Category: Web 2.0

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Is social media empowering social media?

Here's a funny thought. You've probably noticed infinite blogs that give you advice on how to blog. Yes, I'm doing it too sometimes. You've probably also heard that tweets containing the word Twitter are one of the most clicked and retweeted out there. The most successful blogs are focused on technology, social media and (mobile) gadgets, which again, enable consumption of the beautiful global network we've built. There are links about Facebook on Facebook, visualizations about the rise of Pinterest on Pinterest. The most clicked links on this blog contain the words Facebook, Twitter or Social. I think I'm not the only one who's noticed this trend, even though I probably tend to have my feeds in configured in such a direction. Is social media empowering social media?

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written 15:41 CET on chronolog
2517 views   •   1 like   •   2 comments  •   Like   •   
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A case study in agile development: the algorithm for Ljubljana Realtime's event discovery

When we started working on Ljubljana Realtime, we decided to approach it in an agile way. Amongst others, we wanted to use a few interesting lean concepts such as rapid development, Minimum Viable Product and the Build - Measure - Learn iterations. Less than two months later, the results are in, and they are very pleasing. The MVP in the shape of an activity map was developed in a few weeks, only to show there is a lot of social noise which will somehow need to be taken under control. But that's currently low priority, since the first pivot is already taking place, slowly shifting the focus from the rich map application towards an event discovery algorithm and stream. That's where I see the most potential of Ljubljana Realtime, and in the last weeks, that's where the most work was done.

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written 21:01 CET on chronolog
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Discover what's happening in Ljubljana in real-time

I've always been a big fan of the power of the crowds. When a mass of people can achieve much more than a few skilled individuals can. And ever since we've started playing with Twitter's API, I've been think about the possibilities of this magnificent data source. Besides Twenity, we've done a few other Twitter mashups like Twitter walls, but this wasn't enough. We wanted something more - geolocation. Displaying information on a map in real-time. But since there aren't that many tweets equipped with GPS coordinates, we needed to include other services for more diversity as well. Which we did, and Ljubljana Realtime, a social event discovery application, was born.

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written 14:37 CET on chronolog
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Dear Twitter, please reconsider this madness

Dear Twitter. You were always one of my favorites. I love it how you managed to create a subculture, something that Facebook will never be able to do. You've allowed people to collectively create information that travels the world in seconds. Your role in many global activist projects is invaluable, and your stance on privacy issues something that inspires the world. You help us find out about things before they actually happen. When the Icelandic volcano was erupting in 2010, I was watching the #ashtag word clouds being broadcasted live on CNN. It was then that it struck me that the media will never be the same again, the power of thousands reporters wins every time. You made it to the mainstream, shaped transmedia into Twitter + television. You were becoming the ultimate foundation for real-time information. You made me realize so many things by being one of the most prominent platforms of the social era. You were the man.

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written 16:01 CET on chronolog
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Is it even possible to create original content in this age?

I've been blogging for more than three years now. And I love doing it, hell, I think my blog is pretty fucking awesome. But there's a problem I've been noticing lately. Every single piece of content I write has probably been written hundred times before. By mainstream media, by authors, by bloggers, by you. There's no way around it, and it bugs me to infinity. Take this specific post for instance, I won't even google it, but I can guess plenty of others writers have faced these thoughts and wrote about them from their own viewpoints. The irony of the situation is fantastic.

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written 12:52 CET on chronolog
2556 views   •   1 like   •   5 comments  •   Like   •   
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The final destination, part 1: technologies and concepts enterprise IT will have to adopt

In the past years, we've witnessed a very important transformation: the consumerization of information technologies. Billions of connected users living their life online, overwhelmed by millions of information systems that have been tailored to suit their every need and desire. Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon came a long way with their products and infrastructure, but the enterprise isn't losing any time. Learning from the new paradigms and adopting new funky technologies, that have traditionally been developed in corporate laboratories. Can the Fab 4 also predict where enterprise IT is headed? And what will it become?

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written 19:38 CET on chronolog
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Putting 'people who look at you' to your Facebook profile would be the smartest thing to do

Are you one of those people who are wondering how Facebook decides which friends they put on your profile? I admit I am, both out of programmer's curiosity and of course, there have been rumors that those individuals are the ones who look at your profile. While LinkedIn offers this "who looks at your profile" insight to its (premium) users, Facebook is still very mysterious about it, denying this is how this particular algorithm works. But there is a simple reason I don't believe them: if I would be Facebook, I would design it exactly like this.

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written 11:50 CET on chronolog
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