Monday, May 29, 2006

Illumio: A New Kind of Social Network

by alec on May 29, 2006

John Markoff wrote about Illumio in today’s NY Times.  Illumio is software that combs networks looking for experts in particular topic areas.  Using a reverse auction algorithm, it goes from most expert to least, seeking to find an individual to answer the question being asked.  According to the Illumio blog, it works best with groups that have:

1. Formal sense of membership (e.g., an alumni association, a department within a company, etc.)
2. Inherent trust based on this membership
3. Value placed in one-one networking
4. To begin, we ask that test groups stay small first before expanding (let’s say less than 20 people)

Illumio is a new kind of social networking application.  Like all social networking applications, it is built around relationships between people.  However, unlike social networking applications to date which are designed to facilitate meeting people, or business networking, or recruiting, Illumio is designed to facitilate finding expertise. 

What a clever idea!  I’ve signed up for the test.  I’m dying to know how well it works.  Perhaps we could get a few of the VoIP bloggers out there to form a small group.

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So says Oracle Security chief Ann Davidson.  Speaking at the WWW2006 conference in Edinburgh, she derides the software industry for a culture of “patch, patch, patch”, and takes on the hacker industry over the questionable tactic of holding vendors hostage when vulnerabilities have been found.

It’s a good message, but she should skip trotting out the tired old shibboleths about planes and bridges.  After all, as anyone in the aircraft industry will tell you, you can’t fly a modern plane without software.  It’s just built to a different standard, such as not designed to be updated by end users, for instance. 

Or, perhaps Ann should give up flying altogether.

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