Seriosity (2007)
Attent with Serios
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://www.seriosity.com/attent.html
50 Matches (u.d.)
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://www.50matches.com/
Dimitris Pagkalos and Kevin Fernandes
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://www.xssed.com/pagerank
Elfsites (2008)
Presentations
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://elfguy.net/security.html
BT (2008)
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/enduser/cci/bt_homepage.php?p_sid=m83sazaj
AI Buddy (n.d.)
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://www.ai-buddy.com/
Wikipedia (n.d)
Human Computer Chess
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_chess_matches m/
Anne Zelenka (2007)
8 tips to better de.licio.us bookmarking
Retrieved August 18, 2008
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/05/10/8-tips-for-better-delicious-bookmarking/
CNN (2005)
The future of online search
Retrieved August 18, 2008http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/12/23/john.bartelle/index.html
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Conceptual Research and Reflection Project - Part 4
Concept 32
A library is, fundamentally, a system organised according to shared, accepted sets of classifications and organisations, and on the basis that it is impossible to access the information except through categories (either in a catalogue or by browsing collocated books on a shelf). The World Wide Web has no such shared system, and is technologically capable of a large degree of searching for information directly – ‘full text searching’. What advanced users seek to do is to exploit the advantages of the idea of a library in a way that suits their personal needs, effectively creating personal virtual libraries.
The web is a complex structure, made from thousands of computers linked together with millions of packets of information buzzing all around, on demand, all the time. It is a brilliant source of information to those of us on the planet lucky enough to have access. The vast amount of information, ideas and opinions can lead to hours of browsing and entertainment – and sometimes also to addiction! However the common metaphor of the internet as a virtual library does not really reflect its true structure and behaviour.
The library, familiar to us all is an area filled with books filled with thousands of strategically placed words, that remain static, and are easy to catalogue as once they are placed in a position, they are not moved. If a book is taken, the code on the spine will clearly indicate the location that it should be returned to. The process of publishing a book will involves the processes of proof reading and quality checking. You can assume that a book has been thought suitable for the general public if it is resident on a library shelf.
The internet, however, is vastly different to this. The information placed there is unverified. In the case of a large company you could assume to believe the information, as it would have been through the rigor of quality checking as within a library, but there is a lot of other information on the net that is largely opinion and potentially unreliable.
The speed of change on the internet also means there is no permanency in the information provided. All active websites undergo continuous change, expansion and contraction, as the information the developer feels is relevant to the online community changes. A book clearly states the date it was published, internet users can not always be sure when a web page was created.
Social bookmarking sites give user the ability to catalogue their favourite web pages, and also enables others to see their most favoured and trusted pages. Delicious.com is one of the bookmarking websites that can be used to mark commonly used pages. I’ve just opened the site and 262 new bookmarks were saved in the last minute!
The advantage of bookmarking pages is that you can easily return to them. When searching just through a search engine, results can change from day to day and by using different kinds of search engines, so you can’t always rely on getting the same results.
Most webpages are found by machines called web crawlers, which records small amounts of data on the pages to be references in searches. Unfortunately only a small amount of the information on the web is covered by web crawlers, and there is not the element of human decision to decide on the accuracy and trustworthiness of the site. This can render search engine results as often less than reliable.
As time goes on better keywords, tags and referencing will be built into websites, and search engines will become smarter to search more broadly for concepts rather than just single key words, to provide much more relevant and useful results.
Supporting Site 1:
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/05/10/8-tips-for-better-delicious-bookmarking/
This site gives some ideas for how to extend the use of the delicious bookmarking features to enable easier location of websites you may have saved. Given the responses at the end of the article, it would seem that there are a lot of web developers who use the bookmarking function as a regular part of their day.
I’ve learnt that an additional advantage of using a social bookmarking site such as this is that the details are all backed up on the bookmarking server, so if your computer crashes or you are using an alternative computer, you can still access all your favoured sites just as easily.
Supporting Site 2:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/12/23/john.bartelle/index.html
This is an interview with John Batelle, co-founder of Wired magazine, who has been close to the heart of internet searching for many years. He discusses some of the features of current searching, legal issues, and the future of search. He quotes Microsoft as having done some research and finding that around 50% of searches ever locate the information that is being sought.
He also discussed the interesting issue of privacy – where search engines would like to follow your movements around the web to tailor make better search results for you, but this is in contravention to privacy laws.
A library is, fundamentally, a system organised according to shared, accepted sets of classifications and organisations, and on the basis that it is impossible to access the information except through categories (either in a catalogue or by browsing collocated books on a shelf). The World Wide Web has no such shared system, and is technologically capable of a large degree of searching for information directly – ‘full text searching’. What advanced users seek to do is to exploit the advantages of the idea of a library in a way that suits their personal needs, effectively creating personal virtual libraries.
The web is a complex structure, made from thousands of computers linked together with millions of packets of information buzzing all around, on demand, all the time. It is a brilliant source of information to those of us on the planet lucky enough to have access. The vast amount of information, ideas and opinions can lead to hours of browsing and entertainment – and sometimes also to addiction! However the common metaphor of the internet as a virtual library does not really reflect its true structure and behaviour.
The library, familiar to us all is an area filled with books filled with thousands of strategically placed words, that remain static, and are easy to catalogue as once they are placed in a position, they are not moved. If a book is taken, the code on the spine will clearly indicate the location that it should be returned to. The process of publishing a book will involves the processes of proof reading and quality checking. You can assume that a book has been thought suitable for the general public if it is resident on a library shelf.
The internet, however, is vastly different to this. The information placed there is unverified. In the case of a large company you could assume to believe the information, as it would have been through the rigor of quality checking as within a library, but there is a lot of other information on the net that is largely opinion and potentially unreliable.
The speed of change on the internet also means there is no permanency in the information provided. All active websites undergo continuous change, expansion and contraction, as the information the developer feels is relevant to the online community changes. A book clearly states the date it was published, internet users can not always be sure when a web page was created.
Social bookmarking sites give user the ability to catalogue their favourite web pages, and also enables others to see their most favoured and trusted pages. Delicious.com is one of the bookmarking websites that can be used to mark commonly used pages. I’ve just opened the site and 262 new bookmarks were saved in the last minute!
The advantage of bookmarking pages is that you can easily return to them. When searching just through a search engine, results can change from day to day and by using different kinds of search engines, so you can’t always rely on getting the same results.
Most webpages are found by machines called web crawlers, which records small amounts of data on the pages to be references in searches. Unfortunately only a small amount of the information on the web is covered by web crawlers, and there is not the element of human decision to decide on the accuracy and trustworthiness of the site. This can render search engine results as often less than reliable.
As time goes on better keywords, tags and referencing will be built into websites, and search engines will become smarter to search more broadly for concepts rather than just single key words, to provide much more relevant and useful results.
Supporting Site 1:
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/05/10/8-tips-for-better-delicious-bookmarking/
This site gives some ideas for how to extend the use of the delicious bookmarking features to enable easier location of websites you may have saved. Given the responses at the end of the article, it would seem that there are a lot of web developers who use the bookmarking function as a regular part of their day.
I’ve learnt that an additional advantage of using a social bookmarking site such as this is that the details are all backed up on the bookmarking server, so if your computer crashes or you are using an alternative computer, you can still access all your favoured sites just as easily.
Supporting Site 2:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/12/23/john.bartelle/index.html
This is an interview with John Batelle, co-founder of Wired magazine, who has been close to the heart of internet searching for many years. He discusses some of the features of current searching, legal issues, and the future of search. He quotes Microsoft as having done some research and finding that around 50% of searches ever locate the information that is being sought.
He also discussed the interesting issue of privacy – where search engines would like to follow your movements around the web to tailor make better search results for you, but this is in contravention to privacy laws.
Concept 23 – Human-Computer Interfaces
The Internet lessens the recognition of difference between human and computers because, at a distance, it often feels similar to communicate and act on the internet regardless of whether one is speaking with a human or a machine.
More and more our interactions on the internet are with computers. These days when purchasing an airline ticket, we would no longer ever consider walking to a travel agency to discuss flight options with a staff member and pay in cash. We are now quite able to research options from the comfort of home, a search engine collates and provides prices for possible itineraries after we have entered our criteria, and often provides cheaper alternatives as well.
The way we interact with businesses online is also evolving though. Often now we have the option of contacting a business by email – which will prompt an automated reply, or by an online chat.
BT (British Telecom) has developed Anna, a bot (or robot) to assist with enquiries. She looks nice and helpful, blinks and moves her head around a little to appear more human. For each question you ask she will provide a few options providing links to the page that will (hopefully) hold the information you are seeking. When you select one of these links you are navigated to information pages, and Emma disappears. I think this is a weakness in the navigation, I felt a bit deserted when she left without saying goodbye! Here’s a link to BT’s Ask Emma: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/enduser/cci/bt_homepage.php?p_sid=m83sazaj
To enable a bot to effectively answer a query, a large number of predictions need to made about the information that will be sought. Responses need to be modelled on a ranges of keywords, and also need to cover options including spelling errors.
You can now develop your own bot at home, with your very own personalised responses. Because recording responses to all possible queries is an exceptionally time intensive process, you can take a bot with either pre-programmed responses (default brain) or you can build your bot entirely from the start (no brain).
I had some discussions with a few of the more popular bots linked to this site, and I was a little disappointed. Some of the responses were very strange and not at all linked to the question I asked, and some of them are programmed to be just plain cheeky and sarcastic! Overall, it felt quite clear that I was talking with a computer, it just wasn’t right.
I had a better experience when trying to install a new internet connection recently. There were some problems getting started up, and the help files on the cd were presented in a very relaxed, simple question and answer style. For each response I provided the cd would invoke a process to check a certain part of the hardware of software that it felt could be root of my connection problems. There was very little looping in the questions, it was very polite at all times, and I felt quite secure that there was progress happening.
As business continue to reduce resourcing of labour intensive roles, more and more we will be communicating with computers in our every day lives.
Supporting Site 1:
Create AIM Bots, stay on AIM 24/7 and web chat solutions - http://www.ai-buddy.com/
This site is where you can get your very own Bot. Here they are being promoted as excellent receptionists for your email or IM services while you are asleep, as they can provide pre-programmed information to your senders. It also contains a information on how to set variables to questions that may be asked – also reminding to allow for common spelling mistakes.
I have found that if you ask really silly questions some bots end the discussion. I haven’t been able to resurrect a discussion with a bot I have annoyed so far. They can be quite moody.
Supporting Site 1:
Wikipedia: Human Computer Chess Matches - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_chess_matches m/
Proof that computers can be programmed to think strategically, Wikipedia gives a nice description of the evolution of chess programmes, and how they have now become more superior than humans at the game. Grandmaster chess player Kasparov thought he saw “deep intelligence and creativity“ in Deep Blue, a computer designed for chess games, thought there must have been human involvement.
It appears that after many wins over the last few years, computers are now seen as the superior players. The page quotes a McGill University computer science professor, Monty Newborn, when referring to the lessening interest in the human-computer chess games due to the computer’s superiority, "the science is done"
The Internet lessens the recognition of difference between human and computers because, at a distance, it often feels similar to communicate and act on the internet regardless of whether one is speaking with a human or a machine.
More and more our interactions on the internet are with computers. These days when purchasing an airline ticket, we would no longer ever consider walking to a travel agency to discuss flight options with a staff member and pay in cash. We are now quite able to research options from the comfort of home, a search engine collates and provides prices for possible itineraries after we have entered our criteria, and often provides cheaper alternatives as well.
The way we interact with businesses online is also evolving though. Often now we have the option of contacting a business by email – which will prompt an automated reply, or by an online chat.
BT (British Telecom) has developed Anna, a bot (or robot) to assist with enquiries. She looks nice and helpful, blinks and moves her head around a little to appear more human. For each question you ask she will provide a few options providing links to the page that will (hopefully) hold the information you are seeking. When you select one of these links you are navigated to information pages, and Emma disappears. I think this is a weakness in the navigation, I felt a bit deserted when she left without saying goodbye! Here’s a link to BT’s Ask Emma: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/enduser/cci/bt_homepage.php?p_sid=m83sazaj
To enable a bot to effectively answer a query, a large number of predictions need to made about the information that will be sought. Responses need to be modelled on a ranges of keywords, and also need to cover options including spelling errors.
You can now develop your own bot at home, with your very own personalised responses. Because recording responses to all possible queries is an exceptionally time intensive process, you can take a bot with either pre-programmed responses (default brain) or you can build your bot entirely from the start (no brain).
I had some discussions with a few of the more popular bots linked to this site, and I was a little disappointed. Some of the responses were very strange and not at all linked to the question I asked, and some of them are programmed to be just plain cheeky and sarcastic! Overall, it felt quite clear that I was talking with a computer, it just wasn’t right.
I had a better experience when trying to install a new internet connection recently. There were some problems getting started up, and the help files on the cd were presented in a very relaxed, simple question and answer style. For each response I provided the cd would invoke a process to check a certain part of the hardware of software that it felt could be root of my connection problems. There was very little looping in the questions, it was very polite at all times, and I felt quite secure that there was progress happening.
As business continue to reduce resourcing of labour intensive roles, more and more we will be communicating with computers in our every day lives.
Supporting Site 1:
Create AIM Bots, stay on AIM 24/7 and web chat solutions - http://www.ai-buddy.com/
This site is where you can get your very own Bot. Here they are being promoted as excellent receptionists for your email or IM services while you are asleep, as they can provide pre-programmed information to your senders. It also contains a information on how to set variables to questions that may be asked – also reminding to allow for common spelling mistakes.
I have found that if you ask really silly questions some bots end the discussion. I haven’t been able to resurrect a discussion with a bot I have annoyed so far. They can be quite moody.
Supporting Site 1:
Wikipedia: Human Computer Chess Matches - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_chess_matches m/
Proof that computers can be programmed to think strategically, Wikipedia gives a nice description of the evolution of chess programmes, and how they have now become more superior than humans at the game. Grandmaster chess player Kasparov thought he saw “deep intelligence and creativity“ in Deep Blue, a computer designed for chess games, thought there must have been human involvement.
It appears that after many wins over the last few years, computers are now seen as the superior players. The page quotes a McGill University computer science professor, Monty Newborn, when referring to the lessening interest in the human-computer chess games due to the computer’s superiority, "the science is done"
Concept Research and Refelection Project - Part 2
Concept 26 – Privacy and Security
The internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about themselves in any form. Conceptually, the internet challenges us to take greater responsibility for the protection of privacy and security than perhaps we are used to when dealing with the media.
The breadth and decentralisation of the internet allows a great deal of freedom for users, but unfortunately it also provides an excellent environment for fraudsters to commit crime. Internet users need to stay aware of online threats, and of the new technologies associated with them.
In the recent past a number of methods of online fraud have been developed. Experienced internet users have become very familiar with them, and it is natural now to place enforce strict security rules to your online profiles and firewalls. There are some frauds, however, that manage to pass through these controls and require a greater vigilance by the internet user.
Phishing, for example, can be performed in a number of ways. One example is for a fraudster to send an email that is mimics the website of a trusted institution, banks are common. The message will have some kind of scary subject such as the email below, I received yesterday, titled “Your HSBC Financial Group account has been violated!”
The internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about themselves in any form. Conceptually, the internet challenges us to take greater responsibility for the protection of privacy and security than perhaps we are used to when dealing with the media.
The breadth and decentralisation of the internet allows a great deal of freedom for users, but unfortunately it also provides an excellent environment for fraudsters to commit crime. Internet users need to stay aware of online threats, and of the new technologies associated with them.
In the recent past a number of methods of online fraud have been developed. Experienced internet users have become very familiar with them, and it is natural now to place enforce strict security rules to your online profiles and firewalls. There are some frauds, however, that manage to pass through these controls and require a greater vigilance by the internet user.
Phishing, for example, can be performed in a number of ways. One example is for a fraudster to send an email that is mimics the website of a trusted institution, banks are common. The message will have some kind of scary subject such as the email below, I received yesterday, titled “Your HSBC Financial Group account has been violated!”
The link leads to a phoney site that records the information entered, which is then used for fraud activities. This might be considered old hat to the more experienced internet users, but in my work in a large bank I dealt with a complaint from a customer two weeks ago who had fallen victim to a phishing scam and had £9000 stolen from his credit card. Because he had voluntarily given his account details to an ‘unknown’ 3rd party, contravening the conditions of his bank account, he is required to repay the bank the full amount. Phishing is quite a lucrative industry for fraudsters, in Great Britain alone it is estimated that over £20 million is stolen annually.
Email security features and user training are proving effective in combating this kind of scam, but there are others in development that are much harder to recognise. XSS, or Cross-Site Scripting, is a new tool for internet fraud that is extremely hard to identify.
XSS can be used in a number of ways to defraud people. Essentially it is the process by which a fraudster inserts code into a webpage that can, invisibly, and without any indication of its presence, copy the users details and information being keyed. The result is that the fraudster can then assume the online identity of the user.
TJ Maxx, the clothing retailer, suffered from a XSS scam last year, where the fraudsters were able to access their systems and download hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers, the eventual cost to the business expected to be in excess of £100 million. XSS holes in websites are continually being found and fixed by developers, but not all sites are safe. Internet users can take security measures such as disabling scripts to help avoid XSS attacks.
Social Engineering is another form of attack, but unlike the two examples above, it relies purely on human error. The term covers a lot of different methods of attack, but one of them, and the favourite for the computer criminal Kevin Mitnick, is ‘pretexting’. This is often performed by calling an employee of a company posing as technical help. While ‘assisting’ the user with their query, the fraudster asks for their password or other security data which is then used to access the company’s computer systems.
Internet users need to keep updated with developments in website privacy and security, to ensure that they are communicating with websites and others in a secure way.
Email security features and user training are proving effective in combating this kind of scam, but there are others in development that are much harder to recognise. XSS, or Cross-Site Scripting, is a new tool for internet fraud that is extremely hard to identify.
XSS can be used in a number of ways to defraud people. Essentially it is the process by which a fraudster inserts code into a webpage that can, invisibly, and without any indication of its presence, copy the users details and information being keyed. The result is that the fraudster can then assume the online identity of the user.
TJ Maxx, the clothing retailer, suffered from a XSS scam last year, where the fraudsters were able to access their systems and download hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers, the eventual cost to the business expected to be in excess of £100 million. XSS holes in websites are continually being found and fixed by developers, but not all sites are safe. Internet users can take security measures such as disabling scripts to help avoid XSS attacks.
Social Engineering is another form of attack, but unlike the two examples above, it relies purely on human error. The term covers a lot of different methods of attack, but one of them, and the favourite for the computer criminal Kevin Mitnick, is ‘pretexting’. This is often performed by calling an employee of a company posing as technical help. While ‘assisting’ the user with their query, the fraudster asks for their password or other security data which is then used to access the company’s computer systems.
Internet users need to keep updated with developments in website privacy and security, to ensure that they are communicating with websites and others in a secure way.
Supporting Site 1:
Top Pagerank List - http://www.xssed.com/pagerank
This site provides a list of websites with known vulnerabilities to XSS attacks. They are listed according to Alexa page ranking – an organisation that measures traffic flow through websites. Users have the option of logging in to their email address or purchasing music through this Yahoo site, which is of a real concern to users as an XSS code in the page text can easily duplicate this information and send it to a fraudster.
I could not find a response from Yahoo regarding this vulnerability, it seems very strange that such a big company would allow this to continue.
Supporting Site 2:
Home Texts: Internet Security - http://elfguy.net/security.html
I have often referred to the presentations in this website to understand various issues dealing with the internet, I find the information very easy to read and digest.
I have chosen this site because it provides step by step instructions, in laymans terms, on how to secure your computer against general forms of internet fraud. Further information is also provided regarding the future of internet security, with clear explanations on some of the lesser known security issues in the general internet user community, such as social engineering and XSS. It’s a great resource.
Top Pagerank List - http://www.xssed.com/pagerank
This site provides a list of websites with known vulnerabilities to XSS attacks. They are listed according to Alexa page ranking – an organisation that measures traffic flow through websites. Users have the option of logging in to their email address or purchasing music through this Yahoo site, which is of a real concern to users as an XSS code in the page text can easily duplicate this information and send it to a fraudster.
I could not find a response from Yahoo regarding this vulnerability, it seems very strange that such a big company would allow this to continue.
Supporting Site 2:
Home Texts: Internet Security - http://elfguy.net/security.html
I have often referred to the presentations in this website to understand various issues dealing with the internet, I find the information very easy to read and digest.
I have chosen this site because it provides step by step instructions, in laymans terms, on how to secure your computer against general forms of internet fraud. Further information is also provided regarding the future of internet security, with clear explanations on some of the lesser known security issues in the general internet user community, such as social engineering and XSS. It’s a great resource.
Conceptual Research and Reflection Project - Part 1
Concept 33
In the era of the ‘attention economy’ readers and users of Internet information must carefully craft, in their own minds, the kind of metadata which will – almost instinctively – ‘fit’ with the metadata of the information sources they want, so that – in the few brief moments of initial exchange, when a seeker of information encounters information being sought, rapid, effective judgements are made that ‘pay off’ in terms of further reading, accessing and saving.
The creation of the internet has helped encourage the concept of the ‘attention economy’, a new model identifying our changing interactions and way of living, which is entirely different from our traditional economic models. Simply put, the massive amount of information available on the internet is making us more discerning viewers, thus our attention is becoming extremely valuable.
Accordingly, the way that our attention is sought in the current world is vastly different from the traditional advertising methods. Early instances of networking via the internet, such as Usenet, allowed new kinds of attention seeking to be developed, such as spam. As we have become accustomed to these kinds of direct approaches, be it a sales pitch or a political message, internet users are now quite fast at identifying metadata that is irrelevant or unwanted to us. But as we become knowledgeable in our avoidance and blocking of this attention, our attention seekers must get more creative.
Increasingly we rely on search engines to assist us in locating the information we are searching for by providing a number of key words to gain a catalogue of possible options in response. Internet users have developed cunning skill at identifying appropriate responses, for example if you are looking to purchase a flight from Munich to Geneva, it is quite natural to select a link to a travel wholesaler, automatically avoiding the alternatives such as a blog discussing the same flight that someone has made in the past. Entering any criteria into a search engine that could has the slightest sexual connotation is widely avoided.
Some fun loving attention seekers have enjoyed utilising our metadata by creating ‘Google Bombs’. This technique was created to influence a search engine’s ranking (in the original case Google) of a webpage within the search results, leading to an unexpected site. It is noted that this is usually done with humorous intent, a famous example is to enter ‘miserable failure’ into Google the top result would lead the user to a website promoting George Bush (now disabled). Whilst generally used in jest, this is a great lesson of how metadata can be manipulated to direct the unwitting searcher or consumer to an unintended site.
Metadata is also increasingly used for fraud. Users are becoming familiar with the metadata associated with Nigerian scams, and phishing, a technique that involves a fraudulent body masquerading as trusted bank or company, seeking credit card or personal details.
Web developers will continue to improve their relevance to metadata searches, and continue to improve the attractiveness of their sites. The attention economy model will really find its relevance, as a single, home based website developer with creative flair may be able to hold as much influence in the internet world as a multinational corporation. For internet surfers, the future metadata will look further into webpages than just relying on text, they will be able to find information relating to graphics, videos and animations. And our attention will become more and more valuable with each development.
Supporting Site 1:
Attent with Serios - http://www.seriosity.com/attent.html
This site is offering a further enhancement to interpreting metadata, by allowing users to attach Serios, a form of online currency, to their emails to enable people and businesses to prioritise their reading. The more Serios attached to an email, the user can assume that the email is more important, relevant or popular then the others all seeking attention in his or her inbox.
This new currency can assist businesses identify the most effective methods of sharing information, and is even being promoted as a reward to employees. At home it can direct readers to popular blogs or information sources. The reports provided by the Attent software can provide metadata analysis and trends to support policy planning. It feels like the new attention economy is creating its own micro-economies.
Supporting Site 2:
Search Engine - http://www.50matches.com/
This is a search engine with a difference – it only searches pages that have already been bookmarked by a social network such as de.icio.us, digg and reddit. This website can seriously cut down the amount of noise received when running a search on one of the commercial engines.
The search returns a maximum of 50 results, so you are not bombarded with hundreds of pages of increasingly less relevant material. An advantage is that the results are made from sites recommended by humans instead of machines crawling the net and returning a meta data matches with no regard for the quality of the content of the site.
In the era of the ‘attention economy’ readers and users of Internet information must carefully craft, in their own minds, the kind of metadata which will – almost instinctively – ‘fit’ with the metadata of the information sources they want, so that – in the few brief moments of initial exchange, when a seeker of information encounters information being sought, rapid, effective judgements are made that ‘pay off’ in terms of further reading, accessing and saving.
The creation of the internet has helped encourage the concept of the ‘attention economy’, a new model identifying our changing interactions and way of living, which is entirely different from our traditional economic models. Simply put, the massive amount of information available on the internet is making us more discerning viewers, thus our attention is becoming extremely valuable.
Accordingly, the way that our attention is sought in the current world is vastly different from the traditional advertising methods. Early instances of networking via the internet, such as Usenet, allowed new kinds of attention seeking to be developed, such as spam. As we have become accustomed to these kinds of direct approaches, be it a sales pitch or a political message, internet users are now quite fast at identifying metadata that is irrelevant or unwanted to us. But as we become knowledgeable in our avoidance and blocking of this attention, our attention seekers must get more creative.
Increasingly we rely on search engines to assist us in locating the information we are searching for by providing a number of key words to gain a catalogue of possible options in response. Internet users have developed cunning skill at identifying appropriate responses, for example if you are looking to purchase a flight from Munich to Geneva, it is quite natural to select a link to a travel wholesaler, automatically avoiding the alternatives such as a blog discussing the same flight that someone has made in the past. Entering any criteria into a search engine that could has the slightest sexual connotation is widely avoided.
Some fun loving attention seekers have enjoyed utilising our metadata by creating ‘Google Bombs’. This technique was created to influence a search engine’s ranking (in the original case Google) of a webpage within the search results, leading to an unexpected site. It is noted that this is usually done with humorous intent, a famous example is to enter ‘miserable failure’ into Google the top result would lead the user to a website promoting George Bush (now disabled). Whilst generally used in jest, this is a great lesson of how metadata can be manipulated to direct the unwitting searcher or consumer to an unintended site.
Metadata is also increasingly used for fraud. Users are becoming familiar with the metadata associated with Nigerian scams, and phishing, a technique that involves a fraudulent body masquerading as trusted bank or company, seeking credit card or personal details.
Web developers will continue to improve their relevance to metadata searches, and continue to improve the attractiveness of their sites. The attention economy model will really find its relevance, as a single, home based website developer with creative flair may be able to hold as much influence in the internet world as a multinational corporation. For internet surfers, the future metadata will look further into webpages than just relying on text, they will be able to find information relating to graphics, videos and animations. And our attention will become more and more valuable with each development.
Supporting Site 1:
Attent with Serios - http://www.seriosity.com/attent.html
This site is offering a further enhancement to interpreting metadata, by allowing users to attach Serios, a form of online currency, to their emails to enable people and businesses to prioritise their reading. The more Serios attached to an email, the user can assume that the email is more important, relevant or popular then the others all seeking attention in his or her inbox.
This new currency can assist businesses identify the most effective methods of sharing information, and is even being promoted as a reward to employees. At home it can direct readers to popular blogs or information sources. The reports provided by the Attent software can provide metadata analysis and trends to support policy planning. It feels like the new attention economy is creating its own micro-economies.
Supporting Site 2:
Search Engine - http://www.50matches.com/
This is a search engine with a difference – it only searches pages that have already been bookmarked by a social network such as de.icio.us, digg and reddit. This website can seriously cut down the amount of noise received when running a search on one of the commercial engines.
The search returns a maximum of 50 results, so you are not bombarded with hundreds of pages of increasingly less relevant material. An advantage is that the results are made from sites recommended by humans instead of machines crawling the net and returning a meta data matches with no regard for the quality of the content of the site.
Module 4
Downloading Tools / Plug In Task
Search Manager / Combiners
I downloaded Copernic Agent Basic to test as a search engine. Google didn’t like it very much – in fact it was a bit of a surprise that I suddenly got a message from Google claiming that another piece of software was trying to take over as my search tool. I thought this was interesting as I thought Google was a tool I used when I wanted – I didn’t realise it has claimed ownership over my pc!
As a search engine it was fine, it utilised 10 other search engines and was fast enough with results. I found the page layout quite busy and bit distracting in its presentation. I’m likely to stick with Google as my main search engine simply because of the simple design.
I really didn’t want to download any more software onto my pc, I’ve got so many unused programs already! So I thought I would upgrade Windows Media Player – but it appears that I have the latest version, so instead I used it to do something I haven’t done before – listen to the radio. I’m really excited now, I found Triple J which is a station I haven’t heard for years! There are no interesting non-commercial stations in the UK so I’ve been having withdrawals!
I really appreciated this exercise because I’ve realised that with my new internet provider and Windows Media Player – I can have a little bit of home every day now!
The difficult part of Media Player is the file format issue. We find that most days we use this program and iTunes to listen to music. It would be great to find a player that could play all music formats. I used Copernic to search for possibilities but again, found the display very distracting and couldn’t find anything that caught my eye in it’s busy, half highlighted presentation.
Search Engine Task
Unfortunately the two pages we were asked to visit in the curriculum, Using Web Search Tools and Specialised Databases. have been removed from the OSU site.
Following on from my excitement of remembering internet radio, and specifically Triple J, I searched Google with the keywords ‘hottest 100’. The results were:
Results 1 - 10 of about 625,000 for hottest 100. (0.15 seconds). The first 5 results were:
When I ran the same search on Copernic it returned 49 results from 11 search engines. I ran it a second time using the identical words and syntax and this time it gave me 50 results from 11 search engines. Strange! Here are the first 5 results:
I didn’t like the results from this search very much as the sponsored links really dominated the top of the page, and the page I actually wanted, triplej.net.au, came in 5th place. It was first on the list in the Google search.
I’ve been searching for some more information behind the reason why 11 search engines have returned such a small response compared with the Google results. I think I’ll have to look into this further, I’ve not been able to find a simple explanation as the two pages mentioned above obviously provided.
Using Boolean searching, I would get the most results using the Boolean term AND in my search (ie hottest AND 100). A quick rundown of the results:
Without Boolean Logic – result 625,000
With Boolean Term ‘AND’ – result 31,400,000
Copernic
Without Boolean Logic – 49 or 50
With Boolean Term ‘AND’ – result 53
Regarding relevance, Google gave by far the most accurate results for my search, Copernic pushed my destination website down to 6th position.
I’m not sure if I’ve missed an important point in not being able to access the OSU websites recommended to find a way to just search university websites, but I have found a link in Google that allows you to narrow your search to a particular university website. See link below:
http://www.google.com/options/universities.html
Google has created Google Scholar that searches all areas such as universities, theses, academic publishers etc. Microsoft has also released Windows Live Academic Search that does the equivalent. Whilst this does not narrow down the search to only universities, the search results are clearly refined.
Organising Search Information
The best responses I received were from Google. At number 1:
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/
Author – unknown
Institution – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
And number 2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_J_Hottest_100
Author – it’s a wiki, there are many authors
Institution – Wikipedia
But number 3 had no relevance at all!
http://www.totalfilm.com/features/the_hottest_100_people_in_hollywood_right_now
Author – unnamed
Institution – Squiz
To record these 3 websites I have used the method I am most comfortable with – I added them as favourites in Microsoft Explorer. To keep my favourite addresses under control I put them into folders. In this case I have used called the folder Net11, it is where I keep the links to my blog and other relevant sites to this course. I find this the easiest way to keep track of my websites, as Explorer is the program I use most commonly, and I really don’t use other programs or bookmarking functions. I prefer to keep it simple
Evaluating the web
For this exercise I used a more relevant webpage from my concepts assignment, http://www.xssed.com/pagerank
the reliability and authority of the site / source / article
the reliability of the statistics of the site are open to interpretation, as although it claims to be the largest repository of information regarding XSS vulnerable sites, it relies on submissions from the public to identify them. If there was decreasing public interest, the results would become skewed and unreliable.
I was concerned when viewing the submissions page, as the last update regarding submissions was posted in 2007, but when viewing the XSS Archive, I can see that it is update daily, this attention gives me more confidence in the accuracy of the data.
the main ideas or subjects discussed in the article
To provide information and education regarding XSS vulnerabilities to all interest site developers and users.
the purpose for which the site was written (this might include any apparent external interest, intellectual motivation or contextual information)
The site was created as a reference point, but I would suggest that the developers intended for it to become a commercial concern.
As I have used separate sites for the different parts of this exercise, comparing the relevance of the information provided in the search results to my closer look at the site. The most useful research to look back on would definitely be my more detailed information. To judge, or provide some permanent ranking on the site to remind myself of the usefulness of the site, I would personally put something in the link name in my Explorer favourites, although now I beginning to understand the usefulness of bookmarking sites.
Monday, 18 August 2008
Module 3 Tasks
HTML Tags
I really enjoyed creating my first webpage, I’m a much better ‘doer’ than I am at thinking about the concepts and writing intelligent comments on the discussion boards! Aside from the expected mistakes of forgetting to close the odd tag, all went well and I really enjoyed creating.
I really enjoyed the freedom of creating the HTML page, as I could really do anything I like, whereas a blog is somewhat more limiting. Paradoxically, that is also the advantage of the blog – very little effort is required to create a nicely presented page, as they come with their own ready made template. I enjoyed creating the HTML page most, I like having the creative control, and I enjoyed learning the new language that will hopefully soon be second nature to me!
5 most important rules for writing online
From my own web browsing experience, and reflecting the web links provided in the curriculum, I think the following could be a reasonable guide to writing for the web:
Legal Issues
I put my webpage through the W3C validator and so many errors came back I couldn’t believe it! The most common one was:
I’m obviously forgetting to close tags – something to watch out for in future!!
I think that my webpage is ok in the copyright sense, the images and ideas are all mine, there is nothing borrowed. My interpretation on the question of whether including the Curtin logo on my web page would be breaking copyright, is that it would be ok if it linked to the Curtin website, or if the page content credited Curtin as a reputable and genuine body. However if I mis-represented myself as a representative of Curtin, this would be against copyright rules.
FTP
I have uploaded my webpage into the presentation area of WebCT, it was a bit of fun getting the images to work, but now it seems to be working fine.
The link is : http://webct.curtin.edu.au/305033_b/student_pres/Group24/index.html
Blogging
I was really quite disconcerted by the concept of blogging when I started this course. While I’m not likely to keep or maintain one, I can appreciate the benefits more. I particularly enjoyed being able to view and comment on the blogs of my classmates, it was great to see how everyone was progressing and the frustrations that so many of us shared!
If I had the time and inclination I think blogging could be a good way to stay in touch with my family in Australia, but I am scared that it would be something I’d start and not maintain.
Web 2.0
Unfortunately both of these sites repeatedly crashed my internet connection – I couldn’t complete this task.
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