Uba Kontrovasie

What terrifies Bill Gates?

2010-07-29T20:27:58Z

Who cares? Is it worth cheapening your clean homepage with the kind of advertising that you’re likely to find on Pirate Bay or some kind of underground file-sharing service.

By the way, did you spot the missing question mark? A copywriter out there must be getting a serious lambasting.

Do. Me. A. Favour.

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links for 2010-07-27

2010-07-28T04:05:30Z

Fathom

First credible DV agency I've found. The credentials look solid so I'll be watching this space. Closely.

(tags: visualization design data infographics processing information agency graphics benfry)
Data as a service – O'Reilly Radar

Lots to get on with here and i must watch IO videos. Google seem to be doing lots of work with data and I wonder if they're going to do more with applying econometrics/predictive modeling to certain data sets [i can hear behavioral economists getting excited]. Social media monitoring was the 2008-10 DaaS gold rush. With this market rapidly becoming commoditized, the next big trend should be IaaS. Why? Because people need information today and data is costly to contextualize consistently and quickly.

(tags: data infochimps api service widget wolfram visualization data-visualization infrographic infrographics)

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Thoughts #1

2010-07-27T21:03:23Z

Stole the thumbs.

Sorry.

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Still Life

2010-07-25T11:50:15Z

The latest photo issue of Vice landed on my mat the other day. Although I’m starting to hate what Vice is turning into—crappy, brand-funded art collaborations—I do like their photo issues.

Vice is normally full of pictures of Urban Outfitters staff look-a-likes getting smashed at venue that’s faux-run down, but this photo issue contains some good work from Gavin Watson, Jack Pearson and Patterson Beckworth.

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Building Web Reputation Systems

2010-07-25T13:38:04Z

I started watching this video thinking it was something to do with sentiment monitoring, but it’s actually about leveraging the reputations of people within communities and correct use of voting mechanisms, in order to define reputation.

It’s rather long and key points are delivered after some tenuous examples, but it’s worth a watch as gives an insight into how “Like” culture may affect reputation and content.

What’s also interesting is how experience designers and UX specialists need to dutifully consider where and how voting systems are integrated into web applications. The addition of voting mechanisms to content platforms may get rejected if they’re surplus to requirements or change the purpose or culture of a platform.

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links for 2010-07-24

2010-07-25T04:03:53Z

Official Google Blog: He said, she said: a sibling search story

First Facebook and now Google are both incorporating some form of storytelling in their comms. It's all bit cute and twee but the executions are quite cool. I'm liking the interactive map on http://stories.facebook.com/

(tags: ad google storytelling)
Graph theory – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wiki Extract:

In mathematics and computer science, graph theory is the study of graphs: mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects from a certain collection. A "graph" in this context refers to a collection of vertices or 'nodes' and a collection of edges that connect pairs of vertices. A graph may be undirected, meaning that there is no distinction between the two vertices associated with each edge, or its edges may be directed from one vertex to another; see graph (mathematics) for more detailed definitions and for other variations in the types of graphs that are commonly considered. The graphs studied in graph theory should not be confused with "graphs of functions" and other kinds of graphs.

(tags: math programming visualization graphs reference theory wikipedia graphtheory algorithms)
Facebook Connects 500 Million People: Defines a New Era of Digital Society

Not sure if I agree with everything here. Solis seems to evangelize, predict the future and question theories with factually unsupported arguments. What's really stood out for me is the use of Facebook in Asian markets including Indonesia. South Korea and Indonesia have superior broadband speeds and for this reason I'm keen to understand how their culture and communities are affected by social networking in its entirety.

(tags: facebook socialmedia socialnetworking socialnetworks)
Facebook Statistics, Application Statistics, Page Statistics | Facebakers.com

Great blog. Lots of juicy Facebook stats and information.

(tags: facebook statistics stats analytics research socialnetworking)

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Gesture Cube

2010-07-19T22:41:20Z

The web is rapidly becoming a more semantic, dynamic and real-time environment. Applications now sit on the cloud and people are spending more time on social networks.

As we spend more time “leaning in”, the ergonomics of the equipment we use starts to become vital. Seamless lifestyle integration and usability will be critical to making web applications successful.

Whilst the iPad does a good job at delivering the web in more ambient format, I don’t think it’s no where near what’s around the corner. True gestural control and augmented reality will be the technologies that start to replace our keyboards and mice, in order to make software and the web more integrated into our lives.

The Gesture Cube appears to be start of commerce gaining traction around what I’ve been thinking about, but we’ve got all of this to look forward to!

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links for 2010-07-18

2010-07-19T04:03:12Z

Wolfram Alpha: the semantic web search starts to take shape | Technology | guardian.co.uk

I still use Wolfram Alpha for lots of things, which include: calculating equations and seeking sets of information about a certain entitles. With any luck, Google will be turning Squared into a product that shares some resemblance with Wolfram Alpha.

(tags: semanticweb web searchengine wolframalpha google wolfram semantic search)
Official Google Blog: Deeper understanding with Metaweb

So it's happened: Google make their first real step toward fully embracing semantic search. The acquisition of Meta Web will ensure that Google's Squared service will be vastly improved. What I'm more keen to see is how the use of semantics will effect standard SERPs.

(tags: semanticweb linkeddata search research web semantic database metaweb freebase google)
Cross-Pollinating DBpedia and Freebase – Blog – Semantic Focus – The Semantic Web, Semantic Web technology and computational semantics

Google's recent acquisition of Freebase had me questioning, and investigating, the differences between Freebase and DBPedia. As it turns out: Freebase does have a panel of editors and users that contribute to its database in addition to Wikipedia updates. Things are going to get interesting now: will developers lean more towards using Freebase instead DBPedia?

(tags: semanticweb semantic-web)

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What the acquisition of Metaweb will mean for Google

2010-07-18T22:32:29Z

I’ll let the video above and my recent bookmarks do the informing.

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2 wheels are better than 4

2010-07-17T10:30:51Z

pic credit

In a bid to get fitter and do something that I’m likely to maintain, I’ve started to cycle everywhere. Trying to stay in shape is a pain — especially if you’ve grown to HATE the gym.

I have two bikes: a folding Raleigh Swift and a second hand Kona Blast (something for the weekend).

It’s weird how you start to check out bikes, like you would Cheryl Cole, once you start cycling. There’s an abundance of two-wheeled lovelies all over London. You’ll never catch me on a fixie (never, ever) but I’m loving some of the nice road bikes that I’m seeing about, especially the 2010 Kona Zing (above).

This could get expensive. Oh crap.