Globally Local  

I’ve decided to participate in the Netflix prize.

The idea is to use past movie rating behavior to accurately predict ratings that those users would give to other movies.  Obviously, the idea is to find a way to do this well so that people can be given what they like.  This would promote movies rentals and other beneficial behavior such as telling other people how good a job Netflix does and providing good movie choices.

I’m very late in this game and there are teams of PhD level folks that have spent endless amounts of time tuning complex formulas to get close to winning the contest.   Think in terms of several years of endless pursuit.

This makes it unlikely that I’ll even be able to crack the top 100 scores (lowest error score as measured by rmse value).  However, it’s a challenging puzzle, and just working on a recognized challenge with other motivated people is rewarding.

Wish me luck!

Grokodile’s integration with Twitter has been increased a bit more.  Now, over time, every city page in North America will display recent tweets from people local to that city.  For example, see the right sidebar for Buckner Missouri.

This does assume that there are some self-identified local people who tweet.

You may wonder how this is useful.  After all, you can already communicate with people on Twitter or via TweetDeck.  What can Grokodile give you that’s different?

Well, if you are starting to blog in a new community this will help you find other local bloggers who can show you the ropes.  Alternately, if you are traveling to a city that you don’t already have friends in, it will be very easy to find people who blog or tweet.  You’ll be able to get in touch with local experts to find out about places to stay, places to eat and things to see and do.

Finally, I realize that many people already know how to do a geo search on Twitter, but I’ll bet the majority of web users don’t.  It’s okay to simplify a process or make it more available to others. Even if sometimes the cognoscenti would rather guard their secrets…

Real people.  Real communication.  Isn’t that what the net is about?

I’ve recently become a twitter user.  Yes, really.

In any case, now, when you add your blog to Grokodile, you may optionally enter your twitter ID too.  When you do so Grokodile will link to your Twitter profile page from your blog listing.

This makes it very easy to find other local bloggers or to find people in a community you are going to visit.

Shoo.  Out.  Darn crickets.

I know, it’s been a bit slow in Grokodile blog land lately.

In any case a glitch in the stats system has been corrected.  The quantcast numbers should once again consistently reflect reality.

Oh yes, it might take several days for the updated algorithm to recrunch all the numbers…

Grokodile is considering a $4.99 annual review fee for non-blog entries.   In particular, we think businesses, real estate brokers, tourist attractions and other commercial entities using our directory should be willing to pay for the service that we provide.

What do you think?

Wait, before you answer, consider this:

• Every day we have to review and remove spurious entries that have been created by bottom of the barrel SEO companies.
• Sometimes sites that are deemed appropriate when added then change their nature shortly after acceptance.
• Often, and without notice, sites that were once appropriate will fade out of existence entirely.

It takes a lot of time and effort to review sites, ensure that they have been categorized appropriately, and perform spot checks on older sites from time to time in order to pre-emptively remove stale links.

So, what do you think?

First, a big thanks to everyone that added their blog to Grokodile during the month of August.

And now, without further ado, the randomly chosen winner of our August sweepstakes is White Noise. Check it out… you’ll find personal, humorous and insightful commentary on a variety of issues.

A certain large company has been dropping in from time to time to review pages in our directory.

We’re really not certain which search engine they are working for, but they are obviously checking out quality concerns which may affect perceived site quality and potentially search engine result page (SERP) rankings.

What do we have to say about this?

Thank you very much!

We’ve been visiting the pages we have noticed our visitor reviewing and giving the entries present a once over.  You see, after a web site is added to a directory, the quality of that site can change dramatically over time.  Often the blatent affiliate promotions and use of regurgitated content is started later on.  This means that reviewing a site initially is good, but it isn’t perfect.

For example, just this morning while checking a site they “identified” for us, we noticed a pop-up that was causing browser issues.  Whatever else it was trying to do it displayed an ad for a casino and interfered with the user’s ability to operate their browser effectively.  That site has been deleted — good riddance.

Also, later today, they “identified” a site that no longer existed.  So, of course, now that we are aware, it’s turfed.

What this does highlight is one of the differences between a free directory and a directory that charges an annual review fee.  We don’t yet charge an annual review fee for listings but it would certainly help us apply the necessary resources to check and review previously accepted entries on an ongoing basis.

In the mean time, we do have a “report” link available with each listing.  If you happen to spot something wonky, don’t hesitate to let us know.  We’ll take care of it as soon as we can.

That applies to you as well Big Brother!

While it may only represent a drop of water in the ocean, Grokodile has removed Tibet as a region of China. We’ve created a seperate country level category for Tibet within our international directory.

A valid government does not subjugate a peaceful population through violence nor does it need to.

Alright, let’s clear out the cobwebs with a small contest.

Bloggers adding themselves to Grokodile during the month of Aug-2008 will be entered in a draw for $50.

The fine print…

Only quality blogs, those that survive the review process, will result in an entry!

Sweepstakes entered by submitting your US or Canadian blog.

Prize will be paid via PayPal… so you must have an account to claim your winnings.

Contest results will be published, here, during the first week of September.

Void where prohibited.

Grokodile is pleased to announce the arrival of open revenue sharing.

Open revenue sharing promises to change the way people are earning revenue on the Internet!

This isn’t a technology that Grokodile will be able to keep for itself, or even profit from as it spreads, but it’s simply a step in the ongoing evolution of online business.

If you or your company choose to implement your own version of open revenue sharing please link to our FAQ.

Hmm, we might just have another trick or two up our sleeve…