On recommending

“Recommended for you” is a personal suggestion, a sign of good taste. You hope the other will like it. The problem is that most online recommendation "agents" (in their depersonalised form) just listen. They’re just doing math. It would've been more honest if it was called exactly what it was “Others also bought/saw”, instead of the semi-personal “recommended for you”.

When you recommend, highlight something at your account, there is no reason not to assume you mean it, as in for real. So when YouTube or Facebook is highlighting shit randomly uploaded by morons and they highlight that crap, you’re right to assume you’re dealing with something who genuinely likes shit made by morons, in other words, the recommendation agent has an as messed up personality as the creators. And hence we learn: Youtube, Facebook, they're messed up. You can’t say welcome women and then recommend a video to the next person in line about how to “play” women. You can’t say hail diversity and at the s…

Social vs. the automated web

Today I was listening to a talk by @MarcdeVries, CEO of Hyves RTV Oost, a local radio/television broadcaster. Hyves is the most popular social network in The Netherlands.

The points made by Marc de Vries were sensible, he knew what he was talking about. To be successful as a brand, whether you're a person or a corporation, you'll need to be authentic, compassionate, social, constructive and transparent. I know that is true, that's how you build quality relationships, essential for social relationships.

As you may now, I'm not really active in social networks (although my background suggests otherwise), I'm not really engaging. It doesn't really align with my personality which is more laid back, we'll see,  favouring quality relationships over superficial ones.

The talk got me thinking about differend kinds of webs, the one about social interactions and the one about practical information. One connecting unstructured data vs linking people. My primary focus is often…