How big is today’s “machine audience” for content?
That’s the question that came to mind when I stumbled accross an interesting article about writing for search engines this morning. It’s one of a growing number of examples I’ve seen lately of content tailored to “machine” audiences. People are not only writing content for search engine spiders, but microformats embed information (like machine-readable calendar entries) into the web, and printable 2-D barcodes called QR Codes that are popular in Japan give machines the ability to read data in the real world using a cameraphone (see pictures of a sample QR code below). Bluetooth is yet another example.
That one was for wikipedia. Here’s another that points to a mobile version of the wikinomics blog I just created using Kaywa (thanks for the comment to this post Roger):
This strikes me as interesting, because we’re not used to thinking of non-human “audiences,” but that’s already changing. The “machine audience” for your web page (search engine crawlers) already decides whether your site goes to the bottom or the top of the search engine listings - ignore that audience at your peril. Web writing itself has taken on new and peculiar quality as a result - the focus on keyword density just reads slightly odd to us humans. Machine intelligence still has a long way to go before it’s capable of things humans do effortlessly on a daily basis. But the fact that we’re already catering to this audience at its current level of sophistication suggests that 15-20 years from now, the machine audience could be the one that matters most.
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Indeed this is an interesting development, but it started already with TCP/IP and HTML IMHO. That’s why Larry Lessig insists on the code;)
As for Microformats - do you know the Microformat Operator for Firefox?
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And QR Code Readers on mobile phones are not only popular in Japan by the way. Taiwan, Hong Kong and now China also use them more and more.
And Kaywa also started in Europe with QR Codes and Nokia’s N93 also came out with a preinstalled QR Code Reader.
You can for example easily create a mobile version of your blog and a QR Code by going to Feed2Mobile .
And the “machine”, the Kaywa Reader reads it then.
Comment by Roger - January 30, 2007 1:01 pm
I am picturing a near future where people make money designing effective machine-ready items - followed shortly by one filled with ones that take over sites, modify information, make false attributions, phish … we really are going to have to crack some of our security, integrity and privacy problems in the very near future, I think.
Comment by Bruce Stewart - January 30, 2007 3:04 pm
Hi Roger, just QR coded the wikinomics blog. Now we just need more of these bar-code readers here in Canada! Bruce, you raise an interesting question, how long before people start painting over QR codes in real world “phishing” schemes to send them to the wrong websites. Sigh.
Comment by Alan Majer - January 30, 2007 4:44 pm
Dear Bruce,
Japan has QR Codes everywhere and I didn’t hear any story of QR Code hacking or phishing etc. And if you want it be secure… well japanese passports use QR Codes:)
Why? It’s simple. The camera phone only decodes the code and only then you do something with the result which you see beforehand.
Text, SMS, Phone and URL’s are displayed before you do activate them.
So it’s comparable to typing an URL in that way. You also have to know beforehand if you trust the source.
Alain,
What are the most common phones in Canada?
Best
Roger
Comment by Roger - January 30, 2007 5:25 pm
Check out a code that was designed just for the optics of mobile phone cameras (not infrared readers like QR): http://theponderingprimate.blogspot.com/2007/01/smart-communications-licenses.html
Comment by todd - January 30, 2007 9:28 pm
Roger, I’m interested in finding a Canadian phone capable of reading QR codes. A handful of newer smart phones can be made to do it I think. But this doesn’t tend to get advertised since QR codes aren’t yet a feature Canadians are looking for. Any suggestions? Three Canadian providers have lists of their phones at:
Bell:
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_Landing.page
Telus:
http://store.telusmobility.com/on/digital_pcs.htm
Rogers:
http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wireless/products/phones/overview.asp?shopperID=12345&features=2&area=1
Comment by Alan Majer - January 31, 2007 8:35 am
Way cool, Alan. Nice to see you are as ahead of the curve as always!
ciao
ian.
Comment by Ian Ketcheson - January 31, 2007 3:17 pm
This reminded me of a post I wrote a little while ago on Marketing to (and with) algorithms. The issues of marketing to algorithms, like other forms of “talking to machines” has got to be on everyone’s mind as everything from search agents to QR Codes proliferate.
JT
Comment by James Taylor - February 5, 2007 5:14 pm
Opps - one of my links got dropped - http://www.edmblog.com/weblog/2006/12/marketing_to_an.html
Comment by James Taylor - February 5, 2007 5:16 pm