Collab-Or-Ate

This question has been baffling me, ever since I figured out what Web 2.0 actually IS. Web 2.0 is basically anything interactive on the Internet. So technically Web 2.0 has been happening for at least 6 years, but the label “Web 2.0″ is relatively new because corporations are only now becoming aware that the Internet is capable of being more than just a branding platform.

Here are some basic things I've figured out about Web 2.0 (ignore this post if you are already 2.0 savvy!):

Definition of a Web 2.0 application: a website that has “something to do with consumers, multimedia data types, social networking, RSS, AJAX drag and drop, some Flash, mashups, attitude and fuzzy business models.” (source) Ok, that is pretty vague, with a heavy emphasis flashiness, but I've come to the conclusion that that is exactly the point of Web 2.0. Lots and lots of bloggers have done a great job of defining it, but this happens to be the definition that makes the most sense to me.

Examples of Web 2.0: it is almost easier to define what is through examples, many of which you are probably already aware. MySpace , YouTube, Podomatic, Flickr, Facebook, Google APIs, Yahoo 360, Imeem, Vox, Live, MSN Spaces, Dabble, Xanga, TagWorld , LinkedIn, Digg

The most interesting aspect of Web 2.0: I believe the most powerful and compelling aspect is what is being called the “architecture of participation.” (Wikipedia not only is an example of this, but also has a definition of the phrase. :) When users provide the data that drives the applications, the applications become more intelligent, more compelling, and frankly, more exciting to use. One of the earliest examples of this type of collective intelligence is collaborative filtering. (That I was working with collaborative filtering researchers in 1999 is part of why I've been so confused about what the big deal is now.)

And finally, why NOW? I believe the reason the time is right for corporations to embrace this is that traditional software has failed to meet the needs of corporations. Companies doing work in this digital age need tools that are fast and flexible and do not force users to conform to pre-defined behaviors. Groupware became a dirty word in the collaboration software space because traditional groupware tools of the 80's and 90's limited and constrained the behavior of users. And in real life, groups (aka businesses) can't waste time accommodating to rigid software. Hence, Web 2.0 steps in with simple (in a lot of cases, VERY SIMPLE) tools like wikis and blogs, and workers everywhere embrace them because they can be appropriated to their needs, something the corporate-provided groupware tools cannot do.

HBS faculty member Andrew McAfee explains “why now” in more detail in his blog entry The Trends Underlying Enterprise 2.0. It boils down to 1) simple and free to use (thank you advertising business model!), 2) emergent structures (no pre-set taxonomies), and 3) the chaos of individual participators resulting in a new order (possible with the likes of tagging and RSS).

The Robot Hall of Fame just inducted their newest class of Robots. The RHF commemorates the contributions of fictional and real robots, and the induction ceremony is a great mix of sci-fi buffs and robotics researchers.

I attended the 2004 induction ceremony and got to shake hands with both C3-PO (Anthony Daniels) and ASIMO. Lots of fun! This year I'm most excited about Gort, because that is the name of my home computer. But AIBO is definitely another worthy inductee.

This article gives a full description of the robots and the ceremony: Robot Hall Of Fame Inducts Gort, Sony's AIBO.

You can nominate your favorite robot for induction here!

The New York Times published an article today on the difficulties patients have in making appropriate decisions about their medical care: In Medicine, Acceptable Risk Is in the Eye of the Beholder. It is very hard for people to understand the risks associated with medical treatments, because as humans we are particularly averse to risk when it comes to potential losses to our personal situation. What can be more personal than one's health? And as the article discusses, patients frequently make sub-optimal decisions for themselves because of this aversion.

To read more about this “irrational” behavior, start by looking into prospect theory, a seminal idea from the field of behavioral economics, developed by Kahneman & Tversky.

This article stands out for me though because it explains how visualizations of the risks can dramatically help patients understand the issues more completely. I am very interested in this integration of visualization & decision-making and would like to see more systematic analysis of why different visualizations lead to different conclusions.

From the NYTimes:

In a paper published in the June issue of PLoS Medicine, Dr. Jerome R. Hoffman says using illustrations is helpful. Pie charts, dartboards and, best of all, roulette wheels, he suggests, communicate the complex information about the probability of a good outcome more understandably.

My question is why are roulette wheels the best visualizations? Is it because, on average, patients are most familiar with the concept of risk from gambling with roulette wheels? Does that mean you should get a visualization tailored to your personal life experiences? Nerds get pie charts, barflies get dartboards, and gamblers get roulette wheels? Or is there something inherent in our visual analysis that is universal for all types of people, making roulette wheel visualizations easier to analyze than the other representations?

What software and web applications do you use on a regular basis? To get your work done, to do simple tasks, to live your life, to keep up with things. And of those applications, which are the worst? Which are the ones that drive you crazy? We want to know!

In a lot of cases, you can figure out the exact sequence of pointing-and-clicking that can get your daily tasks done in the fastest way possible, but it shouldn't have to be so hard or so painful.

This is your invitation to complain away in the comments!

Last week, Sun Labs held its annual Research Open House. It was a two-day event in Menlo Park: the first day was for Sun employees and the second day was for press & analysts.

This was Sunfleet’s debut onto the Open House scene and we had a great time, giving a group talk entitled “Design and Engineering: An Emerging Culture of Collaboration” and presenting demos of the Media Affinity Browser and our Hole in Space and Constellation projects

One of the tangible outcomes was some positive press on our projects! Very exciting, given our size and short history at Sun. And, as reflected in the headlines, Sun needs some positive energy out there in the media world.

Here are the highlights:

RED HERRING: Sun’s Idea Factory soldiers on:

Sun also is developing media interfaces that go beyond “list-based” menus. The Media Affinity Browser uses bubble charts and boxes to find movies or programs, while Search Inside The Music uses sound analysis—such as the timbre of instruments—to help an aficionado find new artists. Both could one day be licensed to software makers or content providers.

CNET: Sun Labs pushes forward despite l*yoffs:

Researchers showed off a concept for a media browser, a search application that would let home users find movie titles, for example, based on factors that they control. “We want to avoid list-based interfaces. Lists do not scale,” said Scott Nazarian, a company researcher. The basic idea is to let couch potatoes surf across a grid of movies sorted by genre and labeled with visual cues, and then let people select a particular movie based on how it matches up with preset criteria.

The company is also working on a combination social-networking/video-conferencing application that would let colleagues interact over high-resolution video screens like they were meeting in the hallway, said Joan DiMicco, a Sun researcher. The project is still being fleshed out, but two people on opposite ends of a video-conferencing application could access a social-networking map that plays “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” with fellow employees. For example, the application showed how Sun researchers were connected to each other by where they sit, what projects they’ve worked on, or patents they have filed.