스티브 잡스에만 열광하는 현실 안타깝다 - 『거의 모든 IT의 역사』 정지훈

IT에 관심이 있는 사람이라면, 정지훈이라는 이름을 들었을 때 가수 ‘비’보다 그를 먼저 떠올릴 것이다. IT 전문가로 강연, 저술 등 누구보다 바쁘게 활동하고 있는 정지훈 관동의대 IT 융합 연구소장 말이다. 트위터를 한다면, 그의 아이디(@hiconcep)가 친숙할지도 모르겠다. 밤낮 가리지 않고, IT 산업 전반에 관한 좋은 정보가 그의 트윗을 통해 공유되고 있다. 28년 차 프로그래머이자, 여러 기업에서 전략자문가로 활동하고 있는 저자는 여러 매체에서 통섭적 지식인으로 선정된 바 있다. 그는 이런 자신을 ‘미래 칼럼니스트’ ‘미래 디자이너’라고 소개한다. 사람들의 역사가 IT의 역사다 전작 『제4의 불』도 그렇고 이번 책 『거의 모든 IT의 역사』에서도 ‘사람’에 주목한다. “최근 부상하는 혁신기업들을 살펴보면, 혁신은 자본 수단을 소유한다고 이뤄내는 것이 아니더라. 그보다는 창의적인 아이디어. 열정 등이 만들어내는 것이 훨씬 크다. 그런데 우리는 아직도 혁신을 제조업적인 패러다임으로 생각하고 있다. 접근 방법이 잘못되었다고 생각했다. 사람들이 어떤 생각을 하고, 사회 환경이 어떻게 바뀌고 있는지가 생산수단을 소유하는 것보다 중요하다. 그래서 한 사람의 일대기가 아니라, IT 변화의 흐름을 전체적으로 조망해 볼 수 있는 역사서를 쓰고 싶었다.” 핵심 인재들이 지나간 행로를 보고 있으면, 혁신적인 변화를 이끌어내는 것은 결국 사람이라는 걸 알 수 있다. 이런 내부 사정을 모르고, 어떤 회사가 얼마나 벌고 있고 그 회사에 어떤 서비스가 매각되었다는 정도의 단편적인 지식만으로 모든 것을 이해하려는 시각은 과거 제조업 중심의 사고방식에서나 통하는 이야기다. (p.30) 운영하고 있는 블로그 제목도 ‘하이컨셉, 하이터치’다. 이 역시 기술보다 사람을 강조하는 맥락이다. “다니엘 핑크의 『 A Whole New Mind』라는 책, 한국에는 『새로운 미래가 온다』라고 번역된 책에서 따온 제목이다. 다니엘 핑크는 인재의 조건으로, 하이컨셉 능력과 하이터치 능력을 이야기한다. 자신의 생각을 감성과 엮어내는 것이 하이컨셉 능력이고, 사람들을 끌어들이고 같이 공감하게 만드는 게 하이터치 능력인데, 두 가지가 중요할 것 같다는 얘기에 무척 공감해서 제목을 따왔다.” 마이크로 소프트, 애플, 구글의 DNA를 파헤치다 『거의 모든 IT의 역사』속에서 정지훈 박사는 IT 세계를 움직이는 세 괴물 기업, 애플, 마이크로 소프트, 구글을 다룬다. 창업자들의 성장배경, 당시의 사회, 경제적 환경, 분위기 등을 통해 회사의 패러다임과 혁신의 비결을 꿰뚫는다. 역사적 흐름 속에서 세 기업의 성장 과정을 살펴보는 이 책은 세 기업을 이제까지와는 다른 관점으로 바라볼 수 있게 돕는다. 한 기업의 성공이 창업자의 도전정신으로 이뤄낸 성과물이 아니라, 주변의 무수한 조력자와 시대의 흐름 등 아주 많은 요소가 복합적으로 작용한 것임을 밝혀낸다. 그는 각 회사마다 초점을 달리 두고 서술했다. “PC를 만들며 시작한 애플은, 기본적으로 하드웨어 회사다. 예술품에 가까운 하드웨어를 만들고, 이를 잘 유통하기 위해 앱스토어, 애플스토어 등의 다양한 콘텐츠 마켓을 만들어 서비스와 제품을 융합시켜왔다. 반면 마이크로 소프트는, 컴퓨터 프로그래밍을 좋아하던 빌 게이츠가 세운 회사답게, 무형적 가치를 인정받지 못하던 프로그래밍을 제품화 한 회사다. 라이선스나 솔루션, 패키지 비용으로 비즈니스 모델을 만들었고, 여전히 소프트웨어 기업 DNA를 지니고 있는 회사다. 반면 구글은 많은 정보를 쉽게 찾아 연결해주는 네트워크 회사다. 위의 두 곳과는 또 다른 패러다임으로 회사를 운영하고 있다. 이들이 IT산업을 어떻게 이끌어갔는지 살펴보기 전에 각 회사의 정체성과 패러다임을 염두에 두는 것이 필수다.” 그는 현재 아이팟, 아이폰, 아이패드로 선도적인 움직임을 보이고 있는 애플이 당분간은 최고의 위치를 점하겠지만, 여기에도 어느 정도 한계가 있다는 평가를 내렸다. “애플이 가지고 있는 기본 철학 토대가 산업시대의 마지막 꽃을 피우는 모습으로 보인다. 앞으로는 협업과 네트워크의 철학이 가장 중요하다. 그런 면에는 구글이 더 가까이 있다는 측면에서 애플보다는 미래지향적이라고 할 수 있겠다.” 『거의 모든 IT의 역사』를 꾸려간 이들은, 미래를 내다보고 사회가 필요로 하는 것을 선점했던, 통찰력 있는 인재들이었다. 잘 나가는 CEO 때문에 회사가 잘 되는 것은 아니다 좌측부터 스티브 잡스, 빌 게이츠, 래리 페이지, 세르게이 브린 스티브 잡스가 복귀하기 이전 CEO였던 길 아멜리오는 세간의 평가와는 달리 그의 업적을 가만히 들여다보면 비난을 받을 수밖에 없었던 환경 속에서 애플이 재도약 하기 위한 밑바닥을 충실하게 깔아놓은 사람으로 재평가해야 할 것이다.(p.263) 저자는 다양한 사례에서 2인자에 대한 평가가 제대로 이뤄져야 한다고 주장한다. 길 아멜리오나 팀 쿡 같은 2인자들은 위기의 순간에 전화위복까지 이뤄낸 것은 아니지만, ‘비난받을 수밖에 없는 환경 속에서’ 회사의 안정성을 회복시키고 자리를 내어준 자들이었다. “우리 사회는 스타를 부각시키는 경향이 있다. 그래서 돈을 끌어오거나, 큰 계약을 성사시키는 등의 역할을 한 우리나라의 재벌 소수가 지나치게 인정받고 있는 경우가 있다. 하지만 사회적 가치를 만들어내는 일은 결국 협업에 의해 성사된다. 협업이라는 건 도와준 사람의 능력이 얼마나 뛰어나느냐에 따라 좌우를 받는다. 그런 헬퍼들의 역할이 너무 평가 절하되어 있다. 만약 애플에 매킨토시에 초점을 맞춰 마켓을 유지했던, 존 스컬리나 가장 어려웠던 시기에 자금을 끌어온 길 아멜리오가 없었다면 지금의 애플은 없었다. 어쩌면 계속 스티브 잡스가 애플에 있었다면 빨리 망했을 수도 있다. 이후에 스티브 잡스를 데려와 애플을 맡겨야 한다는 결정을 내린 것도 길 아멜리오다. 그런 결정을 내린 공로는 인정받아야 한다. 결국 둘 다 쫓겨나거나 불명예 퇴진을 하게 되는데, 그런 마지막 때문에 그간의 업적도 무시되는 건 불공평하다. 잘 나가는 CEO 때문에 회사가 잘 되는 건 아니다.” 1등만 기억하는 세상이라더니, 역사적으로 봤을 때 세상은 정말 1인자만 기억해주더라. 문득, 1인자와 2인자의 결정적인 차이는 뭘까 궁금했다. 비전의 차이일까? 운의 차이일까? “1인자라는 건, 결국 설립자다. 처음에 사업을 일으켜서 성공과 실패에 대한 모든 위험을 안고 가져가는 사람이다. 2인자는 그런 1인자의 비전을 보고 그 사람을 따르지만, 대신 자기가 그만큼의 리스트를 안지는 않는다. 기본적으로 비전에 대한 세팅 자체가 다른 거다. 위험을 떠안는 것, 그게 가장 중요한 차이다.” 실리콘 밸리에서 가장 존경받는 인물인 빌 캠벨에 관한 일화도 인상적이었다. ‘어제의 친구가 오늘의 적이 되는’ 현장에서 모두에게 존경 받는 사람이라니, 우리나라에도 이런 인물이 있다면 누구를 꼽을 수 있을까? “실리콘 밸리의 코치라고 불렸던 빌 캠벨은 실제 미식축구 선수이자 코치를 했던 사람이다. 가장 강력한 리더쉽을 가진 사람은 스포츠팀 코치나 감독이 아닐까? 스타 플레이어만 모아놓고 다루잖나. 빌 캠벨 역시 코치 경험이 있어 사람에 대해 잘 알고 있었다. 에릭 슈밋이 구글에 갔을 때만 해도, 세르게이 브린과 나이 차이가 커서, 세대 차가 있었다. 대기업에 있던 에릭 슈밋은 거대 기업의 관리 노하우, 조직체계가 있던 반면 젊은 친구는 패기만 넘친 거다. 이 중간에서 메신저 역할을 잘해 화합을 이뤄준 게 빌 캠벨이고, 그의 성과가 구글 성공의 가장 큰 요인이었다고 할 수 있다. 아무래도 나이가 많은 사람들의 경험을 무시할 순 없다. 하지만, 젊은 친구들의 열정을 누르는 식으로는 절대 혁신이 이뤄지지 않는다. 이니시스의 권도균 대표라던지, 카카오톡을 만든 전 nhn 김범수 대표도 본인의 사업을 하면서 아래 친구들을 도와주고 조언을 해주고 있다. 우리나라에도 빌 캠벨의 역할을 해내는 사람이 많아지는 추세다.” 세상에 안정적인 것은 없다 어린 나이인데도 거침없이 저지르고 시도하는 창업청년들에게서 구글이, 애플이, 놀라운 혁신이 일어났다. 이를 통해 우리나라 청년들에게 전하고 싶은 메시지도 있을 것 같다. “앞으로는 기업이 영속성을 가지기 어렵다. 인생은 아주 길다. 어떤 안정된 회사에 들어가서 10년 있다고 해도, 10년 후에는 뭐할 건가?(웃음) 그 시간 동안 나 자신의 역량을 키워놓지 않으면, 내 삶에 아무런 쓸모가 없는 거다. 어떤 직책으로 나의 커리어를 드러내는 게 아니라, 내가 어떤 사회적 가치를 만들어낼 수 있는지 보여줘야 한다. 변화의 속도는 더욱 빨라지고, 그에 맞춰 기업들도 살아남기 위해 더 빨리 체인징을 할 거다. 결국 어느 쪽이든 위험을 감수해야 하는 셈이다. 내 나름대로 시도해보고 열정을 불태우고, 창업해보는 일로 비즈니스 감각을 익혀보는 것 자체가 굉장히 의미 있는 일이다. 꼭 커다란 자본금과 부담을 안고 시작하지 않아도, 도전해볼 수 있는 일이 과거에 비해 많아졌다. 집에서도 창업하고, 과거에 비해 창업 리스크가 줄어들었다. 어차피 세상에 안정적인 것은 없다. 그렇게 시도하는 사람이 많아지면, 성공하는 사람도 많아질 거다. 구글이나 애플 같은 커다란 성공만이 성공이 아니다. 그런 작은 성공들을 바탕으로, 각자가 자신의 인생을 어떻게 지속 가능하게 만들 것인가, 어떻게 행복하게 만들 것인가 구체적으로 고민해볼 필요가 있다.” 도전이 단순한 치기에 그치지 않으려면, 여러 가지가 필요하겠지만, 무엇보다 앞날을 내다볼 줄 아는 통찰력이 중요하겠구나 싶더라. 기업가뿐 아니라, 각자 인생을 책임져야 하는 일반인에게도 중요한 문제 같다. 삶과 사회를 내다보는 일에 조언을 해 준다면? “제일 지양해야 하는 자세는, 내 전문분야, 관심사가 아니니까 관심 없다는 태도다. 지금은 전문적인 분야를 파는 것도 중요하지만, 이미 상당 부분 사람들이 해 놓은 것도 많다. 이걸 찾는 능력이 중요한데, 다양한 지식과 다양한 경험이 필요하다. 서로 다른 학문에 대해 관심을 가지고 ‘컨택 포인트’를 늘려가야 한다. 인간관계도 마찬가지다. 다양한 사람을 접해 자기 시야도 넓히고 기회도 늘려야 한다. 가장 기본이 되는 능력은 내 머릿속에 있는 걸 표현해내고, 다른 사람에게 공감시키는 힘이다. 여기에는 많은 훈련이 필요하다. 그러려면 다양한 사람들을 많이 만나고, 많이 읽고, 많이 써봐야 한다.” 각 개인이 원하는 것은 시간과 장소 그리고 상황에 따라 모두 다르다. 이를 하나로 묶을 수 있는 개념이 바로 경험이다. 앞으로는 경험이 경제의 중심 품목이 될 것이다.(p.467) 사회적 가치를 만들어내는 사람이 이긴다 저자 역시 이 책 속에 나오는 인재들처럼 통찰과 통합의 힘을 활용하고 있는 사람이다. 의사, IT 전문가, 칼럼니스트 등 다양한 직함이 많다. 처음에 진로를 정할 때, 다양한 학문을 공부하겠다고 마음먹었을 때, 미래에 대한 큰 그림을 갖고 있었나? “의과대학을 다니다 보니, 내 인생에 대해서 생각해보게 되었다. 학생 실습을 나가보면, 꿈도 많고 고민도 많던 학교 다닐 때와는 달리 선배들이 판박이같이 비슷한 삶의 형태를 갖고 있더라. 내 앞날도 빤히 보였다. 그래서 바로 갈 수는 없겠다는 생각이 들어, 공중보건의사에서 3년의 세월을 보내며 다양한 경험을 접했다. IT 관련 글도 써보고, 컴퓨터 프로그래밍도 해보고, 여러 사람을 만나보면서 미래를 그려봤다. 미래를 디자인할 때, 나는 항상 사회적 가치에 대한 생각을 많이 한다. 임상 의사가 된다면 성공은 어느 정도 하겠지만, 남들이 대체할 수 있는 사회적 가치를 만들어 낼 뿐이었다. 그보다 10년 뒤에는 여러 가지를 엮어내는 사람이 필요할 것이다. 그런 사람의 사회적 가치가 더 클 거라는 생각에, 미국 유학을 가고, 다양한 학문을 접하며 나에게 투자를 한 거다. 그리고 돌아왔더니 커넥터이자 전체를 이해하고 해석해주는 인터프리터 역할의 수요가 실제로 있었다. 그전에는 이만큼의 수요도 없었다. 그게 잘 맞아떨어졌다고 본다.” 지금도 의사로서, 미래 칼럼니스트로서 활발하게 활동하고 있는데, 앞으로 사회 공헌을 위한 더 큰 계획이 있을 것 같다. 들려준다면? “젊은 스타트업 벤처들을 도와주는 일을 많이 하고 싶다. 시니어 멘토 그룹을 만들고, 도움받을 친구들을 엮어서 가르치고 코치도 해주는 식으로 돕고 싶다. 교육에 대한 관심이 많은데, 나는 정규교육보다 비정규교육이 더 중요하다고 본다. 결국 사회가 사람을 길러 내는 거다. 그렇다면 우리가 모두 교육의 책임자들이다. 가르쳐줄 사람과 배울 사람이 만나면 그게 학교다. 그런 네트워크만 형성되면 가상의 학교도 얼마든지 만들 수 있을 것 같다. 교육이 사회 구성원들의 능력을 증진할 수 있도록 선순환의 고리를 만들어야 한다고 생각한다. 그런 교육을 시연해볼 수 있는 물리적 장소도 필요하다. 대표적으로 뉴욕의 해커 스페이스가 있다. 우리나라는 차고 같은 게 없잖나.(웃음) 좋은 아이디어가 있으면 누구나 와서, 서로 이야기하다가 뭐든 만들어보고, 그러다 밤도 새울 수 있는 오프라인 공간 같은 걸 하나 운영해보고 싶은 생각도 있다.(웃음)” 꼭 그런 곳이 생겼으면 좋겠다.(웃음) 사회 속에 사건들이 중구난방 벌어지는 줄 알았는데, 이 책을 보니 역사는 도도한 흐름을 갖고 있더라. 역사의 물결을 타고 오르는 사람은 성공하고, 그렇지 못한 사람은 가차없이 잊힌다. 알고 있는 내용이었겠지만, 다시 정리하고 집필할 때는 감회가 남달랐을 것 같다. “그런 생각을 많이 했다. 결국에는 진리가 승리한다. 처음이 됐든 나중이 됐든 결국에는 사회적 가치를 많이 만들어 낸 자가 보상을 받더라. 많은 사람에게 가능한 한 더 많은 이득이 돌아가도록 뭔가 만들어 낸 곳이 빛을 보고, 부당이득을 취한 곳은 결국 그 시스템을 통해 자멸하는 경우가 많다. 다만 아무리 좋은 프로젝트라도 때와 규모를 맞춰서 조율하는 게 중요한데, 여기에는 협업이 중요하다. 윗사람이 되어 사람들을 부리거나 규제를 통해 남들을 방해하는 방식으로는 정말 단기적인 성공 외에는 이룰 수 없다. 항상 단기적인 변화에 대해서만 이야기하다 보니까, 사람들이 사회적 정의를 불신하게 된다. 실질적으로 내가 투입한 게 즉각적으로 돌아와야 한다고 여기는 사람들이 많다. 그렇지 않다. 세상이 왜 이 모양이지, 이런 생각만 하지 말고, 꾸준히 자기 자신을 믿고 투자하는 것이 결국 나를 위해서도 남을 위해서도 좋다.”

Landing Page Best Practices: the definitive guide (with infographics)

We (at Visual Website Optimizer) are starting a series on the blog where the experts in A/B testing, landing pages, conversion rate optimization will share everything they know about how to increase sales and conversions online. If you know someone whom I can interview or want to contribute a guest post yourself, please shoot me an email at paras@wingify.com.

The first interview in this series is by Oli Gardner (@unbounce on Twitter), who is a Co-founder of Unbounce.com – the DIY Landing Page Platform. He created theUnbounce conversion blog to discuss a variety of marketing subjects such aslanding pages, conversion centered design, social media conversion and ethical lead capture for business.

Editor’s Note: this interview is all about landing page best practices. Previously on this blog, I had analyzed 50+ landing pages and came up with some practicallanding page optimization tips. After reading the interview, you may want to check out the post too.

Importance of Landing Pages

How important are landing pages for paid marketing? Why can’t a company simply redirect traffic to its homepage? What is the actual purpose of landing pages?

Landing pages are critical for any promotion specific marketing – but in particular for paid marketing where a measured ROI is essential to your success (and your ability to gain budgetary approval). The reason why you want to direct your paid traffic to a landing page vs. your homepage is that your homepage is often designed to be a generic entry point to your brand and business. It may contain references to many products or services – rendering the ability for a potential customer to find your intended conversion path amidst 40-70 links unlikely at best – impossible at worst. Which leads nicely into the third part of your question. The purpose of a landing page is to provide a hyper-focused experience that is designed to accomplish the singular conversion goal of your marketing campaign.

Usually landing pages look separate from main website (due to different design, userflow). Do you recommend this distinction between landing pages and main website?

I wouldn’t recommend making a stylistic or brand change to the design of your landing page. It’s important to keep it consistent with what your main website represents and what people have experienced in the past (brand memory).

The most elemental conversion principal is what’s known as message match. This is a two-way concept that applies to the information scent passing from ad to landing page (your Google AdWords ad talks about green apples, and so does your landing page), but it also applies to the next step in the conversion funnel, which is the visual brand connection from landing page to website. I’ll explain both of these a bit more.

If you are doing an ecommerce based “click through” landing page – designed to warm up the prospect’s interest in your offer before passing them on to your website/cart/registration page then you need to maintain “design match” where the visual and tonal brand guidelines are perpetuated on the destination site. If you don’t do this you risk a trust interruption which can cause people to bail.

For a lead gen landing page (often called a squeeze page – although I don’t really like the term or the negative segment of the industry typically associated with it) – the experience often ends on the landing page – which means the follow up experience isn’t quite as critical – but in the case of a big company – there will be a certain amount of brand memory where people expect a connection to their preconceived idea of how you present yourself. Again, without this design/brand match you can lose people.

Landing Page Best Practices

What are the most important characteristics of highly converting landing pages?

Focus. Simple and obvious writing. Clean design with an eye for contrast, whitespace and clarity. A clear call to action that describes what will happen when it’s clicked. Stick to those and you’re half way there.

If I had to distill it down to two points, I’d say a headline that you can read in 5 seconds and know what the page and offer is about and a brutally obvious cal to action (CTA). For some inspiration when designing your page to convert – read Designing for Conversion – 8 Visual Design Techniques to Focus Attention on Your Landing Pages.

If you are asked to fix only one thing in a badly performing landing page, what would it be?

That’s easy. The thing that was causing it to perform badly! Sadly, it’s not really that simple.

The thing to fix will most often be “message match” – this is the part that most people get wrong. You sell someone on a promise with your ad, then when they get to the page, the first thing they read/see represents a different story. So in a generic sense I’d say fix your message match and you’ll fix 80% of your problems.

But this is a bit of a trick question. What you need to do is spend some time walking in your customer’s shoes to understand what they are experiencing when they arrive at your page. Perhaps by trying a 5-second test.

Long vs. short controversy! How do you prevent making a landing page too sparse that users don’t get motivated or too long so users get distracted?

Long vs. short is a classic debate and one that can only be proven through A/B testing so I won’t harp on about any specific hypothesis here. Some higher priced items require more detail – but they also require more research – in which case a landing page may not suffice anyway. It depends on the page goal. If it’s lead gen – then you *must* provide enough incentive to complete the form – whether that’s a big long story or a sufficiently appropriate prize in exchange for the personal data.

Opinion on Landing Pages

What are your favorite landing pages on the web? (What about worst landing pages on the web?)

My favorite page (other than my own of course) tend to come from Webtrends. They just seem to nail it every time. #1 on this compilation and another great example here. Aside from them, Full Sail University does a consistently great job, particularly for lead gen.

Whatever is offered on a landing page (demo, trial, whitepaper, etc.), do you recommend putting it behind a small lead-gen form or should you give a direct link?

Yes and no. I personally think it’s something you need to mix up from time to time.

Make it Free. Sometimes it’s great to give away your expertise (particularly an ebook) without any barrier to entry. The goodwill marketing momentum you receive can be worth a lot more than a few leads. If you do this, just make sure you brand your ebook very well (every page should contain your logo and website URL) and a footer that states that you happily encourage the free sharing of your content. Many people don’t know if they should be sharing it without feeling guilty, and a lot of people suffer from guilt issues – so don’t let this prevent you from benefiting from your generosity. Also, there are a lot of old-school marketers out there who are STILL afraid to give content away (thtoopid, thtoopid) – thinking it should be copyrighted and protected and locked in a vault.

Ask for Data. If you are doing classic lead gen, then you are going to be giving something to your visitors in exchange for their personal information. The key here is to balance the size of the barrier (how much personal data you are asking for) with the size of the prize (what you are offering in return). A/B testing the length of your forms may point to an ideal form size to suit your needs. There are two kinds of barrier with forms – privacy and effort. Awkward or overly personal questions can put people off, or make them enter fake data (which helps no one), while super long forms just serve to make people sigh and hit the back button. If you must ask for a lot of information, make it worthwhile with a really valuable giveaway.

Editor’s note: That’s it for the interview! If you know someone whom I can interview or want to contribute a guest post yourself, please shoot me an email at paras@wingify.com. Also, as mentioned at the top of post, previously I had analyzed 50+ landing pages and came up with some practical landing page optimization tips. So, you may want to check out that post.

Mapping Our Friendships Over Time and Space: The Future of Social Network Analysis

What new things could we discover if social network analysis took time and space into account, in addition to the raw connections between people? In most cases, social network analysis today is limited to discovering friend connections, community leaders and outlines, influential people and personal friend recommendations - in a static or snap-shot kind of way. If new factors could be taken into consideration, specifically changes over time and space, then social network analysis could discover things like emergence or decay of leadership, changes in trust over time, migration and mobility within particular communities online. That's very valuable information that the social web has barely begun to tackle capturing.

That's the topic of discussion in a new paper by Shashi Shekhar and research assistant Dev Oliver, spatial data scientists at the University of Minnesota, titled Computational Modeling of Spatio-temporal Social Networks: A Time-Aggregated Graph Approach (PDF). The paper was highlighted on the blog GIS and Science today. We've excerpted and put in context key points below.

The Impact of Space and Time on Networking

Space and time are big factors in determining the diverse friend connections that different people form. Or, as Shekhar and Oliver put it, "Spatio-temporal constraints (e.g., geographic space, travel, schedules and diurnal [daily] cycles) play a major role in determining baseline homophily due to reasons like opportunity and minimization of cost and effort."

In other words, if we don't pay attention to the way space and time factor into our lives, if we just see who knows whom and who chatters about what, then we'll have a very blunt understanding of the world. Diurnal cycle in, and diurnal cycle out (!) businesses and software users seem likely to call for more clarity than that in the future.

Consider the diagram below, for example, from Shekhar and Oliver's paper. It might look a little intimidating, but if you follow it step by step from left to right, it's not. Today we might look at a group of four participants in some network and just see the final timeframe of connections (t10). You can see who knows who and who doesn't know who. But imagine if time were taken into consideration as it is here. You can see how this particular mini-network unfolded from the first connections, through the end-point. That's a much richer understanding of this group.

Look at poor little Node 3, for example, in the bottom of the square. It took them longer to go from Visitor to Friend than it took anyone else, in each of the relationships Node 3 formed. Node 2 at the top, on the other hand, looks friendly and effective at building strong relationships quickly.

Social network analysis services see these differences in the way people interact already and they see the way changes in spacial relations impact them, but it's a very nascent field.

"We see the spatio-temporal effect manifest in Twitalyzer data during conferences, tradeshows, and live events (e.g., SXSW)," says Eric Peterson, creator of professional Twitter analysis service Twitalyzer. 

"The results are pretty obvious in our data: individuals who exhibit an otherwise 'normal' level of Impact, Influence, and Engagement in our data go 'off the charts.'

"The simplest explanation is that there is a compressing effect on an individual's network when they are more spatially proximate (e.g., can grab a drink and interact face to face.) When this happens, especially when it happens over a short period of time, people's scores change, their networks expand (typically, although we have seen contraction), and their 'chatter' (in your words) becomes more focused."

As Yet Unanswered Time-based Questions of Value for Any Community

• How is trust or leadership changing over time?
• Who are the emerging leaders in a group?
• What are the recurring changes in a group?
• How long is the tenure of a leader in a group?
• How long does it take to elevate the level of trust such as a relationship changing from visitor to friend?

Now imagine that kind of temporal and spacial analysis being performed on much larger networks, over greater periods of time.

"This added dimension or set of data points is out there and generally widely available as 'exhaust data', so to harness it and factor it in with the rest of the social graph would be truly valuable," says Eileen Burbidge, a London angel investor at White Bear Yard and a former product manager at Skype, among other positions.

"From an investment (i.e. value creation) point of view, spatio-temporal data has the potential to add an element of value, context and relevance to otherwise 'flat' data points.

"Take LinkedIn for example. I use it to see who in my network knows (and might endorse) whom, but I'm often cross-referencing/checking a person's contacts by their work history to discern if a specific contact was established at one spatio-temporal point vs another (ie relevancy)... The ability to build this into social network analysis would be extremely valuable as space and time offer tremendous context and relevance to social connections and relationships. "

The Hard Parts

That could very well be the kind of sophisticated social network analysis that service providers aspire to in the future and that their customers seek. Identifying some basic opportunities doesn't mean it will be easy to get there, however.

Shekhar and Oliver say this points to the need for "a central role for computation and computational models, not only to scale up to the large and growing data volumes, but also to address new spatiotemporal social questions related to change, trends, duration, mobility, and travel.

"The need for computational efficiency conflicts with the requirement for expressive power of the model and balancing these two conflicting goals is challenging."

If each historical moment of our relative connective history becomes no longer exhaust data, but points on a chart, that sure is going to be a challenge in the computational efficiency department! Presumably, it will just be timestamped changes of state that will be preserved.

Scaling that analysis is one challenge, finding new ways to recognize, tell and leverage the stories unearthed by analysis of that data is a whole other challenge.

Shekhar and Oliver cast themselves into the abyss of that data-centric future with their conclusion: "We welcome collaboration towards identifying datasets and use-cases to evaluate the potential of TAG [the time aggregated graph model] to address spatio-temporal questions about social networks."

Good luck guys, may you help open up this whole new frontier to us all. You've certainly articulated something that a whole lot of people are going to be very interested in in the future.

Right: A slice of Veronica Belmont's closest Twitter buds, per Mailana, a system without reference to time. From The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Heroes.

Title photo: Blinded by the Light, by Flickr user Jule_Berlin

Why You Learn More Effectively by Writing Than Typing

The act of writing helps you clarify your thoughts, remember things better, and reach your goals more surely. Here's a look at the science and psychology behind writing, and why the pen may be mightier than the keyboard.

Photo by sun dazed.

Many productivity experts and writers have long espoused the power of writing things down (in fact, paper is our many of our favorite to-do list manager and we're a little fanatical aboutour favorite pens).

Why Writing Works

Patrick E. McLean's defense of writing longhand is a poetic dissertation on the subject; words can rush out in their raw, feral state when the pen is your tool. Technology, meanwhile, can be too distracting and distancing.

Maybe you're on the other side of the fence, though, and think all this just a lot of pure romanticism: People may feel more comfortable and productive with pen and paper because that's what they've used most of their lives (and what we as a species have used for centuries), but some like typing more and can do it more quickly. Certainly, more of us are becoming fast typists by necessity and the art of handwriting is deteriorating.

A couple of studies, though, substantiate why the physical act of writing really does boost learning and goal achievement. Hoping to provide actual scientific proof on the efficacy of writing down and sharing goals (to make up for an often-quoted mythical Harvard/Yale study of goals), a psych professor at Dominican University of California found that people who wrote down their goals, shared them with others, and maintained accountability for their goals were 33% more likely to achieve them, versus those who just formulated goals. (One can argue that in this instance, typing would be equally effective; see "Why Writing Works Better Than Typing" below for why writing still may be better.) Another study found positive effects of writing on learning foreign words, and a survey of note-taking studies found several examples where taking notes helped students with recall and academic performance.

The research results may seem common sense or obvious to many of us. If you're interested in the biology behind writing's effect on our achievements, though, here's a little background: Writing stimulates a bunch of cells at the base of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS acts as a filter for everything your brain needs to process, giving more importance to the stuff that you're actively focusing on at the moment—something that the physical act of writing brings to the forefront. In Write It Down, Make It Happen, author Henriette Anne Klauser says that "Writing triggers the RAS, which in turn sends a signal to the cerebral cortex: ‘Wake up! Pay attention! Don't miss this detail!' Once you write down a goal, your brain will be working overtime to see you get it, and will alert you to the signs and signals that […] were there all along."

Why Writing Works Better Than Typing

There may also be a scientific basis for the pen's superiority over the keyboard when it comes to writing development and cognitive functions. Dr. Virginia Berniger, who studies reading and writing systems and their relationship to learning processes, found that children's writing ability was consistently better (they wrote more, faster, and more complete sentences) when they used a pen rather than a keyboard; these are, of course, subjects without a penchant for using either tool. We also previously covered the WSJ article that connected handwriting and cognitive abilities; in one of the studies cited, adults learned new symbols and graphic shapes better when they reproduced them with pen-and-paper instead of typing them.

The difference, Berniger notes, may lie in the fact that with writing, you use your hand to form the letters (and connect them), thereby more actively engaging the brain in the process. Typing, on the other hand, involves just selecting letters by pressing identical-looking keys.

Of course, whether the pen or the keyboard is better for you depends on your personal experience and comfort with these tools. As a compromise, perhaps we should all get stylus-friendly tablet PCs or digital pens.

The author of this post can be contacted at tips@lifehacker.com

Cracking the Facebook Code

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How does the social media giant decide who and what to put in your feed? Tom Weber conducts a one-month experiment to break the algorithm, discovering 10 of Facebook's biggest secrets.

The more digital our daily lives become, the more perplexing the questions seem. Will the growth of social media destroy our notions of privacy? Is democracy helped or harmed by the cacophony of opinions online? And perhaps most confounding: Why does that guy I barely know from the 10th grade keep showing up in my Facebook feed?

If you've ever spent time on Facebook, you've probably pondered that last one. The social-networking giant promises to keep us connected with our friends in exchange for pumping a steady diet of advertising at us—but the algorithms Facebook uses to decide what news to pass along can seem capricious or altogether impenetrable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook, much like Google with its search algorithms, consistently refuses to go into details about how it picks and pans content (save a few glancing details this year about the enigmatic engine that powers it, EdgeRank). So, with the mystery of that 10th-grade friend in mind, The Daily Beast set out to crack the code of Facebook's personalized news feed. Why do some friends seem to pop up constantly, while others are seldom seen? How much do the clicks of other friends in your network affect what you're shown? Does Facebook reward some activities with undue exposure? And can you "stalk" your way into a friend's news feed by obsessively viewing their page and photos?

To get the answers, we devised an experiment, creating our own virtual test lab within the confines of Facebook and tracking thousands of news-feed items over a period of several weeks. The focal point of our experiment: Phil Simonetti, a 60-year-old Facebook newcomer who allowed us to dictate and monitor his every move.

Like a half-billion people before him, Simonetti joined Facebook and began typing in his status updates. But in this case, Simonetti's only friends were a hand-picked roster of more than two dozen volunteers who agreed to sift through their news feeds for the duration of our experiment, dutifully recording any Phil sightings.

As our volunteers checked in with their reports, some remarkable findings began to emerge:

1. Facebook's Bias Against Newcomers. If there's one thing our experiment made all too clear, it's that following 500 million people into a party means that a lot of the beer and pretzels are already long gone. Poor Phil spent his first week shouting his updates, posted several times a day, yet most of his ready-made "friends" never noticed a peep on their news feeds. His invisibility was especially acute among those with lengthy, well-established lists of friends. Phil's perpetual conversation with the ether only stopped when we instructed our volunteers to interact with him. A dynamic which leads to…

2. Facebook's Catch-22: To get exposure on Facebook, you need friends to interact with your updates in certain ways (more on that below). But you aren't likely to have friends interacting with your updates if you don't have exposure in the first place. (Memo to Facebook newcomers: Try to get a few friends to click like crazy on your items.)

3. The Velvet Rope: "Top News": The real fun began when we eventually instructed different subgroups of our volunteer-friend force to interact with Phil in a controlled manner.

Suddenly, Phil began popping up on feeds. But which ones? The current newsfeed system offers users two options: "Top News," a highly selective feed of updates from friends, and "Most Recent," a "fire hose" that shows updates in reverse chronological order.

A bunch of interactions, however, still do not guarantee that you'll get on anyone's Top News, which is how a vast majority of Facebook users get their information. Some of our volunteers reported frequent sightings of Phil's updates in their Top News feeds, while others saw him rarely—and in some cases, never. Top News will show you hours-old updates from some friends while ignoring newer postings from others.

Facebook has a reason to do this: If users saw all of the posts for all of their friends, they might be overwhelmed (or bored) and tune out—a disaster for Facebook, which needs eyeballs to earn revenue. But in doing so, Facebook's ranking system makes judgments about items it thinks you'll be interested in.

What became clear after two weeks was that it's not the amount of activity you have, but the type (more on that below).

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4. "Most Recent" News Is Censored, Too. As veteran Facebook users know, it's a simple matter to switch from the filtered-and-prioritized Top News feed to the "fire hose" of Most Recent. In Most Recent, items are displayed in reverse chronological order. So many users naturally assume that Most Recent contains every update from all of their friends.

Gallery: Celebs Not on Facebook

Not so, as our experiment showed.

Even with test-subject Simonetti posting updates, links, photos, and videos several times a day, a few of our volunteers found that the items didn't appear in their Most Recent feeds. (At least, not until we took additional steps to up Phil's visibility.) If you've never tinkered with the "Edit Options" button on your Most Recent feed, this underscores why you should check it out—there's a little-used setting that caps the number of friends shown in the feed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. "Stalking" Your Friends Won't Get You Noticed. Maybe you've fretted about it while poring over photos of an old flame or estranged friend on Facebook—or maybe you've diligently worked to get on someone's radar by clicking all over their page. Do Facebook's mysterious algorithms factor your stealthy interest in another person into that person's news feed?

To find out, our test subject spent several days obsessively checking out the posts and photos of some volunteers who had yet to spy him in their feeds. The result was clear: The stalking accomplished precisely nothing.

6. Having Friends Who Stalk You WILL Help Your Popularity. Stalking does work in the other direction, we found. After Phil spent days posting updates in vain, with most of our volunteers seeing none of them, we tasked a handful of friends to start showing more interest in Phil. Even though he wasn't showing up in their feeds, they sought out his Facebook page repeatedly, clicking on links he had posted and viewing his photos. This was the point at which Phil finally began to break through. It took a few days of constant clicking, but not only did the friends doing the stalking begin to see Phil in their Top News feeds—others who weren't stalking began noticing him as well.

7. Links Trump Status Updates. We're sure you consider all of your musings fascinating—but Facebook doesn't. At various points in our test, Phil switched between writing plain status updates and posting links to content elsewhere on the Web. Even before some of our friends began stalking Phil, for those who were seeing updates from him, links appeared more frequently than status updates—presumably because links are more effective at driving "user engagement," which translates into people spending more time on Facebook.

8. Photos and Videos Trump Links. Just as links proved more potent than status updates in making it past Facebook's filter, so did photos and videos Phil posted. Here, too, it is likely a matter of engagement. Think about times you've spotted a thumbnail-size photo from a friend in your feed and clicked to see it full-size. Facebook likes clicks, and photos deliver them.

9. The Power of Comments. If items you post attract comments from a few friends, it clearly raises your visibility overall. When our selected volunteers began stalking Phil, he finally appeared to many users for whom he had been a no-show. But when we stopped the stalking and moved on to the next phase of our trial, directing a different group of users to not only look in on Phil but also repeatedly add comments to his items, he surfaced on the feeds of still more friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10. Why Facebook Really is Like High School: After weeks of testing and trying everything from having Phil post videos to getting some of his friends to flood him with comments, by the end of our experiment, a few of our volunteers had still literally never seen Phil appear in their feeds, either Top News or Most Recent. These were the "popular kids"—users of Facebook with 600 or more friends. (Conversely, those with only 100 to 200 friends were among the first to spot Phil.) So the key, as you build your coterie of friends, is making sure to include some without huge networks. They'll see more of your feeds, interact in Facebook-approved ways, and up your visibility with all.

Facebook didn't respond to our requests for comment about our findings. To be sure, this experiment wasn't foolproof. Facebook can—and probably does—draw on variables beyond those in our test. And our volunteer force of friends was only human, and may have missed some of Phil's posts.

Still, we were able to observe firsthand how Facebook can elevate or bury the news you want to share with your friends. For average users, cracking the Facebook code is something of a fun puzzle. But for marketers trying to tap Facebook—or individuals who see the service as a way to promote themselves—understanding how content propagates through the system is anything but a game.

But it also means that many users may not be aware of how much power they've put in the hands of this electronic mediator. (The very concept of the news feed was controversial as soon as it was unveiled, as chronicled in David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect.)

Can you "stalk" your way into a friend's news feed by obsessively viewing their page and photos?

You might think you've shared those adorable new baby photos or the news of your big promotion with all of your friends. Yet not only does Facebook decide who will and won't see the news, it also keeps the details of its interventions relatively discreet.

All the while, Facebook, like Google, continues to redefine "what's important to you" as "what's important to other people." In that framework, the serendipitous belongs to those who connect directly with their friends in the real world—or at least take the time to skip their news feed and go visit their friends' pages directly once in a while.

Thomas E. Weber covers technology for The Daily Beast. He is a former bureau chief and columnist at The Wall Street Journal and was editor of the award-winning SmartMoney.com. Follow him on Twitter.

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