcing is not just for one company.
Well, one of them at least. I’ve done it, but wondered whether it was a cunning scam to get my number.
Bad stats, maybe. As Ben says, home taping didn’t do it, neither recordable CDs and nor will the internet. As I keep banging on about (and now the research supports): we want to pay for music, not for music companies. As Charles Dunstone says: you can’t beat the pirates. Consumers don’t like DRM and once you have put a digital file online, you’ve lost your chance to protect it. As Apple has shown with the AppStore, people are willing to pay for stuff they might have once pirated: you just have to make it easy for them to pay.
Nice article from Charles Arthur helping to shine some light on a number of debates. Journalism is a process, nothing more. There is a business wrapper around it called publishing which makes it profitable and sustainable (or not). We shouldn’t confuse or conflate the two. (In his Amazon analogy: wrapping books in parcels is the process. What is the future of this? More automation, most likely. Being a shop front and shipping them for profit is the business, hence so many £0.01 books).
I think there is something similar in play in a number of other sectors: music springs to mind. It feels like a framework: try to separate the process from the business wrapper.
Interesting graph plotting followers vs Tweet volume. Looks like there are three clear phases: 1) use it to tweet a “what is this for” message and then nothing, 2) put a few updates a day on (from a blog maybe) and 3) a fairly steady ramp up after 800 followers. It looks tantalisingly like it steadies off at about 10 per day, but that’s not scientific in the slightest. PS in the comments, it’s clear to see that the old waz business model is still working (summary: send a market share table to people that’s slightly guesswork and have them respond with anger giving the correct numbers).
Can universities survive in their current form? Large classes and lecture-based broadcast teaching seem at odds with a) the value of university in teaching you how to learn and how to analyse and b) the way the younger generations use the knowledge available on the internet. Lots of good thinking from Don Tapscott. I wonder if this is a slightly different case to that of journalism: universities have been around for a very, very long time (I think my college was founded in 1263, for example). So the model has survived previous upheavals.
I’ll back a call for reducing fund management fees: though most of ours are underwater post recession, so it’s even more ironic. Just as the concierge agency trying to charge a percentage fee on our building costs as a finders fee, it just feels wrong that there is a sliding scale here. At some stage, the same will probably happen to headhunters. Let’s hope it takes twenty years or so…
Neat how to. I think it should work, but can’t test it yet…
I think I agree with Black Triangle that they probably shouldn’t, but with an active opt-out rather than an opt-in to ensure as much coverage as possible.
Ian Watmore has a candid and relaxed chat to the Public Accounts Committee (you can read the uncorrected evidence; a lovely phrase). He can, because he’s leaving his post as a Permanent Secretary to join the Football Association (one suspects it is his dream job). Some very useful insight into failing project and programmes, as well as why too many projects fail. The thinking on succession planning frankly does not exist at a project and / or programme level in government. I’d also push for Gateway reviews to be published: the additional level of open scrutiny of projects would be very powerful, despite the chilling effects of not wanting to show ones dirty linen in public. Just look at the Capability Reviews programme (also before the PAC) as an example of the positive benefits of public assessment.
[Update: some good thoughts on why IT projects fail.]
Just as the use of surgical check lists is improving surgical outcomes, the use of a knowledge management tool in GP practices is improving referral quality. Could this work in the purchasing and commercial space? What other complex areas where communication is tricky could use this kind of support: finance, construction, engineering, retail? Should we have a one-minute version of this before meetings?
Nice idea to use collaboration with expert non-patent examiners to gather prior art. It would probably be worth patent-heavy companies to invest in someone to participate for them: most patent applications won’t be yours, so the more you can steer away from granting through relevant prior art, the better for you.
