|
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
MySpace January Newsletter
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Next Social Network: WordPress
This could be the next step towards the unified social graph that some technologists wish for. WordPress suits the purpose because it provides a person-centric way of coming online, offers an extensible architecture, and already has some features — such as an OpenID and a blogroll plugin — that can be pressed into social networking service. And its users represent exactly the sort of audience that might appreciate the permanent, relatively public identity that DiSo aims to offer.
Why blogs and not Facebook or MySpace
In contrast to social networking, blogging offers a person-centric way for individuals to come online. A social network like Facebook gives you your own place online, but it’s not really your own place. As Copyblogger Brian Clark recently said in a blog post, “For me, there’s really no appeal in spending a lot of time creating ‘user-generated’ content via a social networking application. That’s like remodeling the kitchen in a house you rent.”
Clark was responding to an ongoing conversation launched by blogger and cartoonist Hugh MacLeod, who proposed that blogging is far more important to him than social networking. Bloggers including Stowe Boyd and Darren Rowse seconded the idea. This growing disenchantment with social networking and return to blogging suggests that in the future we could see a migration, at least among tech bloggers, towards more distributed social networking — along the lines of what Messina envisions.
http://gigaom.com/2007/12/11/the-next-social-network-wordpress/Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Latest Social Networking News
Yahoo!'s Not-So-Dormant Social Network
Motley Fool - USA
Mail accounts as a "dormant social network" just waiting to be awakened. Yahoo! Mail is a workhorse. Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Hotmail may be time-tested ...
See all stories on this topic
Social Network Site Benefits.
4Hoteliers - Wanchai,Hong Kong
By Ron McNeil Make your social network earn money for you - Choose the right social network software to design your website, and provide the right kind of ...
See all stories on this topic
Aggregating social network data
NetworkWorld.com - Southborough,MA,USA
There was an interesting controversy last week involving Facebook and Plaxo. Robert Scoble was using a script in an unreleased feature of Plaxo Pulse that ...
See all stories on this topic
imeem Teams With MTV Networks to Bring Expansive Library of MTVN ...
Business Wire (press release) - San Francisco,CA,USA
... the imeem community can share their tastes with friends and fans on imeem and across the Web. imeem is the first social network to partner with all four ...
See all stories on this topic
South Africa: Ten Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 2008
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
It is also reasonable to expect a local rise in "social network marketing", something that may sound as foreign now as email marketing or online campaigns ...
See all stories on this topic
Where is the real Google Reader social network?
By Johnt
In this post I mentioned FeedEachOther, this is a true RSS Reader social network…Google Reader could make my day and take a look at this brilliant site. For more on Feed Each Other (FEO), take a look at my post Feed Each Other : the ...
Library clips - http://libraryclips.blogsome
Comment on Facebook: A call for openness by Wikinomics » Blog ...
By Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Decentralization...
Decentralization of the Social Network This is a follow up to Mike Dover’s posting on Facebook: A Call for Openness. […]
Comments for Wikinomics - http://www.wikinomics.com/blog
New Business Social Network, Now Open!
I am sure you have all heard about Social Networking. I am sure most of you have your own page at MySpace.How many of you have heard of Business Social Networking? Have you ever wished that their was a MySpace for Business? ...
Digg / upcoming - http://digg.com/
DrupalDojo.com and "social network"
By add1sun@drupal.org
One phrase that has been tossed out there for dd.com is "a social network for drupal wannabes" but I feel that the Drupal community is the social network for drupal wannabes and making some distinction for the Dojo that requires a ...
Drupal Dojo - http://groups.drupal.org
Chinese Mobile Social Network Pica Gets $10 Million Funding
By rali@paidcontent.org (Rafat Ali)
Pica, a Chinese mobile social networking service, has received $10 million in its third round of financing. The round was led by Crosslink Capital, IDG Venture Capital and BlueRun Venture Capital, reports Redline China. ...
mocoNews.net - http://www.moconews.net/
Plaxo, Facebook, and Google go 'open' by joining DataPortability.org
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/01/08/plaxo-facebook-and-google-go-open-by-joining-dataportability/
Study Labels Social Networking Types
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/07/myspace.digitalmedia?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Social networking websites have become the hub for the UK's cultural underground, with a new generation turning to the likes of MySpace to make money, collaborate on creative projects and share ideas with their friends, according to a study.
An extensive social networking research project commissioned by MySpace has identified a host of emerging trends and tribes that the website says have previously gone undetected by the mainstream.
Researchers from the Future Laboratory set up a "virtual hide" in MySpace over six weeks, interviewing 1,000 users who explained how they define themselves as part of groups including "mindies", "cheemos"', "slash/slash kids" and "rudettes".
Mindies are teetotal under-18s who follow the teen bands Pull in Emergency, Lion Club and Kid 4077; cheemos combine chav and goth looks (the word is a cross between chav and emo); and slash/slash kids are multi-skilled MySpacers who like to create their own music and fashion. Rudettes follow Lily Allen's rude-girl style.
The study, MySpace 08: People. Content. Culture., also identified "double dressers" - friends who co-ordinate matching or complementary outfits.
Hot on the heels of the nu-rave fad last year, MySpace's musicians are creating their own music genres, including "toystep" - dance music made with plastic kids' toys; and "power pop" - a mix of rock, hip-hop and rave.
Researchers picked up hot tips for 2008 bands, including the toystep band Partyshank, rockabilly band Peggy Sue and the Pirates, and the Glaswegian indie/folk/pop band Make Me a Model.
Future Laboratory identified six types of MySpace user, classifying 38% as "essentialists", who primarily use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends.
Just under a third, 28%, are "transumers" – those who follow new trends rather than make them.
Around 10% are "connectors", who specialise in identifying and linking to cool content; and 5% are "collaborators", who create events and projects online by teaming up with other users.
One in 20 MySpace users get their thrills from "scene breaking" – hunting down new bands and talent online and sharing that through the site; and 4% classify themselves as "netrepreneurs", who use social networking sites to make money.
Future Laboratories also profiled a number of individuals who use MySpace as a platform to promote and develop their businesses.
The underground, hand-photocopied magazine Fever Zine coordinates contributors and subscribers through its MySpace page.
Fever Zine has 5,000 friends and a cult following; editor Alex Zamora said MySpace was essential to help find the new talent that he wants to feature in the lo-fi publication.
Researchers also focused on the fashion stylist Richard Shoyemi, who has secured work with Italian and Japanese Vogue through his MySpace exposure.
"They are essentially buying into me as a person as well as a talent, which all comes from my celebrity status on MySpace.
"I feel in order to expand as a brand it's important to reach out to all; everyone who expressed interest in me is important in my eyes," Shoyemi said.
Slash/slash kid Paul Griffiths started designing and selling T-shirts through the site and now employs three friends. He has sold 10,000 garments so far.
With a talent for self-promotion, 20-year-old Griffiths says he is completely self-taught and that his MySpace business has allowed him to ditch a career in telesales.
"We get up to 1,000 friend requests a day but only ever confirm a small number of the coolest MySpacers," he said.
Social networking sites have evolved beyond their original purpose of communication, said the report, to become "highly articulate, heavily visual, extremely collaborative and creative hubs, which have become for many a vibrant and engaging way to keep up to date with, and comment upon, changes in the cultural scene".
MySpace's "culturpreneurial" culture is part of the maturing of the internet economy, the research concludes, enabling users to collaborate to create, sellers and buyers.
"It is a mass experiment in collaborative creativity and cross-cultural pleasure and enjoyment, where the end goal is a currency of a different, and some would argue far more vibrant, sort," said the report.
"Social networking is entirely about playing, experimenting and redefining our understanding of creativity."
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Latest Facebook news
Enough! Facebook banned in my space
Melbourne Herald Sun - Australia
AFTER banning customers at his St Kilda coffee shop from chatting about Facebook, Daniel Mrocki considers himself a face-to-face crusader. ...
Lots of Toronto faces on Facebook
Digital Media Online - Newport Beach,CA,USA
"The buzz in Toronto this past week is all about Facebook – as of 2pm this afternoon, Toronto has 573355 people in the Toronto, ON network on Facebook ...
Get Hired in '08: Workplace Trends to Put You Ahead
ABC News - USA
Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace that were once exclusively for social purposes are now increasingly being used for recruitment — and that will ...
We're online, but off work to chat to mates and play
NEWS.com.au - Australia
FACEBOOK-addicted Australians are costing their bosses more than $2700 each a year in lost productivity as they chat to mates and play games online, ...
Friend or faux
Sydney Morning Herald - Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
The growing popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Second Life has thrust many of us into a world where we make "friends" with ...
Some interesting links
GIPS Enhances Online Communication Experience for Largest Social ...
Reuters - USA
"As the phenomenon of social networking continues to grow, users are demanding superior voice quality as people become very frustrated with poor quality ...
Speakers Announced at Social Event
Web Host Industry Review - USA
The Social Networking Conference takes place in Miami, Florida on January 31 to February 1, which proves to be the most significant and largest of the four ...
eMarketer: Social spending to increase in '08
BizReport - USA
"In 2007, 37% of the US adult Internet population and 70% of teens used online social networking at least once a month." eMarketer predicts that this usage ...
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Take Social Networking a Step Further
Social media is everywhere these days. It isn't just MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube anymore. It now extends to virtually all online demographic groups.
Innovative marketers are starting to take advantage of these large, often well-targeted audiences to cost-effectively improve their branding. Today, the five Ws of using social media to increase branding: what, why, who, where, and when.
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3627935Thursday, December 13, 2007
Latest Facebook News
Facebook API to open up to other social networks
By Christina Warren
Just hours after social networking site Bebo announced that their Open Application Developer Platform (which goes live tonight) would be "100 percent compatible with the Facebook platform", Facebook has pulled out a trump card of sorts, ...
Download Squad - http://www.downloadsquad.com
Bebo adopts Facebook open platform
Xinhua - China
Bebo's Open Application Platform will be fully compatible with the thousands of applications that have helped fuel growth at social network Facebook, ...
See all stories on this topic
Facebook Counters OpenSocial; Bebo Playing Both Sides
By joseph@paidcontent.org (Joseph Weisenthal)
Facebook is ready to counterattack Google's (NSDQ: GOOG) OpenSocial. The site revealed today that its Facebook Platform would be made available to other social networking sites, allowing developers to easily port Facebook apps to sites ...
paidContent:UK - http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/
Meebo Brings Chat to Facebook Apps; Hits 20 Million Monthly Users
TechCrunch - Atherton,CA,USA
Bringing more immediacy to Facebook apps from buddymedia, (fluff)Friends, rockyou, Slide, The Broth and the watercooler, Web-based instant messaging startup ...
Facebook targets Google with program for other social networks
Computerworld - Framingham,MA,USA
December 13, 2007 (Computerworld) -- In a direct shot across the bow of Google Inc. and its opensocial project, Facebook Thursday announced plans to allow ...
Ynetnews - Israel
The Consulate General of Israel in New York City recently launched a new Facebook page in its name in an effort to publicize upcoming events and to reach ...
Facebook Profiles Can Foil Job Searches
Smartmoney.com - USA
Popular social-networking web sites like Facebook and myspace are some of the latest vehicles that allow anyone who can use a mouse to create an online ...
Facebook interns rankled by younger bosses [Cubicle Culture]
By Nicholas Carlson
Facebook engineer Charles Cheever tells Intern Memo that one of the "most interesting" aspects of interning for the social network is that "it's not unheard of for interns to be older than the... [[ This is a content summary only. ...
Valleywag - http://valleywag.com
Did Blockbuster, Facebook Break Privacy Law With Beacon?
PC World - USA
Was a 1988 law broken when movie choices that Facebook members made on the Blockbuster's Web site were made available to other Facebook members? ...
Birthday Calendar Application Reaches 2 Million Users in One Month ...
Friday, December 07, 2007
More Facebook news
NewsCloud writes "Last week, Facebook quietly removed sign-in restrictions that previously hid third party applications from the public Web. In other words, Facebook now allows its third party applications to be viewable on the Web by ...
Slashdot: Generated for rossturk... - http://slashdot.org/
Facebook Beacon's traffic inflation
Many people were enraged when they got a closer look at Facebook Beacon and realized they were giving away so much data (to Facebook) and getting back nothing for it, really. One of the first to stand up against Facebook was GigaOM's Om ...
WebMetricsGuru - http://www.webmetricsguru.com/
Shuddup You, Facebook!
Again, I am not being closeminded to Facebook, but just because I have previously said you have to look at such things from the inside, it does not mean I have to embrace them equally with desire. I see an incredible environment of ...
CogDogBlog - http://cogdogblog.com
Facebook dumper may have staged Digg-linked hack [Sandra Soroka]
Sandra Soroka, the New York videoblogger who dumped her boyfriend through her Facebook status message may not have had her Flickr account hacked by outraged Digg users, as we previously reported....
Valleywag - http://valleywag.com
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Latest Facebook News
Is Beacon Inflating Facebook's Visitor Numbers?
By Erick Schonfeld
While Facebook's Beacon program has been drawing the ire of many people because of the privacy issues surrounding it, advertisers might be equally concerned about whether Beacon is inflating Facebook's overall visitor and traffic ...
Techcrunch - http://www.techcrunch.com
OpenSocial Delayed Until Next Year
By Nick O'Neill
Waiting on the Facebook platform competition to come rolling out? It's not happening anytime soon. Even MySpace announced their platform at the Web 2.0 Sumit and there are still no applications available on the site. ...
All Facebook - http://www.allfacebook.com
Facebook Message email notifications now include the actual Message
By Justin Smith
Facebook just pushed a feature that will be welcomed by heavy users of Facebook messaging: actually being able to view the message contents in the notification email Facebook sends to let you know that a new message has arrived. ...
Facebook Founder Apologizes for Ad System
By Gregory Mone
The social-networking site Facebook may have to find another way to cash in on its huge user base. The company's new "social ads" program, called Beacon, has been controversial, forcing company founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured here) to ...
Popular Science Blog - http://popsci.typepad.com
This week in social networking
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Boyd's law of social network sites - Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog
While I was off the grid, Cory Doctorow created a law of social network sites and named it after me:
boyd's law: "Adding more users to a social network [site] increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance."This comes from a brilliant column that he wrote for InformationWeek about how the Facebook communication technology (combined with their not-so-open platform strategy) resemble AOL's old segregation/segmentation approach to users. (Remember the days when AOL users couldn't email anyone who didn't have an AOL account?) Embedded in this discussion is a concern for how social network sites are extremely socially awkward. My favorite quote: "It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system."
The Days of our Facebook: How Love Moved to Hate
One day it's love, the next day it's hate. It seems that we are in the hate portion of Facebook these days. Let's take a quick look back at the past few months for: The Days of our Facebook: How Love Moved to Hate
Hong Kong billionaire takes $60 million Facebook stake - MarketWatch
The All Things Digital blog on Friday, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the transaction, reported that 79-year-old Li would not make the investment through his flagship companies Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.
Hong Kong billionaire takes $60 million Facebook stake - MarketWatch
Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Networking with Health Information
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/12/02/why-you-shouldnt-trust-social-networking-with-health-information/There’s a lot of hype (and startups) to go along with trying to get you to buy into their “social networking” websites for health issues. Usually these companies have been backed by venture capitalists who expect both a relatively quick and large return on their money.
When a company is beholden not to its founders’ vision or its own mission (no matter how grand that mission or vision might be), but to financial backers who have little interest in the actual goals of the company other than to see it go public or purchased by the highest bidder as quickly as possible, guess who suffers the most? You’re right if you picked you, the user.
Since a company is an entity, not a person, it doesn’t have to be personal in these decisions. It makes them as a disconnected “other,” simply something that is trying to convince you that it is “helping” you by offering your data to others, even when it does so at times without your knowledge or permission.
Top 6 Social Networking Sites as of Nov.
- MySpace - 58.8 million unique visitors.
- Facebook - 19.5 million unique visitors
- Classmates Online - 13.2 million unique visitors
- Windows Live Spaces - 10.3 million unique visitors
- AOL Hometown -7.9 million unique visitors
- Linkedin - 4.9 million unique visitors
How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Putting Effective (Online) Social Networking Into Practice
Interesting details about socnet markeing and building a community:
Over the past month, I've been doing a little action research for an article on ways to be effective using online social networking sites. To do the research, I've been asking my "friends" in different online social networks, "What is your best practice or tip for using online social networking sites for your organization." I didn't just ask people from nonprofits as I wanted to get a multi-disciplinary view.
So, I started with reading and reflecting on some recent blog posts by two gurus on the topic: Chris Brogan and Connie Bensen. In response to a query, Connie provided a brilliant synthesis of the key networking principles which were my starting point for putting some ideas into practice.
Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Putting Effective (Online) Social Networking Into PracticeThursday, November 29, 2007
Deep Read: The Case Against Facebook - AKA Mark Zuckerberg's little problem
Did Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg build his $15 billion business on a stolen idea?
It's not a new charge, but 02138, the Harvard magazine, takes a fresh look at the evidence leveled against Zuckerberg by several classmates who are suing him. It's hard to read it and not come away with the impression that Zuckerberg did some pretty unethical stuff, and then lied to cover his tracks.
There are two main questions at hand: Whether Zuckerberg, who was supposed to be working on a rival social-networking site in the months before he debuted Facebook, actively stalled his supposed collaborators to get a head start; and whether he purloined the code he was supposed to be perfecting.
On the first question, the answer seems to be yes. At a minimum, Zuckerberg has misrepresented when he started work on Facebook. Zuckerberg has said he didn't begin until Jan. 14, 2004, when he informed the founders of Harvard Connection that he would no longer be working for them. That was always suspicious, as Facebook went live less than three weeks later. And indeed, reports 02138, court documents show that Zuckerberg had already registered his domain by Jan. 11, and on Jan. 12 he emailed a partner to say the site was almost complete.
As for the code, Zuckerberg has said "[t]here is really good documentation" that Facebook's code was not based on Harvard Connection's. But it turns out there's not:
Zuckerberg has been on notice since September 2004 to preserve information relevant to the case, but for some time Facebook claimed they couldn't produce a shred of source code from when Zuckerberg first began working for Harvard Connection, the original Facebook code, or even the Facebook code in October 2004, one month after the original suit was filed. Zuckerberg's lawyers have held that nearly all the early Facebook code has disappeared, wiped from outside servers long ago or lost on missing or corrupted hard drives.
02138 has posted documents from the case here. Here's the details:
Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard Application (PDF)
Mark Zuckerberg's email to Harvard’s Administrative Board (PDF)
Mark Zuckerberg's testimony #1 (PDF)
Mark Zuckerberg's testimony #2 (PDF)
Facebook Statement of cash flows 2005 (PDF)
Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss's testimony (PDF)
Mark Zuckerberg's online diary (PDF)
Statement of damage done to La Jennifer sublet (PDF)
Facebook Blinks on Beacon
It’s been so long since I’ve been able to write about Facebook every day. I’m gonna relish this while I can. BusinessWeek reports today that Facebook may be tweaking the ill-received Project Beacon. These changes could come as soon as November 29—aka today.
BusinessWeek points out, accurately IMHO, that as Facebook tweaks the system to assuage its disgruntled users, it runs the risk of upsetting its advertisers and partners:
In the wake of mounting criticism, Facebook executives are discussing changes to a controversial advertising tool that publicizes users' Web activities outside of the popular social network. Alterations to the recently introduced Beacon system could be announced as early as Nov. 29, BusinessWeek.com has learned.Executives of the three-year-old company were in deep talks over proposed changes late into the afternoon on Nov. 28, according to a person familiar with the matter. At issue is the Beacon program, which alerts members' Facebook "friends" to purchases and other activities on third-party Web sites. A spokesperson for the company declined to discuss changes, reiterating an earlier statement: "Facebook is listening to feedback from its users and committed to evolving Beacon."