- Netflix are offering $1 million to anyone who can substantially improve their recommendations algorithms The most interesting thing is that they’re opening up a substantial dataset in order to help them work through these issues. I’d be really interested to get my hands on that with a talented data visualiser. Maybe Stamen should have a play?
- AOL Europe are looking for a Social Media / User Experience Intern Could be a really interesting opportunity for someone who wants to get into this whole territory, and would be working with early UK weblogger Meg Pickard of NotSoSoft/Meish fame
Author: Tom Coates
- David Filo posts up the puppet video from yesterday’s Hack Day Beck concert Now that was a strange and awesome experience. I’ll write more about the whole thing when Hack Day’s over and I’m a bit more relaxed.
- The Guardian reports on the memorandum of understanding between The BBC and Microsoft I have absolutely no idea what to make of this whatsoever.
- Your own personal Cassette Tape Generator Now this is a way to have a nostalgic grew-up-in-the-eighties musical retrotrip.
- ‚ÄúWeb 2.0 ‚Äòexit strategy‚Äô‚Äù badges Lots of badges, reflecting the various ways to cash out of the Web 2.0 ecology. Get bought by Yahoo! Get bought by Google! Get bought by Murdoch…
- Alan Yentob wants to know why You Tube matters to you It’s weird. This couldn’t look more cheap and yet simultaneously staged if it tried. I’m sort of weirded out by it. Interesting move, but at the same time, could you look any more stiff and formal?
Given the three thousand odd bounced e-mails I’ve received this morning purporting to have been originally sent from various names @plasticbag.org, I’m guessing that my domain has been chosen by spammers as a particularly amusing return-path address. If any of the people who visit my site are receiving spam from @plasticbag.org addresses, can I say in public that I’m not responsible for the irritation that you’re suffering and that I’m suffering many orders of magnitude more irritation from it than you probably are. However, I am genuinely sorry for the pain this is causing you, and if anyone knows whether there is anything practical that I can do about it, I’d really appreciate it if you could leave a note in the comments. Thanks again.
- Hypoallergenic cats are now available for people with cat allergies This is quite smart. You don’t genetically engineer the cats – you just find the ones that don’t have the genetic marker and breed them as you would otherwise. I’d be surprised if said cats don’t represent the majority of purchased cats within thirty years…
- Google Mars It’s just beautiful and awesome and fascinating and cool. That’s all. Difficult to argue with how neat it is.
- Office Lendorff sells some awesome pixel art knitwear Hats, scarves, bags, lasers, explosions, rockets. I’m so going when I’m back in London…
- This Life returns after 10 years This is going to happen every ten years for the rest of my life, I suspect. I’m going to be haunted by these actors representing my early twenties until we all drop dead together in twenty-fifty years time…
- Londonist versus Platial stalking Doctor Who Really nice. Really entertaining. The foundation for Doctor Who walking tours of London.
- The upcoming Yahoo Hack Day’s going to feature a full day of tutorials and talks I have to say that this event really does look like it’s going to be extraordinarily entertaining. It’s the main reason I’m staying in the Bay Area for a little while longer.
- Cameron Marlow posts Weird Al’s White and Nerdy “I’m fluent in Javascript as well as Klingon” – I don’t get why people think this is insulting. It’s totally awesome. It’s like an anthem!
- “Apple takes a gamble: so you want to watch films on your iPod?” The Guardian reports on Apple’s incursion into the video on demand and digital sales space. Pretty interesting stuff.
- Dr. James Watson reflects on DNA research in the 21st century Lovely article on ZDNet’s Between the Lines, a site I’ve never really looked at before, but which seems to have an unusual quality of contributions…
- Octet – the eight big ideas you need to know to understand the 21st century Ben Hammersley has announced the cover and subject of his new book. Looks really really interesting.
- Hot TV presenter in critical condition “Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond is in a critical condition in hospital after a crash in a jet-powered car while filming for the programme.”
Last week I talked at the Future of Web Apps conference in San Francisco as detailed in my euphoric debrief on Saturday. It was not a talk that I looked forward to enormously, but I have to say that the response has been really positive with a decent number of people asking me to post up the slides. So that’s what I’m here to do – providing one (large/75Mb) PDF version: Greater than the sum of its parts and the other a Keynote-produced (and partly self-optimised) small web version.
The talk is about how to generate systems and models wherein large groups of people can publically create something together that’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s about Wikipedia, Flickr, motives for social engagement, how to derive value from innumerable small contributions and what challenges this form of creation may be causing in a world of proprietary data. All fun stuff. Hopefully.
Much as with my last Future of Web Apps talk there’s an extent to which the slides will only make sense if viewed alongside some coherent notes of the talk around them. There are luckily some of those available online. I want to make sure to thank Matt Webb, Simon Willison and Matt Biddulph again (in addition to everyone else who helped me get it together) before I post up the thing in question. Mr Webb in particular deserves a mention since there’s a great chunk of thinking in this piece that – while I’m not sure he’d agree with all of it – was definitely the result of conversations that we had together at the BBC.
Like last time, I will promise right now to properly write up the talk in question, but – again like last time – it’s quite likely to be a while before I can get my act together!
- Weird BBC puff piece for a new and rather unfunny Onion-rip-off I’m a bit puzzled by this one. The BBC normally takes such enormous care to not be seen to be endorsing or advertising other people’s products.
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is looking for a Sr. Interaction Designer You have to be a temple-worthy church going and have five years web experience. That might be limiting the field a bit, so I thought I’d give them a hand. Thanks to Matt Jones for showing me the path.
- Stormhoek Pinotage has won an award for quality of flavour as well as novelty of marketing I’m actually really glad about this – it’s nice to see that the marketing wasn’t the sole distinguishing factor, and that it isn’t only bad products that explore unorthodox or new engagements with the internet…
- Awesome Daily Show clip from yesterday on Gays in the Military Apparently a large proportion of gay men drink each other’s urine. Difficult to argue with that, really.
- Techcrunch on the flickrization of your business cards Some interesting commentary and responses around the MOO/Flickr Minicards launch…
- Death of the Author Wikipedia has a pretty decent article on Roland Barthes arguing for the death of the author and the various responses and implications to and of that initial postulation, including Foucault’s much more interesting commentary…
- The Cathie Marsh Centre is doing a survey on webloggers and their attitudes to privacy It might be worth your while contributing to this if you find it interesting, although obviously they’re likely to get a pretty skewed survey with this kind of selection metrics…
- David Gregory vs Bush on the so-called ‘Torture Bill’ A decent question is asked, a reply with almost no substance is returned. Hideous little weasel.