Basically, Shirky proposes that consequences we normally attribute to an explosion of available information thanks to the internet is actually attributable to a failure of the filters in place to deal with an already abundant amount of information. Since the invention of the printing press, he says, we have lived amidst “information overload”, such that we can no longer look at the phenomenon as a problem, but as a fact. An appropriate response, then, is to build better filters.

Notice that the solution is to build, not to fix. An overload of information has been our oxygen for centuries, but the type and amount of data we deal with now is vastly different than whatever has come before. Shirky ends by separating the types of filters needed into two categories: programming and social. The latter category is pretty nebulous, but “programming” is much more concrete, and already in use today. Digg, Netflix, Google, and every other website run on extrapolating from its users’ actions is utilizing so-called collaborative filters, and these are a pivotal part of the internet’s future.

Collaborative filtering works by ranking content according to prior users’ actions (e.g., Google looks at links, the paragraphs surrounding search terms, other mysterious data), then analyzing your own actions to serve up relevant content. With sites like Digg and Reddit, this involves users upvoting or downvoting submitted sites, and then you seeing the best sites in descending order (with maybe some specializing depending on if you’re at a subpage). With sites like Netflix and Amazon, your own consumption is compared to other consumers in order to serve up recommendations.

As we approach the singularity and the web becomes more ubiquitous, collaborative filtering will become increasingly sophisticated (and accurate). As Jay Adelson mentions, Google’s search rankings have become more powerful simply because of the diversity of its users has increased. Collaborative filtering thrives on multifarious data, and this will come quickly with a larger number of netizens, and more slowly through the growing number of connections between web services. Adelson points to the economic advantages of shared data (read: better advertising targeting), but this is of course of huge value to users and developers as well.

Low-level web curation, from Metafilter to Undress Me Robot, will always have its place online, but the future is definitely in these automated processes which leverage what each user is already doing to provide a highly personalized and more effective experience. However, obviously, collaborative filtering is simply an update of the sort of filter that has been around since the 1500s, moving from the editorial eye of a single person to the gaze of millions. The next big jump in information overload might break down even these strong filters, taking a paradigm shift to get back on top. And who knows where that will take us?

Let’s just see if they can manage that before Google does.

Since much of the value Topspin adds is in the artist control panel which is behind the scenes, these three examples show only the very tip of the proverbial Topspin iceberg. The visual design for each of these is done by the artist, Topspin is the enabling platform underneath. And what you can’t see, the back office where the artist manages pricing, catalog, metadata, fans, and most importantly marketing campaigns and analytics, is our bread and butter.

What struck me was the “The visual design for each of these is done by the artist” line. Really? I suppose this is a matter of technicalities; changing some colors in your MySpace or Virb profile is technically visual design, I guess. The Dandy Warhols site eschews the cookie-cutter template design a bit, but only to replace it with something really sparse.

Based entirely on these three examples (which are all we have to go on, but see below), Topspin seems perfectly primed to do….nothing great. The hidden “back office” is definitely a huge boon to artists and labels alike, but it is nothing that could not be achieved with good web statistics software (like AWStats or even Google Analytics) and a listserv manager. This is not to say that such a product will not be successful. Even if cheaper alternatives exist, bands/labels are likely to look to the company that combines all the services into a single, easy to use package. Maybe not so special, but admittedly pretty useful.

Outsourcing a significant portion of band management might not be especially tempting to big labels with enough money for a personalized solution (or a general disdain for digital music in general), but it’s perfect for independents. And not having to rely on big money for this sort of thing is going to allow a lot more bands to remain independent and a lot more indie labels to remain competitive.

My biggest complaint with Topspin is that they seem to be creating a system in which every band website is the same. Examples may be released in the near future that display a greater ability to produce original design, but I am skeptical until then. However, I am also open-minded, since the cheap design is almost positively a result of the bands being independent (probably no dedicated web team).

Another factor (and consequence of the bands’ independence) is that Topspin might not be utilized in exactly the intended way:

We are about demand creation, not demand fulfillment. I call this out because the line is admittedly blurry in our above examples, since our first product is very much about direct-to-fan marketing, which in many ways resembles demand fulfillment from the consumer perspective.

This begs the question of why unveil a product using examples that poorly display the product, but we’ll see.

No matter what, please take all of the above with a big grain of salt. Why? Because as I mentioned, Topspin is a brainchild of Ian Rogers, who knows exactly what he is talking about when it comes to digital music. His line Convenience wins, Hubris loses assures me that this whole endeavor is in good hands, regardless of any startup bumps along the way.

As far as CNN (and to be fair, the mainstream TV press in general) believes, it still sits comfortably at the top of the food chain, unthreatened by any possibility of a major paradigm shift being brought to bear by a horde of little people with laptops and opinions. Although the big networks recognize the need to appeal to bloggers, they don’t fear them — and that means that they don’t respect them. Corporate-think dictates that the mainstream television press as a monstrous multi-headed hydra is the ultimate news authority and therefore is in possession of the one and only hotline to the ghosts of Murrow and Sevareid. Sure those bloggers are entertaining, but in the end they’re really just insects who either feed off the carcasses of news items vetted through various networks or, when they do break stories, want nothing more than to see themselves granted an audience by the kingmakers on television.

This, of course, is horseshit.

Two weeks ago, CNN fired Chez Pazienza for his blogging under his real name. The atrociously antiquated employee handbook states “any writing done for a ‘non-CNN outlet’ must be run through the network’s standards and practices department,” and CNN seems to have a history of exercising the rule without discretion. More than evidence of the company’s ridiculous bureaucracy, the story and ones like it illuminate the company’s unfortunate hypocrisy.

CNN’s willingness to fire someone like Jacki tells you everything you need to know about how backward the network’s thinking is when it comes to new media. It pays more lip-service to bloggers and their internet realm than any other mainstream media outlet, but in the end that’s really all it is — lip-service.

Sadly, the criticisms of conventional news media cannot be confined to its dealings with the internet and New Media. The problems are more fundamental, stemming from the overwhelming focus on profit margins that permeates every major corporation. It would be impossible to underestimate the effect this has on network news reporting. When news is seen as a necessary evil — barely profitable but wanted by all the target demographics — strict objectivity is thrown out the window. What stories are reported, and how they are reported, instantly changes.

During my last couple of years as a television news producer, I watched the networks try to recover from a six year failure to bring truth to power (the political party in power being irrelevant incidentally; the job of the press is to maintain an adversarial relationship with the government at all times) and what’s worse, to pretend that they had a backbone all along. I watched my bosses literally stand in the middle of the newsroom and ask, “What can we do to not lead with Iraq?” — the reason being that Iraq, although an important story, wasn’t always a surefire ratings draw. I was asked to complete self-evaluations which pressed me to describe the ways in which I’d “increased shareholder value.” (For the record, if you’re a rank-and-file member of a newsroom, you should never under any circumstances even hear the word “shareholders,” let alone be reminded that you’re beholden to them.) I watched the media in general do anything within reason to scare the hell out of the American public — to convince people that they were about to be infected by the bird flu, poisoned by the food supply, or eaten by sharks. I marveled at our elevation of the death of Anna Nicole Smith to near-mythic status and our willingness to let the airwaves be taken hostage by every permutation of opportunistic degenerate from a crying judge to a Hollywood hanger-on with an emo haircut. I watched qualified, passionate people worked nearly to death while mindless talking heads were coddled. I listened to Lou Dobbs play the loud-mouthed fascist demagogue, Nancy Grace fake ratings-baiting indignation, and Glenn Beck essentially do nightly stand-up — and that’s not even taking into account the 24/7 Vaudeville act over at Fox News. I watched The Daily Show laugh not at our mistakes but at our intentional absurdity.

Pazienza’s lengthy diatribe is largely depressing, as any bitterly honest look at network news is likely to be. But it ends on an uplifting note. As more and more households gain access to the internet, conventional news media will become increasingly irrelevant. Until the fateful day, though, when we can cast off the entrenched Old Guard, people need to constantly call them on their shit.

Awhile back I was watching a great documentary on the birth of the punk scene, it closed with former Black Flag frontman and current TV host Henry Rollins saying these words: “All it takes is one person to stand up and say ‘fuck this.’”

I truly hope so, because I’m finally doing just that.

And I should’ve done it a long time ago.

Amen.

The Appeal of the MacBook Air – John Gruber proselytizes for the MacBook Air a bit more, comparing it to a sexy convertible coupe (not unlike the iPod Mini or Nano). I pretty much agree with Gruber, and am still surprised that there is a strong group of people who foresee the MacBook Air failing. Would I buy it? No. But it is a good machine for a lot of people besides me. (Then again, this is a lot more than $50 we’re talking about; analogies only go so far.)

Things I have learned from mostly linkblogging for more than 10 years – Ben Tesch has been speaking to my heart lately with all of his ideas.

It makes sense that a video post and a photo post and an audio post look different, but why is there only one type of text post? Why is a Tweet handled in the same way as a 2,000-word essay? Where is the book or movie review type? Jason has done this kind of stuff for years, and had to manage entire multiple blogs just to do it. Why can’t I take a feed, create a new post template specifically for it, and plug the feed into it? And if I can, why is it so difficult?

Alltop.com – Like popurls.com except organized by topic. Click a topic and find the newest stories from at least thirty related sites. For example, click Science and get the top stories from New Scientist, Nature, New York Times, ABC, and more. Or in their own words:

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections—”aggregations”—into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as celebrity gossip, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page.

In an all-too-long post, Ben Brown (self-professed internet rockstar) laments the failings of Facebook, likening it to a Walmart or Costco with a collection of mediocre crap that “just happen to be conveniently located in the same place.” In other words, Facebook has become another example of a faceless big business, and we as internet denizens would do better to frequent the Mom & Pop sites run by people that provide a better service with more heart. (Sites that, for instance, aren’t overrun by advertising or useless applications like vampire bites.)

My problems with such a conclusion is that it lacks any substance. It’s all clouds and sweet talking. Firstly, as Andrew Dupont puts it, “these are valid critiques of Facebook, but they’re also critiques of social networking sites in general, to varying degrees.” There is a clear catch-22 faced by any social network: in order to be popular, and oftentimes successful, the site needs (by definition) a lot of users. Having a lot of users, however, makes room for misuse of the system, resulting in “Facebook friends” and pointless add-ons. (Not to mention that advertising is the name-of-the-game these days, and your site is not lasting long without a good advertising model in place.)

Ultimately, the onus is on the user base to shape the system. If everyone on Facebook was more conservative in their use of the site, there would be little to complain about. But the users are by-and-large doing whatever makes them happy. This is not a bad thing at all, except for the few users who have become fed up with what has happened to their beloved Facebook. Again, it depends on how you use the site. I hate all the things Ben hates, but for whatever reason (perhaps due to who I have and have not added to my friends) I rarely come across these annoyances.

Yes, I agree that Facebook has gone downhill in some ways since its inception, but it has also improved in other ways. Furthermore, any complaints you levy against it, barring those dealing with privacy issues (Facebook, you underhanded bastards), can also be applied to any other social network. What social network has not grown more cumbersome as the number of users increased?

Secondly, what are these Mom & Pop social networks we should be supporting? Smaller social networks are inherently less useful in general. They may provide exponentially more utility in specific areas (such as Doostang, which is only for business networking), but hardly offer the broad reach that a site like Facebook offers. Another option like Virb is certainly much prettier than MySpace, but it will be covered in just as much spam as soon as it gets big. (Granted, it will be pretty spam.)

Finally, I have to stress there is nothing innately wrong with Facebook (in theory). Cry all day about it, but social networking is ultimately about (you guessed it) being social, and that is simply fun to do in a huge community where all of your friends live. It is important to understand that moving to a smaller social network would be like leaving Verizon for a cell phone provider with a fraction of the customers and the ability to only communicate within the network. The mom and pop cell phone service might be crystal clear, cheap as hell, and have loving customer service out the wazoo, but don’t go denying the substantial utility involved in being in a network with all of your friends just because it cost a bit more and sounds a bit crappier.

Web-based e-mail systems already contain much of what Facebook calls the social graph — the connections between people. That’s why the social networks offer to import the e-mail address books of new users to jump-start their list of friends. Yahoo and Google realize that they have this information and can use it to build their own services that connect people to their contacts.

(Of course, Yahoo unveils a new social network every month.)

Google is as tight-lipped as ever, but Yahoo is a bit more generous with information. The company is working on so-called Inbox 2.0, a project to add several features to the Yahoo Mail service. For example, the inbox will function socially, users will have profile pages, and other Yahoo services will be integrated to present a unified social experience.

Google, on the other hand, has only commented that they “believe there are opportunities with iGoogle to make it more social,” and “it is much easier to extend an existing habit than to create a brand.”

The most obvious question is, “Why ignore Orkut and Yahoo Mash (and so on)?” How will the expansion of iGoogle and My Yahoo differ from those ventures? Right now, admittedly from the very little information available, the whole thing seems like Google and Yahoo are trying to (essentially) create Facebook, except with “email” instead of “messages”. Sure, Google and Yahoo could provide a more useful front page (though, more social?) and gather more users, but those are not fundamental differences.

Then again, assuming these projects are successful, a well-designed network with millions of users would certainly have enough gravity to pull people from Facebook and MySpace. Facebook is doubly vulnerable, since it lost its main attraction once its doors were opened to the non-collegiate public. MySpace, on the other hand, continues to be a piece of shit, which I guess makes it doubly vulnerable as well.

(And while on the topic of sweet uses for sweet things: Foamee, a Twitter service that “helps track who you owe beers to (and vice versa)”.)