» Tech’s Future
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Top 7 Reasons to Donate to the Summer of Social Good
This summer, Mashable (where I am editor) has been part of a major charity drive: The Summer of Social Good. It’s been a huge initiative on our part to use the power of social media and social networks to do some good for the world. The money raised will go to four charities:
- Livestrong
- Oxfam America
- The Humane Society
- World Wildlife FoundationSo far, the Summer of Social Good has raised over $30,000,
That’s why I am going to make the case for donating by this Friday, August 28th. I could list a million reasons why you should donate – and you can come up with a million more – but these seven reasons really call out to me, and I hope they call out to you. Please donate to the summer of social good.
1. Because We Have an Obligation to the World
We’ve taken so much from this world, it only seems natural that we’re obligated to give back to help it. There are millions of people that aren’t even fortunate enough to have a hot dinner, not to mention a computer and an Internet connection. If we don’t take care of each other and the planet we live on, we’re in for serious trouble.
2. Because It’s So Easy to Do
The web’s made it easier than ever to give back. PayPal, electronic banking, and social apps (i.e. Causes). Or, in the case of the Summer of Social Good, widgets:
Yes, all you have to do is click “donate now.” I will give you a strong thumbs-up (or a mini-party) if you do.
3. Because You’d Be Donating to Four Great Charities That Create Major Social Change
If you have never heard of LiveStrong, the Humane Society, Oxfam America, or the World Wildlife Foundation, here’s your quick charitable education. Each cause is beyond worthy of your support:
1. Livestrong: More than 12 million worldwide are diagnosed w/ cancer and 8mil will die from the disease each year. We will end the stigma of cancer and turn cancer victims into cancer survivors, build an international grassroots movement, take cancer from isolation to collaboration and ,together with world leaders, will transform cancer from obscurity to a global priority.
2. Humane Society: Established in 1954, The HSUS seeks a humane and sustainable world for all animals—a world that will also benefit people. We are America’s mainstream force against cruelty, exploitation and neglect, as well as the most trusted voice extolling the human-animal bond. Our mission statement: Celebrating Animals, Confronting Cruelty.
3. Oxfam America: One in six people worldwide now suffers from chronic hunger. More than 2.5 billion people live in poverty, struggling to survive on less than $2 a day—and the numbers are growing. But we at Oxfam believe that it doesn’t have to be this way. If we work together, we can turn the numbers in the other direction. Along with individuals and local groups in over 100 countries, we save lives, help people overcome poverty, and fight for social justice.
4. WWF: Our environment and earth’s future is in great danger. It is estimated that, over 75% of the world’s marine stocks are currently over fished, we lose 36 football fields of rainforest on the earth every minute and we will possibly lose up to 10,000 species this year. NOW is the time for action. WWF needs your help to strengthen global awareness of these issues and ensure that the best possible solutions are implemented for a sustainable future.
You’re saving the world by helping these charities. Period.
4. Because You’re Proving Social Media Can Change the World
Ever hear someone dismiss Facebook or Twitter as dumb wastes of time? This is your chance to prove them wrong.The Social Media Smackdown and Twestival have been great demonstrations of the power of social media in changing the world. If you haven’t had the chance to show the world that social media really is a driving force in our society with these charities, then now’s your chance with a donation to the Summer of Social Good.
5. Because You Don’t Have to Even Donate Money to Help
Wait, what?! Isn’t the Summer of Social Good a charity drive? Yes, yes it is, but that does not mean you can’t help these great charities via social media in other ways. In fact, my colleague Sharon Feder highlighted 5 great ways to help the Summer of Social Good. I’m going to summarize the first four right now:
1. Donate.
2. Retweet: Ford Motors is donating $1.50 for each retweet of Top 10 YouTube Videos for Social Good and $2.00 for each retweet of HOW TO: Support Social Good on Your Blog. 30 seconds and you’ll have helped donate $3.50 to charity.
3. Watch a Video: Ford is once again displaying its generosity by donating $1 for every video view of the Ford Fiesta Movement video. Watch a video, save the planet.
4. Attend the Summer of Social Good Conference This Friday.
6. Because You Can Help Us Understand The Web’s Impact on Charitable Giving
Social media and charitable giving have been uncharted waters, and we’ve learned a lot from running this campaign. However, your input, thoughts, and donations on the Social Good survey will help improve charitable giving on the web for years to come.
7. Because We Need You
I hope you will support me and the Mashable team in our efforts to change the world for the better. I cannot even begin to explain my passion for making this world better. I hope you have a similar passion, no matter how you choose to make your mark.
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CNN Live: iPhone 3G S and AT&T Talk [Video]
I was on CNN Live once again, this time as part of the Friday ‘Tech Talk’. I discussed the new iPhone (and took a few shots towards AT&T) with the determined trooper Veronica Belmont, the savvy MG Siegler, and the sharp Mark McClusky.
And Veronica: Yes, headsets are so 2008. Although you do sport the headgear pretty damn well.
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The Rise of the Freemium Business Model
During the Dot Com Bubble, the most popular business model was spend like hell to drive growth and buy million dollar Super Bowl ads. The focus was not on business models. After the rash, we endured a lull. But now, a new breed of Internet company exploded onto the scene, a movement most know as Web 2.0 (more accurately, social media).
Although accelerated growth still remains the dominant goal of most Internet startups, they have avoided many of the mistakes of Dot Com Bubble companies. They have paid special attention to building business models, primarily advertising-based ones. But now that model has come under fire, and a newer model is gaining in popularity: the freemium business model. I want to talk a little about its rise and the future of freemium in online business.
The Woes of Internet Startups
Recently, the problem has not been overexuberance, but the inability of many Internet companies to build sustainable profits. Many social media websites rely on advertising dollars to generate revenue. Advertising is the primary source of income for Google, Digg, Facebook, and almost all blogs. But for a lot of these companies, advertising has not been enough.
An example: the social media powerhouse Digg is still unable to amass a profit after four years. It incurred a loss of nearly $5 million in the first three quarters of 2008. Powerhouse Facebook faces these challenges as well. Its value has plummeted from a $15 billion dollar high to a speculated $3.7 billion because of monetization concerns. And with the economy (and advertising eCPMs) sinking like a boulder in a lake, venture capitalists have ratcheted up the pressure on their companies to turn a profit or shut down.
A great deal of discussion has occurred on social media channels over the best business model for companies in the Internet industry. More and more, companies are turning away from advertising-based business models and turning towards the freemium model. In the freemium model, you offer a free or trial version and a paid, advanced version of your product.
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Is There Any Value in Twitter-Based Applications?
By every definition (except revenue), Twitter was a major success in 2008. It grew from under 500,000 unique visits to nearly 2.5 million in November. Despite major stability problems and the infamous fail whale, Twitter has prospered and spurred its own mini-economy: Twitter applications.Twitter applications are the websites and programs that use the Twiter API to do anything from collect data to creating a desktop interface for tweeting. Most are small and simple applications, and nearly all of them are free to use. Now there are literally thousands of applications for Twitter, and if you’re a frequent twitter user, you’re probably using at least several.
But what’s the value of these apps to their creators? Users have gained from being able to share twipics or making venn diagrams, but are Twitter applications a reasonable way to achieve a financial payday?
To answer that question isn’t sufficient. In order to get the full picture, we need to answer three related questions:
- 1) Can you make money off of Twitter applications?
- 2) Do you have a reasonable chance of making a payday off of Twitter applications?
- 3) Can Twitter applications be built into successful business models with a positive cashflow?
Q: Can you actually make money off of Twitter applications?
Answer: Absolutely.Summize (now Twitter Search) has been the largest success story of the twitter applications – its simple and effective Twitter search (and its very capable leader Jack Dorsey) made it a prime target for acquisition by Twitter itself. Silicon Alley Insider reported that Twitter paid $15 million to acquire summize. Not bad a for a small team and less than a year’s worth of work, no?
But beyond Summize and Twhirl being acquired, there have not been many major paydays for Twitter apps. The bad economy only restricts cash that could be used to acquire these apps as well.
But yes, there is the possibility of making money developing an application for Twitter.
Q: Does a developer(s) have a reasonable chance of making money off of Twitter applications?Answer: No, not currently.
Here’s how I start: Do you have a reasonable chance of making moeny off of a Facebook application? The answer is murky, even despite for Facebook’s 120+ million users. The heyday of Facebook applications has passed, and users have adopted application-blind behaviors that hurts the Facebook platform as a financial landing pad. Free apps generally make money through advertising, which had abysmal CPM rates (I know; I made Facebook apps for a short time). Paid apps simply don’t exist on Facebook – there is no micropayment platform and most people on Facebook don’t have the mindset or habit of paying for applications.
Now to Twitter. Twitter has 2.5 million users. That’s 50 times smaller than Facebook’s reach and userbase. Advertising is just not going to generate the money you need to sustain an application and pay for development (I doubt SMS advertising could even bridge the gap, and nobody will use an app that requires SMS ads).
As for acquisition? As I stated before, acquisitions are hard to find in this market, and even when the market was good, the highest acquisition was for $15 million, and was done by Twitter itself. Simply put, your odds aren’t good. When you compare it to the revenue you could generate with an iPhone app, you’re wasting your time. Unless you’re developing Twitter apps for fun of course, but I’m not concerned with that.
Q: Can Twitter applications be built into successful business models with a positive cashflow?
Answer: Eventually, but no guarantees.Twitter has a growth model, but no revenue. They’re still trying to build their business model. Twitter has vowed to build a sustainable business model this year. But there are no guarantees.
Let me be clear: I do not doubt that Twitter can find a business model. It will. But Twitter’s difficulty with business model reflects on the challenge facing smaller apps. Advertising could be an answer, but you need a lot of eyeballs and an innovative advertising strategy to succeed. And paid applications? Someone needs to prove that people will pay for a Twitter app first.
So is there any real value in Twitter-based applications? The current verdict is: only personally, not financially. You are simply going to make more money writing an application for the iPhone than for Twitter. But if you incorporate a Twitter app as part of your overall strategy, then you’re getting smart. Standalone companies building Twitter apps will probably need Twitter to grow more before they can be self-sustaining. But Twitter’s API is a fun and relatively simple thing to build upon, and because of that, personal projects are always easy to do. They can help build attention for you, or you can test out new development or marketing theories. And that’s a large part of their value. -
Internet Celebrity: What the Hell Is it and How Do You Become One?
Internet celebrity is a unique, rather odd phenomenon. We as a culture (I’m talking U.S. here) have an almost unhealthy fascination with the latest Britney Spears news or an unusual admiration for Samuel L. Jackson. As you might expect, this phenomenon applies to Internet culture as well.We Internet nerds are no exception. We have given people like Tay Zonday millions of page views (and recording deals) and shower lifecasters such as iJustine with abnormal amounts of praise and love. We’re just a strange culture, aren’t we? And even more so, a lot of us would love this kind of attention, even if we aren’t willing to admit it.
Come on, who doesn’t want hundreds of thousands of readers for their blog? (And yeah, I know a lot of you out there want to be admired by strange guys playing WoW in their basements. Seriously!).
So, with the help of Sarah Austin of Pop17, I’ve compiled seven different themes for how people become Internet celebrities. Most are obvious, a few are Internet-specific, and a few more are more confusing than a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
(Thank you for your time Sarah!)
1) Do something unusual, something people have never seen
Unlike general celebrity culture, Internet culture seems to place high value on being original and unique. Doing something that nobody else can do or has ever seen is going to give you a better shot at being an Internet celebrity.Example: Tay Zonday
You just don’t expect the deep and booming voice to come out of his mouth, and the lyrics are simple and catchy. Put both together, and you have something unique, addictive, and original. It helped propel Tay to commercials, record deals, and Internet stardom.
2) Do it by complete accident
There’s millions of YouTube videos, blogs, startups, and people on the Internet. What separates a few from the rest? Sometimes, it’s just dumb luck. You may not be shooting for stardom, but because of a combination of hilarity, uniqueness, and dumb luck (in some cases, back luck), your face spreads across the Internet.Example: Gary Brolsma (Numa Numa Kid)
All he really did was lip sync and make awkward dance movements. I’m pretty sure 80% of guys have done that at a club, half of those caught on camera. But his video had just the right amount of head-scratching hilarity to propel him to unwanted Internet celebrity. After years of saying it ruined his life, he of course cashed a check and made a second video.
3) Be strange. Very strange.
Just be…weird. You make yourself memorable, and that’s a key to sticking around. Sometimes you can make yourself so memorable that people will want to burn the image out of their heads.Example: Chris Crocker
I don’t have to post the video for you to understand the strangeness – you’ve already seen the “leave Britney alone” video enough times already. It’s become an Internet phenomenon with 23 million views. Even if he did do it as an act, it doesn’t matter – the effect is still the same. You know he is because it was one of the strangest videos you’ve ever seen.
4) Work your ass off
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Samuel L. Jackson didn’t become a star by laying on the couch all day. And Internet celebrity rarely occurs without creating lots of content, connecting with fans, building a brand, and sleeping half the recommended amount. Working your ass off does actually pay off. Seriously.Example: Sarah Austin.
I had to suck up at some point during this article, right? But really, when you’re editing videos at 2:00 AM to get things just right, you know you’re talking to someone who wants success and will go through the grinder to get it. To be honest, a lot of the people who are popular on YouTube and on the blogosphere work ridiculous hours…Don’t worry, we’ll talk about life balance in a future article.
5) Be really attractive, preferable in the form of a woman.
Do you really think Natalie Portman or Megan Fox would be on the big screen and in demand without having the looks to back up their acting skills? Having looks that make guys or girls oodle over you is simply an asset. Period. And unfortunately, there is a double standard based on gender on this rule as well.Example: Justine Ezeraik
iJustine is a lifecaster. She’s also one of the top ten most followed people on Twitter and landed her own show, among other things. She has quietly built a mini-empire out of her lifecasting and her face. To build that empire (and that insane following), she has used two major assets – Tireless work ethic and attractiveness. I’m sorry, Justine just wouldn’t be an Internet celebrity if she had looks closer to that of the wicked witch. Guys go ga-ga for curvy blondes.(Since I haven’t met my sucking up quota yet: Sarah Austin is also gorgeous)
6) Be passionate about your work
Being overly passionate about what you’re doing and what you love simply bleeds through your screen. Really, that’s all there is to it.Example: Gary Vaynerchuk
This man loves wine like Favre loves football. Okay, dumb analogy, but you get the point. Vaynerchuk has built a brand by simply being passionate about his work, no matter where he is or who he is with. I can’t remember the last time he’s been off his game. And why is that? Because he is the same passionate wine man off camera as he is on camera.
7) Create something of great value
This is a different type of celebrity. And, in my opinion, the most important. Just as Bill Gates is an international celebrity and worldwide brand for creating Microsoft, the founders of great Internet startups can gain micro-fame on the Internet. This is because they’ve clearly built something people use everyday. They’ve built something of value, just like Gates did when revolutionized the world with Windows.Example: Jason Calacanis
Say Jason’s name to Joe the Plumber, and he’ll wonder who you’re talking about. Say Jason’s name to Jane the Blogger, and she’ll know exactly who you’re talking about. Calacanis built Weblogs, Inc., making him one of the godfathers of blogging. Now he’s running around as the CEO of Mahalo, retiring and quasi-retiring from blogging in the meanwhile. But you probably already knew most of this, which is why he’s an Internet celebrity in his own right.
So, what should we take away from this little dive into Internet culture? That really, in the end, the same things that get people to the top of Hollywood can get you to the top of YouTube or the blogosphere. Hard work, providing value to people, some eye candy, and unintended hilarity all add up to Internet celebrity.I don’t suggest debating about whether or not Internet celebrity is a useful pursuit of your time, because it doesn’t matter. It is established now. People are creating following and making money off of it. The question is how far it will go and how well it will translate to fame amongst the general population.
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My Panel with iJustine, Walt Ribeiro, and Gary Vaynerchuk at the New Media Expo
Live streaming video by Ustream
I hosted a panel on the future of online video on behalf of Mashable. If you missed the live stream, you have the chance to watch the recording of the show – it’s intense and hilarious! Highlights include
- Toy cars driving over my foot
- Live root beer tasting
- Audience questions
- Attention Deficit Disorder
- Me trying to get the mic from Gary to ask questions
So here you go. Enjoy!
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Using Live Streaming to Support the Troops – Michelle Malkin and uStream.tv In Action
I’m always happy when Internet and tech tools do more than help fill up a few hours of boredom (i.e. YouTube and StumbleUpon) or solve a problem that is only affecting early adopters or comfortable, Internet-saavy users (i.e. Twitter and yes, FriendFeed).
Starting at 4:00 Eastern/1:00 Pacific time today, is an 8 hour live stream called From the Front Lines with Michelle Malkin and Melanie Morgan. The goal is to raise enough money to send the largest care package ever sent to the troops.
Here is a link to the From the Front Lines show.
This is a wonderful display of how Web 2.0 technology is making a real and definite impact on the world. You can instantly reach tens of thousands of people to do something good for the world. uStream.tv is premier when it comes to live video content and you can expect them to be used for tons of major events as we move towards the net and away from TV (the big one coming up – they are the live streamers for the Republican National Convention. Don’t forget the many speeches they’ve streamed of Obama as well).
If you’re too lazy to click the link above, I’ve made it easier and embedded the event on my blog.
- Ben
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7 Things Google should (and probably would) do if it buys Digg
Update: Amazing response. Subscribe if you want more and watch for my new blog, TechThrill.
Not even a few months ago, Digg was on the verge of being bought out by Google or Microsoft. While those rumors have largely disappeared, the possibility (and even likelihood) of one of the two giants snatching up Digg is still prominent.
I had a debate with a friend of mine over the usefulness and future of Digg. It got me thinking about which direction Digg is headed. So I am performing a thought experiment to explore the possibilities (I love these).
What should each of these companies do with Digg if it bought the social media and user-chosen content powerhouse? Where would the integration points be and what would be the long-term strategy and direction for Digg under new overlords? And how would an acquisition affect the Internet landscape?
I’m going to start with Google (Microsoft will be next week). After that, there will be one more article about the impact of Digg on the internet.
So without further ado, here’s 7 things Google should do if it buys Digg:
1) Integrate Digg with Google News and the news algorithm
Google is a company of synergies. Utilizing its unparalleled efficiency in search in all of its products gives it a distinct advantage. Integrating your email with Google calendar keeps you on the Google servers (and makes life quite easy, too!). You get the idea.
The same would hold true for Digg if they buy it. There are many ways to incorporate Digg as the preferred social content destination of the Google empire. I’ll start off with Google News.Google News aggregates the major news into one simple and efficient interface. But its relevancy and popularity rankings for stories of similar topics can always be improved and Digg would help in that endeavor.
Yes, the male-skewed demographic of Digg may not be the best source of demographic information for Google News, but it is a good indicator of the popularity of major news stories, of the most popular article within a certain topic, and can help find more obscure stories that should be on more peoples’ radars. Also, over time, the Digg demographic would become more representative of the general internet population. See #5 below.
Google could do a few tweaks to the Google News algorithm, nothing big, to improve the rankings of news articles within categories and to bring out some of the more obscure but very interesting news of the day. Also, Digg icons next to Google news stories. News stories are what reach the Digg front page the most often, so this integration feels natural.
2) Place Digg icons in search results (but do it methodically)
Let’s get a little more controversial. Digg is the largest player in the social media space, but Digg is still small compared to the vastness of the Internet. Google isn’t though, and it can leverage that size and reach to really combine the social with the computational. Social search engines like Mahalo and Wikia Search are already beginning to fill their niches. Although it’s unlikely, it’s possible that one of these engines innovates enough to knock Google on its ass, or at least give it major headaches. Hell, just look at Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Internet Explorer.
The other thing is that people power can actually improve search results, weed through irrelevant data, and bring up the best information. To that end, if Google bought Digg, it must be committed to integrating social data into its overall data empire, and it starts with Google Search. The first step in this process would be integrating Digg into Google Search results.
Next to the “Cached – Similar pages – Note this” and other link items that appear with all Google search results, there would be a link with either “# Digg(s)” or “Digg this.” Perhaps limit it to certain topics, to sites with a previously popular story on Digg, or don’t have the Digg link appear until there’s a predetermined # of Diggs (by algorithm), but integrate Digg if you buy it, Google. Hell, Google has something similar to the Digg/Bury system in its Google Experimental Search program.Yes, this suggestion is a bit more radical, but there’s no other way if Google buys Digg. It must expand the site, its demographic, and its influence on the web. The Digg community would be a lot larger if Google took it over.
3) Heavily tweak the Digg algorithm based on Google’s massive stores of data
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FriendFeed Blog Comments – Challenging Disqus and all blog commenting
(update: FriendFeed comments work again. I think there’s a time delay.)
So if you scroll down (on individual posts), you’re going to find something new: FriendFeed comments appear on my blog! FriendFeed, the rapidly rising lifestreaming service, allows you to comment on any item that comes through FriendFeed. Some blog posts and twitter comments can have 50+ comments, and that number is rapidly rising as more and more people sign up for FriendFeed.Well today I stumbled upon this post on FriendFeed by Chris Pirillo that he had added FriendFeed comments to his blog via a WordPress plugin by Glenn Slaven
Glenn, thank you.
Now as you can see, any comments on this post (or any post) via FriendFeed will appear under my normal Disqus comments. Plus, you can post to FriendFeed via my blog. Disqus, a customizable and dynamic blog commenting software, is what I use to run comments on my blog currently and I couldn’t be happier.
But with FriendFeed comments on blogs, I wonder: Could it compete with Disqus? And then I wondered: Could this be the start of something bigger?
First on Disqus: One of Disqus’s main advantages is that you can track the comments of someone you like across multiple blogs. Another is that it can help build community around comments via a “community page” hosted on disqus’s servers.
My argument is that FriendFeed performs both of those functions better. You can track a person’s comments on blog posts via FriendFeed. Hell, you can track a person’s Disqus comments via your FriendFeed too. Now that those comments appear on blog pages, everyone can see them too! A person doesn’t even have to join FriendFeed, already a more popular service than Disqus, to see what a person they like is saying on not only blogs, but on YouTubes, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It’s far more dynamic of a tracking system than Disqus.
The second, on community: You can build community around FriendFeed. You can encourage people to visit your FriendFeed blog posts (it’s real simple to give a link that only shows your FriendFeed blog posts) and to comment via FriendFeed OR the blog. I may very well make FriendFeed my “message boards,” so to speak.
Of course, you have to sign up for FriendFeed to comment via FriendFeed, which of course makes regular commenting much easier to use. But as more and more use FriendFeed, you’re going to see more and more people comment via FriendFeed rather than Disqus, WordPress, or any other commenting system. That could be bad news for Disqus, but good news for the rest of us.
As more people install this plug-in and integrate FriendFeed comments into their blogs, there may very well be a dynamic shift in how FriendFeed is used and perceived. Hell, this could be the beginning of a movement that makes FriendFeed mainstream. This grants FriendFeed more exposure and leaves people who are not currently part of the FriendFeed universe with a desire to be heard (one that can only be fed by joining FriendFeed.
FriendFeed comments on blogs is a game changer, people.- Ben
(By the way, I encourage you to comment on this blog via FriendFeed and then to follow me!) -
The design & features of the next generation Social Network (Part 3)
Welcome to Part 3 of my 4 part series on the next generation of social networks. I’ve been talking a lot about social networks in the last week, so why stop now?
- In Part 1, I talked about the definition of a Web 3.0 Social Network and how it could be useful to us.
- In Part 2, I outlined the key components of social networks and explained the potential of that information.
So now let’s get to the fun stuff. What should the next generation of social networks include, and how should they work in our lives? I can only give you an overview of my thoughts on what the next social network should include because, well, it could take me days to write down all the features I’d personally want, and I’m not about to give away all of my ideas and secrets.
Overarching Design of a Web 3.0 Social Network
Remember, the goal of a Web 3.0 social network is to help solve a greater range and depth of world issues, often by analyzing the data at its disposal and making good use of synergies with other services and products.
So what are the key components of the Web 3.0 social network design?
- Utilizable for both business and personal use: The next great social network cannot only cater to one or the other: it must have the ability to be used for both. LinkedIn is business; Myspace is personal. Facebook is the closest we have to both, but it still falls into the personal side and it’s not simple to divide your personal contacts from your business contacts. There has to be easier division of use in this area.
- Integration with search: I agree with Robert Scoble that integration with search could be a killer application. I do think that a combination of search and social network can improve search relevancy. Facebook search is an abomination, I’m sorry to say. Searching people, fine. Searching for applications, groups, people with specific interests? Eh, not so much. Better search = more efficient use and less frustration.
- Integration with time and task management systems: Some people use the events they’re invited to on Facebook as their own calendar of events. Integration of these with an actual calendar system so we can better manage our lives is going to more and more prominent. If Facebook automatically filled in my RemembertheMilk task list with events from Facebook, or if it had its own advanced calendar and task management system, you’d see me using Facebook even more.
- Data Portability: It must be compatible with services like Google Connect or OpenID. Linking my friend list from LinkedIn or Facebook to Digg so I can find out which of my friends are Diggers is a far better method than going through your email. This also allows us to link data to academia for research purposes.
- Mobility and GPS Location: What do I mean? I mean that your phone is integral to the network. I mean that you can know whether or not any of your friends are in the city you’re visiting by simply opening up the social network. I mean the ability to get some data on the client you’re about to meet while on the train. ReadWriteWeb links us to four services to watch. Expect one of these services to skyrocket into prominence, and expect more to be acquired and integrated with existing social networks.
- Recommendations: The Web 3.0 social network has to be able to extrapolate from our patterns and likes/dislikes data that will help us manage our lives. That means ads that say this movie is coming out (i.e. it knows you’re a sci-fi fan) or knowing that you HATE religious events (it’ll give you the option to ignore all of them).
Clearly I only gave you a few, but the thread in all of these is data integration and data portability. Integrating our data with other services or creating those services within the social network interface should, and probably are, going to be features of the next generation of social network.
In the last part of this series, I’m going to do my favorite thing: try to predict the future.
Coming in Part 4: My predictions about what will happen in the world of social networking.
I am a tech entrepreneur, Co-Editor of Mashable, sci-fi author, and aspiring world changer. I'm quirky and love building things. These are the things I'm passionate about. Plus puppies.
