Wednesday, March 03, 2004

The list has been moved to here: Social Networking Sites and Software sorted by name Please note that YOU can edit this list yourself to make it more accurate and up-to-date! I am not personally maintaining this list anymore, I am counting on all of you to continually keep it updated. Thanks very much. Websites Ryze: business ecademy: business LinkedIn: business itsnotwhatyouknow: business Friendly Favors: business ZeroDegrees: business (corporate) Accolo: jobs RealContacts: jobs Eliyon: business, jobs Friendster: friendship, dating Sona Matchmaker: friendship, dating (India) Huminity: friendship everyonesconnected.com: friendship Ringo: friendship PalJunction: friendship, business, dating, roommates Tribe: friendship, business, dating, roommates, classifieds Club Nexus at Stanford - need URL: alumni, article MeetUp: in-person Buddy Zoo: IM social networking analysis *PayDemocracy: political groups *classmates.com: alumni *.reunion.com: alumni *InfoSpace: yellow pages (references) *SwitchBoard: yellow pages (references) *Match.com: dating *People on Page: friendship, dating *all of the other dating sites People Aggregator: ??? *= could easily cross over into social networking Software: Spoke SW: business (corporate) Visible Path, business (corporate) **wwPlaxo.: contacts **GoodContacts: contacts **Accucard: contacts ** contact software could easily add social networking features as they have all of the necessary data Blogs with some features of Social Networking livejournal: blog Expressions: visual blogging Fotolog: visual blogging Question Marks WisomeBuilder NetDiva Preliminary Analysis It seems pretty clear that not all of these social networking sites or software will survive. Clay Shirky states "The *only* thing these services have to base a business on is lack of interoperability". I believe there is another part to the value proposition that they offer users -- the ability to go beyond 1 degree of separation. However, it's really difficult to think of situations where going more than 2 degrees of separation is worthwhile, unless you are a contagious disease - see my whitepaper Links and Nodes in Social Networks. Unless >2 degrees of separation and node secrecy are valued by users (maybe not everyone but an interestingly large set of users), an "open" networking service will make these proprietary services and software obsolete. before they've made a penny. Acknowledgements Thanks to the many people who helped me compile this list including: Clay Shirky Danah Boyd Doug Rush Sean Murphy Debi Jones Patti Anklam If I left your name off let me know and I will add it. - posted by Cynthia @ 9/14/2003 09:49:58 AM 6:11:51 PM     Stranger in a Strange Mary Sue. I just found a great old post by Teresa Nielsen Hayden on "Mary Sue". MARY SUE (n.): 1. A variety of story, first identified in the fan fiction community, but quickly recognized as occurring elsewhere, in which normal story values are grossly subordinated to inadequately transformed personal wish-fulfillment ... [for example] Galadriel's secret love-child (Aragorn�s unacknowledged daughter) who runs off to join the Company of the Ring, sorts out Boromir's problems, out-magics Gandalf, out-fights Aragorn during the melodramatic scene in which she reveals her true identity, demonstrates herself to be so spiritually elevated that the Ring has no effect on her, and wins Legolas' heart forever. I loved this, and was all set to blog that Robert Heinlein falls deep into this trap in some later novels--until I discoved Teresa's commenters had already said exactly this. What would Mary Sue do in my situation? Drink exotic poison and die a lingering death in the arms of Johnny Depp, as mascara ran down his cheeks on a riptide of tears.... [Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?] 6:04:26 PM     They are not better or best (although some might be), but rather different for different purposes - I find I use the services very differently - and sporadically.  In the end, I think Ryze is still doing the best job.  But I do like several features of some of the others - linkedIn Orkut, friendster, no so much flickr or the rest.  No experience with Tribe which is apparently popular. Let me point to my January post to the SNS thesis - the key is how these services and other software enable you to manage and extend your social network.  Does it stay online? Does it translate into shared activities? Lot's of questions and some interesting early answers - but it still feels in flux. ============================================================= Which YASNS is best?. Over and over again, people tell me that one of the YASNS is *far* better than any of the other ones. Usually, they want me to agree with them. Sometimes, people just ask me which one i think is best. Given that this is me, i have a problem with this question. My problem is not personal or political... it's contextual. In this case, "best" is in the eye of the beholder. Thus, i often ask people what *they* want in a YASNS. Almost always, there's one overwhelming factor that makes one YASNS better than another for the individual: "people like me." In a post-finals hallucinatory state, i decided to attend a gathering with some of my peers last December. A group gathered into a "panel" to talk about social software. One very smart, very respected VC spoke about how she believed that LinkedIn was hands down the best YASNS. I found myself speaking... or more accurately exploding because of her conception. It's not that i don't believe that LinkedIn was the best for her - i truly do. It's that i don't believe that there is a universal best. When i was interviewing early Friendster adopters about the site, over and over again, they told me that they loved it because it was a site fool of cool hipsters like them. They identified with the people on the site and they loved feeling like everywhere they turned, they saw other people that they thought were cool. They were not looking forward to it being mainstream because then there will be duds on the system. Each sub-hipster group was likely to run across more people like them depending on their linking structure. (Homophily again.) Because most people joined under one context, they never saw the other "non-hipsters" that they dealt with in everyday life. When that started happening, they were disappointed. When Orkut exploded, all of the social software fiends jumped on the train like it was going to Disney World. It was the end-all be-all of the YASNS. Of course it was... to them... It was filled with people like them - their colleagues, those that they respect, etc. It felt like home. Guess what? At Tribe.net, there are lots of people who feel at home and spend exorbitant hours on the service. Same with MySpace. Same with Everyone's Connected. Same with Live Journal. The battle is not simply about the best tools. In fact, that's a truly secondary issue. It's about motivating a coherent group to join, participate and make it home. What makes the best pub? Is it really the beer or the price? Hell, the only reason that the music usually matters is because it draws people that you like to the pub. It's the combination of environment and people.. but the environment brings the people so the environment DOES matter. There's an architectural lesson there... Environment matters because it draws the right people. This is why niche shit works. The biggest joke about the Internet is that the most profitable services are barely public. They address a niche market completely. One of the most unfortunate things about social software is that everyone is trying to court everyone to their service. Frankly, a far more appropriate response would be to try to figure out which users are most suited for your tool given its current state and then try to meet their needs completely. Figure out your audience. And don't simply focus on your desired audience because the tool you created may not have met their needs... be able to shift if you find that you've built something far more appropriate for another group. Cause frankly? If you have, the users know it and are using it more completely there. [Note: Friendster's popularity in Asia isn't because it's a good tool; it's because the way the site was structured met that population's needs/desires without much translation. It was inadvertently and accidentally best for them, not well designed for them.] [apophenia] 4:52:55 PM     Rob Cross: Introduction to Social Network Analysis. Rob Cross: Introduction to Social Network Analysis SNA 101 [elearningpost] 3:37:38 PM     I need some inspiration to clean my workspace - only 32% sounds low - not real data. ================================================= CNET: Feeling blue? Maybe it's your cubicle. CNET: Feeling blue? Maybe it's your cubicle "Nearly half of women surveyed--46 percent--and 32 percent of men said their emotional state was closely tied to the condition of their workspace." Workspace design is an important element in knowledge sharing too. Tom Davenport analyzed such causal relationships sometime back. [elearningpost] 3:29:36 PM     OK OK - you are endlessly fascinating - juxtaposing posts - On The Perceived Hermanetics of Didactic Fundamentalism and then this one...  I am hot just imagining you in your bikini - pink hat - darjeeling dream And Great Link to Daniel Day Lewis as Cecil - talk about contrasts - Room with a View and then Last of the Mohicans - don't underestimate the flexibilty of us tweedy guys... ============================================== Cock-A-Doodle Do. Cock-A-Doodle Do Rise and shine, guys. Let's go. It's getting late. 5:22 am here I suppose that rooster noise is what woke me, figuratively, metaphorically, not literally, as there is no strutting bird anywhere in sight, but in my mind's eye, which is to say a rather sexy dream woke me, what's a girl to do, but stagger out of bed, say ... "hmmm" about that, put a light on, shuffle into the kitchen, grab the counter for balance, flip the switch on the teapot, reach for the Darjeeling to bring her back to Earth, and with spring battling winter and my dreamy landscape a hot summer beach, I don a most inappropriate but perfect costume, last summer's black and white bikini, a black cashmere sweater, a pink faux fur hat. You can't take this life too seriously you see. I think, "Who Was That Masked Man?" Maybe ... him? Maybe ... him? Maybe ... him? Maybe ... him? Maybe ... him? No, must have been ... oh yes, he's the one. [Halley's Comment] 11:13:45 AM     Thank you Halley - once again for keeping me on my literary toes.  My introduction to Uxor comes from an a capella song I sang back in high-school.  It is a very sophomoric tribute to latin lessons by John O'Keefe: Amo, Amas AMO, amas, I love a lass As a cedar tall and slender! Sweet cowslips' grace Is her Nominative Case, And she's of the Feminine Gender. Rorum, corum, sunt Divorum!    Harum, scarum Divo! Tag rag, merry derry, periwig and hatband,    Hic hac, horum Genetivo! Can I decline A Nymph divine? Her voice as a flute is dulcis! Her oculi bright! Her manus white! And soft, when I tacto, her pulse is! Rorum, corum, sunt Divorum!    Harum scarum Divo! Tag rag , merry derry, periwig and hatband,    Hic hac, horum Genetivo! O, how bella Is my Puella! I'll kiss sæculorum! If I've luck, Sir! She's my Uxor! O, dies benedictorum! Rorum, corum, sunt Divorum!    Harum scarum Divo! Tag rag, merry derry, periwig and hatband,    Hic, hac, horum Genetivo! John O'Keefe Note the line above - "if I've luck sir, she's my Uxor."  In other words the beautiful woman he is singing about will become his wife!  Or, at least will perform some "wifely" activities...;-) Thanks again======================================================= Uxorial. Uxorial I used this word "uxorial" today on the phone with someone who knows a lot of words and he didn't know this one. It's a great word. I have nothing but avuncular or perhaps, fraternal feelings for this guy, btw. And he is not particularly uxorious either. He simply needed to ask her a question before we could plan an outing. [Halley's Comment] 10:56:33 AM

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