My New Distributed Brain

I have become smarter recently. It is due to my new Distributed Brain.

I have recently begun to distribute my thinking across the globe with Twitter. When a question pops into my head, I first check the local cache (my memory), then I query the global memory (Tweet the thought or question on Twitter) to see if an answer or comment bounces back–and often it does. (And if that fails, there is the fall-back of Googling for an answer.)

What’s so special about Twitter for getting answers? It’s the amount of people that can have access to the data. Currently, there are over one million active tweeters–and it’s growing fast. Anybody who tweets can follow you on Twitter (unless of course, you make your tweets private–but the default is public which is nice.)

Of course not everybody does follow me, after all I have never been that popular, however, I do have a fair amount of like-minded individuals that follow me. But the big difference with Twitter is that people can track words. So if I tweet about Drupal, or Ubuntu or Thailand, anybody tracking those words can capture my tweet.

This Is Your Brain on Twitter

Here is an example:

While writing this blog, I was wondering if there were any stats on the number of twitter users. I did not know the answer, but I figured somebody using Twitter would. So I tweeted the question.

I got the Twitter usage stats I wanted for supporting facts in this article. It took a few seconds but it was EXACTLY the info I needed. My distributed brain is quite smart. Smarter than my local brain by itself.

I see this happening all the time on Twitter. People asking about restaurants in Bangalore, how to fix a code problem, where to buy size 13 shoes in Bangkok–queries that Google would choke on.

Why Is This Different?

Internet users have been using forums, search engines, chat programs and other apps for querying and sharing information for a long time. So, why is this different?

It has a potentially wider reach than regular chat/IRC programs.

If you know where to ask the question on IRC or a specialized chatroom, you can probably get the answer just as easily–but finding that place? That might not be so easy. On twitter, everybody who tracks the terms you use in your tweet can see it–a potentially larger audience.

It’s faster than a forum / mailing list.

With forums, like chat rooms, you need to know where to find the people that know the answer and then you have to wait–usually a few hours or even days–to get your answer. With Twitter, the answer often comes back in seconds.

It’s almost always more accurate than a search engine.

When you Google for an answer, an algorithm determines the response. Google does not (yet) have the technology to understand the question–but it has an algorithm that does a very good–but not perfect job–of figuring out what is relevant to your query.

If you use a human-powered search engine like Mahalo, you don’t get an answer to your question–you get a pre-built set of results based on the fact that your question is like another question their human editors have asked and compiled a result for. Again, it’s not THE answer to YOUR question–but AN answer to a question that is like your question.

Any Venture Capitalists Listening?

Here, potentially, lies the seeds for the Holy Grail of search engine technology: a real-time, human powered search engine. If you can build a user base willing to answer real-time questions (possibly leveraging an existing social network), find a way to at least reasonably filter / channel questions to the people with the answers, and a reputation system to prevent spam answer–then you could have a spectacular product.

But why would people answer other people’s questions for free?

Why do they do it now? It’s a great way to connect with other people with similar interests.

And it does not have to be free. Integrate something that leverages PPC ads and there is the potential for revenue sharing–on the order of billions of dollars of revenue per year. Oh yeah!

The new paradigm is the query becomes the social network.

I must ponder this more…. I feel a larger blog coming on.

Until then, follow me on Twitter: @jfxberns.