July 2008
Rapleaf Research Into Social Networks Not...
Email today from Rapleaf shows some tepid insights based on looking at 49.3 million people in their dataset:
[via email]
In a follow up to the Study of Social Network Users vs. Age, we just released full downloadable data on the 49.3 million people from the previous study.
Highlights:
Women ages 14-24 dominate activity on social networks and have more friends than men of the same ages.
...
NowPublic's 'Life In A Fishbowl' List For Silicon...
I get a kick out of placing twelfth on NowPublic’s ‘Most Public’ Index for Silicon Valley. I am in the dark on the internals of their calculations, but I suspect that it’s all about living your web life very very openly with lots and lots of kibitzers. Their subtitle — ‘most influential’ — must be taken with a large grain of salt, however.
...
A Tale Of Modern-Day Customer Support
In the old days, if you had a problem with a product and wanted to deal with it online, you could email the company’s customer support or post a question in their online support forum, if they had one. Questions and problems, if the company even responded, were often dealt with in private rather than on an open forum. Today, there’s Twitter and Get Satisfaction instead, because ...
Cuil Tries To Outgoogle Google
With amazing fanfare, the new search competitor, Cuil has emerged from stealth. Cuil (pronounced ‘cool’) is trying to change our habits and grab some of the huge search market. Arrington seems to suggest great things for them, or at least states that their index is large:
[from Cuil Exits Stealth Mode With A Massive Search Engine]
Cuil also claims to have better search results...
The New Literacy and The Enemies Of The Future
As usual, the forces of centrality are fighting against the wrong opponents. Instead of being happy that kids are spending less time watching television and more time engaged in social activities through the web, everyone, including Motoko Rich in today’s NY Times, wants to fight a 20th century war all over again, and gripe about kids not reading books.
[Literacy Debate - Online, R U...
Paul Kedrosky: VC Is Broken
[from Pessimism From Venture Capitalists - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog]
Self-serving protestations to the contrary aside, there is no institutional venture market without regular and sizable IPO exits. With 10-year venture returns set to soon lag long term S&P returns, this is an asset class in a serious state of brokenness.
How Big Is The Web?
Google tells us the web is big, like we didn’t know. Mostly their post seems like school yard posturing, especially given the hint that Arrington is making about some big news queued up for next week, that could push Google out of the #1 web index:
[from f | Google’s Misleading Blog Post: The Size Of The Web And The Size Of Their Index Are Very Different]
That may be true today, but...
AOL: Getting Back To Basics
AOL is jettisoning a bunch of unsuccessful projects in an effort to trim costs, and perhaps to slap some lipstick on the pig to find a buyer, according to Rafat Ali, Mike Arrington, and Larry Dignan.
On the blogging side, monsters like Engadget are safe, but some lackluster blogs are likely to be discontinued, like Diylife.com. In the meanwhile, internal memos indicate that a bunch of ...
Wired Celebrity Meter
Wired built this widget on top of the Google Social Graph. How do you rate compared to me?
<br/><br/>Your browser doesn’t support HTML iframes. You will not be able to see the Wired Celebrity Meter. Please try with a different browser.<br/><br/>
Robert Metcalfe on The Internet
The Internet will catastrophically collapse in 1996.
- Robert Metcalfe
Corante Is Dying?
As many know, I wrote a blog for several years at Corante called Get Real, which is, sadly, still live there. I say ‘sadly’ because the blog looks like an abandoned building now: the last bunch comments are porn spam which Corante is apparently uninterested in deleting, although they keep the blog live for the trickle of traffic (I guess) that it brings in. Note that my requests...
XMPP As A Key Component Of The Social Web
Every once and a while I dust off my master’s degree in computer science, and pontificate about the deeper implications of the social architecture we are composing on the web. A lot of our efforts have run into problems because the componentry people are trying to use is inadequate for scale.
Back in March, when Twitter was bracing for the SXSW torrent, I wrote
[from Twitter Braces...
David Appell Responds
I recently wrote a piece (see David Appell Is Andrew Keen Jr) countering some of the observations made by David Appell in a post about the blogosphere at his Quarksoup blog. Basically, he was making Andrew Keenish noises about the bilge being churned out by amateurs. I made the assertion that he probably doesn’t participate in the web like a denizen of the edge does, to which he has...
David Appell Responds
Jay Rosen brought my attention to a post by David Appell, someone I don’t think I ever read before. Basically Appell is arguing that ‘amateur bloggers’ aren’t contributing to Western Civilization, and since they aren’t ‘experts’ — defined as someone who has spent a gazillion hours focused on the topic in question — then what they are doing...
Google Maps Walking Directions Now Live
Looks like Google has released walking directions in beta for Google Maps:
154 S Park St, San Francisco, CA 94107 to 542 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA 94107 - Google Maps, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.
This is a godsend for pedestrians, since driving directions can be wildly off.
I wrote earlier in the year about Nokia’s Maps 2.0, available on s60 phones, like my n82,...
six groups and Stowe Boyd
The Hamburg-based social tool company, six groups, announced today on their blog that I have joined their advisory board.
I first encountered six group’s technology at the Next08 conference a few months ago in Hamburg, and subsequently got involved in technical discussions with Bahne Carstensen, the CEO, and his team. I will be working with them on business and technology direction,...
Google Page Rank Patent Invalidated?
Recent findings by the US Patent and Trademark Office may invalidate many existing software patents, including Google’s Page Rank:
[from The Death of Google’s Patents by John F Duffy]
The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering...
More New Media For The Enterprise
In case anyone missed the big social media news yesterday, Social Media Group is acquiring Livingston Communications. Tongue firmly in cheek, Geoff Livingston reports on the top 10 reasons why he “sold out”.
SMG develops social media strategies for large enterprises — including Ford Motors — and the social PR capabilities of Livingston will complement that well.
A Community Approach To Transit
Consumers are starting to wrench control from official public transit authorities when it comes to information about the services: when the transit authority just can’t get their act together, others will find ways to mashup and present the necessary data.
A recent example of this is MyTTC, which provides information about public transit in Toronto far beyond the dreck that the...
Subjectivity Is The New Objectivity
guest post by David Cushman
My buddy BadgerGravling pointed me at this from Chris Hambly (note, no search engines were employed in the creating of this linkage… which is kind of Chris’ point.)
From Chris’s blog:
“F*ck Google! Ask Me!.. is this the mentality that Social Media is promoting?”
And of course, it is. Which is why Google is getting all social with its approach...
Flow Advertising, Defrag Talk
Eric is working on getting people’s juices flowing for Defrag, and has been blogging some teasers:
[from Anything but ho-hum]
“Is the flow just too much? Lifestreaming at the edge”: Anyone who knows me knows that I’m impressed by Stowe Boyd’s brain. One of the big pushes around information overload is always how to “limit” things. Declaring “email bankruptcy” is a pretty common...
A Little Blog Perspective from Savage Chicken
Jim Kukral is trying to thread together a few data points, and looking for a smooth curve, but I don’t think he’ll find one. Kukral thesis? Because Robert Scoble can walk along the Apple store line livestreaming on Qik while chatting up a dispirited and apparently unresponsive crowd of early adopters, and because Jason Calacanis has declared he is giving up blogging, then somehow...
Testing Out New Dopplr Features: Twitter, Email,...
I finally am getting around to looking at various new features implemented in the Dopplr social travel application. Various new ways to communicate with the app, and the world.
Profiles
I have always believed that creating and sharing a profile is core to social tools (“Social = Me First”). Dopplr has always had a ‘within the service’ profile, which can be shared...
Launching New Blog: /Ground
I am pleased to announce the launch of a new blog, /Ground, dedicated to what I am calling localism:
[from Launching /Ground]
I believe that we are entering a period of human history where much of the conventional wisdom about the world and out place in it will be dethroned. In this post-industrial, post-modern, post-coldwar, post-twentieth century time, we have to rescope and redesign...
Fred Wilson on The Changing Blog Landscape
In the middle of a torrent of stories about paidContent.org’s acquisition by the Guardian News, new investment in Silicon Alley Insider, and a changing cast at the TechMeme Leaderboard, Fred Wilson takes a deep breath:
[from A VC: Blogging’s Dead, Long Live Blogging]
This blog is me and I am this blog. It’s mine and will always be mine. I understand why many of the...
Fred Wilson on The Changing Blog Landscape
In the middle of a torrent of stories about paidContent.org’s acquisition by the Guardian News, new investment in Silicon Alley Insider, and a changing cast at the TechMeme Leaderboard, Fred Wilson takes a deep breath:
[from A VC: Blogging’s Dead, Long Live Blogging]
This blog is me and I am this blog. It’s mine and will always be mine. I understand why many of the...
Social Search: Google and Me.dium
A number of new takes on social search have popped up.
Looks like Google is experimenting with a crowdsourcing approach to socializing search results, based on some screenshots Adrian Pike sent to Techcrunch:
[Test feature shows social search may be on the way for Google | The Social - CNET News.com by Caroline McCarty]
Google has put out some official words on the test: “This...
Twitter Buys Summize
I had heard the rumors, and now it’s confirmed: Twitter has acquired Summize. But I don’t think that Summize search is the answer to Twitter business model question.
[from Twitter Buys Summize For About $15M: Gets Search - And Maybe A Business Model by Peter Kafka]
[…]
And, if you’re feeling generous, Summize might well help Twitter solve its business model problem,...
With a little help from my friends ... part 2
[Update: 11 July 2008 1:33pm ET — The affiliate marketing experiment for Andy Sernovitz at /Message has been terminated: see Andy Sernovitz On The End Of An Experiment]
:: sponsored post ::
Word Of Mouth Marketing expert Andy Sernovitz is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar, in Chicago on two upcoming dates: July 30 and September 4. Andy usually conducts...
Paint The Whole Sky, We'll Still Ignore You
guest post by David Cushman
Adage shares this in its 3min news: Advanced warning of the stepping up of the most pointless arms race in history.
Turning three sides of a 25 story building into a coordinated animation display, the world’s largest digital sign is nearing completion in Times Square, New York. Commissioned by Walgreens, it wraps One Times Square…
Its 23...
Mark Pesce on The Tribal Future
I was alerted to an interesting presentation from the recent Public Democracy Forum (thanks @blogstar, I knew I should have gone) by Mark Pesce (@mpesce) on Hyperpolitics (see transcript here, and the video, here).
One nugget:
The future looks nothing like democracy, because democracy, which sought to empower the individual, is being obsolesced by a social order which hyperempowers him.
...
Lawyers And Social Networks
Some interesting survey results:
[via email from www.leadernetworks.com]
Leader Networks has just completed an extensive “Networks for Counsel” survey of 650 attorneys and how they might best use social networking.
The survey has uncovered some interesting insights including:
Almost 50% of attorneys are members of online social networks
Over 40% of attorneys say they are confident that...
TwitterSpy : Twitter Track Finally Back, and...
guest post by Marjolein Hoekstra
As someone who follows Twitter-related news quite closely, I felt quite debilitated a few months ago when Twitter disabled Twitter Track, its keyword tracking service.
When the Twitter team announced Twitter Track in September 2007 as a ‘tiny feature’ on the official Twitter company blog, users immediately recognized its huge potential. They used ...
New Directions, Old DNA: The Future Of The...
I am setting new directions in my work. Based on a wide variety of factors, ranging from the hugely personal issue of what makes me happy, the economics of what work is out there, and what work works, I am making some significant changes in my life trajectory.
I envision a loose collaborative of /Messengers involved in delivering high quality open analysis (and synthesis) here on /Message,...
Andy Sernovitz on The End Of An Experiment
I am all for word of mouth marketing. But, as I explained to Andy Sernovitz a week or so ago, word of mouth is only one part of an overall marketing program that would include traditional advertising, social media, and more.
Andy decided to experiment with more or less conventional blog advertising, via an affiliate relationship here at /Message.
Based on the response that this is causing...
/Message In Top Analyst Blogs And Microblogs By...
I discovered, sort of by accident, that /Message is in the top five analyst blogs as calculated by Technobabble.com:
Top 100 analyst blogs « Technobabble 2.0, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.
And #2 analyst Twitterer:
Top 100 analyst microblogs « Technobabble 2.0, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.
Honestly, I am planning to devote more of my energies toward analysis, synthesis, ...
Quote Of The Day: Flat Is The New Up
A quip about the steep decline in ad revenue in magazines:
[from In Deepening Ad Decline, Sales Fall 8% at Magazines by RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA]
“The joke here is, ‘Flat is the new up,’ ” said Thomas J. Wallace, editorial director at Condé Nast.
paidContent.org Acquired By Guardian News & Media
Rafat Ali and Co. have been acquired as part of the Guardian’s move onto the web and into the US media markets. Congratulations, Rafat. I know how hard you and your partners have worked.
[from ContentNext 2.0: Life With The Guardian Media Group]
We got scooped on the biggest story of our own company’s life. Such is our life. Almost six years after our company started with...
Todd Tweedy on Affiliate Marketing At /Message
[Update: 11 July 2008 1:33pm ET — The affiliate marketing experiment for Andy Sernovitz at /Message has been terminated: see Andy Sernovitz On The End Of An Experiment]
Received email from an old colleague who I haven’t talked to in a long long time. He suggested that the ‘sponsored post’ that I wrote yesterday for Andy Sernovitz’s upcoming Word Of Mouth...
The Gravitational Pull Of Enterprise 2.0
Susan Scrupski and Jevon MacDonald are developing a graphical view of the overlapping “2.0” space, dividing it into digital marketing, social media, enterprise 2.0 and mass collaboration:
[Graphic via Susan Scrupski’s Flickr stream, Creative Commons, some rights reserved]
The interesting thing about the Enterprise 2.0 circle is that is has a strong gravitational force:...
Twitter Spam: What Can We Do?
guest post by Matt Balara
If I believed in God, I’d thank him for the block link on every Twitter user’s page. This certainly isn’t news, but we’ve all been getting more and more follows from spammers. This evening I tweeted this:
Although we all have this problem, and although we’re all connected in a remarkable way, we’re all dealing with this problem...
Virtual Worlds In The Enterprise
I’ve never really got into Second Life; I guess that I keep waiting for it to do something “useful”. Although I’ve heard of business meetings and conferences being held there, it’s not clear how that’s a lot better than other online conferencing environments that don’t include unrealistically-proportioned avatars with pseudonyms.
Last year, IBM...
Who Owns Your Comments?
guest post by David Cushman
I think I upset Jeff Jarvis.
I didn’t mean to. No offence meant Jeff… attention is love…
Jeff is currently writing a book. I’m sure it’ll be fabulous. In fact I’d go so far as to suggest you go ahead and pre-order it safe in the knowledge you’ll get some brilliant insights and a cracking read. He’s a great thinker and the book is long overdue.
But...
Stowe Boyd Interviewed By Aaron Strout
Recent interview by Aaron Strout:
[from We Are Smarter Than Me | Blog | We Are Smarter Podcasts]
Stowe Boyd is a well-known blogger for /Message (over 70k followers) and front man for Stowe Boyd and the Messengers (his band). He’s also bullish on social tools (“obsessed” is the word he uses). I’ve met Stowe several times and recently heard him speak at Enterprise...
Maarten's Journey : Optimism 2.0
guest post by Marjolein Hoekstra
I only learned last night that fellow bilingual blogger Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, known by most Dutch social nerds through his frequent Dutch tweets as @DutchCowboy and from his contributions to the DutchCowboys blog, had been diagnosed about a month ago to have a tumor between his lungs, the size of two fists.
This morning Maarten was hospitalized to receive...
Jay Rosen on The Jessica DaSilva Witchhunt
Jay digs into the DaSilva mess — young female intern at the Tampa Tribune excoriated by incensed journalists after she seemed optimistic about a new direction taken by Editor Janet Coats (immediately post layoffs) — and pulls out the most interesting threads:
PressThink: Big Daddy Newspaper Left Journalism. Now There’s Just Us..
Tree House Media Project Debuts....
Updating Technorati Tags In TypePad Using Live...
I use Live Writer for writing blog posts, since I’m often on a plane or in some other place without wifi; this also has the advantage of providing a common user experience between this TypePad blog and my other blogs, which are all on WordPress.
One problem that I’m having is updating the Technorati tags field in TypePad directly from Live Writer. The Keywords field in Live...
Traditional Software Vendors Go Marketing 2.0
As a part-time analyst, I receive a lot of email from vendors plugging their latest product, service, webinar, white paper or whatever. An interesting trend that I’m seeing is the “marketing 2.0” approach that some of the vendors are taking: not just blogging (which is being done with some degree of success by most vendors), but podcasts and video podcasts on iTunes, and...
Getting The /Message
I’ve run into Stowe a couple of times over the past few years — Enterprise 2.0 in Boston and mesh in Toronto — and after I blogged about his latest Enterprise 2.0 presentation, he invited me to be a guest blogger here on /Message.
As a quick intro, I’ve been working with business process management (BPM), content management and related technologies since the late ...
Bumper Stickers A Sign Of Territoriality
[from Bumper stickers reveal link to road rage - Pragma Synesi - interesting bits]
[…]
People who had a larger number of personalized items on or in their car were 16% more likely to engage in road rage, the researchers report in the journal Applied Social Psychology.
“The number of territory markers predicted road rage better than vehicle value, condition or any of the things that...