Google+ Project - A Rival To Facebook?

Ever since Google announced that it was shutting down Wave there has been a lot of speculation over it's plans to release a Facebook rival. For a very lucky few, in Google tradition, the wait may be over.

Google has announced The Google+ project which aims to allow us to get social but in a more orderly fashion. Google+ seems to provide users with a mechanism for categorizing friends into logical groups via "circles". The idea being to put up walls, as we do in real life, and share certain information with certain groups (circles) of friends.

“In real life, we have walls and windows and I can speak to you knowing who’s in the room, but in the online world, you get to a ‘Share’ box and you share with the whole world,” Bradley Horowitz, a vice president for product management at Google is quoted as saying by the NYtimes.

There is a lot of "who cares?" discussion out there but this is one blogger who is anxiously awaiting a Facebook alternative. I've never really embraced Facebook, though I do have an account and have maintained a quiet presence there. Living a more controlled existence is very appealing to me. I've got better things to do than play Farmville or to know what achievement you've unlocked, thank you.

Anxiously awaiting my invite.

The Challenges Of Being Social In A Time Of Unrest

What is a website to do when it's become a platform for public outcry and organized opposition? When you are a social site that is being used by both government supporters and reform activists alike you have some tough decisions to make.

Flickr, it seems, has found itself at the center of an ethical quandary. The photo sharing giant owned by Yahoo has taken down photographs uploaded by an Egyptian blogger and human rights activist because the photos violated their terms of service. It seems that  Hossam el-Hamalawy posted the head shots of Egyptian State Police officers to Flickr in the hopes of making his countrymen aware of their identities and keeping them out of the new post revolution government. The problem is that el-Hamalawy did not take the photos himself but rather gained them through a raid on a State Police headquarters by revolutionaries.  Flickr removed the photos saying that el-Hamalawy did not take them himself and was therefore not the rightful owner, this is a violation of their terms.

While I sympathize with the plight of the Egyptian people and understand fully what Mr el-Hamalawy was attempting to do in identifying figures known to be associated with a corrupt regime, I don't think it is Flickr's place to act as middle man in a political debate. They did the only thing that they could do, stick to their terms of service. Perhaps Wikileaks would have been a more appropriate platform for Mr. el-Hamalawy's cause.

Thoughts?

Source: NYTimes.com

Sock Puppet Theatre

The guardian.co.uk is reporting that the US military has contracted a Californian corporation to create software which would allow military personnel to create and maintain multiple online persona, up to 10 identities each, based all over the globe. In other words a single person would maintain, monitor, and distribute comments to and from 10 online personalities, sock puppets, in order to spread propaganda misinformation.

Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US." Claiming that none of the interventions would be conducted in English as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" in such fashion. Interventions would be conducted in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto.

While it is very noble of them to strike English from their vocabulary, if you've followed any of the coverage coming out of the recent unrest abroad, you'll have undoubtedly noted that many if not all of the media outlets are heavily relying on Twitter and Facebook accounts of the situations on the ground to report the "news". What's to say that the news being reported to us is not coming from Centcom?

Interesting, scary, and not surprising all at the same time.  

LinkedIn The Social Network For Business Networking Files For IPO

In the good ole days a businessman's social network meant a lot of "pressing the flesh" and if you worked your network just right there might be a payoff. In today's world business folks are making connections by reaching out to their online network, mostly via LinkedIn an 8 year old Mountain View, California based social network for grown ups (and by grown ups I mean anyone who has, wants, needs a job, sales, or an introduction from an acquaintance or colleague... past or present).

Yesterday LinkedIn filed papers with the Securities Exchange Commission regarding it's intent to make an initial public offering (IPO). According to it's filing LinkedIn managed sales of $161.4 million in the first nine months of 2010 equaling profits of $10 million. I guess you could say that a down economy is probably not a bad thing for growing a user base for a service like LinkedIn, and a turn around will do it a great deal of good as 41% of it's revenues come from it's "hiring solutions".

What will make this one an interesting IPO to watch is that it's coming in advance of some other expected offerings and will undoubtedly test the waters and set investor expectations.

Trimming The Fat On Social

A new social network, like we haven't heard that before, has emerged that aims to trim your friends list to a mere 50 people. Imagine!

Path is the brainchild of former Facebook executive Dave Morin and is "a photo-centric social hub that limits the number of friends you can have to 50."

The number is in fact based on an Oxford University Professor's research. Professor Robin Dunbar suggests that 150 is the maximum number of social connections that the human brain can sustain and that 50 is roughly the outer limit for our personal networks.

The average Facebook user has 130 connections but very active users, with very fragile egos, can have an average of 1,000 "friends".

"Facebook set out to be a social network of the real world full of friends and acquaintances together," said Mr Morin.

"Facebook is about society and I think the need we are seeing at Path is that people still want to share more and share more openly with the people they trust the most and that is why we put this 50 limit on the service."

Path's vice president of business development Matt Van Horn says "Networks have grown to become too large in scale and that means people start sharing with people they might not trust or truly know. That influences their sharing behaviour and changes entirely what they are willing to post and share online". 

Check out the BBC article, Path seems to have a lot of heavy weight investors and former Facebook players. The beauty is it seems to be centered around mobile as opposed to a website that supports mobile. iPhone is supported now and the company plans to release android and Blackberry versions soon.

Lunch On Wheels Fueled By Tweets

There was a time when mobile caterers rolled up to a spot and wailed on the horn to bring out the customers, now they tweet their whereabouts and let the cash box fill up. Wired has compiled a few of the more notable "Tweetcarts" like the original @kogibbq. I love to see businesses use technology in new ways to rack up sales... now if only these mobile businesses would start using community-based digital signage  :)

RockMelt, The Browser With Social In Mind

Okay, so I've stepped into line for the RockMelt Beta Test which formally opened yesterday. I'm not quite sure what to expect, I've already got 5 browsers installed on pc. So why do I need RockMelt? Well, for one thing I'm a software tester now and I'd better see how it plays with our service, though I'm almost certain that's not what RockMelt is all about. Seems as if this browser is mostly focused on being Social, which also intrigues me, and as such it is getting a fair amount of press this morning. I'll give it a go as soon as I get my e-mail invite and let you know what I think but in the mean while check out this promo video:

Where I Work In Plain English

Five months ago, almost  to the day, I started work at ScreenScape Networks a relatively young company that was in expansion mode. The previous several years of my working life had taken it's toll on me both mentally and physically and ScreenScape was an exciting new opportunity that I embraced with great enthusiasm. I was introduced to the company founder, Mark Hemphill, through a mutual friend and from the moment I began talking to Mark and the rest of the folks at ScreenScape I knew there was something special going on here.

I did my due diligence, played with a free Test Drive account, spoke to people working here, and to customers of the company around town. Mark, I'm sure, did his due diligence as well and the rest as they say is history. I have not for a moment regretted the move, and I embrace each and every day with the knowledge that something wonderful is happening here. The days fly by and our team is constantly improving upon an already incredible product, this is the most productive team that I've ever had the pleasure of working with. Don't get me wrong, I've worked with hundreds of good people, and a handful of great people, but talented people alone can not make up for bureaucracy, communication issues, questionable management policies, and other productivity zapping corporate practices... but I digress.

Recently ScreenScape had the following video produced and it does an incredible job of explaining what it is that we are so diligently working on. Check it out, and if you see the merits in what we are producing check us out... knowing that there is an extremely motivated, awesome team, behind every line of code.

ps. I write this entirely of my own volition.

Tweet

Facebook Places - foursquare And Gowalla On Board?

Last night Facebook announced it's entry into location based services and the giant offered foursquare and Gowalla a chance to sing the praises of "Places" and it's api. There had been a lot of speculation of late that Facebook may have been in the market to acquire one of these smaller players or that their entry would simply squash them out of existence. The move, at least on the surface, of making places an open api for the smaller companies to hang their code onto is either an olive branch or perhaps a trial balloon. In any event it will be interesting to see how this plays out and if being a feeder for Facebook (they will consume data driven from foursquare and Gowalla but not offer anything in the other direction) helps to accelerate the growth of these services. If the later is true, I hope they can keep up with the Facebook affect!

foursquare Superuser To The Rescue!

An honor has been bestowed upon me, one that I really hadn't realized that I had received until I was comparing accounts on foursquare.com with a few co-workers. It seems that I am a Superuser and with this comes super powers... well not really but I am able to help foursquare maintain their data regarding their venues. Dare i say it? "With great power comes great responsibility"... you knew I would!

So, what is a Superuser and how do you become one? (like a lot of foursquares's badges they are quite secretive about how to achieve them). We were able to do a quick Google search and ascertain the following: 

"Superusers are regular users who’ve been hand selected by the Foursquare staff to help maintain the venue database.

There are two types of superusers, Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 superusers have the ability to edit any venue, including name, address, map pin location and tags. They can also suggest duplicate venues to be merged and mark venues as closed.

Level 2 superusers have all the abilities of a Level 1 superuser, but they can also complete merges suggested by other superusers and add categories to venues. To merge venues, they use a special interface that shows both venues to be merged. They can choose which information to keep from each venue page, but they cannot choose which map pin should be kept. This is why it’s important to choose the location with the best map pin when suggesting venues to be merged.

A Level 3 superuser option exists which allows those superusers to create and remove venue aliases. Due to the potential for abuse, however, this level has never been awarded is only awarded very rarely." http://aboutfoursquare.com/faq-what-is-a-superuser/

The biggest issue I've had with foursquare to date is that I can be standing in the doorway of a venue and be told that I'm hundreds of meters away, I always just chalked that up to my phone or provider but now I am able to see and correct the issue for all foursquare players and the power in the universe has shifted on the side of good! May the foursquare be with you. (Sorry, but I crack me up some times.)

Foursquare Raises $20,000,000 Round B Financing

The one and a half year old location-based social sensation Foursquare has just secured a $20 million Series B investment led by VCs Andreessen Horowitz, with Union Square Ventures and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures also participating. According to Business Insider:

• Foursquare can finally start working on its product again after moving a lot of resources to building out its infrastructure, which was crumbling after its huge growth.

• Foursquare can finally start hiring again because it's moving into bigger offices. Before, it couldn't physically put more people in the room.

• For the forseeable future, Foursquare will continue to be one main app -- not a bunch of apps for different purposes.

The deal values the company at $95 million pre-financing.

We have several players in our office and the competition is really heating up... Congrats Foursquare! We look forward to seeing more great stuff now that you've got the money behind you.

LinkedIn Attempts To Assure Users That It Does Not Face Privacy Issues Of Facebook

Speaking at the annual Mesh web conference in Toronto Arvind Rajan, LinkedIn's vice-president of international operations, tried to assure attendees that his company was very different from other social sites and did not face the same issues that Facebook is under fire for."It's not about your personal life or your social life, it's about your professional engagement and success," Rajan said, and  "That, by its very nature, helps us differentiate ourselves from other social networks."

Rajan also eluded to the fact that his companies users are more sophisticated and perhaps more educated and mature than say Facebook's users. "Everything you do on LinkedIn is tied to your professional identity and brand," Rajan said. "Nothing's anonymous. Because of that, people are pretty careful about what they say because they don't want to look uninformed." The average LinkedIn user is said to be 41 years of age with a household income of more than $100,000 per year.

I can go along with that... very different audience on LinkedIn, that's for sure.

Read more: CBC News 

Please Rob Me, Really?

Boy Van Amstel and a group of Dutch developers created pleaserobme.com to prove a point about the dangers of sharing your precise location information on the internet, according to this BBC article."It started with me and a friend looking at our Twitter feeds and seeing more and more Foursquare posts," said Van Amstel, one of PleaseRobMe's developers."People were checking in at their house, or their girlfriend's or friend's house, and sharing the address - I don't think they were aware of how much they were sharing."

While the site does heighten awareness to the potential dangers of broadcasting your current location online, I think the logic is slightly flawed as it assumes a number of things:

1. That you live alone;

2. That you haven't taken any precautions against theft; and

3. That the bad guys are sifting through millions of tweets to single you out.

Not to say that there aren't potential risks and that you shouldn't take precautions! I just don't buy into the notion that this makes you any more vulnerable than the next guy, if you use you head a little.

Thanks for the post idea Dawn!

Confusion Over Blogging/Tweets By Olympic Athletes In Vancouver

It appears as though the athletes are unsure of the Olympic Committee's stance on blogging and tweeting from the games.however, Bob Condron, the Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee says “Athletes are free to blog during the Games,”  “And Twitter is just a blog that’s written 140 characters at a time.”

There will be  some restrictions on what athletes can do online during the games. The IOC Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games, says that accredited people, including athletes, must keep their posts confined to their personal experiences. “You can’t act as a journalist if you aren’t,” says Condron. “You need to do things in a first person way.”

“These are going to be the Twitter Olympics,” says Condron. “There’s no telling where the updates will come from. It could be the bench during a hockey game, or even on the medal stand."

I wonder how much this will affect Twitter's numbers as the world tunes into the Olympics?

Source: Wired

Just How Fast Is Social Media?

In the immediate minutes and hours following the devastating earth quake in Haiti, long before the reporters and the relief efforts got underway, the social networks were abuzz with tidbits of information streaming in from on people the ground. "heavy earth quake right now!" "I see at a distance clouds of dust." "Hundreds of dead body in the collapse of Hotel Montana." "parts of the Palace have collapsed." "Phones seem to be out. . . . Communication is at a standstill."

This is a similar trend that has been witnessed during a recent quake near Eureka California earlier this month, the miracle landing on the Hudson river, and the wild fires that ravaged Los Angeles in '09. The trend is being dubbed "self-reporting" and for many, including myself, has been the first alert to breaking news around the globe. More than just a social network, sites like Twitter are becoming our Bat Signal, informing us that something worth taking note of is happening, and perhaps in many cases is a true perspective on situations from those going through them first hand rather than those concerned with ratings and appeasing advertisers.

Source: LATimes.com

   

Trending Topics For 2010

Pete Cashmore the founder and CEO of Mashable has prepared a list of the top ten web/technology trends to look out for in 2010. Real-time, location based, and cloud computing all make the list as well as all things social. It's brief overview but definitely worth a read if you want to stay with the geek talk around the water cooler (or bunch bowl).

#red Google / Twitter Going Red For World Aids Day

#red Google and other high profile sites such as Twitter are going red for World AIDS day. The Official Google Blog is advocating the following as a means of supporting the fight of AIDS in Africa:

Taking action has never been easier. Our World AIDS Day page offers plenty of options:

• Learn more about the global effort to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS at UNAIDS, International AIDS Society, or LIVING PROOF.
• Find volunteer opportunities in your area at All for Good.
• Advocate for action with the ONE Campaign.
• Give (RED) for friends and family this holiday season.
• Unite with others at the Global Network of People Living with HIV.

Exploding Or Eroding Your Brand Via Social Networking

Social media savvy can come in handy while trying to market your business, brand, product, or service; however the Globe and Mail has compiled a list of anecdotal evidence and they've spoken with the "experts" who warn that the opposite can also be true. The truth of the matter is that exploiting social media is like a wild fire rather than a controlled burn, and just as you might hope the winds are in your favour, they'll sometimes turn on you and you'll get burned!

"...where potential returns come with risk, summarized in this warning from Della Smith, the principal of Q Workshops: With social media, “you can do a lot of brand damage very easily.”"

Check out Timothy Taylor's "Are Twitter and Facebook evil?" a short, but interesting read.

Facebook Positioning For An IPO?

Facebook announced Tuesday that it was creating two classes of stocks for itself and converting all existing stock into so-called Class B shares with 10 voting units per share. Class A shares which could be sold at an initial public offering would represent 1 vote per share.

“We did introduce a dual-class stock structure because existing shareholders wanted to maintain control over voting on certain issues to help ensure the company can continue to focus on the long term to build a great business,” a Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, said in an e-mailed statement. “This revision to the stock structure should not be construed as a signal the company is planning to go public.”

What this does is allows the company, via a public offering, to raise cash by selling the Class A shares on the open market while retaining a firm grip on things with it's Class B shares. While they may be denying that an IPO is in the works the signs are pointing in that direction.

Source: New York Times

Taking Social Media Rejections To Heart

If you feel the sting of a "defriending" or "unfollowing" you are apparently not alone. In this world of ever expanding online social networks it seems rejection cuts equally as deep as it does in the real world. CNN's Breeanna Hare takes a look at how feelings get hurt in social media circles in this interesting article.

"People tend to think that these relationships are trivial and not very deep, but this is what we're moving towards, having a lot of our communications play out over the Internet," Purdue University social psychologist Kip Williams said. "That's the way it's becoming; this is how we interpret our worth. People care how many [online] friends they have."

To quote Brad Paisley "I'm so much cooler online"