She Is a Meme Librarian
January 20, 2016
Memes are random bits of Internet culture that come and go faster than the highest DSL speed. There are so many memes out there that it seems impossible to catalog the trends, much less each one. The Independent tells us that Amanda Brennan has made a career out of studying and documenting memes, becoming the world’s first meme librarian: “Meet Tumblr’s ‘Meme Librarian,’ The Woman With The Best Job On The Internet.”
Brennan works at Tumblr and her official title is content and community manager, but she prefers the title “meme librarian.” She earned a Master’s in Information from Rutgers and during graduate school she documented memes for Know Your Meme, followed by Tumblr.
“[In graduate school] immediately I knew I did not want to work in a traditional library. Which is weird because people go to library school and they’re like ‘I want to change the world with books!’ And I was like ‘I want to change the world of information.’ And they started a social media specialization in the library school, and I was like, ‘This is it. This is the right time for me to be here.’”
Brennan is like many librarians, obsessed with taxonomy and connections between information. The Internet gave her an outlet to explore and study to her heart’s content, but she was particularly drawn to memes, their origins, and how they traveled around the Internet. After sending an email to Know Your Meme about an internship, her career as a meme librarian was sealed. She tracks meme trends and discovers how they evolve not only in social media, but how the rest of the Internet swallows them up.
I wonder if this will be a future focus of library science in the future?
Whitney Grace, January 20, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Machine Learning Hindsight
January 18, 2016
Have you ever found yourself saying, “If I only knew then, what I know now”? It is a moment we all experience, but instead of stewing over our past mistakes it is better to share the lessons we’ve learned with others. Data scientist Peadar Coyle learned some valuable lessons when he first started working with machine learning. He discusses three main things he learned in the article, “Three Things I Wish I Knew Earlier About Machine Learning.”
Here are the three items he wishes he knew then about machine learning, but know now:
- “Getting models into production is a lot more than just micro services
- Feature selection and feature extraction are really hard to learn from a book
- The evaluation phase is really important”
Developing models is an easy step, but putting them in production is difficult. There are many major steps that need attending to and doing all of the little jobs isn’t feasible on huge projects. Peadar recommends outsourcing when you can. Books and online information are good reference tools, but when they cannot be applied to actual situations the knowledge is useless. Paedar learned that real world experience has no comparison. When it comes to testing, it is a very important thing. Very much as real world experience is invaluable, so is the evaluation. Life does not hand perfect datasets for experimentation and testing different situations will better evaluate the model.
Paedar’s advice applies to machine learning, but it applies more to life in general.
Whitney Grace, January 18, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Meg Whitman Prediction: From Advocates of Quitting
January 15, 2016
I love predictions. Most folks forget the ones which do not materialize. The others get a moment of Internet fame and then die like day lilies.,
I read an interesting chunk of prognosticative fluff in “Meg Whitman Will Leave HP and 4 Other Predictions For 2016.”
The prediction is that Ms. Whitman will “declare victory” and head to a more halcyon place. Fortune asks, “Who could blame her?”
That’s nifty. A quitter. I suppose when one works at Fortune, the idea of quitting is a pretty attractive one.
Will Ms. Whitman depart? I don’t know. I do know that the litigation she spawned will continue through 2016 and probably years to come.
When she departs, the law firms dealing with her Autonomy allegations may give her a bouquet of —what?—day lilies?
Stephen E Arnold, January 15, 2016
The Duck Quacks 12 Million Queries
January 14, 2016
DuckDuckGo keeps waddling through its search queries and quacking that it will not track its users information. DuckDuckGo has remained a small search engine, but its privacy services are chipping away at Google and search engines’ user base. TechViral shares that “DuckDuckGo The Anti-Google Search Engine Just Reached A New Milestone” and it is reaching twelve million search queries in one day!
In 2015, DuckDuckGo received 3.25 billion search queries, showing a 74 percent increase compared to the 2014 data. While DuckDuckGo is a private oasis in a sea of tracking cookies, it still uses targeted ads. However, unlike Google DuckDuckGo only uses ads based on the immediate keywords used in a search query and doesn’t store user information. It wipes the search engine clean with each use.
DuckDuckGo’s increase of visitors has attracted partnerships with Mozilla and Apple. The private search engine is a for profit business, but it does have different goals than Google.
“Otherwise, it should be noted that although he refuses to have the same practices as Google, DuckDuckGo already making profits, yes that’s true. And the company’s CEO, Gabriel Weinberg, stop to think it is necessary to collect information about users to monetize a search engine: ‘You type car and you see an advertisement for a car, Google follows you on all these sites because it operates huge advertising networks and other properties. So they need these data for search engines to follow you.’ ”
DuckDuckGo offers a great service for privacy, while it is gaining more users it doesn’t offer the plethora of services Google does. DuckDuckGo, why not try private email, free office programs, and online data storage? Would you still be the same if you offered these services?
Whitney Grace, January 14, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google: Autos and Virtual Reality. Search? Not So Important?
January 13, 2016
I read two stories about the new Alphabet Google thing and its foci for 2016.
The first report comes from McPaper in the story “Google Forms Virtual Reality Division As Facebook Rivalry Heats Up.” The main idea is that Facebook is pitching virtual reality and getting lots of media coverage. The response for the Alphabet Google thing has been to do a reorganization.
Now I don’t much about virtual reality and I know zippo about modern management theory. I do think that when a giant company with many interests outside of the firm’s core technology does a reorganization after the Consumer Electronic Show, that’s a signal of note.
Has Google pulled a “let’s buy Motorola” or a “let’s reorganize now” maneuver?
Sure, looks like a knee jerk.
Meanwhile the Google is showing some signs of promiscuity. I read “Google Self-Driving Car Boss to Automakers: ‘We Hope to Work with Many of You Guys’.” I presume that the Alphabet Google thing will answer phone calls from those who want to work with the GOOG. The write up points out that there is a new president of the “self driving car project.” Hmm. President of project. I thought the title for that type of work was “project manager.”
The new Alphabet Google thing seems to be batting its Jack Benny blue eyes at anyone who finds the cachet of the search vendor alluring.
Zebras can change their stripes one assumes.
And search. Er, what?
Stephen E Arnold, January 13, 2016
Weekly Watson: The Internet of Things
December 17, 2015
Yep, there is not a buzzword, trend, or wave which IBM’s public relations professionals ignore. I read “IBM Is Bringing Its Watson Supercomputer to IoT.” The headline puzzled me. I thought that Watson was:
- Open source software like Lucene
- Home brew scripts
- Acquired technology.
The hardware part is moving to the cloud. IBM is reveling in a US government supercomputing contract which may involve quantum computing.
But Watson runs on hardware. If Watson is a supercomputer, I see some parallels with the Google and Maxxcat search appliances.
The write up reports:
IBM has announced today it is bringing the power of its Watson supercomputer to the Internet of Things, in a bid to extend the power of cognitive computing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise the IoT.
Will the Watson Internet of Things be located in Manhattan? Nope. I learned:
the company announced that the new initiative, the Watson Internet of Things, will be headquartered in Munich, Germany. The facility will serve as the first European Watson innovation super centre, built to drive collaboration between IBM experts and clients. This will be complemented by eight Watson IoT Client Experience Centers spread across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Why Germany? IBM has a partner, Siemens.
Will the IoT venture use the shared desk approach. According to EndicottAllilance.org Comment 12/10/15, this approach to work has some consequences:
I wouldn’t get too excited about the new “Agile Workspace” in RTP. Basically it is management forcing workers back to the office and into a tense, continuously monitored environment with no privacy. It will be loud, you’ll have no space of your own, and it will be difficult to think. Mood marbles? Better be sure you always choose the light-colored ones! And make sure your discussion card is always flipped to the green side. What humiliation! The environment will be great for loud-mouthed managers, terrible for workers who do all the work. Worse than cubicles.
From cookbooks to cancer, IBM Watson seems to be where the buzzwords are. I wonder if the Watson revenues will reverse the revenue downturns IBM has experienced for 14 consecutive quarters.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2015
Management Observations about Yahoo from a Real Newspaper
December 16, 2015
I am fascinated when publishers offer management advice and opinions. The newspaper publishing sector has done a bang up job with digital in the last 30 years.
I read the UK newspaper written by “real” journalists online and spotted this article: “Don’t Blame Marissa Mayer: nobody Was Going to Save Yahoo.”
That’s a great headline from a newspaper. I think it also emphasizes the value a Xoogler has despite the somewhat tarnished performance of the company the Xoogler is “turning around.”
I highlighted a couple of passages as particularly interesting observations.
For example, I highlighted in Yahoo purple:
All of it [Yahoo’s management actions], sadly, has been pretty irrelevant.
I like the “all”. There is nothing quite like a categorical affirmative to add heft to an argument.
I noted:
It would be easy to blame Mayer for this [revenue malaise]; in several ways she has done herself few favors – hiring and firing a chief operating officer who earned $58m in 15 months, cancelling working from home while bringing her newborn son and a full-time nanny to the office, and overseeing an exodus of top executives.
Well, I am not sure that the assertion “it’s not clear that anybody could have saved Yahoo.”
Again a categorical, embracing lots of folks” does not provide much insight into the Yahoo we know and love.
Too bad for those who rely on generalizations to navigate the tough business climate for information, whether in print or online.
I wonder how newspapers are doing. I assume super peachy. These outfits, including the Telegraph, are paragons of management excellence, organic revenue growth, hefty profits, and keen thinking.
Thank goodness for “real” journalists. These outfits and their professionals will make bang up consultants.
Stephen E Arnold, December 16, 2015
UK Publisher Repositioning
December 15, 2015
I read “How Dennis Publishing Created a New Tech Media Brand.” I was looking forward to a how to, the nuts and bolts of converting a print and online operation into a zippy digital brand.
The write up explains what most folks involved in “real” journalism know: Publishing outfits are good at outputting content and maybe not so good at the organization of the overall operation.
I learned from the write up:
Dennis Publishing wants to be the top destination for technology-related content in the U.K. in the next two years, spurred by the quick success of its new digital brand, Alphr.
I remembered seeing Alphr on iTunes. A podcast about technology ran for a while and then disappeared in October 2015 with nary a peep. I noted the odd ball spelling, which I assume allows the company’s content to be located with a Google or Yandex search.
The write up said:
That decision seems to be paying off. Alphr attracted just under 600,000 unique visitors in the U.K. in November and 1.5 million globally, according to Google Analytics….Dennis claims that the latest data shows that it outstripped Wired U.K., Quartz and Tech Insider in November in terms of shares in U.K. visits across these categories.
So what was the “how”? The write up pointed out that the company:
- Centralized certain operations
- Implemented testing procedures for products
- Kept the same headcount
- Embraced the Ziff “network” ad sale model from the late 1980s.
In short, in 2015, Dennis took steps that other publishers have been forced to adopt for a number of years.
The one thing the new plan did not do was communicate that the podcast, one of those hippy dippy social media things, was not relevant to the firm.
Communication about podcasts, it seems, is not germane to the new digital brand.
Stephen E Arnold, December 15, 2015
Understanding Trolls, Spam, and Nasty Content
December 9, 2015
The Internet is full of junk. It is a cold hard fact and one that will never die as long as the Internet exists. The amount of trash content was only intensified with the introduction of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterst, and other social media platforms and it keeps pouring onto RSS feeds. The academic community is always up for new studies and capturing new data, so a researcher from the University of Arkansas decided to study mean content. “How ‘Deviant’ Messages Flood Social Media” from Science Daily is an interesting new idea that carries the following abstract:
“From terrorist propaganda distributed by organizations such as ISIS, to political activism, diverse voices now use social media as their major public platform. Organizations deploy bots — virtual, automated posters — as well as enormous paid “armies” of human posters or trolls, and hacking schemes to overwhelmingly infiltrate the public platform with their message. A professor of information science has been awarded a grant to continue his research that will provide an in-depth understanding of the major propagators of viral, insidious content and the methods that make them successful.”
Dr. Nitin Agarwal and will study what behavioral, social, and computational factors cause Internet content to go viral, especially if they have deviant theme. Deviant means along the lines something a troll would post. Agarwal’s research is part of a bigger investigation funded by the Office of Naval Research, Air Force Research, National Science Foundation, and Army Research Office. Agarwal will have a particular focus on how terrorist groups and extremist governments use social media platforms to spread their propaganda. He will also be studying bots that post online content as well.
Many top brass organizations do not have the faintest idea of even what some of the top social media platforms are, much less what their purpose is. A study like this will raise the blinders about them and teach researchers how social media actually works. I wonder if they will venture into 4chan.
Whitney Grace, December 9, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Yahoo: A Partial Catalog of Errors
December 8, 2015
I read “7 of Yahoo’s Biggest **** Ups.” Just seven? With the smell of blood in the air on Wall Street, the jibes on talking head TV, and the endless write ups about the Yahoo Board’s dithering, a catalog of Yahoo’s seven biggest failures seems timely.
What are the mistakes? Here you go:
- Not buying Google
- Not buying Facebook
- Not selling itself to Microsoft
- The Flickr flop
- Not thinking as a technology outfit
- The Tumblr tumble
- Disorganization in the reorganizations.
I have prepared several analyses of the Yahooligans over the years. I once had an illustration for a PowerPoint presentation which showed the Titanic and Terry Semel as the captain. I wish I could find that deck.
There are a couple of points in my list of purple vulnerabilities; for example, the settlement with the Google for the alleged, possible missteps regarding the GoTo, Overture, Yahoo advertising systems was an important milestone. I think that error in judgment was the action that turned on the flashing yellow lights for Yahoo. Yahoo settled a legal matter and took some money. Google then pranced toward its $60 plus billion in revenue dervived mostly from online advertising.
I also noted in my analyses the technical hubris at Yahoo. The company talked a good game and some of the Yahooligans published articles explaining whizzy technology type things. But the company fumbled not one or two technical opportunities. The company has been for a long time essentially a marketing yodler. Yodels are interesting, but yodels do not turn half baked ideas into revenue. The technology matters, not the wild notions.
Poor Yahoo. Its trajectory presages what will happen to a number of other outfits who take their eye off the technology-that-matters ball as it whizzes towards the batter’s head.
Stephen E Arnold, December 8, 2015
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