hi all. a few ramblings, then the pt later. skim to later in the post if you like.

so Ive been pouring my heart & soul into OS blog posts, more or less, for almost three months now. some are pretty long & took quite awhile to write/tweak. its the curse of a writer, Im sure many on here can identify. and, as usual, not a whole lot to show for it, alas.

I have another blog that Ive been doing for 10 yrs, and comments dropped off a LOT over the last few years. I think this relates mainly to how diffuse cyberspace has become. just a zillion places to visit. participation gets spread thin.

it seems a bit paradoxical, but maybe its a sort of new law, like Godwin's "information sees censorship as damage and routes around it". lets try it. "the more ppl in cyberspace, and the bigger it becomes, the less attn focused on YOUR corner". ok its not so pithy yet, but you get the idea. in two words.. spread thin. the curse of cyberspace and something like ~7B ppl on the planet.

sometimes, the whole is greater than the sum of the pieces. other times, NOT. :p

heres something kinda similar. 3 yrs ago netflix announced the netflix prize contest. boy, it seems like yesterday. this contest is RIGHT UP MY ALLEY. the prize was $1M for finding an algorithm to improve predictions of movie ratings by 10% over the existing netflix algorithm, which was already high quality as it was developed/tuned by expert PhDs.

this contest is now WON. basically there is a 30 day grace period where other teams have a snowball's chance in hell of submitting a competing algorithm.

Winning Teams Join to Qualify for $1 Million Netflix Prize
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/06/winning-teams-join-to-qualify-for-1-million-netflix-prize/

oh, this is a real case of monumental mixed feelings for me. extremely. there was some really premiere science science going on here, and the field of collaborative filtering arguably advanced faster in 3 years than in all the prior 10. it was a very energizing event, a very pioneering contest by netflix. it took some cojones. it was a wager by them, and it paid off bigtime for everyone. netflix, participants, collaborative filtering science, ... well almost everyone.

yeah I spent many, many spare hours over 3 yrs hacking on this contest. I toyed with variants of some of the winning algorithms. everyone participating knew probability of winning was slim, but still. you feel the pain. I told myself that I was learning a LOT about statistics, algorithmics etc. very hands on applied experience. and it was true. the best. unbeatable. but still, I feel really crushed, disappointed, frustrated, depressed at times about this win. I commend the winning teams. but, OUCH.

but, this is an algorithmic equivalent of scaling EVEREST as various articles are stating.

anyway, Im posting this to give you an early scoop on this contest. the press is infinitesmal on the subject right now, but hopefully in about 30 days or not much longer than that, there will be headlines on the subject. because there were definitely big headlines-- fully justifiably so imho, and I dont give praise to the MSM lightly!! -- when netflix announced the contest in the first place.

I do hope other similar contest materialize, but in 3 yrs, it hasnt really happened.

as for my cyberspatial angst, I guess I just need to write shorter posts & not put so much energy into the whole thing.

then theres that related issue of OS putting google ads into our posts. I actually recommended to kerry not too long ago to look into google adwords. I dont recall the post, but for all you whiners and ranters, you can blame ME for the idea, wink..

if you're in a really bad mood, I bet you could even find the little comment on one of K's posts, buried like a needle in the haystack. because of course, that WAS what made him pursue the idea, you realize.. :) it was the butterfly flapping its wings in a comment and starting a hurricane a few weeks later, wheeeeeeeee, I love it when that happens.

[see, if I dont have real feedback for my posts, I just have to revert to delusions of grandeur.. :)  psychological issues sometimes work in your favor :p]

I did some research on adwords recently, and I think it is pretty rare for BLOGGERS to make any serious cash from adwords, from what I can tell. google is very secretive about earnings, and as part of their TOS, they require you keep your earnings secrets.

however, from word of mouth, there are indeed ppl getting semi rich off of google adwords, and quitting their day jobs, making $10K per month or more. phenomenal!! but it has a lot to do with content. topic. stuff like travel, celebrities, etc seem to do well.

I hope someone on here makes some serious cash from adwords, but as far as I can tell, it just aint too likely. the #s thrown around are something like 1c per 100 impressions or something like that. and then what about clickthroughs? presumably somewhat negligible for blogs, or much lower than other average clickthrough rates. so from what I can tell, even the most popular and viewed bloggers would make only a few bucks per month.. maybe? I hope someone proves me wrong and writes about it soon.