Scientists experimenting with Twitter bots found that the bots could “shape” activity on Twitter to some extent. They’re continuing their studies to get a better understanding of what they’re seeing. [Link]
The origin of the study was explained by Tim Hwang, one of the authors of a research paper describing the socialbot experiments. “A lot of people you can hire now say they are really good at community engagement. Can we measure those claims?”
From the paper linked above:
… although each socialbot was able to connect only a relatively small portion of users from its target group, the findings of this study are extremely signi cant. These findings indicate the fi rst successful attempts at automatically and programmatically shaping the topology of online communities. Further, while the scale of this study was relatively small, socialbots are designed to be light, efficient, and entirely automatic { and thus, easily deployable in large swarms. We believe this study marks the rst step towards demonstrating the ability of such technologies to shape online communities at a large scale.
Wonder if this means we’ll have swarms of marketing bots flooding Twitter and other social systems?
At “JOHO the Blog,” David Weinberger has a simple and very cool summary of the meaning of yesterday’s SOPA-induced blackout. “This is our Internet. We built it. We built it for us, not for you. We get to turn off the lights, not you.” Yes, indeed. It took a long time for the the Internet to smell like money to those folks who like that smell more than they like the smell of creativity, innovation, fellowship, commons, etc. Now it’s a platform for all media in digital formats that are easily replicated, therefore distribution is hard to control. Much of what flows across the Internet is freely shared by its creators, and there’s also channels for media that people pay for (like Netflix). A system that facilitates all that sharing, along with a high degree of interactivity, also makes it easy to do the natural sort of sharing that peopel will inherently do. Content providers could spend less time figuring out how to stop sharing, and more time figuring out how to build a business model that works in a social/sharing environment. People who invest time and money in media creation and production have a right to charge for it, but we need to rethink how that works in the 21st century networked world.
As a follower of the “Quantified Self” work catalyzed by Kevin Kelly et al, I was eager to see Laurie Frick’s exhibit “Quantify Me” at “women and Their Work” – Marsha and I hung out there last night exploring the aesthetic representation of Frick’s mind.
Using her background in engineering and technology she explores self-tracking and compulsive organization. She creates life’s most basic patterns as color coded charts. Steps walked, calories expended, weight, sleep, time-online, gps location, daily mood as color, micro-journal of food ingested are all part of her daily tracking. She collects personal data using gadgets that point toward a time where complete self-surveillance will be the norm.
Though I’m interested in the subject, I’m not into self-surveillance because it takes too much metatime. I’m a cyborg at heart, but not particularly organized about my cyborganic data. Building a project like this around it is a way to make it more attractive to track and evaluate processes of body and mind.
Bruce Sterling and I are holding forth in our annual State of the World conversation on the WELL. Here’s the short url for access: http://bit.ly/yNcL9L If you have questions or comments for us, and you’re not a member of the WELL, just send them to inkwell at well.com.
See larger image Gothic High-Tech (Hardcover) By (author) Bruce Sterling List Price: $25.00 USD New From: $16.50 In Stock New short story collection from Bruce Sterling. “He’s the legendary Cyberpunk Guru. He roams our postmodern planet, from the polychrome tinsel of Los Angeles to the chicken-fried cyberculture of Austin… From the heretical Communist slums of [...]
Discovered that this interview is no longer findable online, so I’m republishing it here. A version of this was published in bOING bOING (the ‘zine) in 1993 or 1994. We were sitting in a circle on the floor at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, March ’93 in San Francisco, St. Jude and I with [...]
The idea that there’s a set of consistent first principles behind the existence and operations of the universe is undermined by evidence of a multiverse – many universes with potentially different properties – and the existence of “dark matter.” In this universe and on this planet, we’ve had just the right conditions for life – [...]
Adriana discusses her thinking about heterarchy, including initial thoughts about five laws of heterarchy. “Hierarchies seem to be like oxygen: they’re all around us, pervasive, visible only to those who study them. Hierarchies are the most efficient system for management and distribution of scarce resources… given that the physical world is defined by scarcity of [...]
The Internet of Things, predicted by Bruce Sterling around 2006, is happening. Steve Lohr in the NY Times explores the mainstreaming of the idea: “… the protean Internet technologies of computing and communications are rapidly spreading beyond the lucrative consumer bailiwick. Low-cost sensors, clever software and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new [...]
Extreme slow motion video of a pulse of laser light passing through a Coke bottle. “We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize propagation of light at an effective rate of one trillion frames per second. Direct recording of light at such a frame rate with sufficient brightness is nearly impossible. We [...]
The Voyager program’s data transmissions, including images of the most distant planets in the solar system and data about galaxies beyond, offer “an unprecedented view of our own galaxy.” [Link]
We recently watched all episodes of HBO’s intense, realistic miniseries about the brutal and devastating war in The Pacific; it was a jaw-dropping experience – watching human beings blow each other apart, a real nightmare of violence. I was realizing how transformative that experience would be – you can’t go home again after that kind [...]
Naomi Wolf in The Guardian: we hear that Occupy Wall Street has no clear message, but is it precisely because the dis-organization has a clear message, set of goals, and growing force that we’re seeing efforts to shut the 24/7 demonstrations down? The mainstream media was declaring continually “OWS has no message”. Frustrated, I simply [...]
Underlying many of the issues you discuss, it seems to me that there is a fundamental unwillingness to understand, appreciate and acknowledge the complexity of the world we live in. Be it economics, politics, healthcare, climate, technology - the underlying systems complexity is increasing dramatically, while the media, statesmen, policy makers etc insist on […]
There's a differentiation of meanings on this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz where a distinction is made between the modern German use of the word and the original idea from the early 1800's [Read entire topic] […]
That's M-W's definition, really? I was taught that it had to do with feeling the pain of the world, not just being disappointed in it. [Read entire topic] […]
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weltschmerzWeltschmerz: mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal stateThanks and a tip o' the hat to Garry Golden for the pointer to this relevant definition. [Read entire topic] […]
I just wandered in from a very good talk at the University of Texas by Elizabeth Churchill of Yahoo Research (http://elizabethchurchill.com/). I was there with my pals Gregory Foster, Bill Anderson, and David Ryan, all Austin-based technologists. Another friend, tech entrepreneur Tristan Slominski, was across the room. The rest were mostly UT students.Church […]
Wish I could share some "analog geolocative presence" and some nice older tequila. Instead, a digital gesture of a toast to you and to the future and to the beauty of the unfolding sky, from here in San Francisco. [Read entire topic] […]
Commonly I end these WELL things in some personal burst of visionary eloquence. Last year, I wrote a long culture-critic essay all about Cibelle. Cibelle, the London-Sao Paulo multi-artist. I just heard from Cibelle. Cibelle's still performing her music, in extravagant costume, with video, but she told me that she'd like to go to art school and get […]
Our 8th edition will be held once again at the AT&T Conference Center on the University of Texas campus on Saturday, February 18th from 8:15 AM - 4:30 PM. You know the drill. This is your chance to share and exchange knowledge on any Product Management or Marketing topic with your peers, host a session to demonstrate your leadership, practice your pres […]
Getting the ball rolling on the SxSW community builders meetup. Location, Date and time are tentative. If anyone has good connections anywhere to get some free drinks or something, hit me up. Spinks@zaarly.com When: March 11-20, 2012 Where: The Ginger Man Attendees: 79 Comments: 0 […]
An amazing future-focused "sense event" exploring the emerging worlds of sensation, performance, innovation, and human advancement. FEATURING: :: Simulated and imagined spaces, Augmented Reality, :: Immersive sensory enhancement and processing, :: Neural feedback and brainwave connected devices, :: 3D / holographic worlds, :: Gaming and content cre […]
http://www.tedxaustin.com/ APPLY NOW: http://www.eventbee.com/v/tedxaustin2012/event?eid=841131375 Applications accepted online until November 11th, 2011. Invitations to register and waitlist notifications sent on December 11th, 2011. Registration due on January 11th, 2012. Event held on February 11th, 2012. Attendance is by invitation only. TEDxAustin is pr […]
Bruce Sterling and I are holding forth in our annual State of the World conversation on the WELL. Here’s the short url for access: 
