judith meskill - soc.media.rocks

A tip from Pete Rojas in an Engadget visits NYU's ITPSpring Show post yesterday:

Next up is Socialight, which we'd describe as an amped up version of Dodgeball (which is itself sort of a mobile version of Friendster). It involves signing up for yet another of those friend of a friend social network websites, but if you have a phone that can run the Socialight software and that supports location-based services (right now only the Nokia 6600 fits the bill) you can see if your friends (and your friends' friends) are in the area or leave messages for your pals around town that they'll only pick up when they actually pass through that specific location.

On the socialight sitetake your social life everywherethis service is described as: a number ofsubtle and overt tools which enable unique modes of real-time and time-shifted communication.
 
Socialight includes great features such as:
 
Tap & Tickle (A Tap is a brief vibration that a socialightuser may send to a friend. A Tickle is a vibration sent with a variable length determined by the socialight usersending the Tickle), and
 
Sticky Shadows (A Sticky Shadow can be a picture, a piece oftext, a snippet of audio, a video clip, or a combination of these types of media, left for another user in a specificphysical location. Users may choose the location, lifetime, and content of the Sticky Shadows they leave for theirfriends).

Alisha Berger for the New York Post certainly does not display a Neutral Point of View( NPOV) inher Sex Sickos' Wireless 'Hookups"headliner.(-:=
 
Great alliteration though in "sleazy subculture of sex addicts." Alisha speaks, however briefly, oftoothing's migration to US shores from EU shores.
 
In anotherarticle ToothingFadLuisa Lim, a Malaysian writer for The Star Online, posits: "With their colonising days behind them, perhaps theBritish sense of adventure and enterprise has just turned inward as they seem to be leading the way in terms of weirdsexual frolics."
 
Tony Deyal (Barbados Nation Online), in CellphonesAnd Englishmen, begins to build a bit of a timeline "dogging" to "bluejacking" to "toothing".
 
And the ever dependable Wikipedia's entry for Toothing states:This article is not about teething, the growth of teeth by infants. In true Wikipedia form, the Toothing entry goeson to make connections to Bluechat, Bluedating, BlueJacking, and Dogging.
 
The New York Post could learn from the Wikipedia's NPOV. Ah, but then,alas, it would not be The New York Post, eh?

...or tracing the SNA DNA of weblogging posts…

Back on March 25, 2004, Lilia Efimova made mention that she was pondering the visualization ofweblog conversations. And then, in an IM chat session, Lilia and I recently conversed in more depth on this topic. Ibegan researching and found a number of neat visualization tools, but none specifically designed to map and followweblogging conversations over time and space.
 
Later on that same day I asked Betsy Devineof Funny Ha-Ha and Feedster fameif she knew of anyone who was either working on or had produced aweblog conversation visualization tool. Betsy just emailed me a reference to Mary Hodder's Paparazzi project proposalat UC Berkeley's SIMS (School of Information Management and Systems).
 
Coincidentally, yesterday, Mary Hodder wrote of being comment spammed on her MT napsterization weblog (her comment spam was in the thousands and minein the hundreds on my knowledge notes weblog over these last few days). How do we go about visualizing theseweblogging conversations sans the insane and inane static of senseless comment spam? But, Ido digress.
 
From Mary Hodder regarding the design goals of her Paparazzi project:

One of our major design goals is to provide blog readers with a tool that will allow them to follow a conversation that takes place over the course of days or weeks on many different sites. Current blog readers can follow these conversations because they are active participants in the conversations and can follow the conversation as it occurs. However, once a blog entry is no longer the current topic of debate, the conversation becomes lost in the archives. We would like our tool to effectively display the relationships between entries and topics amongst bloggers to anyone who desires this information.

One method that we have discussed would involve a site that aggregates blog data and allows searching by keyword. The results would be displayed in a keyword-in-context format; however, we want to avoid a list of discrete entry, instead showing a thread-like display of the entire conversation. We are interested in a design that combines a search interface with a visual representation of blog conversations. We believe that a text-only representation of search results and blog linkages will hide the complexities of these conversations as well as conceal valuable data. Additionally, there will be opportunities for other features, such as dynamic filters, zooming, and so forth, pending early testing and prototypes.

Who else is working on the visualization of webloggingconversations?

Mediabuddies and RealContacts announce the launch of the World's first 'Word of Mouth' Media Jobs Service. Anexcerpt of the press release is as follows:

LONDON May 17, 2004 The first global media jobs service was launched today by Mediabuddies, the only worldwide reunion and networking club for media professionals, in cooperation with RealContacts, the social networking pioneer. By connecting journalists, broadcasters, advertising, marketing and public relations executives through their trusted extended network of past and current colleagues, Mediabuddies and RealContacts have made finding media staff and jobs faster, easier, and more reliable.

Jonas Luster, self-describedsocial scientist, technocrat, and sometimes-coderposted some early findingson a interview study that he has conducted recently.
 
In this study participants were gathered from a number of different match-making services including match.com,matchmaker.com, tickle.com (formerly Emode), Yahoo! Personals, and LavaLife.com1404 individuals were surveyed, 835male, 569 female.
 
Jonas gives a readout on some preliminary findings, (along with this warning "Preliminary notes on research findingson online matchmaking, unpublished, unreviewed, 2004") and I will not review them all here, as you can peruseat Finding Your Sweetheart Online.

What I did want to include here is the "ideal" types that, according to Jonas' study have a higher than usual (>35 percent) chance of actually finding a match online:

Males:
Masters degree or higher
Income of $100,000/year or higher
Between 5'9" and 6'5"
"Athletic and toned" or "slim"
Non-smoker
Moderate or regular drinker
Short hair
No children
Never been married

Females:
High-school or higher
Income irrelevant
Between 5'4" and 5'9"
"Athletic and toned" or "curvy"
Non-smoker
Moderate or occasional drinker
Long hair
No children or "children but not at home"
Former relationships irrelevant

Interesting disparity in expectations between genders… /-:=

In a few weblog comments and IRC conversations, Jonas and I have been chatting about what constitutes a SocialNetworking Service. A large number of YASNS in my Social Networking Meta List, support asocial network of "1", and occasionally two or morein fact many Orkut members have only one and theoccasional zero declared connections.

Martha Graybow in an article forReuters Livewire: Personality TestsProliferate on the Webincludes a reflection by Tickle's company founder and Chief Executive James Currier: "Theidea behind Tickle is to tap into people's favorite subject: themselves."

Is displaying one's profile to a group on a dating service, or any other service, sans the ability to mapthe nodes or connections one is makingSocial Networking? Or are these services simply vehicles for detailedadvertisments on our favorite subject: Ourselves?

Wow…
 
Ben and Mena carved the trackback 'hammer' with which they are being most thoroughly pummelled in the largely unhappyresponse to their new MT 3.0 pricing structure.
 
The trackbacks speak forthemselves…

Update: I penned this post rather rapidly yesterday whilst I was IM chatting with Stuart Henshallwhobrought the > 500 trackback situation over at Six Apart to my attention. Stuart pens a powerfulpiece Greed May Kill MTregarding the new MT pricingplan.

IRC Junkie reports of PieSpy 0.4.0:

Those who like toys, or are interested in social networks will like this bot. It is a "social network bot" which renders diagrams that show the social structure of a channel.

"I've just released PieSpy version 0.4.0" PieSpy coder Paul Mutton said to IRCJunkie. "It will probably never reach 1.0, as
that's just the way I version things :)"

This new version contains the tracking of nick changes, "which was the most popular feature request" , and faster rendering of the images showing the social networks.

"You can now apply different weightings to each of the heuristics that are used to infer relationships and the source code has been refactored so it is now very easy to make your own inference heuristics" , Paul adds.

You can find PieSpy here.

O'Reilly will release a book shortly by Paul Mutton, "IRC Hacks, 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools".

Check out this May 17 - 21 2004 trainingSocial Software for the 21st-Century Organization:

Blog, Wikis, Social Networks - what can social software do for you?
From the Wall Street Journal to Business 2.0, everyone's talking about social software. This affordable online course will help you get past the buzz and find out what's in it for you.

Organizations today want to foster knowledge, deepen working relationships, and create a collaborative culture and esprit de corps. Social software can deliver on this promise.

Taught by industry pioneers Tom Mandel and Lisa Kimball, this affordable executive briefing will pay off for your organization. You will try social software tools in a safe and guided environment. You will engage with social software leaders and exchange experiences with your peers and colleagues. Sign up today, and begin learning about a topic of great importance to your organization and your future

Among the top 11 Web destinations, according to an excerpt from The 2003 Paid Online Content U.S. Market SpendingReport, are four Social Networking Services: match.com, classmates.com, kiss.com, and matchmaker.com:

Top 25 Web Destinations Ranked by 2003 Consumer Content Revenue
Source: Online Publishers Association/comScore Networks

1. yahoo.com 13. bluemountain.com
2. real.com 14. carfax.com
3. match.com 15. playboy.com
4. classmates.com 16. pressplay.com
5. wsj.com 17. espn.go.com
6. ediets.com 18. ieee.org
7. matchmaker.com 19. egreetings.com
8. weightwatchers.com 20. msn.com
9. consumerreports.org 21. astrology.com
10. 1800ussearch.com 22. thestreet.com
11. kiss.com 23. Britannica.com
12. ancestry.com 24. consumerinfo.com
25. smartmoney.com

Brad Hill has a post on thesearchenginemarketingweblog about new Blogger.comfeatures.
 
One bit that Brad did not cover is the new profile feature which Evan Williams, Blogger program manager at Google,says shares similarities with social networking services.
 
I see Marc Canter is already asking: " where's the FOAF?"Evan Williams sez there is none. )-:=
 
Also, just Atom supportno RSS.

Back in February I posted a news clipabout Harvard's Facebookcreated by Mark Zuckerberg.

Since that time Thefacebook has spread to the University of Chicago, UCBerkeley, Columbia, MIT, NYU, Princeton, and Yaleto name a few.
 
According to an article in theChicago Maroon Social websitedraws heavy trafficby Daniel Gilbert, Mark Zuckerberg's younger sister Donna is a first year at the University ofChicago (U of C) and many there wonder what took Thefacebook so long to reach their university. (at U of C 1500students registered within the first 75 hours after installing the service)

Ethan Jewett, a student at U of C, extols the virtues of social networking services with a focus:

"Building a network on thefacebook.com isn't creating a new community disjoint from your natural social community, it's creating a directory and a tool to help you navigate your flesh and blood social network," Jewett said. "While some students still engage in a popularity contest, the impulse is moderated since no one wants to look like they're desperate for friends in a place where their real friends will see them."

The Chicago Maroon's Daniel Gilbert says that the hot news on Thefacebook is an option to list your summer plans andconnect with other students in close proximity. Hmm, evokes images of "What I Did On My Summer Vacation." (-:=

So this morning Google kicked up an old article from the VillageVoice Six Degrees of Sexual Frustration, by WilliamO'Shea (June 4-10, 2003).
 
One of the stories that O'Shea used to illustrate how the social networking phenomenon of that particulardayFriendsterworks was of an electroclash band member 'Rex' who gets to live out a fantasy fetish alaFriendster.
 
Turns out that what would have been a fairly anonymous 'one-night-stand' winds up caught in the velcro of Rex'sFriendster friend list.
 
Ever put a piece of velcro through your washer/dryer cycle? Great stuff velcrobut sure does collect a lot ofinteresting stuffforensic scientists must love it.
 
How many social networking services does one need to belong to in order to keep all areas of one's life tidy andseparate? Hmm, better get started on that 'faceted classification' of the 'social networking services meta list'...(-:=

UPDATE: The most current version of this list can be found at: The Home of the Social Networking Services MetaList.

I have marked all new updates to this list, since 01 May 2004, with an asterisk (*).
 
Comments, links, and recommendations for additions and deletions are welcomeas always.

business networking sites

Affinity Engines, Business Parc, The Conneck, Contact Network, Corporate Alumni, ecademy, eConozco, Eliyon, EntreMate, Friendly Favors, GoingProfessional, Growth Company, I'm Not From Here, InterAction, ITmob, ItsNotWhatYouKnow, Join Network PLUS, LLC, Konnects, LinkedIn, Link Silicon Valley, matcheroo, Mediabistro, MonsterNetworking, NetMiner, Netmodular Community, Networking ForProfessionals, Online Business Networking Resource, Open Business Club (openBC), OrderGenerator, Point Relevance, Polypol, PowerMingle, RealContacts, ReferNet, Reunion, Ryze, SelectMinds, Shortcut, Silicon Valley Pipeline, Spoke Software, SullivanExecutive Networking Community, Tacit -ActiveNet, TENG, Visible Path, WisdomBuilder, Zerendipity Networks.

common interest networking sites