Archive for May, 2010
May 31st, 2010 | 
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An interesting read about one of many Facebook competitors in the running at present: http://tinyurl.com/26q4od5
It seems that privacy is important to people! Facebook – at present is – “king” on the web when it comes to social networking. Can it last?People are getting fed up with having to edit their privacy settings on Facebook every two weeks. Seriously: the folks at Facebook have a great product and seem to be making money hand over fist… let off the throttle with handing out people’s info, man!
And people don’t really dig Twitter it seems. Sure: it has its proponents and power users and has a niche that won’t quit, but monetizing the property has proven difficult at best.
Anecdotally, what’s seems to be happening right now is that people are fed up with Facebook and are searching out alternatives. They’re using their Facebook accounts less, apparently for fear of their information ending up in the “wrong hands,” i.e. in the hands of marketers and identity thieves. Add to that the ability to transfer your friends over to a new service via Facebook’s API, and viola: competition! If there were an alternate place to do your social networking – with the same people you network with now – that had a focus on your privacy as the central thesis of its mission statement, would you use it? Speaking personally, if I could aggregate my comments across multiple platforms a la the Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/) and/or Posterous (http://posterous.com/) models (which, of course, we can), then I’d opt for the more secure option, no question. And I’ve been an avid Facebook proponent. Here’s and interesting story in the NY Times about some guys who are writing an social network with a focus on respecting your privacy: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html?partner=rss&emc=rss . Indications are that we’ll see our share of competition in this market in the near future. We’ll stay tuned with how it all works out…
Anecdotally, what’s seems to be happening right now is that people are fed up with Facebook and are searching out alternatives. They’re using their Facebook accounts less, apparently for fear of their information ending up in the “wrong hands,” i.e. in the hands of marketers and identity thieves. Add to that the ability to transfer your friends over to a new service via Facebook’s API, and viola: competition! If there were an alternate place to do your social networking – with the same people you network with now – that had a focus on your privacy as the central thesis of its mission statement, would you use it? Speaking personally, if I could aggregate my comments across multiple platforms a la the Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/) and/or Posterous (http://posterous.com/) models (which, of course, we can), then I’d opt for the more secure option, no question. And I’ve been an avid Facebook proponent. Here’s and interesting story in the NY Times about some guys who are writing an social network with a focus on respecting your privacy: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html?partner=rss&emc=rss . Indications are that we’ll see our share of competition in this market in the near future. We’ll stay tuned with how it all works out…
Bumptop picked up by Google? Hm.
I thought this was interesting: Google acquired Bumptop. Bumptop is a 3d desktop application for Mac and Windows that turns your desktop into a kind of box-like area, where you can post things on the walls, stack things on the “floor” and generally assists those of us who are visual learners organize our toy boxes. The good news for now is that you can still get the free version of Bumptop for the next week or so at the Bumptop website (http://bumptop.com/). The questions we look forward to answering include: What will Google do with the technology? Incorporate it into iGoogle (http://www.google.com/ig)? Make it a nifty add-on to its Chrome/Chromium OS (http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os)? I dunno, but I’m excited to see. Maybe this is just another nifty gadget, or maybe it’s a stepping stone between the desktop and the virtual desktop? We’ll stay tuned and see.