judith meskill - soc.media.rocks

A reader, Jörgen Cederlöf, sent me a linkto Dissecting the Leaf of Trust, an analysis oftrust relations in the strongly connected components of PGP.
 
It's a long read and you can find it here onJörgen's Wotsap (Web of trust statistics andpathfinder) site.
 
Thoughts, or comments on Jörgen's paper? BTW, is anyone using Wotsap?
 
A while back KevinBurton, writing about the promise of FOAF/Loaf and bloom filters for SPAM-free whitelist and social networkmanagement and distribution, stated: "...The real reason PGP didn't take off was because it wasn't easy. FOAF andsocial networking could be both easy and FUN!.."

Caught in my news reader net was thisarticle Real World Gives Hope To Hundreds of Jobless Seniors. I thoughthey, wow, great! Someone has come up with a newYASNS to help employ senior citizens, (and it's not Linked In) how unusual.
 
The article actually appears in The Colgate Maroon-Newsstudent newspaper of Colgate University. The topic is a threeday 'Real World' adventure that a host of dedicated Alumni put on for the senior class.
 
I guess all sorts of 'seniors' are concerned about their job potential.

Did Dorothy DoubleClick in The Wizard of Oz?
 
Jupiter Research Analyst Nate Elliott reportsthat Friendster also landed some industrial strength advertisersVerizon, and Chase.
 
Just what business is Friendster in?

And how many of the 13 million who have joined Friendster over this last year or more are still active on theirservice?

Does an iteration of one of your friend networks still live on Friendster without you?

Probably not but…
 
It would be brilliant if they did.
 
Today ChoireJessica Coen or Matt Haber? writes about Zoe Alexander, the founder of DivasWho Dine (an exclusive, membership-only social networking luncheon group for young women who "make thingshappen").
 
ChoireJessica or Matt (hey what do I know?) mentions that the Diva population is interestedin poker lessons, golf lessons, and pole dancing/lap dance classes (according to a recent DWD newsletter).
 
This called for a search on Meetup for 'lap danceclasses'. Hm, came up with 36 results including: 'dances with wolves', 'the anything with a hole in it gang' (ahem, a'beadwork' group), swing dancing, and a 'Cape Town Yorkshire Terrier Meetup Group', but no lap dancing i'mafraid.
 
Guess DWDs aren't using Meetup to arrange their events after all, but sounds like an excellent group of dynamicindividuals. If you are interested in a membership application, check here.

UPDATE: tonight Choire writes me: "...i actually don't write gawker any more! that was either thedelightful gawker editor jessica coen, or current co-editor matt haber who wrote it…"

oops… i guess a closer look at the gawker credits would have been helpful… (:=

Perhaps to some people blogs might seem "insignificant".
 
However, to many millions of bloggers, and their readers, blogs are: "disruptive tech", "only part of the story","huge", "the new journalism", "a natural for librarians", "better", "special", and "ruining my life" according to thefirst few returns on a Googlesearch.
 
Over at ZDNet, David Berlind asks us to track back andweigh in on our opinions as to whether we feel that "blogs are insignificant" and" podcasting negligible" or not.
 
This reminds me of a conversation I was involved in about ten years ago with a high profile, telecommunicationsexecutive who told me that having a graphical user interfacein the form of a browser such as Firefox, Safari, or the'insecure at any speed' Internet Explorerwould be meaningless in the long run, simply a passing fad that would fadequickly in popularity as 'real people' would never be attracted to using the Internet on a regular basis.
 
There are obviously many among us who don't feel blogs are insignificant, includingFortune Magazine, ABC News, PCMagazine, millions of bloggers, and Merriam-Websterto name a few.

Would it be Yahoo! Photos?
 
Or, maybe Shutterfly? If it is one of these two, well then you arein agreement with AP Internet writer Anick Jesdanun whowrites Yahoo, Shutterfly tops for onlinephoto sharing.

Anick does not like sites that request his friends register in order to view his photos. And so he quicklyeliminated Snapfish for this offense, then Webshots for replacing his desktop wallpaper, then Ofoto for disappearingphotos when one does not buy something from their service in a year's time.

Typepad was ousted for charging a monthly fee and for not organizing photos easily. And Streamload, perhaps good forvideo and music files, seemed overkill for photos based on their monthly charge.

The remaining contendersFlickr, Yahoo! Photos, America Online, and Shutterfly are all strong according to Anick,with Yahoo! Photos taking first place and Shutterfly coming in a close second.

What's your favorite photo sharing service? One of these?

(tag again, socialsoftware)

As iDate 2005, at the Wyndham MiamiBeach Resort, draws nearwith double keynotes addressing The State of the (Online Dating) IndustryI cannot helpbut be drawn to articles like Aline Mendelsohn's Thefrills are gonefor The Wichita Eagle.
 
Is this the end of traditional dating already come and gone? Do you find yourself referring to the new person that youare 'seeing' as the one you happen to be 'hanging out' with right now? Mendelsohn says: "Welcome to the institutionformerly known as dating." And, then goes on to say that the term 'dating' is quite likely 'dated'.
 
Does 'hanging out' = 'going out' minus the expectations? And what about 'hooking up'? Is this the stateside version of'toothing'? Perhaps minus the actual bluetooth connection?
 
Can't say I've used the term 'dating' lately. How about you?

Umm, Delicious Monster.
 
Now I'll have to create my own Delicious Library in anticipation of Mike Matas and Wil Shipman flipping the switch ontheir fabulous Monster hit software.
 
My iSight camera as a bar code reader. How easy is that? Once I enter every book, CD, DVD, and any other media into my'Delicious Library' where it is stored in standard XML format. Then I can do all kinds of sharing, comparing, lending,swapping, and reviewing of this media catalog with friends, family and beyond.
 
It's fun, it's easy, it's about to become more social, and it's Mac OS X.
 
Oh, and did I mention that Leander Kahney has a write-up about Delicious Monster inWired Monster Fueled byCaffeine?
 
And it's $40. And I'm downloading it right now. And it was featured at Macworld, SF.

(tag, you're it socialsoftware)

Here comes GreatestJournal.com700,000 members in its first year.
 
With a byline of "for us, by us." GreatestJournal caters to a teens 'n twenties demographic.
 
Actually, as of this evening GreatestJournal has 716,693users and 44,955,332 journal entries, pictures, and comments.
 
They offer 1GB of free ' photo' hosting, forums, news, and a Wiki powered by MediaWiki.
 
GreatestJournal has everything from the usual FAQs andSearch to the unusual layout of their servers andnetwork.
 
This is the first time they've blipped on my radar screen. (:=

The Social Networking Services Meta List is nowcomprised of 380 services in nine loosely labeled categories.
 
Your comments and recommendations keep trickling in at a steady pace. It will be time again soon to break out yetanother category or two. Can you guess which ones?
 
Since I made quite a few updates this evening, as usual you can find the list here.

I agree Suw.
 
I have also been thinking about deconstructing Technorati latelybut Suw beat me to it! When I utilize Technorati's services I find myself longing for a bit more consistencyand alsonot to be told that my blog has not been updated in days or weeks when I post to The Social Software Weblog on a dailybasis.
 
And, that is on a good day when I can get the page to build at all David. And ofcourse I know that Technorati is so much more than you David, and in fact includes a few of my favorite online peeps.(:=
 
For example, I just brought up a Technoratiview of The Social Software Weblog and am informed that my weblog was last updated 8 days and 52 minutes ago.Hmmm.
 
But today, through Technorati, I did discover Robert E. Kleine, or"Dr. Rob." an Associate Professor of Marketing at Ohio Northern Universityas he linked to one of my posts.
 
Love Technorati's basic premis though, access it almost daily, and want it to beoh so much more available andtimely.

The AP's May Wong reports thatDigital Chocolate is creating some pretty cool social games for your mobile phone. One that is coming up is called"Message in a Garden".
 
Trip Hawkins, the founder of Digital Chocolate Inc. is quoted as saying: "The mobile phone is reallyturning into a social computer". Why that is so MoSoSo of you Trip.
 
Digital Chocolate also has a mess of other mobile multiplayer games.
 
May goes on to talk about the increasing popularity of multiplayer games gone mobile and references other hosts forthese games.
 
What's your favorite mobile game?

Alan R. Earls writes, for The BostonGlobe Are you ready to be Googled?

There is much talk about the increasing popularity of googling people for any number of reasons. Well, Googleis a social networking tool of sorts, isn't it? We've been writing about Google here on The Social SoftwareWeblog in numerous instancesover this past year. And specifically about Google's efficacy as a social networking and information gathering engine.

Where do you go to find information about someone youmight be hiring, signing a contract with, or potentially considering as an employer? Eliyon? LinkedIn? Zero Degrees?Ryze? The new service on this scene, Ziggs.com? Or perhaps, simply Google? I justsigned up at Ziggs.com to see what they are up to over there.

So what do you look like from a 'googling' perspective? Are your best features visible? Your worst? Or, areyou, by some strange stroke of luck, nearly invisible? Seems to be something to ponder if you are contemplating makinga job move, hiring new talent, or generally curious about those you are interacting with on a professional basis.

Will the business social networking services mentioned above be able to achieve a level of reliability that willencourage the current surge of seekers to use their services, rather than simply googling?

And, one year of writing posts for this Social Software Weblog.
 
A year seems so long, and yet so short, all at the same time… (:=

In an latimes.com article dated January 9, 2005, Lynell George quotes Friendster's Jonathan Abrams as saying thatFriendster offers ways to "proactively influence serendipity."

Hm, not my experience of Friendster but, Jonathan goes on to say: "You can be manipulating serendipity to make moreefficient use of your social time…. Instead of looking for women who are this height and are 'equally comfortable injeans as in a cocktail dress,' you can stumble upon people by their interests. You can drive serendipity."
 
Drive serendipity? Kind of makes me wonder what Dave Thomas over at Autoblog is driving right now at the Detroit Auto Show? Any new vehicles named 'Serendipity'Dave?
 
Do you really think that you can drive serendipity Jonathan?