Last week the Economist (subscription required) had an interesting article about researchers in an HP lab that have been comparing strategies for maximizing readership on Digg via the layout of the front page. They were trying to answer the following question: Should the most recent stories be on top? That’s the way Digg is now, but maybe it should be organized with the most popular on top?

The study concluded that it depends on how quickly readers tire of a new story. They developed a mathematical model to prove this and showed that if the flow of content slows beyond a certain level, then it would be better for the site to switch to an organization by popularity. Wow. You know Digg itself is popular when HP researchers spend over a year simulating Digg to figure out how the site should organize its front page.

Incidentally, the Economist has decided to get a little more social. I’m not sure when this implementation happened (though it must have been within the last few weeks), but the site now allows subscribers to comment. At the bottom of most of the articles it says, “The Economist welcomes your views.” But only the number of comments are shown on the same page as the article. You have to click through to a different section to read them.

What I found particularly ironic is that a story about Digg has only received two comments. That just goes to show that the Digg commenting crowd and the Economist reading crowd haven’t been properly introduced.

The Economist

The articles cites a study/survey, which shows that approximately 71% of shoppers were done shopping as of December 23rd while past holiday seasons have had more like 85% of shoppers done by the 23rd. Part of the article reminded me of my own situation:

“While online shopping was a bright spot this season, by Saturday, few retailers were guaranteeing delivery by Christmas, or were charging a premium for it. Thus, many headed to the malls, at times braving nasty weather.”

For whatever reason, I was one of these procrastinating shoppers and didn’t start shopping until Friday, December 21st. As my parents, brothers, and sisters all live in different states, I had to act fast to get them presents before Christmas day. I could either shop locally or shop online and have them delivered. Since Amazon has a wide selection and even offers gift wrapping, I thought I’d go with that option.

But then, in order for the presents to make it there before the 25th, Amazon shipping estimates basically had me paying for the gifts twice! Fortunately, Amazon has a feature called Amazon Prime. For $79 per year, you get free Two-Day Shipping on over a million in-stock items and Overnight Shipping (what I needed) for only $3.99 per item.

Even if I do shop on Amazon frequently, I had never really considered Amazon Prime previously. But last minute Christmas shopping was quite the incentive. Basically, I was going to pay more than the $79 yearly fee for my shipping anyway, so why not get a year of free shipping as part of the deal? I’m surprised Amazon didn’t have ads/promotions for Amazon Prime plastered all over its homepage for the week before Christmas.

For more on shopping comparisons, see Marion’s Online Shopping vs. Retail Stores: Which is the better experience?

                                                    
Now this is an interesting partnership. It look like Chevron and The Economist have teamed up to create an online game called Energyville. How would you power your own city? Drag and drop energy sources, make decisions with scarce resources, etc. You really don’t even have to play, just check out the site and you’re given the option to get six months of The Economist for free.

Whatever the reasoning for this, I’ve always found the Economist to be a top notch source (even if expensive) for world news and technology. My subscription was up for renewal anyway; it’s nice to get six months free instead. See the full text of the email below for more details:

*Update* After further investigation, it looks like this offer comes only to existing Economist subscribers. But if you want to be sneaky, here’s a way to make this work:

You can sign up here for the minimal amount of time (six months); it costs $50 or only $20 if you’re a student. Once signed up, play the game and send yourself the six month free voucher but to a different email address. When redeeming the gift voucher, you’ll be asked if you’d like to create a new account. Create a new account under your second email address, get your six months free, and cancel your original subscription within the trial period (first six weeks).

“Dear Economist.com reader,

How do we meet growing global energy demand? What new kinds of fuels and power sources should be developed? These are the sorts of questions facing us all.

To help encourage greater understanding and dialogue, Chevron and The Economist Group have created Energyville, an online, interactive game that puts you in charge of meeting the energy demands of your city. It’s a chance to put your theories into practice. Choose from a portfolio of available energy sources to power your city today, and through 2030. Every decision you make will affect the environment, the economy, and even your city’s security. So, give each move some real thought.

In appreciation of your participation, we’re sending all participants* a gift voucher for a six-month subscription to Economist.com. This will give you access to The Economist’s full content, plus our archive of over 30,000 articles. You can keep the voucher for yourself, or give it as a gift. Just follow the link after you finish the game and claim yours today.

Kind regards,

Ben Edwards
Publisher
Economist.com

*participants must play the game in order to qualify for the free subscription offer”

Here’s the latest in TechConsumer [Google] news:

Google Blogoscoped stumbled upon evidence which suggests the rumored GDrive (Google online storage) will be made available publicly, likely as part of Google Apps. Apparently, Google Apps accounts allow you to “change the query string parameter on the page where you can disable services.” The important part is that by doing this, the option to disable GDrive is given (even though it was never enabled). See the screenshot below:

Google submitted a patent application filing named Text Message Payment on Friday. The patent explains how “GPay” can be used to make payment via text messages. An example of how this works is in scenarios where you would pay for items in vending machines or at retailers. If rumors of the GPhone come true, then expect to see GPay as a default service for the GPhone. See the screenshot below:

The Economist (subscription required) has joined the ranks of those questioning Google’s antics, asking some of the same questions TechConsumer’s Tom asked in his article entitled, Is anyone else nervous about Google? The Economist compares Google to a bank: “Just as financial institutions grew to become repositories of people’s money, and thus guardians of private information about their finances, Google is now turning into a custodian of a far wider and more intimate range of information about individuals… [Google] will be the one to test the limits of what society can tolerate.”

This all came about because of a plague released in World of Warcraft by accident a couple years ago. Researchers were able to learn more about the peculiarities of humans in crisis than their previous models had shown. For example, a rather large fraction of players were altruistic and wanted to protect their weaker friends, though there were some who infected as many other players as possible.

But the biggest surprise was that of “dangerous curiosity.” Meaning, once news spread of the plague, many players started logging on to find out more only to get infected themselves. Apparently, curiosity is not a behavior included in current epidemiological models.

While researchers issue the typical disclaimers about how this type of environment is not necessarily the equivalent of the real world (characters can be resurrected unlike humans, unfortunately), it still offers significant enough insights such that there have been talks with Blizzard to introduce disease or other risks into the virtual world, all in the name of science. But would gamers be o.k. with being digital guinea pigs?

I subscribe to the Economist and received an intriguing email yesterday. It looks like the Economist might be getting into podcasting, er, sort of. This comes not long after the magazine decided to implement RSS, though this latest move is a bit more unique. Check it out:

“Dear Reader,

This week, if you will forgive a rare, brief advertisement, I would like to draw your attention to a new version of The Economist—a complete audio edition. Read (rather well) by professional broadcasters, it is available to download from 5pm London time on Fridays. To listen to the whole thing takes around six hours; but listeners can also download shorter snippets. Our hope is that people will listen to it on the move, whether they are commuting to work, cooking, walking the dog or at the gym. Anyway, we believe we are the first magazine to offer a full audio version and we look forward to hearing what people think of it. It is free for subscribers and $8 for everybody else at

www.economist.com/audioedition. “

Interestingly enough, no mention of that near ubiquitous term “podcast.” But this is arguably much different; it’s a weekly read through of an entire magazine. My first inclination is “cool!” but I wonder if I’ll take advantage of it.

Would you listen to a read through of [your favorite] magazines?

The Economist (subscription required) has an interesting piece on sex and the Internet, which revolves around the graph pictured to the right. While the online porn industry was valued at $1 billion back in 2002 by America’s National Research Council, the latest data shows that social networking traffic is set to take over the number one spot any day now. It’s also pointed out that sex is often the first mover with technology before the mainstream is ready to adopt it for everyday use (such has been the case with photography, videocassettes, and satellite television).

But before we assume all is well in Zion, let’s take a look at what these social networking sites are used for:

The highly popular virtual world Second Life rides a fine line when categorized. Virtual commerce is beginning to make a serious impression. But no economy, virtual or not, can seem to exist without sex-related activities as a part. In the case of Second Life, some claim that 30% of transactions involve sex or gambling with Edward Castronova of Indiana University estimating that sex is “a substantial portion, perhaps even the majority” of economic transactions in Second Life.

So how does social networking relate to sex? As it turns out, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. The Economist claims that “such sites [social networking] are often used to find and attract potential mates… Porn sites may have reached a climax, but sex remains as potent online as ever.”

Even if a clever way to end an article in true Economist style, it does seem to be trying too hard to remind us that not much has changed. I’m actually hoping something has changed in regard to sex on the Internet.

In my previous life of yesteryear, I used to make housecalls to fix computers. So many times the problem was porn, not in a “breaking up the family” sort of way but more in a “I ventured off to one site and now my computer is useless because of popups, redirects, and background changes” way. Why must curiosity toward sex be misinterpreted as an invitation for complete loss of control of one’s computer?

The idea of sex on the Internet doesn’t really bother me. But the idea of sex on the Internet being connected to a virus-like, “we now control your computer” response is extremely annoying. So here’s my addendum to the Economist article: If sex is still to be a popular part of the Internet via social networking, that’s actually good news when compared to how sex has been handled online before.

Most social networking site I’ve seen seem to respect the user, something many sex sites still haven’t figured out.

I grew up with the Webster dictionary as my guide to defining words. I remember homework assignments that started with “Webster defines…” followed by the definition of some term and a follow up question on which I would need to write a paper. Another classic use of Webster was at church. Someone preaching on love? The easiest way to begin is by stating “Webster defines love as…” and then moving on to a more eloquent expansion on the basic definition.

During this past month, both of these examples came back to me, except this time Webster was replaced by Wikipedia.

Sure, this is anecdotal and not necessarily indicative of anything on a larger scale, but I was surprised nonetheless. The school example came during a test for my Strategic Management class (I’m currently working on my MBA at Purdue University). I was to write an essay on various strategies related to pay-per-view vs. video on demand. The question started with “Wikipedia defines…” and referred to the two pages found on Wikipedia as the basis for the essay.

The second example was at church, where the message was focused on “compassion,” which started with “Wikipedia defines…” before elaborating. Both examples were within one week of each other and gave me pause to think where Webster has gone.

This isn’t to say that Wikipedia is without flaws. On the contrary, the anonymity of Wikipedia’s contributors is often cited as the reason for certain falsehoods and opinions found embedded in the site. The Economist last month had an excellent article on the subject, cautioning readers especially when using Wikipedia for controversial topics:

“Those on contentious issues are useful in a different way. The information may be only roughly balanced. But the furiously contested entries on, say, “Armenian genocide” or “Scientology”, and their attached discussion pages, do give the reader a useful idea about the contours of the arguments, and the conflicting sources and approaches. In short: it would be unwise to rely on Wikipedia as the final word, but it can be an excellent jumping off point.”

A “jumping off point” it has become, at least in my life. Anyone else have similar experiences?

Note: This article is cross-posted at BobCaswell.com.