环保琐思

与来自台湾的美芳姐以及雪平姐吃素食(眼下北京的素食餐馆很多,大概也是一个流行),不谈商业,只谈了环保问题。人们的环保意识从何而来呢?一是自身的习惯;另一个是社会的耦合,也就是集体意识。有时候自己可以做到修身,不乱扔垃圾(台湾的讲法是“垃圾不落地”),尽量节约用水,尽量少胡吃海塞,吃自助餐也要用几个盘子,少印几盒名片…. 有些人能够做到影响别人,所以就开始在社区发动垃圾分类的活动,也会去主动制止身边违反公共环境的行为。亲眼看到在公共场所多管闲事劝说不要吸烟的好人。这就是不太容易做的工作了,要给人们更多的自由空间去组织起来,人们才有勇气去写作起来,甚至需要更多的激励政策才能够达成社会的共识。中国的癌症发病率年年增加(个人观察的结果,可恨没有公共卫生统计数据)。人人都可能是环境问题的受害者,不知道这算不算一种报复。偷窥到下一期的草莓周刊,会讲中国将超过美国成为全球最大的二氧化碳排放体。仿佛今天的中国就是一个大烟筒,真是梦魇。

韩锋说减肥很困难,我认为他一定没有问题。他是一个有原则的人,就从每天早上能够坚持6点多起床就很不容易。要是想想减肥也是环保的一部分,下次吃大餐心里就有底了。

娃哈哈事件,成功后面的废品— 诚信

我们无法深入“娃哈哈”事件的内部,但是至少看惯了多年以来劫持“民族产业”来描绘此类问题的说法已经站不住脚。现如今其实大部分人最好旁观,留给法律来解决问题。只是不得不说的是,无论这个事件如何解决,都会给未来任何合作项目一个长时间的提醒,“诚信,注意他的诚信”。十多年了,孩子也长大了,各自有了丰收,那是好事,但也该考虑那些负面的产出了。

//update: 经过朋友的交流,我倒是突然想问一个问题,宗庆后慈善榜上的排位是多少呢?知情人给个提示吧。

≈3.0

Web 2.0 带动了各式各样的2.0思维,所以最近我要参加一些有趣的不同领域的小活动,显然大家都受到了2.0的冲击,于是郑重其事地标签为“XXX 2.0”。当然对于真正的理解还有一个阶段,毕竟有了标杆,是蛙跳(Leapfrog)的目标,算是一种进步吧。但是 Web 2.0的创业却没有那么容易,创业的残酷在于人们要用金钱来衡量,所以无论是投资人开始退烧,还是媒体转移注意,或者是创业着自己反思,都是合情合理的反映。

聪明的2.0公司开始思考如何让1.0和2.0做加法了。例如 Threadless.com 和 Jpgmag.com,他们也能够更加和1.0的人群做衔接,让人们在不知不觉中进入角色,升级了人们对2.0的理解,也让我们有机会进一步思考未来的版本。

所以眼下有四到一百种关于Web 3.0的说法,我暂时做一些简单罗列,之后会在英文Blog中作一些整理:

  1. 3D Virtual World: 类似Second Life,国内也有了拷版。虚拟3D帮助人们建构新的理解,获得更好的应用体验,当然是网络越来越追求的目标。Ajax是2.x维的思维方式,但是纯粹的3D和Podcasting一样难以驾驭,文字仍然是Web n.0的重要基石。
  2. Semantic Web: 语义网终于翻身,希望能够搭载Web 2.0的创造力推进一步。其实Web 2.0用各种通俗的方法(通俗分类Tag),通俗的格式化(Microformats),以及通俗的API(Atom等)渐渐地表达了语义。所以Semantic Web 确实能够对2.0促进一步,只是要考虑新的社会计算模式,这是W3C过去不足的地方,第一次被商业应用所左右。
  3. Robot+Human computing: 互联网上能够把人和机器的计算良好结合起来,这是Google成功的道理。你想好关键词,Google的计算体系帮你找候选结果,你再自己挑候选结果。很多人不屑于这种做法,以为有更好的算法可以只让机器代替人来计算,显然忽略了人性。伴随着Web和IM的社会化趋势,更多的机器计算会来到人们身边。从计算的角度看,机器的参与会让世界有大的改变。
  4. Web 2.0与传统商业模型的结合: 这一点更加自然,因为Web 2.0企业不会落入窠臼,他们会不断寻求与离线经济的结合点,这样的结合点会越来越多,让UGC变成UGM。

我们可以很高兴地看到,这些努力都在并行发展,所以没有可能说哪一个方向才是真正的Web 3.0,就是综合。未来几年,恐怕Web 3.0就不只是Web 3.0了,很可能是 Society 3.0 了。

Life Log and Life Feeds

There’s a very hot application called Twitter caught eyeballs and fingers of many people. Since I was Twitter member for a long time after Chinese geek Bruce Wang introduced it to me half year ago. So can see how the small but cute application was spreading itself in such a short period. People around me stepped into twitter world one by one that caused me to stop accepting new connecting request(Today, I have to decline those strange names who requests for connection). Since Twitter the application integrates with Instant Messenger(s), we can see messages pop up from GTalk/Jabber clients time by time. Many people there even cried that “seems that I can’t leave without twitter”. One of my blogger friend from Taiwan, Carol, joked that “seems I put twitter higher prioritized than email when I get up”. Why? Are there any magic driven powers behind Twitter? Yes:

I told Carol in Twitter, “@thecarol, because Twitter is like brain, but Email is just like a communication tool“. Twitter does trigger the inner “voice” in people’s mind. If it’s not integrated with Instant Messenger(e.g. Gtalk/Jabber), it’s nothing special. Actually, people seeks a long time to express such inner “voices” in brain for a long time. The voice dims very fast, so any web page based application can’t catch it up. The inner “voice”, is the so-called “meme” that represents the micro-granularity ideas flow out from our brain. If they can’t be recorded(either by writing down or telling someone else), they will disappear quickly. We may lose many such ideas everyday that could possibly trigger big change to outside world with a “Butterfly Effect”. Along with the building up of high-density social networking, such memes can be eventually well connected to form bigger “storms”. To each individual, all the memes collected (by Twitter) can becomes a valuable capital, which is in a new name “Life Log”.

“Life Log” is so amazing. Your any ideas and thoughts will be recorded to become retrievable and spreadable content. It’s very helpful even without consider it’s social effect because you can also reflect your memes to form bigger ideas, then actions to change ourselves. If, they are well connected in a social way(with trust), more possibilities will emerge. “Life Log”, as a matter of fact, dig our life into a deeper level just like Microscope helps us to understand the microorganism in our life and eventually improves our understanding of the world. We will be more intelligent thinking in a more micro way. “Life Log” is the digital existence along our life timeline. It’s our new property in more micro format after evolving from weblog which is macro level of “Life Log”. So there comes Microformats which will change our information world in the coming years. “Life Log” will eventuall take those microformats as your private property. It’s more valuable when you select some parts of “Life Log” to share with your social network. As return, you will be rewarded by other’s sharing parts called by another new concept, “Life Feeds”.

“Life Feeds” means those input memes comes to your brain along timeline. Before you start building up your habits of continuously outputting to “Life Log”, you will require more inputs from outside world, especially those highly authentic information from your trust network. It’s proved in learning theory that the more trust along yourinformation channel, the more possible to accommodated into your own knowledge system. So everyone of us will be fed with different sources of information everyday, every hour, every minute…. The “Life Feeds” must be balanced to “Life Log”, otherwise, we shall lose it’sviability according to VSM(Viable System Model ) on variety balance rationale. This principle drives us to generate more memes though it’s becoming harder to archive them just in time. Fortunately, instant-messenger-based capturing comes to help. We can eventually keep the balance in a relatively elegant level. In such an ecosystem, everyone of us is both information “producer” and “consumer”. We are inter-linked in a “many-to-many” social network. It’s even metaphor-ed as a super brain. I called it “New God” because it could be possible to impact the whole human beings when “the Singularity” reached.

Around the vision of “Life Log” and “Life Feeds”, there will be more and more instant information tools emerged. Twitter is in the “Life Log” part, and Anothr.com is in the “Life Feeds” part. They are all great Micropipeline solutions to foster a new “thinking speed” age. I leave the question “How to make money” for you to get your intelligence to help them succeed in business world. Now your turn, entrepreneurs….