Sites that allow you to import your Facebook graph/profile
Uno as Online, Social Networks, Web2.0
Oct|26|2007
Facebook doesn’t allow you to export your data out, that means you can’t take your social graph with you, or that when you have built up a fat profile (with all those likes/dislikes fields) you can’t take that with you.
This list below tries to aggregate the sites that would allow you import your Facebook profile. It’s sort of like a mini-OpenID kinda server. Armand first played around with the Facebook exporting tool a while back where he would manage to get your friendslist out of Facebook and show it in his OpenID server called Identitu.de.
Techcrunch recently covered the Facebook CSV exporter app, which is a good example of the concept behind portable social networks.
Take into consideration that there are quite a lot of limits posed by Facebook. You can take a look at the Techcrunch article (one of the developers of the CSV app talks about it) you can get an idea of how easy it is to actually export data, and the kinds of data you can get out. Apparently all that you can’t get practically the e-mail address. Ernst, Alistair and myself had a discussion yesterday on what you can and can’t get out, and why Facebook would allow that. Yes, as the one developer actually says, you could use all this data to populate an entire new network, with practically all the 30-odd million users that are in Facebook, but that would still not give you the relationships (he is my friend, met at school, etc etc) and photos, etc etc that give Facebook that much power.
What does make this interesting though is that it allows your social graph to be exported, albeit in a limited manner. Ideally now with all the other apps that are developing platforms you should be able to to sync multiple profiles across multiple networks and get more data out, to construct a more complete picture of yourself - and own the data yourself.
Networks that allow you to import your data:
Bluepulse - Mobile socialnetwork, mobile import works quite well. Also sends a Facebook message to people alerting them of the profile.
Jobster
Mobimii - Mobile Social Network (originally populated through the Nudgemii SMS app)
Cylive (a social productivity app)
That’s all I’ve found for now… If you can find anything else please add to the comments and I’ll update the post.
People talking about this kind of stuff:
Jeremy Keith
Portable Social Networks group
Google Search
Kevin Lawver
Brian Oberkirch
The wiki
And the other way:
Spacelift allows you to import your Myspace profile (if you still have one) to Facebook.
Check this out. It’s an Identity Matcher - an OS project that imports and matches social graphs. Pretty nifty!
Some things I’d like to see:
A Wordpress plugin that could potentially wipe-out MyBlogLog (imbed that into your blog and it grabs info off your FB profile - shows connections etc).
If you are interested in this subject, take a look at some of the other pieces I’ve written on social networks.
Platforms as commodities
Why Social Networks aren’t a bubble
Federated Social Networks
Technorati Tags: portable, social network, social graph, trends, facebook, export, csv
Product innovation : Muti, Laaik.it and other SA startups
Uno as Online, Products, Social Networks, South Africa, Web2.0
Oct|25|2007
The company I work for, 24.com, went live with their Digg/social news clone today, called Laaik.it.
You can read the “scoop” over at Charl Norman’s Bandwidth Blog.
While it’s not an entirely bold step (it’s not that big a deal to launch a social news site), it is actually quite a large innovation in the South African market for some lesser than obvious reasons.
There are quite a few players in this space already. Internationally there is Digg and Reddit, to name some of the bigger players, and then locally there is Muti. Yes there are a whole bunch of other ones, but Muti is certainly the market player in this space.
Charl asks the question: Will it be a Muti killer? and concludes that it won’t be. I don’t expect it to either, but for different reasons. I’ve written about Muti a few times and I’ve also predicted way back in January that a 24.com product will offer strong competition to sites like Muti (I specifically wrote about Blik).
I’ve also written about niche contents before. If we had a large enough target market we would probably see a Rugby Digg as well, and a Cricket Digg etc etc. But we don’t so we still have larger scale generic networks.
So why do I think this product is innovative?
Simply because 24.com is a market leader. 60% of South African internet traffic goes through 24.com. You can’t argue with that. So it’s not technically innovative, or even visually innovative, but that really doesn’t matter.
24.com also has one of the largest blogging communities in South Africa, but the technology behind it is crap, old and clunky. But do you think the community cares? No they don’t! They’ve gotten alot of people blogging who wouldn’t have had exposure to it in another way. We have to understand that most people inside our little frenzied community are early adopters.
24.com will be able to bring social news to the broader SA audience, something that Muti struggled to do. If you take a look at Muti’s top submitters this month, I’m struggling to argue with myself that there is a broad smattering of users… It’s the same guys. Opening this up to a broader audience will get more people to use social news - which is a good thing!
On another note, I’ve written way back that I think SA is producing some crappy clones. I’m not really changing that opinion yet. (the data on that article is old, but I still stick with mah guns).
Platforms as commodities
Uno as Ideas, Social Networks
Oct|25|2007
New news today is that Friendster (the social network of old) will be launching a platform, much like Facebook has done and also as Myspace is doing. Tagged has even gone so far as to emulate the platform that Facebook has created, so instead of using their own markup language, they instead opt to mirror the language used in FBML so that developers can easily duplicate their apps on Tagged (when they’ve built the Facebook app). It’s a good move!
Now coming to commodities, something becomes a commodity when it is so pervasive that it later on doesn’t really matter which one you use - they become interchangable and don’t have any clout. Om Malik has mentioned that social networks in general are just commodities. So when platforms become commodities and everyone has them the space could start getting interesting. Some platforms might give away more information from others, and like the theory goes, your identity is constructed out of what you say you are, but also around what other people say you are. Could this be first steps towards portable social networks that we’ve been ranting on about?
Platforms give the opportunity for different networks to talk to each other, albeit in a limited way at the moment. Multiple platforms might be the solution to getting everyone to talk to each other. If you have the same app on different networks, each app might be able to get a little more out of you, and each app might be able to call differnet API’s and get different friends lists… Maybe moving towards completing a fuller picture of your social graph.
Technorati Tags: platform, social network, forecast
Vodacom to try mobile Social Networks with The Grid
Uno as Social Networks, South Africa, Web2.0
Oct|22|2007
As is covered by MyBroadband and Tyler Reed, Vodacom is to launch a new network called The Grid.
Some features that you can look forward to:
IM (obviously - but that would eat into their SMS market?)
Friending (duh)
Aggregation (between your other networks)
From another press release:
“A powerful mobile social network funded by mobile advertising could be established by combining the power of social networking and mobiles. We are also considering mobile TV and video insertions, a Vodacom radio station, as well as voice, text, content and mobile Internet searching funded by advertising,” Kumalo said.
It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Vodacom obviously wants to get into the share that Mxit has managed to carve out for themselves. However, Mxit has a huge user base already, and as it has proven itself, it’s not about the technology but about the community. Vodacom would have a long way to go before they can get that kind of community going. Mxit however doesn’t have the social networking aspect built into it, it’s something that they’ve been struggling with for a while.
Seeding options for Vodacom would obviously be to bundle the application together with all the new phones that they sell. While Java apps have proved to be not such a huge barrier to entry (with Mxit), it’s still something that requires a lot of technology investment (you have to develop a different program for every device). Still, having to not have people download the app will lower that barrier even more. Web interfaces are still even better (from a flexibility perspective) but they offer poor user experiences (and their feature set is limited).
I’ve heard rumors about Mxit bundling in with an operator or handset before (I believe this specific one was Nokia). This is going to be interesting, also because Mxit has also recently expanded to open up quite a few new datacentres in the EU. Could this mean expansion into the European market? Probably yes. If Mxit bundles with a handset they could possibly cement growth as well. Also, if you buy a Nokia on a Vodacom contract… What will that mean?
Yet still, at the end of the day it’s about the community. Vodacom would have the advertising budget and partnerships to be able to pull a lot of strings. No doubt they are going to use that horrible rat of theirs to promote the service. Maybe Mo will become the Tom for “The Grid”. The recent Youth Brands Survey from Sunday Times shows that he’s quite popular amongst the Youth, pity most adults hate the bastard. If they can get the kids to transfer over then they would have some clout.
Also, most of the press releases that I’ve been reading have all said something about “we’ll support it through ads”. That’s a bit of a topsided approach… Saying something like that, when you don’t even have a product, belies the thinking behind it. For them it’s a commercial product first and foremost. Nothing wrong with that, I just prefer it a bit more if the user is thought of first. I hate design by comittee.
Technorati Tags: social network, south africa, vodacom, the grid, mxit, instant message,
Geo-targeting: Google is smart
Uno as Web2.0
Oct|18|2007
Google are damn smart. Geo-targeting should be one of the next moves for the social web to move in. Geo-targeting allows for hyperlocal news and a web that is even more specific to you. I can’t wait for this to finally take off.
Technorati Tags: google, hyper local, geo target
Facebook groups: A low engagement model
Uno as Facebook Friday's, Social Networks, Web2.0
Oct|16|2007
I’ve opened up a Google Docs Spreadsheet that I’d love some collaboration on.
You can view the document here.
I’m trying to construct an argument about why Facebook groups are a useless organising tool for interest groups. I’ve added the 7 or 8 groups that Rohit Barghava has mentioned in his blog post. I disagree with him. I believe Facebook groups offer a bad way for brands and and other interest groups to engage with their users.
One of the core features of a CRM tool - contacting your users - is difficult, you can only mail a certain amount of your members before your connection, or the connection, plonks out. Also, viewing what info is new on a group is difficult. You have to trawl through discussions and threads to get to where you want to be. The end result is that people simply don’t comment. Or they do, but they leave it at that and don’t engage.
I’m still working on the piece, but I’d love some feedback from the community. Please help out by filling in or updating this spreadsheet. The idea is that we’d be able to get a snapshot of some of the more active communities/groups on Facebook.
Some links to take a look at:
Community Technology Foundation
Widgify
AllFacebook
Leease
Ning Blog
And some other great funny groups.
And what groups were popular in 1995? When Facebook just started out?
Technorati Tags: facebook, group, social network, white label, custom, ning, kick apps
FOWA Presentations - Best new web apps
Uno as Online
Oct|10|2007
The Future of Web Apps conference has a Slideshare group where you can check out all the presentations from the conference.
FOWA is one of the hottest conferences that showcases some of the best thinking about the web at the moment.
It has presentations by people like Michael Arrington, Ted Rheingold, Kevin Rose, Matt Mullenweg, Om Malik and Brian Oberkitch (not all of these are up yet)
It’s really really cool.
Technorati Tags: fowa, slideshare, presentations
Social Networks are a fad, Social Networking is not
Uno as Web2.0
Oct|3|2007
Reports are flying around on the reports of Steve Ballmer saying Facebook is a fad. I’m not disagreeing with him, in fact I think he’s right.
Robert Scoble has a reply to his statement that you can read here. At first I would probably be inclined to agree with Scoble. At face value (har har), I would also say that MS doesn’t get social networking. Their Sharepoint 2007 product is hopelessly lacking in Enterprise 2.0 value and it has crappy relationship management (it handles documents really well, but that’s about it). But the more I read the comments the more I felt that Microsoft were on to something, but Ballmer is still wrong.
One of the last comments (I didn’t read everything…) from Gene Chaung says:
The concept of Social networking is not a fad, but social network instances are.
Why?
usenet -> bbs -> email -> compuserv/prodigy forums ->
geocities -> friendster -> myspace -> facebook/linkedin ->
mash/ning/???Because history, technological evolution and the inherent fickleness
of trendsetters tells me why. Balmer isn’t totally out of his gourd, he
may just be unintentionally right.
I couldn’t agree more with this statement and why I think Ballmer is wrong (or, unintentionally right) He meant Social Networking as a concept is a fad. That’s not true. Social Networks will still expand as long as there are communities. But different products might fall off the bandwagon.
Also, danah boyd has a interesting distinction:
She started by clarifying Social Networking vs. A Social Network.
Networking is meeting strangers whereas Network is about building
existing relationships. Nice distinction
Social Networking is eternal and has been happening since forever and we need it. A Social Network is two things: The difference in your Social Graph and your Social Network, as well as a platform/technology (such as Myspace/Facebook).
What I can see happening:
There will be two or three big players that will maintain your principle friends list, contact groups etc (Facebook, Myspace, Google, OpenID?).
Niche networks will flourish (Ning, KickApps, custom work?).
It’s not about the technology. You can have crap tech,but it’s about the community. But the tech is important (but being less so as social networks become commodities.)
Technorati Tags: social network, community, facebook, microsoft, scoble, steve ballmer, gene chaung
SugarLoving: Testimony to niche networks
Uno as Ideas, Online, Social Networks, Web2.0
Oct|2|2007
I’ve said before that social networks are around communities (duh), and these are going to be more and more connected to content. Also, you might remember me saying that I can still see a ridiculous amount of niche bookmarking sites pop up. (I haven’t said it on this blog, but I think I should probably, read my one comment here).
Why is this? Because sites like Muti, Digg and Reddit are structured around a community. Take the Guy MClaren issue a while back. His submissions weren’t welcome on Muti, but if he’d posted his articles on a bookmarking service for people interested in SEO then he might have received a lot more attention. Similarly, it’s been said that Digg is a tech focused audience. Which is almost entirely true. If you submit a story about the latest hot new designer shoes from Gucci then it will get Dugg down. That’s not because they have a hostile community, but because they have a different community.
Which brings me to 2 new startups this week:
How is this relevant? Well, firstly Sugarloving is a pretty looking niche Digg (I’ll start calling it something different soon). You’ll remember that Read/WriteWeb had an interview with Rogelio Bernal Andreo, the founder of CoRank, (site similar to Pligg that you can create your own Digg clone) and that he got pretty pissed off with everyone naming everything a Digg Clone and called for the term to be buried (and I wholeheartedly agree). It’s a really good argument, I suggest everyone interested in networks gives it a once over.
What it comes down to is that these sites are niche sites, and they are niche sites in exactly the way that Social Networks are/can be niche sites as well. Following on my previous post where I argued that social networks will never die, I want to drive that point home. You can have whatever content, and you can have endless amounts of networks. As long as there are niche interests with enough people you should be able to sustain a network. Yes, Facebook will still be very popular and very mainstream. But I struggle to organise a good Kayak Polo game through it. It is a bad organising tool for these kinds of niche interests. The days for generic networks are limited (and that’s why Yahoo Mash will see very little uptake if they don’t differentiate themselves, and also probably why Netscape’s Digg clone folded and had to be relaunched)
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the new Friends Sorting feature - if this will be possible.
Techmeme Leaderboard is a similar iteration of this concept. They will eventually give you a Technorati Top 100 (or a Techmeme leaderboard) for any topic - once again mining the niches.
What are the next potential developments in social news?
Each workplace will have its own digg clone (you should have one already, it’s called Enterprise 2.0).
Each publisher will have their own digg clone or favourite ranked stories.
Issues will have their own digg clone (imagine a social news site for stories on Burma - the most popular/active stories are bubbled to the top).
A distributed/federated social news platform
Something that would bring immense value is a social news platform. I’m not sure if CoRank already does this… but where they would be really powerful is in giving a lot of niches their own networks, and then aggregating that info into their main site (which would have much broader topics, but more quality info in each).
Technorati Tags: social news, muti, digg, corank, bookmarking, digg,
Myspace Mobile is useless
Uno as Social Networks, Web2.0
Oct|1|2007
I’m convinced that whoever is in charge of developing http://mobile.Myspace.com is on crack. I don’t understand it. You can only access the mobile site if you are in America, on Cingular. How much business sense does that make?
This is totally the wrong logic to take, I assume that the business argument would be that Cingular is the only network that you can access Myspace on, so therefore everyone will go to Cingular.
All that will happen is that people won’t use your mobile site (maybe they’ll use a different mobile social network from this list here).
What finally happened though is that Myspace released a Wap version. That doesn’t work in South Africa. WHY??!??!?! Why must I be in America for me to access this site? There is no reason for there to be any geographical limit! Bad user design!
I’m not the only person thinking that Mobile.Myspace has lost the plot - Stuart Dredge talks about how ridiculous it is that you need to pay Vodafone to access the WAP site.
While your at it, maybe you want to see some mobility issues that Facebook has.
Images courtesy of Webware
Technorati Tags: myspace, mobile, social networks