The Social Software Weblog

Patent on social networking granted - to Friendster

David Chartier — 2006-07-07T13:00:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking, social software, social news

"Friend-what?" you might be asking, but it's true: Red Herring is reporting that Friendster, the ill-fated social networking that (I think) started it all, has been granted a patent on social networks. Following a great tradition of painstakingly clear patent language, Friendster owns the patent for a "system, method, and apparatus for connecting users in an online computer system based on their relationships within social networks".

Whether Friendster will use the time-tested 'if you can't beat 'em, take em to court' strategy is yet to be seen, but to their credit: they apparently applied for the patent (issued June 27 of 2006) way back in the day, before they fell from their perch.

[via Slashdot]

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Jookster

Dan Lurie — 2006-06-23T08:00:00+00:00

Filed under: search engines, social networking, reputation

Jookster mashes up web archiving, social networking, and ranked searching to provide a new service that I think has some interesting things going with it. After signing up for a Jookster profile and installing the Firefox tool-bar, users have access to personalized searches and instant web archiving. Clicking on the Jook This button in the tool-bar instantly archives a copy of the page you are visiting and indexes it for search. You can go back at your convenience and search through all the pages you have jooked. The cool thing about Jookster however is not the fact that it can archive and index content, Yahoo MyWeb 2.0 has been doing this for ages. The cool aspect of Jookster is the social aspect. Adding buddies with similar interests expands your search results to include things jooked by them, and their buddies, and their buddies buddies, etc. You can specify how many degrees of separation you want to search. The search results are ranked by how many degrees the person who jooked a page is away from you. This feature brings in a concept that has been much talked about at the Supernova conference this week; the fact that outside of the web, we use trusted contacts so look for information, and judge the quality information based on the what you think of your friends. Jookster brings this idea to the web, and I think it could be the start of something big. Imaging searching for information on the ecosystem of the amazon rain forest and being able to see that a biologist you know had jooked a result; wouldn't that immediately reassure you that the information there would be good stuff?

I think Jookster is a great idea, and even if it turns out that it is one of the many startups that will go belly up in this boom, I'm confident that the underlying ideas it embraces will be something that we are using for years to come.

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MySpace, Inconvenient Truth partner up

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-28T12:02:00+00:00

Filed under: nptech, social networking

Being bought by the owner of the Fox empire hasn't scared MySpace away from partnering with Al Gore's high profile film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." Announced last week but receiving little play in the blogosphere to date, the partnership appears to be more low-key online than the previous X-Men promotion but set to leverage the online community for real-world public events. The movie's main site doesn't appear to make any reference to the partnership, as it is described on MediaPost, but MySpace friend to all Tom does have a Truth badge and link to the film's MySpace profile.

According to MediaPost, "the campaign will culminate in a 10-city MySpace theater buyout on June 16, with free tickets going to select members of the film's MySpace community. MediaPost also reports that MySpace is contributing a significant amount of ad space to raise climate change awareness. The MySpace music channel is reported to be planning an artist-on-artist interview between the former vice president and a to-be-announced rock star who is also happens to be part of the MySpace community. The MySpace movies channel will spotlight an interview with the film's director, Davis Guggenheim.

The partnership between the film and the high profile online social network appears to be remarkably low-profile. No press releases appear on PR Web, few bloggers outside of MySpace have written about it and a Google News search brings back surprisingly few results. The MySpace community itself appears to be responding well, however, as almost 45,000 users have added the films as a friend to their profile in just less than a week.

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boyd, Jenkins MIT interview on MySpace and DOPA

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-25T15:12:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

MySpace and youth social software expert danah boyd has released the full text of an email interview she and Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, recently did with the MIT News Office on MySpace and the proposed Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA). Lots of good detail and analysis here, a great example of the usefulness of email interviews. Helpful in understanding the proposed legislation, MySpace and youth social software in general and the public work of two prominent voices on these issues. Both boyd and Jenkins are funded by the MacArthur Foundation to do academic work on these topics currently.

Here's how boyd explains her work:

"For my doctoral dissertation, I am investigating why and how youth are engaging in digital publics like MySpace, how this affects identity development and how youth socialization has changed over the last century. This work is being funded by the MacArthur Foundation to help understand the nature of informal learning. Understanding why moral panics emerge when youth socialize is central to my research."

Jenkins says about his work:
"[My work] seeks to identify the core social skills and cultural competencies young people need in order to become full participants in the cultural, political, economic, and social life of the 21st century. In doing this research, we are reviewing the current state of educational research surrounding participatory culture and examining how teachers are currently deploying these technologies through schools. We want in the long term to develop new curricular materials which help parents and teachers build a more constructive relationship with new media."

Both provide some useful thinking and talking points in regards to the much maligned sector of youth-oriented social software.

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MySpace teams with print mag, Nylon

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-23T12:57:00+00:00

Filed under: collaboration, companies, MSM, social networking

MySpace has announced it will partner with the print magazine Nylon to prerelease an online version of the mag with links to the MySpace pages of bands and others profiled in Nylon stories. Sounds like a good idea. The publication in question appears predictably vapid, but the model here could foretell similar agreements in the future.

The move brings to mind the thesis of Nick Carr, who predicts in his forthcoming book and current Gilmor Gang appearances that on-demand media and contextual advertising will decouple high-revenue low-value content from the low-revenue high-value content it has effectively subsidized in traditional media institutions. (Think Britney Spears coverage selling the ads that then pay for the investigative journalism found in section A or F, whichever the case may be.) Perhaps the analogy here is that MySpace's partnerships like this one with Nylon will help raise funds to help pay for the hard-hitting critical thought of Fox News. Hmmm.... no it's probably an example of the kind of cultural destruction that Carr sees on the horizon. Fluff will pay for nothing but profits and more fluff while journalism that, for example, challenges those in power, will become an underfunded, far less visible niche market.

One way or the other, agreements like this, the WaPo's Technorati partnership and now Time.com's embrace of newbie Sphere all point to a real blurring of the line between traditional and new media. That doesn't even seem a relevant question any more. It's about being smart, not about whether new forms of media will beat old ones.

MySpace/Nylon story via Alex Bard and WebProNews.

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Top 10 social networking sites see 47% growth

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-17T20:21:00+00:00

Filed under: blogging, social networking

Nielson/NetRatings has issued a study showing that the top 10 social networking sites saw traffic grow 47% over the last year, with MySpace seeing the biggest growth (367% increase) and MSN Spaces (286%) seeing the biggest growth. Hosted blogging systems were included in the study.

These numbers might even seem low in light of, for example, the recent study from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (and MySpace victims) finding that 61% of 13-to 17-year-olds have a personal profile on sites such as MySpace, Friendster, or Xanga. The study continues with findings that 14% have actually met face-to-face with a person they had known only through the Internet (didn't MeetUp prove this was a difficult business model?) 30% have considered meeting someone they've only communicated with online (consideration being a rational process, not to be encouraged in children) 71% reported receiving messages online from someone they don't know (spam?).

Anecdotally, I'd guess that MySpace fear mongering has risen more than 367% in the last year and if 61% of kids really have MySpace et al. profiles then the spectre of electronic communication has posed a serious threat for well more than the last year.

Links: The Internet Stock Blog (original coverage) via Susan Mernit

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Republicans go after the internet in schools

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-11T20:39:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

According to a Republican sponsored proposal in congress, children in school should only be allowed to access static web pages uploaded via FTP and without comments enabled. "Social-networking sites" broadly defined as anything with user profiles and communication between users, the ability to create a web page, etc. would be filtered by public schools or they would lose their subsidized internet access. Andy Carvin, now at PBS, is the place to look for more information. Original coverage from CNet.

You know what kids? School is stupid. It always has been - and now you've got the internet. Face to face interaction with a wide variety of people and some quality internet use will lead to far more learning than some stupid public school quaking in its boots over MySpace and willing to take down Blogger and Flickr in its paranoia. Hard work, creativity and communication skills are going to take you way further than school - ok? Argh, I hate this kind of stuff.

Update: Heated rhetoric ends and intelligent discussion of the issues begins in comments below! Thanks to those participating.

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Does del.icio.us want to be MySpace?

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-05-11T20:02:00+00:00

Filed under: social bookmarking, social networking

It seems that everyone wants to by MySpace these days, or at least harness the customer-love (read: clickthroughs and eyeballs?) of social networking software. Del.icio.us today announced another increasingly sophisticated iteration of its new social function. Now people who've added you to their contacts list will be visible from your account, etc. Is this how RSS is going to end up being adopted, through means like this? I am perfectly capable of subscribing to peoples' bookmark feeds amongst my many feed subscriptions - but to be honest I almost never look at anything but my archive and other peoples' by tag in del.icio.us. Do readers here foresee themselves using del.icio.us as a social networking app? Perhaps they are getting ready for the hordes of new users that will come in with full Yahoo promotion.

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Tim O'Reilly asks: will friendships with brands rival contextual advertising?

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-24T12:43:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking, aggregators

Big discussion around the web about this weekend's New York Times story on MySpace's anemic revenues relative to its huge traffic. My favorite contribution to the mix so far is Tim O'Reilly's post about the part of the story reporting that 10,000 MySpace users have accepted a friendship with the bouncing square of ground beef from the Wendy's commercials. [Correction - that was 100,000 users!] What were you saying about MySpace users again? Meat market jokes could abound...

Regardless, O'Reilly posits a theory that relationship marketing like this between brands and consumers could be the next big thing. It could be as big as the creation of contextual advertising ala Overture and then Google, he says. Thoughts?

My only thought initially is that if I want to maintain a relationship with a vendor (and I do, many) then I'll subscribe to their RSS feed (so I can catch square burgers in my aggregator, I guess). Is that what this is, if not on a technical level then on a semi-functional level? Maybe that's the level of sophistication that will be needed in order to see mass adoption of syndication/subscription technologies - click here to make friends with a square burger. It seems possible.

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Using pop-up blocker? LiveJournal could delete your account

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-20T21:12:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

An astute observer posts to Slashdot early this morning that the social networking/blogging service LiveJournal has added a section to it's Terms of Service that says users can't block pop-up ads. This is the language:

"Employing and/or providing software programs, browser scripts, or other technologies that serve to block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages."

What's more obnoxious - pop-up ads or threatening to kick me out of the party if I look the other way? As you can imagine, conversation both technical and impassioned ensues at Slashdot.

No mention of the controversy yet on the LiveJournal news page, which (incomprehensibly) doesn't offer an RSS feed either. (correction - I don't know why I said this, they have a number of feeds that apprently just evaded me.)

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Forbes on MySpace cottage industries

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-13T16:08:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

Forbes ran an interesting story this week about cottage industries popping up around MySpace. A quick profiling of everything from profile mod tools to friend-invite and comment spamming software (oh joy!) to t-shirts that just say "Tom is not my friend." Funny stuff.

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MySpace hires security specialist - what took so long?

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-12T13:09:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

MySpace announced today that they have hired a former Department of Justice and Microsoft...gentleman, to fight sexual exploitation of children on the site. Hemanshu Nigam's arrival is widely discussed, but I have to ask - why on earth did the company wait until now to add such a position? Imagine how much horrible PR could have been averted by hiring someone to do this six months ago, or whenever the furor was really breaking loose in the mainstream media. I'll be curious to see what kind of commentary emerges from MySpace watchers.

See also NYTimes coverage.

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Danah Boyd talks MySpace with Bill O'Reilly

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-04-02T14:37:00+00:00

Filed under: MSM, social networking

I think Danah did a good job. Made some important points. I was surprised how calm he was about the whole thing - until I remembered his show and MySpace are owned by the same company. Hahahah.

For more info on Danah and her work in this space see her blog.

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Joga.com: Soccer/football social networking by Nike and Google

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-03-20T16:28:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

That's right, the most popular sport in the world finally has its own social networking site, Joga.com. Built by Nike and Google, I can't imagine it having a better outlook. Well, if there were sex, free beer or viable get rich quick angles then maybe. But other than that soccer/football, Nike and Google all seem a mass market match made in heaven. Sports highlight vids in particular seem to have a lot of potential for web distro. I've even been willing to watch some of them on YouTube, and I'm not willing to watch almost anyting on YouTube - it's so grainy and slow. Found via BizWeek.

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Come say hi at SXSW

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-03-09T20:12:00+00:00

Filed under: conferences, social networking

If you're going to be in Austin this weekend, a number of us will be as well. Barb Dybwad, now an occasional contributer here (when we're lucky) and Associate Editor of the Weblogs Inc. network will be speaking on a panel Saturday at 5:00 called Public Square or Private Club: Does Exclusivity Strengthen or Dilute?

No speaking for me, but I'll be there and maybe we can say hi.

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Tribe.net gets more funding

Marshall Kirkpatrick — 2006-02-24T21:23:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

Rafat at PaidContent.org is reporting that Tribe.net has received another $3 million in 3rd round fund raising, bringing the total to $11 million. Pretty good for a company whose CEO only has 18 friends, but I guess it's how you pick 'em. Update: See comments to this post, the company says this this is actually the first they've heard of these new funds!

Much of Tribe's support seems to come from big commercial media, their business model appears to be advertising and probably future provision of approved user information to said big commercial media. Controversy abounds regarding this supposed "alternative" social networking service and it will be interesting to see how more funding and thus more indebtedness to deep pockets plays out with the communities of users. Whatever is a successful service to do?

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MySpace blocking YouTube?

Barb Dybwad — 2005-12-23T17:04:00+00:00

Filed under: companies, social media, social networking

Just caught wind of this as I was guffawing over this World of Warcraft mashup video -- it appears that MySpace is blocking YouTube, not just embedded videos but all YouTube URLs and even any references to the YouTube service. Apparently MySpace hasn't responded to any inquiries from YouTube staff or MySpace users who also use YouTube. Considering the overwhelming amount of strange and random multimedia crap I have seen embedded into MySpace profiles, I find this a little odd. Anybody know what's up?

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How would you change MySpace?

Barb Dybwad — 2005-12-06T13:09:00+00:00

Filed under: social networking

Sister site Download Squad has picked up the thread on the "How would you change..." series and this one may be of interest to you folks:

How would you change Myspace?

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