Brit Beats US with Google Maps
Came across this political campaign site that incorporates Google Maps. It’s for Ming Campbell’s campaign for the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the UK. This is the first one I’ve seen so far doing this. Pretty cool.
“The Wisdom of Crowds”
This book by James Surowiecki shows how, under the right curcumstances, crowds can make better decisions than individuals, and individual experts. I want to spend the next few posts talking about his insights in the context of Web 2.0 and the media.
Talking about smart crowds, Surowiecki, means an assembly of people that meets four critieria: 1) it needs to be diverse, with different people bringing different info to the table; 2) It must be decentralized with no leader at the top; 3) there needs to be a way (the web, say) for aggregating everyone’s opinion into a result, like a vote; and 4) members of the crowd have to be independent, so that they care more for themselves than what other may think of them.
And as Surowiecki shows, you get some interesting results; from the simple, a group accurately estimating the number of jelly beans in a jar, to the more complex, scientists in groups around the world identifying te SARS virus, to the very complex, investors in the marketplace.
So what about Web 2.0 and the media? Next posting.
Blogging for DVD Sales
I wanted to share with you the article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the DVD shop who’s been able to double its sales with a blog. You can find it here.
The Bivings Report Gets a Facelift
The Bivings Report started out in late 2001 as a blog that focused exclusively on online marketing and promotion. The site built a loyal following over the years, but the content we were publishing only reflected a small part of what we do. So we’ve redesigned the site and are going to try to talk about all the things we are passionate about. Its an exciting time for the Internet and The Bivings Group as a firm, and we want to write about it.
Note that we wrote a lot of articles for The Bivings Report over the years. We loaded those into the site archive since some people might find them interesting/useful. We deleted most of our old posts since they tended to function as links to the news of the day.
A Million Little Bytes
The Blogosphere Strikes Again. This time taking down a best-selling author.
The non-fiction book “A Million Little Pieces,” by the memoirist James Frey is the latest victim — this time of The Smoking Gun website. Published in 2003, the book is a memoir chronicling Frey’s life: his plunge into alcoholism, drug addiction and crime, followed by his rehabilitation and final redemption. Subsequent to Frey’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in late October 2004, the book shot to the top of The New York Times nonfiction paperback best seller list. Continue reading “A Million Little Bytes” »