Over the past week, there’s been lots of commentary about “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data“, an article by Googlers Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig, and Fernando Pereira in the most recent issue of IEEE Intelligent Systems. Here are a few posts that have been appearing in my RSS reader: Geeking with Greg: Semantic interpretation and the [...]

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You’d think that, after my less than flattering coverage of the Wolfram Alpha pre-launch hype, they would have blocked my IP address even after the public launch. I certainly thought so. But I was wrong. Last week, someone from their business development group contacted me to arrange a preview of the system. He spent an [...]

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Jimmy Wales is shutting down the struggling Wikia Search. Via CNET.

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With all of the excitement about Aardvark and Hunch, I’ve been meaning to write a big-picture post about social search. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I’ve decided to defer to the experts at FXPAL. Here are three recent posts on the subject that I recommend: Gene Golovchinsky: Social Search Gene Golovchinsky: Communicating about Collaboration: [...]

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Let me start by saying that I really like LinkedIn. I use it as everything from a self-updating address book to a gateway to professional communities like the enterprise search professionals group. I am delighted by the information LinkedIn has assembled about companies just by aggregating user profiles. In short, I take LinkedIn quite seriously [...]

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The website for the Girls Scouts of the USA clearly states: Q: Can I buy Girl Scout Cookies online? A: Girl Scouts of the USA does not currently allow online sales, but its cookie site GirlScoutCookies.org can help you locate girls selling in your community. Simply visit www.GirlScoutCookies.org So perhaps one can forgive Amazon.com, “the [...]

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Today’s New York Times features an essay by Noam Cohen entitled “Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City“, in which Cohen explores the metaphor of Wikipedia as an information metropolis, repete with dead-end streets and industrial districts. It’s a nice read, even if Cohen gets a bit carried away with his artistic license. But Nick Carr reacts strongly [...]

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Curt Monash recently published a pair of sweeping posts about the future of the information ecosystems: The grand discussion on the future of journalism Where I think the information ecosystem is headed They’re nice posts, and Monash does a great job of playing by the rules of the link economy (the one time I agree [...]

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Larry Dignan over at ZDNet offers an amusing comparison between how Barron’s wrote off “Amazon.bomb” in 1999 and how they dubbed Amazon “the world’s best retailer” in their current issue’s cover story. Check it out: “What a difference a decade makes: Barron’s proclaims Amazon best retailer“. Makes me wonder what cover stories about online media [...]

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Those of you who have been enjoying our recent debate about the future of online advertising should check out TechCrunch, which is offering a “Steel Cage Debate On The Future Of Online Advertising: Danny Sullivan Vs. Eric Clemons“. For those who haven’t been keeping up with this fight: Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information [...]

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