Wonderful article in the New York Times today about a study that was done online regarding music preferences done with, and without, social influences. Paul Kedrosky says that it largely recapitulates the Matthew effect, wherein “the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer”, while Mat Ingram says that it echoes the Digg effect, but I think that there’s one particular paragraph that deserves special attention.

In our artificial market, therefore, social influence played as large a role in determining the market share of successful songs as differences in quality. It’s a simple result to state, but it has a surprisingly deep consequence. Because the long-run success of a song depends so sensitively on the decisions of a few early-arriving individuals, whose choices are subsequently amplified and eventually locked in by the cumulative-advantage process, and because the particular individuals who play this important role are chosen randomly and may make different decisions from one moment to the next, the resulting unpredictably is inherent to the nature of the market. It cannot be eliminated either by accumulating more information — about people or songs — or by developing fancier prediction algorithms, any more than you can repeatedly roll sixes no matter how carefully you try to throw the die.

[emphasis mine]

What does this mean? Only that early adopters have a great deal of influence on the selection of things that eventually explode and get “mainstream”. And as these researchers have shown, it could be that they have just as much influence as the intrinsic quality of that thing itself.

That is, things that get popular are not just popular because they are intrinsically good; rather, there is an equal chance that they get popular because some early adopters believe them to be good.

Like Mat Ingram posits, we can see this in social systems like Digg, where a certain few can influence many. And this creates a situation where, as Paul Kedrosky mentions, the phenomena of cumulative advantage can create improbable hits once these “hits” start gaining traction.

In fact, networked systems like the blogosphere and social networks can’t help but accelerate this phenomenon of cumulative advantage, particularly in genres of tastes which use or are influenced by the ‘net.

Which, I think makes the potential blogs all the more interesting and worthwhile, wouldn’t you say? :)

As it refers to the evolving discussion around the rapidly evolving technologies which are able to track and broadcast your activities 24/7, such as Twitter or Ustream, Mathew Ingram asks the question that begs to be asked: “How Much Is Too Much?”

The answer, I think, like all things is relative. But I think for most people, we passed a point of understanding when Twitter went supernova over South By SouthWest a few weeks ago. Ambient broadcasting tools such as UStream and Twitter, which enable you to broadcast what you’re saying, thinking, or doing while you’re doing it, have an importance which is directly proportional to

a) who is Twittering (or Ustreaming)
b) what they have to say and
c) who they are saying it to.

This sounds kind of obvious, but I’ll suggest that its really the first law of ambient broadcasting.

If the individual who was broadcasting was doing things that are relatively important to his or her audience, then those tools are Important. If they aren’t, then its not. And therefore, I think the word “relative” is key.

Twittering about making toast, going to the toilet, cutting your toenails and other crushingly banal activities make Twitter a useless tool. Unless, however, you had an unhealthy fascination with my particular morning habits, in which case it makes Twitter a fabulous tool (the stalker provision) Or, unless I was the kind of person that MOST people would find my morning habits somewhat interesting (the A-list provision).

The flipside, of course, is when Twitter is used to broadcast stuff that is genuinely interesting or worthwhile, irrespective of the audience. In this case, when its used for this purpose, Twitter is *always* useful. Twitter is *always* useful when its used to broadcast emergency notices, sudden and urgent events that are happening, or just-in-time news that isn’t readily available through normal channels. Its also useful, but less so, when its communicating things that could just as easily be communicated through normal channels, such as a blog or email list.

The rhythm and cadence of Twittering (and Ustreaming to a lesser extent) actually demonstrates an interesting dynamic between the broadcasting of the banal (which might be relatively interesting, or not) and the broadcasting of the important; that is, most chatter is usually banal, and its punctuate by periods of events or circumstances that are important to a great many individuals.

While I personally think that all of this is too much, as I don’t have a need to know certain things on a super-urgent basis, nor do I find the personal habits and routines of anyone truly fascinating, ambient broadcasting will have a niche because there are people that do — on both fronts.

And its clear who really benefits? (Seth Finklestein, are you listening? :)

1) People who already have lots of attention: And in the blogosphere, its people who already have large audiences, or large amounts of traffic to their blog. Its easy to see why: many people are already interested in the blogger and what he or she does. Twittering to a large audience merely reinforces that fact, and in turn, if the audience twitters back, is an exponential return on their time. In this case, some people *are* interested in the crushingly banal, for no other reason than they are minor celebrities (or notoriously so) in they’re own right. And it pays the A-lister back when people actually care or respond to their Twitters. Of course, for Ustreaming, the principle also applies. There is an attention “cost” that’s higher for watching full motion video (getting brief interruptions via Twitter “costs” less), but A-listers will be the beneficiaries of this kind of technology because they already have a built in audience who will be happy to “pay” to watch them.

2) People who are unique, odd, or shamelessly flamboyant: This is the YouTube effect. Or, call it Tubebait. There’s a reason why Justin.tv has taken off — its because it was the first, and he’s been a shameless (or brilliant) marketer of himself through these kind of technologies. Having sex on camera? Not out of bounds for Justin. If you’re willing to make a sheer spectacle out of yourself and shed the sense of shame most people would have in doing so, you just might find an audience for yourself through ambient broadcasting. While the person him or herself might not already be extraordinary, their activities *are*, which invites us all to participate in a peculiar kind of voyeurism.

Of course there are lists and lists for the “legitimate” reasons why this kind of technology is useful, but I’ll reiterate what I said above. The best reason why its useful is the just-in-time, or even “live” broadcasting of stuff that is important or interesting for many, many people, or even, “everyone”. A secret “live” broadcast of a concert. Live-twittering of a conference. Broadcasting true emergencies, like natural disasters.

But, the problem of course, is that these kinds of “real” events that are “important” happen relatively infrequently, which leads some of us to navel gaze and discuss the relative importance of these tools.

Twittering, Ustreaming, and a host of other technologies that have yet to be developed, enable us all to broadcast what we’re doing, how we’re doing *as* we’re doing it. There are clear benefits for certain individuals and in certain circumstances, and its in those circumstances that these tools have a real “use”.

But for most people who use it to watch others or to broadcast their own ideas, its pretty banal stuff, and to answer Mathew Ingram’s question — for most, yes, I think its far too much.

In a relative, sort of way, though. ;)

While I am utterly convinced of Google’s omnipotent base-owning and world-eating status, one does wonder if there is a message behind Matt Cutt’s (i.e. Google’s herald and wielder of the power cosmic) latest post on paid links. To summarize, it looks like Matt wants people to report to Google when they see paid links, because they want more “data” on the issue of paid links. Oh, its also the third post in a single day on paid links.

What’s the message behind the message?

Could it be that Google can’t find a way to effectively track paid links? The conspiracy theorist in me is also beginning to think that the only way Google can do this is through strictly human methods of snitching whistleblowing of reporting. Andy Beal wonders if this opens up a giant can of ethical worms, as there’s nothing to prevent individuals from reporting on their enemies “paid links” (when there might not be). GrayWolf wonders why there is such consternation and brow-furrowing when the existence of a market FOR links is propagated by Google itself.

Personally, I’m beginning to wonder whether or not if Google will EVER be able to meaningfully track paid links if they’re not overtly notified as such on your blog. Google’s worries are valid: paid links are fine for traffic, but not when it comes to alerting search engine results — or page rank. The problem is that links can be paid for and sold without any notification on your blog, and there would be impossible to tell. For example, not that I would do it (or AM doing it for that matter), but there is no way of knowing whether or not reviews of anything, including web2.0 properties, have been discretely paid for behind Google’s back. The presumption is that the link is “organic” and that its ranking in Google is based on the worth I’m placing towards the link destination.

Of course, the fact that it might be secretly paid for destroys the foundation of what link worth means. And possibly the underpinnings of how Google does what it does.

Is this Google’s Achilles Heel? Will Google ever be able to sort this out without resorting to the messy job of using puny humans to hunt for paid links? Would they resort to the FTC ruling on reporting word of mouth marketing to bludgeon bloggers into disclosing their paid links? Even if puny humans ARE sorting through blogs searching for paid links, COULD they ever find them all?

Right now, I’m thinking the answer to the latter is a resounding “no”. And if it is, it makes me wonder if the answer to the former is really “yes”.

I haven’t been blogging that long compared to many older bloggers, but in the ten months I have been doing this I have picked up on a thing or three. And its clear that the nature of “new media” whether it be blogging, wikis, podcasting, or social networking is not as clear-cut as the truths distributed by the high priests of the Cluetrain Manifesto, nor, on the other hand, the Establishment Apologist Rantings (or, the anti-anti-establish rantings, if you will) of Andrew Keen.

For example, is this new new world governed by total egalitarianism? Are we really living in a wonderful utopia where all voice are given equal thought as they ought to be as determined by their merit? Are markets really conversations, immune to, and laughing at businesses?

Well, it’d be nice if it was, but the answer to all of these questions is “not really”. While personal publishing tools allow anyone to start writing and publishing their thoughts, as evidenced by a recent blogging dust up, there is still a natural heirarchy in the currency of attention. Its partially dominated by early adopters of the medium, but it exists as naturally as fact as the sun rises in the east. Are blogs, wikis and podcasts conversations? Sure. Are they outside, immune to, or laughing at businesses? The answer to this is a resounding “no”, and can be summarized in one word: “PayPerPost”.

We don’t all use it, we’re definitely not all fans of it, but this company seems to encapsulate the zeitgeist that there are bloggers who are willing to sell their opinions for a price. You can rant all you like about how that’s not actually how it works; however, when you are paid for your opinion, good or bad, there cannot but be some kind of influence. And in this new media world we live in, bloggers are proud of their closer connections to industry; on one hand it allows them to get the scoop earlier and faster than traditional outlets. On the other hand, with appropriate disclosure, it seems like all kinds of conflicts of interest are acceptable.

Is there truth to the flipside? Is this just a cacophony of the unwashed, the uneducated, and the uncultured? Is mob mentality the rule of the day? Isn’t this just just an attempt at getting inward looking narcissistic drivel — and attitudes — to flourish? Again, the answer is “not really”.

The value in blogging, wikis, or podcasting is relative. Stuff that many people would label as self-important drivel may be correct; on the other hand, the authors of that self-important drivel don’t care — and more to the point, haven’t written or published it for the purposes of real public consumption. The ecosystem of new media is self regulating in many ways, as it ignores things that are without use to it, and promotes the things that are. For example, self-important drivel isn’t all that easy to find via search engines, but stuff that is often genuinely useful (to greater or lesser degrees) often is thanks to the other lingua franca of new media: links.

And this very blog has been the kind recipient of a whole ‘lot of links over the past ten months.

The nature of this new world of self-publishing, however, is that while there *is* a natural “attention” hierarchy that is naturally reinforcing, it is virtually frictionless to get started, as barriers around cost and ease of use are virtually nil. Poeple who have something genuinely interesting to say, or genuinely new or worthwhile to report in all of its relativistic wonder *can* get heard. Whether its the whistleblower who has to go on YouTube to make his point about Navy spending indiscretions, or podcasters getting “scouted” into mainstream media thanks to their self-directed efforts, or musicians eschewing traditional channels of distribution, yet still succeeding and selling records, successful examples of the relatively egalitarian nature of new media abound.

The truth and reality of new media is somewhere in between the Utopian ideals of the Cluetrain Manifesto and the anti-anti-Establishment rantings of Andrew Keen. We have tools to exist in a virtual ecosystem which is a meritocracy of opinion, although this has its limits and boundaries. Its an ecosystem which is prone to mob mentality and flash condemnation — but its also self-regulating environment, where all facts and opinions are naturally checked and checked again.

Furthermore, stuff that is truly important does float to the top – and does so quickly — because it doesn’t have to penetrate layers of entrenched self-reinforcing institutionalized bureaucracy, no matter what its form. Self-important drivel exists as well, but since its only written for a tiny audience anyway, its largely irrelevant to any real discourse on the issue. Anonymous instigators of abusive, puerile and hateful commentary exist as they always have. But like the pre-Mosaic era, they’re largely ignored.

The ecosystem of blogs, wikis, social networks, and podcasts is not a perfect system. But its a damn sight better than what existed before. There now exists a means for individuals that want to be heard and who have something worthwhile to say, to actually have a better chance of having it heard than ever before. On the other hand, its not a zero-sum game either. People and institutions who feel threatened by these changes need to take heart its greatest advantages, and realize that while we are still all trying to figure out what It All Means, there is more benefit to taking part than it is to deny its existence, or worse yet, take cheap shots from the sidelines.

Watch out, the echochamber is going to reverb endlessly throughout the weekend with this late friday announcement: Google has purchased DoubleClick for an astounding price of 3.1 billion dollars. And unlike YouTube, this deal has been in all cash. Valleywag connects the dots: DoubleClick handles logistics for the largest amount of banner advertising inventory on the Internet, while Google has the largest pool of internet advertiser’s on the Internet. Its a perfect match, with the synergies resulting in an all-encompassing titan that will destroy us all.

Or, merely own all of your bases.

In any case, its set a series of events in motion that will eventually squash all medium sized players in the ad-serving business. Its clearly a great day for Google watchers, and if you believe Steve Rubel, I’d start buying Google stock right about now*

In other news, the week hasn’t been so hot for Microsoft who was the Other Bidder for DoubleClick. It seems like its pwnage Google-styles is the the latest in a series of negative/ not-positive publicity, what with Microsoft’s decision to force Vista upon unsuspecting users in the upcoming year. “Master of the Known Universe” is a title that was owned by Microsoft from 1985 - 2004; the title changed hands in a hotly contested year when an upstart named “Google” decided to go public for what was then thought to be an astronomical sum of money.

Microsoft has not been available for further comment.

* I wish I owned Google stock

So just moments before I was about to push “publish” on an article named “CBS is Crazy: I Love Tech, But It Makes No Sense” about how CBS was “going” to replace Don Imus’s radio show (who I presume you know was recently fired for making racist comments about a black female basketball team), with Ed Kohler of Technology Evangelist, which is a tech podcast.

Seems like I was punk’d, though. And it seems like I wasn’t the only one.

I was about to rant on and on about how much I love technology, but how silly, stupid and short sighted this was on CBS’s behalf … blah blah blah … if they were going to go from a mainstream shock jock to a niche-oriented topic, they must have been smoking some fine ganja … blah blah blah … perhaps they’d be better off going with Leo Laporte who is as mainstream as any tech personality you’d ever meet … blah blah blah.

Well, as I said, good thing I caught myself in time, because it looks like a huge joke / hoax.

And as I pause and reflect on my own twitchy blogging fingers, its clear that tech bloggers, or perhaps, all bloggers, are prone to this kind of behaviour. We’ve been criticized before about not fact checking, contributing to an echochamber of opinion, and contributing to a general phenomena of going into mass hysteria at inappropriate times (OMG! Apple’s new dongle is teh haxor!).

All of those things may or may not be true (well, probably more true than not).

But I think that’s the beauty of blogging as well. While we are all prone to going off half cocked when we smell some tantalizing aroma of something particularly dishy (Microsoft alive / dead; Google making another acquisition; Mark Zuckerburg turning down even MORE money for Facebook; a new release date for Apple products; A-list blogger saying something smart / stupid), there is also a self-correcting phenomena where we usually are able to just as quickly turn around and correct ourselves.

It doesn’t always happen, which is unfortunate, but for the most part, the blogosphere does fact check *itself* — if for no other reason than there is a vested interest for bloggers who are able to point out a legitimate contrarian opinion, the incorrect facts, and debunk formerly-accurate news. That is to say, that in an economy of attention (which we bloggers trade in), there is a good reason to fact check itself.

But, it first starts with that piece of news. And at the end of the day, though, the very nature of blogging — news blogging, and I would argue Tech blogging in particular — does lend itself to twitchy bloggers who are dying to get the first word out about that particular issue.

And in doing so, we’re pathetically easy hoax bait if the bit of “news” is plausible enough, or it happens to get enough publicity through a well known news site or a-list blog.

What does this mean for online marketers or SEO types? Well you can add “hoax-bait” as a kind of “link-bait” as a means of content creation to try and create inbound links. As a strategic methodology, we can look to Lonelygirl15 as one of the first really big pieces of “hoax bait” that had the blogosphere in a frenzy trying to debunk.

But on the other hand, its one thing to be done once in a while in a tasteful fashion, and deliberately tongue-in-cheek. Its quite another thing to be done deliberately and purposefully, with nothing but a mercenary goal of links building in mind.

Because that way courts another feature of the blogosphere (often seen in the techie side): the predilection for a public lynching. And if you’re wondering what that feels like, heck, just ask Tim O’Reilly.

Update: blogging hoaxes aren’t new and it seems not limited to online bloggers either.

Joost, the service which is determined to bring high quality TV streaming to your PC, seems to be having its share of network problems at the moment, resulting in stuttery playback, and problems making appropriate connections. However, with an annoucement this morning through the WSJ, (summarized by PaidContent, as WSJ is behind a paid wall) they better prepare for more traffic, as it may be completing the most important part of its strategy: securing quality content.

Its not hard to see Joost’s potential, as it has a slick interface, and has quite a few social networking elements built in; with the pedigree behind its founders (the chaps behind Skype and Kazaa), plus the kind of buzz its been getting (which I have been shamelessly also contributing to), it looks like its going to be an exciting ride.

One of the biggest beefs I have with Joost, however, is its content. Right now the line up is, at best, what could be referred to as “niche” content. Well, that’s what I would qualify anime, brides-gone-crazy, soccer, and the world’s strongest man competition, anyway. For a full listing of their channels (along with their regional availability), go on and check out the channel line up.

The announcement is summarized by PaidContent, but it looks like CBS is bringing its stable of television shows, including NCIS, CSI, and the Evening News with Katie Couric to a number of partners, from MSN, to AOL, NBC (!), and yes, Joost. I think this is a great coup on Joost’s behalf, first of all, because it gets mentioned in the same breath as other major content distributors, but secondly, because they are bringing mainstream content to its service. Stuff that your grandma and niece might want to watch.

While the details still need to get sorted out, such as the revenue splits and so on, its a fantastic and encouraging step for Joost. Here’s hoping that its the first in many content deals with major content creators who deal in “mainstream” content. Yes, that means more television shows, or even (gasp), movies.