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Showing posts from 2007

OpenSocial and Ning

Ever since OpenSocial platform was announced by Google I wondered who will benefit the most from cross-social-network applications? Probably not Google - it was forced late into the game by Facebook and realized that market will not accept another closed platform for the social apps. Could it be MySpace? Surely it will be a nice addition to the kaleidoscope of widgets crowded on user's pages. And only today I realized the major benefactor - Ning.com with its own ecosystem of small social networks. One-time effort of creating a hosting container for the OpenSocial by Ning will be realized by all of the hosted networks. Simply brilliant combination of open standard and Ning's business model!

Lessons learned from CS377W (Stanford facebook class)

Stanford successfully created a unique mix of: Open social network platform (thanks to Facebook) Exceptionally talented students Focus on success (as defined in social network world by number of app users, stickiness, time per visit) Ways to measure success (thanks to Google analytics) Sponsors with their push for app monetization (Social Media) Technical leadership (thanks to Dr. BJ Fogg, and Dave McClure) From this mix number of Facebook applications emerged. No all of them were equally successful but each one teaching their own lesson on success in a new world of social media. Common theme that I managed to pick up: Survival of the dumbest . Successful applications do not expect anything from the user a beyond couple (or even better - one) click. What application do should be obvious within 3 seconds. This seems to be the attention span for an average FB app user (my dear readers – you are not typical J ) Focus on invitations. With the number of viral grow

leading social networks

Here is the dynamics of the socical network use based on the Alexa's data: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/bestbuy.com?site0=myspace.com&site1=orkut.com&site2=facebook.com&site3=hi5.com&site4=tagged.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=3m&size=Medium Is there a dip in Facebook use? And OpenSocial is not on the Myspace or Hi5 yet. What would be really interesting is to see how this dynamic will change when social apps based on OpenSocial platform will be rolled out. P.S. http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/top-social-networks-for-engagement-some-suprises/

MySpace will join OpenSocial

MySpace will join the list of social networks participating in OpenSocial initiative. Other members include: Orkut Salesforce LinkedIn Ning Hi5 Plaxo Friendster Viadeo Oracle SixApart Looking forward for the announcement tonight at Google

FreeBase.com

WOW! Finally there is a way to bring some order to the data on the Web: http://www.freebase.com/ I am very excited about the project and the very elegant way of linking structural data, unstructured data, images, people, time, and place in a form that is both accessible by humans and computers. - Gene ( http://www.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000005f1f68a )

Why Facebook will eclipse Google

Today, when Google stock reached a new high of 623.22 and company seems like a dominant player of the Internet game, I take liberty to declare that within 5 years Facebook will eclipse Google. Why: Social media potentially more profitable than search. Search is either "find-and-leave" pattern or "search-clickonthead-leave" (and only on this exit money are made by the search company) . Social media is where people come to communicate, express them self, play, hang around, date, and (one day) shop together. Longer people stay - more money could be made. Facebook already gained and most likely will retain leading role controlling big slice of the social graph. They are brilliant in terms of design, user focus, and execution. Facebook engaged developer community in the level I have not seen since Java days. Facebook is heading toward the application infrastructure and development platform that will rule the market similar to how Microsoft used to rule for many years

Graphing Social Patterns: The Business & Technology of Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6024102215

Inside Facebook

Read a nice book-blog recollection of an early days of Facebook. Stories are very much similar to early days of other companies, successful, or not. So what make it a fun reading is to decipher what really made this company a success story unheard since stratospheric flight of Google. Book is short. I read it in classic "paper" format but it is also available as pdf from writer's site: http://www.fbbook.com/ Inside Facebook: Life, Work and Visions of Greatness

JavaScript in Facebook applications

Facebook (finally) allowed Java Script in FB applications outside of IFRAME http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/FBJS Among other things, I liked how elegantly they are creating namespaces separating different applications on the same page. Seems that it cold be a security hole here - it is possible to enumerate java functions on the page and "impersonate" user actions with another apps installed on the same page. Other than that - it's great that we can use JavaScript outside of the IFRAME sandbox.

SF New Tech September Meetup

Click here to check out The SF New Tech Meetup! Visisted SF New Tech September Meetup last night. Very exciting! People in the audience simply rock. Formal presentations, on the other hand, are behind the curve. Meaning that smart people are not presenting or presenting in other venues? Or rather "work" than "talk"? :) http://www.conduit.com presented upgrade to their browser plug-in. Good implementation but I do not personally see much of the future in the environment of customizable dashboards, gadgets and widgets with much richer experience http://www.sezwho.com also a couple years behind the curve http://www.us4real.com - good use of GMap mash-up with RSS feeds. Generated active discussion and bunch of suggestions that were "pushed aside" by the presenter as difficult or computationally intensive to implement. Do we create start-ups to solve exactly these kind of problems? Hire a part-time architect to sort-it-out. http://www.globalmotion.com - showed

Facebook Developer Garage - Palo Alto

A must-attend for Facebook fans: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4184233826 Ping me here so that we can shake hands there

Minimo released by Mozilla

At some point (last year) I was discussion with Mozilla regarding location-aware application development for the upcoming phone-based web browser. Too bad that did not materialized into the code... Still browser is good and hopefully will capture well deserved attenshion and appreciation of the users. In my opinion it is superior to the much-hyped iPhone browser. Here is the link for the app: Minimo 0.2 Win Mobile is the only platform at the moment. I am sure other builds will be available soon.

Google Calendar Gadget

Goggle just release Calendar Gadget spec: http://code.google.com/apis/calendar/calendar_gadgets.html#UsingiCal I like it. Especially the elegance of incorporating metadata into the iCal format. Will try to create calendar gadget myself by extending one that I created for connect12 a short while ago: connect12.com conference Google gadget

Market maps

Found nice (and free) market maps: http://www.firstpartner.net/map/download.html My favorite is "The Gadget & Widget Universe" Others include: - The Skype Ecosystem - A Guide to VoIP - A Guide to Web 2.0 Communities Great for your desktop or the wall (if you still have some space left)

Procrastination

What not to do when you have a problem: Encapsulate it into a bigger problem Ignore Delay Hide, disconnect, or use any other method to burry the head into the sand Give up Write to the blog about it instead of solving it

Mapping Platform Selection

  Platform   deCarta ESRI GoogleMap MapQuest Scalability + + + + Internet/Internal Internet (hosted) Internal and Hosted Internet (hosted) Internal and Hosted SDK, Ease of development Navigation SDK, rapid deployment for hosted solutions, no code needed for simple apps (using Wizards) ArcGIS for desktop, client and web dev. KML, javascript SDK SDK Support + + good public forums + Development Languages JavaScript API, WS Java, JavaScript, C++ for WinCE, Win XP, JSP, ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, ArcXML, WS, Eclipse dev environment JSP, ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, JavaScript lib JSP, ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, XML, WS Major Markets Telecom, Wireless Goverment, Public works mostly Consumer, Google MapEnterprise for

Facebook integration

Here is the best intro into the Facebook architecture description: http://www.slideshare.net/davidzhuang/facebook-platform-tech/ and API link: http://20bits.com/2007/06/04/an-introduction-to-fbml/ and a sample (better than official one) http://gallery.menalto.com/node/65135