GigaOM » Liz Gannes

Thanks to Quora, now you can’t read anonymously

Om Malik — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 20:04:51 +0000

Quora, which I believe is one of the most over-hyped startups, has introduced Views on Quora, which essentially shares which users have read each post. This is no different than the passive sharing that has been promoted by Facebook or Path. Now on a closed network like Path, which is based entirely on intimate relationships, I can understand passive sharing. After all, if you have seen my photo or a check-in and I know that, it is okay because you are on my approved list.

However, the kind of sharing Quora is promoting doesn’t jive with me. And neither does it sit well with author Jeff Jarvis, who despite years of advocacy about the benefits of living in public isn’t a fan of this view feature.

I'm Mr. Public but I don't like Quora sharing who reads what. Shouldn't it operate as a library? No crime in lurking. allthingsd.com/20120801/quora…—
Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) August 01, 2012

While it is understandable for social services to use passive sharing — after all, it quantifies the act of content creation and/or content sharing –but I do feel that anonymous reading has its value.

Quora exec Marc Bodnick tells AllThingsD’s Liz Gannes:

“People on Quora are writing to be read. What we’re telling you is that Quora is a distribution mechanism that works.”

Like many others on the Internet, I too get lured into clicking headlines that are intriguing only to find myself on a list or a news item that only infuriates me. So to see my name associated with that page is disingenuous. Also, if I spent two seconds on a page, does it really count as a “view?”

Liz, who has written about the death of online lurking, wrote in a post last month:

“Passive becomes active. Lean back becomes lean forward. Stalking becomes, well, showing you’re interested in someone.”

In other words, the so-called Quora view that is generated is a false endorsement. What if I have landed on the the post accidentally or have been lured there? I see this is a curse of Facebook, which has propagated the positive bias syndrome on the web thanks to its Like button. It is not surprising — Quora was started by ex-Facebookers, who like the social-giant itself don’t seem to put real human context around the data signals. (It is not the only bad behavior they have carried over from Facebook.)

How to get rid of Views: Click on your profile icon (top right hand corner) and hit settings in the drop down menu. Find Views (just above Deactivate option) in the right hand column. Click and chose no. Views are turned off.

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Note from Liz: Home at Last

Liz Gannes — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:00:17 +0000

I went away to Belize and Guatemala last week with intentions of never checking email once. But with free or cheap Internet access at every single hostel and guesthouse we went to, I did sneak on a few times.

Still, I kept it to mostly personal email, with a couple glances at NYTimes.com, and I tried to clear my mind of all work-related things. But a couple of times, conversations about online video were unavoidable.

Once, at a group dinner in a hostel on the shore of Lago de Atitlán, I met a Swedish traveler who beta-tested Joost. We were in our own little world, chatting merrily about international video access problems and the benefits and detriments of client downloads. The other time, I sat down to dinner with a group of backpackers in a remote village on a mountain above Antigua. This Canadian guy simply would not shut up about how we all needed to go to YouTube right that instant and search for “Bush + shoes.” Needless to say, it was worth it.

Thanks so much to Chris and all you readers for so ably taking care of the blog while I was traveling. My trip was wonderful, and happily, I also got engaged to my long-time boyfriend along the way. Here’s looking forward to the holidays and another exciting year of reinventing television. Oh, and happy (belated) 2nd birthday to NewTeeVee!

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What Do the All-Star Break & Blogging Have in Common?

Om Malik — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:51:32 +0000

Baseball’s All-Star Break this week proved to be quite special – not because this was the last All-Star game at The Yankee Stadium, the cathedral of baseball and a place where I fell in love with this distant cousin of cricket. No, it was not special because the All-Star game went into the wee-hours of the night and took 15 long innings before the American League took their rightful place in the winners’ circle. No, it was not special because Josh Hamilton put on an awesome display of power and sprayed home-runs during the HR derby.

To me it was special because it was all about young talent, many making their first (and not their last) trip to the All-Star Game. The HR Derby had none of the established hitters vying for the prize – instead it was all young turks. The All Star game was no different – packed with youth, energy and enthusiasm of talents like Justin Morneau, Scott Kazmir, Grady Sizemore and Evan Longoria. David Wright, Dan Haren, Dustin Pedroia, and Joe Mauer. This was a year where the guard changed.

The game is still the same, except there were new heroes and new starts. That is the beauty of the game I have come to love more dearly than life itself. I think that is the case with my other passion – blogging. Like baseball, the art of blogging remains the same, we just get new players. You see the changes on the Techmeme leaderboard, as new voices emerge, and take their rightful place center stage. We see an emergence of new class of bloggers who are on their way to getting our full attention, playing with some of us old timers (by blogging metrics at least.)

Some (not all) of them (in no particular order) are Eric Eldon at VentureBeat, Allen Stern, MG Siegler of ParisLemon, Caroline McCarthy at The Social, and Andrew Chen. Like Josh Hamilton, blogging also has have a reclamation project in Henry Blodget, leaving his past behind, and playing a new game.

They are among many others who I read daily, just like I read the folks on our team. The rise of 1990s Yankees dynasty came when they took home grown talent of youngsters like Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera and teamed them up veterans like Paul O’Neill. I feel the same way about our little team – I feel especially fortunate that the future of blogging is working alongside me in our little company – Katie Fehrenbacher, Craig Rubens, Chris Albrecht, Liz Gannes, Stacey Higginbotham, Judi Sohn and Mike Gunderloy.

The point I am trying to make is that blogging, like baseball, is a continuum of talent. Instead of hitting and pitching, blogging is about having something meaningful to say, informing, entertaining and educating your community. But most importantly it is about ability to converse, connect and prod your readers into thinking differently. I learnt that from Dave Winer & Doc Searls. I don’t see why those truisms should change – just like the sinker, the long ball and the stolen base.

With that said, like some of my favorite veterans on the All Star Steam, I am not ready to hang up my blogging cleats. Not anytime soon! Now back to regular baseball and of course, blogging.

PS: does anyone have a photo of the All_Star game they want to share with my readers? Email me the link or leave it in comments.

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