Paul Dix Explains Nothing

Digg's New Recommendation Engine has a Classic Problem

Mashable recently posted about an upcoming feature addition to Digg: a recommendation engine. After reading the post and watching Kevin's screen cast on the new feature, I think it looks interesting. Improving the signal to noise ratio on Digg is definitely a good idea and I think a recommendation engine is a step in the right direction. However, the system as described by Kevin has a big hole in it: it's worthless to people with no digging history or friends.

This is a typical problem in recommendation systems. How do you make the system useful to users for which you have no data? If you look at usage patterns for users on UGC (user generated content) websites, this isn't a small problem. Numbers for web sites I've worked on have < 5% of users submitting content, and < 10% of users voting on content. I have no idea what Digg's numbers are, but I'm sure they're not too far off. This means the new recommendation system is completely useless for around 90% of the people that use Digg.

The news isn't all bad though. It's a short stretch to implement recommendation systems that are based on item similarity. This way a user that has no history on Digg could come to a news item and click a link that says "find me more on Digg like this." The methods aren't that much different than the user similarity measures. In fact, the users that are voting help create their own recommendations are also giving the system the data it needs to calculate these item recommendations.

Another method is to collect passive data like a user clicking on a news link on Digg. They're not actively voting the article up or down, but there is an implicit indication of interest in the article. You can then use this data to make a guess about what the user may like. So this method requires a little bit of data, but doesn't require the user to be an "active digger."

In any case, I think it will be interesting to see how they continue to develop the system. The information filtering space is one that will only become more important as the exponential growth of content continues.

You Can't Trust People to Use Nofollow Links

Here's a quick comment that is somewhat unrelated, but inspired by this post about tailrank blocking PayPerPost bloggers. The reason what I have to say is somewhat unrelated is because it's not about PayPerPost. It's about using nofollow links. Kevin states that most of the links in that post were nofollow and that the PayPerPost bloggers can avoid getting banned on TailRank by making their paid links nofollow. I think it's admirable that Kevin is trying to make good use of nofollow, but I fear it's an exercise in futility.

I almost never use nofollow links.  I just go with the default in the editor and hope the crawler or index service sorts everything out.  As a little test, I used no follow links in my last post.  It really wasn't that difficult, but it definitely took extra effort.  Given that I'm a technical guy, albeit a lazy one, and even I don't regularly use nofollow links, I think the chances of getting the regular blogger to use them are slim.

Oh well, at least I'll try to be responsible from here on out.  I don't do PayPerPost, I just want to play friendly for TailRank and any other crawlers.

technorati tags:web, tailrank, nofollow

NY Tech Meetup and NextNY Social

I went to the NY Tech Meetup last night.  I've been a member of the group for a while, but this is the first event I attended. For those who don't know, here's the description: "6 people get 5 minutes each to demo something cool to New York's tech community (geeks, investors, entrepreneurs, hackers, etc)." So here the presenters in order:

Oliver with Donors Choose was up first. The site is a bridge between teachers who need money to run projects in the classroom and donors. The teacher posts a project proposal with a needed amount on the site and donors can than contribute to the cause. At the end of the project the contributing donors get a packet of information that includes photos of the project, thank you notes from the kids and other information. This is all routed through Donors Choose and lets the donor see how their money is used.

Byron was up next with Proto. Proto is a desktop application written in C# that lets users create mashups for their desktop. Two pieces of software make up the application: the visual development environment and the viewer, which is required to view mashups created with Proto. One of the mashups Byron showed off was a combination of SalesForce data and the user's local Outlook email. Proto is running a contest for users to create mashups.

Timothy demo'd Evaal. I think it's some kind of search engine. I couldn't really divine the purpose of it during the demonstration so I made a note to check it out before this post. After spending a few minutes playing around on their site, I have to say that I'm still confused as to what this thing does. Anyone who understands the concept want to give an elevator pitch?

Payoneer was the last company demo of the night.  It looks like a method for web sites (or anybody for that matter) to get branded prepaid mastercards.  Yuval pitched it as a way for websites that pay out to users for one reason or another to do it through these cards.  The site can issue these cards to their users and when it comes time to pay a commission or share revenue, it can be done instantaneously through by adding money to the prepaid card.

Lee gave a demo of hacking a Furby, which was a nice change of pace.

After the tech meetup I headed over to Bua to meet some of the NextNY group members.  From the NextNY site: "...a fun way to connect both socially and professionally with young people who have a stake in future of tech and new media in New York City."  I met a bunch of cool people and I look forward to the next NextNY meetup.  It was great to talk technology and startups with a bunch of similarly motivated people.  I think these events show how vibrant the NYC tech and startup community is.

technorati tags:nyc, tech, meetup, nextny

Google New York Speaker: Adam Bosworth

Last night I attended the first of the Google New York Speaker Series.  It was a talk given by Adam Bosworth titled "Physics, Speed, and Imprecision: What Works and What Doesn't in Software, and Why".  The description for the event had me hoping that Adam would talk mostly about machine learning and natural language processing (two topics I am very interested in).   Mostly it was about how different changes in computing and connectivity have changed what is possible over the last ten years.  Specifically, how AJAX has become usable over the last few years despite Adam and his team releasing the underlying technology back in '97.

Even though the talk was not as technically deep as I was expecting, it was entertaining and Adam discussed a few points of interest.  I took notice of his points about designing user interfaces for the web, when to worry about rich internet applications (RIA), and AJAX in general.  One thing was to consider is how often your users are going to be working in the application and design accordingly.  In the case of a spreadsheet, document, or mail program you can design assuming that these will be high use applications.  Thus things like hotkeys, context menus, toolbars and other little bits can make things easier and faster for regular users.  But in the case of an application that only gets used once a week, once a month, or once a year you generally start taking out these kinds of features because the users just aren't going to remember the ins-and-outs of all these different applications.

One of the examples used was "a large online bookselller" (I think it's safe to assume Amazon).  The argument was that since the customers of Amazon only use the site an average of once a month, it has no use for a RIA style interface.  While I can agree with that, I think Amazon can definitely make better use of AJAX.  There are tons of little things that could be done to their site that wouldn't change the UI in any way.  The addition of little AJAX features would just make it a lot more responsive.  Take for example the Wish Lists.  I use my wish list on Amazon to keep track of books that I would like to eventually read and leave it up for family members looking to buy me something on holidays.  Managing this list is a pain in the ass.  To change the priority on an item I have to hit the dropdown and click save which then triggers a complete page reload.  There's no way to change priorities or delete on more than one item at a time.  I think there are other ways to improve this interface, but they would definitely complicate things.  However, the simple addition of AJAX to this interface would keep it identical while making things speedier.  Hit delete on an item and AJAX takes care of it instead of a complete page reload.  The UI is exactly the same, it's just quicker.  Change the priority on an item, click save, and AJAX takes care of it.  Again, the UI is the same, it's just quicker.  I guess it would change the fact that the user doesn't see a complete page reload, but things like the yellow fade technique can keep things intuitive.

Adam's talk definitely covered other topics, but this was one I latched onto.  Everyone debates over whether different applications should even use AJAX.  I think that almost any web application can benefit from quicker response and avoiding entire page reloads.  The trick is just to recognize when and where to use it.  Thanks to Adam and Google for a fun thought provoking event!

P.S. For those interested, Google should be posting video of the talk soon.  I'll put up a link when I see it online.

Tags: google nyc ajax

I've Just Had My Mind Blown

I've never heard the term z-space used before, but apparently it refers to a zooming user interface.  Creating Passionate Users made the reference and stated that you could  Blow your mind in Z-space.  I checked out the Bill Harvey site along with the designer sofake and well... my mind has been blown.  Very cool.

iPod Nano

My iPod Nano was delivered today!  My old iPod died a while ago and I've just been using the shuffle.  I couldn't resist buying this thing.  However, I am a little disappointed.  I ordered the black version, which looks totally sweet, but the headphones are white!  I'm surprised that Apple didn't keep things consistent with black headphones for the black versions.  Did the U2 iPod have the same problem?  Anyway, I'll be enjoying this sweet baby on the subway ride to campus tomorrow.