The guys over at Business Logs have a very interesting stream of thoughts as they relate to the Business of Blogging. Picking up on my earlier post regarding the lack of respect the traditional corporation has for blogging, they provide some relevant benefits. Here are the 4 areas they discuss:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Stay Fresh In Mind of Customers
• Sense of Community
• Instant Feedback

For me, the community and feedback aspects ring true the most. For many people, the process of developing anything is complicated and intentionally obscured from consumers. By utilizing blogging and open feedback systems, customers get to not only see the process and effort that goes into bringing something to life, they also get to help shape the final product.

Once a customer’s invested in something on that level, it’s hard to turn your back on it. That kind of loyalty can’t be bought.

For any and all Feedster users out there, a new, impressive version is soon to be released and Peter Caputa has some details. Check it out to find out what the features are and see a quick glimpse of the new interface.

Though everyone reading this has a relative level of comfort and trust in the power and relevance of blogging as a communication tool, we’re still a fairly isolated group. The rise of blogging through academic circles was a foregone conclusion. The ascent up the consumer mountain, is slowly, but surely, quickening in pace. But what about the business space?

Driven by the bottom line and tight schedules, winning the hearts of businesses and their marketing dollars will certainly pose a far more formidable challenge. To win that support, we will have to come forward with a great deal of compelling reasons to invest both time and money into this space.

From time to time, and more so in the future, we will find out about the clashes in very public ways. Yesterday I came across a link on flex-mx.com that pointed to just one of these incidents. The site, HackingNetFlix.com was making an innocent attempt to connect its readers with the PR department of NetFlix when they were preemptively shut down.

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We’ve often seen cases where the people creating profiles on the various social networking sites, e-mail providers, and other outlets exaggerate, lie, or otherwise manipulate their representations of self. For the proprietors of these sites and services, it has proved to be a true challenge, often requiring teams of staff members to police their ranks.

The blogging world, on the other hand, has been somewhat more protected from impersonation (at least that’s the accepted consensus). There have been instances in the past, such as Belle de Jour. However, many of the authenticity of these matters were rumored though never proved true. But no more!

Suw Charman writes at the Social Software Weblog about a true hoax that has been revealed by the author:

A three year old blog chronicling the life of a woman called Layne Johnson has been revealed as a fake. According to the Mercury News, the Plain Layne Weblog had thousands of readers who were drawn by her polished, witty postings about “her relationships, her travels and her adventures at ‘Minicorp’, the nickname she gave her high-tech Minnesota employer”.

Layne not only kept a blog, she commented on other people’s, created profiles on social networking sites and exchanged emails and instant messages with fans.

Source: Social Software Weblog, “Plain Layne Weblog was ‘interactive fiction’”

So if you fake your identity on Friendster, your a Fakester. If you fake your identity on a blog, what are you?

Friendster has a love-hate relationship with most everyone I’ve ever encountered that uses the system. For the most part, the excitement surrounding Friendster seems to set in early in the process and then quickly dissipates. Any user that’s attempted to stay committed to the service has surely encountered a number the problems, usually starting with the speed issue and onto any assortment of other gripes.

In many respects, Friendster has been out of the limelight for some time now. Though viral marketing system inherent to the application itself has kept traffic numbers up there, there is not nearly the same level of press coverage the once-darling used to garner. Some are inclined to believe that more recent actions indicate an even worst fate in the near future.

danah boyd posts some interesting comments (also here):

Friendster realizes that it has lost the attention of its earliest adopters. This morning, Friendster sent a message to a select number of people that they labeled as “SuperFriends.” It’s a usability survey where they are asking for users’ advice on an email campaign. There are four different potential emails that they sent out as screen shots.

[...]

The tone of these messages is desperate, begging for attention of the original early adopters – the ones that Abrams told me were ruining his system. One focuses on Burning Man types; one mocks the old Power Point COO; one charges non-users with harming children; one is a desperate love poem. They’re hyper American-centric, SF-centric, white collar, wannabee hipster, intentionally attempting sarcasm (and clarifying that below) and complete with 80s references.

I guess Friendster isn’t happy with the majority of its users being young and from Asia. Does this mean that Friendster has its tail between its legs about its early egotistical behavior? Apparently, viral marketing isn’t working well enough anymore.

Source: Many 2 Many, “Friendster is desperate; viral marketing failed”

It really begs the question, though. How large can an online community become before its utility breaks down? This breakdown is likely to happen on 2 fronts, technical and social. From the technical point of view, complex systems require complex solutions. At the rate some of these systems are cropping up, one must always wonder how scalable the system is (especially when there are already visible cracks in the system). Socially, we’ve got things like Dunbar and other group metrics that seem to indicate that beyond a certain size, utility falls off considerably.

Is Friendster suffering a mid-life crisis or pointing to a threshold?

Liz Lawley makes a compelling argument that if we intend to really understand blogs, we need to study them in much they way we would any social trend. She identifies, as starting points, 5 areas of study (paraphrased here):

1. Study of the Form – this entails providing a firm definition of what a blog is. Largely, many things are grouped into the blog category based on the appearance of single attributes which inevitably clouds discussions. Part of this she defines as “types of blogs” by way of authority, audience, or interactivity.

2. Study of Interactions – “the study of interactions between blogs and blog authors, and the clusters (or communities) that are forming in this context”

3. Study of Ethnographics – “both qualitative and quantitative assessments of these emerging communities”. How do different audiences and authors use their blog?

4. Study of Content and Style – this would look at the various writing styles and resulting communications that are emerging as a result of the unique characteristics of blogging.

5. Study of Use in Organizational Contexts – “From blogs as coursware to blogs as information-sharing tool in business team settings to blogs as research team project tools, there’s still a lot we need to learn and understand about blogs as tools for specific tasks and contexts.”

Source: Many 2 Many, “blog research issues”

Hopefully, I’ve done a decent job of summarizing her points here. I will point out/add that I’ve also been trying to look into the blogging world, though I’ve not laid out as long of a roadmap as Liz.

Specifically, I’ve already attempted to categorize the style and format of blog entries via the Blog Entry Archetypes. Additionally, I’ve started now to consider the various types of blogs themselves with the Blog Archetypes. Though the approaches are somewhat different, hopefully the efforts are additive (I know I’ll be trying to merge some of these points into my final Blog definition).

We’ve heard lots about the Mail Wars, as they were, and now there’s another army entering with big guns. Hotmail has announced that they will now boost the storage limits to 250MB for the free accounts and 2GB for the $19.95 annual subscribers. This sneaks by Yahoo! with their 100MB for free offer. Similar hikes are soon to come from AskJeeves as well.

One interesting observation made in a News.com article:

Indeed, Google’s initial steps into storage increases countered the industry’s trend to charge extra for more memory. Over the past few years, Yahoo and Hotmail have both taken steps to decrease memory in hopes of convincing free users to become paying subscribers.

Source: News.com, “Hotmail to offer 250MB of free storage”

Amazing what a little disruptive force applied at the epicenter can cause in an industry as a whole. This is, really, no different than what we say in the Web Hosting Wars when more and more space was provided to users that needed to host their 300K of web site files in their 2GB buckets. At least e-mail continues to accumulate.

This raises one important question: could GMail have trouble getting off the ground once invites start free-flowing? Consider the forces at work. GMail sports this new mail interface, which in many respects breaks the “rules” of e-mail (yes they are rules since everyone is used to the way mail used to work) and required adjustment to a new interface paradigm. GMail has this potentially scary, privacy-issue-ripe advertising supported model that’s already raised flags, eyebrows, and even litigation. Competitors have had the power of hindsight to react appropriately without adding the specter of big brother (aside from the one’s that were there before).

Let’s wait and see.

For what must be years now, I have avidly used and recommended Trillian as my IM client of choice. For anyone that does not know, Trillian is a meta-chat client that provided many interesting and useful functions. For the most part, users were attracted since it allows a single client that connects to all of the major chat systems. Other key features included secure communications between Trillian users and automatic chat logging.

Unfortunately, the infighting that exists between the major IM clients has made remaining committed to Trillian tedious at times. Originally, there were many instances where AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! would intentionally alter their connection protocols to block Trillian (and sometimes other meta-chat tools).

Quite some time ago, MSN officially shut the door and forced most users to return to the Microsoft client to connect to their Messenger accounts. The latest blow came today as Yahoo! drops the hammer and shut out Trillian once again.

Beginning at about 6 p.m. Wednesday, Yahoo changed its instant messaging language to prevent third-party services, such as Trillian, from accessing its service. Like previous statements, the company said the block is meant as a pre-emptive measure against spammers from its Yahoo Messenger service.

“Spammers are being aided by entities that are abusing our systems, where they effortlessly gain knowledge of pathways and back-alley access to send spam,” Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

Source: News.com, “Yahoo to Trillian: Talk to the hand”

Of course, there are some issues that really are important to note here:

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As mentioned what seems like moments ago, Blue-ing is growing in popularity, though in very small disparate systems across the globe. Adding another straw to the camel’s back, we have BEDD. BEDD is a living, functioning system that is slowly starting to take shape in Singapore that works very similarly to the Mobule system.

The software automatically searches for and exchanges profiles with other phones that come within a 20-metre (65 ft) radius. Matched users are given each other’s contact details.

“I’ve become close with people that I’ve never known before, built up a close clique of friends whom I chill out with, sleep over at their homes and go for late suppers with,” said Lim, 19.

Source: CNN.com, “Wanted: New friend, must have Bluetooth”

Joe McCarthy adds some more insight to this phenomena by digging up a more detailed comment about the service:

For the end-users, BEDD costs only S$0.98 per month and offers a full menu of BEDD-functions: BEDDmates – searches automatically for friendship or dating; BEDDbay – searches automatically for items to buy, sell and trade; BEDDtalk – allows users to send free SMS with Bluetooth range either person to person or broadcast to a group simultaneously; BEDDbuddies – alerts users when their buddies or family are close by; BEDDshare – superdistribution of the software where users can share with each other; and BEDDfish – allows users to send Bluetooth messages to any Bluetooth enabled phone.

Source: Hardware Zone via Gumption, “BEDD: Multidimensional Social Software for Bluetooth Phones”

I’m most intrigued not by the technology per se, as it’s really not reached anything close to a wide enough base to be useful (in a meaningful manner), but moreso in the philosophy that drives this product. There are two difference that I think worthy of note:

• Autonomy – Unlike Mobule and many of the other services, the BEDD service uses a local application to provide its processing and filtering. This has some pros and some cons, of course. There will be inherently different kinds of filtering that are allowed since there is less processing power and data available, generally, on these portable devices than on server farms. Of course, this is almost not an issue when the context is considered. It’s important to note that we are connecting passing parties, people in motion with minimal contact. This creates a need for efficiency, the kind that passes as little as possible between devices.

• Application – While the majority of the mobile social networking systems are focused on forming social relationships, the BEDD system has some early applications that encourage/enable financial relationships (the sale or barter of things). Is this a potential expansion point for things like EBay?

Peter Caputa asks a very good question: “BUT, DOES ANYONE USE THESE FANCY SERVICES?”. I think until we see the interfaces for cellular phones improved to the point that there is easy utilization of these devices, widespread deployment of Bluetooth components to mobile, pocket, and related devices, and standardization of a Bluetooth protocol (there are many formats and security issues to consider), we’re still going to see pre-dominantly small communities for the near future.

Lately it seems that more and more tools and services are released that provide us with the opportunity to dynamically establish and map naturally and socially formed networks..

Here’s a roundup of some of the new initiatives/thoughts circulating most recently.

WhoAt.com

I came across this service first at the Social Software Web Log. The WhoAt.com service is strikingly similar to dodgeball, though technologically more accessible, in my opinion. While dodgeball makes use of SMS (text messaging) for communication, WhoAt makes use of WAP, XHTML, SMS, HTML. This provides the user with not only a wider platform for participating in the system but also a richer experience to boot.

Currently, it’s running in only San Francisco and New York (which means I can try it out). I’ll report more when I get some friends into the system.

Pocket Rendezvous Emerges as Pocketster

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned Pocket Rendezvous was set to provide dynamic networking for PocketPC users. Gizmodo reports on the final release of the product:

Razvan Dragomirescu, CTO of Simeda, wrote to let us know that the official version of Pocket Rendezvous, now branded as ‘Pocketster,’ has been released. Pocketster lets you set up a personal web server on your PocketPC, allowing, among other things, the streaming of MP3 files over WiFi, meaning that connected PocketPCs can become their own streaming networked radio stations. In addition, regular stuff like JPEGs and HTML can be shared, as well. Right now, the free version has been tested only on Windows Mobile 2003 devices (although it may work for Windows Mobile 2002), and messes around with some of the Pocket PC Zeroconf (zero configuration toll) settings to prevent your Pocket PC from trying to connect to your preferred network when Pocketster’s ad-hoc network is running. What I’m saying is, don’t mess around with this version of Pocketster unless you’re willing to potentially screw up (until you edit them back in) some of your wireless settings.

A soon-to-be-released version called ‘Pocketster Pro’ will allow you to join existing networks without creating an ad-hoc one (and without screwing up your settings) in a few weeks, presumably for pay (although Simeda doesn’t say for certain).

Gizmodo, “Pocket Rendezvous Officially Released as ‘Pocketster’”

If anyone has a PocketPC and tries to use it, I’d be interested to here more. By the way, why is everyone obsessed with the -ster, Pocketster?

Familiar Strangers

Joe Bartling provides some thoughts and links to tales and research on Familiar Strangers. Joe hits things on the head as he talks about the potential:

The integration of “location-aware” and short-range wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, and online, real-time access to information about one’s social network (like LinkedIn or Orkut) and familiar strangers, will enable all kinds of interaction between people, from entertainment, such as digital street game, to impromptu business meetings. Intel’s Jabberwocky software for MIDP 2.0-compatible phones with Java J2ME support, enables familiar strangers to recognize each other when chance encounters occur. Services such as Dodgeball allows for your current location to be announced to your “friends” and “friends of friends” that happen to be nearby, as long as you live in the 10 cities currently supported by Dodgeball.

Source: Spiderware.com, ” Familiar Strangers and “Location-Aware” Social Networking”

[update] Oddly enough, I was editing this post to point out Peter’s great list-of-links regarding the mobile social networking efforts when I noticed he was pointing back at me.