Presentation made at USID 2008

1. The Implicit Web
It’s closer than you think
Rajeev Purnaiya
Record, Retrieve & Analyse Your Web
www.hooeey.com

2. What is it?
• Implicit Web - term
coined in 2007
• “Synthesis of personal
information gleaned
from the internet into a
single coherent picture
of user behaviour” 1

3. What is it?
• Implicit Web - term
coined in 2007
• “Synthesis of personal
information gleaned
from the internet into a
single coherent picture
of user behaviour” 1
1
Wikipedia

4. Where is it?
The Implicit Web is
everywhere you go.

5. Is it Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 allowed users to
explicitly interact with web
content.
Tagging
Rating
Creating profiles
Listing
Mapping
...

6. Is it Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 allowed users to
explicitly interact with web
content.
Tagging
Rating
Creating profiles
Listing
Mapping
...

7. Is it Web 2.0?
The Implicit Web is
different.
Click stream data
Attention data
Location tracking
...

8. Is it Web 2.0?
The Implicit Web is different.
Explicit Implicit
“above-the-flow” “in-the-flow”
1. bookmarking and tagging 1. links followed
2. blog posting and commenting 2. videos seen, music listened to
3. rating and reviewing 3. feeds read
4. buying 4. places visited
5. IM 5. events attended
6. emails 6. browser history
7. documents
1. “Transparent Office” Michael Idinopulos
2. “Attention Economy (III)”, WorkingCogs

9. It is important because...
Explicit Information
Implicit Information

10. Benefits
“...the implicit web is all
about the value that will
accrue to an Internet user
when their every action is
tracked, recorded, and
used to provide value
back to that user.”
--Fred Wilson
VC, Union Square Ventures

11. Benefits
Control information
overload
Personalisation
Contextual
recommendations
Immersive experience

12. Example
Amazon
Recommendation
algorithms based on
books or products you
browse through

13. Example
Last.fm
Recommends music
based on what you
already like

14. Challenges
mobile device IE
data
on mobile device
Data Silos
work PC
At user end
FireFox documents
on PC
home PC mobile browser documents
online
user

15. Challenges
Amazon
blogs posted
Flickr
pages browsed
Data Silos
(books bought) (pictures uploaded)
At web sites
Netflix Tivo iTunes ...
(movies seen) (shows watched) (music heard)
FB profile LinkedIn profile YouTube
...
(videos uploaded)
user

16. Challenges
Privacy
Transparency
User control at all times
Opt-in
Standards based certifying
authority

17. Overlap
Implicit Web
Semantic Web
Data Portability
Web 3.0

18. Sources
[1] Wikipedia
[2] “Five Themes From Defrag Conference” Sean Ammirati, ReadWriteWeb
[3] “Theme: The Implicit Web”, Foundry Group Blog
[4] “Implicit Web: a brief introduction”, Yihong-Ding, Web 2.0 Explorer
[5] “The Implicit Web: Last.fm, Amazon, Google, Attention Trust”, Alex Iskold, ReadWriteWeb
[6] “The Implicit Web”, Josh Kopelman, Redeye VC
[7] “2007: The Implicit Web”, Fred Wilson, A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC
[8] “Explaining my fondness for explicit content”, Andrew MacAfee, http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/
faculty_amcafee_v3/why_not_widen_the_flow“
[10] “Attention Economy (I), (II), (III), (IV)”, WorkingCogs, www.workingcogs.com
[11] “Transparent Office”, Michael Idinopulos, http://michaeli.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/12/in-the-flow-and.html
[12] “Web 3.0 - The Semantic, Implicit, Mobile or Distributed Web?”, Jonas Bolinder, http://impl.emented.com/
2008/04/20/web-30-the-semantic-implicit-mobile-or-distributed-web/
[13] “MySportsnet.ca and the Implicit Web”, Colin Smillie, One Degree, http://www.onedegree.ca/2007/06/
mysportsnetca-a.html
[14] “Implicit Web Philately”, Pete Warden, http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2007/10/implicit-web-
ph.html
[15] “Privacy and the implicit web”, Pete Warden, http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2007/10/privacy-
and-the.html
[16]”Privacy and Personalization: From Clickstream to Targeted Advertising”, Alex Iskold, http://
www.readwriteweb.com/archives/privacy_and_personalization.php

19. Further Interest?
http://defragcon.com
Defrag explores the intersection of topics like:
• Enterprise 2.0
• Online Collaboration
• The Implicit Web
• Collective Intelligence
• The Semantic Web
• Mash-ups
• Social Networking in the Enterprise
• Next-level Discovery

20. Summary
The Implicit Web infers intent from attention

21. Finally...
Thank you
for
your attention.