{"id":12,"date":"2006-12-29T10:50:43","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T15:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.jiinjoo.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2007-01-16T13:53:44","modified_gmt":"2007-01-16T05:53:44","slug":"andreas-weigend-sg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.jiinjoo.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Andreas Weigend @ SG"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"Andreas,<\/div>\n

We were at NTUC 7th floor, in a meeting organized by TDM<\/a>, thanks to Su Yuen<\/a>‘s heads up. Too bad we didn’t see each other there as she has to watch TV<\/strong> in M’sia.<\/p>\n

Andreas S. Weigend<\/a> is one of the most outspoken gurus in the field of data mining on the Internet. As a technology strategist, we were a little disappointed that he wasn’t able to give any tips on the uniqueness of Singapore, at least not yet, maybe after his work with SIA. People kept thinking I know him (I do, he just don’t know me, “yet” too) as he was a Chief Scientist at Amazon.com when I was there.<\/p>\n

But as usual, his upbeat and high momentum talk kept all off us catching our breaths, some furiously taking down notes on the next big thing. Actually, this is my notes, hope you can share some of yours with me if you were there too.<\/p>\n

Chern Jie went too – I think he’ll make the next big thing here \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"Chern<\/div>\n

Ok, the rest of the post is going to turn really geeky. If you like pictures, look at TDM’s flickr<\/a>. Or maybe you’re more a worldly person, perhaps follow Stop Genocide Now<\/a> at Darfur.<\/p>\n

.<\/div>\n

The whole talk is anchored on the idea of turning from just e-business (Web 1.0, Amazon.com) to me-business (Web 2.0<\/a>, del.icio.us and others). What I got out of it was the concept of turning from the static web, to an intention <\/strong>seeking web, and to the attention <\/strong>seeking web (but<\/a> many<\/a> sites<\/a> claims otherwise). Intention is like, Google gives you this wonderful and free search engine, in exchange for knowing your intention; Amazon tracks your behavior on the site such that they know that by clicking on certain things, your intention eventually translate to so and so conversion (i.e. sales). Working backwards, we can then infer your future behavior based on your past actions on the website. That’s really the intention based business. People pay big bucks to learn about your intention, for your participation on the internet.The attention web however, is more than that. You can analogize it with a newly formalized currency on the internet that arises when you pay attention to something on the internet (instead of just blindly providing it information). The example given was having the user choose between paying 99 cents for downloading an MP3 on, say, iTunes<\/a>, or watch a 90 second advertisement on some other ad driven website like SpiralFrog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let’s see, what else is moving?<\/p>\n

Structured Participation<\/strong><\/p>\n

We’re moving from Britannica<\/a> to Wikipedia<\/a>. User generated content trumps expert data when there is cohesion, and the cohesion comes from the algorithm and the social element presented on the website. Of particular interest to someone like Andreas is the metadata created. Del.icio.us<\/a> and Flickr<\/a> for example, allows users to tag content, the tag naturally becomes a more powerful metadata than what the owner used to boast on their on tag. In fact, some claim that it’s more powerful than the referral hyperlinks (everybody remember how a Google Bomb<\/a> works?) which is the basis of how Google’s Page Rank<\/a> algorithm works. Ming Yeow quickly pointed out that about his search for logos. Compare these:<\/p>\n

Google search for “logos”<\/a> and Del.icio.us search for “logos”<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that both are “people tell you which are the sites about logos”, but the google one is marred with commercial entities with sophisticated SEO<\/a> techniques, and no one really know if they are good or not. Sometimes people link due to affiliate rewards. Del.icio.us however, is their personal bookmarks<\/strong>! You don’t lie on your personal bookmarks on which site is the one you go to to get the logos!<\/p>\n

Google Base<\/a> is one of the examples of big boys moving in the same direction (collecting attributes<\/em> from users instead of relying on its own meta-data crunching.<\/p>\n

Here’s another cool one. We’re moving from algorithmic search ala Google to social search<\/a> ala Eurekster<\/a> and Illumio<\/a>. While still in its infancy, it demonstrated the concept of “finding the right expert” very well. Traditionally, if you want to ask a question to an expert (Google is not <\/em>an expert, the results it presents are “average” responds and requires parsing), you turn to free\/pay service like Yahoo! Answers<\/a> or Google Answers<\/a> (retired). Very much the same way we grew up reading \u5341\u4e07\u4e2a\u4e3a\u4ec0\u4e48<\/a> (100,000 Why’s – an encyclopedia for teenager). Illumio takes this one step forward by indexing your entire hard drive (using Google Desktop too!) and form an idea of what you’re an expert in. So if your hard drive contains stuff pertaining to a particular niche, when people ask questions about it, you’ll be matched<\/em>, and a pop-up will ask whether you want to answer \/ and thus start socializing with this other person. Let’s see how far this can go!<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Ok it’s getting a bit long winded, let’s move on quickly to the commerce space.I think both of us, coming from Amazon.com<\/a>, still constantly have this idea that Amazon.com itself was and still is a great idea. Lots of Andreas’s presentation are still about Amazon.com even though he has moved on to consult in so many different teams.<\/p>\n

When I first came to Amazon, the HR and Jeff himself did a good job in communicating the visions and missions of the company:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. To be the place where people come to Find<\/em>, Discover <\/em>and Buy <\/em>everything in the world online.<\/li>\n
  2. To be the world’s most customer-centric <\/em>company.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These are predicated with a bunch of other taglines like, To be the shopper’s first resort (so many people just go there now to check out prices and recommendations), To be the Killer web platform for all Killer web applications (notable in the huge investment in infrastructure and web services – shareholders are not happy hehe) etc.<\/p>\n

    Amongst the more important innovations that always appear to be talked about, and are mentioned during the talk:<\/p>\n

    A\/B test<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The most innocuous but representative of a generation of data mining history. To launch a new feature, half the customers (A) becomes the control group and get status quo, while the other half (B) gets the new feature. Decide on what you want to measure (Andreas stressed very hardly on this – if you don’t know what you want to measure, you’re wasting your time), in this example say click-through or conversation rate, and then run the test for a week or two. If B yields better results, then officially announce that the new feature is good and launch it for everybody. Otherwise, axe the project and go back to the drawing board. Here<\/a> are<\/a> other<\/a> more indepth<\/a> explanations including multi-variable ones, as well<\/a> as<\/a> products<\/a>.
    \nThis is done for like everything<\/em> we launch on the websites. Compare these:<\/p>\n

    \"Amazon<\/a> vs. \"Amazon<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Which one will drive more sales? Answer – who knows…
    \nIn fact if you know the right questions to ask, you would be asking even more:<\/p>\n