Overheard in the tech blogosphere:

Social networking

May 13 2008   12:19PM GMT

Overheard: Social networking? SHOW ME THE MONEY!



Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Technology, Online advertising, Social networking
dollarsign.jpg

Facebook’s real problem isn’t privacy, it’s monetization.

Dave McClure, as quoted in Social-networking sites work to turn users into profits

 In many respects, it is the same query that dogged portal companies in the mid-1990s and search engines in the early ’90s. Some were sold. Some went public. Some went belly up.

The ongoing challenge is to concoct a potion — be it through banner ads, premium subscriptions or licensing agreements — that no one has perfected. Facebook, crown jewel of the field, is valued at $15 billion but barely turns a profit.

Apr 23 2008   12:20PM GMT

Overheard: 75% of businesses still block instant messaging



Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Technology, Social networking, instant messaging, presence technology
infologo_europe.gif According to a report released at Infosec 2008, nearly three quarters of businesses are blocking the use of free instant messaging (IM) applications.

Asavin Wattanajantra, Infosec 08: Businesses clueless on instant messaging

The report says that retail and distribution companies were most likely to block instant messaging, while financial companies were most likely to allow instant messaging ( but they monitor its use).

Ironically, I read the article above the very same day there were blogswarms about Apple adding an instant messaging application to the iPhone — and Microsoft announcing that their Windows Live Messenger campaign has raised $1.3 million so far.

Tom Newton from Smoothwall (they commissioned the report) says that as time goes on, business will have to change. He points out that while today’s network administrators didn’t grow up with instant messaging, today’s kids are skipping right over email and using a combo of instant messaging and MySpace or Facebook to communicate with friends. I can’t argue with that. It’s that way in our house.

So here’s my question: With a whole generation (think consumers) growing up using instant messaging, how come it’s the only major communication service that isn’t interoperable? And might that have something to do with business not “getting it?”


Jan 7 2008   10:15PM GMT

Overheard: ValleyWag explains why Robert Scoble got banned from Facebook



Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Technology, data portability, Social networking

ValleyWag: Why Robert Scoble got banned from Facebook

Illustrious egoblogger Robert Scoble, the Paris Hilton of Silicon Valley, has committed the geek equivalent of a DUI. He has, by his own admission, violated Facebook’s terms of service, and had his account suspended — 5,000 friends and all. Scoble’s sin? He used a script to export his Facebook address-book information to Plaxo, which runs a competing social network.

Since Robert Scoble was banned from Facebook, there’s been a lot written about the need for data portability in social networking. If social network data was portable, that would mean that if you had a MySpace account for several years but then decided Facebook was “the cool place to be” you could migrate all your stuff over to Facebook without much, if any, effort. Other than people who’ve climbed aboard the social networking bandwagon big time, does anyone really care?

Steve O’Hear’s been thinking about this for quite awhile. He asked four leading developers in the social networking space about how important data portability was to the future of social networking. The best answer IMHO?

Marc Canter (CEO of Broadband Mechanics): “Users do care [about portability] if for no other reason than they’re lazy and they don’t want to have to create all those relationships and upload their photos all over again.”


Dec 11 2007   12:22AM GMT

Overheard: Social network IPOs



Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Ipo, Social networking, social graph
classmates.gif “The IPO market is pretty shaky right now, but that’s not stopping Classmates.com from trying to capitalize on the social networking mania. Is the stock a buy? We’re not billionaire investors here, but we’d rather buy a $12 hot dog.”

Betsy Schiffman, Classmates.com IPO: What Are These People Thinking?


Nov 26 2007   3:33PM GMT

Overheard: Tim Berners-Lee on social graphing



Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Technology, Semantic web, Social networking, social graph
tim_berners-lee.gif So the Net and the Web may both be shaped as something mathematicians call a Graph, but they are at different levels.

The Net links computers, the Web links documents. Now, people are making another mental move. There is realization now, “It’s not the documents, it is the things they are about which are important”. Obvious, really…

I called this graph the Semantic Web, but maybe it should have been Giant Global Graph! Any worse than WWW? ;-)

Tim Berners-Lee, Giant Global Graph


Nov 14 2007   9:13PM GMT

Overheard: Social news model not for everyone



Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Technology, Web 2.0, Browsers, Social networking
1.jpg “Netscape abandoning the social news model could be looked at as 1) the first signs of the format’s demise, or more likely 2) a return to less risk-taking at AOL as it struggles to define itself under new management.”

Adario Strange, Netscape Ends Digg-Clone Social News Experiment