Web Page Entanglement 176
jason continues:
"By viewing the web through a tangle proxy, you can see the connections and associations left by those who surfed the web before you. By surfing the web using tangle, you also leave behind connections and associations for others who will surf in the future.
When you exit one page and enter another (by clicking a link or performing a search), a two-way link is created between the pages. As users surf through a particular page over time, tangle keeps track of popular ways to get to the page and popular places to go next. These entry and exit links are displayed at the top of each page, sorted by popularity.
Clicking on one of these entry/exit links tells tangle that you think the link is relevant and useful (like a vote for the link) and increases the link's popularity. In other words, if a user thinks of something relevant while reading a page and performs a search for it from that page, tangle gauges how others react to that association over time.
tangle is similar in some ways to the closed-loop hypertext system Everything2, though tangle works for the web at large.
We have several tangle proxies up and running. The tangle proxy software is also available for download.
A note for the paranoid:
Though tangle keeps track of web usage patterns, the focus is not on tracking the habits of individual users, but on tracking the trends of an entire community of users. tangle is GPL'd open source [source here], so you can see for yourself: clicking a link through a tangle proxy simply bumps up the links popularity---user IP addresses are completely ignored."
For Christsake don't run this on Slashdot! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:For Christsake don't run this on Slashdot! (Score:1)
slow server? (Score:1)
I made an exit link (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Help the cause... (Score:1)
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean that once quantum computers arrive, we will experience quantum entanglement?
Thank you, I'll be here all week :P
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
If you always have the same attitude as me, then YES!
How long before..... (Score:1)
Alexa's dream (Score:2)
Another question... When does Alexa [alexa.com] get involved in doing "web page entanglement"... It would sort of complement their existing spyware infested "toolbar".
isn't this done already? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there a way to block entanglement?
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:1)
You voluntarily use the entangled page to voluntarily give the info to the proxy.
In fact, the link to the original page is at the top of the entangled page, allowing you to browse without contributing to the stats in any way.
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
Personally, i think it's great, but i can see how people would object (Smart Tags are a bit more evil, because they don't fit into the framework of what's already there, but instead are enforced from outside).
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
As a content provider, I have the right to say how my information is provided. Furthermore, tools exist to allow me to exercise such a right. mod_rewrite is a powerful thing.
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think you shouldn't be able to use mod_rewrite to alter all your URLs so people can't access things in way you didn't allow. There's nothing legally stopping you from doing that; after all, you own the server. But I do think this is unethical behavior if it is done for some reason other than security. It undermines the reason the Web is a powerful medium and not just clickable television or an electronic magazine. Linking and relinking is at the heart of a peer publishing world where anyone can put their work out there on an equal plane with the professionals and where anyone can comment, criticize, or critique the contents of other people's information.
My view is that when you make a public website you are contributing your views and information to the massive global community of links and related information. This ecosystem feeds off of openness and places the quality of the content above marketing and branding. I think that you should be willing to accept that when you make a public website, unless you are worried you can't compete on merit.
Basically, you're free to make whatever you want available, but you can't control what OTHER people do with that content once it leaves your site (within the bounds of copyright law, which has no bearing IMHO on the copy in the browser cache). That's the price you pay for using the Web to publish: you have to let everyone else have the same rights as you, and that includes the right to link. That's why you shouldn't use mod_rewrite to prevent deep linking, etc, though that's certainly preferable to sending out legal threats. You can do this if you want, but you're not being a responsible member of the Internet community.
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
Personally, I'd just as rather they left my browsing to me, rather than trying to steer me down the path the most people have previously used.
Now, if I owned the path and people were dropping money along it, I'd doubtless have a different opinion.
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:2)
Re:isn't this done already? (Score:4, Informative)
I believe we'll probably see quite a few entangle communities on the net, where you probably just start your own entangle community with your friends or your co-workers.
Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
If this isn't abused by users, I see the net becoming much more efficient for searching for information. You won't have to wait for the search engines to catch up while looking for the most popular page on a topic, because the best (or should I say most popular) pages on a topic will automatically link to each other based on user flow.
Am I missing something here, or am I right in thinking this will revolutionize the way we surf (that is if enough sites do it.)?
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Interesting)
Until there's a plugin you can put in your browser so that every page you visit is automatically viewed through these decorating proxies, they won't revolutionize anything. : (
Re:Wow... (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
I can't believe these two snippets were written by someone who's been on
Re: Brilliant, but with problems (Score:2)
I still see a problem with the described methods though. That being, I don't think that the second-best search page selling product X would want a link running to the next-up competitor selling same product X.
The same is definately true for the second-best... do you really want users checking out where everybody else is looking for better deals?
If you knew that your prices beat the competition it would be a no-brainer, but otherwise it would be in some ways virtual suicide.
Re: Brilliant, but with problems (Score:2)
Content providers don't have control of what happens to their content after it leaves their server (other than not publishing it to the web in the first place). A link between two similar products is to the benefit of the visitor. They can do comparisions between products, and make a better educated decision. This benefits the visitor - the people who make the Web a thriving community.
If a company doesn't want a link on "their" page to a competitors better product, then they can catch a wake-up and improve their product, instead of rallying against freedom of information (in this case links) and the freedom of user choice.
A company has no problems with being indexed by Google and ranked lower than their competition - so they should have no problem with this method of ranking.
Re:Wow... (Score:2, Interesting)
Read more here:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo/ACO/about
or here:
http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/421147.html
Ironically, you could have typed four words into Google and understood what he was referring to, rather than typing in several dozen insulting him unfairly.
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Interesting)
I may not have gotten the exact idea down, but yes a very good approximative traveling salesman algorithm is based on ant behavior.
Do some research here [nmsu.edu] for some undergrads that used the idea learned from here(pdf) [idsia.ch]
(Which are link i got from a two minute perusal on google for "traveling salesman ants")
Please have an idea what you are talking about next time.
Here's the abstract from the latter source.
We describe an artificial ant colony capable of solving the traveling salesman problem (TSP). Ants of the artificial colony are able to generate successively shorter feasible tours by using information accumulated in the form of a pheromone trail deposited on the edges of the TSP graph. Computer simulations demonstrate that the artificial ant colony is capable of generating good solutions to both symmetric and asymmetric instances of the TSP. The method is an example, like simulated annealing, neural networks, and evolutionary computation, of the successful use of a natural metaphor to design an optimization algorithm.
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
More importantly, you've established no clear link between a system such as the tangler, which makes suggestions based on where the masses have gone, and the ant algorithm, which is improved by the actions of the few, not the many. They are, in fact, opposite effects.
I won't continue to be trolled. Good day.
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Insightful)
The analogy is as follows: Nodes in the traveling salesman algorithm are akin to a ring of popular related websites. Traveling Salesman wants to find a way to minimize the distance required to travel to each node. Web Page Entanglement(WPE) wants to find a way to minimize the number of direct links (paths) between somehow related popular nodes.
"Ants" work by testing each link, mostly following the shortest known path, but sometimes branch out to see if there is a shorter unknown path.
WPE is similar because if users from a go to b, and users from b goto c, then naturally there will be some that go directly from a to c, which will rise to be a popular link, and thus a's links are more "optimized" to link to other popular somehow related websites.
I find the similarities quite apparent. Perhaps you should open your mind and realize that they are quite possibly not ~100% unrelated. Besides none of the other replies to this thread have sided with you.
I would like to hear from anybody that does side with mosch, because I may be wrong and I think it is a virture to assume that one is not correct. A virtue more people should adhere to.
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
Anyway, I'm making an assumption that it would probably offer links to the most common entrance and exit pages, which wouldn't follow the ant idea. Your assumption about the internals would make for a much more interesting tool, but I'm a bit pessimistic when it comes to my expectations for algorithmic design.
Re:Wow... (Score:2, Informative)
f*ckit I'll login. You acuse dubious9 of karma whoring. Then you completely dismiss his idea and you don't expect him to respond. Dumbass.
You refute his idea: Ok, fair enough, there does appear to be a certain amount of similarities between the two aproaches(on a cursery glance mind you). But that doesn't make the "ant" metaphor any weaker. And by admitting the similarities it does appear to invalidate your 100% unrelated claim
Ok, now you have a problem with him not explicity telling you a connection between the, now verified "Ant" aproach to the traveling salesman problem, and the topic at hand. I hope you don't have a problem with him responding to this. Afterall this is an entirely new complaint on your part.
All in all, I'd have to say you are the one doing the trolling, mosch.
To all others, excuse me for going offtopic but posts like these infuriate me.
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
My main point was this could be a much more effective way of finding popularly related websites than searching on a search engine. It struck me as changing the way we surf if enough sites enable it and abuse is minimal.
I guess that only reason I mentioned the Ant implementation wasn't just because I saw some similarities, but it was because it is curious to see a non-natural derived system (Web Entanglement) mirror a natural derived system (Ant implementation of TSP)
It seems that the more we improve CS-things the closer they become analogous to something already done in nature. Yes, that's an unfounded statement based only on this occasion. Shame it me took me fifteen posts to get my point across.
Spank me, I've been bad.
Slippery Slope? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I'm way off, thats because I'm too damned lazy to read the article.
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:2)
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:1)
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does it add useful information, about a given page, that will be 'heard' above this noise? If there are two links, one of which is brightly lit up, but useless, and the other obscurely positioned, but useful, then which will be the most popular, with or without entangling?
Re:Slippery Slope? (Score:1)
Entry link on gnu.org (Score:1)
The page brings up your header "more play, your way"
Sort of ironic
Gak! advertiser links and spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gak! advertiser links and spam (Score:1)
To mess up the Tangle hierarchy, you'd have to clicking back and forth between slashdot.org and linuxbabezonline.com (or whatever) enough times to compete with real users who were going to other destinations.
Or--ugh, I can see it now--a whole new generation of bot-browsers may evolve, for the purpose of messing up Tangle.
Until that ugly day, I think Tangle sounds great.
Re: (Score:2)
everything2? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:everything2? (Score:2)
You mean like this?
Yes, everything2 is right (not redundant) (Score:3, Informative)
Of course the problem they've experienced on Everything2 is that some cool or sexy sounding link is irresistible to click on, causing these links to rise to the top regardless of their relevance. Thus, it decreases the usefulness of the "entanglement".
Sex memes really are the most pernicious out there... can you honestly tell me you could resist clicking on "The Screensavers - Nude Episode"? The cost (clicking) to possible benefit (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) ratio is just too small not to expend the click.
Pop-up hell might increase cost, thereby disciplining hormonal clickers, but even then. The Onion used to have an ad called "Naked Scottish Weathergirls" -- one of the most clicked on on the web. It led to a messageboard eventually where people posted digitized women in Scotland -- so many people must have arrived there and posted messages asking about the naked women it was unreal.
Trusting what you read. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Trusting what you read. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's 15 routers between you and any web page you're visiting. That page is transmitted in plaintext the whole way. A man-in-the-middle attack could easily filter/scrub/change/subvert any page you're viewing.
I know paranoia's popular on slashdot about how "The Man" is going to censor your viewing habits, but if you think that this is some sort of new problem created by proxies... just look at how TCP/IP operates. And smack yourself for not thinking that it already could happen. This is not a new concept or a new danger.
Take-away message: if you need to ensure your data's passing along the net securely... use a secure transport mechanism.
Re:Trusting what you read. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Trusting what you read. (Score:1)
There are programs that can encrypt plaintext to plaintext, usually converting things like normal email conversations into Shakpearean sonnets. I'm wondering if it weren't possible to build one that used hate speach or terrorist-manifesto keywords to confound 'the man.' [satirewire.com]
Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
New information (Score:4, Interesting)
If this caught on, I can imagine that it might be possible that people would tend to depend on it. It seems that information would become stagnate and new information ignored since nowone would have exited to it initally. Then again, maybe not. Just a thought.
Tangleless P2P Web (Score:1)
Re:Tangleless P2P Web (Score:5, Interesting)
Net use tracking. (Score:3, Funny)
name recycling (Score:1, Interesting)
A shame that's it's so slow ... (Score:4, Informative)
KInda like thirdvoice (Score:2)
An Interesting Idea.... (Score:2)
CNN: Iraq Weighs U.N. Resolution [cnn.com]
I can only guess that a lot of people rushed over to
Link bad! (Score:3, Informative)
--j
here's an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahhh, more pr0n ads! (Score:4, Funny)
This appears to use the same idea as referer-links on weblogs. Here's the progression from idea to uselessness:
microsoft stuck in the middle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:microsoft stuck in the middle (Score:2)
DISCLAIMER: I can't promise nobody did this after me, but the Microsoft page was blank when I saw the article (3 comments).
Undesired Anomalies? (Score:4, Funny)
"anarax.net - easier to use than a virgin on prom night"
Not very tasteful for a professional site.
I like it the way it is (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong though, this is a very creative and useful thing. For example, this would be extremely useful for searching through technical support knowledge bases or for a large company's document archive system. I would just rather they leave my web surfing alone. ;)
Re:I like it the way it is (Score:3, Insightful)
As it is, most major tech support sites already rank and display information based on how many people have already accessed it, informed them of usefullness, etc.
Invariably, when I visit vendor tech support pages looking for information, I am looking for some of the most obscure problems. And I have a hell of a time finding the information that I need, because I'm not looking for the 'popular' stuff. And if I ever do find what I need, I better bookmark it or print it, because if I come back later, there's no way I'm ever going to find it again.
I'd rather have a plain, simple, boolean word search engine over an 'intelligent' support database any day.
What if.. (Score:1, Interesting)
"we are running.. (Score:1)
and they're all, you guessed it, slashdotted
Soflinks, anyone? (Score:1, Redundant)
Really, rather interesting things. Kind of makes a "nueron net" of the database (or web, for tangle). You get to see everyone's thought patterns, from the relevant links to the one or two offbeat ones.
Re:Soflinks, anyone? (Score:1)
Re:Soflinks, anyone? (Score:2)
No, (s)he's right. Turns out the article specifically mentioned E2's softlinks. My bad.
heheh (Score:2, Interesting)
meaning... (Score:1, Interesting)
oh boy (Score:1, Interesting)
Everything2? (Score:1, Insightful)
KotG has better spells (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:KotG has better spells (Score:1)
P2P is the future of the Internet (Score:1)
haven't we been there...? (Score:1)
Its nice.....Maybe I am mistaken but isn't this similar to most search technologies a.g. [after google:)] That is to say what other people prefer is automatically tagged the most relevant - google uses it for pageranking, these people display it and some more features.....
Also as another poster suggested what if I virtually stamp all over the place like goto a page and then immediately goto mine - ad inifnitum. Potential to abuse is always there I guess?
Thanks,
vv
/. ed proxies? (Score:2)
interesting .. but is it effective? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some people think it's rude or immature for people to create these grooves by not walking on the sidewalk, but I see it as an example of an arrogant designer who thinks he knows the best way simply by studying a piece of paper. It's amazing sometimes, the groove just appears almost magically in an optimal place, given the layout of buildings and traffic patterns.
This applies to web pages too. But, unlike sidewalks and buildings, you can't see your other destinations when you're sitting on a web page, so how do you know where to go next? This seems like it will just constantly reinforce the previous set of links, whatever they are.
I didn't fully read the documents (/. strikes again) but what I saw says you move from page to page either by 1) following an existing link or 2) using a search function. #1 is not going to create fresh paths.
It seems to me, a better idea would be to present a user with all possible links, or a subset of possible links, the first few times they visit. Then as they click through the site, add their arcs to the database.
After the first few visits, you can stop showing all links, and show them the "most popular" links. If you just show the popular links up front, new paths may not be discovered.
So perhaps this technique could be seen as a way to remove unpopular links, to trim the fat from a page. Then again, it might not be good to change a page after a person has gotten used to it.
It's very interesting though. As the web matures, you'll see more of this sort of analysis to move beyond static web pages.
When I saw Alexa's demo: exactly the analogy used (Score:2)
Concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Server load.
2. Limited feedback. Would be much more interesting as a tool for discovery if users could grade their findings. Presumably annotation would allow memos to be posted.
3a. Privacy concerns, i.e. this would seem to provide more transparency to crowds [att.com]. And Slashdotters might become more predictable. (Nah!)
3b. Privacy concerns II. By announcing statistics of aggregate use it might be possible for a repressive regime (China, Scientology) to gain ammunition against individual websites by being able to prove how many visitors they had and (by purchasing an advertisement on an associated server like yahoo) what their IP addresses and demographic profile are (as impled by 3a above). ActiveX or Javascript exploits may also target heavy traffic streams with relatively little effort.
4. Confusing intent. Adding visible backlinks seems quite valuable. However the client still cannot look more than one ply above its current location in what is still an undirected tangle. Is the tangle team (nice name by the way) aware of the large body of work already accomplished in annotation, syntactic web, Xanadu, etc.? What pressures exist to get people to take the less-travelled routes, or is the purpose to increase the traffic of popular sites? In that case are annotations superfluous? More docs please.
5. (?) a bug [sourceforge.net] in slash they note.
Does this remind anyone of What's Related? (Score:2)
hosts? (Score:2, Interesting)
Question..... (Score:2)
I'm super paranoid man! (Score:5, Funny)
Though tangle keeps track of web usage patterns, the focus is not on tracking the habits of individual users, but on tracking the trends of an entire community of users. tangle is GPL'd open source [source here], so you can see for yourself...
Yes, but since this runs on the server, how do I know you're really running the source that's available?.
Or maybe I'm worrying too much, and the check really is in the mail, my information really won't be sold to 3rd parties, that really does happen to all guys at one time or another, and it's not me, it's you.
How utterley useless. (Score:2, Interesting)
Google has a much better method for this - it looks to see how many links there are on the web at large to a page. People don't tend to link to stuff unless they like it. Although it's open to some abuse, it's a much better solution.
Another excuse for lazy webmasters (Score:2, Informative)
I am typing this in my French cybercafe, which has 10 linux terminals on a broadband connection and an ageing Minitel (1200/75 baud, 9" monochrome screen, Cornflakes packet keyboard...). Scary thing is, to find a specific (and reliable) bit of information, it is often faster to use the Minitel. One of the main reasons is that the Minitel is structured in a way that is relatively intuitive for most people.
Tracking which paths people follow is very clever, but I can't help thinking that it would be better if website designers put more effort into their navigation aids, link pages, and - gasp - maybe listened to their visitors a bit more.
The real genius of the Minitel is that it got thin client technology into millions of French homes long before anyone in France or the USA had heard of the Internet, because it is as easy to use as a telephone. The Internet has a long way to go on that score, and I don't think being able to see how everyone else gets lost is going to help in this respect.
idea dates to 1945 (Score:2)
The original article can be found here [theatlantic.com]
Dear god, no! (Score:2)
Re:So what's the purpose of this? (Score:2, Insightful)
What?!? Pointless? Think of how the porn industry can apply this technology...
Re:So what's the purpose of this? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Woot (Score:1, Interesting)