Social Media Free For All

FriendFeed: I'm Still Not Using It

2009-03-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

FriendFeed is marching towards a million users per month, and if they didn't get it last month because of February's brevity, then they'll probably get it this month. I have no doubt that it will continue to win over the growing number of hardcore social media people. With so many friends and places being updated with new content, people want to find an easy way to bring it all into one page. I can see how FriendFeed helps focus the madness, but at the same time, it kind of enhances it too.

So Many Feeds, So Little Time
When you start out, having only a few friends to follow on Friendfeed does help pull all this social media activity together. The user interface doesn't really amaze me, but it's functional. If Facebook has shown us anything, it's that a functional interface matters more than looks. Personally, I wouldn't mind a little more effort in design, but nonetheless, it does a good job of bringing Mixx submissions, Digg submissions, tweets, stumbles, blog posts, and other content under one roof. But then you start to get going and you've got tons of friends and tons of scrolling to do to check everything out. Or you get that one power user who's got your feeds so full that you don't see anyone else. Now what?

Time for a New List
So now, you've got more organizing to do. I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge fan of organizing. I want technology to do it for me whenever possible. Friendfeed gives you the option to create new lists. Which is great. So now I've got power users over there to fight with each other for space, and since they're updating everything on an hourly basis, they'll balance each other out a little. But I'm still adding friends because that's what you do in social media. It's a very active Internet social life, so pretty soon, I need lists for college friends, co-workers, industry professionals, and so on. And I'm thinking isn't there a way that the technology can start to group some of these updates for me.

I Want What I Want and Not All This Other Crap
It's probably time for FriendFeed to start working on a recommendation engine of their own. While I'm not enthusiastic about Digg's recommendation engine from what I've seen so far, the need to help users figure out what they want to look at is growing. For some people, this is a little creepy to think that some machine or algorithm is now determing a lot of what you see. However, in FriendFeed's case, because it can pull together so much information, I think a recommendation engine absolutely needs to be in the works (if there is one and I've missed it, please leave a note in the comments).

Where Are All My Friends?
I'm not a huge fan of dumping out my email address book into Web sites. I understand why sites want me to do that, but I don't like doing it. I do like the option FriendFeed has for you to import Twitter friends. Really, I'm hoping that more sites make it easier to transfer friends across social sites so I don't have to hunt everyone down again. I think the genius of Facebook is it's ability to help you connect through old friends via past schools. If FriendFeed has that functionality somewhere (please leave a comment if you've seen it), then that would be great.

Information Overload or Opportunity?
However, I'm still waiting for a lot of my friends to buy into this site, and I really don't think that they will. This to me seems like a social media professional's Web site, and not something that the masses necessarily care about. If FriendFeed could morph itself into some kind of tracking and analytics tool for social media, they could suddenly find themselves in a position to be very profitable. They're probably collecting all kinds of data already that would be very interesting to know, although I'm sure there are privacy laws with disseminating some of it. The point being is that we're all still waiting for a social media analytics tool to help make sense of outreach and the general madness. While I think FriendFeed still needs to find ways to make culling through all the information that comes through it easier, I wonder if they're now positioned to make sense of the madness and turn an interesting tool into a profitable social media analytics business.

All A-Twitter: Why Does Everyone Love This Site?

2009-03-01T14:48:00.000-08:00

At first glance, it's hard to be very amazed at Twitter. You get a dialogue box, scarcely any space for a profile, and away you go. You can follow people, and they can follow you. You can send small direct messages, which are like mini-emails. Oh, you can put up a little picture for your profile too. Wow. How amazingly underwhelming.

But the adoption rate for Twitter right now is incredible. Just click through this link to Alexa to see just how the use of the site is skyrocketing in recent months. Compete.com's numbers peg last January at almost 6 million users. What's going on? Why are so many people into this?

The Politics of the Internet
Right now, I'm leaning towards politics as being the reason for the latest explosion. More specifically, I'm pointing my finger towards Barack Obama, whose 2008 election campaign just laid out a successful template for employing social media in politics. Perhaps other politicians are now hurrying to jump on the political bandwagon to fame and notoriety. Charles Cooper at CNET News recently talked about Twitter becoming the rage in D.C. circles in his "Suddenly, Twitter's the Rage with D.C. Politicos." With politicians being essentially the material world equivalent to social media's "influencers," they are liable to bring in a lot more people into social media who want to stay in touch with their public servants, and a whole new dynamic to Twitter may just be growing up.

Twitter: It's "Stupeasy!"
Part of the success for Twitter comes under a new business term that I've just coined: "Stupeasy" meaing stupid easy. This isn't necessarily an insult (although I can't say that it's a huge compliment). The concept of writing "What are you doing right now?" in a dialogue box is excrutiatingly easy. Plus, the 140 character limit means you don't have to really form complete sentences. Shorthand and misspellings are expected, so there's no pressure for being correct in writing, unlike with a blog where a certain amount of thought and structure are expected.

Following people is relatively simple too, and replying doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower either. It means that Twitter has few barriers to entry. The sign up is free and not extensive at all. They just get people started and going with very little Internet red tape. In terms of it's stupeasiness, it reminds me of another Internet property: Google. Perhaps, you've heard of them.

Google's main page is incredibly straightforward. You enter a search term in the dialogue box. There's not a whole lot of other things to do, and the dialogue box gives you a pretty good direction as to what you should be doing on the site. The intuitive straightforward nature of the site has been a key piece to their success in my mind, and similarly, I think Twitter's done a similar thing with its interface and design.

Now For A Real Word: Connectivity
The bigger trend beyond politics and stupeasiness is connectivity. Because of the expansion of the Internet, people have found it increasingly easy to be in touch with each other. Whatever you may think about how isolated and alienated people have become at times in the world, the Internet dissolves a lot of those walls to staying in touch and connecting with others. Sure there are creeps on the Web, but that's life.

Twitter's integration with cell phones also allows people to stay up-to-date while they're on-the-go, which adds another avenue for engagement with the site. Given the brevity of the messages, that's made it a perfect companion to the cell phone medium.

Combined with the simplicity and the passion of a lot of techie types, connectivity has become a key trend that has driven Twitter to new heights (and when February traffic reports come out, possibly even higher traffic numbers). I can't say that you'll always find out the greatest information in the world, but you may be surprised at the interesting links that get passed around and the little nuggets of knowledge that you'll glean about some of your friends and associates.

If you want to connect with me on Twitter, click through this link. Happy twittering everyone!

SlideShare: Finally A Social Place For Businesses

2009-02-25T16:02:00.001-08:00

Perhaps, this title is a little bit of a slight to LinkedIn, but there seems like there's so much more opportunity for B2B interactions and information sharing on SlideShare.net. While LinkedIn lets you put up your resume and talk to other people professionally in some of the groups, SlideShare has the opportunity to really drive forward business conversations and interactions through the sharing of presentations. I know it's not very exciting initially; you're like, "Yay, another way that I can stare at a powerpoint." But I think this site offers a new possibility for product marketers to effective get their messages out in social media and for businesses to research different products in a potentially easier and more engaging way then searching through google and hunting down whitepapers.

The Business Research MarketPlace
I'm just delving into this site, but I think it could become a great information marketplace. Let's go for a long-term view. Okay, we're totally in the visionary business world, so this has no basis in fact other than this afternoon I started brainstorming. A big assumption here is that SlideShare hits a critical mass in traffic to make a lot of this possible. If you get an area set up for businesses where they're all uploading their presentations about their products, it's like having a big expo where everyone is getting a booth. Some placements give you better visibility in real life and on the Web. SlideShare can start to charge for that and other extras. An extra could be attaching a white paper or having audio included with their presentations. There could be ways to make branded areas, add in lead capture forms, or even have an online instant messenger integrated to have a live person talk someone through a presentation of a product. Am I getting too far out there? I hope not. There's a lot of potential here.

For the Busy Business Professional
Because everyone is starting to know about this place, it becomes a new way for people to do their research on companies and services. Instead of stumbling through Google and scrolling around for whitepapers, now there's this on-going business exposition that's on 24-7, so busy business executives can research new services to help their businesses any time day or night. Plus, all the smart businesses are putting their products there. So if you're trying to make a decision about a cloud computing service, all the players are there with their presentations. You don't have to skip through multiple sites. There's an element of convenience that would be very enticing. Because as great as having so much information available through the Internet is, there's still no full-proof way to search through it all (Sorry Google. I love you, but I need something more). SlideShare has the opportunity to be that something more for these professionals looking for a business solution and for product marketers trying to get their word out in a social media landscape that is hooked on fifteen word status updates.

Growing Traffic Numbers for SlideShare
Of course there are more than just business, social media, and technology presentations up on SlideShare, and who knows which will really hit big to make SlideShare pop. All kinds of powerpoints and other presentations from spirituality to humor to saving the koalas are on the site, which is steadily marching towards 1 million monthly visitors according to Compete.com. So there are interesting opportunities for people to have fun sharing little presentations (Anything to do with pets tends to have ridiculous upsides in Web traffic, I've noticed. Seriously. People love their cats and dogs).

A Viable Business or Acquisition in the Making
Nonetheless, I think the real gravy and where a viable business model may lie is in the B2B marketplace. It remains to be seen if SlideShare is looking to be a big acquisition (Dear LinkedIn, buy them; it makes too much sense), or if they want to carve out a permanent piece of Internet real estate as the one-stop shop for businesses to make their most important decisions.

Web Browser Wars: Who Will Win?

2009-02-17T12:57:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, there were only a few browsers. You had AOL, Netscape, and Internet Explorer in some order of existence in the 90's. I'd imagine that those were easier times on Web developers when they didn't have to check their coding against nine different browsers. But with the way people surf and and interact with the Web changing, the demands being placed on browsers has changed too.

Consider that no one was checking their email on their phone in 1996. Now, the rapid expansion of smartphones like the Blackberry and the iPhone more recently is heightening the importance of having browsers that mesh with that space. Opera Mini is one of a number of solutions that companies are putting up to answer the growing demand for browsers that function quickly and efficiently on that platform. Never heard of Opera? That's okay. According to a Wikipedia usage chart, their main browser (not the Opera Mini browser for the phone) only has about .7% of the market place.

Social Browsing
Everyone pretty much knows who the big dog in the Web browsing world is: Internet Explorer. Despite the amazing number of naysayers and detractors, IE is still used by 67.6% of Internet users. As a long time fan of Firefox, I'm encouraged by their 21.5% of Internet users, but after that, it's a pretty precipitous drop off. Safari (8.3%), Google Chrome (1.1%), Opera (.7%), and Netscape Navigator (.6%) follow behind the first two. However, as far as I've seen, none of them have really gotten into the social media management aspects of browsing, which is why I've recently become an afficianado of Flock.

Lots of us now have fifteen different social media accounts to keep track of. That's a lot of logging in and Web browsing during the day, and while some of us are way too big of Internet junkies and don't mind this, even we'd like easier ways to navigate our Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, and other accounts. Built off of Mozilla's Firefox, Flock isn't the end all of answers, but a handy little sidebar gives me an easy way to keep track of stuff going on in some of the bigger communities like Twitter, Digg, MySpace, and Facebook. I also really like their RSS feed aggregator. So far it's been one of the easiest ways I've found to integrate a feed into my daily browsing. I've used iGoogle, but really, I just need something easy to glance at to see if there's something new to check out.

The Big Web Browser Winner
I can't see one big winner emerging as the Internet fragments. I think there's going to be a major winner in the mobile industry that will partially be determined by some kind of business partnership. You know how Internet Explorer is usually the pre-loaded browser on a lot of computers? I think one of the browsers may end up as the preloaded browser. I think that's why Google's Android could position Chrome or some latest variation designed for the mobile phone to be a big winner. Sure that T-Mobile partnership doesn't look like much now, but down the road, it could be genious with the combination that they're setting up.

I think Internet Explorer will still be the main Web browser as things shake out. I think they'll do the same thing to social browsing as they did to tabbed browsing. They'll wait around and see what works, and then they'll add that feature in. Personally, I'd like to see Flock really gain ground through viral dissemination by all of us social media types (really the only bad thing that I have to say about it is that it chokes up with too many digg pages opened). But if it doesn't catch on too much, I hope Mozilla takes a look over their shoulder to add some of these features in. Because the Web is only getting more social and interactive, and I've got around a thousand friends, followers, and fans that I need help staying in touch with. Social browsing is where the Web is going; now it's time for all the browsers to catch up.

The Digg Bannings: Why They Were Inevitable

2008-10-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

In the world of social media, you'd have to have been hiding under a rock to have not heard all the furor over the digg bannings that have gone on. The headliner of them all was the banning of Zaibatsu, for which I haven't heard much of an explanation from Digg (if something has come out about this let me know). I've heard Reg's side of things, and I can imagine that he'd be more than a little pissed. I don't blame him. He and many of the other top diggers who legitimately contribute to the community (no scripts and what not) spent hours each day contributing, digging, and so forth. For the big three (Zaibatsu, Mr. Baby Man, and MSaleem), I remember hearing on a podcast that they can spend up to 6 hours a day on Digg. Just do the math and figure out how huge of a time committment that is during the year.

And Here's the Door...
So to suddenly get canned by the site that you've dedicated so much time to is definitely grounds for being angry, but I think there's an unfortunate reality that Digg had to deal with. Check this out from their "about us:"

"We’re committed to giving every piece of content on the web an equal shot at being the next big thing."

And that statement just isn't true. Every piece of content is not equal. I've been around digg for awhile, and I'm not a power user. But I can work up a piece of content into the 200 digg range with my friends list and sharing shouts. The newby user who submits the same piece of content has almost no shot at that unless s/he gets lucky and the topic just hits a cord with a couple of the right people who shout it around.

Dealing with the Digg Oligarchy
This isn't news to anyone, but what had happened was that a kind of digg oligarchy had formed up. And they were submitting the same types of technology and political news submissions. They in some ways were limiting the opportunities of Digg to expand past the 18-34 yr old, Web geek, Obama supporting, Nasa loving, and environmentalist user that had really forged the site. Because what was getting popular continued to appeal to the same types of users. And new users really didn't have a great chance of getting popular. It kept feeding the cycle. So digg decided to start levelling the playing field: the digg bannings.

Is this biting Digg in the butt? Maybe. But compete.com shows digg with traffic above 26 million, which is its biggest number over the last year. The bannings have momentarily opened up some access to get into the friends lists of other power users still on digg. Perhaps this will open the door for a greater breadth of topics to make it to the popular page and start drawing the attention of new user segments. If it doesn't, other than knocking out the script use that was going on, I'm thinking that it'll give them a short-term boost from all the talk about the site and people wanting to check it out. But will this really help break up the oligarchy or will it just form again? I'd guess the latter until Digg can figure out a way to better connect relevant content with each individual user. I know they're working on it with the recommendation engine, but I'm not won over it by that tool yet.

And from another view, I think that they've opened the door wider for competition to engage with their power users in a better way.

Standing in the Wings: Mixx.com
I've written about mixx before, and the digg bannings have created a small exodus of key individuals from digg to mixx. Mixx has a lot of ingenuity and cool stuff going on there, and now they've got a few big named ex-diggers (Zaibatsu) to drive it forward. I heard a rumor about a site re-design in the works, but they've already got tons of cool functionality. Their traffic keeps skyrocketing according to compete.com, but what I wonder is how they'll treat their power users as things progress so that they don't end up in digg's predicament one day.

As for the losers in all of this, I think it's pretty clear that the power users have really taken it in the keister. That stinks. Really. It does. I think digg owes them a little more than that. Could you imagine Wikipedia suddenly canning its top content editors? Good bye! Too bad, so sad. But I won't belabor this point. I think learning how to engage with power users is always a tricky thing in social media, and this time, Digg got caught in a bind between their goals for a content democracy and loyalty to some of the people that have made it what it is. We'll just have to wait and see what this means and if other sites out there, can learn and do better.

Who's The Boss? Yahoo!'s Move Into Social Search

2008-07-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

At some point last night, my Twitter account blew up with links to ReadWriteWeb's story about Yahoo!'s move into the social search space with their B.O.S.S. (Build Your Own Search Service) application. This really is exciting news, as it marks a move into a space that's ripe for expansion. The problem that so many others in the social search space have faced has been a scalability issue. They need more traffic to hit that critical mass where their tools can reach their full potential. Until they hit that point, those search tools don't seem as good (and some of them aren't as good until they get enough usage).

But Yahoo! has got the traffic. For June, Compete.com reports that Yahoo! had nearly 133 million unique visits. Granted not all of those or probably even half of those people will be the developer type to create their own search engines, but enough will be that the BOSS tools should get a good amount of dissemination. With dissemination, more people will come in contact with the concept of social search and being able to influence results as opposed to the predominant what-you-see-is-what-you-get search methodology. This also can position Yahoo! for a much firmer foothold for the future of search.

I've long said and will continue to say that the future of the Internet is in niche topics. Lots of people call it the long-tail of the Internet, although that term is more specific to SEO stuff. When I say niche, I mean that when people want to know about dog-grooming, they want to find dog-grooming topics for their specific dogs. A chihuahua needs something different than a sheep dog. Google may bring up a lot of relevant topics around dog grooming, but oftentimes, a social search engine can be trained and honed more easily to get to a specific granularity.

Of course, enough people have to be using the social search engine to train it this way. I'm making a number of assumptions here, and I'm not entirely sure how Yahoo!'s BOSS application will work. The developers will play big roles in deciding how "social" their search engines will be. So it remains to be seen how exactly this move manifests and how great the adoption rate is. But from a strategic point of view, it's a heck of a move. And after all the furor over Microsoft, perhaps Yahoo! has shown that it still has a few tricks in the bag to turn the search tide to its favor.

Move, Counter Move: Mixx and Digg Rivalry Growing

2008-07-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

June has been a particularly interesting month as both Digg and Mixx have come out with fairly big upgrades. Digg just put their beta recommendation engine out for use and feedback, and Mixx added a whole new level of community building tools to the site. They're addressing slightly different immediate needs, but they are still dealing with the main need: getting people the info they want to read.

Let's start with Digg. This is still pretty new, and admittedly, I'm just getting started working with it. So far, I'm not really impressed. Perhaps I haven't cultivated my interests closely enough or the "friends" that I have in my Digg network. I can't say that the recommended stories and videos that come up are really matching my interests that well, although it is nice to have the amount of information that I'm looking at cut down (it knocks out the hot upcoming section). I'll be honest; I read a ton of stuff during a day, and it's easy to get overloaded. So in the vein of making a page a little less cluttered with stuff that is aimed at being closer to my interests, I applaud Digg. They have the good fortune to have tons of submissions, and now they're working with this "problem" to help people cull through all those submissions in a more meaningful way. I think the compatibility percentage with other Diggers pretty much blows at this time (I don't care if someone matches my interests at 18%; show me someone with a 50% and above match), but that's why they call it a beta.

Mixx doesn't have the good fortune to have an overload of submissions. I don't generally feel overwhelmed by information on Mixx, although perhaps that suggests a better UI. No, what Mixx is doing is building the for the future. They've taken a page out of Ning's book and given users the means to create their own communities around topics of their choosing. Personally, I think this is a brilliant move, and down the road, this can be one way to help let the community cull through massive amounts of information, which Digg is now doing. Of course, the current problem with the community system is the lack of users and submissions. My Boston Sports News community gets pretty quiet in there if I'm not doing anything with it. But as Mixx grows its user base (check out the month by month growth on Compete), the social news site is primed to be able to give the users a better experience that's flexible to their needs.

Now I'm not going to tell you that this is a marque match up yet, but given Mixx's innovation and rapidly growing user base, I'm telling you that you need to keep an eye on it. You can check out compete.com's metrics to see just how far apart the two really are. And some of you may be wondering why I haven't talked about Reddit, Propeller, or Yahoo Buzz. Well, I'm not impressed by any of them. Reddit seems to have sat on its hands for some time, and it's recent open source code move doesn't really change anything in what it offers users. Innovation that creates a better and more fulfilling experience for the user is the key to the Internet. Because today you may be the toast of the town, but tomorrow Microsoft is trying to make a hostile take over of your company and everyone talking about how you lost your way. Digg's recommendation engine is a nice move in the right direction, but I'm not sure that it significantly alters what they offer users just yet. Certainly, it doesn't give users the kind of flexibility Mixx's new communities section does.

At the end of the day though, it's about visits and eyeballs, and Digg has got those in spades. At least for today. Tomorrow? Well, we're all just going to have to wait and see.

Ning: The Next Big Thing In Social Networking

2008-06-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

Maybe some of you haven't heard of Ning.com. I expect that you will be hearing about it soon enough. According to Compete.com, they had over 2M unique visits for May 08. They've got that hockey stick graph curve that execs everywhere drool over because numbers keep going up and up, and quite frankly, if you're looking to lay money on the next big thing in social networking, I'd put it on Ning.

What is Ning? For those of you just getting up to speed, they're a social networking Web site that allows you the freedom to develop a community around any topic. I'm in about six different ning groups from social media to wine tasting (don't ask me how I got in this one, I don't even drink wine). While MySpace and Facebook give you the ability to join up with everybody and their dog, Ning gives you the flexibility to develop communities around niche topics. And it's not just a crappy forum; I've seen and had my fill of crappy, poorly designed forums, although you can add a forum to your Ning group if you absolutely have to have one. Each individual ning group is different and it may ask for different details from you, depending on how the Ning creator set it up. You also get your own page within each group. Some of the design won't knock your socks off, but then, you also have quite a bit of control over editing and changing the design.

Ning understands that its about niche topics on the Web. They've created an agile platform that puts more control in individual users' hands and allows them to create the communities that they want to create. Essentially, Ning allows thousands of mini-facebooks and mini-myspaces.

At this point, I'm not sure that there will be another huge social networking site until there are bigger changes in the knowledge base of Internet users. For instance, maybe a second life type social network would eventually replace a facebook or myspace, but only after enough Internet users had the skills to use it or they'd made it more user-friendly.

Niche, specific topics (communities dedicated to lawns, dark beer, firefox, etc.) are going to be the driving forces in the Web as so many large, catch-all portals have become established. The real opportunities down the road for Internet visionaries will be to create platforms and sites that allow people to tailor them even more closely to their interests and the interests of their communities.

Imagining a Twitter and MySpace or Facebook Merger

2008-06-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

If you live in the San Francisco bay area, you've probably heard plenty about Twitter. One of my friends from back in Reno has noted that most of the SF bay is "totally hooked" on it. I can't disagree with him. As a stand alone product, it's done pretty well simply allowing people to update a circle of friends about what they are currently doing. For people following me, they know that as of this moment, I'm blogging in the Grove cafe on Fillmore St. Many of you out there may wonder what in the world difference does that make. And honstely, I'm not entirely sure, but there definitely are a lot of people doing it.

On a socio-political level, it makes it very easy for people to disseminate happening news quickly. As technology continues to grow out into the world, I think the technology and concept of Twitter becomes very interesting in spreading news quickly out of places where the current regime may not want news to get out (imagine Myanmar residents twittering). It also can run the other way spreading misinformation and panic in tense situations if people aren't careful.

But since we don't really have any heavy-handed regimes in the bay area (pause to allow comments about Bush presidency--yes, yes, people don't like him; he's almost out of office), I'm more interested in how Twitter might meld in with the current social networking landscape. More specifically, what if Facebook or MySpace acquired it.

Both of the two social networking giants already have more than enough users, and more than likely, there's plenty of user overlap. However, especially in MySpace's case, it's easy to fall out of the "conversation" on the Internet. Twitter is the center talking point these days, and acquiring it would put MySpace back into people's minds in a positive way. With the right controls, users could opt in to receiving twitters in their comments section from different friends. It could really boost time spent on either of the two sites. I know that MySpace has already partnered with Twitter, but really, I think acquisition would be a more dynamic and interesting move to add value to the site and re-energize people about MySpace.

What does Twitter get: Twitter gets lots of money from one of the two sites, and it then no longer has to worry about that pesky long term issue of creating a revenue model (that VC funding only lasts so long). Personally, I think this makes a lot of sense, and since Internet popularity doesn't last either, I think now is the time to be doing it.

So what do you think? Would that merge make sense to you? Let me know.

Is StumbleUpon the Next Big Thing in Search?

2008-05-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

All you industry people out there already know the literal answer to this question. No. That's not because StumbleUpon isn't a big deal; it's because in industry terms it's not technically "search." Instead we have another new term for many of you: social discovery. Social discovery is essentially finding things through a network of friends and social contacts. With StumbleUpon, you also submit things you find so that other people in your social network can discover sites and pages through you. It's fairly simple, and that's why I think it's growing so rapidly.

StumbleUpon has been around since 2001 when some crazy college kids in Calgary came up with the idea, and last year eBay realized that they wanted to get in on the action. It will be interesting to see if and how eBay integrates the technology into their other properties. Perhaps, they'll use the Stumble technology to offer auction bidders other interesting items associated with their recent bid/buy. Who knows really, but I think that eBay could find a lot of potential uses for this technology in addition to how it's currently functioning.

StumbleUpon is also having a bang up year. They've grown from 1 million registered users to 5 million, and that's a nice chunk of Internet traffic to have. If any of you have ever watched your analytics reports when a wave of StumbleUpon traffic washes through, you can already guess that if you get that much, then they're probably getting quite a bit more. I think the real challenge for StumbleUpon is in making their interface easier to navigate. I've found myself confused at times as I've navigated through StumbleUpon, and I'd like to think that with all my Internet savvy, that I'm a reasonably able person. Now, let's consider who SU will have to draw in to continue their rapid growth. Well, it's not people like me. It's going to be my mom and even my grandma who really only use the Internet for some basic news stuff and email. Downloading toolbars really isn't their schtick. So, developing an even easier interface and possibly doing some placement deals with other major Internet hubs like a Yahoo--who badly needs to get something positive going in the public eye--might be a good way to go.

I think they're poised for success, but it's going to take a little bit of creativity to manifest that proverbial next step. Finding stuff through "friends" (although they're not friends in the same sense as other more robust social networks) is a great idea, and the functionality to recommend stuff is very easy to use once you've got the toolbar. And the stumble video is way too much like channel surfing (which means it's both really fun and really addictive). It doesn't replace Google, but if you don't know what you want to find and you want to roam through the Internet, pulling up a chair to StumbleUpon is a pretty good way to go.

Yahoo Still Standing, But Needing to Innovate

2008-05-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has been in my mind as of late, and if you've been keeping up with the MicroSoft and Yahoo discussions, Yahoo may have been in your mind as well. It seems that they've fended off Redmond, WA at the time of this blog post, but I wonder if they'll be able to regain their financial footing. Everyone seems to be pointing at a need for the Internet company to innovate and really push things to the next level. Everytime I'm at Yahoo.com (which is often because I use their email service) it seems like I see something new. The buzz.yahoo.com is a belated answer to the really popular Digg concept. I haven't spent too much time with it, but I like how they're integrating the content that gets popular onto the main page. I think it's a nice gesture of acknowledgment (a small one) to the masses and their interests, which may curry some favor with users and build up some general good PR. Plus, if a bunch of people are willing to make popular a video about a ball launcher for a dog to play fetch with, then there probably will be plenty more people who'll find it just as interesting.

Buzz aside, I think they should really push some of their core stuff that got them to where they are. I think a lot of Internet companies can get caught up chasing the latest and greatest and let their core stuff suffer. Google isn't going anywhere because it's still a great search engine for the masses; sure they're doing lots of innovating, but they know where their bread and butter is.

For Yahoo, I think that their Yahoo mail service is moving in the right direction, but it's not there yet. I recently heard complaints (and I share them) with a friend about how slow that mail service is now since the new version. However, I feel like they've got the right idea to continue to integrate diverse pieces of the Internet into one main interface. Perhaps, they can get in on the open social thing to somehow more completely integrate Facebook and MySpace into that email interface. I'm just brainstorming, but I know that if I can pull more disparate pieces of the Internet into one place the happier I'll be (Yes, I know about RSS, but let's go even further with it). The Yahoo Mail already allows for texting, messaging, and getting RSS feeds. Personally, I really like the integration of my contacts with the messaging tool. I didn't immediately start using it, but I've come to enjoy having that program built in with email as opposed to having a separate program running to message people. Plus, I can text from it. How cool is that?

But if Yahoo could do one thing for me tomorrow, it would be to speed up load time on the mail service. I have a decent Internet speed, and it can be a bit sluggish. For others out there who don't live in the home of high speed Internet known as the Bay area, I can imagine a good deal of frustration. And Yahoo doesn't need that kind of frustration around one of its core apps. Sure people can go back to the old version of mail, but that's not moving your business forward. And really, at this junction, Yahoo needs to go forward, and using one of its keystones will go a long way in rebuilding its image to users and investors. Because if things don't turn up, then MicroSoft may be knocking on their door again in the not too distant future.

Mixx Masters: The Heirs to the Digg Kingdom?

2008-04-22T10:24:00.001-07:00

I've been reading a lot of different commentary about the benefits of using Mixx over Digg. It seems to get summed up quite simply into this: Mixx = lots of cool features, but no traffic. Digg = tons of traffic. I was talking to friend of mine at work, and we wondered if Digg had some big thing in the works because it seems like it's been awfully quiet on the innovation front. Right now, it seems like I can't go to Mixx without some cool new feature showing up. Like the little timer they've set up so that you can fix your entry or delete it if need be. I've already used that new feature to fix an error on one of my submissions. Meanwhile, it seems like Digg keeps getting slower on speed, suggesting that the crushing masses are taxing its servers.

I'm not going to talk too much about what Digg does or does not have, but if Mixx continues to innovate and Digg simply rides its current popularity, I can see a lot of attrition and spillover from Digg into the Mixx community. Partly this is because the Mixx community is currently much friendlier and supportive, although that will change with 20 million people running in there. However, with that many people, Mixx would probably become like Digg in terms of atmosphere, but what really gives Mixx a leg up and the possibility to be the heir of all that Digg built is the ability to verticalize. Their groups allow people to collect around the topics that they like. Sure you can customize Digg, but the Mixx grouping allows people to make private groups to keep out some of the less than savory characters out there. It also can allow for better control of the content , and in some ways, this creates an additional vetting process to ensure quality submissions.

The more Mixx does to make it easier to focus around verticals and channels, the better it's future will look. If it moves into finding easy ways to cluster the friends lists into similar interests, that will just push it further ahead in my opinion. For instance, if I have a story about weight loss, I may only want to send it to my friends interested in health and fitness. Now, people are getting even more targeted info sent their way. It can help make the whole experience more meaningful.

I don't think Mixx will replace Digg, and I don't think that should be it's goal anyway. The Internet is moving towards niche topics and focused verticals. If Mixx continues to improve their product and move that way, they've got a real shot to become a successor to the Digg world.

MySpace: Why I Still Use It

2008-03-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

If there's ever been some cruel type-casting, I think the generalization of myspace as a home to sexual predators has to be one of the worst for a Web company. I'm not going to discount it or anything to that nature, but it seems like it's been blown way out of proportion to the amount of normal every day chatting, messaging, video watching, and all the other stuff that goes on there. Perhaps this is simply part of the news media's need for sensational stories to generate interest and create products that get good ad rates.

But regardless of what generalizations are being perpetuated, I think myspace is really a fun "place" to collect friends and meet new people. I've managed to stay in touch with numerous college friends, whom I probably wouldn't have otherwise. It's incredibly easy to drop someone a quick comment to say, "hi." Visiting, letter writing, email writing, and phone calling take more time. Sure, maybe not a lot, but the asynchronous format of a comment on myspace means that I can just drop you a line at any time. Plus, I don't have to create a formal missive in an email or letter, and it's certainly easier than a trip back to Idaho, where many of my college friends are.

Plus, I love meeting new people. Many of you may be aghast about this because "it's not safe." Well, so far, I haven't had my identity stolen (all that stuff on my credit card bills is definitely mine), and no one is stalking me (if they are, then they're being way too stealthy). In the process, I've gotten to talk with people in Hawaii, Arizona, Florida, and Tennessee, whom I'd never have gotten a chance to meet or interact with. In many respects, the world feels just a little bit smaller and cozier because of myspace.

No, myspace isn't the place to put your credit card information, and yes, parents should see what their teens are up to. There is always a certain amount of discretion that you have to have on the Web, but the same goes for real life. I'm not displaying all my private information on my jacket when I go around town.

But nonetheless, myspace is a great addition to meeting and continuing relationships. I'm a fan; it's not perfect. They do have bugs to work out, but it's free and fun for the most part. So, don't get too worked up about some pedophile lurking out there ready to get you. If you are too worried, then make your profile private. That alone will cut out a lot of it.

Music For Free

2008-03-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

I don't know what deals Songza.com has made with music companies and other Web sites, but I do like free music. It looks like you can buy songs that you like, but I really haven't explored that option. So, I'm not really sure how they're making money or if they're making that much, but that's not my job. Mainly, I use this Web site to search on a whole bunch of different songs and create my own playlist, which looks to be stored in my browser's cached history. What does that mean? Whenever you go back to the site, your playlist is right there. It also means that you don't have to sign in. As an avid social media person, I'm getting sick of having to sign into everything. Five pages of logins and passwords is too much!

Of course, the site isn't perfect. They rely on a bunch of other partner sites to supply songs. Some are live recordings. Some of those are cool. Some are definitely not so hot. So quality can be an issue at times, but it's not like you just have get one song. Usually, you get about a half a dozen of one song when you go searching for it. Plus, if you ever dump your browser history (which you really should do once in awhile to get rid of the junk that builds up there), then the playlist goes away.

But that's really not much of a downside to me. Plus, I like regularly creating eclectic new playlists and get bored with one list after awhile. So, it suits me just fine.

That's my latest fave site in social media. What's yours?

Social Media Free For All

2008-02-29T15:43:00.000-08:00

I think one of the neat things about a lot of social media is that it's free. Anybody can use it. Subscription fees haven't yet become a reality, although some sites are looking into monetizing through using them. Nothing wrong with that, but predominantly lots of this stuff is free (myspace, facebook, eurekster.com, digg.com, and more).

I'll be talking about social media news, tools, and whatever else comes to my mind in this social media free for all.