Life blog

Molecular Playground: Architectural Scale Interactive Molecules

I just found out that my thesis advisor is working on a cool project.

There's a new science building going up at UMass Amherst (where I got my PhD) and Craig T Martin (my thesis advisor) thought it would be cool to do an art installation where molecules are projected on the walls. He also realized that it would be cool if folks could interact with these molecules.

As he says on the project's site, molecules and chemicals are sort of "inaccessible and uninteresting" to the general public. His vision is to develop a large scale "molecular playground" where folks can actually go and manipulate the molecular projections.

Craig received a grant from the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation to "develop and install in a prominent public space a system for displaying large scale interactive molecules." The molecules will be animated and artistic, so that they can be appreciated even without direct manipulation.

Craig is collaborating with Allen Hanson from the UMass Amherst Computer Science Department.

Cool. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

And check out the video of a demo of the concept (below). The protein is HU, found in the bacterial nucleoid and involved in chromosome compaction. It makes a dramatic kink in DNA, and does some funky things. Check out the tongues going down the grooves on the opposite surface of the DNA. That's a tight grip. There more to it, though. You can manipulate the molecule yourself (with some explanations) on Craig's site.

What can we learn from Asilomar?

There was a flurry of indignation recently on the DIYbio discussion group over an article in the Wall Street Journal over the safety of bio hackers (with added aggravation from Fox News' dramatic title to the exact same article).

Interestingly, this kind of alarm is not new, especially to biology. In the early days of molecular biology, there was a sudden panic that recombinant DNA was inherently unsafe. There was no basis to understand what was possible, what was ethically permissible, and what was unsafe.

Asilomar
In a landmark event, that went on to change the nature of science policy and public outreach, Maxine Singer and Paul Berg, pioneers in molecular biology, assembled about 140 scientist, lawyers, and politicians to discuss the future of recombinant DNA.

The Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, named after the place it was held at, addressed the principles for safely conducting recombinant DNA experiments, listing potential risks and outlining containment principles. The discussions also involved assessment of organisms, principles for choosing bacterial hosts, and what constituted good microbial practices. And finally, it explored the need for proper education and training of research personnel to carry out the recommendations that came out of the discussions.

There were a few interesting, non-science, aspects to this conference, as well. There was a desire to be transparent in the discussion and involve the public, to allay any fears non-scientists might have. Also, the Asilomar scientists drew up a series of voluntary guidelines rather than a regulatory body.

What can we learn?
Asilomar is part of the culture and history of any molecular biologist (at least it was for me, I learned about it early in my career). Therefore, the precautionary thinking, the openness and public discourse, and the self-organizing regulation is part of molecular biology.

DIY biology is part of all this, and the same culture is part of a community that already is a cautious as it is curious and open. I am not sure if there's a need for an Asilomar for DIYbio, but with calls for licensing and calls from the FBI, clearly something definitive needs to be established.

It's been great to see the discussions around this by the DIYbio enthusiasts. They clearly understand the situation, now it's a matter of getting the message across.

Image from MIT archives.

Video: The Future of Science Publishing

In February, in a Barcelona restaurant, Mark Kramer caught up with me and asked me what I would be speaking about at the 3rd WLE Symposium (notes from the talk are in a preceding post).

He was kind enough to give me the video, so check it out below.

(and, no, I don't lisp like that - it's the audio quality)

Changing the journal impact factor through real-time transparent statistics

I've mentioned Mendeley before. They refer to themselves as a Last.fm for science papers, but I think it'll be much more.

One thing they realize they are changing, as a side effect, is the impact factor (sort of like a Page Rank of science papers, based on incoming links (citations) to the paper and the journal).

Link: Changing the journal impact factor | Mendeley Blog:

At a higher level then, Mendeley’s significance isn’t just about real-time impact factors and article-level metrics. It’s about using technology for the first time to crowd source data and forever change how research is done. That is why I’m crazy enough to move half-way around the world. Mendeley literally isn’t just another “Silicon Valley” start-up.

Spot on. When I heard Victor (one of the founders) talk about this at Next09 I practically jumped out of my seat.

Thompsons was set up in an age when you needed someone to manually go through references and such and report to the community. That's probably part of the reason it takes three years to establish an impact factor. [I pointed this out already a while back.]

PLoS and BMC, who imported the broken authority model from the print world, missed an opportunity in the past 10 years to upturn Thomspons world. So, it's good to hear that PLoS is starting to be transparent in their traffic and links, providing the start of a new way to look at authority.

One thing: being a bit publisher-minded, I, myself, missed the other side effect of opening up stats that could show authority - basically, such transparency might be able to highlight a high-impact paper from an obscure journal. In the traditional world, that paper would have been buried by the journal's own impact factor.

Yeah, we need to open up these stats on a real-time paper level. There's no reason not to do it.

(and go read the rest of the article on Mendeley's site)

Image from wikipedia, on Page Rank

Hackspaces on the mind

I don't know why, but ever since returning from SXSW09 I've been wondering about hackspaces. As you might know, hackspaces are like a nerd collective, where there is equipment to use, friendly folks to show you how to use them, and a rich environment for play and exploration.

While writing this post, a quick search for hackspaces led me to a recent article from Wired about folks flocking to hackspaces, so I guess I am feeling a vibe that's going around. The article provides a good overview of hackspaces. Despite what the article says, hackspaces are not new. And hack spaces are not just focused on electronics, either.

Being a bit of a bike tinkerer, the hackspaces I think of are more like the LA Bicycle Kitchen and the Broadway Bicycle School. Back in the 80s, I was inspired by the Broadway Bicycle School, and after reading about the LA Bicycle Kitchen a few years back, toyed with the idea of starting up a similar sort of thing.

There are also ample examples of shared work spaces. My buddies at Republic Publishing hang out a lot at The Hospital in Covent Garden. Todd Bida pointed me to the Cambridge Incubation Center. But these are shared facilities for small businesses and independent workers. And, there are tons of examples of youth centers that provide a hangout-homework-chilllax atmosphere for teens (yes, scoped out a plan for one of these, as well).

Indeed, hackspaces take the shared workspace, add a dash of cooperative thinking, with a healthy dose of tools to create something special for folks to just make something in a supportive environment. Shared spaces, as described above, are usually "co-existence" places, where folks work in parallel, with little cross-fertilization (and that's OK, too). In my mind, I would like a more interactive and social environment (for example, I asked my buddies from Republic how much they interact with others from The Hospital).

With my latest urge to get back into science, I wonder if there might be a market for a, say, DIY biology hackspace. The capital costs for hacking biology are huge, what with incubators, autoclaves, shakers, pipettes, disposables, and the like. In labs I worked in, the burn rate was something like $1500 per person per month (full-time hard-core research, of course). And start-up costs usually were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But that speaks for the benefits of shared equipment that comes with a hackspace. And the rise of synthbio and DIYbio suggests that there might be a need for some sort of bio hack space. 

Of course, a whole ton of barriers crop up in my head: regulation, training, disposal, licenses, and so on. But just a matter of detail, right?

Image: mine

Social networking and health - notes from SXSW

I was at SXSW last week and sat in on some seminars and conversations that I found particularly intersting.

One session was a "conversation," held in a small room where most of the folks sat on the floor. It was packed and the discussion was excellent.

Titled "Social Networking in Health: e-Patients, Data & Privacy," it was a discussion around the use of social networking services by doctors, patients, and the curious. The use of social networks in health raises all sorts of questions of privacy and secutrity and also questions some social assumptions and the like.

I took some notes (by no means comprehensive) and will try to put them in some sort of order below.

Privace and electronic records
The discussion started on some of the dark aspects of social sharing online. The worry was whether services that revolve around health should be a walled garden (though folks knew that the assurance was only so good, leaks happen). The worry is what happens when the discussion of the illness gets caught by employers, say, talking about dealing with depression.

There is a strong regulation called HIPAA, which I was told is all-encompassing, yet based on common sense, to protect patients and their electronic data. And there's no escaping the move to everything related to our health being digital. Having all confidential information digital is not new, as data warehousing of claims clearances already has put our health info in digital format. Also, users are driving electronic records for safety in drug interactions, for ease of managing, for portability. And when patients do participate in social networking services, they are not naïve, they usually know what they are posting and to where and the reputation of the site they are posting on.

The irony, someone mentioned, was that the main theft of records is actually physicaly based. But there is the perception that paper is secure, since usually they are in one place or contained, and it's through electronic records that a lot of celebrity leaks happen.

Health discussions
Fortunately, the discussion veered away from the usual hand-wringing about privacy and started to hone in on the value of social networking for patients and doctors. There were indeed a few people in the audience who were working on such systems, many of them hospitals or doctors.

While so much of medical data is related to Health Records, the feeling is that Social Media is a much smaller area in Health. Using Social Media for discussion is no different than normal life. [Though I think digital forwarding as a huge challenge - who owns what someone can forward?] Sharing online helps ease patients' anxieties around their illness or a procedure, learning from another patient's perspective. And promoting social conversations around illnesses leads to awareness, prevention, and even money savings for the patient.

A lady who runs a discussion site suggests that there has been a change in culture about what can and is being discussed. Also, younger folks are more comfortable sharing online. There was a feeling, too, that with all the churning during this economic crisis, that employers will be more lenient and understanding (though someone did raise the specter of a WalMart "understanding").

There are employment protections for some psychiatric illnesses and genetic information. Folks mused if this legislation could be extended to cover more diseases, to protect against discrimination against diseases. But there are also local cultural issues, as a lady from Brasil mentioned, things like dealing with faith and fatalism with respect to illness and health.

Finally, while folks thought there was good discussion between patients and between patients and doctors, there seemed to be no discussion between pharmaceutical companies and patients, most likely due to perceived liabilities. This was viewed as a bad situation.

What's out there
Lots of services were mentioned through the course of the discussion, so I'll list the ones I captured.

- Google Health
- Microsoft HealthVault
- Facebook causes
- Patients like me
- Hello Health - This sevice provides for doctor-doctor and doctor-patient discussion. With the service the doctor shares videos and bookmarks with patients. Interesting thing is that to register, ou first need to have a face to face meeting with the doctor.  
- Truesera - Billed as "connecting patients to enlightened doctors and facilitating doctors to get involvedself." The service became self--correcting (in terms of the facts of the discussions) after passing critical mass. That suggests that one could create a useful resource with factual information (much like Wikipedia, which leads me to wonder if there is a Wikipedia for Health)

Funny story about common chord progressions

I read this funny article about how the 'Sensitive Female Chord Progression' has infiltrated so many songs.

Link: Striking a chord - Boston Globe

Even though Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy" hit radio too late to be the song of the summer, there's still a case to be made that it's the perfect song to cap off the year. It's not because of the empathetic lyrics, or B's heartrending, disappointed vocals. No, it has everything to do with the four chords that underpin the song's verse, circling from yearning to triumph and back again, four chords that were inescapable in 2008.

While some of the comments were snooty, there was a great link to the video below - a comedian talking about how Pachabel's Canon in D has hounded him his whole life.

Help NPR plan their social media activities for the US presidential inauguration

Cool. Via Perry Hewitt.

Link: NPR: Help NPR Plan Our Social Media Activities for the Inauguration:

Help NPR Plan Our Social Media Activities for the Inauguration

The presidential inauguration is less than a month away and the NPR social media desk is kicking it into high-gear to figure out how we can get all of you involved in our inauguration coverage. We're also looking for some techies who can help make it happen.

A good warning for writers, by Joel

Another great article by Joel Spolsky on, basically, literary laziness.

Link: Anecdotes - Joel on Software

This is not the way to move science forward. On Sunday Dave Winer [partially] defined "great blogging" as "people talking about things they know about, not just expressing opinions about things they are not experts in (nothing wrong with that, of course)." Can we get some more of that, please? Thanks.

“Taste good, sequence it” and “Look cute, sequence it.”

When I first started working in science, sequencing was just beginning to be a 'kit' science, where anyone could buy a kit and sequence. It was long ago enough for us to wonder at it, knowing that in the early days it took experienced scientists a long time to sequence anything through elaborate chemical means. Back then, any sequence was a big science paper.

Then Sanger worked his magic and things started to take off. Soon it became possible for a grad student to sequence a gene during their thesis work. Sequencing no longer became special but was required to publish a genetics paper.

In my time...
When I was a grad student, I had my own DNA synthesizer on my bench (well, it was the labs, but I used it a lot). The machine was able to make short stretches of single stranded DNA (10-30 based pairs). While we used it for studying the very DNA we made, others started using such machines to make DNA synthesis primers for sequencing.

Now a tech could sequence a gene in a few weeks.

Then automated sequencing machines appeared that allowed you to easily read long stretches of sequence, straight into a digital format. These machines were expensive, so either there was core facility or company with a bunch of tech managing the machines.

By the time I was a post-doc, you just had mix sample and DNA primer (also ordered over the Web), send it off, and get an email with all your sequences. It was fast and easy for what I was doing and I was able to sequence my clones in one go. Such sequence by mail was instrumental in me being able to focus on my core protein biochemistry work.

Shotgun wedding
While many of us were 'walking' down the chromosomes (current sequence suggesting primers for the next run), a clever man, Craig Venter, just started blasting the genomes apart, randomly sequencing it all, and letting the computers stitching it all together (called 'shotgun sequnecing'). He started with small viral genomes and just kept going for bigger and bigger genomes such that in the end it took him some 3 years (if I recall) to do the entire human genome.

Of course, the Human Genome Project guys who were toiling away for 15 years or more, were upset at the risk of being scooped. So, they had a sit-down with Venter (a REAL maverick) and agreed to reveal the sequences at the same time. BTW, this is the 2nd thing Venter should get the Nobel for.

And we're off!
Now in the post-genomic world, we're sequencing whatever we can get our hands on (see funny quote bellow). Genotyping is now a $400 service (it's not full genome sequencing, but powerful nonetheless). And Venter, for his 3rd Nobel, sailed off on his yacht, sucking up sea-water and sequencing all the microorganisms in it.

The writer below expresses her wonder at how things have changed in such a short period of time.

I have to agree.

Link: The Spittoon » My Mind Has Been Blown By Genome Sequencing

“Taste good, sequence it” and “Look cute, sequence it.”

Obviously there are good scientific reasons for both of these projects. But can you believe we live in a time where you literally could just sequence something’s genome because it was tasty or cuddly?!

Image from wikipedia

Three trends for the future of biology

A chance encounter, about a year ago, with some interesting minds in the field of biomedical publishing had me going back to my roots: biology. I've been fascinated by science from a young age, particularly biology, which I studied and practiced for many years before a wormhole whisked me away and plopped me in the middle of the mobile phone industry.

The consequence of this chance encounter with biologists was for me to reconnect and catch up with what was happening in biology. I really don't know if my fresh eyes are actually seeing something new or if my absence has made me susceptible to an incomplete model of where biology is going. In any case, what I do see are some exciting developments.

To get to the point, I see three major biology trends that present enormous opportunities:
1) Synthetic biology - from crafting whole genomes to messing with computational biology, we are seeing a renaissance of microbiology and microbial genetics.
2) Personal genomics - as genomic analysis tools like sequencing machines and micro-arrays get cheaper, the ability to rapidly analyze ones own genome at some level becomes a reality.
3) Biological publishing - the sheer volume of scientific publications and data, and their increasing availability in open access digital formats, is straining the way scientists explore, syncretize, and contribute to knowledge. [I need to find a better term for this, as it's not about publishing but the whole cycle of the info.]

These three areas have been consuming a lot of my brain cycles, with resultant decrease in posting the thoughts down here. I suppose I needed to mull these things over before starting to haver about them.

I thought I was ready to knock these off but have been having a fun time following the cognections radiating off from these topics. I have a lot of bookmarks with partially read stories. So, further posts on these topics will come slowly as I continue to digest.

Wow. It's nice to use one's brain.

Image from ynse

Eye opening: Opera's latest State of the Mobile Web report

When I see stuff like this I feel ashamed for ever thinking Africa's use of mobile was any 'less' sophisticated than Europe or Asia.

I keep reminding myself of the rise of photo sharing in Brasil, the use of mobile sites like MOSH and Winksite in India, and the number of hits nokia.mobi gets from China.

Forget the ringtone-wallpaper part of the mobile services cycle. These folksk are leapfrogging right to browsing and more interactive internet-connected apps.

Link: Eyes on Africa: Mobile Web use surges in Africa according to Opera's latest State of the Mobile Web report

Fast facts

• The use of Opera Mini in Africa increased by 180 percent from January 2008 - September 2008
• Globally, Opera Mini was used by 19 million people in September 2008, a 341 percent increase from September 2007
• Opera Mini users accessed 4.5 billion pages in September 2008, a 420 percent increase from September 2007
• In September, Opera Mini’s 19 million users generated more than 65.2 million MB of data for operators worldwide
• Egypt is now the tenth largest user of Opera Mini in the world

Does paying off the creditors undermine social trust?

Via a few people I went and read Margaret Atwood's Op-Ed in the NYT (link below) about debt and its role in society. Nice read. For me the most interesting thing is the word for 'debt' and 'sin' are the same in Aramaic (see quote below). That turns 'sin', something to be ashamed of and a violation of something beyond society, to 'debt', something you owe the people around you - much more accountable.

Leads me to thoughts about different shame and guilt mechanisms some societies have, say Catholic vs Lutheran.

Hm.

In a related topic, did you know that even monkeys understand fairness (the basis for debt and credit)?

There was an experiment where they gave two (rhesus?) monkeys cucumber slices. No problem. But, then they started giving one of them a grape (much tastier). The one with the cucumber slice threw it back in apparent anger for being treated unfairly.

In another story, this guy got mauled by some chimps who were jealous of the attention (and cake) he had been giving another chimp (the guy was the chimps previously adoptive human parent). The angry chimps just thought it was plainly unfair not to share the cake.

Yeah. I think so much of our massive brain is geared to keeping (up to 150?) various combinations of relationships and debt-credit arrangements. Indeed, the whole human social system is based on tit for tat and retribution for those who violate this necessary social flow.

What do you think?

Link: Op-Ed Contributor - A Matter of Life and Debt - NYTimes.com

Once you start looking at life through these spectacles, debtor-creditor relationships play out in fascinating ways. In many religions, for instance. The version of the Lord’s Prayer I memorized as a child included the line, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” In Aramaic, the language that Jesus himself spoke, the word for “debt” and the word for “sin” are the same. And although many people assume that “debts” in these contexts refer to spiritual debts or trespasses, debts are also considered sins. If you don’t pay back what’s owed, you cause harm to others.

Image from Chrys Omori

The most famous pillow book of the 20th century is getting revised

Here's a great article (link below) on the book "The Joy of Sex," which is getting updated for the 21st century (and women).

It's really interesting to think of the world that gave birth to the book compared to the world we live in now. The old book is full of interesting stuff, but feels quite anachronistic, both in style and attitude. An update is indeed due.

In so many ways, I aso think a book like this is still needed to loosen up the tensions that still exist when talking, thinking, and having sex. Folks are still so stuck up.

Looking forward to the new edition.

Link: Revising the 20th century's most famous sex manual - The Boston Globe

WHAT WAS THE most influential book of the 20th century? Perhaps you'd vote for "Relativity," by Albert Einstein. But for my money, the book that blew the lid off the century could only be "The Joy of Sex."

Do media endorsements of candidates mean anything

I've been watching Obama rack up the endorsements. But, a quick check of the last presidential election shows that Kerry far outstripped Bush in getting endorsements from major news outlets (and including a huge number of folks who endorsed Bush in 2000).

Do endorsements make sense any more?

Link: 2004 Media Endorsements - dKosopedia

As of 10/26, our list below represents 97 endorsements for Kerry, 58 for Bush, and 6 who declined to endorse. Of the Kerry endorsements, 25 (25.8%) endorsed Bush in 2000, and 49 (50.5%) endorsed Gore in 2000. Of the Bush endorsements, 38 (65.5%) endorsed Bush in 2000, and 4 (6.9%) endorsed Gore in 2000. Of the "Declined" endorsements, 6 (100%) endorsed Bush in 2000. Using these figures, Kerry holds a 6-to-1 advantage over Bush in endorsement switchers, however that doesn't include the 6 papers that switched from Bush to nobody which E&P does not track. If you include those, then it's an 8-to-1 advantage.

Political and economic turmoil driving info-obsession

Ok. But, are we just passive? Has there been an uptick in activism as well?

Link: Too Much News? - NYTimes.com

And the news is not just consequential, but whipsaw-volatile. Financial markets swing hundreds of points within an hour; poll numbers shift. This means that news these days has an unbelievably short shelf life, news addicts said. If you haven’t checked the headlines in the last half-hour, the world may already have changed.

(and why does the NYT always have a gratuitous link to the Jeebus-phone?)

The 'Quiet' post

Every so often a site has the 'oh, sorry for being so quiet' post. This is sort-of one of them.

Stream of bookmark consciousness
I used to have the delicious auto-posting feature set up to share bookmarks right here, but as you can tell, it seemed to stop long ago (maybe around their big change?) and I can't get it going again. So, if you want to know what I've been thinking, you can get a glimpse from my delicious stream (also see in left side-bar).

<http://del.icio.us/cschick>

Work writing
I think most of you know that I have been running Nokia Conversations.

<http://conversations.nokia.com>

Yeah, lots of my writing energy is going there. It's been interesting and we're trying to see how far we can go before getting fired. So far, there have been a few hand-taps, but we haven't had to change or take anything down. My boss' boss keeps telling me to try harder. As my wife says, 'If you aren't falling down, you aren't trying hard enough.'

Visual contrails
The other place I have been quiet has been my Flickr stream (and my folks are upset).

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/schickr/>

The main reason is that my phone got munged by a car door and I stopped taking photos. I did get another camera phone, but it was a lower resolution and I was too snobby to use it (though it was more than enough a few years ago).

Well, I started taking photos again recently and will upload a few.

Another thing that has been affecting my online life is me toying with various aspects of my 1100 Club thought - moving over to a text-voice phone for a while. By removing some of the habits I have gained with a net-connected phone, I wanted to see what would be affected. And it's been interesting.

<http://conversations.nokia.com/home/2008/09/announcing-the.html>

Internal machinations
I've been holding onto the thoughts that remain once I dump them into Nokia Conversations, partly because I am not feeling the urge to share them here (sorry). Oh, I have been sharing them in real-life with folks I meet up with, so, if you are interested, please seek me out. :-) And maybe get me a beer. Heh.

Live via Mobile is the new Live

How Long Is Now?
Originally uploaded by Jofus | JoeTheDough

When I was a kid, it was a thrill to watch sports live. Up in one corner, there'd bit a big flashing 'Live - via Satellite', a distinct differentiator for networks back then.

Now, we're savvy enough to see if it was broadcast live. Also, networks do the opposite and will label what was normally a live show as 're-broadcast of a show recorded on...'

Now the new differentiator is Live with a mobile phone. The videos and audio sent from war zones using satellite phones, the maps of events that update with a stream of notes and photos (writing about the Love the Farm - Leave no Trace, triggered this post), and, of course, the live Qik streams.

Interesting.

Here's the live map from Glastonbury that we're using on Nokia Conversations.

Not only are they doing a good job, but it's scaringly real

A while back I found out via the Twitter site that the Mars Phoenix Lander had a Twitter channel. I don't know, but maybe at the time it didn't seem to be an interesting stream, what, but I didn't follow.

Well, seems like Alex is following the Lander and re-tweeted the big news below. So, I went to see the stream and am very pleased with how well they are using the stream. Not only is the person doing the tweeting very funny, but she has been responding to questions and such.

This is an excellent way of using Twitter in a corporate setting.

Did I say corporate? Indeed, this is NASA using Twitter to send out updates for one of their programs. Someone who represents the Lander is the one Tweeting, so that's marketing communications to me. And companies can learn a lot by just following this stream.

Way to go NASA!

Link: Twitter / MarsPhoenix:

Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!! about 7 hours ago from web

Rough analysis of start-dates for and topical categories of the world's 50 most powerful blogs (BONUS: indie-journalists)

I found the article in my 'to read' pile the other day. The Guardian, back in March, wrote an article listing the 50 most influential blogs in the world (link below).

As I was reading it, I started wondering when most of these blogs were started (though no idea how influence was measured). About 2/3 of them had some sort of date mentioned in their blurb, on their site, or discoverable via their archives. The remaining 1/3 required a trip to the Wayback Machine to get an idea of when the first pages were put up (this would likely push the start date later, right?).

Date spread
Nonetheless, in this rough way, I charted out the years when these blogs were started and noticed a few interesting patterns. For example, almost half of them (about 45%) were started in 2004-2005, which were really they hey-days of blogs (at least to me, based on news coverage of the trend and people at the time). Also, most sites were over 3 years old, meaning that it does indeed take time to build a readership and influence.

Topical categories (I wasn't going to go this far, but this article begged for more analysis)
In terms of subject matter, political blogs were the largest single category (9 of them). Gossip and celebrity sites were the next most popular subject (7). While I thought tech would dominate (there were only 5), there were also many women-focues sites (6), many in diary format. And, lastly, there were some sites focused on causes (4) such as Tibet or environmentalism.

Yes, this makes sense that sites would focus on specific topics to get a steady readership. While politics, gossip, women, and tech were the main categories, there were a sprinkling of topical sites (11), spread out over food, fashion, sex, humour, football, music, blogging, and intellectual matters.

Also, there were some sites that were general (8), revolving around the curiosity and rambling of the author. It didn't seem that the authors had a particularly strong personality, but just were interesting people who pointed out interesting things. There is an area of interest for each writer, though, that most of their posts revolve around, say design, marketing, family, or style. That might provide just enough traction to let them bring in other aspects of their life, yet keep their readership's attention.

Furthermore, of the different topics above, many (10) were basically in the format of personal diaries (yay, blogs still live!). Also, many of them have a single writer, or 2-3 writers. But a few are indeed blogs in the guise of mainstream media (or is it the reverse?) with writer pools, hard-hitting reportage, and oodles of money from advertising and sponsorships.

What do you think of this breakdown? Does it make sense to you?

Eh, I never thought I'd do such meta-analysis of blogs, especially in 2008. But it was a curious article and the data was just there for the picking. Heh.

Link: The world's 50 most powerful blogs | Technology | The Observer

From Prince Harry in Afghanistan to Tom Cruise ranting about Scientology and footage from the Burmese uprising, blogging has never been bigger. It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions. Here are the 50 best reasons to log on

BONUS: At work, I cringe when we talk about 'bloggers' (that's so 2005). I think that makes us focus on the tool format instead of the folks we want to work with. While some have started saying 'influencers', I find that fawning. The reality is that corporations want relationships with journalist, folks who publish 'media' (video, photos, text, audio) that tell a story about the corporations' products and services.

Debi Jones was thinking that if movie-makers that were not part of the mainstream movie industry are called 'indie movie makers', then why can't non-mainstream media journalists be called 'indie-journalists'? If you look at the categories above, that's indeed what most of these writers are.

I like it and try to use it at work as much as possible. What do you think?

Billion-dollar life sciences bill passes Massachusetts Senate

Does Massachusetts need a stimulus in biotech? I don't think so. It's doing pretty well.

This bill sounds like a bone thrown to biotech biz leaders around the state. One person in the article below even uttered the p-word "pork".

Oink oink, indeed.

On the plus side, maybe I should be thinking of heading back. That's a lot of moolah to go around.

Link: Billion-dollar life sciences bill passes Senate; governor to sign Monday - Local News Updates - The Boston Globe

"I just remind you that it's the taxpayers that are paying. ... It's taxpayers' money, it doesn't grow on trees," he said.

Image from extrudedaluminiu

Alex bopped me with a baton - lifestreams, semantics, and tapping the next person

Henriette Weber Kristiansen and Duarte Velez Grilo have a little show called Geek Army Knife. I see it as a wander through the collective mind, talking to interesting people. One interesting feature of the show is that each interviewee needs to come up with who might be the next person to interview, sort of like passing the baton.

Alex de Carvalho was the previous person interviewed, and spoke about social objects. I was absolutely flattered when he passed the baton to me.

So, yeah, I got interviewed last night and it's already up. I spoke about lifestreaming and how it led me to thinking about semantics. I mentioned a bunch of folks along the way, including Friendfeed, Socialthing, Socialbrain, Lovelysystems, and Tagcrowd.

I've also names a few potential folks to pass the baton to, but pressed for my first choice, Stephanie Rieger.

Let's hope she accepts. If she doesn't, you might want to listen to the podcast to see if you made the list of alternates (and no offense if you did, I could only pick one and I like so many of you, heh).

Image from Philo.

Does Anyone Use Phone Booths Anymore?

A long forgotten phonebooth
Originally uploaded by schickr

PhoneBoy asks this question (link below). Indeed, I think the folks who have been ramping down their phonebooth assets were so narrow-minded (as in 'phone booth are for folks who need a to place a call and do not have a phone') that they blew a golden opportunity.

In telecomms, one perennial battle is for locations to put stuff - poles and pipes for wires, plots of land for towers and dishes, rights-of-way for repair trucks, and little squares of sidewalk for phone booths.

About two years ago I came up with some (IMHO) great ideas on how to use phone booth. For starters, there is still a place for them everywhere for quiet space for the talker or for peace for those around the talker. Indeed, on some Finnish trains there are phone booth for folks to use with their mobile so as not to disturb the passenger. I use it all the time for privacy.

It take no genius to realize what one can do with a booth if someone is sitting there for 3 minutes or more (and PhoneBoy is asking the right questions). It can also be a booth for offering other services, such as booth-only WiFi (to make the person come into the booth), or directory information.

The hard part of setting up a service like that today is securing the little plot of sidewalk. But the phone booth guys already had all that: location, a wire coming in, electricity.

And the telcos and their partners blew it all thinking that we don't need phone booths anymore.

Link: Does Anyone Use Phone Booths Anymore?

Maybe instead of ripping out the hardwired phones from these phone booths, maybe they can leave them there as a reminder of days gone by or for those times when you need a little bit of piece and quiet when you’re trying to make a call? Or better yet, turn them into pico cells for the mobile network operators?

What's it with movie super-heroes sulking on building ledges?

Heh. I've noticed recurring imagery of super-heroes crouched on a building rooftop, on the ledge, usually in the rain, usually moping. It is also usually followed by the hero jumping off to do their thing.

So far I've seen it in:

• Daredevil - It's raining. he does a great dive, parkoursing in Daredevil's signature way (BTW, he's my favourite super-hero*)
• Underworld - I only saw the trailers (shame). But Kate Beckingsale is on the movie poster for both movies, looking over a roof-top ledge. I think in Evolution, she does the Leap thing.
• Spiderman - Spidey usually hangs from buildings, but there's at least one scene in the last one of him in his new (evil) suit, on a spire of a building.
• • 
  Batman - There is always a scene of the Dark Night looking over the city and then jumping off.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - These boys are the original traceurs.
• Dark Angel the TV series - Didn't most episodes end up with her on the Seattle Space Needle? And if I recall she was on the Needle in the opening credits, too.

And some non-super-heroes that are almost super-heroes to me that jump off buildings:

• Bourne Ultimatum - Jason Bourne falls off a building and into a river, in a sort of phoenix progression.
• The Saint - Simon Templar (darker in the movie than I remember the TV series) has a sort of phoenix moment where he falls into a frozen river and is (lucky dude) revived by Dr Russell (a hot physicist, played by Elisabeth Shue).

 

I think part of this is the super-hero looking over the city, as an unwanted, un-thanked protector. The standing at the ledge is a symbol of fearlessness, a standing on the precipice, yet ready to confront what is at the bottom. And the Leap is a suicide, through which the hero comes out like a pheonix reborn, once again to do their Thing.

Have any of you seen this too? Any other movies or comics or books where this metaphor is used? Indeed, in some of my own stories, I have the hero jumping off the building, mostly due to the dramatic nature of plummeting from a building but surviving.

*Huh. Just realized that most of these super-heroes are unloved, tragic heroes. I also like heroes who really are not content with their marginalized existence, who get the krap beaten out of them all the time, and who despite it all still get up in the evening to do their derring-do  (in a Philip Dick sort of way). Anti-hero anyone?

Images from IMDB (Underworld), IMDB (Daredevil),  IMDB (Spiderman 3)

 

Awesome Clay Shirky interview (with a side-comment that cuts too close)

Glenn Fleishman did a great interview (back in March) of Clay Shirky on the topics in Clay's new book 'Here Comes Everybody'.

Clay, as always, has some great stories to tell. Glenn is pretty good too. Yeah, you should go and download the interview from Glenn's pages (link below).

The whole interview is great, but it was the very end that made me reel. Glenn asked Clay what business could do to take advantage of the participative nature of the Web. I overly simplify, but Clay, among other comments, mentioned that instead of proclaiming the next great thing in a press release and putting all the money into one pot, that companies spread the money across many endeavors and see what sticks (and do it without fanfare). Basically, have many experiments, put it out there, and see if folks like it rather than gab about it (Show vs Tell?). He uses the example of Wikitorial.

Gosh. I have lots to add to that and a few more examples. (My tongue is bleeding, I am biting it so hard. Though a beer can loosen it, in case you are interesting in a tale of enlightenment, abandonment, discovery, creativity, stealing, cluelessness, and dissapointment.)

While I hope that some companies hear what he has to say and take the learning to heart, I fear that most, as Clay points out, will end up focusing on the wrong thing. Or, as Glenn says, miss the elephant parade passing in front of them.

Sigh.

Hey, I'm just road-kill on the info superhighway. Go listen to some smart people (the link is below, in case you forgot).

Link: TidBITS Blog Post: The Internet Organizes Itself: Here Comes Everybody

I sat down with Clay on 14-Mar-08 to talk about the book for a short article that appeared in the Seattle Times, focused on the business side of his book. However, the Seattle Times allowed me to publish a podcast of our roughly 40-minute conversation.

As an aside: Clay does validate some thoughts I've been having. It's always nice to inadvertently come to the same conclusions as others smarter than me.

Image from Joi Ito

Plaxo is acquired by Comcast, Zyb by Vodafone

Ok. This is last week's news.

But, I am not seeing much discussion about this. Why?

Mashable picked it up right away. But not one person commented on Plaxo's own site (link below).

Is this significant? Does it matter? Does this remind you of 1999 when Telcos bought Web-heads and did nothing with them?

FWIW, I just deleted my Plaxo account. Never really got anything out of it. BUT, with Pulse, they had an uncanny way of adding things I was thinking of. I think Pulse could have been like FriendFeed (and was about much earlier), but it happened to be attached to a company that made its name in corporate contact management. Eh. Brand dissonance.

Also FWIW, Zyb announced it was picked up by Voda two days later. Their post got a bunch of comments. Zyb was on a similar trajectory as Plaxo. Both were considered the leaders in this area, but we always felt Zyb a better mobile offering. (and I did not delete my Zyb account just yet)

We followed both closely since synch is a part of the (ever) upcoming Ovi.com that I was a part of (and Nokia also has the My Nokia Back Up service). Yeah, both companies had set out to mix PIM back up with social networks. And, yes, the company who can solve this issue will do well.

Do you think Zyb and Plaxo have done well with this fusion?

Link: Plaxo's Personal Card: Comcast to Acquire Plaxo; Pulse to Become Central to Creating Unified “Social Media” Experience Across the Web, the TV (and more)

Joining forces with Comcast is a real win for our customers, our investors, and our employees. Comcast has an exciting vision to bring the social media experience to mainstream consumers. Together, we will be able to help users connect with all the people they care about, across all of the devices they use, with all the media they love to consume, create, and share. This is also great news for the Internet industry at large, where Plaxo has been – and will continue to be – a strong advocate for opening up the Social Web.

Mechstreams - when machines start lifestreaming with us

Ok, so lifestreaming is the rage of '08, what with SocialThing! and Friendfeed and all similar services hogging all the attention.

But I also see something that's been bubbling under the surface that I call 'mechstreams'. I see machines edging in as equals in our lifestreaming services, sending out streams of data indicating what they are up to or thinking or what. And I don't mean info alerts like weather or news, but info about what is going on.

This is not new, really, but I think the time is right for these things to mix with real lifestreams.

Examples:

• Tom Armitage hooked up the Tower Bridge to Twitter so that it can say 'What am I doing?' every time it goes up or down.
• I heard yesterday from Jan Chipchase of a teapot that says when it's boiling water. In this case, it's an unobtrusive tool to keep an eye on elderly folks - if the teapot is being used, then the old folks are doing fine.

I think this is fine and dandy in this day and age of the re-birth (again) of ubicomp and semweb (both of which I have been waiting to bloom for a very very long time).

So, where do you see this going? Tom Armitage gushed about this about a year ago. Have things really developed further?

[PS: In the course of actually slowing down to write this post, I keep finding more discussion of this topic. The inestimable Julian Bleecker used the term 'blogject' for objects that blog. He wrote up a minifesto 2 years ago. Krap, I need to get out more. Some days I feel like Rip van Winkle waking up and missing a huge chunk of the discussion.]

Hm... 2Mpix trumps 5Mpix?

What do you make of this?

From Flickr: Camera Finder

SwitchAbit as the great data switchboard in the cloud

Just stumbled upon this (no longer remember how):

Link: At SwitchAbit, Twittergram Shares a Common Future - GigaOM

So what is a SwitchAbit? Think of it as a web services switchboard that allows you to plug any type of content from one service (say Flickr) to another (say Twitter) — or even between multiple services. The dashboard is likely to be released later this summer.

Last year I had a few Ramblings on noise that focus on the internet as a noisy environment with data emanating from apps all over the place and how can we find, navigate, recombine, and contribute to that noise in a human way.

I've read a few recent posts that revolve around this topic and that I am still trying to digest. But, these thoughts tie three key trends I see unfolding before us: lifestreams (human streams of data), mechstreams (streams of data from machines), and the semantic web (meaning attached to everything).

Just wanted to say that Nokia Conversations is live

It's been a long slog, but the site is now as tweaked as it can get, so we removed the password protection and we're off on a new journey.

As with any site, we'll be adding and removing things as folks give us feedback. And I know you all will have plenty to say.

I want to thank everyone involved and those who laid the ground work for me.

Now I need to get dinner ready.

Link: Nokia Conversations: Welcome to the conversation

ESPOO, Finland - Welcome to the Conversation. This one, though, is unlike any you'll have seen before. It's being written, presented and hosted by people in and around Nokia and pulls together all the conversations going on around the Nokia neighbourhood.

UPDATE: Oh, I meant to say that 21apr is the traditional day observed for the founding of Rome. And while Rome wasn't built in one day, it sure had to start somewhere, by Jupiter.