Robin Gower

My name is Robin Gower and I'm a Stumble Upon addict. I'd like to encourage you to take-up this pastime and to share with you a few of the tips that I've learned.

There is a growing clamour around the idea of a second coming of the internet, Web 2.0 to give the meme it's title. One aspect is the social interpretation (or indexing) of the web. There are a range of site that draw upon the wisdom of crowds by aggregating users' votes to recommend content.

I was searching Stumble Upon with the term "text analysis" and I came across a fantastic site: Topicalizer. The app provides some straightforward text analysis that are quite common (word counts, frequency of three word phrases etc). I popped in the url of this blog and scanned through the results - nothing novel here I thought... Just as I reached for the Stumble button I noticed a innocuous looking link at the bottom of the page: Find Similar Documents. I clicked the link and Topicalizer returned a fascinating list of results.

I'm an open source devotee. When I started my own business I finally had the chance to practice my hobbie at work. The question is: which applications am I going to use? I've not reached an answer but I document my approach here in the hope of helping others!

A quantitative analysis of user generated content - provided by Erik Duval and Xavier Ochoa - demonstrates the importance (and various shapes) of the long tail...

I caught a BBC podcast on using a narrative to describe and promote policy: Jackanory Politics. There is a fascinating quote from Robert Maxwell describing a story as:
a fact wrapped in an emotion that compels an action that produces a change.
As Maxwell explains, a compelling story has five elements:

1. the compassion with which you tell the story
2. a hero that the audience can relate to
3. an antagonist or obstacle that must be overcome

Background - I'm interested in motion tracking software
CCTV is ubiquitous in urban centres. These cameras typically exhibit two problems:

1. As a citizen I find these cameras can be invasive, open lenses continually gaping at my every move.
2. In my work, for instance when evaluating a Neighbourhood Wardens project, I have heard that security cameras are neither use nor ornament since there is nobody watching them.

Check out my new Technorati Profile!

Which of the giants in social networking is more popular MySpace or Facebook? This post presents independent advice from compete.com.

Redlining
I've been doing some research for an article that I'm writing about the relationships between people and places. I've jotted down some notes from books I've read in the past and have been down to the library. Despite all this valuable input I still found myself turning to wikipedia for a quick overview/ refresher. Unsurprisingly I got rather distracted.

I've started my own company! I've founded Infonomics Limited as a vehicle for my freelance work. I'll provide economic consultancy and information services to public, private and social sectors.