The diminishing value of friend recommendations online

I came across the following article (by Michael Bush) on Advertising Age:

In Age of Friending, Consumers Trust Their Friends Less

Edelman Study Shows That Only 25% of People Find Peers Credible, Flying in Face of Social-Media Wisdom

Here's my response, mostly in agreement:

With an overabundance of people who believe (and are being led to believe by social media marketers) that their personal opinions matter greatly to everyone around them, it's no surprise that the signal-to-noise ratio surrounding personal recommendations has gotten lower. Not only do we have more friends than ever (because of social networking sites), a disproportionate number of them seem to think they are (or deserve to be) prominent influencers and tastemakers.

In response, some people appear to be relying more on aggregrate recommendations, leveraging the so-called "wisdom of the crowd" to determine what they're likely to enjoy, whether it's movies (via rottentomatoes.com), restaurants (via yelp.com), or books (via amazon.com). Such an approach, widely-adopted, has its own problematic consequences (to be discussed some other time).

An alternative approach is to rely on select individuals for one's recommendations, people whose opinions you really value, even if you don't necessarily agree with all of them. For me, I rely on the person who knows me best--my wife Carol, and even she gets me wrong from time to time, or isn't necessarily interested in evaluating all the things that pique my curiosity. For what it's worth, I still trust recommendations offered by my friends--like around 10 of them, a much smaller subset of the 400 or so friends I have on Facebook (nothing personal, folks).

Crimson Tide is a continuation of WarGames by other means

Last night, I (re)watched Crimson Tide (1995) on Bravo. I only intended to watch part of it, but I was sucked in. I think I've seen the movie twice before, but for some reason it never occurred to me until last night that it shares a lot in common with WarGames (1983), one of my top 10 favorite movies.

Both films, despite significant differences in how the stories were presented, dealt with issues including:

• Decision-making complexity (whether or not to launch nuclear weapons, based on possibly inaccurate information) during unusually stressful conditions.
  
  
• The conflict between flexible human judgement versus strict adherence to protocol.
  
  
• The futility of war in a nuclear era.
  

Watching the personal conflict (especially the discussion about Clausewitz, hence the title of this post) between Commander Hunter (Denzel Washington)--educated and "complicated"--versus Captain Ramsey (Gene Hackman)--simple, instinctive, and aggressively confident--reminded me of the 'Jocks versus Nerds' dichotomy humorously explained by John Hodgman in his address at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner. See below for the whole video.



Timothy Leary wrote about WarGames in an essay¹ in which he described the film's protagonists as examples of self-directed cyberpunk heroes who followed a critical mantra: "Think for yourself; question authority" (TFYQA)--especially when the fate of humanity is on the line and the authority in question is based on rigid protocols and machine intelligence versus actual experience and human wisdom.

The essence of WarGames is summed up when Professor Stephen Falken implores General Beringer: "You are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one."

Sound advice in any era...

---

Related reading:

The Letter of Last Resort: The decision about nuclear apocalypse lying in a safe at the bottom of the sea

Leary, Timothy. 1991. "The Cyberpunk: The individual as reality pilot." Pp. 529-539 in The Cybercultures Reader, edited by David Bell. London: Routledge.

Fair Share, possibly the best iPhone tip calculator and bill splitter

My long-time friend from college, Jerry Hsu, just released his first iPhone application. Now, I don't use an iPhone (and I philosophically prefer Web apps that are based on open standards and work across devices/browsers), but if you're going to make an iPhone app, it might as well be good, and Jerry's made a great one.

It's called Fair Share, and here's what it does. When you dine out with your friends and it's time to pay the bill, Fair Share...

• Calculates the tip amount and bill, split fairly between every member of your party.
  
  
• Provides an easy interface for entering different price amounts for the various items ordered and assigning them to specific members of your party.
  
  
• Intelligently handles all kinds of ordering and payment situations.
  

Although Fair Share is one of many iPhone tip calculators and bill splitters out there, Jerry has worked hard (and done a ton of research) to make his version the best. The thing I love most about Fair Share is that it really embodies a part of Jerry's personality. Back in the day, whenever our group of friends went out for a meal, Jerry (being the treasurer of our college anime club) would take on the task of making sure everyone contributed properly to the bill. Jerry is a fair guy, and Fair Share represents his personal philosophy as much as his technical skill and understanding of what people need in software. To see it in action, view the video below: You can find the app on iTunes: Fair Share - Tip Calculator and Bill Splitter Jerry also writes about Fair Share on his blog: http://yarbars.blogspot.com/search/label/fairshare I'm sure he'd love to hear your feedback!

Introducing Opera Unite

Today is a really big day for Opera, and I'm proud that I have an opportunity to share it with people via an article I wrote for Opera Labs, the first in a short series to introduce our newest browser innovation--Opera Unite.

Here's the intro:

Taking the Web into our own hands, one computer at a time

My name is Lawrence Eng, and as a Product Analyst for Opera Software, my job is to understand our users and what they need so we can serve them better. Today, I've been asked share my thoughts on Opera Unite, a new Opera technology that I'm extremely excited about. I've been an avid Opera user since 2001 and seen the numerous innovations Opera has introduced to dramatically improve the experience of Web browsing. Of all the new features we've introduced over the years, none of them have filled me with anticipation as much as Opera Unite--a radical first step we've taken to address what I call 'the Internet's unfulfilled promise', which is about our ability to connect with each other and participate meaningfully online.

To read the entire article, please visit: Taking the Web into our own hands, one computer at a time

After (or before) you've read the article, I hope you'll try Opera Unite for yourself by downloading an Opera Unite-enabled build of the browser. Visit http://unite.opera.com/ for more info.