The Destruction of the Internet by Our Own Hands

OK, yes the title may be a little strong, but hear me out.

User Generated Content

I am sure we all agree, one of the best things about the Internet is the advent of encouraging user-generated content (user content). The most obvious example of this, Wikipedia. This is by far one of the best resources on the Internet for knowledge. What has made it so good? The fact that people with the relevant knowledge have the power to contribute and update. This is a huge deal because it opens the floodgates to a wealth of knowledge that could never be procured by one team, or a team of people dedicated to just “finding stuff out”. As you may have noticed on previous posts, I often use to link to “geekspeak” items for translation for any “normal” people that may come across this blog. Of course, Wikipedia is not the only user content site around, there have actually been things long before Wikipedia, and some after such as (but of course not limited to):

• Bulletin Boards
• Forums
• Chat Rooms/”Shout Boards” (especially since some are now recorded and presented in public archives etc).
• Weblogs/Blogs
• Podcast’s
• Product Rating/Review Sites
• URL Review Sites (such as digg)
• Open Source Software Projects
• Social Networking Sites (and the many varieties of them).

All of these sorts of applications can generate a vast amount of content. Which can often end up in search results. Which is great, the more knowledge the better right? Empowering users to almost be the masters of the Internet, where their collective brainpower can easily produce better, more relevant results over any search engine (yes, even Google). So, “where is the problem?” I hear you ask..

The Problem

Robert Scoble recently wrote a blog post “Has/How/Why tech blogging has failed you” where he discusses how blogging has become a bit of a PR scam, and how much of the blogosphere really just consists of a few people “driving” the content and many more simply regurgitating what they have read elsewhere. I found this an interesting read, but it really got me thinking. I don’t think the problem stops there.

I have recently been becoming more annoyed at the way the Internet is going with regards to user content. It really is getting out of control. It seems like every day one of the following happens:

• I read a blog post that covers the same content as another blog post, with no addition of any content/thoughts/anything!
• I search for something and click 3+ links which actually lead to the same content, which has just been stored on another website (forum posts are a nightmare for this as I know several sites copy the MSDN forums).
• I get asked “please send code” on a forum.
• I read the same crap from a “specialised” source which is pretty much forwarding an RSS feed from the root source, which I am already subscribed to.
• People blogging for the sake of blogging. Posting content that expresses neither their own opinion or any real thought at all.

So now, what happens when you want to find some information that is not on a “usual” source such as Wikipedia? You go to Google, type in your query, then get page after page after page of plain crap, duplicated crap or irrelevant crap. There is a lot of crap on the Internet! I say bring back the good old days where it was either static content or porn. At least if I couldn’t find the answer I wanted I could find some other entertainment!

Of course, I jest. I think user content truly revolutionises the web, but as always with power comes responsibility, of which lies on YOU.

For example, here are a couple of tweets airing my frustration with outsourced/offshore developers simply going to a forum and asking for very basic programming questions, of which a simple Google would have procured a tremendous amount of good pre-existing content.

http://twitter.com/robcthegeek/statuses/864186964
http://twitter.com/robcthegeek/statuses/864189227

And recently, I have also had a post on one of my threads on RefactorMyCode where the individual concerned has completely misunderstood the whole purpose of the site and selfishly asked their own question, completely disregarding the rest of the thread and community:

http://refactormycode.com/codes/273-common-stproc-code#refactor_13448
In which I responded with a blunt, but IMO correct rant http://refactormycode.com/codes/273-common-stproc-code#refactor_13468

I view this sort of behaviour as completely ignorant and unacceptable. This is NOT what user content is about. To be clear, this is what I believe user content should be:

• Relevant, topical, subject-based.
• Understood in what the purpose of the delivery platform is about (e.g. RefactorMyCode being about refactoring, not teaching how to program).
• Promoted when the content is good and Demoted when it is bad.
• Honest and written from the contributing users point of view “warts and all”.
• Conversational content should be allowed to be commented on and discussed freely.
• Contestable similar to the demotion, content should be able to be flagged as inappropriate, or factually incorrect. If this is the case, it should be highlighted (much like Wikipedia does at the moment).
• Unique in that content is either newly formed, or derived from other [linked] content, that is extended upon.

Now, while this blog may not be massively popular, or contain massive amounts of posts. I only ever try to post things are (or adhere to) all of the above.

And Solutions?

So, how can we possibly solve these problems? Well first off, I think we need to accept we can’t. As with anything, the second you give people power, you will always get at least one bad apple who just abuses it. That’s what human’s do. So, we just need to be more proactive about passing the right messages to those that do get involved. Here are my thoughts:

• DO get involved. User content is only generated from actual users.
• DO Blog, but only when YOU have something to say.
• DO contribute on forums & Wiki’s if you have the expertise to do so.
• DO use services such as digg and Wikia to help raise awareness of good sites/content.
• DO link to content to spread news.
• DONT just regurgitate other peoples words. Think about what they have said, how does that make you feel? What are your thoughts? Are you keen to see what other people think of your thoughts?
• DONT create a site that duplicates/archives content from other sites. There is no point. We will find it on the original thank you! If you want to promote a site, promote it, don’t copy it!
• DONT expect information without trying to look for it yourself. Not only does this piss off people that do contribute, you end up duplicating content that you would have easily found yourself!

I think there is a lot of education to take place here. Too many people just want to be heard, but the problem is that we are destroying the very thing that made user content so powerful in the first place.. Accurate search results.

People just need to be clear about what is good and promote that.
Create, don’t copy.
Look and learn rather than ask and expect someone to teach.

“Increasing the amount of noise you make, does not increase the quality of the sound.”

What are your thought’s? What do you think we can/should do to help stem the problem?

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Rob’s Been a Busy Fool – A Slap in the Face and a Rethink on My Strategy

Recently, I seem to have been really busy. Lots going on at work, learning new things doing some interesting stuff, reading lots at home for study. All sounds great right?

Being honest, what have I achieved? Not a lot. And I am pissed.

I always take my personal productivity really seriously. Its so important. I want to get things done, after some personal crap where I fell into a bit of a rut over the past few years (yeah that’s years - they were tough) I vowed I would never allow myself to come off the track again. Now,  I am not suggesting its that serious, but I just feel like my pace has slowed. Not good enough.

So over the past few days I have been trying to dedicate some time to think and reflect on the pass month or so. What’s been going right/wrong? How do I think I can improve?

What’s been going right/wrong?

I think its important to always way up the positives as well as the negatives. However, it is sometimes REALLY hard to see the positives, since its generally the negatives that grab your attention. It’s like the classic “a quiet customer is a happy customer” people generally don’t take action if they are happy – yet as soon as something isn’t quite right, they try to unleash hell on you.

The Good

• I am still learning stacks of stuff at work. My brain is constantly being challenged with new stuff (since I am now working on web, and it’s all new to me).
• I have no major issues distracting me. I am genuinely reasonably happy and content with my life.
• I have had some great comments on my blog as well as other forms of communication, validating my thoughts that my experiencing is growing. It has been awesome to get some of the feedback from people reading this, it truly does make a difference so I thank you. It really does mean a lot to me.

The Bad

• I’ve been reading lots of stuff towards my 70-315 certification but I am not so sure if its all sinking in to my thick skull. I generally don’t feel as confident as I want to with some of the material.
• I still have some major things on my personal ToDo list that I haven’t even started properly yet. By properly I mean actually working towards getting it “done and dusted”. I’ll post my list later to get the items out there so you can see some of the things I am aiming to get done this year.
• I am losing some motivation with the MCAD course because it is being binned in March next year.
• And yes, I have to admit, this geek is feeling kind of lonely. Everyone else around me seems to be hooking up. Yet, I sometimes struggle to find time for myself, let alone get out and meet new people - I am pretty sure if I was fortunate enough to hook up with a lovely young lady, she would hate me within a couple of weeks for being a workaholic.
• Some days I come in from work tired and get too easily distracted from the things I need/should be doing by World of Warcraft, TV, etc.

Fine – So How Can I Improve?

Well, this is always a tough one, identifying problems can often be easy, overcoming them is a whole different kettle of fish. Here’s a summary of the things I have decided to do to:

• Get uber-organised. I have always thought I am reasonably well organised. I always make sure I make notes of things I am supposed to do. But I need to really, really keep on the ball. I do have several things on my list to get done, and I need to make sure I break them down in to manageable chunks and processes them,  one at a time, ALL the time. This will mean I will give my ”Getting Things Done” (GTD)  methodology a complete review/overhaul. RememberTheMilk and utilising it more will become a major part of this! I love RTM!
• Stay focused. No “if’s”, no “but’s”. I need to get my “wannabe Marine” attitude back on. So what if I am tired. If I want to get things done, I should god damn do it. I can cry about being tired later, after I have done it. The organisation will really help with this, if I have RTM yelling at me to get things done, and they start to stack it will help keep me on the “straight and narrow”.
• Complacency is great, it’s nice to not have tons of stress, but it can also quickly lead to lack of drive, as I have noticed. With all the extra projects/work I will be dealing with – and ultimately staying on top of, that should give me plenty to worry about :)
• It sucks that my certification is being binned next year. But the simple fact is, the quicker I complete it, the quicker I can move on. There are so many things I am itching to “play” with. The sooner I get there, the sooner I get to “kick back” a bit and have some fun with the tech.
• Definitely blog more. The more I talk about my progress & failures, the more likely I am to deal with them and move on. I really enjoy interacting with more people and the more I help drive the discussion with this blog, the better.

All of this sounds pretty much common sense right? But it’s so easy to sway away from all this, almost “forget”. Just sitting there and thinking about what to write here today has really help focused my attitude and I have already begun making changes to my working practices, as well as getting the ball rolling on some of my ToDo items.

I’ll get another post up soon covering my list.

As always, feel free to comment! Do you ever feel like you are doing a lot, but not getting a lot done? Have you needed to work smarter rather than harder? How did you pull it off?

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Logins – Why Use Email? Should it be Static?

OK, this is something that has really been pissing me off for quite some time.

Problem

As I am sure most of you know, many website’s use your email address as your login. I think this is a great idea, since it allows you to keep the  number of login names you need to remember down and it pretty much guarantees uniqueness (since there can be only one email address, it’s yours).  The only problems I could think that could occur with this are:

1. Someone has signed up using your email. I really doubt this would ever happen, since the site would (or should) email the account address for confirmation that it is live (and you have access to it). If this ever did happen, you could easily take it up with their support staff.
2. You have previously signed up and forgotten about it. 9/10 this will simply mean submitting a password request that will be sent to your email account and you can initiate the password reset process (if they send you your ACTUAL password – close your account now! – account administrators should NEVER have access to your password).

So both of these are pretty minor, and for the most part, pretty rare.

So what’s the problem here?

Recently I have begun the slow but gradual process of migrating from the [lame] Yahoo! Mail to Google Mail. When I recently accessed my Microsoft Live Account page to update my email address, I realised I can’t. Now, before the MS haters out there start jumping on Microsoft, they are not alone. I have noticed many of my online services don’t allow me to change my email address (can’t think of any off the top of my head – if I do, I’ll update). But the Live one really did hack me off, because I use it a lot meaning I am now locked into my Yahoo email address, by a service that is nothing to do with Yahoo. This makes no sense at all. Yes, you need a login, does it need to be static? No! There are also many other sites that have allowed me to change my email address even though it makes up a part of my login. They understand that what the login actually is doesn’t matter, the fact that is has been confirmed to be correct and belongs to the user is.

Think about the poor people that don’t have a email service provider address (@gmail, @yahoo.com etc) but rather one assigned to  them by their ISP – meaning if they change their ISP (which people do a lot) then their account can potentially be ruined. I have seen examples where users are unable to update their email, so they completely loose all email communication with the website. This is crazy! We are supposed to be getting better at developing user friendly, free flowing, open software – not to load it up on the failboat and put the engines to flank knowing the icebergs are dead ahead.

This gets on my nerves even more with the explosion of OpenID providers (I personally use and recommend Vidoop) in which the login and authentication process is delegated entirely to another party. All they actually need is your OpenID, which of course you can then change if required.

In Summation

Websites & Online Application Developers:

• DO promote login reuse either through email address or OpenID.
• DO allow me to change it if necessary, you don’t care what it is, so long as the person changing it is ME.
• DON’T create a system that you know will cause problems down the line (however small YOU perceive them to be, you’re not the user).
• DON’T lock me in.
• DON’T store passwords in plain text (if you are actually doing this then get out of the industry now – it really is security 101).

What do you guys this of using the email address as a login? Do you prefer OpenID? Do you change email address often?

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Coining Some New Terms - "Twarkov" & "Mashout"

OK - So I have just got in from work and forced myself to get on Live Writer since I knew damn well if I didn't, another day would go by without a blog post - and I actually have a few things stacked up that I want to cover.

So, here is the first - I would like to coin two new terms:

"Twarkov"

OK, yes, this one is a little bit of stupidity and silliness, but there is method behind my madness, so hear me out :P

Recently there seems to have been a surge of spam bot's on Twitter. Now, this confuses me, because I really don't know what type of content they could be harvesting, or what they could hope to obtain by spamming on there. Since its obvious they are bot's, people will block them straight away, so they are not going to get any link-clicks. I have a theory in that maybe the spam companies are getting smarter and going to start targeting spam based on the topics of interest that you discuss (similar to Google Adsense).

So, "why 'Twarkov'" you ask? Well, take a look at my all time favourite tweet from one a Twarkov. The text is kind of gibberish, but actually does make a small amount of sense, this is because the text is generated by a Markov chain. Which basically is a mathematical formula that is applied to common words to have a educated guess at what the next word is going to be. This is why a large number of the words do pair reasonably well. This is how some spam manages to get through your filters, because it can be made to look like a genuine email.

So, there you have it - Twarkov - A twitter spam bot that uses a Markov chain. :)

If the funny text that is produced amuses you, be sure to check out Garkov - Garfield comic strips with a Markov sequence placed in the speech bubbles. Enjoy :)

"Mashout"

Now this one is actually aimed at being less silly and something I intend to actually run through as project at some point. So, what is "Mashout"? For those of you not into software, there is a lot of "Mashup" websites and applications springing up all over the place. A lot of this is due to the much more open, service-orientated applications that are on the web now. These expose an API and allow developers to "tap in" to the service they provide, and use the resultant data how they wish. Now you can have applications that tap into one or several services, which can actually produce a really rich feature set, on relatively little work on developer. An excellent example of not reinventing the wheel and promoting code re-use.

As you probably guessed, "Mashout" ties in with "Mashup". There is an inherent problem with "Mashups" - you are very reliant on the service you are utilising. The most obvious demonstration of this at the moment is probably Twitter. There are many users on the website and many more that use custom client applications (such as Twhirl) to use Twitter's service. Recently Twitter has had real major problems with downtime, for the most part, there isn't a day that goes by without there being a small amount of downtime. This has been both frustrating for Twitter users, and most likely their staff (I think the only one that has done well out of the outages is the "FailWhale" which has now somewhat of it's own fan club). Obviously, if the service goes down, everything goes down. No client applications can use a service that it's cant get a response from.

This got me thinking, "how can we get over this?". I think this is going to become much more of a problem as the "Mashup" applications continue to grow. Those that provide these services are going to become under increased stress on their systems due to the sheer amount of requests they may be receiving. Yes, they can improve their systems, but this could cost a lot of money and these funds may simply not be available (this could especially be the case for small start ups). And I think we, as software developers shouldn't necessarily put all the weight on their shoulders, they are giving us the service for free after all.

And the conclusion I came to, was to "Mashout" - Utilise the service, but instead of relying on a single point of contact between the client and the service provider, you provide your own layer to handle the data transfer more efficiently. You extend the service to make it more distributed within your application context.

I see it this way, if we all hate the way services can be slow, buggy, featureless, why the hell aren't we thinking up ways to get around it? We are software developers, get hacking!

I do have other ideas I would like to cover with regards to this subject, but I will save that for another post. I just wanted to get my thoughts out there and see what people think.

Comment please!

And remember - no one can compete with the randomly placed hair clip :D

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Video Blogging - Worth Doing?

Summary

Discussing my thoughts on communication in general, the Seesmic community and the benefits I feel I would get from video blogging (or "vlogging").

Links

Seesmic - http://www.seesmic.com
Me on Seesmic - http://www.seesmic.com/robzyc

Social Networking – How Social is TOO Social?

Had an interesting discussion on Seesmic last night. Starting with my first response here (you can view the thread from there) I only posted a few responses, but I think I had covered the points I wanted to get across, and I needed to get to bed since I had work this morning.

So, what was the discussion about? Well, in short, I think there was two main points brought up across the various threads:

1. People want to be confident that when they delete a video on Seemic, the video is lost forever and not available to anyone else.
2. People felt uneasy with the “Share on Facebook” link added to the video page.

This got me thinking, from this I think there are these issues that should be addressed:

• Ownership of content & licensing.
• Public domain and public discussion vs. privacy and “I take that back”.
• Understanding of what is actually being done with content on other social networks.

Ownership of Content & Licensing

This is an important issue, when posting content to a site (be it Seesmic, Facebook, whatever) – who *owns* the content? There have been some discussion on Seesmic recently about licensing of videos etc, and I know other sites still have no idea or TBC. People need to made very aware about who owns the content, and the rights that they can place on it. The hosting site then needs to make it easy for people to manage the licensing of their content and assist them in marking their content up. For example, there are several great licenses (such as the various Creative Commons) that have come about since normal people need to be able to understand, and protect their content at varying levels. So, why not when posting content have a little drop down “Select License”? When rendering the content, it is then displayed with relevant links/graphical elements to notify and explain what the license is to others viewing.

This really isn’t a “big deal” in terms of the development, but would make sure people are not only using licensing, but are generally more aware of it (since a lot of people on Social Networking may not be geek's and even aware of the existence of Creative Commons (and the like).

Public Domain and Public Discussion vs. Privacy and “I Take That Back”

Another HUGE issue. And I think this is probably the most prevalent of them all. I think this is really an education and understanding issue. Social Networking (IMO) is about socialising, being more public, open and sharing. It’s exactly the same as sitting at a table with a bunch of people at the pub and talking about stuff, but to a much wider network of people. I think a big issue in the discussions on Seesmic was almost “I don’t want people outside of Seesmic to be able to comment about videos elsewhere” (or along those lines). Now, there is a huge problem with this:

When posting to a *public* timeline, the information IS public. People will talk and interact based on what they see/hear. What RIGHT do we have to control what people talk about?

I find the best way to view this is to again go back to the pub. If you are a bit drunk and talking loudly about a subject, and it causes people overhear who then start commenting on what you say, do you *really* have the right to tell them to do otherwise? I believe not, this is freedom of speech and like it or not, is one of the key drivers of social networking. You may not like it, it may not be nice, but so long as its within the law (i.e. not racially/sexually/whatever motivated) its all fair game.

Back to the Internet and content, I do believe that content should remain on servers and not propagated (pushed) to other servers (i.e. videos recorded on Seesmic stay on Seesmic and only a link can ever passed around, taking them back to Seesmic). This means that if people want to withdraw content, they can do. But it is important to understand that people cannot control discussion once content is in the wild. That is socialising.

And I think this may scare people, what do I think? I think this is a good thing. I recently had another discussion with a Seesmic friend about how I realised that when posting to Seesmic, I think twice. Posting anonymous text comments on a blog you can pretty such say what you like. The worst that can happen is the moderator can place an IP ban on you, so you cannot post from that machine again, but you are not personally identifiable and that gives you a sense of security. When you post things with your name, face, location to the Internet. You are directly responsible for your actions, what you say & do is open to public debate. Why do I think this is a good thing? Because maybe, just maybe it will make everyone think twice before talking, being offensive, unhelpful or anything else negative. Thus, improving the community as a whole. I have noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of courtesy, help and control of my posts since becoming “deeper” in the social networking scene. This is great!

Understanding of What is Actually Being Done with Content on Other Social Networks

This is another point for education. During the noted conversations on Seesmic, I think there was a real misconception that content was being pushed (i.e. duplicated) to Facebook via the “Share on Facebook” link that was added to videos. I tried several times to explain to people that this was not the case (sometimes I think to no avail!). I understand that all Facebook does it take the link and broadcast it to your network. To reiterate the above, the link (and its associated content) is then open to [private] discussion within the Facebook users network, but the content remains on Seesmic’s servers. If the Seesmic poster then decides to delete the video, then all the Facebook link will become is dead. But their conversation can of course live on, they have seen it and have a right to talk about it. There is no control over this, and I don’t think there should be.

But, there should be a clear explanation of how and what can be done with content when sharing with other sites.

In Summation

I have found this an really interesting and thought-provoking discussion, there are so many faucets to it. This has led to interesting discussions with my colleagues and friends. In my opinion, we should have complete control over content, but not discussion, and use of content should be clearly explained at all levels (poster, viewer and “sharer”). We have the right to control what others DO with out content, but not what they discuss.

This is social networking, socially we are accountable for our actions offline, we just now need to understand we need to also be the same online.

Please, get involved, post your thoughts!

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Busy! Busy! Busy!

Just a quick note to apologise for the lack of posts recently, been crazy busy and struggling to find time to chill! Been working and studying a lot recently so my brain has been somewhat cooked by the time I get home from the office.

I have a few ideas stacked up and hope to get these blogged soon :)

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