Google’s PageRank algorithm does a good job of measuring the quality of a simple web page, based on the number of incoming links to that page, and recursively weighted on the quality of those linking pages. However, web2.0 has given us blogs, wikis, forums, media sharing, customer product reviews and ratings, social bookmarking, and more recently aggregation of all of the above; resulting in web pages that contain an increasingly complex array of UGC and UGR, making it increasingly difficult for algorithms, and site visitors and site owners to filter the signal from the noise, the UGC from the UGR.

So I wanted to write a post about some of the emerging technology innovations attempting to solve this problem. Readers are kindly asked to add a comment at the bottom of the post. All comments will be shown, even bad poetry, for purposes of research and experimentation.

Measuring quality is relatively easy for eBay. Its Feedback Ratings provide an excellent indicator of trustworthiness, because online auctions involve measurable user actions such as ‘Was the product description accurate?’ and ‘Did the buyer pay up?’ Such actions speak louder than the mere words of a blog comment or product review.

Amazon now owns a valuable database of customer product reviews to help people through their purchasing decisions. Innovation by Amazon in this area has included the ability to provide feedback on the usefulness of other users’ comments, and a Reviewer Rank algorithm which provides a measure of reviewer quality (interestingly, this algorithm was recently improved to include some PageRank-like recursiveness).

In a past life I had the pleasure of working for Lonely Planet, a travel publisher whose credibility and quality has been built upon the independence of its authors and their unbiased travel reviews. Lonely Planet and its peers have long struggled with the opportunity to harvest UGC from loyal and passionate travelers, because it is just so difficult to measure the independence and quality of contributing users.

TripAdvisor was allowed to emerge as a disruptive force in the market for travel advice, allowing anybody to review any hotel or restaurant. That created a lot of quality content for a while, but ever since hotel owners found out about TripAdvisor and began to review their own hotels, it’s been difficult to tell the UGC and UGR apart. TripAdvisor still desperately needs a reliable measure of user generated quality to restore its credibility.

Perhaps social networking can help TripAdvisor; being able to filter your travel advice to that written only by your friends would eliminate biased reviews (unless you are friends with a bunch of hotel owners, in which case you’re probably going to stay in their hotel anyway). But until the internet settles on a standard for social data portability, not many of us will have enough online friends who have traveled enough and generated enough online travel content for such a social filter to work reliably, even allowing for recursive algorithms.

If it’s just travel advice and inspiration you’re looking for, you could wait for Lonely Planet’s upcoming blog syndication feature, which promises a novel solution to the problem.

But more generally, I think we all need a universal reputation system, one which aggregates lots of measures of quality from lots of different sites. Imagine if you could easily see a summary of my quality metrics from eBay and Amazon and Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers and GetSatisfaction, perhaps even my Bugzilla and Basecamp metrics too; would that be enough for you to trust my travel advice and any other content that I generate?

Site visitors would benefit from increased visibility of users who generate content. Genuine contributors would be encouraged by being able to build a universal reputation for quality UGC, and discouraged from the risk of creating UGR. And site owners would benefit from data to filter out the UGC from the UGR.

A universal reputation system could also help to eliminate online vote rigging, astro-turfing (all those reviews of iPhone apps posted by the developers themselves), and space-faking (setting up false identities on social networking sites).

Who are the players?

	SezWho provides a plugin for blog commentary which presents a useful summary of UGC history for each contributor, and allows customizable 5-point rating scales for site owners.
	Intense Debate has a great interface design. It’s recently been acquired by Automattic, the owners of the WordPress blogging platform, which will provide some valuable distribution, perhaps critical mass. But will the other blogging platforms want to adopt or integrate with a standard controlled by a competitor?
	Google Friend Connect allows any site to embed a comments or ratings gadget onto any page. The universal view of previous UGC is not there yet, however this will become powerful when integrated fully with Google’s other stuff; Blogger and SearchWiki and the Social Graph API and YouTube (arguably the site most in need of a UGR filter!)
	Disqus is getting lots of press for its prompt Facebook Connect integration which takes the hassle out of commenting. Video comments can by posted, powered by Seesmic. Readers can nudge comments up and down the list by voting on them. Try it out below.

If you have a view on who will win the race to become the universal reputation system, please comment below. Are there any other players that I have missed out? (Yes I know that is exposing me to some comments on the quality of this post!)

Also here’s some further questions to inspire some commentary:

• Should we settle on a word for what is being measured here? Quality, importance, value, trust, reputation, credibility, honesty, transparency? Or will the winner of the race provide a web2.0 brand name to describe this concept of a universal measure of user generated content?
• Is it even possible to determine an objective universal score? The success of PageRank would suggest yes. Or is quality in the eye of the beholder? Is one person’s signal another person’s noise?
• Would a universal metric destroy the democratic level playing field that is UGC / UGR?
• What are the consequences of such a universal reputation system being gamed?
• How likely are eBay and Amazon to open up their reputation data? What are the privacy implications?

Thoughts please. Don’t be shy!

Zuckerberg replied “You can’t!”

What Zuckerberg meant was that Facebook hadn’t set out to ‘build’ a social network. His billion dollar insight was that Facebook would instead provide online social tools to help existing friends and existing social groups to communicate easily, share photos, stalk, and poke each other.

Then in 2007, Facebook opened its app platform for third party developers to add additional social stuff to keep users on the site. Soon we were all happily throwing sheep at each other and spamming our friends with app invites.

App fatigue arrived in 2008. A redesign of the Facebook site removed some of the weeds, but the metrics spoke loudly, or rather their unit of measurement did; popular apps began to be listed according to ‘monthly active users’ rather than ‘daily active users’.

Slide, RockYou and iLike had been quick enough to make some money, however there was a long tail of apps without enough active users to generate a decent return on investment. The app gold rush was over.

It become apparent that there was less value in creating new social activities inside of a social site such as Facebook, and more value in socializing, or adding social data and context to, the existing sites that people are already using out there in the big wide web.

In other words, social data portability has arrived, and extends Zuckerberg’s earlier “You can’t!” insight; you can’t ‘build’ the platform because the web is the platform.

We are told that data portability is for people who want more control over their data and do not want to be locked in to any particular social network. In 2008, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect and MySpaceID have emerged as the big solutions from those wanting to port your social data, and profitably.

Facebook makes money from people viewing and clicking on ads on their website. Facebook Connect therefore allows you to export your Facebook profile and friend list to external sites, but really is intended to increase activity back on the Facebook website, by importing social information from those connected external sites back into your Facebook Feed for your friends to see. MySpaceID ditto.

Google however makes money from people clicking on ads anywhere, so Google Friend Connect can afford to remain socially agnostic, allowing users to identify themselves and their friends according to any network they belong to, and feed their external site activity into the social sites of their choice.

Being socially agnostic is more useful to more users in theory, but not yet in practice for Google Friend Connect. Even though it would be technically simple for Google to access your profile and friend lists using the Facebook Platform, what happened when Google submitted its Friend Connect app to Facebook for approval earlier in 2008?

Zuckerberg replied “You can’t!”, then added some fud about privacy.

This week however Google was able to make some progress on the theory of Friend Connect by launching an integration with Twitter. It’s now possible for you to use your Twitter identity and friends list on external sites powered by Friend Connect, which significantly increases the chances of spotting someone you know on those sites.

What’s interesting about this recent development to me is the apparent haste, including Google asking for my Twitter username and password directly, rather than waiting for Twitter to complete its long-awaited OAuth implementation. I’ve also seen more than the usual number of server errors and teething problems in this latest build of Friend Connect.

Maybe this is an indication that OAuth will be coming soon from Twitter, which would be fantastic.

Or maybe this is an indication that Twitter will be coming soon from Google; some visibility into Twitter data would be useful for Google in working out an acquisition price.

Or maybe this haste reveals how social data is such a hugely valuable chunk of information for Google to organize, and monetize, if ways can be found to use external social data to improve ad targetting without abusing the privacy of users and the privacy policies of their social networks.

In any event, there are interesting times ahead for social data portability. Users stand to benefit from a richer, more social, internet experience, as long as their privacy is not abused. And stay tuned on the social data portability battle between Facebook and Google and MySpace: who will work out how to best monetize external social data in 2009?

SearchWiki adds some innocuous buttons to your search results page, enabling Digg -style voting and Friendfeed -style commenting on each result.

I think this feature might prove valuable for some users, at least the bad spellers among us and those who prefer to repeatedly type the same search term into Google rather than use bookmarks or their memory.

However this feature becomes massively valuable for Google if enough people bother to vote for their favourite sites and add comments. Harnessing the collective wisdom of all those users is a great way for Google to improve upon its not-so-secret-anymore search algorithm.

Currently your own SearchWiki wisdom impacts only your own search results, nobody else’s. But the words chosen to explain SearchWiki do leave the door open for Google to evolve into a social search engine; “Customize your search results with your rankings, deletions, and notes — plus, see how other people using Google have tailored their searches.”

Personally, I’m not sure how much I want strangers (or bots) to influence (or game) my search results.

But I might want my friends and social networks to influence some of my search results.

If only Google could somehow identify all my friends in all my social networks, and keep track of their searching activity. Wait a minute…

SearchWiki + OpenSocial = mainstream social search.

The web is the their platform.

Rita, trying to wrestle Bob’s attention away from his laptop: “Hey! Bob…?”

Bob, calmly, with Keanu Reeves curling fingers gesture: “100…”

Rita: “… will you put the bins out please?”

Bob, with a shrug of the shoulders: “202?”

Rita, with a roll of the eyes: “406!”

Bob, putting on shoes: “200 200 200 … It’s raining. Where’s my hoody?”

Rita, matter-of-fact: “302. Charity shop.”

Bob, slowly, to himself: “4 … 0 … 9″

Rita: “… and while you’re up, can you pop down to Woolies and pick up some bread and milk …”

Bob: “503″

Rita: “… and a pack of cheese sticks for Jack’s packed lunch. And nappies. And some of those stuffed jalapeño peppers ….”

Bob: “408″

Teapot: “418″

Bob, to the teapot: “Oh don’t YOU start.” (ref)

Rita: “Seriously; I NEED some jalapeños!“

Bob, smiling: “402″

Rita, blushing: “403 …”

Bob, tasting victory: “…”

Rita, faking defeat: “… 200″

Bob: “200″

It’s fascinating to trace one of the founding ideas of Anathem back to some sketches that Stepehenson made for the Long Now Clock in 01999. Here’s hoping it doesn’t take Stephenson too long to follow up with a prequel or sequel or paraquel.

p.s. Hidden in the widget above is a link to the full text of Cryptonomicon, essential techno-adventure comedy for anyone involved in a technology start-up.

We’re going to DEMOfall ’08, how exciting! Stand 61.

Gerard was asking if the details on the WoS database about MegaFruit were accurate, including the adverts scanned from Computer & Video Games magazines of 1984 (the year, not the novel).

Such diligence beyond the norm deserves a mention, so @WoS big respect for keeping the ZX torch alight.

While we’re on the topic, here’s Facebook Megafruit and Bebo MegaFruit.

If I look younger, it’s because it was pre-Xumii!

http://play.viostream.com/?play=7EF806B6-EDE1-441D-967B-0D8D20550D22

Clicking on those links from your web browser will launch a handy emulator if you want to pretend that you have an iPhone 3G.

MoFuse also makes it easy to migrate your audience from web to mobile; here’s the SMS widget (US cellphones only) and QR code:

Here’s looking forward to mobile data plans that encourage mobile user generated content rather than mobile user generated discontent, and here’s Jack & Luke streaming via N95:

Xumii is unveiled today at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View. “Take all your contacts from your social networks with you — on your phone!”

Here’s Jennifer on stage:

Today we launched Xumii in private beta.

Xumii is an open mobile social messaging platform. More soon..!

I thought it might have been a form factor issue. I imagined the product meeting where an Apple engineer cuddles his fast but chubby 3G iPhone prototype, but is beaten down into submission by the Apple designer stroking his sexy but slow 2.5G iPhone prototype.

Then Steve Jobs claimed that it was actually a battery life issue. That sounds more credible; Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to battery life.

So I have been patiently monitoring RSS, waiting for rumours of a 3G iPhone release, and playing with my brother-in-law’s 2.5G iPhone in the meantime, to fend off my appetite.

Last night however, an interim solution was identified, on the sidelines of Mobile Monday Sydney‘s great iPhone “Hope or Hype?” debate.

I feel compelled to share, so here goes the instructions on how to mod your iPhone to 3G speed:

1. Put on your jacket. You’re going to need some extra pocket capacity.
2. Install JoikuSpot Light on your Nokia N95 to create your very own Wi-Fi hot spot.
3. Insert said N95 into said pocket.
4. Switch iPhone to Wi-Fi connectivity.
5. Wander around enjoying 3G data speeds on your iPhone.

Thank you Ben and Randal!

2G GPRS 0.025 Mb/s
2.5G EDGE 0.25 Mb/s
3G HSDPA 2.5 Mb/s
802.11b Wi-Fi 6.0 Mb/s

I’ve already set up my LinkedIn network and my Facebook friends, so why should I have to do it all again on every other site that has decided to go social on me?

When I heard the OpenSocial announcement last year, while I was F5ing the API URL, waiting to see the campfire video, I was imagining that the problem had been solved, by allowing any social networking site to share its social data with any other.

But the first incarnation of OpenSocial, actually the 0.7th as I write this, is more aimed at developers re-using code to make applications more portable, rather than data portability.

Then Plaxo released a LinkedIn sync feature which looked promising, but that was just two social sites, what about all the others?

Now it looks like Google has provided the solution, not as part of OpenSocial but with its new Social Graph API. Social data becomes portable simply by adding some XFN tags to the hyperlinks between your pages and your friends’ pages and your other pages (view the source of this page and search for rel=”me” to get the idea), then letting the Googlebot spider those links to work out the connections. Very simple and powerful. The internet is the platform.

This must upset Facebook, because the social data representing all those friend connections is a big part of their crown jewels. If Facebook changes profile pages to become publically available (or less revealing profile summaries, as LinkedIn has done), and adds some XFN tags, then that social data and the ad revenue extracted from it will start to trickle out onto the wider web. How long can Facebook resist?

Anyone could start to work out who knows who by using the Social Graph API. Reputable sites will put the decision of how to use that social data in the hands of the user. But there’s also a privacy risk here. Perhaps the answer to that is something along the lines of OpenId which puts the user firmly in control of how portable their identity data is.

My mind spins with the opportunities and challenges created by this great innovation. My favourite: combine social graph data portability with always-connected location-aware mobile devices (“phone”), and you can mashup the social landscape with the physical landscape you’re walking through.

Maybe that’s what Judge Dread’s helmet did.

When I got fed up with the games that you could play by copying Spectrum Basic code from the pages of a magazine (and fed up with the seek / transfer times involved), I decided it was time to learn programming. When I got fed up printing rude words for my mates using Spectrum Basic, it was time to get serious and learn Z80 assembly programming.

The outcome was a fruit machine simulator called ‘MegaFruit’ which had some revolutionary graphics and sound for its day, and also speech synthesis! MegaFruit took 7 squeeking minutes to load its 16,384 bytes of Z80 code from an audio cassette tape.

To my delight, I was able to strike a distribution deal with Thor Computer Games, who marketed and sold the game, and paid me money! Here’s the cassette sleeve artwork:

Sometime in the 1990s, my last remaining copy of the MegaFruit cassette tape was lost, I suspect as I moved my possessions around England during Uni days. I was devastated that I would never again see my creation working.

Then came Google to the rescue. I’ve been a fan of Google since their early days, and they did good. My Google Moment came in 2005, when I searched and found the website of a Spectrum addict in Russia who had been creating ROM images of games that could be interpreted by a Spectrum emulator written in Java. Before long I was playing MegaFruit again with a massive smile on my face. I even found a port of the emulator that let me play on my Smartphone.

And here it is using the excellent QAOP emulator (so named after the forward / back / left / right keys of choice back then):

Keys:

F11 = mute
PgUp/PgDn = sound volume

he said he was a technophobe and didn’t understand all this world wide interweb thingy.

i remember my boss said not to mind because we didn’t either.

at the time that comment brought a chorus of cringe but he was probably correct.

one of the questions submitted was “will the monarchy survive?”, to which the prime minister replied something along the lines of “… but ultimately the people will decide …”

the next day The Times (yes, also a News title but not involved in the webchat and therefore jealous of The Sun) frontpage reported “Prime Minister announces Referendum on future of monarchy.”

and we were told that was also the last ever online webchat that tony blair will be doing, thank you.