judith meskill - soc.media.rocks

flickr is nothing if not social. Spell your world with flickr images.

[thanks jerry...]

This morning I was reading Ross Mayfield's Tagging in theEnterprisewhere Ross 'tags' a couple of PC Forum highlights from the Roundtable on User-generated Metadata asparticulary memorable.
 
Yesterday, I gave a presentation at The Yale Club in NYC for EdelmanInteractive where I was talking about how more and more people are tagging their environs.
 
This ' tagging ' phenomenon is large on many levels.
 
Typically software engineers build software that they think will send their users into fits of ecstatic delight overhow well it suits their needs. Seldom happens. And, then marketing and public relations professionals do somethingsimilar in targeting their gorgeous campaigns, brochures, commercials, branding, packaging, etc. and sometimes missingtheir mark(et).
 
Now there is this godzilla-sized 'focus group' called that Internet where online social software users have theopportunity to 'tag' their universefinger paint their worldpointing at whatever interests them and 'tagging'it.
 
Are IT and marketing professionals everywhere watching and listening? Some that I know are… most definitely.

In my continuing search for signs of intelligent life in the expanding universe of online social media tools, Ifound a brief press releaseabout ObjectsSearch and ObjectsSpacecombining blogging, social networking, photo-sharing, andsearch.
 
ObjectsSearch sounded familiar and I found that The Daily Rundown listsObjectsSearch at number 9 in a list of the 'Top 10 Search Engines of 2004'.
 
Is search at the center of your social networking experience? Or is social networking at the center of your searchingexperience?

So, what will Barry 'Ask Jeeves'? Probably something like"What Internet acquisition should I make next?"
 
Barry continues to build his 'clicks sans bricks' empire. And in this NYT article John Battelle saysthat he thinks Diller made a great deal and that: "Search is the mortar between the bricks."
 
Search is important but, is it the ideal mortar for these virtual brick mansions folks continue to build out here onthe Internet? Living in a brick house, I think about these things… Often.

That's the tune that Donna Hanover, once married to Rudolph Giuliani who cheated on his wife quite publicly whilstMayor of NYC, is now happily singing to the world.
 
Ms. Hanover re-connected with her former high school sweetheart while planning to attend her 30th high school reunion.And now she's writtenMy Boyfriend's Back (Hudson Street Press) wherein she encourages folks to continue to re-connectvia 'Googling', Classmates.com, etc.
 
Returning to a former love can definitely have some built in benefitsshared background, and often less 'ice' tobreak.
 
My boyfriend's back too… How about you?
 
[via The BirminghamNews]

Chris DeWolfe, and the rest of the MySpace leadership team, are pretty elated by the steadilygrowing popularity of their service.
 
Did you catch the exclusive 'webisode' of 'The Office's Diversity Dayepisode on MySpace? This episode is set to premiere on Tuesday, March 29, 2005. If you are a member of MySpace, you canalso join 'The Office' group on MySpace.
 
In this press release, NBC Entertainment PresidentKevin Reilly says: "...This cutting-edge merging of broadcast, online and on-demand media is extremely promising inbuilding an awareness and buzz for this kind of special comedy… We view this as a mutually beneficial association withMySpace that could prove to be the model for marketing future programs…"
 
So, no MySpace movie… yet. But soon I'm sure…

What do Friendster, Harold Ramis, and Topher Grace have in common? Variety (subscription) says: anupcoming romantic comedy based on looking for love with IM, Video cameras, and online social networking.
 
Well, Craig Nemark has his movie, and Jonathan Abrams will have hismovie, so when will leading YASNSMySpace, and CEO Chris DeWolfe, have their movie? (btw, in February, 2005, MySpacewas ranked as the 7th largest Web domainwith 4.6 billion page viewsby comScore Media Metrix.)
 
Soon?

Peter Griffin of The New ZealandHerald is loathe to share his to-do list with the new YASNS43things.com. Especially since 43things has beenrevealed as yet another way for Amazon.com to sharpen their targeted, personalized ad services to an even finer edge.(in case you missed it: 43things.com is thecreation of the Robot Co-op that is in turn owned by Amazon.com.)
 
If you've dabbled with 43things, have you found it to bemore 'therapeutic' than other forms of YASNS? Are you sharing your dreams and your desires to aspire to and achieveyour goals?
 
If connecting ads to all we share, express interest in, and consume onlinebooks, music, electronics, blogs, photos,other's goals and achievementsand this type of focused advertising really worked, wouldn't we all be totally addictedto Amazon's 'recommendations'? Wouldn't we all be visiting our 'Recommended for You' pages at Amazon daily? Well, I'mnot, and I don't… But perhaps you do?
 
My personal 'To-Do' list is HUGE. Everyday new things jump on and 'done' things jump off and into my 'done'archivesby virtue of my 'doing' them. Big things, tiny things, they all live on the same list on my desktop that Ireally only share with… me… and those others who benefit from the 'doneness' of these 'to-do's.

When it's a portal the likes of the soon to be Beta'd Yahoo! 360?
 
Everyone'stalking about Yahoo! 360. Charlene Lipoints out that she's been predicting that "...portals will be the 800 pound gorilla in the social networking space…"When I was with SBC Internet Services we talked a lot about '800 pound gorillas'. Sturdy beasts.
 
Is Yahoo! the sturdiest beast of this breed of Internetportals with its 165 million plus members?
 
The press release notes that the invitation-only beta of Yahoo!360 will include: blogs, photo sharing, instant messaging, "blasts" (a way to share ideas, links, etc.), contactmanagement, community building, general content sharing, recommendations, and a "My Friends" page.

There's going to be a' Mobile Media Revolution' according to Intercasting Corporation, and they have just the mobile application to helpthe ' Rabble' communicate.
 
Constructed on QUALCOMM's BREW platform, Rabble users can surf the web, blog, capture and share images with those theychoosecomplete control over the sharing and distribution of their 'channel' of content and information.
 
Is Rabble what we've been waiting for in a mobile media, presence sharing solution? I guess we'll see soon enough asRabble is presenting at CTIA Wireless 2005 in New Orleans.
 
I know that Derrick Oien, was pretty excited about unveiling this new productat CTIA. More on Rabble soon.
 
[thanks to Peter Caputa for the Intercasting reminder]

I went on a social story search onEngadget this evening and stumbled upon Earthcomber'srecent addition of 'sharing' features to their PalmOS PDA mapping product.
 
In a recent press release, Earthcomber founder JimBrady said: "We're putting people in charge of their own experience, and with this release of Earthcomber, people cangraduate from being recipients of information to being mappers of their own worlds."
 
With or without a GPS enabled palm device, Earthcomber rocks for everything from personal travel to smart mobbing tobird watching. Free for users, Earthcomber comes preloaded with about 1.5M locations, points of interest, libraries,hospitals, etc.
 
You can mark, or 'trade places' using either your Palm device or the web. And now you can join any number of groups toshare these favorite spots.
 
Note to self: add to SNS Meta List under MoSoSos. There, done. Here's my current MoSoSo list:

Additions? Deletions? Comments? Recommendations?

While I was away from The Social Software Weblog for a few days, my friend and fellow blogger Barb Dybwad blogged a few posts for me. One, most notably, on the' long tail' and how it relates to socialsoftware.
 
Joe Kraus, a founder of Excite and Architext, has a blog Bnoopy, Anentrepreneurship blogwherein he writes and shares a presentation (a PPT file) on hisexperience with the long tail ofsoftware.
 
In this post Joe asks and answers the question: Why did Excite go out of business? Quite simply: "...We couldn'tfigure out how to make money from 97% of our traffic. We couldn't figure out how to make money from the long tail– from those queries asked only once a day…"
 
A good read on the long tail that Joe mentions is thisone by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, who coined the term "the long tail".
 
Kraus talks about phenomenons like: Google, eBay, Amazon, Rhapsody, Netflix, and iTunes that really work the long tailand recommends to all entrepreneurs that the tail is where it's at! Serving the head ain't bad but: "...figure out howto serve the tail of your market efficiently and you've got a blockbuster…"
 
[thanks to Tom Munnecke for this longtail tip]

The 2nd International Conference on Communities andTechnologies will be taking place from 13-16 June 2005 in Milano, Italy.
 
There are many presentations and workshops scheduled for this conference but one thatcaught my eye is: Communities Vs Networks, as theextremes of a continuum of social containers for innovation. Part of the 'Motivations and Goals' for this workshop are:"...The city, its public sphere and its public spaces have been augmented by a kind of parallel, virtual city whichenhances, enriches and supports the 'physical' one. However, the 'virtual' and the 'physical' city do not constitutetwo separate urban spaces, as they are increasingly interwoven…"
 
There's still time to submit a paper for this conference and its worshops.

[thanks Nancy for the tip…]

This evening Iwas reading TransworldSKATEboarding describe Icelounge.com as "MySpace for skaters"a place whereskateboarders can post their profiles, watch skateboard videos, share playlists, and connect with new and oldfriends.

Icelounge's a YASNS with a focus"...askateboarding community where like-minded people come to chill, hang out, whatev. it's our soapbox, our personalbillboard where we can scream to the world, "hey world…, um, wait, I was going to say something important. hmm, Iforgot. nevermind!" it's a place for you to be recognized for your passion, skills, and um, silliness…"even if it is abit, um, unfocused.

Kijiji?

Swahili for village. When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn, one of my best friends taught me Swahili. Don'tremember 'Kijiji' however.

The blogosphere is abuzzwith the news of EBay's new 'Craig-like' Kijiji service that is currently being served up in a number of languagesnoneof which are English.

So, in the spirit of craigblog, today i will haiku kijijiin this one post slam:

ebay's interest
in craig's online village lists
flows through kijiji

Kwaheri!