I came across this post, Social Networks 3.0, at VentureBlog last week when I checked my mail (that one time) and wanted to comment immediately but couldn’t.

This morning, I noticed that Charlie also mentioned it which reminded me of my intentions.

David explains SNS, from his perspective. He outlines 3 versions to SNS. 1.0 was the original internet and built in to a suite of tools and applications (like IM) that provided connections between networks of users. 2.0 is what most of us would call 1.0, the LinkedIns, Friendsters, etc. 3.0 is where we are today with consumer experiences being integrated into all sorts of things.

It’s been some time since I exerted this part of my brain, so I had to check back to see what I had written on this previously. My only minor quibble is that I don’t necessarily consider the original network to be SNS 1.0, but I certainly see his point, and thinking in most abstract forms, it certainly is as David describes.

I had to go back almost two years, but I found a pocket of posts where I was looking at the problems with SNS 2.0 (what I called 1.0). Here’s an excerpt:

There are thousands of potential reasons that users will be attracted to one SNS over another, however, I am confident that the battle will be fought largely over social context and the ability to manage them. As anyone can relate, our world is built of a series of often-interlocking social circles and contexts. Within each of these contexts, we carry different identities and personalities that facilitate our role and participation in that context.

[…]

SNS 1.0 is at risk from another powerful force, however. Although the feature sets of these tools will often fail to accommodate user’s needs, a far more fundamental problem may exist in the very foundations. As mentioned we all interact within different social zones and contexts. As mentioned, our circles are interconnected and often linear (although promotions and demotions can be accelerated for any arbitrary reason). I call this the Social Context Continuum. Relationships evolve, or devolve, over time. As more information is exchanged, the bonds change based on a number of criterion — trust being near the top of that list.

Source: SocialTwister.com, “The SNS Differentiaion Challenge”

Ironically enough, the problems I identified then still exist in very significant ways. The SNS 2.0 crowd has made many efforts to embed these networks (as expected) - some with success, some with failure. Others have bastardized the concept beyond recognition, slapping the SNS moniker onto anything that has a contact list.

Unfortunately, the two main components, identity and relationships, still remain mostly binary, a shame, but definitely an area for future growth.

For anyone interested, here are some of the posts that touch on these issues:

• February 9, 2004 - “SNS 2.0, Again“
• February 12, 2004 - “SNS 2.0: What SNS 1.0 is Thinking“
• February 13, 2004 - The Crossroads of SNS 1.0 and 2.0
• March 13, 2004 - “SNS Profitability“
• March 16, 2004 - “The SNS Differentiaion Challenge“
• May 4, 2004 - “Focused, But Blurry“
• May 5, 2004 - “Invisible Membranes“

I was chatting with Pete Caputa earlier today. It was one of our usual fly-bys where we exchange a load of facts and jokes in about 20 seconds. I ended up launching into LinkedIn since I knew Pete uses it and I knew I was quite behind the times with it. After inviting Pete, he asks me if I know this guy Auren Hoffman.

Of course, I don’t know who he is. But damn should I have. For anyone that’s met me, or dared attend a networking event with me, they know that I can whore out quite quickly. It’s a skill that takes loads of time to develop and polish off. It’s not about the volume at all really, just about dissecting an encounter and understanding as much as possible from it. You never know if the next person you meet will change your life - why take it for granted?

Back to Auren. Well, Auren is quite the enterprising connector a la Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point. Even more interesting/important, however, is that he’s leveraged it into a business - and a lucrative one at that. Who would have imagined that someone would outsource their own networking? Well it’s happening. Is it a trend that will grow? God I hope not. I’m still old fashioned in the belief that if people want to meet, they need to do it face-to-face, but I commend Auren’s work because it’s not impersonal like other technology-derived approaches.

Well I am in the middle of a serious computer crash that threathens to leave me without my laptop for a few days at the minimum, ever longer if it goes south.

In any event, I ended up borrowing a laptop and I installed some of the basic apps I need like Firebird, Thunderbird, and Trillian. It sucks that I can’t get to my old bookmarks and mail (which really sucks). I installed Trillian 3.0 (didn’t know it went that high actually - I’m still on 1).

As I sent out a quick IM to a friend, I noticed that one of the words got a dotted underline below one of the words I wrote. I didn’t make it a link so I assumed it was something that Trillian was highlighting on my behalf.

So I moused over this term to find a tool tip like window appear that provided me with a definition from Wikipedia! Anyone who’s read here frequently knows I am not the greatest fan of Wiki technology as a whole, but I do think Wikipedia is probably one of the best uses I can think of. It seems this feature is called Instant Lookup and it underlines words that have encyclopedia entries. Way to go Wikipedia (and Trillian of course).

I wonder why we don’t get more of this integration, to tell you the truth.

Since I put up the code for QuitFiltering.com the other day, I’ve been listening for new lists that I can implement. Seth Godin’s blog arrived in my inbox this evening and he had a list I couldn’t resist.

Seth’s trying to figure out the Top 1000 Things that everyone should know and he’s got 20 or so to get us started. To make it better, other people are starting to ping back with their responses and he’s updating his list.

This should take all the legwork out of it. Happy Voting.

Check out top1000things.quitfiltering.com now!

I figured I would add one more into the mix since it’s pretty common amongst your corporate employee types: secretsanta2004.quitfiltering.com.

Mac Users - I haven’t done a whole lot of testing for the Mac yet so your feedback is more than appreciated in terms of telling what works and what doesn’t.

Happy Holidays!

I’m happy to announce a new little gizmo/social experiment I am launching. I’m amazed at the number of systems that are now launching which use tagging systems and other forms of written democracy. Last week, I spent a day or so working up a prototype of my own incarnation at xmas2004.quitfiltering.com.

What I’ve made basically a little dynamic poll. When you go to the site, you are asked to tell something really simple (what you want for Christmas, in this example). You vote based on your gender. From there, the results are sorted and collated for you and you can see just how popular your gift is with guys, girls, etc. I hope you’ll give it a try.

The idea for QuitFiltering came from some work I have been doing in plans for a possible user-generated book on modern relationships. There’s lots of uses for the code already and I’m still adding in a lot of other things on the backend (but that’s gonna have to wait till next year)!. Expect more lists this week and feel free to let me know if you want me to setup a list for you.

CFMX Developers - Has anyone ever encountered a bug with CF by which it can’t access queries converted from WDDX? I was implementing some file-based caching and had to scrap it as a result.

Well this could very well be my reward for writing about Digital Identity so much. Last night I had dinner with Stowe and Dean. Now, I have not met Dean personally before, but I recognized him from the past 2 BloggerCon’s so. I was more intrigued, however, by Dean’s familiarity with me.

As we introduced each other, he asked if I was the Greg Narain from the Orkut Yankees Community. I immediately rejected that since I never signed up for Orkut (instead opting to spy via other people’s accounts). At first blush, I assumed he knew my name from my stuff over at GetReal. I loosely entertained the notion that there was another Gregory Narain (I’ve only found one so far but he never responded to my e-mail).

So we had dinner and some good conversation. As we dropped Dean back to his car, he mentioned the Orkut thing once more. We were saying how strange it is that there’s another me. As Dean said, “I’m glad you’re not the one on Orkut, I have a lot more respect for you now.” He confirmed it wasn’t me by nothing this Orkut Greg lived in New Jersey. Now previously, Dean and I were talking about Rockland County (where I am from and where he currently resides). Of course, I live in Newark now so I was shocked to know that there was another Greg Narain living in Newark - oh wait, that’s A LIE.

So here’s what I need. Can anyone with access to Orkut do a search for either Greg Narain or Gregory Narain and tell me if I, well that cloning bastard, comes up. I’m very curious what I do at night, now that I know what happens during those brief hours that I close my eyes.

Not sure just how many people were users or even aware of the dating site, UDate.com, but it sold for a pretty penny a year or so ago. The two entrepreneurs that started that business have gone on to start a new dating site for professionals.

The duo, Martin Clifford and Mel Morris, will take the helm of www.Soflow.com as chief executive and non-executive chairman, respectively, the London-based start-up said in a statement.

Launched in July, Soflow.com has entered a young, but crowded market of Web sites dedicated to business professionals searching the Internet for potential partners, investors and contacts.

[…]

“Soflow … in many ways is similar to uDate. Bringing people together for business relationships is a commercial imperative,” Morris said in a statement.

Source: Yahoo! News, “UK Net Entrepreneurs to Run Web Startup Soflow”

Interestingly enough, I came across SoFlow some time ago, though I didn’t really give it much hassle — mostly because I was too tired and frustrated with anything that looked like it was based on the SNS 1.0 platform. Hopefully I will get up enough energy to look into this one more. No promises though.

Reality TV has taken the world by storm. Known for being incredible clumsy when it comes to the handling of power (or any) tools, I have naturally been drawn to all sorts of these shows since an early age. As they say, “Those who can’t watch it on TV). Oh well.

One of my favorite genres, however, is the motorcycle show. If you haven’t caught one yet, essentially some burly guys get together, cut metal, and assemble some really bad ass creations in the process. The other day I managed to catch about 5 episodes of the “Great Biker Buildoff” on the Discovery Channel (I think). This show pits two well known bike builders against each other for 30 days with a final showdown at some Biker Event.

What peaked my interest, however, as I watched these episodes, was that the builders were almost always importing some parts from either the current or previous build-off contestants. I realized the simplicity of the model Discovery has used - they leveraged the social network. By essentially storming through the address books of these top-tier builders, they were able to build their show organically while still sticking to the quality.

At the same time, I also noticed something else interesting. There are any number of smaller tier vendors that seem to go way out of their way (often HAND DELIVERING) to provide service to these new celebrities. Granted, these are companies that were already in the Rolodex - but it always strikes me how everyone’s always “The best in the business”.

Now, what show can we make by leveraging our address book?

Linked in remains one of the more popular business social networking services, from what I have read and heard. It seems that every time I talk to someone that’s bothered to join one of these networks, LinkedIn remains one of the few they continue to prune. It’s one of the few I admire in terms of functionality and process.

Driving their business model, LinkedIn is preparing a round of new paid features that hopefully make the experience better for users while generating the ever-important revenue. News.com has more:

The site, which focuses on connecting business professionals, plans to upgrade its interface as well as offer a set of paid services next year. Possible premium options include a better tool for finding job candidates and a more efficient way to find people who can comment on a potential hire or business partner, according to the company.

For example, LinkedIn may enhance its search function to make it easier to find site members with a certain minimum number of years of experience. Recruiters should appreciate that feature, said LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke. “They’re the people who are looking for the needle in the haystack,” he said.

Source: News.com, “LinkedIn looks to premium services for profit”

Though I’m not sure how it will all pan out, I’m always intrigued by systems that leverage “the wisdom of crowds” towards better placement and understanding of systems and their components.