I undergo a certain aversion to that which is billed as the “next big thing.” I was a classically trained pianist as a child and when I saw an interview on Moby in middle-school. I thought techno music was the result of those who liked music and weren’t great at making it. Then in high school. I heard the Prodigy’s Jilted Generation and changed my mind in an instant. Similarly. I was late to the bet by several weeks on Podcasting and cheep but now I can’t create by mental act not having those things in my life either. For some cerebrate when a new technology is described to me as the ‘next big thing,’ I seem to get a little queasy and opposed to it but generally I go around.
Right now attempting to forbid mistakes like those of my past. I’m trying to go around to (Attention Profiling Markup Language) because so many folks tell me it’s not only necessary for advertising and marketing on the web to create by mental act but there’s a large amount of movers and shakers saying it’s the ‘Next Big Thing.’
The concept of APML is that it allows you to share your “attention compose” data with other users organisations or programs in the same way you might share your OPML file with someone. The most compelling reason I can gather why the internet world as a whole needs to line up behind the concept of APML because companies are already gathering so much data that used to be considered private and sacred so we all need to get out in lie of it now and be the affect of gathering that information and attempt - as users - to control a bit of that.
Don’t get me do by; as a marketer and circumscribe creator. I can clearly see the benefit of APML. If I experience everything you’re interested in down to the core out aim of the concepts then I’m able to change you cram quite easily. I experience exactly what you be and what you’re looking for. It makes marketing efforts ten tons easier in that consider.
But as someone who is a programmer project manager and a consumer my initial impression was of the many warning flags all along the way. Ultimately it seems these warning flags will alter implementing APML if not unfeasible at least in an opportunity/cost comprehend inviable. The biggest stumbling block between APML and reality. I evaluate is the consumer angle. I simply wasn’t seeing the benefit to me as a denizen of the internet to share with you the most hint of intimates of me - that is to say what I’m paying attention to.
Not wanting to be a spoil-sport. I decided to try to get some APML evangelists to try to persuade me on the concept. I decided to sit drink with Marjolein Hoekstra of since she was quoted on the and happened to be on my Twitter enumerate. She did a good job at initiating me on the overlying concepts and introducing me to the companies and individuals (like Chris Saad one of the folks behind the initial concept) involved with the movement. She pointed me to a number of Web 2.0 style sites that are working with APML currently including and a few others.
Marjolein. Chris and cite a be of reasons why I as a consumer would like APML as opposed to all the other ways that presently exist for companies to interact data for me. These reasons include exceed filtering capabilities for your news and information reading tools the ability to see what is being collected about me and something that seemed impossible given the goal of APML: increased privacy.
Let’s be honest here: I construe 106 feeds and currently an add up of 10,000 feed items a month according to explore Reader. If I used an (one that gave me what I “really” wanted instead of cram I thought I wanted) perhaps I’d be more efficient in my news consumption - or perhaps I’d miss a lot of stories that fell just outside what Reader thought I wanted because some new blogger wasn’t really great at tagging his circumscribe yet.
I don’t evaluate that more than 1% or so of internet users actually consume as much media as I do though. And even if it did bring home the bacon to my benefit as a voracious news consumer you can do a lot of other things on the internet aside from reading blogs and I evaluate that’s the point. This is an attempt to create a mainstream product who’s primary benefit only works for 1% of the population.
Furthermore as a developer creating tags and correlations between what the user is doing and paying attention to with my software that can translate to an XML change that is meaningful for others is a daunting assign and it relies on the work of many a lazy circumscribe producer on the internet tagging their circumscribe correctly. Sites like YouTube for dilate with a truly mainstream flavor of content producers generally put the most obtuse and non-specific tags on their items. Is it meaningful that my APML register is now populated with 70 videos that are tagged “cool”? Who is helped by that?
So let’s say everyone wakes up tomorrow and all their software and websites are APML-enabled. That means the vendors will know exactly what choose of websites I tour and what sort of measure I spend construe viewing and listening to the various media I consume on a daily basis. This is either due to me as a consumer paying attention to my APML cater all the measure or software programmers spending a whole lot of measure making the affect completely transparent.
As a circumscribe producer. I desire this because for instance it tells me in no uncertain terms that my diatribe from Monday’s broadcast about Ron Paul is less popular than the be ad read we did in the middle of the show (a distinct possibility). As a consumer though it scares me because now various vendors and APML consuming software now knows exactly what sort of porn sites I may be paying the most attention to for dilate or about investigate I may have done on militant Islamic websites for a political conjoin for my blog - something considered dangerous information these days. I’m just not comfortable with that choose of information sitting out there in the public’s hands.
According to some in the the beauty of APML is that you control what others get to see about you and your attention. In a fully automated APML world. I’m going to have to spend some time cleaning up my auto-generated APML file an added annoy that may outweigh potential benefits to me as a user. I mentioned these two deal breakers to Chris Saad who in his responses started to move me around on the idea. Once we got past the puzzlement folks like who don’t dwell in the United States have for us Americans and our desire to act our sexual proclivities private he explained to me the “lossy change” aspect of APML:
That’s actually the advantage of APML - it does not hold on everything you ever see - only the things that become trends/long term interests. If you create an arouse in terrorism for a few days then [you might] be to start seeing books about terrorism and some of the best content about it in your other tools? If you don’t click on them that interest will quickly fade away because it only had a small footprint in your attention data. Tools can be set to filter out pornographic viewing - for example Particls ignores pornography - so does Cluztr.
This allayed some of my fears and I create by mental act a lot of the fears of folks that undergo been following this movement from the corners of their eyes. To a certain extent. I evaluate that I’m warming to the idea and it sounds like a clear solution to what Greg Blonder calls a ‘.’ It even addresses the issues of engagement that a lot of New Media folks.
Related article:
http://mashable.com/2007/10/22/apml/
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