Hack Text » Information Technology

The echo chamber is a lousy teacher

Aram Zucker-Scharff — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:31:14 +0000

Image via CrunchBase

Social media has many great communication tools and is an excellent way to increase expertise, but what if you want to learn something new? It’s hard to get started on a new topic when the good stuff is hidden in huge feeds.

I’ve really only regretted the death of two online services. Furl, which got swallowed up into Diigo‘s relatively ugly interface, and Social|Median, which turned into an underwhelming XING application. In the second case, it was a real shame because Social|Median was one of the better learning tools I’ve ever found online.

When I briefly met Robert Scoble, he was on his way to speak about the internet as a learning tool at a conference at George Mason University. He asked a group of us, social media folk, about the tools we used to learn:

Google Reader was of course the big mention, in part because it’s ability to follow people, which makes it immensely useful at helping you read what the experts are reading.
Feedly also came up, because it takes huge Reader feed lists like mine and makes them manageable and better readable.
Of course Twitter was on the list, along with various methods to interact with it and monitor hashtags.

But I had to mention Social|Median.

Here’s why, Social|Median allowed you to take people and RSS feeds, big or small, put in keywords, and get a list (and useful RSS feed) of articles from all of the feeds that related to your key words or phrases. You could then invite or leave an open invitation for content experts who could recommend links into the newsfeed as well. It let you control the level of loose relation and really dig into the mega feeds for the articles relevant to you.

This whole process was immensely useful when trying to learn something new.

Around the time I first became a user of Social|Median, I was asked to write for a youth blog on UPI. When asked to pick from three topics, I chose the Obama and the economy. The problem was that I knew absolutely nothing about economics. It was an opinion blog and I felt that to have a real opinion, I needed to know what I was talking about. I talked to some friends who knew more than I did and they recommended some feeds, but the highly topical blogs weren’t always the right choice, they aimed at expert readers.

By mixing the highly focused feeds with mega-feeds from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Huffington Post and other general news outlets, as well as conservative and liberal political blogs, I was able to get a stream of content that provided the broadly general information, context, and gave me the ability to delve into the specifics.

When it comes to social media, excepting programming, web development and social media itself, there are really only two types of content promoted: the stupid and the expert. If you wanted to sit down and, over the course of a few months, learn something about a specific topic, it’s pretty difficult to pull off.

The problem is mostly the social media echo chamber. There are topic experts and what they say is frequently reposted and linked to. Breaking into that cycle with your own content is difficult, especially if that content is below the level of the experts and the people who want to become experts. While tools like Quora may offer you the ability to ask specific questions, there’s no way social media now could… say… take the place of a class textbook.

This is a shame because, as I discovered, the information is out there. It is floating in various RSS feeds and online in the heads of some other middle-of-expertise folks. At this point, Social|Median is really the only tool I’ve encountered that made accessing it easy. I’ve yet to see anything like it again.

All the existing tools build on content shared by your network, increasing the echo chamber effect. It does little to help you really learn something new. It doesn’t pick out the signal from the noise because so much is lost when everyone is retweeting modifications on the same theme. The only thing that has come close is LazyFeed, and it is more dumb search then learning tool. While I like the site, LazyFeed isn’t really useful unless you monitor it all the time.

We badly need a learning tool like Social|Median. Where is the site that intelligently sorts through the mass and hunts down the content I need to educate myself? Once we get outside of general news and web-related content, can social media really do it? Am I just following the wrong people? What’s been your experience?

What I’m Doing To Bridge The Gap: Exploring Social Media (socialmediaexplorer.com)
Are science blogs stuck in an echo chamber? Chamber? Chamber? | Not Exactly Rocket Science (blogs.discovermagazine.com)

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What would you want in a Kindle app?

Aram Zucker-Scharff — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 15:07:39 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been looking into Kindle application development. Considering how many Kindles are out there, there is a huge potential market for a few good applications on the device.

There are some serious limitations to keep in mind when theorizing a Kindle app, specifically two big ones. The black and white, low-refresh, nature of an eInk display is the first one. Apps should be visually slow. The second one is that, at least from the information I’ve found, Amazon holds the creator of any application responsible for data-charges that the application makes on any users’ device. The charges are at 15 cents/megabyte.

Yeah, you read that correctly. If you build a Kindle application it better not poll the internet very often or you have to factor in serious pricing issues. You either need to build an application with infinite amounts of use in its cost or you need to figure out some way to regularly make money off of your application. The only two ways I can think of to make that work is some sort of subscription scheme or advertising.

So with that in mind, let’s brainstorm some applications. I’ve got a few in mind and if you want to contribute, feel free to add ideas into the comments.

The Aggregator

The idea would be to build a Feedly or FlipBook style mix of sources (or even a set of stories from a single source beyond a standard subscription) that you could browse in a summarized multi-story format. The more user input used to create the page, the better of course. This might work better as a website people can visit, because otherwise you’d be responsible for some pretty tremendous data charges, even if you restricted users to a once a day rate. Also, it would have to compete with the mobile Google Reader site, which works decently on the Kindle.

You could mix in some ads to cover costs, but the issue is that the more successful the application, the higher the price would be to deliver content.

I’d love to have this as a configurable application, but in the end, the data costs seem to restrictive. Perhaps it would be easier to set up online? I can imagine that building a custom site with FeedWordPress might do it. A website formatted to act as a Kindle magazine. Something to work on. I’ll put that on a to-do list. A big to do would be to make each summery block act as a link, so Kindle users’ don’t get frustrated with navigation.

What’s the resolution on a Kindle browsing the web anyway?

The Interactive Fiction

The Kindle seems like the optimal platform for Interactive Fiction, especially if it gives you options instead of requiring typing of commands. I know that this might be a cheap pass for IF aficionados, but it would appeal to a larger market and besides, the Kindle’s keyboard is sometimes a bit odd to use.

There are already a few implementations of Kindle IF out there:

The most interesting IF I’ve found is Dusk World, a graphic novel-infused adventure IF (via). I haven’t played it yet, but it seems to mix option-based gameplay with some nice imagery for a branched story. The reviews on Amazon are good and I’ll probably try it out. I think it’s a good casual interactive fiction and a very good idea. I’d love to see more, and perhaps something more visual for navigation, the ability to click on objects (linked areas of an image?).
There is an excellent web-based implementation of the classic IF tales at KindleQuest. Well worth checking out if you’d like to replay Zork.
There are also two standard choose-your-own-adventure-type tales: Choice of the Dragon and Choice of Broadsides. Both seem to also incorporate some RPG elements, but I’m not sure.

I think that Dusk World is probably the most interesting IF application on the Kindle, but there are a lot of possibilities. I wonder what sort of options might be available for non-text navigation. The point is fun while still within the realm of reading, as opposed to just straight up gaming. I’d think that IFs would be more appealing to the Kindle’s user base than checkers.

The Notebook

If you are using the Kindle as a reference on the job or in the classroom, having some sort of note-taking feature outside of annotation would be a logical next step. Despite that, the options I’ve found seem pretty unappealing. Not to mention that, because of the data fees, there’s no way to sync your work to somewhere on the web.

I’ve tried Google docs and it just did not seem to work. The Flash offering at Acrobat.com obviously doesn’t work either.

Once again, I think this is a nice opportunity for a web-based application formatted for the Kindle. Something that plugs into gDocs or another platform.

That being said, I do have one solution, which I use regularly. I run a WordPress blog with the P2 theme and though it isn’t exactly well formatted for use on the Kindle, once you zoom in and start typing away, it goes pretty smoothly. I use the site to regularly take notes.

It’s too bad that there are not better options out there. I know that a lot of authors seek a tool for writing that allows them to escape a distraction-prone computer and the Kindle would be a good candidate.

The Smart Map

The Kindle 3G runs on a wireless network, so I assume that geo-location is possible. It would be great (considering it works anywhere in the world and has a huge battery life) to see where you are on a map. Just think about being lost in Paris and having a whole week worth of battery power to figure out where to go.

However, I’m pretty sure the data use would be enormous. Unless people were willing to pay a subscription fee, this goes into the realm of the fantastic.

A Decent Music Player

You can load MP3s on your Kindle and listen to them. It’s a very cool feature and great for podcasts or music. The only problem is that there is no way to navigate. You can play or pause a track and you can skip to the next track. That’s it. It would be great if there was some sort of player application that would give you greater control.

Games

Oh yeah, and of course there are your standard games. Some of the Kindle games seem better then others. I don’t know about you, but I just don’t find this an interesting use of the platform.

That’s all I can think of now. What application would you want for your Kindle?

HD-DVD Now Officially Dead

Aram Zucker-Scharff — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:02:00 +0000

Well, that is that. The HD-DVD technology is done for. Microsoft has dropped HD-DVD support and stopped selling the HD-DVD peripheral for Xbox. Anyone who knows my opinion on the whole race can now officially say it, I called that one way wrong.

[Link] – The Escapist

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Hello and Welcome

Aram Zucker-Scharff — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Hello, this is Read, Write & View, a blog about writing for convergent technology. Specifically, writing universes, concepts and stories that can be applied over a number of digital mediums. The focus in this case is on writing interactive stories for computer games within the wider context of a world rapidly approaching technological convergence.

First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aram Zucker-Scharff and I am a student at George Mason University, where I’ve set up an independent study, part of the requirements for which will be maintaining this blog. I’m majoring in Information Technology and English.

In this blog, I’ll examine the context of convergence and the art of interactive storytelling through articles, blogs and books, along with experiencing and experimenting with the stories themselves inside a number of games. In addition, I’ll be writing bits and pieces for various story universes, with a focus on three “universes.”

The first is a continuing project that I’ve been working on for quite a while, the Angels Fall First Universe. I’m a member of the team creating this universe and distributing it out on a number of game platforms, including Unreal Tournament 2007, Homeworld 2 and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Both past and future work that I do as a member of that team will show up here. You can see more about the universe at its website http://www.affuniverse.com/ where I contribute under the username of Phifty.

The second is a concept I call “Beyond the Rim.” A science fiction universe built by myself from scratch. I have little done with this universe beyond the initial concept.

The third is “Merely Players” and is a very loose concept that I got the seed of an idea for while I was in England last year. We’ll see what develops as things go along.

I’m looking forward to exploring game design and interactive storytelling. There is a lot of interesting stuff out there and this is an opportunity to really explore it in depth. I hope you enjoy it.

For those who are interested, I’ve uploaded the curriculum that has been approved for this course of independent study through George Mason University. It can be found at http://aramjzs.googlepages.com/Proposed_Independent_Study.pdf.