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?

11 Steps To Being A Good Facebook Friend

Valleywag 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.

Web 2.0 Icons

Ray Cheung recently published a link to a download pack which contains 21 PNG+PSD Web 2.0 icons. The icons were created by ilemoned and miniajax. Application developers or widget developers may find these icons handy as they are crisp and of very high quality. To download the social-media-icon pack, click on the image at the bottom of this post. The following icons are included in this pack.

Blinklist

Blogger

Bloglines

Box

Del.icio.us

Digg

Engadget

Feedburner

Flickr

Lifelogger

Netscape

Newsgator

Newsvine

Performancing

Rojo

Rss

Stumbleupon

Technorati

WordPress

Zhuax

*UPDATE* I know there are quite a few people finding this post via Google. The link to the download pack has been taken off line. After contacting who I believed to be the creator of the pack about the link, I have yet to receive a reply back. In the mean time, please visit a more recent post which contains a link to icon packs similar to the ones that are showcased in this one. 20 Awesome Free Icon Set

My Rant Against Defining Web 3.0

Apparently, web 2.0 won’t be around for as long as 1.0. During a conference held at the Red Herring East building in Boston, panelists gathered around to discuss Web 3.0. According to the panelists, web 3.0 would be a period where users generate content for fervor, not for cash.

The economic structure of Web 3.0 will rely on advertising, said Michael Jones, chief executive of Userplane, a provider of communications software for online communities that was acquired by AOL in 2006. But unlike the scattershot approach of much of today’s online advertising, users will be served Web. 3.0 messages tailored to their interests and location.

“Advertising money is shifting to the Web because of targeting and direct response,” Mr. Davis said. “In the next couple of years you’ll see a big shift.”

Who are these guys to say what web 3.0 will be? Sure, their is the O’Reilly web 2.0 definition which everyone seems to cite as the premiere definition but quite honestly, most people have come up with their own interpretation as to what web 2.0 represents. It’s ok to look into the future, but please don’t define what Web 3.0 will be. For Pete’s sake, let web 2.0 sink in before you begin to mention web 3.0.

Click Here To See My Source Of Frustration

CNN Hops On The 2.0 Bandwagon

CNN.com launched their redesigned web site over the weekend. The new site features one-page integrated story-telling, the largest Flash video player of its kind, local coverage, better weather, blog links, commenting, and free live video for breaking news.

Judging by the comments on the BehindTheScenes CNN Blog, quite a number of people do not like the redesign. Not surprising, considering people do not like the idea of change, especially after they have become accustomed to a certain way of seeing things.

The new CNN site definitely has a clean look but I am not too keen on the amount of gray and white used through out the site. I think if CNN wanted to really impress their viewers, they would make CNN an editable start page. Using Ajax and all sorts of other Web 2.0 goodness, CNN could of allowed users to disable or enable widgets which contained different sections of the news. By using this method, CNN probably could of pleased the majority of people by allowing the customization of the main page so that users would only see items that they were interested in. At the very least, they could of created a minimize/maximize feature on the different modules located on the front page. With that being said, I must also add that the video player on CNN is very nice! The video area is large and the quality of the video footage seems to be pretty good.

Visit CNN.com to check out their new design. When your done, come back here and leave an opinion.

FaceBook Having Trouble Staying Up

Third party applications may be hammering away at the Facebook API. According to Mashable, Facebook has reportedly gone down for extended periods of time today. Looks to me as if the applications combined with the enormous amount of popularity is causing Facebook to stumble a bit.

As far as I can tell, Facebook is back to normal as I recently created my own Facebook account which can be viewed here Be sure to add me as a friend if you get the chance.

Spock-People Search Gets Personal

Keywords enable users to search for websites, products, and services. The biggest name in keyword search is Google, but what if you could use a search engine to find and discover actual people? Welcome to Spock.

Introduction:

Spock is a search engine that promises to help users to discover and find new people. Spock currently has over one hundred million people already indexed with millions added each day. Spock is funded by Clearstone Venture Partners, a leading early-stage venture capital firm in the consumer Internet space (Overture, PayPal, NetZero, MP3.com, Internet Brands), and Opus Capital Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with more than $1 billion in committed capital under management. Spock is still in an Invitation only phase, however, I have three invitations to give out. If anyone wants one please respond in the comments section of this article requesting an invite. Continue reading →

MASHup Of Problems

DevCentral has published their first in a four part series of articles related to Web 2.0 security. DevCentral has come up with a mnemonic, MASH, that describes which each article will be about. MASH stands for:

More of everything.
Asymmetric data formats
Scripting based
Hidden URLs and code

The first article highlights the letter ‘M’ more of everything.

So what’s that mean, “more of everything”? Well, Web 2.0, whether we’re talking about applications (blogs, wikis, forums, video) or the technologies that enable the applications (AJAX, XML, RSS, RDF, etc…), simply contains more of everything than its legacy predecessors.

I encourage you to read the following article HERE as it begins to describe just how difficult it is to secure Web 2.0 applications. Securing one particular script is no big deal. Securing a plethora of scripts combined into one application is apparently another problem.

Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff

The Musings Of Jeff Chandler

web-2.0