03.01.08
Posted in Software and Web Apps at 11:59 am by Administrator
From the RSS feeds, we found a post from Matt linking to an article about one person’s suggestions for making wordpress.com more of a social network.
My comment on this post about wordpress fixes to make it more of a social network, from Rashmi.
There have been several wordpress MU sites that incorporate similar features, as dr mike pointed out in an earlier comment. There have even been a couple sets of plugins specifically made to turn a wordpress installation into more myspace like look.
I think there are a few single instance wordpresses running with multiple authors and contributors registered, that share similar pages to the ones you described aren’t there?
I do look forward to more unique blends of wordpress to shine across the internet for a while to come, it is constantly improving and there are many people using it in many different ways. I can’t wait to see what the community creates over the next couple of years, and I am sure you will see many more social networks using wordpress as a core. We are currently testing an MU based social network (or two 
I appreciate your points and suggestions for ways to make it function more like a facebook-like social network, I believe your ideas are valid.
The comments there have made me think what it would be like to create a custom page theme template (for the about page) that would add the author information into the top of the about page. This would be a simple easy way to get the author info shown, now to just get everyone to fill it all in.
As open Id and data portability continue to grow as well, I hope that it becomes easier for internet authors to fill in their info quickly, accurately, and with choice of which information to propagate and share.
Social networks and the software that runs them will continue to grow and evolve, and people like you sharing your comments about ways to improve will constantly make it better.
As Louis James points out in another of the comments there, flickr is already very social, I in fact recommended it in an email to an old friend just the other day, and sent her my flickr address. Flickr is an easy sell to people with it’s free photo sharing and the ability to mark some pictures just for friends and some pictures just for family. Of course you can also have some set for public, and you do have somewhat of a profile with flickr. Hadn’t quite looked at the profile that way, but it does have a lot of info there. neat observation Louis.
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02.09.08
Posted in Internet Business, Software and Web Apps at 2:40 am by Administrator
We’ve been consulting for several clients about social networks and keeping a close eye on the developments of various social network software and the niche sites that are springing up and using them. There have been some new developments in both areas, here’s a few we’d like to highlight.
Automattic (wordpress parent company, creators of BBpress and Akismet spam eliminator) has recently gotten 29 million dollars in funding. Automattic has decided to hold off on being bought out entirely and is looking to furtherit’s anti-spam, identity, wikis, forums, and more - small, open source pieces, loosely joined with the same approach and philosophy that has brought them this far. Today I stumbled upon a new theme for wordpress that makes it easy to use wordpress as a twitter like, many to many messaging system for groups, private or public. Can’t wait to see how people hack it up and what kind of cms social network mashups will be created using this functionality.
In other recent finds, we stumbled upon a list of 350 social networks listed at Mashable. We also found a social networking watch site with info about new social networking sites. We found several linked to articles at mahalo about a new adult social network type of site called zivity.
We also found a USA today article describing how it is very difficult to verify ages for those who sign up for social networks. an excerpt:
MySpace has recently implemented policies designed to better separate kids from adults. Among the changes, adult MySpace users must already know a 14- or 15-year-old user’s e-mail address or full name to initiate contact or view a profile containing personal information.
However, because age is self-reported, as it is at similar sites, adults could simply sign up as minors.
There are tools to verify age, but they work best for porn, wine-sales and other sites meant for adults only.
A credit card, for instance, could demonstrate that a user is of age, notwithstanding a teen’s ability to “borrow” a card from Dad’s wallet.
More robust techniques like those from IDology Inc. and Sentinel Tech Holding Corp.’s Sentry check addresses, birth dates and other information users provide against public databases, such as voting and property records.
But many social-networking sites cater to both adults and teens - and teens can be difficult to verify.
Minors “do not possess as many unique identifiers as adults do,” said Adam Thierer, a senior fellow with the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a technology think tank that shuns government regulation. “They are not voters yet. They don’t have home mortgages or car loans. Most don’t have drivers licenses until they are 16.”
Many states restrict the disclosure of drivers license data on minors, and school administrators guard their registration records fiercely.
“Do parents really want … that kind of information available on their children?” Collier asked.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said raising the minimum age to 16 from 14 would help because many teens have drivers licenses by then. He has called for federal incentives for sites like MySpace to perform age verification.
Attorneys General Jim Petro of Ohio and Greg Abbott of Texas, meanwhile, support verification via credit card, while Massachusetts’ Tom Reilly has called for unspecified “age and identity verification.”
“Don’t tell me it can’t be done,” Blumenthal said. “It’s a question of whether the company in good faith really wants to know those ages and sacrifice some of the excitement and coolness that comes with anonymity.”
Getting a reliable system developed could require expenditures and perhaps result in a smaller base of users, he said, “but if we can invent the Internet, … surely there are means to verify the ages of those individuals, or such means can be developed.”
Facebook takes a stab at verification by restricting access only to those with a valid e-mail address from a high school, college or participating company. It is happy to have 8 million registered users, less than 10% of MySpace’s.
Industrious Kid Inc.’s imbee, for kids 8 to 14, requires parents to submit credit cards to vouch for their children.
Of course, an adult may “vouch” for an alter ego and use that to chat with kids. Thus, all imbee profiles are initially private, and adults can’t do much without tricking a parent into letting them join a child’s network, said Tim Donovan, imbee’s vice president of marketing.
Zoey’s Room, a site for girls 10-14, has verified each of its 300 members with a school or youth group. It charges $15 a year.
“It does cost to create safe communities,” said Erin Reilly, co-founder of the organization that runs Zoey’s Room. “I would rather have a manageable population and keep them all safe … instead of looking for a million unique visitors.”
IDology believes its technology could help keep children safe. A verified adult could be given greater access and the ability to share profiles openly. Anyone not willing or able to be verified, including teens, would be left with limited access and private profiles.
But any technical solution tough enough to work would penalize legitimate users who cannot be verified, said John Cardillo, Sentry’s chief executive. Even 18- and 19-year-olds aren’t fully in public databases yet, he said.
MySpace, instead, has been trying to catch minors after the fact.
It has technology to scan for inconsistencies and teams of employees to investigate further. For example, a user who claims to be 18 might mention a sixth-grade class elsewhere in the profile, or feature a photo of a birthday cake with only 13 candles.
Safety experts warn that creating too many barriers could drive kids to another social-networking site with fewer controls, or perhaps free-for-all chat rooms.
And ineffective solutions, they say, could give parents and children a false sense of security, increasing the dangers.
Ron Teixeira, executive director for the National Cyber Security Alliance, said parents should teach children an online equivalent of “Don’t take candy from strangers.” That way, he said, kids will know what to do should social networking be replaced by the next big fad.
It seems that social networks are increasingly in demand for communicating today, and there will continue to be new ways for users to share information. We had even seen a short video somewhere that talked about ways to use linkedin as a business networking social app. Certainly there will be much learning for everyone on the best ways to use these powerful communication tools, and there will undoubtedly be more technology coming to help keep everyone happier, more productive and in touch.
It is our hope that the openid standard will continue to flourish, and that it will be easier for people to take a certain amount of profile information from one network to another, so we don’t have to keep typing in tons of information for every social circle we want to participate in. Of course safe guarding data, privacy, ease of use, and data portability should be at the fore front of these emerging technologies.
We are getting there. There are many great ways for people to communicate and share today, there are certainly going to be some growing pains, but the numbers show that there is great need for millions of people to do more online together, and the companies that do it right stand to make millions happy.
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12.10.07
Posted in Internet Business, Software and Web Apps at 1:32 am by Administrator
from yahoo news / reuters
Pluck hooking up media outlets with social networks
By Robert MacMillan 30 minutes ago
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Online media syndication company Pluck Corp said on Wednesday it would give traditional media companies the ability to link their Web sites to online social networks like MySpace and Facebook.
The move would allow people to leave comments on news Web sites that then show up on their social network profiles, allowing the traditional media outlets to reach people where they are spending increasing amounts of time on the Internet, said Pluck Chief Executive Dave Panos.
This is important to media companies that are trying to build up their online audiences as they lose readers and advertising revenue for their print editions.
“If I comment on a story about the presidential primary, the story itself is going to be noted on my Facebook profile, and so is the comment I made,” he said.
Companies using Pluck’s technology include USA Today publisher Gannett Co Inc (GCI.N), Discovery Communications, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, Runner’s World publisher Rodale and Better Homes & Gardens publisher Meredith Corp (MDP.N).
“People are interested in sharing experiences around news,” said Jim Brady, executive editor of The Washington Post Co’s (WPO.N) Web site, washingtonpost.com, which also is participating.
Brady said that could build up more loyal readers for the Web site while exposing the Post’s news to many of Facebook’s 55 million users worldwide. MySpace, owned by News Corp (NWSa.N), has about 110 million users worldwide.
“We’re not trying to be Facebook or MySpace,” he said. “By giving ourselves a hook into the bigger social networks, it allows us to get more pollination.”
The move allows traditional media companies to associate themselves with popular social networks whose members — typically younger than the average newspaper reader — are considered the most valuable to advertisers on- and offline.
“If you’re a media company, you’re now attracting more users to your site,” Panos said. “For them, I think it’s about reaching a broader audience, and maybe a younger demographic.”
Reuters Group (RTR.L) (RTRSY.O) which made a $7 million investment in Pluck last year and has an undisclosed ownership stake, also is a participant.
Media companies will be able to link up with Facebook starting in the first quarter of 2008, Pluck said. Networks that are part of Google Inc’s (GOOG.O) OpenSocial technology for independent software developers — which includes MySpace as a member — will be able to use Pluck’s technology by mid-2008.
(Editing by Carol Bishopric)
I am glad to see so many social network deployments these days. Competition keeps things healthy. Hopefully we will all benefit from multiple companies pushing various software for social networks and they will all keep getting better and better. We are currently testing a few social network platforms for various clients of different sizes with different needs. There is also much talk around the shop about sharing information among the social networks. You can see this similar goal being developed with google’s open social, and the openid platform. Of course avoiding end user privacy issues is always a concern, but making things easier for end users to log into and use the various social sites and choosing which information to share or keep private and semi private is going to be of paramount importance.
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11.14.07
Posted in Software and Web Apps at 8:08 am by Administrator
Maybe it’s a beta, I have not yet had time to look through all the information about the new features that Moveable Type is adding, but I like where they are going with it, and I love the language skills of the people interviewed and quoted on Tech Crunch from the MT team. I’d love to have a version of this to play with, and I should have figured it’s only a matter of time; there are several similar features and a few social network type sites that have been rolled with with the wordpress mu platform already. Hopefully both will learn from each other and the flexibility of these great apps will be improved and internet discussions will become better and better.
An excerpt from the article at tech crunch:
Dash emphasized that MTCS is a “serious commercial product.”
It’ll likely cost a few thousand dollars to start, and the target audience is serious, large-scale communities like media companies, major brands, educational institutions, and intranet/enterprise deployments. I suspect that smaller independent sites will mostly grab a small number of free plugins that reproduce some of this functionality on a smaller scale and use that with the free version of MT if they are price-sensitive.
Read the whole article at tech crunch and see what I mean about the excellent language used to describe the move by the MT team.
Link to demo of the features from MT.
The blog here at Global Advanced Media was originally started with the movable type platform, we have since moved to the wordpress software, but we have always had an affinity for the MT features, ever Leo Laporte mentioned it on Tech TV years ago. We’re glad to see that MT is moving forward.
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06.23.06
Posted in Podcasting / Podcasts, Software and Web Apps at 3:22 am by Administrator
Pluggd podcast community launched
Found via TechCrunch, this new podcast directory / social sharing of tags and stuff-kind-of-site is very cool. Incorporating many features that make it the best on the web. I would expect every other podcast directory to adapt many of the features that this is incoroporating, especially the web crawl feature. - Check it out - Pluggd Podcast Directory.
There are many cool social netwrok / sharing / tagging featured with this cool new directory, read more about it at TechCrunch.
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06.17.06
Posted in Podcasting / Podcasts, Software and Web Apps at 10:38 pm by Administrator
Very cool, glad someone else is doing this so I don’t have to…
From Techcrunch
TalkShoe is a podcasting service and directory that combines recorded conference calls with revenue sharing for show hosts. It appears to be very simple to use and the community elements make me think this service could be successful. I can’t imagine many show hosts are going to make much money off of this, but the online video world has shown that when sharing is easy people will do it.
If the world really is changing to put user generated content at the center of media, some body’s going to find the right formula for audio. This looks like a move in the right direction.
Here’s how TalkShoe works. A Windows desktop client allows up to 25 people to participate in a conversation and chat behind the scenes. Calls are automatically recorded and entered into the site’s podcast directory. Show hosts receive money from the site’s ad revenues according to the number of their show’s listeners and for referring others to the service.
Google ads, ads in feeds and audio ads inserted in the podcasts themselves will all be used to monetize the site.
Conversations can be public or private and site visitors are encouraged to call in to live recordings underway. Participants can use telephone, Skype, Vonage or Yahoo to call in. The company says that SIP support is coming soon.
Finished podcasts are entered into the TalkShoe podcast directory where users can write reviews and leave comments. The site is set up to encourage subscription and scheduling of future episodes. There’s not a whole lot of activity on the site yet, but it looks like it could really catch on.
Featured podcasts so far include shows on Barry Bonds’ home run race, wine making at home, traveling in Italy and a debate between Mac and PC enthusiasts.
Many people say that podcasting is still too difficult for non-technical users. TalkShoe seems pretty simple. If there really are a large number of people interested in creating or listening to home-made audio content, this service could be a good way for them to do so.
Read the whole article with photos and comments at TechCrunch.
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06.08.06
Posted in Internet Business, Software and Web Apps at 3:38 am by Administrator
From Business Week:
But behind the peculiarities, Web 2.0 portends a real sea change on the Internet. If there’s one thing they have in common, it’s what they’re not. Web 2.0 sites are not online places to visit so much as services to get something done — usually with other people. From Yahoo!’s (YHOO) photo-sharing site Flickr and the group-edited online reference source Wikipedia to the teen hangout MySpace, and even search giant Google (GOOG), they all virtually demand active participation and social interaction (see BW Online, 9/26/05, “It’s A Whole New Web”). If these Web 2.0 folks weren’t so geeky, they might call it the Live Web.
And though these Web 2.0 services have succeeded in luring millions of consumers to their shores, they haven’t had much to offer the vast world of business. Until now.
Read more from Business Week…
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05.19.06
Posted in Software and Web Apps at 6:52 am by Administrator
It’s not entirely accurate, obviously, but it is a fun way to get an idea of some of the factors that make your domain valuable, or not so valuable.. check out the info at Leapfish for more info!
from Leapfish:
How do you determine a value?
“We have gathered data on thousands of domain names that have sold recently and how much they sold for in order to create what we like to call the Value Multiplier. This is a magic number you multiply by your CVS by to achieve an estimated value based on historical sales and current domain value. This estimated base value is generally used as a guideline in selecting a minimum sale value. The estimated actual value is directly derived from the base value and attempts to reflect actual potential. Some domain names do not have a high enough demand unable to meet this number, so please do not assume this value is absolute.”
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