judith meskill - soc.media.rocks

Yesterday, Jason Calacanis mused on ' Why doreally smart people hate Plaxo so much?', while blogging from PC Forum. And… Plaxo's Privacy Officer, Stacy Martin,responds and comments extensively onJason's post below. A cursory search of Feedsterreveals that Stacy Martin has been busily responding to additional' Death to Plaxo' threats [this citation byBret Fausett] as well.
 
Back on December 13, 2003, Icreated a post [ Plaxo Evil?] on my 'knowledge notes' weblog ruminating about David Coursey's assertions that Plaxo is indeed evil. That post still receives an inordinate number ofhits. [Google search today for' Plaxo'.]
 
While Plaxo has a 'viral' nature, if as Stacy Martin asserts Plaxo has a sterling privacy policy, then do we stillhate Plaxo as much? The bulk of collective Plaxo-loathing is around the continual spam-like barrage of requests to addour contact details to each and every friend's Plaxo database would we loathe it less sans those requests?

How is the Plaxo spam phenomenon different than the continual stream of requests we receive to join YASNS? Many ofus are potentially sharing even more 'intimate' data than Plaxo inquiries request on Eurekster, Friendster, Friendzy,LinkedIn, Orkut, Spoke, and/or Tribe. Are these services any more or less private? Or any more or less annoying to haveto re-load and re-configure our personal details over and over again on each service?
 
What would Plaxo have to do to gain our trust and stop feeling so much like spam and stop generating press like Get thee behind me, Plaxo [The Inquirer; Wendy Grossman] andthe David Coursey article I cited at the beginning of this post.

There is a paper by Roger Clark part of a series on PITs [privacy invasive technologies] and PETs [privacyenhancing technologies] titled Very Black'Little Black Books ' that addresses some of these issues regarding Plaxo and otheraddress-book services, and YASNS.

FunHi fun un hee means 'innocent fun.' The FunHi mantra is 'No Rating, NoHating!' FunHi takes the concept of 'fan' into a whole new realm no Orkut-like fanning here. Want to 'hookup'? Thisis a FunHi speciality [A hookup is when you connect to a person so that you can both communicate, trade buzz and viewyour special media. Only hook up with people you like and want to chat with.] But it is the FunHi Playa Gift Shoppe [where you can give gifts from $0.01 to$30.00] that is the buzz in the PRNewswire cited below:

NEW YORK, March 23 /PRNewswire/ Model Nikoma Lee Gets Over US$1,000 in Virtual Gifts; Members Spend Thousands on Digital Tokens of Love.

At social networking site FunHi.Com, fans have gone out of control spending actual cash on virtual gifts for thousands of FunHi.Com stars. In under a month model and recording artist Nikoma Lee, one of thousands of media savvy personalities on the site, has taken in over one thousand dollars in virtual roses, champagne, cars, hotels and more, all purchased by her legions of FunHi.Com admirers. Launched about a month ago, the demands of buyers at the virtual gift shop are already overwhelming production behind the site's impressive offering.

"It's a runaway train. Some users spend hundreds daily … repeat purchase is the most common transaction. These users want variety and turn over. It's all we can do to keep up with their demand for new gift categories," said Vice President Of Business Development, Joshua Selman. FunHi.Com has taken the lead as a next generation social networking site. Recognizing that online relationship time is replacing mainstay leisure activities like movies, TV and night clubs, it is successfully diverting leisure purchases to the relationship site itself. Results show that purchasing a virtual box of chocolates for another FunHi.Com member is far more satisfying than the passive glow of a film or TV screen.

There's the Toothing Blog A blog all about Toothing - finding partners for sex usingbluetooth mobile phones. And then there's the Toothing FAQ which encourages the utilization of public places and safe sex practices. There's even a Toothing Forum to discuss location, location, location. And nowthere is a story today in Wired News Brits Going at It Tooth and Nail.Daniel Terdiman starts out with "The Brits sure are randy." Anyone watch Coupling?

So… Is this Social Software? If one factors in the exhibitionist aspect of these Toothing encounters, the experiencedoes have the potential to take on a 'group' perspective. Oh, wait a sec, the Brits have already done that with Dogging. And to think, all thanks to the wirelesstechnology Bluetooth.

So you hear about something, write about it, and then suddenly it starts popping up everywhere, again…. The mannerof memes… This morning Leander Kahney writes for Wired iPods Beat in Heart of the City...He's musing about searching for the word 'iPod' in the NYC version of craigslist. The part of the story that caught myeye:

And then there was the guy who needed an imaginary girlfriend for an evening while his parents visited from out of town. He'd lied to them about having a girlfriend, and he needed a pretend girlfriend for a dinner date. In return for feigned love, he'd buy her an iPod.

However, the ad insisted the lucky girl have a great butt and legs, which raised suspicions that the poster's intentions may not be as honorable as he proclaimed, and the ad was pulled by the "craigslist community."

I was not blogging for 'Social Software' when the Imaginary Matingphenomenon first hit the blogosphere. Do Imaginary Girlfriends 'fit'into a Social Software category? Brian Alvey recommended that I pen a poston this phenomenon on his return from SXSW2004 this last Friday. Imaginary mates don't fit neatly into an SNSclassification. No meetings, no interactions, and then a timely, convenient 'break-up.' Hmm… the online equivalent of a'green card marriage' no muss, no fuss.

Then there is Imaginary Dating, another trend? A 'virtual' Escortservice? Is imaginary partnering an anti-social defense? There seems to be a lot of buzz about Anti-Social NetworkingServices lately.

Wonder why there are not more opportunities to bid for an Imaginary Online Girlfriend on eBay? Intypical eBay style you can buy an ' I Love My Imaginary Girlfriend' bumper sticker, starting at$2.49, or you can procure the www.imaginarygirlfriend4u.com domain name for a mere $1,995.95 eBay 'Buy It Now'auction price, imagine.

Imagine there's no Internet… No virtual friends either real or imaginary… Would you meet-up face-to-face moreoften? Watch more TV?

Brad Stone Writes for the March 29 issue of Newsweek on the growing niche player competition nipping at Google'sheels. He talks about the obvious big fish players Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft making the largest imprints in thesearch industry, but then he also talks about the 'pilot fish' following in the wake of these giants of the searchindustry Groxis with Grokker, Eurekster, Nutch, Dipsie, Brightplanet, Quigo, Mooter do I hear strains of YetAnother Search Engine Service [YASES] playing in the background?
 
I picked up this Newsweek Cover Google story while tracking Eurekster the YASNS / YASES play that I am following forthe Social Software weblog.

It is true that Google does not meet all of the possible niche search desires of an increasingly 'search saavysociety.' But it is also true that as these needs are increasingly surfaced and addressed by the niche players thatGoogle, Yahoo, and Microsoft will eventually make plans to either assimilate these niche players or meet the morepopular needs themselves.
 
Odd to see Sergey Brin and Larry Page on the cover of Newsweek… (-:=

Yesterday I published a spring welcome haiku on myknowledge notes. And while I am 'in the haiku groove' this morning I wrote a simple tribute to Valdis Krebs 'Social Networking Analysis' scientist:
 
socialnetworking
valdis is visionary
connecting the dots…
 
haitech haiku™
©2004 judith meskill

Danah Boyd Clay Shirky coined the YASNS [Yet Another Social NetworkingService] term and I am wont to mint yet another Yet Another Social Networking Service 'Dispatch' News Article[YASNS-DNA] as it seems that my daily foray through tips, newswires, emails, and my newsreader haveme stumbling upon yet another group of mainstream news articles expounding on the abundance and/or dearth of qualitiesof any number of the contenders in the exponential growth SNS space.

The AP news article that I am citing here, wherein AP National Writer, Martha Irvine, writes about many of the usualSNS suspects including MySpace, Tribe Networks, Meetup, LinkedIn, Ryze and Orkut also includes a 'news-to-me' tidbitthat next month, the business school at Carnegie Mellon University will begin using Spoke Softwareto allow alumni to share their contacts and information about themselves.

If you agree that "Social capital accumulates through dense social networks and trust, and the norms of mutualreciprocity that these trusted relationships foster." (Putnam 1993) then the alumni organization of you alma matercould possibly offer one of the best 'contexts' in which to stretch your social networking dendrites most successfully.Yes? No?

From SXSW2004, Tobias Peterson offers the following comment on the film 24Hours on Craigslist:

24 Hours on Craigslist. Documenting the San Francisco based website's influence in the span of a single day, the filmmakers sent out eight crews all over the city to create a montage of the bizarre stories behind the site's thousands of posts.

...Consider this post, taken off the Austin craigslist at random (apparently in honor of St. Patrick's Day):

"Looking for some Irish charm, Gaelic sensuality and wit? I'm fit, fun, and very skilled in the Hibernian oral arts. Find out why 69% of the world's women, when given a choice, choose Irish men. Looking for single women and couples for a wee bit of sensual fun. Discreet, honest, and eminently trustworthy."

This, then, is the stuff of 24 Hours on Craigslist. The film documents such rare characters as a male Ethel Merman impersonator looking to start a heavy metal cover band, a couple interested in setting up a support group for owners of diabetic cats, and a gay porn star advertising his services as "porn star massage." The film spends time with a multitude of similarly "unique" people, all of whom are inclined toward their own particular brands of idiosyncrasy.

The movie is careful to make the case, however, that craigslist is more than just a meeting place for freaks. Following the antics of a flash mob (those groups who descend en masse to pre-designated meeting places as instructed by text messages on their cell phones), the film draws a parallel between these groups and craigslist users as members of a community. We are all unique together, the argument goes. In this sense, the documentary is an interesting example of postmodern anthropology, looking at a group whose only affiliation is via the World Wide Web.

Kate Baggott, for The Globe and Mail, writes about being 'global village voyeurs':

I am trying out a new maxim: When you live in a global village, act like a villager.

...Intermediary services like Friendster, Livejournal, Evite, Blogspot and Orkut are now valued as communications necessities rather than just as organizational assistants or spaces where our exhibitionist tendencies meet our voyeuristic ones.

There are many 'tendencies' that social networking services via the Internet may address.

At times the Internet andthe burgeoning modes of communication that are choreographed to dance in this 'chaotic commons' is like a 'SilentParty' where for the main [aside from Skype and a growing plethora of other emerging voice over IP services] mostInternet communication is done textually sporadically interspersed with graphics, photos, diagrams, flowcharts,music, and sound bytes that spice up the mix for our visual and auditory enjoyment.

There are many netizens who still prefer their Internet 'straight up' hold the visuals and sounds.
 
How is your communication with this Internet 'global village' structured? Is your desktop arranged to facilitateconstant communication? One or more browsers open simultaneously, an email client, one or more IM clients, and one ormore IRC channels continuously murmuring sweet nothings in your cyber ear?
 
When I first started weblogging I called my Blogger.com weblog 'an endless breathless patter' because that is whatthis Internet feels like to me at times… (-:=

Classmates.com often inmainstream news and reaching a membership base of ~ 35M [including 2M premium, paying members] acquired' StayFriends GmbH' an alumni service based in Germany. Classmates have alsoformed a partnership with the German Web portal T-Online.
 
Classmates.com an 'historical context' focused service boasted sales of $67M in 2002 [and $35M in 2001.]

netomat, inc. has been around for a while and today announced netomat1.0:

NEW YORK, March 18 /PRNewswire/ netomat, inc., a pioneer in communication software and network-based art, announces today the release of its new personal multimedia communication service netomat 1.0. With the launch of netomat 1.0, a new, powerful and free service, you can create your own living spaces online. netomat spaces are live multimedia channels of communication between you and your friends, family, and co-workers.

...The core innovation underlying the netomat service is a powerful new XML-based language called nml (netomatic mark-up language). nml was created to enhance people-to-people communication it's XML with personality. nml was first introduced at the Postmasters Gallery in New York City as part of the netomat art project conceived by pioneering network artist/programmer Maciej Wisniewski. The piece, which was downloaded by close to a million people in over 80 countries, clearly touched a nerve…

netomat says 'Live free online'… What manner of living quarters do you rent / own / offer online?

USA Today 'Cyberspeak' columnist, Edward Baig, gives his 'At A Glance' ranking of Orkut vs ICQ Universe:

Orkut
3.5 stars (out of four).
Pro: Seems to attract a playful and smart crowd.
Con: Access is restricted (which may also be a 'pro' ). Some symbols are confusing.
Online at www.orkut.com.
Free; invitation-only.

ICQ Universe
2.5 stars (out of four).
Pro: Adds element of social networking to popular global instant messaging service.
Con: Graphics are simplistic and site not very intuitive. Encountered technical snags.
Online at universe.icq.com.
Free; invitation-only.

I haven't tried ICQ Universe yet, and would be interested in hearing more experiences of those who have.

Banner day today for press releases in the YASNS space! Flickr, 'outrageously simple 'drag 'n' drop' realtime photo sharing,' announces their 'preview release' today:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia(BUSINESS WIRE)March 17, 2004 Ludicorp Research & Development has announced the preview release of Flickr ( www.flickr.com), a web-based application that makes it easy for anyone to meet, talk, tell stories and show and discuss pictures live from any web browser and without installing any software. Photos can be emailed from mobile phones or uploaded using a set of easy tools, and sharing is as simple as dragging an image from a "shoebox" and dropping it onto a friend in a buddy list or into an open messaging window. Images appear instantly on friends' screens, allowing entirely new forms of visual communication and interaction.

Social Networking is 'hotting up' as a concept in the travel industry. Here is the new TahitiPetey YASNS announcedtoday on Business Wire:

LAS VEGAS(BUSINESS WIRE)March 17, 2004TahitiPetey Enterprises, Inc., a local travel-related company, has launched its new online Travel Club at www.tahitipetey.com for those individuals who are 18 years of age or older. The Club is intended to become the core of a global travel social networking membership organization, and a highly integrated travel services company.

The TahitiPetey Travel Brand will include a chain of Travel Cafes and Grills, a 24-hour Online Travel Programming Network, a line of TahitiPetey Resort and Beach Wear, plus a unique loyalty program where Members earn TahitiBuck$ towards free vacations. They earn them from purchases and for booking travel online through the Club's Web site, in association with Travelocity, the most popular travel booking service on the Internet.