Jason H. Davis

I wanted to talk about this for a moment because the language Google uses to handle this minor crisis is very good, but the root cause is the very thing that Google prides itself on. Testing.

So what caused this problem? We released a storage software update that introduced the unexpected bug, which caused 0.02% of Gmail users to temporarily lose access to their email. When we discovered the problem, we immediately stopped the deployment of the new software and reverted to the old version.

source: Gmail Blog

150,000 users woke up to an empty inbox because they were part of a testing sample. This is routine for large production sites – they continually roll new features out to testing audiences. If Facebook has a new feature, they’ll put it in front of a test audience. As it is, I believe the storage (gmail offline) feature is an opt-in labs option.

It’s great that Google has a backup plan for a catastrophic data collapse. Hopefully they also have backups for the backup of their multiple location redundant data distribution network.

Obviously, Google does not mention anything about user testing or being more careful with its user tests. They are, however, very sorry. This is not to rail against user testing, it is much better that only 0.02% of the population was exposed to this malignant code.

Remember your backups. Only expose beta users to potentially dangerous code. Hey, they signed up for it.

Gmail (Google) will be rolling out ‘Priority Inbox‘ sorting in the coming weeks to help users determine which emails are most important and should be answered first.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nt3gE9dGHQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

This service works based on emails that a user reads and replies to most often. Priority Inbox learns a user’s preferences and delivers their interests. It is part of a coming wave of intelligent machines. Google, for example, has started scanning books, not necessarily to be read by people, but by machines to create a more knowledgeable machine.

This is happening now, and I believe there is an inherit flaw in the way prediction software is thought about. Although, I am no expert. It comes down to the idea that calibrating results based on preference may induce an echo chamber effect, helping lead to a more insular society.

That is to say, the algorithm seems to be based on what the user believes is important, but what if the user’s preference is wrong? Not in a ‘their ideas are wrong,’ but maybe in the sense that a person can never know what they truly need. Or, maybe they never realized a sphere of knowledge existed (very common in our diversity of people) . For example, my father has recently been talking about block time management and being a ‘slave to email.’ It is interesting to think about if these personalized algorithms will reinforce bad habits and behavior or serve as a gentle nudge in the other direction.

Netflix, for example, has been holding a competition to improve its recommendations for movies (source). While the algorithm is designed to give an oddball every now and then, we see that this methodology could quickly become an echo chamber. It’s nice to have a computer’s help, but you have to wonder at what point the machine is thinking for you.

I believe it comes down to the principle that a machine is only as good as its operator.

In other news: Starting in January, I will be starting a business based on my existing freelance career. I will probably do something different with this site, although it is on the back burner at the moment. Technical walk troughs have been the most popular, so one of my goals is to increase the coverage of that here.

We’re still months away from being able to purchase and Android phone, however, there are already great applications being made for the platform. If you remember, Android is the open source operating system created by Google to run on mobile phones. It provides the tools and infrastructure for anyone to create an application.

Google created a contest with a total of 10 million dollars in rewards for the best applications created for Android. Recently, the top 50 have been released.

The application that I think seems the most promising and useful is Android Scan. With this application, you can take a picture of a bar code with your phone and Android Scan will search online for reviews and prices of the product that you’re looking at.

There isn’t even a single phone available that runs Android. However, this one application has the potential to completely disrupt the way people shop. So far there are already 17,000 applications made for Android.

2009 is going to be a really interesting year.

Perpetually yours,
Jason

I came up with this game a few weeks ago, but for lack of a better thing to post, I’m posting the rules here.

1) Go to Google Images
2) Type in today’s date (example: May 16th)
3) Scan the brief image descriptions for an interesting word
4) Search for that word
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you win.

The best word to search for that I came upon was”;fried.” Delicious.

Jason