The Collective Voice of the Internet

nycheetah submits a story about the collective voice of the internet. There's also a Bell Labs webpage with some more technical information about the project.

Comments

Probably

[Lolaine]

millions of mouse-clicks on close-window widgets for closing popups ... at least until PopUp blocking browsers like Mozilla/Galeon get mainstream :D

Useless

[Lord Puppet]

"There's also a Bell Labs webpage with some more technical information about the project."

Great, but so far, you haven't provided any information. I thought that the purpose of the summary was to summarise. How is anyone supposed to know whether this article is worth reading if you don't tell us what it's about?

When I watch TV there are even more. . .

[kfg]

people watching it at the same time. When I wash my car, read a book, eat dinner or just take a leak there are perhaps millions engaging in the same activity at the same time.

Big deal. It isn't some mystical fact. Just a fact. It conveys no information other than the fact that there are billions of people who at any given time are doing one of a fairly limited set of things.

We read greater things into it primarily because we are wired to seek acceptence from the tribal unit by behaving in similar fashions to the group. Geeks are nonconformists, although they tend to be nonconformist in the same sense that hippies and Japanese teens are "nonconformist." i.e., conform the same as me or you are "out."

The idea of someone surfing the same page as you at the same time gives the illusion of "group membership" with that person even though no such "group" actually exists.

It's a literal "feel good" idea of no actual signifigance. Your "group" membership is actually far closer with the guy that stocked the shelves at the supermarket where you buy your food or that damned cop who wouldn't let you off with a warning.

This is not to say that real groups aren't forged over the internet. Just that they aren't any more "golly gee" than any other such tenuous groups, like everyone who watched Friends last night.

KFG

Re:When I watch TV there are even more. . .

[katsushiro]

Turning that argument on its head: what exactly are 'real groups' then? I mean, is the fact that you just happen live in the same general geographical location as the other people in your town and are therefore part of the group 'citizen of town X' merely by being there any more 'golly gee' than the fact that you just happen to be surfing Yahoo at the same time as x amount of other people, therefore becoming part of the group 'Yahoo surfers'? How exactly is the group 'my family' more real than the group 'people who are surfing Porn.com', since in both cases it's purely random chance that you were born into your family, or that you are writing down how hot 'Porn Star X' in the forums at Pron.com at the same time as others browse the same site? Just something to think of, our definition of which groups are more 'real' than others.

Of course, the argument can be made that certain groups, such as citizenship and family, are more 'real' because there is greater interaction among its members, while in the case of people surfing the same site, they're barely, if at all, aware of each other. But when you factor in a project like this one, where suddenly people are being made aware of the others on the websites they're on, then those groups start gaining a real legitimacy that's intriguing to watch.

depressing at best

[Shymon]

God, just what i need. a vocalization of the collective stupidity of the average web user.

now if they did a vocaliztion of the slashdot crowd....

err wait...i don't know how many times i can hear "M$ sucks" over and over without cracking.