Alexander Williams

“The most useful profile elements that led to people "getting" other people (in decreasing order of utility) were: * A link to funny video * What makes me glad to be alive? * Most embarrassing thing I ever did * more...

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a free tool that provides a focused, rational method for adversarial discussion that overcomes the limitations of standard message boards, e-mail and even conversation; it is a site for persons who believe that reasoning should be at the heart of more...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2008) — Far from being a model of social co-operation, the ant world is riddled with cheating and corruption -- and it goes all the way to the top, according to scientists from the Universities of Leeds more...

These days browsing the Internet for news is like walking through a crowded street of solicitors handing out fliers about faith, or coupons to get your car waxed. Only, on the Internet, Flash advertisements about landing the perfect job with more...

Unlike reddit or news.yc, jaanix has a recommender that is based on implicit trust between the users. Sock puppets destroy this trust.

We present a study of anonymized data capturing a month of high-level communication activities within the whole of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging system. We examine characteristics and patterns that emerge from the collective dynamics of large numbers of people, rather more...

Part wiki, part social experiment. A labyrinthine set of laws and rules that dynamically adjusts based on voting responses.

It's all about building the type of site and community you want. Control and monitor who participates and how with full administration privileges over site access, submissions, voting, comments, design and more.

An exploration of group-dynamic social effects.

An open/crowd-sourced online journalism site. Interesting because they actually have a central assignment desk from which you can check out a task, like writing an article or interviewing someone, and just do THAT task.

Reddit is very, very good at sucking you in. Any idle minute at my computer found me typing in www.re and selecting the first entry from the FireFox dropdown. Reddit sucks down those five/ten minute blocks in between tasks, then more...

BillMonk is a system that lets you keep up with loaned books, objects, and money. It even calculates bill splits and lets folk automatically interact from THEIR cell phones via text.