I Trust You Internet Friend

If you haven't noticed, most sites that are hosted on Blogger have this button in the upper-right hand and when you click on it, you are taken to a random blog. Clicking on it hundreds of times a day will give you a good impression of the type of shit that is being produced. For the most part, the blogosphere is depressing. People lamenting a lost love, people who's hermetic existence produces intolerable ramblings, people think that people care about what they say. When I talked to my journalism professor about blogs she said, "thre is some OK stuff, but for the very most part it is absolute shite."

I like teachers who curse, this is for you. Stan created Outfoxed (not to be confused with the Greenwald doc) after writing a sexy thesis on meta-data and ooh FOAF communities. Yeah, I don't speak nerd either, so here is a link to his site where he explains with pictures and crayons.

Essentially, Stan is attempting to solve the problem of crappy content with social filtering. Whereas Google is developing software which will filter content based on quantifiable preferences, Outfoxed filters content based on the opinions of your friends. Just like Facebook and Friendster, you create a group of friends and girls who's pictures you think are hot and then you give your opinions on websites. The point is that each person in the community has expertise in some field and when you want to know a good site on something outside of your knowledge you consult one of these specialists.

It kind of makes sense but it relies on trusting the opinions of your friends - which I don't. You are allowed to search the opinions of people outside your community: so say you wanted to know where to get the best acid online you could scroll the opinions of Crispin Glover. I like this idea better than the meta-filtering being done at Google and Amazon which is too close for comfort with corporate interests. The funny part about this is that the geek who knows the most about computers and the internet is all of the sudden the most popular person in your group because he/she can tell you about malware and worms...oh my god, I am that geek.