David Pogue Keynote 28 JAN

The entertaining and talented David Pogue (Pogue's Posts) and Pogue Press The Missing Manual series presented Web 2.0 2.0. He spoke last year on Web 2.0 at TechKnowledge. Highlight of the talk:

A Wikipedia edit war with someone determined to misrepresent his background

Everything must happen in real time, text message, IM, or Twitter

Nobody cares about privacy or selectively caring while publishing all sorts of thing and activities. Partially driven by ego in amassing friends and/or followers.

Interesting live Twitter experiment shared with readers of his blog today. He tweeted: “I need a cure for hiccups… RIGHT NOW! Help?” to his 5,000+ followers. In moments scads of helpful advice of 140 character or less streamed in. My favorite: "warcand: check your 401K. That should scare the hiccups right out of ya!" He was speaking early morning in Las Vegas.

User generated content has a dark side. Some have gamed the system in generating glowing reviews, dissing a biotech company by a short seller, posting of a false Steve Jobs hospitalization that caused Apple's stock to fall 7.5% in one day, and so on.

To fix the problem and retain and sustain credibility, David states:

1. Require credentials for review, the you-must-be-this-tall-to-get-on-this-ride
2. Require use of actual name for a review/comment
3. Commenters rate the comment where the "bad" comments fall to the bottom.
4. An established code of ethics
5. Hire a moderator

Finally, the Gen Xer take 2.0 for granted; it's a trusted source.

Interesting 2.0 sites referenced in the talk:

• domystuff.com outsourcing chores, a bidding site
• kiva.org micolending site
• goloco.org social network for sharing rides
  
• epetitions.net UK site for public petitioning GREAT IDEA
  
• yelp.com local user-generated reviews of shopping, restaurants, nightlife
  
• whoissick.org Google Map overlay of local sickness
  
• ratemy (body part).com NOT SAFE FOR WORK rate participants "features"

As David sauntered off the stage, a baby grand piano was conveniently located for his lounge act; a rework of John Lennon's Imagine.