In my comment on Clay Shirky’s speech on the cognitive surplus, I mentioned the effect of increased content production on consumption patterns. I didn’t mention the Internet’s perpetual motion machine.

I was reminded of that when I reviewed the post and saw a new WordPress addition: the “Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)”. This section uses technology from Sphere (recently acquired by AOL) to recommend other items that the reader might be interested in.

The suggestions include posts from this blog (in bold), other WordPress blogs and items from across the Web.

It’s too soon to provide a definitive verdict, but some of the initial results I’ve seen have been impressive. I was thinking “media fragmentation” as I wrote that post, and sure enough, Sphere generated a link to my earlier post, Living in a fragmented media world.

TV, radio and other media have long run promos, but none have been as effective in driving consumption as Internet links. With TV and radio, it’s too easy to forget about the program that was promoed before it airs. Network Web sites do a terrible job of cross promoting, even when they’re simultaneously available on the site.

Creative Commons image from flickr user Brian Bennett.

Some interesting reads from the last few weeks:

• Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo on the cognitive surplus (Web 2.0 video) - Author Clay Shirky spoke recently on how much could be done if only a fraction of the time spent watching TV is put to other uses. He estimates that 2,000 Wikipedias could be created with just the time Americans spend watching TV in a year. (I just clicked off the TV to write this post.) While Shirky focuses his talk on production of content, all that production also has a significant effect on consumption. Time is a zero-sum game. The time I spend on Facebook or reading about Jon’s exploits in Russia is time I’m not spending with TV or traditional media. And for every producer, there are at least 10 to 20 consumers.
• Larry Page on how to change the world (Fortune) - Google co-founder Larry Page lays out the challenges we face in changing the world. The core problem is that not enough people and companies take risks. Part of this undoubtedly is due to the risk/reward systems in most companies. Innovation (and the people who chase it) are often the first to go when belts need to be tightened.
  I was at a conference last week where Erik Jorgensen of Microsoft demoed some amazing technologies in mapping, such as 3D map tours. A questioner from the audience, a Microsoft shareholder, asked what the ROI was. Fortunately, Microsoft and Google do well enough in their core businesses that most investors give them the freedom to innovate.
• ‘CSI’ sleuths out Microsoft’s latest technology (USA Today) - CSI:NY producer Anthony E. Zuiker is teaming with folks at Microsoft labs to bring bleeding edge technology to viewers. (And no doubt frustrating real life criminalists with increased expectations.) Last week’s episode featured Microsoft’s Photosynth technology. CSI:Miami used variations of Microsoft’s Surface computing. Microsoft isn’t the only one in the CSI product placement game; many of the pictures processed by the Photosynth technology in that episode were taken with iPhones.
• Honda system to warn motorists of crime hotspots (AFP) - In-car navigation systems and PNDs are getting more data rich all the time. On recent Acuras you can get Zagat ratings. With a Dash Express PND, you have access to Yahoo! Search results. Now, in Japan, your Honda can tell you when you’re in a dangerous neighborhood. I suspect that fears of redlining and disparate data sources will keep that from happening here. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some enterprising Dash users use create and share localized feeds for such an app.

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth has a phenomenal addition to Live Search Maps that allows users to create virtual aerial tours. Here’s an example using pictures from my trip to Kauai:

The tours can be exported as a video file and uploaded to a video sharing site (as above) or shared by link to Live Search Maps. Like many such links on AJAX sites, it doesn’t preserve the correct state. Click “Tour in 3D” in the upper left and “aerial” above the map for best effect.

Tours can be created manually by pushing pins into a map. The service also plays nicely with GeoRSS, GPX, KML or KMZ files. The above tour was imported from my flickr pictures. (Unfortunately, flickr caps geo exports to the most recent 20 pictures per search.)

The 3d map tours can be generated from GPS tracklogs. Here’s a tour based on the tracklog from a recent bike trip through San Francisco, taking the ferry back from Sausalito:

Major cities, like San Francisco, benefit from 3D models of key buildings. The blue line in the video is the tracklog.

Both of these tours were created using the default settings. You can also customize the view shown at each location by rotating, tilting or zooming. I don’t see an option to playback the full tracklog.

Disclosure: I work for a Microsoft subsidiary.

I finally got around to uploading the last of the pictures from my Kauai trip in February. Between the two of us, Wanita and I shot more than 1,000 pictures. I’ve narrowed them down to a highlights tour of 56. More are available on flickr.

We did a lot in our five days, including hiking the Kalalau Trail, horseback riding, attending the Waimea Town Celebration, driving the Waimea Canyon Road, going to services at a Hawaiian church and seeing rainbows, waterfalls and a lighthouse.

Kauai remains one of my favorite places on Earth. We thought the “Scenic Overlook” signs were a bit ridiculous (we saw about five) given that most of the island is a panorama of natural beauty.

Unfortunately, the island is being rapidly developed. If you’ve dreamed of going, you should go sooner rather than later. A large swath of the Southern part of the island is blocked off for a giant construction project as they build more malls and timeshares.

As always, there’s a map of the trip. (Some of the geocoding will be slightly off because Wanita wandered away from the GPS.)

Web 2.0 has brought a lot of innovation in how we connect with people. Sites like flickr, Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube have unleashed the creativity of hundreds of millions of people across the planet. People have struggled to come up with new ad models to monetize all that traffic.

Web2.0Expo brought an ad model I hadn’t seen before: wheelchair advertising. The jive ad you see below is on a 6-foot wooden sign attached to a wheelchair.

It seems that every time I walk through an airport, I walk by a plane with a destination more interesting than mine. This is what I saw when I landed in Seattle yesterday. The 757 that brought me there was bound for Kona.

I’m always tempted to walk up to the more interesting gate and hop on. One of these days it’ll happen.

This post is to test a new semantic tagging tool from Reuters. The information in the post may or may not be true; I’ll follow up soon with the results.

I love the Eagles’ Hotel California.

I flew United from SeaTac today after a full day meeting in Kirkland.

Lipitor has been recalled by the FDA.

California will be hit by a giant earthquake according to USGS.

The Princeville is my favorite hotel in Kauai.

The Eagles played the Jets last night.

DoubleClick is one of the largest display ad networks.

April 15 is tax day, make sure you get to the post office.

CNN, AOL, Mapquest and Entertainment are all part of the same company.

Jimbo Wales is a co-founder of Wikipedia.

Some interesting stories from the last couple of weeks:

• Penny Dreadful (New Yorker) — Please, please let’s kill the penny already. It’s one of the nuisances of everyday life. Aside from Lincolnphiles and the companies that make money selling zinc to the government, who really wants these things? “Breaking stride to pick up a penny, if it takes more than 6.15 seconds, pays less than the federal minimum wage.” Anti-penny crusader Jeff Gore was on The Colbert Report last week. Obama, from the Land of Lincoln, would “seriously consider” getting rid of the penny. At least in Illinois you can use the penny in toll booths.
• GPS brings business to small town (Pekin Times) — A while back, I wrote about the potential of GPS to change the way we find businesses on road trips. This story from a small town newspaper talks about a small business that is seeing increased business from GPS users. Some of the key facts in the story are wrong, but the story is cute nonetheless. via GPS Tracklog
• Senate bill has plenty for home builders (Marketplace) - The big scandal in American politics isn’t that money can buy influence; it’s how little money it takes to buy that influence. In an unusually blunt display of force, the National Association of Home Builders announced in February that they would stop making campaign contributions, saying that Congress and the Bush administration “have not adequately addressed the underlying economic issues that would help to stabilize the housing sector and keep the economy moving forward.”
  The Senate, feeling the threat to their campaign piggy banks in a critical election year, responded with $6 billion in retroactive tax breaks for the builders. Yes, that’s $6 billion of our money going to the same people who helped exacerbate the housing bubble and subsequent pop through endless hype, captive finance arms which steered people into unsuitable loans and overbuilding. Since January 2007, the homebuilders have given $961,650 to campaigns with 46% going to Democrats and 54% going to Republicans. Let’s see, that’s a 624,000% ROI.
• Nats home opener - Jon has a great collection of pictures and a review from the opening of Nationals Park. One of my favorites is below.

It’s only April, but I’m ready to crown a winner for stupidest product of the year: Hawaii IPTV.

I love most things Hawaii, so I was intrigued when the email hit my Inbox. I’ve written before about how IPTV will allow us to personalize our experience well beyond what’s available on satellite and cable. I could watch Hawaiian television content from the mainland.

Sounds great, but there’s a big but. Instead of just delivering content that works with existing hardware, Hawaii IPTV requires that you purchase and install a separate settop box. For only $125.

Imagine having to have a separate box for each channel you like: ESPN, CNN, Comedy Central. And don’t forget the remote for each of those.

At least Vudu and MovieBeam had a broader audience base. This thing has no chance. Did I mention that the service is an additional $21.50 a month?

As I was checking out of the spa at Princeville a few weeks ago, the receptionist said “You Welcome,” exactly the same way my friend Wanita does. It got me thinking about the distinctive ways we express ourselves.

There is another distinct Wanitaism: she expresses mild dissatisfaction with “grumble.” Not actually grumbling, but saying the word grumble. (She expresses strong dissatisfaction more directly.)

Many of these things we do without realizing it. Tricia expresses sympathy with a drawn out “saaaaaaad”. Wanita and I pointed it out one day and she had no idea she’d done it hundreds of times.

Doris expresses confusion with “the hell?,” omitting the “what.”

Jon keeps his own list of Darrenisms, weird sayings by our friend Darren. My favorite is “astrocity” to refer to a satellite dish on a neighbor’s house.

In a post like this, it’s only fair that I share my own. (As shared by my friends, because I don’t necessarily notice.)

• My “no”s and “yes”es are sometimes unclear, coming out as “nyep.” My poker buddies hated this.
• It can be hard to read my facial expressions as the expressions for indifferent, sad and angry are the same.
• Apparently I have a communications superpower that some of my friends are jealous of. Revealing it would dilute that power, so I won’t.