I can’t be 100% sure, but I think WIRED Magazine writer Clive Thompson is lurking around my blog. He’s never made a comment, but I believe its only because that would surely be used as evidence that he, in fact, reads Friday Traffic Report and steals my ideas.
Smart move Clive. Smart move.
In January 2007 I wrote what was, in my mind, a Pulitzer Prize winning piece on how to deal with the mass of information an authority site publisher must wrangle in order to keep up on their niche.
The the conclusion I included a sub head “Go From Information Overload to Information Overlord.” This is how I know that Thompson is not only a reader of the Friday Traffic Report, but that he’s been lurking here for quite some time.
In this month’s WIRED, Thompson has an article called…wait for it…”Information Overlord.” I could rest my case here in most circles and wait for the court’s decision.
But it gets even worser.
Thompson’s article is all about the problems associated with social media, multiple accounts on social sites, avalanches of emails, and general discord in managing the mass of information production on the web today. I know, I just got goosebumps too. Eerie! Its like he’s stalking me!
The saving grace for Thompson, idea stealing aside, is his mention of a neat tool called Twine. Twine is a semantic robot helper for information overlords. It can pour through all your data from emails to websites of any and all kinds and recommend things you might be interested in based on a semantic data crunching of all your, well, data.
What’s cool is that no matter how much you try to stay organized and on top of your market, there is just way too much information out there in most niches to keep up on. Plop social sites and all the websites you frequent regardless of the “category” they fall into, and you are definitely missing some cool stuff.
Twine seeks to help us Overlords by finding the nuggets we miss and presenting them to us like a loyal dog looking for a scratch behind the ear and an “atta boy!”
From Twine.com: “Powered by semantic understanding, Twine automatically organizes information, learns about interests and makes recommendations. The more you use Twine, the better it gets to know you and the more useful it becomes.”
Thompson cautions that Twine is “a rickety pioneer…its interface is pretty awful; if often cannot mine a badly designed Web page” (Thompson, WIRED, “Information Overlord,” 2008) but we have to allow machines time to learn. Otherwise who is going to take our kids to school for us or farm the human population for our precious electric power generation in 2025?
Twine is in Beta, invite only. When the machines are ready for you, they will allow you access.
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To paraphrase my favorite Caddy, Carl Spackler:
“Hey, Clive… hey, how ’bout a little something, you know… for the effort…”
Even Info Overlords like Jack need Link Love.
Walt
Yeah, Clive… what Jack said…thanks for the heads-up on Twine. Looks like it has potential.
Jack,
I can see you on the cover of Wired already! “Top Blogger Stalked by Staff Writer”.
Really, I am not surprised that traditional media dudes (and dudettes) read blogs for inspiration and entertainment. They may, in fact, be the perfect crowd for blogs… they highly value original thoughts and actually read text.
Maybe that’s why services that offer up blog content to media moguls like Blogburst.com and Helium.com are doing so well these days.
Hey, I’ll be looking for your first article in Wired in a few months… hmmm, I wonder what it will be about?
Peter
Peter’s last blog post..Social Marketing With Luv
Jack –
As usual, your ahead of the pack.
Twine definitely looks like it has potential for the information overload age that is rapidly upon us!
M
Maria Reyes-McDavis’s last blog post..Targeting Different Types of Social Media Audiences
I totally vote for Jack being on the cover of wired magazine.
But, I’d REALLY love to see him on Business 2.0 as one of the FEW people who figured out how to make money while all the “neo dot.com busters” are massively overvalueing Social Networking sites – while Google revenues are shrinking – fewer people click Adwords ads – and most of them are losing money hand over fist keeping up with bandwidth costs (re: facebook) and getting killed on “Applications” that don’t MAKE ANY MONEY!
It’s time for the big league social networking sites to figure out how to grow up.
“In my humble, but accurate, opinion.” all hail Jack Humphrey!
Rick Butts’s last blog post..LIVE Internet Marketing After Party TV broadcast
Hey Jack – I tried 3 times to “digg” this story.
It comes up and said this is a bad URL – I did a search by URL for it – no go.
But I did Stumble it – and Delicios it, and Furl it, Google Bookmark it.
That’s how strong my “luv” is! (Humble Pie)
Rick
Rick Butts’s last blog post..LIVE Internet Marketing After Party TV broadcast
Hey Jack
Even though I am not as big as you are yet…I am still searching for my 100 rss subscriber but I know that is coming soon…anyway I did a piece on a some news that hit my city about a protest that some moms were planning on one of the local newspapers… I sent the link to a couple of people in my email lists; a couple of friends and family… and I know they forwarded it… apparently my mom forwarded it to her good friend who is a staff reporter at the newpaper did an article on the protest…how did I know that she got my info… one of my sources where was featured in the article… while I can’t prove it… I know…and all I wanted was a little luv if you are going to use my info…
I never would have known she wrote the story if it wasn’t for you and the idea of google alerts…thanks big buddy!
Ryan
Ryan Hodge’s last blog post..GMC Topkick Dual-Suspension Mountain Bike
Hey Jack –
I found this posting while doing some egregious ego-surfing on Technorati!
Actually, I wish I could lay claim to the plagiarism — information overlord is such a superbly cool that I’d be happy merely to have *stolen* it — but alas, I didn’t write the headline to the piece. Writers almost never do; they’re generally the work of the editors. So now the question is, which Wired editor is lurking on this site?
Great blog, BTW. I’ve got you in my RSS feed now!
Clive’s last blog post..Why is the science of interrogation so neglected?
The plot thickens! I wondered how long it would take you to find someone accusing you of such an act.
Thanks for stopping by. You’re my man on the inside now. I will be sending you a plain envelope with no return address with further instructions along with a cool little spy camera you can wear the next time you have lunch with Evan Hansen.
hello there jack, as the one and only information overlord
since 2004 I have obviously instructed the lawyers to go after you and Clive LOL.
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