2:12PM Jan 13th: 80Peeps at Sigouriney town meet.

7:17AM Jan 12th: 150 people at 730am DeWitt TMeet. CNN taped full hour. U mite want to watch. Jogged 30min at 530Am Weather comfortabl 4jog. Many issues

1:35PM Oct 23rd: Whoevr cites Wo Health Organ study that US ranks 37th in world on Health Care shld read WSJournal Oct 21 debunking study. I’m embarasd I use

8:17AM Oct 10th: Did a 5Kplus(they didn’t measure accurately) Sat for pro adoption organ POTTERSHAND.Shamed to post time. But I was fastest for those ovr 60

8:01AM Jun 23rd: I’m being interviewed PBs rite now. I’m happy to be interviewed. I’m going to a meeting

8:28AM Jun 16: I’m getting my picture taken now for a prees>tory on my tweeying

5:04AM Jun 8th: My carbon footprint is abt 25per cent of Al Gore. I’m greener than Al Gore. Is that enuf?

11:28AM May 6th: Sitting in on a Farb Bill Meeting

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Chuck Grassley on Twitter

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Foursquare! Down!

From Hyderabad Dec

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Guesthouse Fail

In all of these platforms, people I know, follow, or am friends with send their updates across all their platforms. At first, this was useful – I could see which platforms were being used by which friends. Yet, in an edge case that’s increasingly becoming the norm, I experience instances where someone writes a blog post. Great! I get it in Google Reader because I follow their blog. But then…

- They share their own blog post in Google Reader, which shows up a second time in the “Friends I follow” category.

- The blog post gets noted in Friendfeed.

- Friendfeed updates Twitter and sends a tweet

- The tweet updates Facebook.

One post ends up being shared in 5 different locations. And each time I visit another platform, I see the same update, shared by the same person. In no way can I follow comments on the post, since discussions can happen on any platform – reader, Friendfeed, Twitter, Facebook. Even LinkedIn if you want to take it to the extreme.

Another example I see is on Twitter. Someone influential in my network sends a tweet. About 5 other people end up retweeting the message. While it’s great to see the information being passed on, this is all redundant to me.

In my ideal world, products would offer their own filtering mechanisms. In Twitter’s web interface, I would love to be able to ignore RT’s of people I specify. In Google Reader, I would love a feature that would automatically mark as read a blog post that was already read by me but shared again without any new unique comments.

In my ideal world, someone’s first unique Tweet, Facebook status, Friendfeed update, or blog post would NOT show up in any other interface. It’s fine if you want to share it, and that’s the point of social networks. But as these platforms compete for users, they offer plug-ins and API’s that share information across all networks, making information redunant. I find myself increasingly tired of checking into all of these interfaces to see the same content repeated over and over, trying to find a few unique pieces of information from friends who are (smart enough?) to use only one platform to share what they’re up to.

Sadly, I’m guilty of this too. I’ve linked Facebook/Twitter to my Friendfeed. (Sorry for anyone who follows me there, because I almost never log into Friendfeed to change any settings.) I linked Twitter to Facebook. My original goal was to make it possible for me to update one interface and then reach multiple audiences. In practice and for a blogger, this helps expand your reach, so I do sympathize on why this happens. On the flip side, as a consumer, and ultimately the individual who makes a choice on whether to stick with Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, etc (and while you may use multiple platforms, which one to log into first and spend the most time in matters), I’m getting tired of all the duplication.

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A Problem with Social Media

Cuil claims to have an index of 121,617,892,992 web pages.  Spiffy!  Before doing an actual search, I clicked around…

Let’s check out those “About Cuil | Your Privacy” links:

Uh oh!  Seems that both pages are not accessible at the moment. [Update: both links are working intermittently]

Well, their search is working, which is good news.  Unfortunately, when I searched for this site, using the queries ["Reid Yokoyama"] and [reidyokoyama.com] my blog was not found.  =(  Guess it didn’t make it into the top 121 billion web pages.

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Cuil – Page Not Found!

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Welcome to Web 2.0

Note – besides my immediate family, I have never met another Yokoyama.  I grew up in St. Louis, so finding another Japanese person was rare to begin with, but at Stanford and while working (where there are tons of Asians), I haven’t met another person who shared my last name.  I guess my brethren (can I call them that?) were smart enough to stay in Japan, while my great-grandparents were foolish to come over to America.

Anyway here’s two Yokoyama’s I discovered:

Ken Yokoyama appears to be a very popular heavy metal rocker.

Koji Yokoyama is a world class Yo-Yo-ist. Is that what you call an elite yo-yo-er? Watch this video – I can’t believe you can successfully yo-yo at such speed/angles.

There’s obviously more Yokoyama’s out there, but these two were at the top, and their videos are entertaining. I suppose the Yokoyama’s are full of unique and strange talents. I think I’m definitely bringing down the clan of side mountains, so I’m currently open for odd talents to develop.

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Famous Yokoyama’s (according to YouTube)

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Seriously now, Facebook?

No offense, but these ads are kind of dumb. And, as I surfed Facebook today for about 5 minutes, I only saw maybe 5 other types of ads, which weren’t very intriguing (think – join our wine club or take a $5 survey). I’m not sure what the deal is, but Facebook seems to need a larger advertising network and to rethink what keywords to target for successful ad conversions. Capitalizing on my employment at Google makes sense, since Googlers are pretty internet-savvy, but trying to wrestle me away from my happy place of employment, get me to move to Seattle (even though I work in Mountain View), or convince me to use a Shakespearean insult generator just isn’t happening. Plus, isn’t that ad a bit out of date?

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Now that I work at Google…

Did you read it? Good.

I agree with the initial facts of the article, but not the author’s interpretation. Wilson points out that Wikipedia now stands up to Encyclopedia Brittanica in terms of accuracy and that both Wikipedia and Digg claim to be testaments to Web democracy, where millions of people help build and create user-generate content. Yet, I was surprised to learn that 1% of Wikipedia users are responsible for 50% of its edits and that the top 100 Digg users were responsible 44% of the site’s content last year. Interesting? I think so.

But, Wilson is overly critical of with the power site administrators for Wikipedia wield – they have the ability to delete IP addresses of problem users and protect pages. Same with Digg, where the most active users have more authority of the site’s content. It’s not the Wisdom of the Crowds, but rather the “Wisdom of the Chaperones” that runs these sites. While some other sites like Slashdot and Helium do a much better job at achieving web democracy, Wilson ends the article by writing that “Digg and Wikipedia would do well to stop pretending they’re operated by the many and start thinking of ways to rein in the power of the few.”

A comment by Xando nicely summed up my feelings on the article:

“If Wikipedia isn’t “democratic”, then the U.S. isn’t really democratic either. After all, I don’t get to vote on federal laws–an elite group of Senators and Representatives do. I suspect the author is misapprehending the true nature of the “wisdom of crowds.” It’s not about some idealized democratic standard where everyone gets a vote. It’s about establishing an effective system of aggregating large numbers of small bits of data, not any sort of moralistic dedication to “democratic principles.”

For me, it’s all about participation in democracy. With a site like Wikipedia, I could choose to be one of the ‘elite’ who spends a lot of time editing and writing entries, but truth be told, I’m not really that interested. Given the high quality content I find on Wikipedia, I’m okay with not being peeved enough to edit an atricle. And I bet the 99% who use Wikipedia but don’t edit it feel the same way. But, are they not participating in Web 2.0? Hardly – a site like Wikipedia primarily exists for its users, and the millions of users who vote with their searches and clicks is the kind of participation that helps craft the content of Wikipedia. Sure, each site has a small core of devoted individuals who volunteer their time to edit and produce content, but those people are bound to their audience, and you can bet that if the quality and usefulness of what Wikipedia or Digg displays goes downhill, users will also leave. Just think about how much spam could be placed on a site like Wikipedia if its admins did not have the power to delete bad IP addresses. In a way, their existence helps protect a democratic web. So I’m okay with letting some ‘elite’ Wikipedia and Digg members drive the overall direction of the site. Both sites are not the myth of Web 2.0, but rather, in my opinion, its epitome.

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Analysis of “The Wisdom of the Chaperones” with Digg and Wikipedia