Interview with Adaptive Blue: What is a Smartlink?

// October 29th, 2007 // View Comments // Semantic Web, review, tech

After my trial implementation of  AdaptiveBlue’s Smartlink technology on this very site, I was contacted by Director of Business Development, Fraser Kelton, who agreed to a Questions and Answers session about Adaptive Blue’s new technology. For a quick introduction, I have been trying out AdaptiveBlue’s Blue Organiser for a few weeks and found their semantic features helpful and intuitive for finding and retreiving changing information, and decided to try out the Smartlink code to offer this to readers of my blog:

• What makes a link Smart?

  Traditional links are not smart, they’re simple pointers to pages. When we write about a book and link to the book’s page on Amazon we mean to link to the thing but the link points to the page.

  A link is smart when it’s capable of automatically identifying and understanding what the thing is on the page. Once the link is identified to mean a thing a lot of valuable information can be automatically presented to the user that’s contextually correct for the thing.

  What I mean by this is that once a link is semantically understood to be about a specific book the user can be presented with options around that particular book – read the New York Times Book Review for the book, find similar books, save the book to social networks, etc. When the link is identified to be about a music album the actions and information presented are different and contextually correct.

• How about the ‘link’ in Smartlinks… where does it link to?

  With SmartLinks the user links like they normally would to a page on one of a dozen of sites – a book on Amazon, an artist on Last.fm, a stock on Google Finance, and a SmartLink is automatically inserted. The SmartLink is automatically inserted and when the icon is clicked a SmartLink pane launches that includes relevant content from across the web that’s populated using semantic understanding of the original link.

• How is this information kept up-to-date?

  Everything is automated so the information is always up-to-date. For example, when a user links to a stock page on Google Finance the SmartLink understands that the link is about a stock and will instantly pull up-to-date information about the specific stock into the SmartLink pane when it’s launched. When users link to new releases on Amazon, or one of our other supported sites, a SmartLink is automatically created for the book with relevant and correct information.

• Can I use Smartlinks on my own site or blog, and what would be the benefit from a content host’s perspective?

  Yes, SmartLinks install with 1-click for Blogger and Typepad, there’s a WordPress plug-in and a single line of java script for all other blog platforms and sites. SmartLinks will then instantly appear on all links to supported sites – both for new posts and all archived posts.

  There are a lot of benefits for enabling SmartLinks on your site. They automatically enable you to provide a tonne of additional and contextually correct information in your posts. Your readers will have the instant ability to discover and explore what you’ve blogged about without leaving your site and without having to search or filter for more information – SmartLinks do all of this automatically and present a nice package of pure results. Additionally, a blogger can connect their Amazon Affiliate ID to SmartLinks so that all Amazon links within the SmartLink are monetized – this occurs for new posts as well as all old posts, enabling bloggers to monetize their archives.

• Can smartlinks be used alongside RSS or in conjunction with subscription technology? (e.g. for keeping up to date with past current Smartlink, like following a stock or tracking the popularity of a favourite song)
  Right now SmartLinks do not work with RSS.
• Where would I find Smartlinks at the moment? (i.e. Who is using this technology?)

  SmartLinks are enabled on a large number of blogs. You can see some great examples at:

  • http://madstocks.blogspot.com/ – wonderful stock blog that makes great use of SmartLinks for stocks
  • http://steffanantonas.com/ – a great blog that has SmartLinks enabled as well as a number of SmartLink Widgets
  • http://gothamgal.blogs.com/ – has a nice mix of book and music SmartLinks (check out the Typepad list in the right-hand sidebar – SmartLinks were automatically added providing additional benefit to something that previously existed)
• What are ‘Semantics’ on the web, and how do smartlinks feature in the ‘semantic web’?

  Semantics is defined as "the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word, sign, sentence, etc." To understand the meaning of a word is to semantically understand it. Semantic Web is an academic term about using standardized data formats and a language for recording the relationship between data so that computers can analyze and understand meaning and context of all data on the web.

  At AdaptiveBlue we’re taking a top-down approach to semantic understanding. Our products are focused on bringing additional value to consumers in just a few basic verticals – books, music, stocks, etc. It’s a noun-verb equation. We leverage vertical semantic knowledge and existing information on the web to recognize nouns and then apply appropriate verbs.

  Let’s say a user quickly blogs about a great meal they had at a restaurant and includes a link to the restaurant’s page on CitySearch with no additional information. Our technology is able to identify the link as a noun and understand that it’s about a specific restaurant. A SmartLink is then automatically inserted that includes relevant verbs: read reviews, make a reservation, find it on a map, find nearby bars to grab a drink at afterwards, etc. All of these are for the specific restaurant and all of this is completed automatically and instantly.

• Does this have anything to do with the much-vaunted ‘Web 3.0′?

  I don’t think anyone knows what’s next for the web. Regardless we don’t want to be known for a label or a buzz word. We want to be known for the value and utility that we bring to individuals. We’re leveraging our technology to enable users to browse smarter and think that the benefits today are already strong and they’re only going to strengthen in the future. You can attach yourself to any number of labels, but at the end of the day it all comes down to people and that’s our focus.

• Do you see Smartlink technology changing the way we use the web? How/not?

  Yes. Currently we provide the smarts to understand that a page on Amazon is about a thing and can provide instant information that’s contextually correct for that thing. That’s valuable and different from how we currently use the web today, it provides a more efficient method to discover and learn more about the object.

  Understanding that a page on Amazon is a particular thing, and that it’s the same thing that’s on a page on Barnes and Noble or in a particular blog post is very valuable. This starts to shift away from a web of pages towards an emerging web of things and individuals will find a lot of value in a web of things.

Interview with Adaptive Blue: What is a Smartlink?

// October 29th, 2007 // View Comments // Semantic Web, review, tech

After my trial implementation of AdaptiveBlue’s Smartlink technology on this very site, I was contacted by Director of Business Development, Fraser Kelton, who agreed to a Questions and Answers session about Adaptive Blue’s new technology. For a quick introduction, I have been trying out AdaptiveBlue’s Blue Organiser for a few weeks and found their semantic features helpful and intuitive for finding and retreiving changing information, and decided to try out the Smartlink code to offer this to readers of my blog:

• What makes a link Smart?

  Traditional links are not smart, they’re simple pointers to pages. When we write about a book and link to the book’s page on Amazon we mean to link to the thing but the link points to the page.

  A link is smart when it’s capable of automatically identifying and understanding what the thing is on the page. Once the link is identified to mean a thing a lot of valuable information can be automatically presented to the user that’s contextually correct for the thing.

  What I mean by this is that once a link is semantically understood to be about a specific book the user can be presented with options around that particular book – read the New York Times Book Review for the book, find similar books, save the book to social networks, etc. When the link is identified to be about a music album the actions and information presented are different and contextually correct.

• How about the ‘link’ in Smartlinks… where does it link to?

  With SmartLinks the user links like they normally would to a page on one of a dozen of sites – a book on Amazon, an artist on Last.fm, a stock on Google Finance, and a SmartLink is automatically inserted. The SmartLink is automatically inserted and when the icon is clicked a SmartLink pane launches that includes relevant content from across the web that’s populated using semantic understanding of the original link.

• How is this information kept up-to-date?

  Everything is automated so the information is always up-to-date. For example, when a user links to a stock page on Google Finance the SmartLink understands that the link is about a stock and will instantly pull up-to-date information about the specific stock into the SmartLink pane when it’s launched. When users link to new releases on Amazon, or one of our other supported sites, a SmartLink is automatically created for the book with relevant and correct information.

• Can I use Smartlinks on my own site or blog, and what would be the benefit from a content host’s perspective?

  Yes, SmartLinks install with 1-click for Blogger and Typepad, there’s a WordPress plug-in and a single line of java script for all other blog platforms and sites. SmartLinks will then instantly appear on all links to supported sites – both for new posts and all archived posts.

  There are a lot of benefits for enabling SmartLinks on your site. They automatically enable you to provide a tonne of additional and contextually correct information in your posts. Your readers will have the instant ability to discover and explore what you’ve blogged about without leaving your site and without having to search or filter for more information – SmartLinks do all of this automatically and present a nice package of pure results. Additionally, a blogger can connect their Amazon Affiliate ID to SmartLinks so that all Amazon links within the SmartLink are monetized – this occurs for new posts as well as all old posts, enabling bloggers to monetize their archives.

• Can smartlinks be used alongside RSS or in conjunction with subscription technology? (e.g. for keeping up to date with past current Smartlink, like following a stock or tracking the popularity of a favourite song)
  Right now SmartLinks do not work with RSS.
• Where would I find Smartlinks at the moment? (i.e. Who is using this technology?)

  SmartLinks are enabled on a large number of blogs. You can see some great examples at:

  • http://madstocks.blogspot.com/ – wonderful stock blog that makes great use of SmartLinks for stocks
  • http://steffanantonas.com/ – a great blog that has SmartLinks enabled as well as a number of SmartLink Widgets
  • http://gothamgal.blogs.com/ – has a nice mix of book and music SmartLinks (check out the Typepad list in the right-hand sidebar – SmartLinks were automatically added providing additional benefit to something that previously existed)
• What are ‘Semantics’ on the web, and how do smartlinks feature in the ‘semantic web’?

  Semantics is defined as "the meaning, or an interpretation of the meaning, of a word, sign, sentence, etc." To understand the meaning of a word is to semantically understand it. Semantic Web is an academic term about using standardized data formats and a language for recording the relationship between data so that computers can analyze and understand meaning and context of all data on the web.

  At AdaptiveBlue we’re taking a top-down approach to semantic understanding. Our products are focused on bringing additional value to consumers in just a few basic verticals – books, music, stocks, etc. It’s a noun-verb equation. We leverage vertical semantic knowledge and existing information on the web to recognize nouns and then apply appropriate verbs.

  Let’s say a user quickly blogs about a great meal they had at a restaurant and includes a link to the restaurant’s page on CitySearch with no additional information. Our technology is able to identify the link as a noun and understand that it’s about a specific restaurant. A SmartLink is then automatically inserted that includes relevant verbs: read reviews, make a reservation, find it on a map, find nearby bars to grab a drink at afterwards, etc. All of these are for the specific restaurant and all of this is completed automatically and instantly.

• Does this have anything to do with the much-vaunted ‘Web 3.0′?

  I don’t think anyone knows what’s next for the web. Regardless we don’t want to be known for a label or a buzz word. We want to be known for the value and utility that we bring to individuals. We’re leveraging our technology to enable users to browse smarter and think that the benefits today are already strong and they’re only going to strengthen in the future. You can attach yourself to any number of labels, but at the end of the day it all comes down to people and that’s our focus.

• Do you see Smartlink technology changing the way we use the web? How/not?

  Yes. Currently we provide the smarts to understand that a page on Amazon is about a thing and can provide instant information that’s contextually correct for that thing. That’s valuable and different from how we currently use the web today, it provides a more efficient method to discover and learn more about the object.

  Understanding that a page on Amazon is a particular thing, and that it’s the same thing that’s on a page on Barnes and Noble or in a particular blog post is very valuable. This starts to shift away from a web of pages towards an emerging web of things and individuals will find a lot of value in a web of things.

How Smart can a Link Be?

// October 15th, 2007 // View Comments // Semantic Web, review, tech

In a bid to test a bit of the Semantic Web, I have inserted a little line of Java script into my blog which should automatically turn many of my links Smart. Not 8 hours after I had inserted the script, I was contacted by Fraser at AdaptiveBlue, the creaters of the Smartlink technology, who asked how I was finding the new links. After offering me some advice about ‘Turning on Smartlinks in my Blog’, Fraser also agreed to a Question and Answer post about AdaptiveBlue (watch this space…)

Because I have been trialling BlueOrganiser for a few weeks, I am somewhat familiar with the technology, and do find it useful. I have not, however, noticed any of my links becoming ‘Smart’ of their own accord. I did manage to manually make a couple of links smart by adding a bit of HTML to the blog article (<smartlink="yes") which enabled AdaptiveBlue’s flashy menu with information on Apple and the iPhone. However, the automatic tech doesn’t seem to have worked with my Drupal website (after inserting the code in the page.tpl.php file–just like Google Analytics’ Urchin code). Fraser suggested I create the following link, to test out the smartness of my placement.

Is it Smart?

It does indeed appear to be Smart but is displaying the following error message:

"Rats! The Smart isn’t connecting to this Link…"

Oh well, it’s a step in the right direction for the Semantic Web. More on this later!

News Online

// September 29th, 2007 // View Comments // review, tech

For avid news readers, not much beats a classic broadsheet newspaper for quality content and writership. Although I use Google Reader to keep up with the best of the blogs, and sometimes skim Technorati and Digg for new reads, I keep coming back to the consistent content found on traditional newspapers–online. That isn’t to say that everything found at a ‘proper’ news site beats everything on a new media service or a blog. Indeed, many blogs have amazingly-tuned insights and offer the best rants on the planet. But, when you want general news, looking through the often opined views of one-man blogs can be a headache. Much blog content is very focused, and most Digg and Technorati articles lean towards the geeky. I landed some time ago at the Times Online and frequently browse its headlines.

The Times Online has some of my favourite columnists and consistently high-quality comment. Who can resist a rant or opinion from Jeremy Clarkson? Alongside, Lord Rees-Mogg and his ilk of commentators whose opinion I have come to respect (if not always with 100% agreement!) However, I do have a few problems with the Times Online. There is, actually, only one major complaint.

It is so slow!

It boasts its Windows links and utilizes "Live Search" instead of Google, and I wonder if this architecture is what makes it so mind-numbingly time-consuming. Its content is well-positioned and not as graphic heavy as many sites whose load-time is much faster (check out Top Gear for an example of a slow site which is faster!). If you want to view many articles in a single sitting and open up multiple tabs (as I am prone to do) You will find them still loading long after you’ve made a cuppa. I find the layout pleasing, and the ease of navigating its absoultely vast content brilliant; but I can’t get over how slowly I have to navigate these pages. It also doesn’t seem to like Firefox very much (thanks Windows integration?). If you have any better news sites, let me know. It is still worth a look, though, for it simply houses some of the best news content online!

Google-i-phone

// August 29th, 2007 // View Comments // tech

On Engadget, I noticed a post about much-rumoured "Google Phone". Apparently, they have it on good authority that the people over at Google are working on their own Mobile OS. The interesting bit, though, is that Google has been working very closely with Apple on the iPhone project. If they launch their own Google Phone (gPhone, Googlephone, whatever…) they will be in direct competition.

What I wonder, however, is whether Google and Apple are playing even closer together. Imagine two companies more able to launch intuitive products and acquire companies and methods in order to put them to better use within a larger structure. Google, recently, has been launching its Web Office while hoovering up smaller developers to bring in the very best of web-based and hybrid (web/desktop) applications. What does Google need next?

Brilliant hardware. Who builds better hardware than Apple?

This is only a guess, but what happens if Google and Apple work closer on mobile tech? Instead of direct competition (which would only result in a proliferation of one-upmanship devices and platforms with little long-term customer satisfaction) a JV of some description could result in the best of breed mobile devices (and why just mobile) with a very long shelf life!

What do you reckon?

NB: Image of ‘Google Phone’ is a quick mashup of Google logo and iPhone from Apple and was created as an illustration for a point and does not reflect any actual product either by Google or Apple.

Church 2.0: Part 1 (Rough Draft)

// August 29th, 2007 // View Comments // emergent

Having been reading Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, I’ve begun formulating a few thoughts on what some have called the ‘emergent church’.

Because I work with the internet, I tend to see things from an ‘online’ perspective. When I see a presentation, I ask why it doesn’t link to resources and I tend to Google answers and keep many tabs open with on-the-fly further reading on a subject. One of the most wide-spread of all internet buzzwords is "Web 2.0". The ideas behind it have been summed up (indeed, coined) by the O’Reilly network. To me, many of these have a strong resonance with the ‘newly painted church’ of Mars Hill. For example, there is an emphasis in Web 2.0 on participation and "The long tail" which I see reflected in "every member ministry" and discussions instead of sermons. Teaching has taken on a very interactive flavour, and theology is less about rules.

While the tag ‘Church 2.0′ is wildly inaccurate on one score (e.g. there have been many renditions of the church), the notion of a renaissance is definitely present and many of the tenets of Web 2.0 can be helpfully used as metaphor in the church.

Participation vs. Preaching:

With links to various incarnations of the ‘Cell’ movement, the idea of discussion supplementing or even replacing pulpit-sermons is certainly not new. The practice of church services on Sunday mornings, however, tends to keep its principle of being taught from the front. I think this is changing, however, and I think we will see a decline in traditional sermons with points backed by scripture. My old church in the States believed in an ‘expository’ teaching style. The idea being that the Bible would be taught through, verse-by-verse instead of shaping its truth to a pre-fabricated set of points. I believe the next step is working out the meaning of the Bible together with a collaborative teaching in which people ask and answer their own questions. While I have yet to completely read Mars Hill’s ‘Narrative Theology‘ I can see reflections there.

A wise friend of mine recently told me: "The truth’s in the dialogue."

Where does the pitfall lie in this new direction?

The Body and the Long Tail:

There will be more…