Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Facebook Parts Walled Garden, Triggers Privacy Concerns
Does opening the social networking site to search indexes make Facebook a 'quasi-White Pages of the Web?
Facebook on Sept. 5 made its member listings searchable by outside users and public search engines, and in a seemingly innocuous move to help its 40 million users find each other, threatened its hard-won reputation for strict privacy practices.
The adjustment means a query of a Facebook member's name on search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN will return a user's name and thumbnail picture, and thus the end of the walled garden image often touted by the site.
Conscious of the fact that the new approach may raise privacy concerns, Facebook made it clear that users will only appear in searches outside Facebook when search settings are set to 'Everyone' and will allow users approximately one month to set their privacy options before Facebook allows search engines to index public search listings.
But the practice attracted the attention of several high-tech bloggers, including Danny Sullivan, John Battelle and Om Malik, who, in his blog, GigaOm, called the move a switch from social networking to a 'quasi-White Pages".
Friday, September 07, 2007
Quechup is rotten: don't accept invites - Boing Boing
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Twitter Updates: Exploring Twitter
We've launched a new area of our web site featuring different ways
you can interact with Twitter. Our friends at Stamen Design created
a particularly engaging application called Blocks--an interactive
way to discover people on Twitter. Special thanks to Motorola for
their sponsorship of this launch. There will be more cool stuff
here in the future so please come on by and check it out.
Explore Twitter: http://explore.twitter.com
Are You Mobile?
Sure, Timbaland and his MTV pals Twitter by txt but you don't have
to be a rock star to send and receive Twitter updates on the fly.
If you normally use Twitter over the web, why not switch things
up? Activate your mobile phone to work with Twitter so you can send
and receive updates anytime, anywhere.
Activate your phone: http://twitter.com/devices
Vegas, Baby!
Twitter will be in Las Vegas hobnobbing with some of your favorite
musicians and artists at the Video Music Awards starting tomorrow
and going all weekend. The MTV folks made arrangements to have a
bunch of cool artists Twittering away. If you want to follow these
artists as they party in Vegas, just text FOLLOW VMA to 40404.
Or visit the twitter.com/vma profile.
MTV VMAs: http://twitter.com/vma
What Happened This Morning?
We were performing optimizations to make Twitter faster and more
reliable and it took longer than expected. We scheduled some
downtime for the wee hours of the morning but the work spilled over
into normal human daytime. Hopefully, this didn't put too much of
a crimp in your Twittering style. The good news is we got the work
done and Twitter is better for it.
Search Twitter
Recently, we've launched search so you can find more folks to
follow or even discover people you didn't know were on Twitter. We
also built an easy way to find out who from your Gmail Address book
is already on Twitter. To use either of these new features, click
the "Find & Invite" link at the top of of the Twitter web site.
Find & Invite: http://twitter.com/invitations
Other Cool Stuff
There's a geeky new show premiering later this month on NBC and
the character Twitters: http://twitter.com/chuckbartowski
Reactee has created an easy way to make your own t-shirts
customized with your Twitter username: http://twitter.reactee.com
71Miles is using Twitter to send exclusive, limited discounts to
classy resorts and spas in California: http://twitter.com/71miles
Okay, that's all for now. Gotta get back to work.
Happy Twittering,
Biz Stone and the Twitter Team
http://twitter.com/biz
How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web's Hottest Platform
"How Mark Zuckerberg Turned Facebook Into the Web's Hottest Platform By Fred Vogelstein Email 09.06.07 | 2:00 AM Photo: Emily Shur He didn't have much choice but to sell. It was summer 2006, a little more than two years after Mark Zuckerberg had created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room as a way for him and his friends to better connect with schoolmates. In the intervening years, he'd raised $37.7 million from venture capitalists and transformed his modest Web site into a certified social phenomenon. College kids across the nation clamored for access, which Zuckerberg doled out, school by school. By mid-2006, about 7 million users, most of them college students, had a Facebook account."
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Startup Offers Privacy For Sale -- But Is Anyone Buying?
1. Sign up for service
2. Hire script kiddie to break for $10,000
3. PROFIT!?!?!?!
Startup Offers Privacy For Sale -- But Is Anyone Buying?:
Privacy is fast becoming the trendy concept in online marketing. An increasing number of companies are flaunting the steps they've taken to protect the privacy of their customers. But studies suggest consumers won't pay even 25 cents to protect their data. In one week in July, Ask.com unveiled AskEraser, a tool that will allow users to obliterate their search histories; Microsoft announced enhanced privacy controls for its Windows Live service; and Google and Yahoo shrank the amount of time they retained IP addresses and search logs, reducing the ability of government agencies to subpoena such data.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Social Networking Hits Investing
"Social Networking Hits Investing More investors are meeting and sharing ideas in online trading communities. Should you base your portfolio moves on the wisdom of crowds?"
Friday, August 24, 2007
Your Social Network Can Make You Skinny! (Wellsphere Blog)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog
There is about 15 different sites available:
"Web 2.0 Invites for August 23rd, 2007 August 23, 2007 — 01:30 AM PDT — by Pete Cashmore — Share This — 6 Comments masinvites.PNG Happy Thursday, fellow early adopter. Invites await!"
Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog
"Yahoo Teachers: Social Network for Teachers August 23, 2007 — 11:37 AM PDT — by Pete Cashmore — Share This — 3 Comments yteachers.PNG Yahoo is building a combination of social network, collaborative space and (most of all), lesson plan creator for educators called Yahoo Teachers."
Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog
Looking To Invest In Social Media? Check Out Classmates Media's IPO (Social Networking Stats also)
Looking To Invest In Social Media? Check Out Classmates Media's IPO
Something a little bit different. Notice the visitation numbers in the graph:
Larry Dignan ( ZDNet) submits: United Online's (UNTD ) Classmates Media (CLAS) unit filed for a $125 million IPO in what could be a good litmus test for social media plays on Wall Street. Classmates isn't Facebook ( all resources), but does have enough name recognition to garner interest for investors looking to buy into the social media hubbub.
The company plans to trade under the ticker "CLAS" and has lined up some heavyweight investment bankers-Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.
With the IPO it appears that Classmates is trying to front run some buzz ahead of social media peers such as Facebook and LinkedIn. MySpace is already part of Rupert Murdoch's empire. Classmates, which seems like it has been around forever, has 50 million registered user accounts as of June 30 and 2.7 million paid accounts.
Not too shabby for a site I've basically left for dead aside from a few visits following email prodding. It's also not bad for a site that doesn't rank among the top global social sites, according to Comscore. Classmates Media also includes MyPoints, a loyalty marketing service with 8.4 million members as of June 30.
After the IPO, United Online will control the company's Class B shares and Classmates. Classmates' IPO filing didn't detail how much United Online will own. United Online , which also owns NetZero, acquired Classmates in November 2004. MyPoints went public in 1999, and was acquired by United Airlines' parent in 2001. United Media then bought MyPoints in April 2006.
As for the financial outlook, Classmates Media is running a small loss. For the quarter ending March 30, the company had a net loss of $250,000 on revenue of $42.4 million. For 2006, the company had a profit of $171,000 on revenue of $152 million. The annual results are on a pro forma basis as if MyPoints and Classmates had been combined. Both were subsidiaries of United Online.
The biggest risk factor mentioned by Classmates is competition with the usual suspects. From the SEC filing:
Our social networking services compete with a wide variety of social networking Web sites, including broad social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook; a number of specialty Web sites, including LinkedIn, Reunion.com and Monster.com 's (MNST) Military.com service, that offer similar online social networking services based on school, work or military communities; and an increasing number of schools, employers and associations that maintain their own Internet-based alumni information services.
And...
Our MyPoints loyalty marketing business faces competition for members from several other loyalty programs that offer competitive online products and services, including Ebates, Upromise and ThankYou Network. We also face competition from offline loyalty rewards programs that have a significant online presence, such as those operated by credit card, airline and hotel companies.
The company's plan seems to be increasing and maintaining paying subscribers, a tough chore considering "only a small percentage of members initially registering for our social networking services sign up for a paid subscription at the time of registration."
I have seen a few folks pay for Classmates.com, but it takes repeated emails. More often than not people try Classmates, but don't buy. To wit:
The number of free members returning to our Web sites has been decreasing, and if we were to continue to experience such decreases, it would likely adversely impact our number of paying subscribers.
Bottom line: From United Online's perspective the IPO is a nice move to monetize Classmates at what could be the peak of the social media buzz. For investors, the deal may not be such a no-brainer.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Twitter, new features - Introducing People Search
Hello Twitter-ers,
It's new feature season and we're starting with People Search.
This new Twitter feature is great for finding more people to
follow because it searches profile information such as name,
location, bio, and url. Come on by and find out if your friends
are already Twittering and you just didn't know it! The search
field is on the right side of Twitter when you sign in:
http://twitter.com
Twitter & MTV
We're partnering with MTV for the Video Music Awards next month.
They have some fun ideas which involve artists and celebrities
including the MTV Moonman twittering from Las Vegas during the
whole weekend leading up to the VMA broadcast on Sunday,
September 9th. Also, Twitter's gonna be on TV! We're looking
forward to it. The artists who will be joining Twitter are popular
and you can get their updates by following the Video Music Awards
on Twitter.
Follow VMA: http://twitter.com/vma
Nelson is Twitter Family
Speaking of celebrities, the genius behind Google's Search API is
Nelson Minar. Nelson left Google a while back but joined Twitter
months ago as a permanent advisor. Nelson continues to provide us
with engineering advice, helps us work through scaling and
infrastructure details, and in general brings more engineering
"gravitas" to our operation. Nelson is a such valued part of the
Twitter team we gave him an iPhone preloaded with all our phone
numbers. So yeah, Nelson rocks. http://twitter.com/nelson
A Fine Frenzy
Alison Sudol is the young musician behind A Fine Frenzy and it's
been really fun following her on tour for her first album, One
Cell in The Sea. Some of us from Twitter listened to her sing when
she came to San Francisco and had the opportunity to say hello to
Alison and her grandmother who she brought to the show. Her
grandmother told us she prints out every twitter Alison makes and
worries when she skips a day. (She also prints out Barack Obama's
twitters.)
Follow Alison: http://twitter.com/afinefrenzy
We don't recommend everyone print out Twitter updates as it's not
ecologically sustainable. However, when Alison's grandmother does
it, it's awesome. Okay, that's all for now.
Happy Twittering!
Biz Stone and the Twitter Team
http://twitter.com/biz
Thursday, August 16, 2007
MTV Networks to invest big money in games | Tech News on ZDNet
MTV Networks to invest big money in games Reuters Published on ZDNet News: Aug 16, 2007 2:11:00 PM TalkBack * Share o Digg o Del.ico.us * Print * Email * * + 1 1 Tags: Reuters, Games MTV Networks plans to invest well over $500 million in video games, seeing the red-hot entertainment category as a major pillar of growth in its goal to reach consumers wherever they spend time. The two-year investment is part of a global strategy to incorporate games development at the inception of all new programming plans and not as an afterthought, executives say.
Mobile Social Networking: $6 B by 2012
"Mobile Social Networking: $6 B by 2012
User-generated revenues from social networking sites are expected to grow exponentially as users go mobile by Gemma Simpson Related Items * Leader: Is it safer to hide cash under your mattress? * Editor's Blog: Tech improves... but we don't? * The Weekly Round-Up: 22.06.07 * The CIOs transforming government IT * Bloggers driving change in Egypt Story Tools * post a comment * e-mail this story * print this story * order a reprint * digg this * save to del.icio.us partner logo Social networking fans will drive mobile user-generated content revenues to nearly $6bn by 2012. User-generated revenues from social networking services, dating and content uploaded to third party sites will increase from $572m in 2007 to more than $5.7bn in 2012, analyst house Juniper Research predicts. Social networking is expected to bring in half of the $5.7bn total revenue by the end of the 2012 forecast period, according to Juniper."
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Failure of Second Life's Ginko Financial Leads to Calls for Regulation
Bank Failure in Second Life Leads to Calls for Regulation By Bryan Gardiner
The recent collapse of Ginko Financial, a 'virtual investment bank' in Second Life, has spurred calls for more oversight, transparency and accountability, especially when it comes to business practices in the metaverse. Last week, Ginko Financial -- an unregulated bank that promised investors astronomical returns (in excess of 40 percent) and was run by a faceless owner whose identity is still a mystery -- announced it would no longer exist as a financial entity.
The declared insolvency meant the bank would be unable to repay approximately 200,000,000 Lindens (U.S. $750,000) to Second Life residents who had invested their money with the bank over the course of its three and a half years of existence.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Wikipedia is only as anonymous as your IP
STUNNING: Facebook on the iPhone
I think stunning may be pushing it a bit. , but it is very good, esp. that fast.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Apple's new iMac - Engadget
Who could've seen this one coming? Apple surprised no one this morning with brand new iMacs. Built from aluminum and glass, the new all-in-one desktops feature a complete, slimmer redesign and will come in two sizes: 20-inch and 24-inch. There's the usual compliment of ports like USB 2.0, Firewire 400 / 800, a slot loading SuperDrive, iSight camera and so forth. The new look features a glossy display to match the majority of Apple's consumer lineup, and new keyboards are indeed coming along for the ride -- in an extended wired version as well as a mini wire free model, running the Bluetooth 2.0 spec. Under the hood Apple has up to a 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro graphics, up to 1TB of storage, 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.0, with 8x SuperDrives and 1GB of RAM standard across the board. Prices start at $1,199 for the 20-inch, $1,499 for a processor and graphics bump, $1,799 for the 24-incher and $2,299 for Core 2 Extreme. The full rundown of Apple's stock models is after the break."
Education 2.0: The College Student's Guide to File Sharing
College: You finally made it. But now that you're here, how should you spend your first few weeks at school?
Filling up the hard drive of your brand-new Toshiba R500 with loads of music and video files, that's how -- harnessing the full file-sharing power of a high-speed university-class network?
But how? Is it safe? Legal? Faster than asking your parents to burn a few DVDs and put them into their monthly care package?
Excellent questions -- the mark of a true student. Welcome to File Sharing 101.
Digg - Best. Ad. Ever
This ad is in the latest issue of Linux Journal has been run before (in 2000), and it offended some folks. Well, that didn't stop them from running it again.
Not really social networking, at all, but, funny.