Open source natural language processor that attempts to identify idiotic comments on the web — like a spam filter for stupidity.

UPDATE: Their server seems to be struggling to handle the traffic, at the moment.

In summary, Ed Moran at Deloitte did a survey of 100 major brands that have online communities. They all suck. What does “suck” mean in this case?

Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members – despite the fact that close to 60% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects. “A disturbingly high number of these sites fail,” Moran tells us.

This tells me a few things. First, these companies have spent WAY too much money on their community software. Part of the magic of building a community network lies in using tool that are familiar and easy to use for the largest number of people. Since the vast majority of successful communities use similar forum and photo sharing tools that are largely open source, rolling your own makes less sense, particularly for a million bucks. That is to say, go where the people are.

Second, they don’t actually have anything worth talking about. That’s not to say that they don’t have great brands, or great products. But they might not have great brands or products that inspire conversation. For example, the Purina hard-to-classify-as-”network” network has only four paltry pages of user comments. It’s just hard to talk about odor control at any length.

In contrast, Mercedes-Benz has an incredibly successful community at BenzWorld.org, offering a place for user support and discussion on the cars — even premium membership for the high-dollar owners.

The Mercedes example gets to one of the key points in the survey: offer a community only when it provides a service to the community — not to you.

Third, the survey ignores companies making great use of existing tools. Back on my first point, if you are really going where the people are, then a network on Facebook or MySpace allows you to tap into known quantities, vast numbers of connected users, on an (arguably) stable platform.

The upshot is this: in spite of the doom and gloom from Deloitte, don’t shake down the social networks just yet. We’re entering an era of connectedness unlike any we’ve yet experienced. If you know your customers — if you truly understand them — a community might be your next best home run.

http://www.airpoo.com

If you don’t think the writer’s strike has been good for new media producers, check again. As far as pilots go, I would watch this over … I dunno … “Class of 99″ any day.

If you head over to ICN, check out “Inappropriate Workplace” too. There’s some good humor in that there broadcast.

If you have feedback, leave it on Daniel’s wall over on Facebook.

Put on those headphones and proceed at your own risk!

One of my favorite podcasts is WebbAlert, a technology news show hosted by Morgan Webb, highlighting daily tech news and social media memes. It’s daily, no more than about six minutes per episode, and Webb does a good job of covering the geek news I need with a ripe sarcasm I crave.

For the last few weeks, WebbAlert has had a compelling new sponsor: DeVry University. It’s a perfect match — while I know very little about the place, I know they have technical and gaming programs that fit the market of the show. But more important than that, it shows that the adult education industry is dipping its toes into some more progressive waters.

Don’t get me wrong here: this is not an issue of conservative advertising values. It’s an issue of ignorance. The new education marketplace that so many laud as leading a new era of access is not so daring when it comes to ad space. They count even more than many sectors on consistent and dramatic lead flow.

With podcast popularity apparently growing as fast as it is, likely precipitated by the ongoing WGA strike and the dearth of traditional media that results, more and more people are turning to the net for their entertainment and their news. It shows a cool savvy that some lucky DeVry marketing manager pushed this initiative through.

Slightly related, I got an email from a good friend who just started working for DeVry:

Started at Devry this week, feels like foreign lands. When I asked when my matrix starts I was told “Take your time, learn the culture here…we don’t want to shove you out there before you “get it”.” I thought they were screwing with me.

If you’ve ever seen the enrollment rooms at Phoenix, you know just how funny that is.

Leo’s Song from impactist on Vimeo.

It’s why I get to say things to myself like, “Man, if Will Smith only knew me, we’d be buds. Best friends.”

Same thing with Wil Wheaton, Tom Cruise circa “Top Gun”, George Clooney, Jamie Foxx, Edward Norton, Judd Apatow, Joss Whedon, and the list goes on.

I’m one degree from Tom Cruise, which is sad, because since he went crazy, he’s not that high on the list anymore so I’m not really pursuing it. And Wil Wheaton commented on my blog once — something witty which I’ve since lost to a server crash or somesuch and has to live on in memory alone. Bummer, that.

But always near the top of my “movie stars who would really like me as a person” list is Heath Ledger. He seemed like the quiet guy in the corner, brooding a bit, taking on the tough roles, challenges, and opportunities for others around him to find a piece of spirit. When you’re a child of the 80′s, and you hitch your ride to these storytellers, it’s a blow when they pass so suddenly.

And so it brought some joy to me this morning to read Ledger’s most recent director Christopher Nolan put his thoughts down for Newsweek. He captured for me a piece of that relationship I know Ledger and I would have had, if only he’d known me at all.

When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we’d have to show him the finished film—sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we’d done with all that he’d given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism compared stories on user-news sites with content from traditional news sources. A key finding: The news agenda of the user-sites — Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us — was markedly different from that of the mainstream press. Many of the stories users selected didn’t appear anywhere among the top stories in the mainstream media coverage studied.

Shock and awe indeed. This is covered in full at journalism.org. The cognitive dissonance here stems from news organizations’ need to keep the lights on, while the populace is, in most cases, interested in being informed. The challenge: a cursory glance across any of the social sites bears little in terms of news I need to know. Let’s see… top “World & Business” headlines right now on digg.com…

OK, so I’m interested in Ron Paul and Castro. But 7 Underwater Wonders of the World? You build me an underwater city as a weekend getaway at the foot of the Mariana Trench, and we can talk.

I asked whether the rhetorical voice of blogging is changing the reportorial voice. Jodi replied that that voice has been getting more informal for years, and not just because of blogging. But, she said, when you can see how your readers are taking what you say, you try to write even more clearly and precisely.

“Another example of how blogging is improving journalism,” said Dan.

The same argument could be made inversely. The fact that the reportorial voice is becoming more casual, more approachable, may be what makes more people return to words in the first place. It’s a different time. I had a conversation with Mark Alexander who brought up an interesting point vis Marc Prensky. The gist of it is this: we have to be so careful to understand why we chose to teach what we teach. Just because the papers I grade today don’t conform to the rules of yesterday, does that make them any less appropriate? Content-rich? Accurate? We thought video games would destroy civilization. Now we’re using them as teaching tools.

I don’t want to agree. There’s something deep in me that pushes, rallies against this. But as educators, we have to own what’s ours, and fight the battles that really need fighting.

http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,2022650,00.asp

I’ve been fascinated by Robert’s rise to fame and have been eagerly watching his new ScobleShow over at PodTech.

He’s worth a view — mostly because of the unbelievable access he gets with his camera and jolliness. He’s technology’s Gomer Pyle, and somehow that congeniality has made him the go-to guy for new media.

Go figure. But congratulations anyway, Robert. Keep the interviews coming.

http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/

It feels like I’ve been talking more and more about blogs and blogging of late, amplified in no small part by my first experience actually teaching public relations at the University (more on that whole experience later). What I’ve taken from all this discussion is that, primarily, people are taking to this stuff. They’re reading them. They’re writing them. They’re appreciating them. They’re learning about their friends and family, and the love being in on the scoop when part of there circle has something profound to say about the world.

Media

So it’s frustrating when I stumble across old-world journalists who see blogs as self-righteous and pitiful. In a recent call to arms for traditionalists, Frank Catalano writes of blogging:

Sure, blogging is a new publishing mechanism (sort of). But it has more in common with wanna-bes who self-publish deathless prose through vanity presses, or pre-teens who pour their hearts out into diaries with flimsy locks, or little old ladies who write poetry with quill pens to read to their cats and store in the sock drawer, than with actual, grab-your-audience-by-the-hair (or other body parts) and get’em to think writing.

This is chronic hyperbole and at some level, I’m ashamed that this is the quote I’ve picked to represent his piece. But it’s the one that makes the hair stand on the back of my neck, and that’s the way it is.

See, Catalano’s not doing service to the point. It doesn’t matter what people are writing on their websites to journalism-at-large, it matters to the handful of people who read them. The beauty of blogging, and the real boon of the blog to the traditionalists, is that the important stuff — the stuff that changes worlds — bubbles to the top and makes its way to the rest of us.

Catalano’s own blog, Byte Me Online, is one that I actually read. It’s infuriating that this rant does more disservice to people with a yen to write to their own little audiences than to teach the point about actually finding an audience for a speculative blog.

I say the more the merrier.

Never mind the sweet irony that I never would have discovered Catalano’s piece were it not for another blog. Such is the point:

Like pubs, weblogs can become a huge part of the everyday life of both individuals and a community. Unlike the bricks, mortar, and beer on tap pubs, you get to the digital variety by simply turning on your computer and “walking” into the URL. Time and space become of secondary importance, though we often find that we want to hang out there when something big is happening in the world around us.

I like this for the echo of the often sweet innocence of some blogs and the tough critique of others. The importance of weblogs lies less in the ability of the writer to present the world than in the reader’s ability to assimilate it, which is what journalism was all about, once.