The Lijit network graph and more
August 31, 2007
My favorite company these days, Lijit, has a new feature. They actually scooped me on this by announcing the Blog Explorer on their blog while I was driving back from work. Earlier today, I noticed a new button at the bottom of my Lijit Wijit, and sure enough, it brought up the network graph below
From the Lijit blog
The three sections around the center blog show how the blogs are related.
Blogs in the green zone at the top are friends with each other; they list each other on their blogrolls.
Blogs in the blue zone to the right are on the blogroll of the center blog, but not vice versa.
Blogs in the orange zone at the left are blogs that list the center blog in their blogrolls, but the center blog doesn’t list them. They are fans of the center blog.
Below the center blog is a detail box showing the URL of the blog, and accounts that the blog owner has on other services.
There are still some limitations, but it’s a cool new feature, and for someone who is a sucker for network graphs, just right. It as definitely interesting to see how my network shapes out. It also has a similar look and feel as the Digg labs visualizations. I strongly encourage people to use Lijit if they can. It really brings together the concepts of tacit trust, the social graph, and search algorithms in a way that makes total sense to me. Already it is my default search engine via the Firefox searchbar
In other Lijit news, you can now skin your wijit.
There is one area I do not agree with the folks at Lijit, and that is on Robert Scoble. Scoble chose Mahalo and Techmeme as examples is his now infamous, and rather simplistic video series on search. I honestly think that Lijit is what he should have talked about. It does not preclude algorithms and incorporates the social graph, especially now that it has Facebook integration.
… and no I am not talking about Lijit, just because I want an iPhone 
Further reading
Knowledge discovery via Lijit
Technorati Tags: Lijit, Search
New features at SciVee
August 30, 2007
From an email I received earlier today from the SciVee folks (emphasis mine).
In response to all your great feedback and requests, we are rolling out several
new features starting this afternoon. We apologize because our site will be
temporarily down for about a day. We appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy
the new features on your next visit. The new features that you can expect to see
include: virtual communities for social networking, the ability to upload
science videos unrelated to peer-reviewed papers as well as videos related to
closed access papers, the ability to embed videos, and improved video
management.
I am quite intrigued by the “videos related to closed access papers” bit. In a way, this is a great way of encouraging open access, since doing an open video related to a closed access paper is a little weird. On the flip side, it’s a great way to discuss something not everyone can access and essentially provide a video synopsis of the paper.
Technorati Tags: SciVee, Video, Science
Bio::Blogs #14 - Hurry Hurry
August 30, 2007
Bio::Blogs #14 is going to be hosted by Ricardo, and will go live September 1. Check his post for the gory details.
Technorati Tags: Bio::Blogs
EC2 as a scientific tool
August 30, 2007
I’ve always wondered how useful Amazon’s EC2 service could be for scientific applications. It should be interesting to see how the this proteomics project turns out
Technorati Tags: Amazon, EC2, Life Science
Entelos acquires Iconix
August 29, 2007
This is too close to home, so I will keep it short, since I don’t usually blog about partners or competitors, but Entelos just acquired Iconix. Didn’t realize that Entelos was seeking to go expand out of its core biosimulation business.
The usual disclaimer
Technorati Tags: Entelos, Iconix, Biosimulation, Bioinformatics
