How did this happen and what prompted this message to spread?

#CheeringForTheYankeesIsLike

About an hour after Matt sent out his first message, one of his followers, @lizzieohreally, wrote the following message ‘@jaketapper? @abcdude? …Hoping someone w/ more Twitter than I can help popularize #CheeringForTheYankeesIsLike (via @mattsly)‘. Lizzie clearly understood that in order to get many others to play, she would have to get someone with a large set of followers to participate. Lizzie had only around 500 followers at the time, so posted this message in an attempt to seek @jaketapper or @abcdude’s attention.

Sure thing, some twenty minutes later, @abcdude see’s the message and adds his own variation to the meme: ‘#cheeringfortheyankeesislike pulling for Regina George in “Mean Girls.”‘ He enjoys it so much that he promptly posts another message and attaches the hashtag. @abcdude is a new york based correspondent for ABC news. He dubs himself a RedSox fan and a cosmic power broker. Not as cosmic as Lizzie had hoped, but still, he has some 7,000 followers, which could certainly help give the meme some traction. We see a small spike after @abcdude’s participation, and by now, some 3 hours after Matt sent the original message, there have been 34 different messages posted with this unique hashtag.

But it wasn’t until @jaketapper joined in that the conversation really took off. The hashtag came to Jake’s attention after @DetourJazz, whom he follows, participated. Jake reacted by posting:  ’RT @DetourJazz: #cheeringfortheyankeesislike rooting for “Craterface” in Grease to beat Danny (via @Laura_Martin)’. He then added a new message that he posted to his followers. Jake is a senior White House correspondent for ABC news with over 30,000 followers. Before he took part in this meme, new posts appeared at a frequency of one every 5 minutes. Immediately after he joined, we see a sharp rise in participation, with multiple messages from a variety of users every minute.

Seeing it Spread

1. Graphing the Network – Every user who participated in the meme is represented by a gray circle (Matt, whom first started the meme, is shown in yellow). Edges represents the person who most likely influenced the other to first participate.

2. Seeing the Flow – in this applet, a user is represented by their twitter icon. As the timeline moves forward, each profile lights up when they post a new message with the hashtag. Tthe moment that @jaketapper chose to participate is evident – there’s a clear, sudden spike in participation after his profile picture lights up.

3. Seeing the distance – the following applet highlights the total social distance that this hashtag traveled between users. Each user is represented by a circle, the more influence a user has, the larger their circle is drawn. Edges in this example represent the social ties – when there’s a follower/friend relationship between two users, a line is placed between their representation on the screen. The first column includes only Matt who first used the hashtag. The second row consists of only those people he directly influenced to participate (his followers). While there are a total of 9 columns, it is crystal clear that the most important phase happened in the second and third column, when a core cluster of users chose to participate, and a mini tipping point was reached.

Parsing the Data

#CheeringForTheYankeesIsLike lasted for a total of 9 hours that day, activated 271 different users and included around 500 messages in total. From looking at this meme, it is clear that on Twitter, there’s great advantage to having many followers if one intends to spread a message. It is also clear that having the right followers is key. If it were not for @lizzieohreally who knew to actively pass the message onwards to heavy Twitter users, the meme would never have spread out the way it did. In order to come to these conclusions it was necessary for me to look at social ties in addition to the semantics of the messages posted.

I used the Twitter API to discover the follower/friend relationships between all users who participated in this meme. This is extremely important  data, especially when modeling  the flow of participation and influence within this hashtag. For example, lets look at a simple case where user B follows user A. If user A first participates and is followed by user B participating, user A is rewarded some number of influence points – this is assuming user B saw the hashtag posted by user A, and decided to participate. Additionally, if a user is retweeted or ‘@’ messaged they are rewarded some number of influence points. Real life situations can easily become complicated, as user B might also be following user C, who participated in the meme as well. Now how do we know if user B was influenced by user A or user C? Hard to tell, but we can build an influence model that takes these situations into account, which is exactly what I did.

Translating the semantics and social ties from the dataset into a visual language that made sense was key to helping me understand this hashtag experiment. I am a big fan of visualization as a means to parse large datasets, however dealing with social, implicit data is tricky, and extremely challenging to represent visually. But when done right, these representations can shine a whole new light and hopefully help us better understand some of the dynamics at play.

What I’d like to see is a comparison of multiple people at the same time. I’d also like to minimize the timeline so that i can see the whole evening at a time, rather than have to scroll horizontally. I don’t like the aesthetic of circular profiles over a black background. The circular border has too much contrast – some alpha blurring would’ve done the trick nicely. Whats definitely missing most is the multiple channel view, especially now that people aren’t talking as much about the event. In any case, nice to see MTV investing in a Twitter viz. (click below to try it out)

]]> http://giladlotan.com/blog/2009/09/twitter-visualization-mtv-vma-tweet-tracker/feed/ 1 http://giladlotan.com/blog/2009/09/david-kord-murray-borrowing-brilliance/ http://giladlotan.com/blog/2009/09/david-kord-murray-borrowing-brilliance/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:22:48 +0000 http://giladlotan.com/blog/?p=469 I’m very excited about the new Speaker Series that MSR New England has kicked off today, featuring David Kord Murray, author of Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by building on the ideas of others. David gave a solid talk, emphasizing the importance of two aspects in the process of being “creative”: Borrowing [...]]]> I’m very excited about the new Speaker Series that MSR New England has kicked off today, featuring David Kord Murray, author of Borrowing Brilliance: The Six Steps to Business Innovation by building on the ideas of others. David gave a solid talk, emphasizing the importance of two aspects in the process of being “creative”: Borrowing other ideas, and knowing how to Judge ideas.

In his book’s second chapter (on borrowing) he quotes Einstein: “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”. What he lays out later in the chapter, describes “smart” ways of borrowing – basically don’t borrow ideas from your direct competitor, but possibly someone else in a related field, or yet better, someone in a completely unrelated field, who is trying to solve a similar problem. Bill Gates borrowed solutions from the existing software industry, while Charles Darwin borrowed his creative solutions from places not usually associated with biology (Galapagos). Borrow from within your industry and you’re considered a thief or lowly pirate. While if you borrow from another industry, you are considered a creative genius.

Another interesting quote from that chapter: “If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” He continues to write about how Bill Gates stole the mouse+click GUI idea that Macintosh developed first. Apparently Steve Jobs spotted that technology at XEROX parc, hired the reseracher who worked on the mouse, and put him to work on the Mac. Gates immediately recognized the potential of the idea, and blatantly copied it. After years of legal battles, Microsoft won the suit, on the claim that the original idea didn’t originate from Apple, but from Xerox. Dan Bricklin, a prominent software engineer who developed the first spreadsheet, said about the suit, “This is a sad day for the software industry in America.” He added, “Writing software is not the same as writing a book. Software builds on what was there before.” Bricklin is right. Software builds on what was there before, but so does every commercial product, engineered machine, scientific theory, and creative thought… also books!

In the Q&A session I asked the author what his thoughts of DRM & technology/web copyright. He didn’t have a stong opinion other than – he understands why its necessary for profitability, but also sees how it inhibits the creative process.

My notes from his talk:

Borrowing Brilliance is about taking ideas and restructuring them. New ideas are always built out of existing ideas. The key becomes where you go to look for ideas. Main questions:

1. can you teach someone to be creative? Definitely.
2. is there a defined process? Maybe.

defined six steps:
the origin of a creative idea:
step 1) defining – define the problem that you’re trying to solve
step 2) borrowing – borrow ideas from places with a similar problem
step 3) combining – connect and combine these borrowed ideas (this is the essence of creativity)
the evolution of a creative idea:
step 4) incubating – allow the combinations to incubate into a solution
step 5) judging – identify the strength and weakness of the solution
step 6) enhancing – eliminate the weak points while enhancing the strong ones

DEFINING
We’re not necessarily good at the formation of a problem. The problem is the foundation of a creative idea. Its important to define, understand and describe the problem. Its important to describe the problem from different perspective, define it differently.

BORROWING
The problem with define where to look for the solution. John Nash had an economics problem: how do members of the economy act, he sensed that they were acting with incomplete information. He recognized that as the same problems he had playing poker. He took the same solutions to the problems from poker into create a decision-making model as a solution for his economics problem.

how do you solve a navigation problem? First look at other software companies. Then step away outside that industry and look at search&rescue teams, truck drivers… etc, and see how they solve their navigation problems.

COMBINING
this is the essence of creativity.
Walt disney created disneyland by using a movie metaphor while constructing the park. Used a move metaphor while breaking out the different experiences that people should have in different parts of the park. Facebook’s original metaphor was an online yearbook. Creative thinkers use metaphors. Isaac Newton was thinking in terms of metaphors – making the connection between the apple and the moon – the apple falls down, but moon moves around. combined celestial and earth-based physics.

INCUBATING
Input to the subsounscious is important => incubate => output from the subconscious (usually happens in the shower! -> the one time of the day where we’re not consciously thinking). Before going to bed, important to glance over some things we’re thinking about, then put it away… It’ll come back.

JUDGING
This is used to drive/improve the idea. Put on your positive and negative hats. So in the next phase, you can bring up an idea that doesn’t have the negative bits and mostly the good bits. This helps develop your intuition, identifying good ideas fast. Example: steve jobs visits XEROX PARC 20 years ago. Goes wild over a demo of mouse+click GUI. Identifying that as a brilliant idea vs. others that had the same demo…

ENHANCING
Trial and error as the passage to the creative solution.

[tags]creativity,book,review, David Kord Murray [/tags]

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Jason Krugman’s Firefly 870 LED Prototype.

Firefly 870 L.E.D. Prototype Promo Video from Jason Krugman on Vimeo.

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Che-Wei Wang’s 3.16 Billion Cycles – a stunning exploration of time:

3.16 Billion Cycles from che-wei wang on Vimeo.

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FormScreen by Minsoo Lee:

FormScreen from Minsoo Lee on Vimeo.

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Tom Gerhardt’s Mud Tub (http://dirtycomputing.com/) – an experimental organic interface that allows people to control a computer while playing in the mud.

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Bestiary by Caroline Brown and Bryan Lence:

Dynamically generated projections on an interactive book interface.

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Jackoon by Oscar G. Torres:

Jackoon Painting from Oscar G. Torres on Vimeo.

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Mechanical Wooden Face – Eun Jung Park:

Mechanical Wooden Face from Eun Jung Park on Vimeo.

Even with the staggering numbers that we have seen over the past year (the newspaper industry shed an estimated 15,970 jobs in 2008, and 8,484 through April of this year), it is important to remember that the future of quality journalism does not depend on the future of newspapers. People have gotten used to getting the news they want, whenever, however and wherever they want. This change is here to stay. The discussion needs to move from “How do we save newspapers?” to “How do we strengthen journalism — regardless of which platform it is delivered on…”

We must not act as if we are still operating in the old content economy, as opposed to the new link economy. The survival of the industry cannot be found by “protecting” content behind walled gardens. The future is a linked economy – it is search engines, online advertising, citizen journalism and foundation supported investigative funds.

Arianna firmly believes in a hybrid future:

where old media players embrace the ways of new media (including transparency, interactivity, and immediacy) and new media companies adopt the best practices of old media (including fairness, accuracy, and high-impact investigative journalism). The emphasis should not be on subsidizing what exists now, but on how to rededicate ourselves to the highest calling of journalists — which is to ferret out the truth, wherever it leads. Even if it means losing our all-access-pass to the halls of power.

Unfortunately, this is a concept that has fallen out of favor with too many journalists who, like Pontius Pilat, wash their hands of finding the truth and instead are obsessed with a false view of “balance” and the misguided notion that every story has two sides. And that the truth can be found somewhere in the middle. But not every story has two sides and the truth is often found lurking in the shadows.

[tags] huffington, news, senate,arianna[/tags]

A day where we sing songs teary eyed and add more soldiers names to the long list of fallen soldiers since the start of our young state. A day when we reflect on the continuing bloodshed and wonder if it will ever cease. A day when we stand silent and sing our national anthem proudly. And even with all the typical Israeli cynicism, today we come together, as a consolidated people still struggling to justify our right for a home.

On memorial day, a siren is heard throughout the country, and everything stops; all cars, people, everyone stops, and stands in silence. Such powerful, strong silence is overwhelming. Even kids know, that when the siren sounds, you stop, stand, and reflect.

One of my favorite Yom Hazikaron songs, translated from Hebrew.

PERACH (flower):

There, in the dust and the sky’s blue
a piece of peace exists
Sleep flower, sleep
Sleep little girl.

They took life from you
Oh, holy wars
Angels wept for you
With dry eyes.

Your smile, baby girl,
They buried in the ground
how does silence grow
from within the chaos?

Whoever pressed the trigger
Blood will stain his heart
In wars for justice
Children also die.

Yehuda Poliker

[tags] yom hazikaron, memorial, day, israel[/tags]

The soldiers’ testimonies described cold-blooded murder of Gaza civilians and unreasonable commands passed during the operation. This lead to a promise by the military to form an investigation which was recently concluded, resulting in no file charges against any of the soldiers as their descriptions were based on hearsay. Their names have not been released in order to protect their identity, and the military investigative police did not publish any more information about the case.

Zamir’s efforts haven’t sat well with a certain patriotic constituency within Israeli society. The IDF is seen as a sacred national institution that is beyond reproach. I’m sure Zamir didn’t expect to be lionized for his efforts, he probably didn’t expect to be vilified either. Not only have Israelis accused him of smearing the IDF, they’ve accused him of aiding and abetting the nation’s enemies who are only waiting to pounce upon such stories to justify their hatred of Israel. The IDF itself initiated this campaign by revealing that Zamir had been imprisoned briefly in the 1990s when he refused to guard a settler group holding a provocative religious ceremony at Joseph’s Tomb. They attempted to shoot the messenger. (link)

While doing research for my Global Voices Online post, I scoured through Israblog, Tapuz and other Hebrew portals, trying to find posts from soldier first-hand witnesses who wrote about their experiences in Gaza. To my dismay, I could not find any. It is such a taboo topic; an Israeli must not help those haters validate their claims against our country. We were all soldiers. We all realize that these situations are not black and white. And even if these stories are somewhat true on a micro level, it is certainly not an IDF-wide phenomenon. But when they are taken out of context and amplified to the masses, it is easy to forget the source, while letting our emotions play out. Especially when messages are rapidly amplified through Twitter, the effects can be devastating ( a.k.a. what we saw last week re: #amazonFail)

Ever more often, we are witnessing the implications of living in a society with fast-paced, worldwide media coverage that can easily spin stories out from their original context. This is precisely how a closed door session between school colleagues turns into a worldwide news sensation against the reputation of one of the most powerful armies in the world. We must remember that the truth usually lies somewhere in-between, and make an effort to fact-check before letting our emotions passionately take over our logic.

Here’s a link to my GVO article:

[tags]Israel,global voices oline,testimonials,context,idf,soldiers,war,palestine,gaza[/tags]

Alfred Sirleaf is the managing editor of The Daily Talk, a white plywood shed trumpeting the latest headlines along Tubman Boulevard, one of Monrovia main thoroughfares. “Those who don’t have opportunity to buy newspaper, go on the Internet, who can’t afford to buy generator to buy TV,” he said, describing just about everyone in this battered city, “I do all the dirty work for them, and I just give them exactly what they want.”

Alfred’s solution to dispersing information to the people around him is simple yet highly effective. He also seems to have made a business model out of this board, charging for advertisement space on the bottom. Alfred wants to make sure every Liberian can keep up with the news and play a part in the country’s young democratic government, but in a way that wholly depends on what type of information he displays.

But there are so many advantages to providing “analog” news:

Alfred serves as a reminder to the rest of us, that simple is often better, just because it works. The lack of electricity never throws him off. The lack of funding means he’s creative in ways that he recruits people from around the city and country to report news to him. He uses his cell phone as the major point of connection between him and the 10,000 (he says) that read his blackboard daily. (link)

[tags]mobile, development, blogger, analog, africa,news[/tags]