BarCamp Perth: At World’s End

Speaking of fostering innovation in Australia.

Myles Eftos, from BAM soon to be PerthNorg, has organized BarCamp Perth.

Scouta will be there.

I gave the title a slight twist, given it’s probably the furthest from the origin of the original BarCamp in Palo Alto.

Web 2.0 in Australia

Ross Dawson - a strategy consultant, keynote speaker, bestselling author, CEO of consulting firm Advanced Human Technologies, and too many other things to mention - sent me an email a few weeks ago to invite me to Sydney to present Scouta at “Web 2.0 in Australia.”

He’s posted a great run down of the event and showcase on his blog, The latest on Web 2.0 in Australia: Showcasing the best.

Given the people attending, I’m guessing this is going to be great for the local Aussie “web 2.0″ industry. I’m sure it will stir up plenty of discussion and interest, that is only going to benefit everyone.

We’ll have to make sure we continue the discussions, and ensure the ball continues to roll. Perhaps more for the 2web crew.

Gaming Social Software

There’s been plenty of press recently about gaming social sites. InfoWorld talked about YouTube just the other day, Scammers gaming YouTube ratings for profit.

The Web has long been known as an effective medium for malicious attacks, but the problem of people gaming YouTube and other user content-driven, or Web 2.0, sites is only beginning to rear its head, and it’s an issue that the companies backing such portals must take seriously as they look into the future.

As more Internet users begin to turn to “user-generated content” for untarnished reviews and insights, YouTube and other Web 2.0 portals begin offering greater financial incentives for people to post popular content, said Joe Laszlo, an analyst at Jupiter Research in New York.

“This is a nascent issue, but one that YouTube and the rest of the user-generated content sites need to confront now, as so much of the Web 2.0 concept is built around the idea of trusting the community to help make judgments about content’s quality,” said Laszlo. “These types of scams call into question how reliable the community aspect of Web 2.0 really is, and if these types of sites becomes susceptible to a lot of tricks, and content that people don’t really want to see gets surfaced, people will question their value.”

Fortunately, the way Scouta is built it is more resistant to gaming that most social networks. We don’t have top tens, or lists based on what everyone “likes.” Gaming isn’t a major factor because Scouta is personalized for each individual, and there is no list to be the top of.

That doesn’t mean someone couldn’t try and game Scouta, and it sure doesn’t mean we’re not constantly concerned with avoiding the issue. In fact we’re implementing a new feature shortly, which we’ve been careful to design so it doesn’t introduce a simple way to game our recommendation system.

Regardless, it’s an exciting time on the Internet. The general public have the upper-hand, and that’s the way we like it.