Updates from Peter RSS
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04:45:24 am on July 17, 2008 |
Hi everybody,
Sorry for the long radio silence. I’ve been very busy with work at Wakoopa.com and exams. The results are however, that I’ve finished both an LL.B. and the first (rough) version of the recommendation engine! Expect some cool stuff to be online soon.
Furthermore, Dominiek and I have been working hard on our application for Vodafone Mobile Clicks, and we’ve been selected into the top 11. So it’s almost certain we get to present at PICNIC 2008, and get a chance to win E100,000! I’ll post a more detailed write-up later on.
What is everone else up to? :]
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07:51:43 am on June 22, 2008 |
@Neil - Sorry, no session tonight… I’ve got a very busy week ahead of me and will be needing my time. I will rally the rest of the Dutch part of EntreList for a session next Sunday at 9:00 pm CET, having dinner before that with @Pieter and @Coen. Is that a good time for everyone?
@Wakoopa - We use SVN at Wakoopa, but we’re gonna switch to Git sometime soon, so I will check out @Ryan’s post by that time
Glad you guys like the business card! I just hope I still have the same number when I switch to an iPhone in a month…
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01:30:36 pm on June 15, 2008 |
@IILWY - That was an awesome session! We should hook up again next weekend or so. This time we should aim for an all-out session.* The games at IILWY are great to get to know each other in an informal way. Especially in combination with a Skype conference call it’s really ace
CU guys next weekend!* Too bad Sjoerd and Dominiek are in a different timezone (well, so is Mark, but it’s earlier for him).
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07:45:20 am on June 12, 2008 |
@IILWY - What time would be good for everyone? I propose 8 pm CET (that’s 7 pm GMT).
@iPhone - Definitely getting one as soon as it gets out on July 11
Have to look into my current subscription, because it’s with a different carrier than the one Apple made an exclusive deal with.@Plurk - Haven’t tried it yet. Any good?
@Entrelist - Maybe it would be a good idea to make ‘Recent Projects’ into a tag cloud, instead of a list. Also, I don’t think Entrelist is big enough to necessitate RSS feeds for the different ‘Projects’. The layout would look cleaner if these two changes were implemented. Finally, the quick post on the main page - when logged in - could use two things: (1) option to add a title - nice for the people who have EL in their RSS feeds (2) Make the text input field bigger, lets say twice as big? OK, those were my 2c
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03:23:28 am on May 25, 2008 |
Facebook Will Be the Mainstream Everything
This is an article about the fact that there are - broadly speaking - two types of users: early adopters and mainstream users. Because the former group is small, and the latter group is large, it’ll be platforms like Facebook that will assimilate early adopter technologies like Twitter, Friendfeed, RSS, etc., instead of those services being successful on their own, despite large followings among early adopters. I think especially @Eric and @Neil will agree with the thoughts behind this article.
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12:27:52 pm on May 13, 2008 |
@Amsterdam - Everybody from abroad is welcome in my house
I can accommodate for two people, more if they’d bring their own sleeping gear.@Rails - I haven’t started that long ago, so consider me a novice
For practice - and because I think it’s of great personal benefit to me - I’m developing an app to help train my vocabulary.
@Ryan - I’ll check out your site tomorrow. Neil speaks very highly of you, so I’m sure there will be stuff that’ll be of use to my project(s). Thanks for your offer btw!@TheWineGod - Cool! Michael Pollan’s book ‘In Defense of Food’ http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php has convinced me I should drink more alcohol on weekdays, preferably red wine. But it’s a bit annoying as a starting wine drinker to know which wines go with what dishes/ingredients, so this app sounds especially nice for a starter like me
Put me on the beta-user list!
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09:13:11 am on May 11, 2008 |
@Ryan - Welcome! I see you make Rails screencasts? Awesome! I myself am tackling the framework at the moment, will make sure to check your site! A social e-commerce engine? Please elaborate
@Amsterdam - Coen, Pieter, Sjoerd, Taede, and myself all live in Amsterdam. Mark and Dominiek will be in the Netherlands this summer as well, so a big meetup sounds very realistic. Added bonus: the city is at her best in summer
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07:01:55 am on May 9, 2008 |
@Neil - It gets even better: it’s a 15 min cycle for me, and the office is in the center of Amsterdam. The Kalverstraat is just around the corner, and hip bars, clubs, and restaurants all around
If you plan to drop by this summer, I’ll show you what I’m talking about!
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06:46:07 am on May 9, 2008 |
I stumbled upon a cool SNS: Rupture. The idea is so simple: automated bragging about your achievements in games. This proves that there is still room for SNSs after all
It got me thinking though: this isn’t some divinely inspired idea, I could have come up with that! But hey, I didn’t. Why not? Because I’m not a gamer (no Blockles, don’t cry: I wasn’t talking about you, I was talking about other games). You get ideas in the areas that interest you because that’s where your head is at. Keep your focus on that.
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03:40:04 am on May 8, 2008 |
@Neil - I’ll be working in-office @Wakoopa
That’s part of the plan actually, to get involved with the company, and experience what it’s like to work in and on a startup. I’m looking forward to it a lot!@Blockles - Yes, we had some good matches
Especially the one where I was in the process of obliterating Neil with the flurry of power-ups he mentioned, and then he switched screens, completely turning the tables! I think it would be awesome to do an all-out Entrelist match soon enough: let the best entrepreneur win! ;p
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11:50:55 am on May 5, 2008 |
I am pleased to inform you guys that starting June, I will help Wakoopa with their recommendation engine. As hackers, I’m sure you’ve all checked it out at one point or another:
Wakoopa is the perfect place for people to discover software online. When you sign up, you also install a small tracker that keeps tabs on what software you use. This creates an online profile for you to share with the world, and also gives you updates and recommendations on what your friends and others are using.
Being a mathematician, I’m going to help design the theoretical base on which the engine is built, and being a hacker, I will help implement it. And while I’m at it, I’ll write my thesis on the topic ;-p More in depth posts on this topic will be appear on my personal blog http://ptegelaar.nl/.
“OK,” I hear you think, “spare me your life’s story!”. You may be right…but you could also see this as an opportunity. Let me explain. The number one reason I hear why some people are reluctant to post on EntreList goes something like this: “Yeah I like to read the posts, but why would I wanna post something myself? I hardly know any of these people…” Therefore, let’s take this as a nice chance for everyone to get to know each other a little better: tell the rest of us what you’re working on. It doesn’t have to be as rediculously awesome as building a recommendation engine of course
just share your thoughts! For instance: Coen, why don’t you tell us a bit about your PhD. in AI, Mark, why not share your startup idea, Taede, why not talk about your experience of being in a startup? I’m sure everybody is curious to hear it, guys
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02:54:04 am on May 1, 2008 |
@Everyone - I’m up for a game of Blockles again! How about Monday 7 pm?
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02:07:13 pm on April 28, 2008 |
Again, thank you Neil and Pieter for your replies. As some of you know, I am, among other things, a lawyer by training. So allow me to go briefly over the legal implications brought up by VoiceTracker (VT). This is not going be a thorough study in comparative law, so let us focus on the case in the US.
Let’s assume a conversation between two persons gets recorded. Then there are three cases:
1.Mutual consent: both parties are aware that the conversation is being taped (possibly by one of the parties) and have no objections. No legal problems here.
2.One-party consent: one of the parties knows they are being taped and has no objection. This situation is legal in 38 of the 50 states in the US.*
3.Third-party consent: someone is taping a conversation between two parties without their consent. Illegal, except for the authorities in certain situations.
The second case is the most relevant for VT. Note that it can always be turned into the first case by asking for someone’s permission - although I’ll be the first to admit that might be a bit awkward. The most obvious strategy would be to implement it in those states where you need only one-party consent. For calls to other states, you can choose the option of including a notification that you’re using VT, or just shut the app down.
@Neil - In business settings it is often standard procedure to tape phone calls. Therefore, because it happens so often, it’s not very awkward to inform people you are too.OK, enough about the legal stuff, I hope everybody is convinced that it does not have to be a major obstacle. More on implementation!
@Pieter - I totally agree that the added value isn’t in just storing the conversation. A LOT of companies are already doing that. But the thing is, those companies are actually very much focussed on the b2b market, whereas VT is more geared towards personal use. Also, they really look like they’re having a 20th century approach towards the whole thing: E0.19 per stored conversation which they email to you, and that’s about it :p Let’s examine how we could do better.
To reiterate some of the points I discussed in my previous post:- Tagging the conversations with geo-spatial data, data on your conversation partner(s), or your own/automatic tags (business, social, etc.)
- Search on date/time, tags, keywords, etc.
- Analysis of the conversations
- Transcription
I think the first one speaks for itself. The second and the third are enabled mostly by the fourth, the transcription part. From what I see on the web, voice recognition software is already very accurate (+98% under ideal circumstances: http://voicerecognition.com/). Like Pieter said, it’ll be an extra difficulty to keep this stuff functioning at that high level when there’s lots of noise. But who said that it has to be perfect right from the start? Or ever, for that matter? I’m guessing the software gets better at recognizing your words, the more you use it. And in any case, you also have the original recording.
Guys, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: of course there will be resistance against this. But I think it’s just a temporary thing, people adjusting to the possibilities of new media. Look at all the people not ‘getting’ Twitter: they still think in terms of the old.As a final note, I’d like to say it’s probably a good thing that many entrepreneurs are deterred by this resistance, because it implies less competition
P.S. For the sake of the clarity of EntreList, I’ll post a big item like this on my own site next time: http://ptegelaar.nl (NB No activity there yet).
*My personal opinion is that legislation is lagging behind the technology in those 12 states. Saving voice conversations and saving IM conversations are not fundamentally different, so it doesn’t make much sense to make one illegal and not the other.
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06:35:55 am on April 24, 2008 |
@Neil - Haha, I am the king of Power-Ups! Don’t hold a grudge, we’ll have an all-out match soon enough and you guys can gang up on me ;p
@Neil + Pieter - Thanks for your replies to VoiceTracker! I’ll post my response later tonight
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03:15:34 am on April 23, 2008 |
@Everyone - Just a futuristic little idea of mine, inspired by cheap storage. Imagine carrying a voice recorder with you that’s on always. Preferably it’s really small and not encumbering, and connected to the Internet. So basically, you’re storing every conversation you’ll ever have - unless you choose to switch it off of course - for preservation, to search, and analyze later on (or to get really space-age: in realtime :D). I think the uses of this are very similar to storing e-mail/IM conversations. Some ideas:
*Search for conversations (by date or by voice keywords) and check who exactly said what (in an argument for instance)
*Analyze your speech patterns, to see if there are certain words you use too often (like: ‘like’)
*Just knowing how you talked and acted in the past
*Having in storage your conversations with people now deceased
Actually, when you think about it, this idea is not necessarily so futuristic as it sounds. The device doesn’t have to be supertiny to begin with. Let’s just start with the conversations you have on the phone. An application records what you’re saying and places it in a buffer on your phone. Then, it sends that data to a server for permanent storage, whenever it has a connection to the Internet (either through wireless or when connected to your computer). I think voice is like 1MB/min, judging by the average mp3 song, so I think this is a realistic scenario. Also because most people have 100-500 phone minutes per month.
I think there are many opportunities for a startup in this respect.
*Developing the app that does the recording and the sending
*Making algorithms to efficiently filter the recording
*Making voice-search based on keywords instead of only date/time
*Tagging the conversations with geo-spatial data, data on your conversation partner(s), or your own/automatic tags (business, social, etc.)
*Analysis of the conversations
Of course a lot of people will be freaked out when you tell them their words will be recorded. But I think this is mostly a temporary thing: storing e-mail/IM conversations is the most normal thing in the world, so why not storing voice? Anyways, if you have any suggestions for additions to these lists or if you think the idea sucks b*lls: shoot away!