Social Networking Meets Open Source

Check out this article on open source applications for social networking sites.

Ringside Networks has launched a Social Application Server that is "the first open source platform that enables website owners to build and deploy social applications that operate with existing website content and business applications while seamlessly integrating with social networks such as Facebook."

According to the article:

"The idea is to make it easier to add social application features, like user profiles, friends, and groups, to existing Web sites and to create close interoperability with Facebook, where there are 19,000 third-party applications.

Applications written for Ringside Networks' "social application engine" will run on Facebook. People can also share information with Facebook, such as user log-ins."

According to the company, this provides three key advantages:

• Maximizes existing investments by making corporate websites and business applications socially aware.
• Ensures social applications can be customized to meet the unique needs of your business.
• Leverages your existing corporate website brand, look and feel.

To Technorella, two things about this new application are most interesting.

First, I think it's interesting that Ringside is focusing mainly on Facebook (versus other social networking sites like MySpace) with this application. It seems like Facebook is rapidly becoming the de facto social networking site of choice.

Second, and most obviously, is the use of open source technology in the social networking arena. It's nice to see Tim Burners-Lee's vision of "open everything" continuing to dominate the online world.

Could Social Networking Change the World?

Maybe this is a bit of a digression, but I'm stuck on this New York Times Op-Ed. We are spending $5,000 per second on the Iraq war. According to the article, which discusses economist Joseph Stiglitz's new book:

"Professor Stiglitz calculates in a new book, written with Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, that the total costs, including the long-term bills we’re incurring, amount to about $25 billion a month. That’s $330 a month for a family of four.

A Congressional study by the Joint Economic Committee found that the sums spent on the Iraq war each day could enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start or give Pell Grants to 153,000 students to attend college. Or if we’re sure we want to invest in security, then a day’s Iraq spending would finance another 11,000 border patrol agents or 9,000 police officers."

My question is this: why isn't anyone listening to this? Why aren't young people up in arms about the future of this country? Why is the audience for this kind of message limited to Limousine Liberal NYT readers?

There has to be a way to harness the power of online social networks to engage a younger audience. I know a lot of politicians are trying - but it doesn't seem to be working. I don't have an answer - but I think politicians, writers, academics and activists need to better take advantage of "weak social ties" in a real and genuine way. Online social networks could - if used properly - become an agent of social and political change.

Starbucks Tries Social Networking

My friend Eddie Radshaw just sent me an article about Starbucks' new social networking site. "My Starbucks" provides a forum for customers to offer up ideas and suggestions to the company.

The article highlights Starbucks' ongoing use of digital technology to engage/attract customers:

"You could say the company is as aggressive with its Internet campaigns as it is with its prices. There is Wi-Fi in the stores, they let you log onto iTunes to see what song is playing in the store and download it, let you use text messaging to find the nearest store, and they gave away free digital songs for a month last year."

I'm interested to see how Starbucks' use of online/digital technologies pans out. On the one hand, you could say Starbucks is ahead of the curve. But does that make the company more profitable? Starbucks' growth is at it's slowest pace in two years. Most of us following business news know about Howard Schultz's return to the company's CEO spot (after 7 years off the job) to revamp the company.

What do social networks, Wi-Fi and iTunes mean for business? In my mind, not much. Starbucks' drinks are pricey. To me, a $5 coffee drink is completely ridiculous - especially since the customer experience in a Starbucks is borderline terrible. If I'm going to spend big on a coffee drink, I'd prefer to do so in a "coffee house" environment - rather than a cookie-cutter Starbucks. But maybe that's just me - I'm from Northern California, where independent coffee houses are arguably the backbone of our culture.

Either way, I think Starbucks has its work cut out for it. Cutting-edge digital technology may help - I'm just not sure how much.

A Real, Live Social Networking Expert...

Technorella interviewed a real-life social networking expert to get a fresh perspective on what it's all really about - especially with the younger set. After all, I joined the online social networking sphere just recently, and still don't consider it a part of my day-to-day life.

In my mind, a "real" social networking expert isn't a professional. It's someone who uses sites like Facebook and MySpace habitually and regularly. So I spoke with "Jim" (who prefers to remain anonymous). Jim is 24 and was a freshman in college when Facebook launched. In other words, he was a Facebooker from the very beginning.

Most interestingly, Jim is friends with Kevin Colvin, who made it onto CNN (in addition to Rolling Stone Magazine) due to a Facebook photo blunder. Colvin's story gained considerable traction in the blogosphere and eventually made national news headlines.

What happened? Last Halloween (which was on a Thursday), Colvin (a senior in college) sent an email to his bosses at the bank where he was interning. In his email, he claimed he would be unable to show up to work on Friday, November 1st due to a family emergency.
Apparently, he was always making excuses for not coming in. And it was the day after Halloween. So Colvin's boss looked him up on Facebook (to check his story) and found a photo of him dressed as a fairy at a Halloween party. It pretty much speaks for itself.


Colvin's boss - upon finding the photo - sent him an email, which included the photo, a (sarcastic) note of empathy regarding his "family emergency" and, added a P.S. of "nice wand." The email went viral because Colvin's boss bcc-ed the entire company on the email.


Below are some exerpts from my conversation with Jim.

Q. Why do you think the blogosphere and news media latched onto this story?
This was a social networking case study that everyone had been waiting for. It shows how Facebook can intersect with the business world.

Q. So, what do you and your friends think about what happened?

We thought it was hilarious when it happened - and knowing the kid, it was great. But, it was also unprofessional that the email went to the whole company. This could have completely ruined his career. The email made its way to all of Wall Street within half an hour. I had it forwarded to me by multiple friends within ten minutes. It was all over Internet... tons of blogs were posting about it.

Q. How did Colvin respond to the whole thing?

At first, he thought it would totally blow over... but it was everywhere. I heard that he threatened the bank with litigation because his boss violated the company's privacy provisions, and was offered a permanent position upon graduation.

Q. Has this changed the way you approach Facebook (and other social networking sites you belong to?)

Honestly, we started to see it as a potential problem. So most of my friends changed our profiles and made most of our information private. It also made me realize that an internship in college could still have an effect on your professional career after you graduate.

Colvin wasn't conscientious enough on Facebook. People just have to be careful with Facebook, work email and the intersection between their social lives and their work lives. Anyone who doesn't accept that there is no "known fine line" between business and personal spheres is kidding themselves.

Facebook versus LinkedIn: Job Recruiting via Social Networks

I've expressed my utter dissatisfaction with LinkedIn as a viable recruiting tool in previous posts. It actually drives me insane to spend hours interviewing candidates who are not really in the market to be poached.

Well, it appears that Facebook may also become a recruiting tool in some sectors. This hypothesis isn't based on a set of statistics - but on the fact that someone on my team at work was just contacted by a headhunter on the site.

To me, this concept raises a host of issues. Will one social network (Facebook, for example) become the global be-all-and-end-all? Or, will social networking continue to become more focused and fragmented- with users joining specialized social networking sites specific to their geographic locations, interests, etc.?

From an ethical/privacy standpoint, I think there are, again, a series of issues that come to the fore. Facebook is supposed to be a way of connecting with friends; does corporate infiltration somehow violate the very point of the site? I'm not sure I want headhunters looking at my tagged photos. Nor do I want to deal with these kinds of (typically stalker-esque) individuals when really, I'm visiting Facebook to see photos from the party I bailed on last weekend, or to play poker with my little brother.

Maybe recruiting and other solicitations via social networking sites are Web 2.0's version of spam. Food for thought on a Monday (as I continue trying to find a good candidate to fill an open position at my company).

Sunday Blog...

As usual, my Sunday blog entry is more personal than not. But hey, it's been a big weekend.

So, a friend of mine from my old job was in town on Friday. We worked together in Washington, DC but now he lives in Philly with his wife and two kids. He also changed career paths... needless to say, we don't keep in touch regularly at all - actually it's been almost two years since we last saw each other.

Anyway, we had a great time and promised to be better about keeping in touch in the future. And I got to thinking about how things would be different if we were part of an online social network.

This guy is 38 - and definitely not a Facebook user. But our social interaction would have been extremely different if he were! If he had photos of his kids posted on his site, for example, I'd know much more about how Bryson and Catherine were doing. To me, it was a glaring example of how social networking sites truly do shape "real world" interactions.

Social Networking Meets Breaking News

ABC News just broke the story (about an hour ago) about the identity of Elliot Spitzer's call girl. Where did the news organization get most of its information about 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre? Her "well kept MySpace page."

Dupre's MySpace page has apparently received 5 million hits since her identity was revealed. The ABC piece uses her MySpace profile to speculate on Dupre's life, motivations and personality:

"In some of her MySpace photos, Dupre is the sexy club-goer out on the town, or is goofing off, making digital self-portraits; or she is sleek and tan on a boat in a shot she says was taken in St Tropez; or she is passed out after what looks like a long night. "It happens a lot," she writes."

What do I find interesting about this? That social networking sites are driving mainstream media coverage. We know more about Dupre because we can see how she describes/presents herself in the online sphere.

Social Networking Stats

Happy Monday from Technorella. I just came across this chart on a blog about the social economy. A resource called Complete ranks social networking sites by total monthly visits for the month of February:

To me, less interesting than the actual rankings are the changes sites are experiencing. While MySpace continues to be #1, visits are down 1% from a year ago, while Facebook visits have increased by 77%. Xanga has experienced a 66% decline. And newer, more specialized social networking sites are clearly on the rise.

What does this mean? Maybe it's that as social networking sites become more popular, users seem to be looking for online communities that are more specialized, and address their individual needs. Maybe it's that MySpace is too big, too "Rupert Murdoch," too one-size-fits all in its approach to be a sustainable category leader.

Clearly, the online social networking space is evolving. My bet is that as mobile takes hold, the sites most conducive to it will dominate - at least with the younger set. Given the iPhone/Facebook ad I saw on TV recently, I think Facebook will be the new leader in a very, very short amount of time.

Finally!

Technorella has frequently ranted that she receives Facebook "friend requests" from people who are a) her close friends in the real world or b) people she hasn't spoken to in years/met once.

Yesterday I received a friend request from someone in the middle. And it made me think that these kind of relationships are what social networking sites are really about (I mean, aside from online stalking).

To be specific, Rachel - a close friend of my close friend, Jen - asked me to be her friend. Rachel and I have spent a good amount of time together; she came to visit DC when Jen and I lived there, and for a good year we hung out a lot thanks to another mutual friend's wedding activities.

But, Rachel and I simply aren't close enough to keep in touch via traditional communications methods. Plus, she lives in Chicago, Jen lives in Portland, and I live in New York - so there's not a lot of opportunity to see each other anymore.

Still, I feel like it's nice to be connected to her on some level. In other words, she's the perfect Facebook friend.

Facebook's Profitability

Forgive the blog hiatus - it's been a hectic week for Technorella work-wise. Anyway - an article from Wednesday's Wall Street Journal (you can only read the article if you're a wsj.com subscriber - sorry) discusses how Facebook, in its effort to become more operationally savvy and profitable, has poached a top Google exec, Sheryl Sandberg, to help grow the business.





Facebook has skyrocketed - check out the chart below that shows the increase in unique Facebook visitors since April 2006.

But, just how profitable are social networking sites really going to be in the long-run? Based on this article, it looks like very:

"Last year, Microsoft Corp. invested $240 million in the company, valuing the startup at $15 billion. That gives Mr. Zuckerberg a net worth on paper of at least $3 billion. According to comScore Inc., a Web tracking firm, Facebook had 101 million visitors in January, up from 25 million in January 2007."

I'm interested to see how the company will grow revenue-wise. How will it enhance ad revenue? Will games and video content become the site's profit centers? Social networking sites have clearly provided new ways for companies to reach consumers - particularly young consumers who aren't so easy to reach. My two cents? New advertising and profitability models will evolve to fit the site's "personality."

Hillary Clinton's Facebook Page

Don't tell my boss, but I was just watching the SNL Clinton-Obama debate skit from this weekend.

For anyone who hasn't seen it - it's absolutely hysterical, regardless of your political leanings. At the end, Senator Clinton (the REAL Hillary - not the SNL version) gives an "editorial response" to the skit, which - I thought - painted her as a human, not simply a politician.

SNL is an excellent venue for political candidates looking to enhance their personal appeal. And got to thinking about the role social networking sites play in helping politicians create human identities to appeal to voters.

This thought brought me to Hillary Clinton's Facebook page. I actually like Hillary a lot more than most people do - but her page was beyond canned. For example, in her "About Me" section, Hillary says:

"I was raised in a middle-class family in the middle of America. From that classic suburban childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois, I went on to become one of America's foremost advocates for children and families; an attorney twice voted one of the most influential in America; a First Lady of Arkansas who helped transform the schools; a bestselling author; a First Lady for America who helped transform that role, becoming a champion for health care and families at home and a champion of women's rights and human rights around the world."

I fully understand that politicians must be "on message" all the time. But come on... this is Facebook. If Hillary is really trying to engage younger voters through her official page, she'd be well-served to let go of political-speak and try to communicate in a genuine way. I guess my point is that while digital forums are trendy, I'm not sure they're relevant in politics unless a candidate is truly willing to let go of the spin.

Tipping Points and Social Networks

... Technorella is back. After procrastinating for much of the day, I'm catching up on my reading for my digital media class. This week, it's all about social networks, tipping points, and early adopters.

Right now, I'm struggling with the idea that in a very tangible sense, weaker social connections may be more "beneficial" to an individual than stronger ones. For example, it's usually helpful to use a broad network of friends, colleagues and peers when engaging in a job search. Broadly speaking, good things - like a new job - can come out of relatively weak social ties.

I completely buy this idea; a former colleague of mine who works in the cosmetics industry and I frequently support our respective friends and co-workers in their job searches by trading resumes. This relatively "weak" social tie is certainly useful. But what interests me is what this really means about online social networks.

Sites like Facebook and MySpace enable us to broaden our social spheres - quickly, easily and without much thought. To a large extent, these forums are all about establishing weak social ties. Maybe I've had the wrong idea about social networking in the digital age; maybe in trying to compare Facebook friendships to real world relationships, I've missed the boat.

Perhaps online social networks are more about reaping tangible benefits from weak social ties - instead of replacing in-person communications.

IPhone Meets Facebook

I was just watching Saturday Night Live on DVR, and an iPhone ad I've never seen came on. I don't watch a lot of live TV (meaning I usually fast-forward through the commercials) so I'm not sure how new this one is, but I've never seen it before.

Point being, the ad featured mobile social networking as one of iPhone's main features - specifically focusing on Facebook.

My friend Eddie Radshaw - who blogs about his iPhone - has pointed out that iPhone's target demographic is students. The social networking angle makes sense in this context, and also makes me think that mobile might come around sooner than we think in the U.S. - largely thanks to iPhone's technology.

I mentioned this idea to my roommate (she's my age) and the idea of mobile social networking completely freaked her out. My question is this: will those of us who clearly weren't early adopters of social networking always be adverse to this idea, or will we drink the kool-aid eventually? My thinking is that if mobile social networking becomes applicable, in some way, to the corporate sector, it may eventually impact an older set.