Who’s Amung Us Update

http://whos.amung.us

Since the launch of Graphs.Amung.Us, the Whos.Amung.Us site has seen a dramatic increase in the time it takes to load the page. I’ve also noticed that the little icon used to display how many concurrent users are on your site at one time has occasionally disappeared. The icon, when clicked on, is also producing Internal-500 errors which is shining proof that the infrastructure behind the service is maxed out. Christopher Shannon has recently posted a blog entry that clarifies the issues currently ongoing:

We’ve been experiencing a huge surge in traffic lately, and our current infrastructure is stretched to the max right now, but we are working as fast as we can to get things back up to the blazing fasts speeds we used to enjoy, so just bare with us for a couple more days.

Good thing they recently added Google ads to a few of their pages or else WhosAmungUs would probably go belly up.

Who’s Amung Us Update

http://whos.amung.us

Since the launch of Graphs.Amung.Us, the Whos.Amung.Us site has seen a dramatic increase in the time it takes to load the page. I’ve also noticed that the little icon used to display how many concurrent users are on your site at one time has occasionally disappeared. The icon, when clicked on, is also producing Internal-500 errors which is shining proof that the infrastructure behind the service is maxed out. Christopher Shannon has recently posted a blog entry that clarifies the issues currently ongoing:

We’ve been experiencing a huge surge in traffic lately, and our current infrastructure is stretched to the max right now, but we are working as fast as we can to get things back up to the blazing fasts speeds we used to enjoy, so just bare with us for a couple more days.

Good thing they recently added Google ads to a few of their pages or else WhosAmungUs would probably go belly up.

Pownce Thoughts Plus 10 Invites

http://www.pownce.comAlthough this won’t be a thorough review, I thought I would post my thoughts on Pownce. I now have a total of 10 invitations to the service. If you want one, please leave a comment which includes a working email address and I’ll send you one.

First, you have to ask yourself, how much free time in the day do you have to join yet another social network. Twitter, Jaiku, ect and now Pownce. In order to be successful within these social networks you either have to be popular in the real world, or you need to actively contribute and participate within the community for that particular service. Do you have the time to do so?

Honestly, I think if someone were to take the best of Twitter, with the best of Jaiku, added a few features that Pownce has, establish an open API, you would have something that blows all three out of the water. I don’t think Pownce has what it takes to knock Twitter or Jaiku off the map. Pownce reminds me more of an instant messenger client rather than a micro blogging service which is why I don’t understand why so many people are comparing Pownce to the likes of Twitter and Jaiku.

I would rather see a review of Pownce as it compares to AIM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, ect. Then we could really see what Pownce has to offer. One thing I noticed with Pownce is that they at least have some sort of revenue stream by offering an ad free client for $20.00 Something AIM nor any other messenger offers. Jaiku has a few Google ads on the right hand side of it’s site, but I wonder how much revenue they bring in.

Simple and short, Pownce defines what it means to be beta. There are quite a few things missing that would make Pownce a complete package, open API to name one of them. Hopefully, the Pownce team will remedy the shortfalls associated with the client. I am looking forward to watching Pownce give all of the other instant messenger clients a run for their money.

I have a total of 10 invitations. Simply leave a comment on this post with a valid email address and I will send you one, then you can provide us with your own opinion.

Jaiku Fixes Annoying Problem

http://www.jaiku.comFinally, Jaiku has fixed an annoying problem which I have been giving them hell about for quite some time. Twit actually has a channel on Jaku that I joined awhile back. Twit or (This Week In Tech) is administered by Leo Laporte and as you can imagine the channel became very popular very fast.

On the right hand side of the channel area is anumber which represents the amount of users who have joined that channel. Underneath that number, every user who is part of the channel also has their avatar displayed.

Once the channel member count reached about 1,000 it became apparent that something was wrong. The text that a member would type into the text area box would appear slowly while the images on the right hand side would load. All 1,000 images. I’m not sure if the amount of user avatars being displayed had something to do with the Ajax part of the page but it slowed everything to a crawl which became very annoying.

Only A Few Avatars Are Displayed

I am happy to say that Jaiku has fixed this problem. Now if you look at the right hand side of the Twit channel, you should see a list of member Avatars and then a MORE link which will provide you a page with even more avatars. Thank you Jaiku for fixing this annoying issue. Browsing and posting in popular channels has become fun again!

Web 2.0 Convergence

Valeria Maltoni posted an email she received from Greg Verdino which contained a paragraph that struck a chord with me.

One biggish issue that nobody is really talking about is that anyone who starts using more than one of these services (or multiple social networks, sharing sites, etc) finds herself with multiple circles of friends, constantly updating various profiles/status posts, etc – there isn’t any way for a user to bring all of their stuff/friendships/updates together in a single interface — which can be a real pain if you’re in MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube and del.icio.us. YIKES!”

Wow, this guy hit the nail on the head! Bill Gates always seems to talk about convergence with technology but I feel that because of the amount of Web 2.0 sites/services, social networks that have sprung up across the web, now would be a good time for a business venture to figure out, Web 2.0 convergence. Right now, users could probably get away with using RSS feeds on different sites in order to converge their online presence. Let me give you an example.

I use Twitter and Jaiku, two micro blogging platforms. Twitter being the main service that I use to post updates and links to my blog. I take my Twitter RSS feed and post it into Jaiku so that my Twitter updates can be viewed on Jaiku. I also take my Twitter feed and place it into my Tumblr account so that Twitter updates are displayed on my Tumblelog. Facebook has a Twitter application which takes care of my Twitter updates showing up on my Facebook account.

The downside to using this method is that, most of these sites do not check RSS feeds in real-time. At the very least, the feeds are checked once per half hour, meaning that what you post on twitter now, wouldn’t appear on any other site that is displaying your Twitter RSS feed for at least 30 minutes. Sure it’s not real time, but it works.

What I am trying to accomplish, is to join these other social networks and then join the communities inside of those networks that correspond to the content on my blog. I’m trying to build power profiles on these specific sites which will provide updates to my friends attached to those profiles, hopefully via Twitter.

Sorry for going on a tangent here but reading that paragraph up above sparked this response! Just thought I would share what I am trying to do in order to converge all of this stuff so I am not doing what is described above, being apart of 50 different networks, spending all of my time providing separate updates to those sites. What a nightmare that would be.

Friend Redefined

I was trolling around my blog feeds the other day and came across a post, written by, Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent. The article revolves around the question, Are There Too Many Social Networks? Near the middle of this post, Valeria says the following:

How many friends do you really have? How many people can you really call friends? I mentioned I have an extensive network in a previous post, these are not all friends and most do not read my blog.

This is something I have been thinking about for quite some time. Here we are, in the middle of this web 2.0 social networking craze, adding people as friends that may not be friends at all. If I were to ask a majority of social networking users if most of the people on their friends list could actually be considered friends, I have a hunch that the answer would be no, which leads me to my next question.

With the advent of social networks, has the term FRIEND lost it’s meaning? Just because a user is on your friends list, does that make them a true friend? According to Wiktionary, a friend is defined as, A person other than a family member, spouse or lover whose company one enjoys and towards whom one feels affection. Can you honestly say that you feel this way towards everyone on your friends list?

If the meaning of the word FRIEND has changed, due to social networking on the web, then what would the new definition be? Am I paranoid, or does anyone else see a problem here?

Would You Pay For An Invite?

In a recent post, I described a conversation I had with my father concerning invitations and if there was a business opportunity in the making by perhaps, selling these invitations. Here is what was discussed.

I asked my dad if he thought that perhaps, there would be some sort of business opportunity surrounding invitations to these new services. Allow people to bid on an invite or pay a low price. My father responded by saying “people won’t pay for something that is free, or that they could obtain by some other means.”

Turns out, my father was wrong. While browsing around on Ebay, I came across a few auctions in which the item being sold was an invitation to GrandCentral, the new service which was acquired by Google. Here is a link to an auction that has already ended as you can see, there are other auctions taking place, asking for as much as $10.00 for the invitation.

Now I can’t wait to tell my dad that people are willing to pay money for something that really has no monetary value. Would you be willing to pay for an invite?

Pownce Users Soliciting Diggs

Pownce.com Kevin Rose's New Startup

Here is an interesting story I came across via Mashable Apparently, Pownce users are beginning to use their accounts to solicit diggs. It’s interesting because, Digg.com has recently implemented features that try to prohibit lobbying such as removing the top digg users list. The tactic being used on Pownce seems to be working and it will be interesting to see if Kevin Rose allows it to continue.

The last thing I would want to see on Pownce is pages and pages full of PLEASE DIGG posts. What do you think of the situation?

11 Steps To Being A Good Facebook Friend

https://i0.wp.com/jeffc.me/images/valleywaglogo.pngValleywag has put together a list of steps towards becoming a good Facebook friend. Which ones do you think work?

The steps are as follows:

1. Get in the friend zone.

2. Be the interesting one.

3. Interact with your friends.

4. Let it all hang out.

5. Remember the reality curve.

6. Fake it just a little.

7. Don’t set your relationship status to “It’s complicated.”

8. Link your social profiles to each other.

9. Make mutual “friends.”

10. Leave a wall post on birthdays.

Bonus: 11. Forget about it.

You can read about these steps in more detail by clicking here Also, don’t forget to add me as a friend on Facebook. Step 12, ask people to be your friend.