Web of Trust Audio News Distribution

c0rtex writes "Wearlab (University of Bremen) has designed a cool web of trust voice message routing system with a decaying credibility metric. It supports xmms and winamp. Source available for Linux and win32. "MPN makes it possible to deliver completely decentralized and independent news. Everyone has the possibility to be a reporter, no filtering publisher is required...""

Comments

Why bother?

[aridhol]

Why would I bother with something like this? If I want local news, I know where to find it on the web. I can find personal home pages near me through the local ISPs. Why do I need yet another way to get information?

In addition, I'd rather read my news. It lets me go at my own pace, skip over the summary to the details, translate it, easily quote from it for rebuttal, etc.

Re:Why bother?

[Qrlx]

Why do I need yet another way to get information?

You could have made that same argument before the advent of the Internet, you know. Want local news? Hang out at the barbershop. The coffee house. Talk to the kids on the street. Attend a city hall meeting.

I do agree that reading would be way better than just audio. There's simply no point to limiting the "stream" to audio-only. I can understand a bandwidth cap, but there should be a way to introduce a text stream, and maybe a video stream if exists the bandwitdh to push it without crowding out others.

It has become increasingly obvious that The Names You've Gradually Grown To Trust (like NYT) are less and less worthy of that trust -- marketing and the need for sensationalism drives their agenda and clouds their judgement. I get my news from The Economist and Funny Times and everything in between. The more sources, the better!

Beware the pseudo-trust

[johnthorensen]

The technology claims to be able to provide "news that you can trust in", but it should be noted that trust != truth.

As in traditional trust systems (Karma, anyone?), someone being trusted does not necessarily mean that their information is valid.

-JT

It's probably just me but...

[core plexus]

not only does there seem to be a large number of audio-related posts this day, but...

I can't remember when the last time I listened or watched a news program. I find that I can suck up all the news I need from less than a dozen sites (including /., of course) during the course of a day and all my reading and clicking is still less than the 11-15 minutes of someone droning on between advertisements backed up by video clips and sound bites.

"Hey! Who grabbed my ass?"

Why audio?

[g4dget]

Putting together a good news story with audio is much harder than writing. Why not start with a "credibility system" for text?

Keys Are Just Changing Hands

[limekiller4]

From the site:
You want to hear news every 10 minutes? Fine.
You want to hear only one minute each hour? Also fine.
You want to hear the news as soon as possible? Why not.
You want news from another country? Who does not.
You want news from a specific person? Go ahead.
You want to know about a specific topic? Sure.
You want news you can trust in? That is our business.

Yeah, it's the last item that bugs me. Trust is still being vested in someone to create the trust model.

Someone has to be holding the keys and the keys here are the weights. For example, the rate of trust decay could be increased to marginalize the "small reporter." I'm not suggesting that these guys are some ill-intentioned neer-do-well's, I'm just suggesting that keys of power are merely being shifted, not eliminated.

Frankly, if I'm wrong, someone PLEASE speak up and tell me why. I've never wanted to be so wrong in my life. =)