Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Dusty - trampled but not out

I can not believe that it is nearly 2 months since my last blog update.

Creating content such as this blog entry (though seeming trivial) does contribute in its own way to the encyclopedia that is the web ! Every person with their specific combination of interests flavored by their past experiences can provide quite a bit of diverse opinions on a multitude of subjects.

Pushes me to ask the question - In this internet age, what is content ? a video of a 3 year old break dancing, a poem by a middle school student, a comment in the feedback section of a blog ?

Well I think content is anything accessible. The success of the mobile web will be to provide a simple gateway to access the required information. The challenge in search has always been to identify in what context one is executing the search.

My expectation is that in mobile search, when I type in almond and my location has been identified as being in a grocery store, I should see results for comparism pricing and availability at nearby stores; elsewhere, maybe in a park, I should see images and short description of what an almond looks like; and in a restaurant the calorie content !

Will someone perform a search on a mobile device and drill into the search results to see if the Rolling Stones are playing in Denver ? There might be some folks who would do that, but unlikely.

Not only does the information need to be pushed to the user relevant to where they are but maybe also along the lines of what they have specified as their interests.

PS: How I wish I could culture myself to keep this blog active.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Swarming - not Bees but Us !

A new term I got introduced to over the weekend is "Swarming". I got the following from WordSpy as a definition

"The rapid gathering of friends, family, or colleagues using technologies such as cell phones, pagers, and instant messaging"


I looked up on Wiki the meaning of Swarm intelligence and got blown away by what I read -

"Swarm intelligence (SI) is artificial intelligence based on the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems."

A paradigm introduced in 1989, is very relevant to the current trend of social networking. Aren't humans self-organized systems ?

It is interesting to note that technology is currently used to link together elements of a known set. Pushing the limit would require data from a larger set contributing towards decisions made in a smaller set and this decision fed back into the larger domain to help make decisions in other smaller sets.

In my opinion, people are natural discoverers and connoisseurs to varying degrees. There is a tendency to also visit and experience for themselves the benefits documented by others who have blazed a trail to a location.

Similarities can be drawn in the foraging behaviour of bees and the socializing behaviour of humans. A favored patch could be a popular watering hole (a bar).

It would be of tremendous advantage if information is provided to enable decisions to be made. To share information in a very immediate and innovative way similar to a “waggle dance” or leave dissipating pheromone trails as used in an ant colony. Instant information is very prevalent in the Web 2.0 world, but dissipating trail ? It's very relevant to humans socializing. Why have a nasty experience visiting a restaurant that is now a dried up water hole ?