Do you want to safely browse your Twitter stream and follow a good mix of people without running into the occasional swear word that would make razor-tongued Dave McClure blush? A microapplication built on the Kynetx platform removes all foul language viewed on Twitter.com and replaces it with something much more wholesome. The result is a cleaner stream that drops from a potential R-rating to a more serene PG environment.
The app, simply titled "Bleep Tweets" is authored by Michael Grace (@MikeGrace), who is behind many small Kynetx apps that add value to the sites you already visit, including the very similar app "Foul Facebook Filter" which removes swear words from that network as well. Other cool Kynetx apps include Hoverme, which provides details on Twitter connections from around the Web and TomatoFlix, which adds Rotten Tomatoes ratings to Netflix, IMDB, Redbox, Fandango and more. All of these apps leverage the Kynetx platform, which they call the live Web, with the Web browser as the playground.


With Bleep Tweets running. the app can replace naughty language with asterisks, the word "beep", can hide the status update outright or substitute pirate speak. It's quite silly, but with it always running, you're unlikely to hurt your sensitive eyes. For my running counter, since installation, it lets me know the app has checked more than 381,000 tweets and eliminated 7,150+ curses. That's just under 2 incidents for every 100 tweets. Follow somebody like Dave McClure (@davemcclure) or Alex Wilhelm (@alex) and you're sure to get your numbers a tad higher.


Bleep Tweets now makes it safe to watch your friends' streams during major sporting events again, or in the often inebriated weekend evenings. And it's totally simple to run. Make sure your browser is Kynetx enabled and then add the app. You'll bleeping love it.

Last week, I gave a presentation at the Kynetx Impact conference just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, talking with the developer audience about the Third Wave of the Web, and my continued belief that true personalization in both the Web and in our mobile content consumption is what will drive the most dramatic changes to the future of the Internet, following on to the first wave (Information Retrieval and Search), and the second wave (Social Networking). Most directly, I believe that the current approach taken by many leading Web companies, to assume that your friends' recommendations and shares constitute personalization for you, is not enough. True personalization is about your own interests and preferences.

The Third Wave of the Web: Personalization of Streams

View more presentations from Louis Gray

The most well known example of recommendation services that rely almost exclusively on your social graph is that of Facebook, where it's generally assumed that if many of your close friends like a topic, that you will as well. My common example is that if your friends like Mamma Mia, it's assumed you like Broadway plays and if many of your friends have given a like to one establishment or another that you would of course be more interested in that. This is extended with tools like Foursquare and others, who give the social connections a big push to bring you new stuff you might like.

There's no question that collaborative filtering brings value. But it's not enough. What's more accurate is that you are driven by your own preferences and just because your friends like something doesn't guarantee that you will. Only you have your unique makeup and interests, and the knowledge of how to rank those interests. For example, you may like both Katy Perry and Depeche Mode, and you might prefer Depeche Mode to Katy Perry, or specifically prefer one song of Depeche Mode or the entire album continuous. That's your preference, and what's needed is the ability to learn from your own behavior. The Web sites and applications that do this in the right way will start to separate themselves from the competition.

So look at the news just from the past few days. Google is now going to personalize your Ad experience based on your activity in Gmail. That's a good move, based on your own implicit history. But in parallel, we have more chances to tap social signals with +1 in the search results (for starters). At my6sense, we talk a lot about the best signals to watch for to deliver a real human experience that's personal. And it takes more than just collaborative filtering. See the embedded presentation to see just what I mean.

Disclosure: I am vice president of marketing at my6sense. I was not compensated by Kynetx for my presentation, but they did cover expenses for the trip.