Geek Gestalt

LAS VEGAS--Get ready for the collision of social networking and peer-to-peer file sharing.

With the beta release of LimeWire 5.0 (download for Windows| Mac), which was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show here, the popular P2P service is incorporating a social element that will enable people using Jabber-compatible services like Gmail to share files with friends on their buddy lists. Lime Wire calls this a "personal sharing network."

The idea, said Lime Wire CEO George Searle, is to add trusted context to user searches for content, given that people are more likely to want--and feel comfortable with--content from people they know.

Additionally, Searle explained that the new social features of LimeWire--which has 70 million monthly unique users and more than 5 billion queries a month--will enable people to choose whether to make files available to the public at large, or just to their friends and family.

In many ways, this is much like many other content-sharing systems. But to Searle, adding a social component to LimeWire means making what is already an extremely popular service more personal to many users.

Essentially, the way the new feature works is that users will be able to decide whether to make files--photographs, for example--available to anyone on LimeWire, or just to people on their buddy lists. Similarly, users will be able to search for files from their friends. And this will take advantage of a sharing system that tens of millions of people already use, something that Lime Wire hopes will encourage many on the service to adopt the social elements.

Searle said he hopes that the social feature will allow users to trust the sources of the content they share across the system in a way that's not really possible when sharing with strangers.

Tuesday was not a good day for the San Francisco Bay Area's new media community.

The latest bad news to hit was word that blogging software developer Six Apart has laid off about 8 percent of its 200-plus staff. In a post on the company's public blog, CEO Chris Alden announced the cuts, writing, "We are reducing the size of our full-time staff by around 8 percent and are making some organizational changes as we prepare for 2009."

Though Six Apart seems to be growing--"with Q4 2008 on track to be our biggest revenue quarter ever, and cash flows from our revenue, past financings and sale of LiveJournal providing funds that will serve us well going into next year and beyond"--the company clearly felt it had to make some moves to streamline as the economic crisis turns its crosshairs on Silicon Valley and the San Francisco technology industry.

Already Tuesday, for example, Wired.com and Current TV both suffered layoffs--and that's on top of many other companies that have already begun reducing headcount.

"So why are we doing this?" wrote Alden. "First, as with many companies these days, we are being proactive about keeping our expenses low. Second, with so many changes in 2008, and looking forward to the changing market in 2009, we have to re-balance our organization accordingly."

Among the changes Alden explained in his blog post, he said that the company is merging its marketing, community, and support groups; it is consolidating its Six Apart professional services group, adding people to the group from other parts of the company--and will continue to hire for that group; it is creating a single technology team comprising operations, hosted engineering, analytics, infrastructure, and open platforms; and continuing to push its Six Apart Media advertising program.

As part of the goal of slashing costs, Alden continued, he and other managers have taken 15 percent pay cuts.

Now, as layoffs throughout the media industry pick up steam, those with jobs are no doubt getting more and more nervous. Things, as they say, are likely to get a good deal worse before they start to get better.

In 2006, Wired magazine reporter Jeff Howe published a story about a phenomenon he'd been following in which the power of large numbers of people was being harnessed to make things happen that hadn't been possible before outside the auspices of corporations or other big institutions.

He called the phenomenon "crowdsourcing," and the term quickly caught on, joining others, like "tipping point," "wisdom of the crowds," "the long tail" as household phrases for the ways that things were changing all around us, often thanks to the democratizing reach of the Internet and the commoditization of tools, like high-quality digital cameras, that had previously been out of reach of most.

One of the elements of Howe's defining crowdsourcing was a new understanding of how, when brought together to utilize collective intelligence, big, disparate groups of people working on a common task can be extraordinarily productive and deeply creative.

That, maybe, was the chief differentiator of Howe's discovery from James Surowiecki's Wisdom of the Crowds: that far-flung people are able to achieve great things outside the box.

He likes to talk, for example, about how a large number of people are now able to take great photographs, thanks to their high-end but relatively inexpensive cameras. This enabled a new kind of stock photography world to emerge--one that seems to be doing away with the traditional model in which only a select few photographers could have their work collected by stock photo agencies.

On Tuesday, Howe published his first book, appropriately titled, Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. And as he prepares to storm the book world on a promotional tour, he is also giving interviews far and wide about the topic. On Tuesday alone, he writes on his blog, he will speak on 27 different radio programs around the country.

Last week, Howe and I spoke about where this crowdsourcing phenomenon fits into our world. I had hoped to ask him to spell out the differences between his book and that of Surowiecki, but before I could, he had to leave to be with his family at his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Q: Is there a bit of a tragedy-of-the-commons element to crowdsourcing, to content on YouTube and things like that, where the 80-20 rule--that 80 percent of content is low-quality--governs?
Howe: There's an antidote to the 80-20 rule, and it's that the crowd filters itself. I just put up a blog post about Dell IdeaStorm, which is just a modern-day suggestion box.

Dell receives about 9,000 ideas, and some 500,000 people vote on them. And what those votes do is drive the best ideas up to the top. A lot of those ideas suck, but you don't have to read them, and Dell doesn't have to take action on them.

The essence of crowdsourcing is to take an overwhelming task, and by breaking it up into little chunks and distributing it to a large number of people, it becomes feasible. The good ideas rise like cream to the surface.

You write in the book about the success of the low-budget Web TV show, The Burg. Does that success create more opportunity for people working outside the mainstream system?
Howe: Absolutely. We're seeing the emergence of a different kind of complex ecosystem where some shows have the very highest production values but other shows look better with lower production values, and so it just an aesthetic, and the fact that aesthetic exists means that people without a big budget can exploit that.

So there is more opportunity?
Howe: There's enormous opportunity for amateur filmmakers with talent. The bar is no longer, "Do I have access to 16-millimeter film or enough money to get it developed?"

It's really exemplified by MDotStrange, who literally created a feature-length movie that got screened at Sundance in his little studio apartment in San Jose, using software that he'd presumably pirated and with a budget of zero dollars. It was simply labor, and that means that the game is open to anyone.

If you have the talent, you can make it. This is one of the central themes of crowdsourcing: There's a meritocracy, where people count no matter whether they have the connections or the budget or expensive equipment. And it's everything from astronomy to science to graphic design to photography to writing.

Since this meritocracy is opening up doors to everyone, how can endangered businesses like journalism save themselves?
Howe: By thinking creatively and streamlining. Journalism faces a lot of challenges. The advance of the crowd is only one of those. But smart news organizations are realizing that having their readers engaged in the media production process--in a richer, more sophisticated way--is its own end. It sells papers, it sells Web sites, it brings readers in.

You talked about Gannett being one of those news organizations, right?
Howe: I think Gannett has done smart stuff. It's the largest newspaper publisher in America, and it has made some smart community-oriented moves. But Gannett just laid off 1,000 people, so the fact that it's engaged its readers doesn't make it immune from market forces.

One example you talk about where a business is getting it right is the Netflix Prize, where Netflix offered $1 million to the first person who could improve his or her recommendation engine by 10 percent. What makes that your favorite problem-solving network application?
Howe: Because it got such a robust response very quickly, and it showed what brilliance was out there in the crowd. It's got all the elements of crowdsourcing. I was only theorizing about this two years ago, so to see practice mimic theory in this case was gratifying. And it was great to the see that the contestants were collaborating with each other, despite the fact that they were helping competition.

How will crowdsourcing change in the next few years?
Howe: We're seeing Crowdsourcing 2.0 emerge, a more intelligent form of crowdsourcing. Dell is using it intelligently. But I see a lot of the early adopters getting out of it.

Suddenly, every corporation wants the crowd to create their own ads, and that's often a disaster. Everyone wants to throw out a shingle and create a social-networking site.

We saw like Wal-Mart try to do this, and it created fake entries about kids who were buying Wal-Mart products. Any of us who track stuff like this thinks, "do you have no one smart in your entire organization? You're the largest employer in the world."

And the fact is they probably don't. So those companies will get out, or they'll get smart. As crowdsourcing continues to penetrate the mainstream, more companies will use it, but only the smart companies will succeed at it.

You wrote that diversity of experience trumps expertise. Why is that?
Howe: Well, these aren't my ideas. I'm merely re-presenting what are pretty standard collective-intelligence principles. A diverse group of problem solvers will almost always beat a homogeneous group of problem solvers. The reason is, very smart people tend to come from the same institutions, and they tend to try to solve problems in the same way. And sometimes that works, but often, it doesn't.

What diversity of experience brings is, even if someone may not be well-versed in that subject matter, she is able to apply her expertise from another subject matter entirely and say, "Well, you know, but wait, what if we try this?" And when you have a crowd, because you have the power of large numbers, there are times that taken as a whole, they excel because they are trying so many different things all at once.

What are the best industries for crowdsourcing?
Howe: It has totally transformed stock photography. So the question I pose in my book is, "Is stock photography the canary in the coal mine?" We might be beginning to see this with graphic design. I don't know yet because I haven't done the reporting on it, but it's at least something similar.

You have a lot of people who can do low-end design. You know they can create a logo. They can lay out a Web page, even though they're not professionals. They're adequate enough that they can make a supplementary income doing it or do it for fun, which is why photography works: because a lot of people love to take pictures.

Crowdsourcing is also having a big impact in corporate science, through companies such as InnoCentive and YourEncore and, you know, my suspicion is that it will continue to migrate into other fields, especially creative services.

In a few minutes, my TiVo will turn itself on and begin recording the eighth episode of the fifth, and final, season of HBO's masterpiece about police, drugs, the street, politics, bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency, and the press in Baltimore, The Wire.

The show, the first three seasons of which I took with me on my Road Trip around the American southwest last summer, is almost certainly one of the best TV shows of all time. There are surely no shortage of legitimate TV critics who have laid their reputations on the line to say so.

For me, watching the show has been a chronological noodle. That is, I originally discovered the show midway through the original broadcast of season four and then caught up by watching the first three seasons on DVD.

Then, after watching the first three seasons a second time--and appreciating them even more--I got the fourth season on DVD and began watching those episodes on my MacBook Pro while on the bus to and from work.

Watching such a show--replete with stark violence, occasional nudity, and visceral drug use--on the bus is a tricky proposition. It sometimes requires turning the laptop so that no one can see what's on the screen.

But mostly, it's just good entertainment for the hour-long ride each way.

When HBO began broadcasting season five, I was still watching season four on DVD, as well as finishing season two. This made for some interesting interpretations of events on-screen since the show is a confidently crafted five-season arc in which the smallest developments in one season may have epic consequences in later seasons.

So before I offer my overall critique of the show, I turn now to my one major prediction--one I haven't seen made anywhere else, but which, if I'm right, will have a major impact on the show.

If you've followed the last three seasons, you're no doubt aware of the quick rise of Baltimore drug lord Marlo Stanfield. And if so, then you know who Chris and Snoop, Marlo's assassins, are.

In season four, we watched Marlo ascend to the top of the West Baltimore drug hierarchy by killing off nearly two dozen rivals and others who crossed him. Yet because he hid their bodies in the city's ignored vacant buildings, the police for quite some time didn't even know they were dead.

When the bodies were finally discovered, there was almost no physical evidence tying the crimes to Chris and Snoop, despite the fact that the police knew who the murderers were. They just couldn't prove it.

And as we get ready for episode eight of season five, Chris and Snoop have yet to be brought to justice.

And I'm here to tell you how they will eventually fall.

If you remember, in season four, Marlo had a run-in with a corner store security guard. He was unhappy that the guard talked back to him, so he had Chris and Snoop kill the man.

They did so, and took him to one of the vacants.

And then, in what may have seemed at the time to be a throw-away moment, there was a brief moment of comedy as Snoop pointed out that she'd kept the guard's badge. But Chris, not wanting anything to do it, grabbed it and threw it off to the side, where it disappeared among the weeds, dirt and crumbled urban detritus.

But in fiction, nothing is there for no reason. Everything is added with a purpose, and that's particularly true in a show like The Wire, where everything ties together.

And so my prediction is that after weeks and weeks of Detective Bunk Moreland's looking for some way to tie Chris and Snoop to the killings of the bodies in the vacants, after the city's forensics labs screwed up every other piece of evidence he'd gathered, and after the major story line of season five--the fake homeless killings--has dominated the police department's attention, I'm here to tell you that that security guard's badge is going to be the thing that does it.

After all, why else make a point of including that scene? And think about it: both Chris and Snoop touched the badge, surely leaving fingerprints.

And with all the other evidence messed up, what is left? I foresee, whether it's in tonight's episode or one of the two others that are left, a visit to that vacant, and the discovery of the badge.

What a perfect way to link a little, mostly unnoticed moment, to a major conclusion in the story's arc.

Now that I have that out of the way, I'll make my own conclusion with my brief thoughts on season five and the series as a whole.

Season five is, in my opinion and that of many of the critics I've read, the weakest of the series. By far.

It is built around what seems like a ridiculous plot line of two of the most accomplished murder PO-lice (you have to pronounce it that way) fabricating a serial homeless killer. And then, to top it off, one of the Baltimore Sun's reporters, picks up on the killings and uses it to fabricate his own series of self-aggrandizing stories. Together, they promise to burn down the entire structure of power in the city.

Yet, it's silly and way over the top.

As always, the part of the show that focuses on the street, on the drug dealers and the politics that goes on there, is the best. This season, the police narrative has suffered, and surprisingly, the newspaper part of the season has also been weak.

It's surprising because what has made the show so special is creator David Simon's uncompromising verisimilitude based on his years as a metro reporter for the Sun. His portrayals of almost every element of Baltimore's fabric--the police, the streets, the ports, City Hall, and so forth--have been brilliant and rich.

So it's been a shame that the newspaper story line--the one he should have the best handle on of all--has been so superficial.

On the other hand, one thing that has been a hallmark of The Wire has been its never-ending ability to surprise. So, I suppose I wouldn't be shocked if somehow, during the final three episodes, Simon manages to pull everything together in a way the not only salvages the season, but elevates it to the sublime levels of its four predecessors.

Still, each of those predecessors had clearly established their places among the all-time great TV seasons by episode seven, and so far, season five just hasn't done that.

Ultimately, though, even with a lesser fifth season, The Wire still holds its place as the best all-time show in my estimation. I would previously have put The West Wing or Hill Street Blues in that lofty spot. But there's just something about The Wire--perhaps because it's on HBO and therefore able to pull no punches--that has me and so many others calling it the all-time best.

So, as we get ready for the sad truth that in two weeks, there will never again be a new episode of the show, what's left is to appreciate, and, yes, evaluate, what is in front of us now.

Until, that is, season five comes out on DVD and I have another 10 hours of material to watch on my rides to and from work.

And when that happens, I'll try to shield the screen so my neighbors don't have to see anything they wouldn't want to.