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Facebook’s Project Palantir: Beautiful Visualization Of People Connecting
A group of Facebook engineers - Jack Lindamood, Kevin Der and Dan Weatherford - have created a small project called Palantir at a Facebook Hackathon event. The project is named after The palantír of Orthanc, a crystal ball-like object from The Lord Of The Rings (yep, they’re nerds).
Anyway, it’s a video of the earth showing Facebook activity visually and geographically. One view shows activity as dots of light that flow upward. Another view shows connections between people around the globe as it occurs. The images above show a little of it, but you really have to see the video to appreciate it. You can see it here.
Facebook says they are strongly considering productizing this, but for now it isn’t on the roadmap. If they do go forward with it, presumably you’ll be able to watch friend connections happening all over the world.
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Google SearchWiki Is Back. Here’s How To Kill It For Good.
Cheers were heard across the Internet earlier today when Google’s new SearchWiki search interface inexplicably vanished. Perhaps, just maybe, it was gone for good. Or at least when it returned it would have an opt out feature.
Nope. Neither. It’s back and it’s still impossible to get out of it short of logging out of Google entirely. Lovely comments like the one above now scar Google’s once pristine search results page.
Here’s how you can get rid of SearchWiki for good if you were unfortunate enough to accept it in the first place: use a Greasemonkey script created by Austrian developer Franz Enzenhofer and just click a button to turn it off. Instructions are here.
This should hold you over until Google adds an opt-out button.
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Google Relies On Akamai To Stream YouTube Live; 700,000 Concurrent Viewers
Speculation was rampant the last few weeks that Google had to rely on a third party content delivery network to make the YouTube Live live concert stream properly at scale. Despite the fact that Google has it’s own quite impressive CDN, streaming live video (as opposed to progressive downloads, which YouTube has historically relied on) is hard stuff. And expensive - you have to license Adobe’s Flash Media Server, or a competitor like Wowza, and pay at least a couple of cents per gigabyte transferred on top of normal costs.
We’d heard rumors that Google had partnered with one of the big three live streaming services - Mogulus, Ustream or Justin.TV. And in fact Google has met with all of those startups to discuss partnerships or an outright acquisition.
But instead of working with them, or building their own streaming media CDN, they chose to work with Akamai. Google won’t confirm this, but it’s fairly trivial to detect (see screen shot below). Why did they go with Akamai instead of partnering? One key factor may be that Mogulus, Ustream and Justin.tv haven’t streamed live events with much more than 100,000 simultaneous viewers (correction: one person associated with Justin.tv emails to say they’ve hit “well over 400,000″), so tonight’s concert would have been an experiment in scalability for them.
It appears based on public Akamai data that about 700,000 people were watching the YouTube concert at its peak. There’s more information on the Mogulus blog, but basically Akamai was serving about 150,000 live streams across its networks right before the event started, and 863,000 at the peak of the concert.
All this expensive CDN infrastructure really isn’t necessary to handle live video streams effectively. P2P software can handle it effectively and far cheaper since the users are serving most of the video to others. That requires getting software directly onto user’s computers, however, something Joost tried and has mostly abandoned. Eventually this stuff will likely just be built into the browser directly.
One thing tonight proved - Akamai may be expensive, but it sure does work. I wonder if Google will let them issue a press release about it.
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On Air: YouTube Kicks Off Its First Live Event
We’re at the YouTube Live event in San Francisco, which is bringing together a number of celebrities, YouTube favorites, and musicians to celebrate the past year in viral videos. The show is being held in front of a live audience of 3000 people, with millions of people tuning in worldwide to watch the first live-streamed event in YouTube’s history. You can watch the event above.
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Google SearchWiki Vanishes (Updated)
Users are reporting that the recent changes to Google’s search engine, called SearchWiki, have simply disappeared from the site. It’s certainly gone from my account.
I was (and remain) highly critical of SearchWiki, which was announced two days ago and became the default search interface for anyone who opted into it. The changes allowed users to move search results up or down on a page (or remove them entirely), add public comments, and add entirely new results to the page (there is a good overview of all features here).
User reactions were mixed but weighted heavily towards “this is lame,” and there was no way to turn off the features other than to conduct Google searches without being logged in. Another way to turn it off was to switch search engines.
I’ve emailed Google for a comment.
Update: Google says that this is a bug and is working on restoring SearchWiki now (and by “now” they mean right after the Youtube concert):
“We’re really sorry that people can’t use SearchWiki at the moment - we’re working to fix the problem as quickly as we can. Please bear with us.”
Update 2: It’s back. Here’s how to get rid of it again using a Greasemonkey script.
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EU Presents Ambitious Open-Source Library Digitization Project, Site Promptly Crashes
This is a guest post by Kathlyn Clore, Associate Editor at the European Journalism Centre who was kind enough to write this report for us after attending the press event.
A cadre of European politicians gathered Thursday at the Museum of the 18th century in Brussels to launch Europeana, a digital museum that allows visitors to explore classic paintings, photos, recordings and texts in the same manner in which it is possible to search, say, Amazon.com.
Trying to access Europeana on the day of its launch, though, was akin to navigating the Vatican Museums in the tourist-thick month of August. It was impossible to see anything, as the project’s three servers were totally overwhelmed.
The Commission said Saturday in a press release that the site received about 10 million hits per hour throughout Thursday - double server capacity. The site was taken down Friday evening and is expected to be back up in mid-December.
Europeana’s three servers are located in the Hague, where the project is headquartered, but programmers plan eventually to put mirror servers around the world.
A pair of Dutchmen programmed Europeana in about 10 weeks, said technical developer Eric Van der Meulen. They added the final two of 21 European languages, Finnish and Hungarian, at 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
Europeana, which is still in beta, was programmed using only open source applications, Van der Meulen said.
“Once we get the thing finished and stabilized, we want to be able to put this down as an open source application so other people can look at it and go, ‘Ok how did you do this?,’ and ‘Wow, maybe we can use this for something.’ The future of computing is open source and not only that but you can get a lot of input from all over the world this way.”
Technical challenges included harvesting and normalizing metadata from more than 1,000 different museums and libraries from around Europe. Half of participating cultural heritage institutions so far are French. The Louvre in Paris, the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (which contributed footage shot on French battlefields in 1914) and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam are three of the biggest participating museums.
Europeana is an outgrowth of The European Library, on which Van der Meulen also worked. But it has in the press been compared to Google’s Library Project. Copyright concerns are abundant in all three projects.
Viviane Reding, European commissioner for media, worked to bring the European Digital Library to fruition prior to realizing Europeana.
Issues of intellectual property will certainly complicate Reding’s goal of adding 10 million more objects over the next two years. The project will receive 2 million Euro over the next two years for that goal, said European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday. For now, all objects on Europeana are in the public domain.
Reding said Thursday that she encourages users of the site to ‘remix’ what’s available. Moving forward, she plans to facilitate dialogue among various stakeholders to find a way to legally include contemporary works. Nobody wants a black hole when it comes to artifacts from the 21st century, she stated. In particular, she said she will continue discussions with books publishers in order to arrange for digitization of orphan works.
The difference between Europeana and existing library projects, though, is in the diversity of digital objects available on Europeana. Van der Meulen, for example, is able to search the names of his family members and come to a recording of his uncle’s 1970s rock band, the Makkers, or photos of his father Leendert Van der Muelen, a world-class cyclist.
“It’s for a lot of people that way,” he said. “Its a fun toy. Everybody Googles their name, you know. Only with this you get associations with your own name that you wouldn’t find in Google.”
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Facebook Getting Serious About Classifieds; May Relaunch This Year
Here’s a rumor that won’t go away - Facebook has been quietly searching for a partner to take over their year and a half old classified listings application, and may relaunch as early as the end of December.
According to our sources, Facebook distributed a request-for-proposal to a number of classified sites earlier this year (the same model they are using for Facebook Music).
The obvious partner is Oodle, which began powering Walmart Classifieds earlier this year. We’ve heard thin reports that they in fact have won the contract.
Whoever powers Facebook Classifieds (or Facebook Marketplace, as they call it) has a big hill to climb. Competing with Ebay (and their Kijiji) and Craigslist isn’t trivial. The original thought was that social networks were great for classifieds because you the buyers and sellers know each other. But Facebook’s current classifieds system shows anemic listings. The Silicon Valley network, for example, had a total of ten new listings added yesterday. San Francisco had twenty. New York City - zero. And for those who’ve forgotten, Microsoft launched their own classifieds site based on MSN friends and private networks (like businesses), and it went nowhere.
Part of the problem is the limited functionality of the existing classifieds system, which allows a short listing, a picture and communication via Facebook’s messaging system. Better software may mean more listings (although the bare-bones and massive Craigslist is a clear exception to that rule). Oodle, or whoever wins the contract, may also bring lots of listings from their other networks.
If Facebook gets this right there is a potential for lucrative advertising dollars - people looking to buy stuff are easy targets.
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Larry Lessig Defends Copyright, Loves Charlie Rose Remixes
This guest post is written by Matt Rutherford, Web Strategist and technology producer for Charlie Rose. Matt focuses on the macro themes affecting the internet and the wider world.
In an intimate interview with Charlie Rose on PBS tonight, and available here, Stanford professor Larry Lessig reveals some profound views on copyright, remix culture, and the new hybrid economy that is emerging.
In particular, Lessig speaks out against the abolitionist movement growing against copyright:
My real fear is that the last 10 years have unleashed a kind of revolutionary attitude among the generation that will take over in 10 years. And it will be hard for them to distinguish between sensible copyright legislation and the kind that we’ve got right now. So my real fear is we’re going to lose control of this animal… I just want to reform [copyright] to make it make sense.
A reform of copyright is clearly overdue. We require a new form of regulation that takes into account the ease and speed of digital distribution and appropriation. Every week, books cross my desk clamoring for this change - some of which are certainly worth reading. And as Lessig explains on the show, it’s counterproductive to continue to criminalize kids for file-sharing, remixing and recreating with content. Copyright was established to encourage creativity, not stifle it.
Cultural Roots
Lessig thinks on a macro time scale. For him, the emerging “read-write creativity” seen on YouTube and elsewhere is actually a return to our natural cultural roots. Historically, man has always absorbed and re-created culture – the symbolic retelling of stories and re-interpreting of songs on the front porch. It is only the emergence of mass media in the last century that caused us to accept a passive relationship with culture.
What’s so extraordinary about the last four years is that they’ve demonstrated that the technology of the internet is giving us a chance to go back to the way culture has been from the beginning…Only the 20th century was a deviation from this. But from the beginning of culture, it was a normal thing for people to be able to create and recreate the most important parts of culture that were around them.
As evidence of this, Lessig cites the numerous Charlie Rose remix videos that are floating around the web.
I’ve seen some of these Rose remixes, and they are enormous. They’re fantastic. But I would hope, you know, eventually you could be in a position to say I want to encourage this, please. Please do it.
A lot of these remixes also come across my desk. In the spirit of research, here are a few of the best so far: Beckett, Kung Fu, nuclear weapons. They’re all superb. And yes, we do encourage this. As Lessig says, Please do it.
Hybrid Economy
There remains the fundamental question of how a ‘new’ copyright can maintain revenue. After all, despite the ease of pointing out the flaws in the current system, it’s quite another matter to propose a viable alternative. Lessig sees the solution, in part, coming from a new hybrid economy, one that combines the traditional commercial economy with sharing economies seen in Wikipedia, YouTube and elsewhere:
Businesses have begun to realize that the world is in part divided between commercial economies like buying and selling books, and sharing economies like Wikipedia where enormous value is produced for nothing, people are doing it all for free. The most interesting thing I think we’ve seen though in the last five years is the development of a hybrid economy where commercial entities are trying to leverage value out of these sharing economies or vice versa, sharing economies trying to leverage value out of commercial entities. And this hybrid depends upon the commercial entity showing the proper respect for the creation in the sharing economy, and giving space to it, encouraging it so that the sharing economy can produce enormous value that is beneficial to the people inside, and also to the commercial business.
Lessig’s Big Idea
Lessig concludes the interview with his ‘big idea’. It is an inspiring, and elegant reminder that we are in the midst of an unprecedented social change. Just as the Gutenberg press facilitated the spread of the Protestant Reformation, fundamentally altering the course of Western civilization, so too is the internet beginning to spark tectonic changes, the breadth of which we don’t yet have the historical perspective to grasp. As Lessig explains:
I think the big idea, as every big idea is, is just one amazing step beyond where we are right now. And I think you think about the Obama campaign, something like Wikipedia, something like the stuff that’s going on on the Internet, the kind that I think of as read write culture. What it really is doing is reviving the sense that people can do something. Not the passive couch potato politics or couch potato culture, but that they can do something. We’re close to making it really effective. I think the next cycle, what you’re going to see in the way politics functions, will be unrecognizable, even from today. But when we’re there, it will be a revival of ideals, aspirations about democracy that will surprise us. The cynicism that we had in the 20th century will look very 20th century.
Larry Lessig’s interview on Charlie Rose was first broadcast on Friday 11/21/08 on PBS, and is available in full or in clips: Larry Lessig (full segment), Larry Lessig (clips). Matt Rutherford can be reached at matt@charlierose.com.
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Visible.net Joins MeasuredUp Customer Service Pledge Program
MeasuredUp is a customer service and consumer reviews website that aims to help forward thinking companies and consumers by connecting loyal consumers who wish to share customer service and brand experiences with one another or with businesses, corporations and companies they have made purchases from or had dealings with.
As we enter into a period of economic challenge, Customer Service becomes even more important to consumers making buying decisions and to companies looking to solidify relationships with customers and differentiate from competitors.
There are several reasons why Visible.net has decided to join the MeasuredUp customer service pledge program, but mainly it’s because we care about our loyal, hard working clients and their relationship with us. In addition, we hope that by joining this program that we will be more accessible to connect one-on-one with our clients and that it will help to build a better, more solid customer service reputation for our firm.
We hope that by being involved in the pledge program and by taking this type of forward thinking approach to our client relationships that we will be more accessible and better equipped to handle and resolve disputes, learn about our clients’ likes or dislikes, understand our clients’ wants or needs and to develop, maintain or improve our customer service and brand reputation.
MeasuredUp Custom Service Pledge
VISIBLE.NET cares about our customers.
We want them to be happy and understand that without them we are not in business.
We know we can’t always be perfect and that some consumers will be angry sometimes but we are committed to improving our Customer Service and making sure our employees always respect the customer. In this way we will increase brand loyalty, word of mouth and repeat business.
By placing the Measuredup.com logo on our website we are supporting the Measuredup.com Customer Service Pledge to focus on making the consumer happy and to improving our customer service.
We believe the customer is always right.
We are so committed to Customer Service that we want to hear from you if your problem has not been addressed and we encourage you to submit customer service reviews to our company or page on Measuredup.com.
What We’re Working On To Improve!
Currently, Visible.net is taking several steps to ensure that we are among the best service companies in the business. Many of the new and improved processes, communication methods, technology and support outlets are in place already, with more being added all the time. We look forward to servicing each and every one of our clients to the best of our ability and will continue to try to be the best that we possibly can in all our efforts.
Here’s a rundown of our company mission and goals, if you haven’t read them already…
- To be the very best technology and services firm we can each and every day.
- To act professionally with our clients, partners, employees, industry and community.
- To always be honest, fair, just and consistent in our decisions and actions.
- To trust in our clients, partners and ourselves while striving to enhance their trust.
- To satisfy each our clients to the best of our ability during each aspect of service.
- To attract new clients through new promotions while striving to retain existing clients.
- To always communicate effectively and work with clients to ensure understanding.
- To respect those around us and to operate with an open-mind so we can all learn.
- To embrace new technology and value others who are eager to explore or question.
- To always attempt to go the extra mile in what we do and for what we believe in.
- To enjoy doing what we do and strive to maintain a fun, relaxed environment.
If you have any questions about our participation in the MeasuredUp Pledge Program, be sure to contact us. We also hope to hear from you if you are or ever do experience any issues with the service(s) you receive from Visible.net company or staff. We also accept online form submissions on our feedback and support pages. We welcome and encourage any and all suggestions.
Visible.net Company Website Reviewed On KillerStartups.com
KillerStartups.com provides a user driven social community where up-and-coming corporate startups can submit their sites to see what other community members think of it. Users are able to view new startup submissions and vote up the ones they think are the most creative, well designed, innovative and may potentially become the next big Internet startup. Startup founders can submit their companies to KillerStartups.com as a way to help inform and build buzz within entrepreneur, blogging and investor circles.
We believe “the next YouTube” is going to be somewhere here, on KillerStartups.com. That’s our goal. We aim to provide you with that info right at the birth of the startup, when it’s only a promise. It will be up to you to detect it and do something with that information. We believe our community will be able to spot “the next YouTube”, and in order to achieve this goal, we are providing what we believe to be the right tools for this kind of discovery.
Visible.net Reviewed On KillerStartups.com
Be sure to check out Visible.net’s review on KillerStartups.com. We feel honored to be one of the most recent startups reviewed and appreciate all the feedback and votes we’ve received to date, hopefully lots more to come.
We believe that our goals, innovative technology and corporate mission are a few of the things that will help us to become successful within the ecommerce software and online marketing industries.
Visible.net is a forward-thinking company that aims high in all that we do. With the support and loyalty of our clients and employees we believe that our vision is well within reach and hopefully we can obtain that status in the near future.
Vote For Visible.net On KillerStartups.com
Visible.net founders believe our company has the potential to be THE next big ecommerce startup!! You can help! Show us your support by voting for our company on KillerStartups.com.
Right now we have a total of 3 pluses, but we are looking for more in order to be featured on the front page of the Killer Startups website. We appreciate everyone’s support and thak you all for choosing Visible.net as your trusted ecommerce and marketing service provider.
Visible.net Reflections Issue Eight: August 2008
Sunshine, New Accounts & One Epic Golf Tourney!
We have had some beautiful weather lately up here in the Inland Northwest region. We hope everyone (even those outside the Seattle area) gets the opportunity to get out and take advantage of some outdoor fun and recreation. We are also pleased to welcome aboard any new clients who recently joined on with Visible.net as their ecommerce or marketing services provider. We appreciate your business and look forward to a long, successful business relationship.
1st Annual Visible.net Golf Tournament
On Friday August 15th 2008 Visible.net will be holding it’s first annual golf tournament at Newcastle Golf Course, one of the Northwest’s most beautiful and prestigious courses. We are hoping the event will be a huge success and that all participants come ready for some good golf and fun. We have 5 teams of 4 scheduled to play all 18 holes in a scramble type tournament. There will be prizes for closest to the pin, longest drive and longest putt. Afterwards, the players are invited to attend a catered dinner at the course. Have fun everyone, we look forward to seeing how everyone does.
Yet Another Christmas Party Reminder
We ask that all Visible.net employees please mark your calendars for Friday, December 19th from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. for our annual company Christmas party to be held on Argosy Cruises in 2008. Visit the June newsletter for more information about the 2008 Visible.net Christmas Party and event.
Monthly Suggestion Box Winner
The winner of the suggestion of the month for August goes to Phyllis Brant (HR Dept.) for her suggestion to take advantage of todays cutting-edge and robust IM (instant messaging) technology for inter-office communications. As always, we welcome all suggestions, so please don’t forget to place your ideas in our employee suggestion box in Darren’s office. Who knows? You may even win the $100 cash prize for the best suggestions next month!
Visible.net Company Notes
Here’s what happened around the company in July 2008. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication last month.
Top Service Consultant July 2008:
Mike McShea
Top Service Team July 2008:
Team Led By Mike Walker
Service Consultant MVP July 2008:
Tievon Tachell
Top Service Team Assistant Manager July 2008:
Rick Tapia
New Employees:
Visible.net hired 5 new employees during the month of July.
Employee Birthdays:
Visible.net is celebrating birthdays for 7 employees this month.
Employee Anniversaries:
Visible.net is celebrating employee anniversaries for 3 people this month.
That wraps up this months addition of Visible.nt Reflections. It’s been an exciting month filled with client success, company success, beautiful weather and outdoor fun. We are very much looking forward to more Visible.net announcements, news, birthdays, anniversaries and fun in September. Thanks to both our clients and employees, and anyone else who help to contribute to our cause. Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Check out next months issue of Visible.net Reflections on Visible.
