Most of the time, when you try out some new software, you are able to get the intended functionality out of the program – without significant learning time or technical issues, if you’re lucky. It does what you needed it to do, and that’s that.

On rare occasions, however, the process is almost magical: you try out the program, and your jaw drops when you realize how much power it gives you; how much more information is at your fingertips; how much faster, simpler, and more fun your life can be made by this previously irrelevant (to you) chunk of code.

We’ve been using Google Analytics and Crazy Egg on our blog since day one, and would definitely put these nifty little (free!!) tools in the latter category. Google Analytics allows us to track our site visitor data with a shocking degree of precision – by time spent on the site, by location, by browser used, by incoming link followed, by navigation pathways through the site, by Java version installed, and by a whole bunch of other characteristics (all anonymously, of course). And we’re not even using several of the more advanced features yet.

The most impressive thing about the program is how easy and fun it is to use. It’s got a super intuitive interface, and it’s full of interactive visualization tools like the one to the right, which shows where in the US our visitors came from during a brief period last month.

Similarly, Crazy Egg lets us see what visitors do with their mouse pointers as they browse the site using four main views. The “overlay” view shows how many times each of the links were clicked (shown below) as well as the site from which the viewer was referred; a “heatmap” shows where the most clicks on the page occurred, ranging from ‘hotspots’ in red to less popular links in blue; a new “confetti view” shows the top 15 referral sites, top 15 search terms, browsers, etc. of those who clicked; and the “list” view provides much of this information in exportable chart form.

Now that the initial wow factor has worn off, we don’t check our stats on Google Analytics or look at heat maps from Crazy Egg particularly often. (And don’t worry, we’re not stalking our readers, as our soon-to-be-posted privacy policy will confirm!) The real benefit of having these tools will come later, after we’ve launched MixedInk. We’ll need to see where people are coming from, which sites send them here, and how they navigate around the site, so that we can improve the user experience and grow our user base.

If you’re tech-savvy, this may not be news to you. You may rightly point out that there are more powerful programs out there (though not any free ones, as far as we are aware). But I hope this at least helped you relive your long-lost moments of technological awe.

If you’re not a techie, maybe this little love-fest will inspire you to try new software – including MixedInk, when the time comes. The potential payoffs of using well-designed software are worth it!

We’ve all watched with amazement as a flock of birds changes direction as if choreographed, a school of fish scatters on command, or a line of ants marches to some hidden destination. It seems there must be a leader, a queen bee or the king of the ant hill, coordinating not just when and where to move, but which members of the group should get food, protect the community, or help with construction. It appears some unheard chatter must be spreading the word from on high to the masses, and that everyone would then go about following orders.

National Geographic reports in “Swarm Theory” by Peter Miller that the success of swarms is not based on a master plan coming from the leader of the pack. Rather, these complex systems are solved in utterly decentralized ways:

“No generals command ant warriors. No managers boss ant workers. The queen plays no role except to lay eggs. Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all.”

Swarm intelligence is based on each individual following relatively simple rules and taking action based on local information. In doing so, groups can accomplish infinitely complex tasks well beyond the ability of any given individual — without leadership or any individual seeing the complete picture.

Most amazing is the ways bees decide where to relocate their hive. First, scout bees set out in different directions to find the best site for their new home. The scouts then return to the swarm and perform a waggle dance, which communicates both the direction of the recommended site and the scout’s enthusiasm for it. Bees from the hive then congregate around the site they prefer after seeing the different scouts’ waggle dances. Once a site attracts 15 bees, it is deemed the winner, and the bees from the chosen site spread the news to the rest of the community. Cornell University biologists studying this behavior were not surprised to see this democratic system resulting in the bees choosing the best of five possible sites for their new hive.

“The bees rules for decision-making – seek a diversity of opinions, encourage a free competition among ideas, and use an effective mechanism to narrow choices” is a lesson MixedInk takes to heart. While most group decisions and documents emerge from a group’s leadership, MixedInk uses a decentralized system to encourage all members to play a part.  Acting on local information or using specific skills, each person can add a unique perspective. These opinions are then aggregated, with the most popular collective opinion emerging through a democratic process – just like the bees use to find the best site for their hive. Through decentralization, a trust in local knowledge, and faith in the democratic process, MixedInk gives voice to the masses and harnesses the power of the swarm to create an output better than what any individual could have accomplished alone.

MixedInk is founded on the premise that citizens/consumers/members/employees want to tell the people in charge, and other members of their group, what they think. That’s why people vote, blog, comment, write letters to the editor, sign petitions, rate products, respond to surveys, etc.

And politicians and executives want to hear from us – or at least, they make a big show of saying so. The thing is, sometimes it seems like they want credit for giving us a voice without actually allowing us to be the final arbiters of what we can express.

On the political side, the next Democratic presidential debate on CNN is taking the innovative step of letting voters submit their questions to the candidates by uploading a video to YouTube. This seems like a move toward a more democratic primary process, and it certainly is an improvement on just having Brian Williams or Tim Russert (or their staffs) write the questions.

The problem is that ratings and comments have been disabled on the site where you view questions that have been submitted. So, we (the voters) can’t register our support for questions or tell how popular a question is. CNN gets to choose which questions to ask from among thousands, and they don’t have to choose the ones we like best. They’ll be able to find questions they would have asked anyway, more or less, only the questions will come out of the voters’ mouths.

On the corporate side, a recent survey found that 57% of senior marketers found user-generated media to be “very” or “somewhat” important – a sign that things are headed in the right direction. Yet only 22% said they were “very willing” to give their consumers more control. The pollster explained, “Despite the increased awareness of the power of consumers in a digital age on brands and sales, marketing executives are reluctant to loosen their grip on marketing content, unwilling to give too much control to these empowered consumers.” General Motors’ first foray into consumer-created advertising is a great example of what can go wrong for marketers.

But the answer is not for companies to institute top-down solutions. The marketing department should not simply choose which ads they think are best and which are inappropriate – as XLNTads, MasterCard and others would have marketers do. Instead, they could use better aggregation and voting mechanisms, limit participation to trusted contributors, disallow certain words, and/or enable trusted users to flag inappropriate material. And they need to be transparent about how any final content is selected.

We have no doubt that citizens and consumers will ultimately come out on top, as the more transparent, democratic efforts to collect content from users will attract more, higher quality contributions. But in the short term, in the absence of standards for soliciting bottom-up content, corporate and political marketers will do everything they can to create the illusion of incorporating our input.

A high school teacher named David Colarusso has created a new site called Community Counts, which provides the functionality missing from YouTube off-site, allowing viewers to vote on the debate question videos submitted via YouTube. The site has benefited from James Kotecki’s (and others’) promotional support and has already collected thousands of votes.  As bottom-up, innovative side-steps like this one gain increasing traffic and attention, hopefully corporate, media and political organizations will begin to understand that we won’t settle for partial control of our collective voice.

We have to keep the pressure on them, with efforts like Community Counts, to institute truly democratic systems for their users to express themselves. If they want to reap the benefits of our free labor and ideas and our commitment to their products and policies, they have to earn it.

You guessed it – that’s where MixedInk fits in

Having studied and worked in Cambridge, MA for the last several years, I was hesitant about moving to NYC just when the company was gaining momentum. Sitting in a coffee shop by MIT, you might think everyone in town has a tech startup and a degree in engineering. While New York definitely would be cutting edge when it came to stock markets, art, and fashion, we wondered whether a tech startup community could be found.

Two of our three founders have now relocated to the Big Apple, and just a few weeks in, we already see New York City’s unique – and probably hipper – entrepreneurial spirit and savvy. Take NextNY. It’s a 750+ member strong group of “young people who have a stake in the future of tech and new media in New York,” with an active community sharing advice on its wiki and blog, filling its bustling mailing list, and meeting at events. Nobody officially runs the group – so anyone can host an event, update the wiki or post on the mailing list.

Based in Soho, Meetup has also made for an easy entry into New York. Highly relevant tech Meetups can fill a few evenings with food for thought any given week. The NY Tech Meetup gives a handful of people (precisely) 5 minutes each to demo their idea to the New York tech community, with a few minutes to answer questions from the audience. It has thousands of members, and packs the house with 400 people for its events. Last Meetup showcased some exciting startups and had David Weinberger briefly (but passionately) introducing his new book, Everything is Miscellaneous.

Last night, we checked out the New York Web 2.0 Social Networking Tech Meetup, which met jointly with Howard Greenstein’s Social Media Club. Speakers shared how to give a good pitch and “fearless networking” and introduced a new search engine – SenseBot. The highlight from the night was ParkWhiz, a new website that allows you to find the best-priced parking garage near your destination and then make reservations in advance from your computer. The problem they aim to solve is simple: “Parking sucks.”

On first impression, the NY tech community is busy starting some cool companies, ready to network and kick around new ideas, and willing to share energy and lend a hand.

Other popular NYC Meetups and resources I’ve found in my short time here are:
• The New York Dot Com Hatchery – The Hatchery allows you to pitch your ideas to a top-level advisory panel – great ideas are accepted for development and/or support. Keep in mind, they are looking for early stage businesses, and not just ideas on paper.
• Web2NewYork: A networking party for post-internet media, advertising and business.
• NextNY has a nice resources page.
• The New York Software Industry Association connects members with qualified interns from the area and has an incubator at 55 Broad Street.

What’s your impression? If you have other useful NYC tech startup nuggets, please add them in the comments. I’ll pull them together and add the best ones to the NextNY and any other resource lists.

6.29.07 additions (thank you to The Hatchery):

• iBreakfast: The monthly iBreakfast Club meeting promises to showcase the Silicon Alley movers and shakers in the context of the entire technology marketplace.
• Google has regular meetings, which are always good. Keep an eye on the Google Blog.
• Founders Club (by invitation only).
• Mobile Monday: This is a networking event for the local mobile industry, featuring both virtual and in-person gatherings.
• The Ivy clubs all have VC forums. They tend to cost some money, but have lots of VC’s.

10.05.07 Update:

Lunch 2.0 is launching on October 16th at The Ladders (137 Varick Street, 12:30-2:00).  RSVP: info@lunchnyc.com.

As a collaborative writing platform, the wiki obviously has many strengths. I mean, Wikipedia is now the 9th most popular site on the entire internet. This simple cumulative editing system might conservatively be described as revolutionary. But let’s not dwell on the wiki’s impact, as it has been adequately explored (and then some) in many glowing reviews in the press, within the blogosphere, among the digerati, etc.

We believe that the wiki isn’t the endpoint in the evolution of mass collaboration. So, we’re trying to create a more perfect wiki by fixing some of its features which are…suboptimal, shall we say.

Here are a few areas in which wikis could be significantly improved (the first two are the most critical):

1. Wikis don’t allow multiple simultaneous editors. If two people edit at the same time, one of them either prevents the other from writing or overwrites what the other has submitted. Even if wikis did allow real time editing – and there is a least one wiki hosting company that now does – having multiple simultaneous editors would detract from the quality of writing and make for a discombobulating experience, as it’s impossible to anchor one’s edits in a static conception of page content if that content is constantly changing.

2. Wikis don’t allow for bottom-up expression of mass opinion. Wikipedia’s neutral point of view (NPOV) policy is necessary and appropriate for an encyclopedia, but what about cases where the community actually wants to express itself in a biased way? With wikis, disagreements on any significant point, or on the best way to structure an argument, frequently lead to back and forth edit wars. The only way to resolve these disputes is through the imposition of top down solutions – which are inherently undemocratic, inefficient, and generally antithetical to the principles of the user-generated content movement.

3. People are creatively bound by what’s on the page already. Whoever writes first in a wiki often sets the tone and framework for complex issues, making it more difficult for subsequent users to think about the topic in a different (perhaps better) way.

4. Recent users’ edits are more likely to remain in the wiki simply by virtue of not yet having been corrected. So instead of having the best (or most representative) piece showing, you just see the last person’s input at any given time.

5. Finally, many wikis lack what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing (this is true in particular of the Mediawiki platform used by Wikipedia).

Do you agree that these are issues? What else would you change with the wiki if you could? How could it be improved? What characteristics would the ideal collaborative writing tool have, in broad terms?

Your thoughts, please…