Collab-Or-Ate

Last week, Irene Greif (the head of CUE, the group I work in) announced that IBM is opening new Center for Social Software in Cambridge, MA. There is some press about it here and here.

The focus of the center will be on a style of research we are calling “Venture Research.”

Venture Research can be distinguished from other types of technology research by two major features. First, a venture project involves a large-scale deployment of a research project “in the wild,” for example, on the web. Typically the reason for doing a deployment to a large population is to test hypotheses about interactions between thousands of people and to allow for appropriation of the technology for unanticipated purposes.

Second, at a practical level, recruiting thousands of participants for a project means that the venture project’s application must provide a tangible value to its users. As a result, they are typically long-lasting projects and users often expect that the services will be available consistently and indefinitely. This is where the practical funding issues arise. While you can build a Web 2.0 app relatively quickly, maintaining a community of thousands, over extended periods of time takes funding that is separate and on top of base funding that supported the initial research idea’s formulation. In this way, the projects require funding more akin to venture capital — high risk, but high reward.

The reason IBM is interested in doing this style of research is that we see this scale of user interaction more the norm than the exception. As IBM is in the business of building solutions for companies, the new Center’s intention is to lead the field towards understanding how companies will communicate, interact, collaborate, and exchange at these scales of interaction.

• You can guess I subscribe to the WSJ because half the news on this blog is from there. Apparently this week they launched “some new nifty features for business owners to connect in the Web 2.0 world.” (WSJ blog post.) Using the word “nifty” does not help build the case that they know what they are talking about. ComputerWorld has a very nice summary of why they went about it all wrong: Amid market meltdown, Wall Street Journal goes Web 2.0. I will continue to go old-school and read the print edition.




• A few months ago, there were lots of articles about how company recruiters check out the Facebook profiles of job applicants. This week it is reported that college admissions offices are doing the same. According to the WSJ, “A new survey of 500 top colleges found that 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw ‘negatively affected’ their views of the applicant.”

  This is no joke: Identity management needs to be taught early and often!




• Did you hear, Google is moving into nation building? Literally, building their own nation, in the ocean! The Register reports on a patent application filed by Google: “The search giant, cum world power, seeks exclusive rights to what it calls a ‘water-based data center’. “This modular collection of processing, storage, and network resources would sit on a ship anchored somewhere offshore, using the crashing waves for both power and cooling.”




• And most amusing of all, Microsoft launched and then pulled an oddly unfunny ad campaign. The story is here, but it is much better to watch the ad. To recover from your confusion, watch the free pizza and I banish you Mac ads. If you are part of the Steve Jobs cult, you’ll also enjoy this ad shown at the WWDC 2007.

I can’t hide my opinion from the blogosphere any more. To all Americans: please, please pay attention to the important issues facing this country. And then please VOTE. Think about the problems we have in the US and the World and think about what you want done about them. And then please VOTE.

I agree with this editorial and it is making me very afraid about the future of this country: Blizzard of Lies.