Respect your authority

Clay wrote compellingly about the notion of ‘algorithmic authority’, the idea that:

it takes in material from multiple sources, which sources themselves are not universally vetted for their trustworthiness, and it combines those sources in a way that doesn’t rely on any human manager to sign off on the results before they are published.

Some form of algorithmic authority or third party-authority measures is increasingly vital online. When networks become to big for any peer connecting to them to have first hand knowledge of the person they are transacting with (or taking information from).

This is why Dun & Bradstreet exists. Or Moody’s. Or S&P. Or the Morngingstar Equity Analyst ratings. It is what made Google’s PageRank work.

However, in the world if digital networks we have had to rely on rough proxies. Perhaps what someone says on Linked In; or more likely who they know on LinkedIn; or by doing a big of Google stalking. In all these cases, the onus was on you–the person doing the due diligence. And the cost was high: one could hardly expect to spend 90 seconds to filter everyone person you come across on a twitter stream.

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Top stories from the past week: Porn, Crocs, dopamine and Goldman

Porn 2.0. The porn business is not unlike other online content-based businesses: it’s a crowded space, it’s tech savvy, it’s got your usual suspects pirating your stuff, and the stars are going all social media, baby!

How Crocs crashed.  Because “ugly and comfy” was not the most sustainable business proposition, but getting all clever on design didn’t see to help either.

Dopamine makes you addicted to seeking information. If you know of a 12-step program that can get people off of this stuff, please contact us.

Goldman and the US housing crash, Goldman, AIG and the Fed, Goldman and the global oil scam, all while doing God’s work.  Seriously, there’s just no end to this.

Everyone wants to school Murdoch on how the online news business works. Not sure he cares, or listens.

Palm Pre sales already in decline. Did it even get started?

More housework gets you, laid.

Now try to compete with that business model: less than free.

Will the US default on its debt?

Gerald Ronson answers the question what makes a great entrepreneur in his autobiography.  The Atlantic examines the science of success.

Looking ahead to the CPH climate change conference

In December, Copenhagen will host the most publicized and well attended climate conference since Kyoto.  We’ve gathered some info to prime you for the momentous occasion next month.

The Guardian has a dedicated section on the Copenhagen Summit.  Bravo!  It also recounts the breakdown of the Kyoto treaty, and questions whether CPH can dictate policy on any level:

It would not ban flights, or push nuclear power, or force people to go back to living in mud huts. A Copenhagen treaty would set new targets for overall pollution levels, and again rely on governments to meet them …

The world has changed since Kyoto and climate change threatens rich and poor countries alike. To reduce global emissions China, the US and their kin must take action: global climate change needs global attention. Copenhagen offers a chance to forge a new agreement with all the major players.

Next up, New Scientist has a three-minute briefing section to answer the what, why, how of the summit.  According to NS, here are some of the potential deal breakers:

• The US may not be able to make credible promises if Congress has not passed a climate change bill in time.
• If China and India think the US is not serious, they will hold back on pledges to green their own economic development.
• Others might wield a veto, too. Some newly industrialised countries – Malaysia and South Korea for instance – now have emissions higher than many European countries. They may protest if asked to sign up to firm targets.
• Malaysia’s emissions are four times what they were in 1990 and, per head of population, equal to the UK’s.
• Saudi Arabia’s emissions have doubled and, per head, now beat all European countries except Luxembourg.
• Qatar’s per-capita emissions are four times those of the US.
• Gulf states tried to torpedo Kyoto because they felt it threatened oil exports. Copenhagen could threaten their internal industrialisation plans.

The Economist continues its regular programming of environmental coverage, is cautious on its outlook of the conference.  It points out the following potential stumbling blocks:

One of the two big practical questions is: by how much does the world need to cut emissions? Japan and the EU have set eye-catching headline goals. America has not—though cap-and-trade legislation seemed to advance this week (see article). The rich world wants concrete promises from poor countries. Hu Jintao, the president of China, now the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has pledged to cut the carbon-intensity of the country’s economy but he has not said by how much. India says that it will accept only a limit on emissions per person that matches rich countries. That is so easily satisfied that it is no condition at all.

The second big question, less discussed in Bangkok, is what rich countries will pay poor ones both to adapt to climate change and shrink their use of carbon. China has said that rich countries should pay 1% of their GDP a year—which would be $400 billion. Gordon Brown has suggested $100 billion a year. Despite some clever ideas about using small investment guarantees to unlock bigger flows of private capital, the gap remains large.

Spiegel Online presents the German perspective. In a crafty move, Merkel the consummate politician, has seemingly ceded much of the responsibility of pending discussion to the Americans and Chinese.

On the first day of the EU summit meeting, with bloc leaders gathered in Brussels, Merkel adopted a stance which enraged environmentalists. The EU, Merkel was quoted as saying, should not be overly hasty in offering financial aid to developing countries for climate-related projects and should wait on China and the US. Concrete pledges should not be made, she said.

The following mainstream and blog publications also have ongoing coverage of the environment, as well as environmental economics, which will no doubt be swamped with Copenhagen Summit coverage news and commentaries in the coming weeks.

Telegraph’s Earth Pulse

BBC’s Science and the Environment

Times Online’s Environment

NYT’s Dot Earth Blog

Environmental Valuation

Inhabitat

Environmental Economics

Globalisation and Economics

Green Economics

Common Trageties

Economic Dreams

Greenomics

Do you know any other good coverage of the Copenhagen Summit, or any other economic blogs we have missed?  Please share with us in the comments section.

Viewsflow will also be ramping up its coverage of the Summit in the coming weeks.  If you have yet to try the alpha version of our service, please sign up here, or Tweet us for an invitation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• China: US is sabotaging Copenhagen climate treaty by ‘changing Kyoto rules’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• Climate talks end in acrimony as poorer nations threaten walk-out Copenhagen (guardian.co.uk)
• Copenhagen may be a bust, and it’s all the U.S. and E.U.’s fault (green.venturebeat.com)
• Muted Optimism on Copenhagen Climate Talks (usnews.com)
• Global climate change deal ‘a year away’ (telegraph.co.uk)

Discovering the econo-blogosphere: visualizing economics

The world of econo-blogosphere is vast and varied.  And we’d love to share it with you, one corner at a time.  Following Reformed Brokers’ periodic table of econobloggers here and here, and WSJ’s top 25 economic blog list, we will be introducing a new list of econobloggers to watch, right here on Viewsflow, on a weekly basis.

This week, let’s get away from the world of text-heavy blogs, and see what the world of economics has to offer in visual indulgences.

Eco-nomics: who would’ve thought it’s possible to combine comics with economics?

Guardian’s Data Blog: Does a great job of showing off some beautiful visualizations.  It also has a flickr’s group to house all the graphics.

Infothetics: Because practically everything can be shown through infographics and other visual representations.

Information Is Beautiful: Visualizing data and making them beautiful.

Junk Chart: Using chart art to tell (economic) stories.

Visual Economics: Beautiful infographics chronicling everything from employment changes to global trading pattern.

Wall Stats: Get your visual guide to the financial crisis, fall of GM, death and taxes, and more.

LolFed: From the jokers that came up with LOLcats.

Strange Maps: Mapping the world old and new, sober and absurd.

Visualizing Economics: Because graphs speak louder than words.

Flowing Data: Putting all kinds of economic and social science numbers into perspective. It’s also got its own flikr group.

Maps and Charts: Serious map porn.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions for the list, please let us know in the comments section.  If you are looking to be part of our alpha experience, please click here to register.

* Resources we came across after blogging about it originally:

Datavisualization: everything from emissions, jobless rates, to typography and infographics.

Chartsbin: how many ways can you shade the world map?

Infochimps: map out any available data, to do as you wish.  It doesn’t get more open source than this.

DataMasher: true to its name, you can mash data up here.

Pachube: graph and share any data stream in real time, if the device and sensor is hooked up to the net.

LA Time’s data desk: works on all kinds of data projects, including healthcare costs and mapping out the drug war.

Visual think mag: visualizes our online activities and brands.

Good.Is: has some of the best infographics around.

Many Eyes: upload your own data set.

Data Viz: Visualizing the intersection between data and technology.

MemeTracker: Builds maps of the daily news cycle, ranging from mass media to personal blogs.

Search and Find

Another week passes and Viewsflow continues its rapid evolution.  This week we are rolling out some asked for features as well as lots of behind the scenes work to lay the foundations for future developments including an iPhone app.

Key developments this week are:

• Keyword search across articles, themes, comments and users
• Ability to see a list of all users in the system sorted by activity or alphabetically
• On-going usability improvements

For our alpha users it will be easier to find content and other users who share similar interests.

If you are interested in testing out the service and joining our alpha, please do so here.

You can also follow our twitter feed which will push our interesting business and economics stories each day.