Hummingbird Mentality

As Twitter leaves the realms of ‘joiner geek’ social network, and (partly due to it’s integration with platforms like Facebook), becomes a more popular and diverse service, its utility is being more rigorously critiqued. What is Twitter for? Its a cogent question. In a world of blogs, microblogs, and social networks, what’s the use of twitter? Is it merely a loose knit social network, or a (nano) blogging platform? Is it just the latest fad? Lets look at some real world uses of Twitter, how its utility differs from more traditional blogging platforms, and some scenarios in which it could be more effectively used.

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Social Network ‘Facebook’, has made an enormous splash this week with the release of the ‘Facebook Platform‘, an opening up of the mature Facebook API to internal widgets with access to Facebook’s ‘core functions’. Whilst this move has been criticised by some influential members of the syndication community, it places Facebook at the forefront of mashup’s and the read-write web. In one fell swoop, Facebook has become a socially enabled aggregation platform.

‘Zuckerberg describes the Facebook core function that the new third-party applications can tap into as a “social graph,” the network of connections and relationships between people on the service’.
- Dan Farber on ZDNet

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Just back from Barcamp Ireland 3. What a day, so packed I couldn’t possibly get to half the talks (which ran concurrently), but I managed three lectures and the panel discussion. The event was held in the beautiful Digital Hub, off Thomas St in Dublin. The building is fantastic, with bare brick walls and natural lighting throughout, and would make a fantastic billionaires studio apartment.

I’ve posted some wikified notes. I grabbed several mini interviews, on TFM’s sweet but pricey Roland wav recorder (check out the uber cheesy website), not enough material for a full blown podcast, but I’ve thrown them up, below. Also attempted to moblog throughout the day, with mixed results.

Mini Interviews

Sean O Sullivan of Rococo.
Robin Blandford creator of Comment Casting.
Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications.

Update: Fixed the wiki link!

Wow..Looks like Jason Calacanis has inspired a trend. Came across the following whilst browsing jobs.ie.

Are you a social networker and serial photo up loader? If yes read on….

Looking for some extra cash? www.talkbeans.com is Ireland’s fastest growing social networking site - for grown up’s.
We are looking for people to build social networks…. for cash. Its a sinch and its a part-time job you can do anytime, night or day.

We are seeking well connected, fun, outgoing people who have left school - and no longer want to be profiled on social networking sites for Kids.

So www.talkbeans.com are offering European pounds for profiles. All you have to do is get people in your network to set-up profiles (with Photo’s) and use the site actively and we will pay you for each profile you create.

Duties:
Get your people to contact our people and post their profiles. To start making European pounds for profiles please apply below telling us why we should pay you to help build Ireland’s biggest and best social networking site.

Candidate
We love all types of people. If your cool your in. If your not cool your in. If your under 18 your out - try registering with bebo.

Responsibilities:
None. We are not very responsible and don’t expect you to be. We do expect common sense and nothing too rude.

Successful candidates will be contacted by email. Please apply telling us why you not them, Today.

www.talkbeans.com - Don’t be a has been. Be a talkbean!

Got to get me some a them ‘European Pounds’. Oddly the talkbeans site itself seems to be down. Shouldn’t they be advertising spamming this through a social network in any case?

Update: Site’s now back up, and looks unsurprisingly spammy. I wonder could Bebo sue over Talkbeans claim to be ‘Ireland’s fastest growing social networking site’?

Subsequent to posting a link to the (UCD?) ‘Killer Coke’ Bebo page a couple of days ago, it seems the popular page has disappeared. Although never one to underestimate my own importance, I sincerely hope this is not a chilling effect of questioning Bebo’s censorship policy at last weeks Social Network Webcamp. The TCD campaign, which recently succeeded in renewing the Trinity campus Coke produce ban, still has an active Bebo page.

I’m not involved in either campaign, and not sufficiently informed to judge either sides merits, but more information is available here - pro coke, anti-coke, and here’s the ubiquitous wiki.

Perhaps this is something DRI should look into?

Many thanks to John Breslin for organising Irelands first Webcamp, last Wednesday 7th March. The afternoon was an enlightening look into the development, search, analysis and productive uses of social networks.

I’ve wiki’d some notes on event. Ina O’ Murchu of DERI should be posting videos of the talks in due course.

Particularly interesting was the response of designated Bebo’s spokesperson, Mark Tarbatt of webvertising firm Generator, to my questions about potential Bebo censorship. The impression Mark (whose firm seem solely responsible for selling branding on Bebo, at least in Ireland) gave was that, in the event of a conflict between a user video or community (the example I provided was a hypothetical ‘killer coke’ video on Votetube’s bebo profile) and a Bebo advertiser, such a user or community could be removed. This seems credible given that Mark stated Bebo’s recent adoption of comment moderation occurred not in response to problems of user abuse or sexually explicit spam, but to satisfy the desire of Coca Cola (a bebo advertiser) to prevent ‘harassment’ on it’s branded bebo site.

A quick search of Bebo indicates the existence of just such a conflict.

Digg is hip, digg is fun, every geek likes to compare their list of dugg stories, and gets a thrill from a submitted story hitting the digg.com homepage. But Digg has a problem. As it’s user base has risen, and the site’s design become more refined (latest iteration released today), the perceived quality of the stories reaching the Digg front page, and of the comments individual diggers leave regarding stories, has declined. The most common explanation given for this decline is the dilution of quality attendant to increased popularity; as Digg becomes less exclusive, it attracts a broader, less technically literate, and younger audience. Digg’s democratic structure leaves it open to collective dumbing down (and deliberate spamming) in a way that Web 1.0 social new sites (Slashdot etc), were not. However, let me suggest another potential explanation for the variable quality of news on Digg.

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Discussing online communities today with one of Trinity FM’s up and coming editors, the problem of data migration came up. Web 2.0 services are fantastic, but what happens when we want to leave their walled gardens? As it stands right now there exists no feasible way of say, carrying an identity from Bebo to Myspace, complete with user information, photographs and more importantly ‘friends’ (correct me if I’m wrong, but such a service would undoubtedly violate the TOS of one or both sites).

So far, so minor, a problem easily soluble, or at least survivable - on the user end through the duplication of accounts, on the social network provider end through competition. Just as Yahoo and Google trump other web based email services by allowing free forwarding and address book export (effectively providing a jumping off point for users - one I found convenient recently when switching from the increasing bloat of the new Yahoo mail to Gmail, privacy be damned); and just as websites which link to other sites gain links in return - so a truncated form of universal Darwinian selection will eventually cull social networks based on the criteria of connectivity and selectivity. To rephrase, only the most flexible networks, allowing (and encouraging) interconnectivity with other social networks, mashups, linking with mobile / cellphone accounts, and connecting users to their butcher, baker and candlestick maker, will survive in the long term as social networks become truly mainstream. [Thankfully the web currently lacks implimentation of the bandwidth protectionism (read Net Neutrality) which has allowed Murdock Media to become an exclusive supplier of Digital Satellite television in Ireland and the UK. But don't be surprised down the road, if services like MySpace lobby to restrict access to 'unpoliced' social networks]. Think about it, who’d use a telephone which could only call one set of friends? By contrast, services which provide selective connection will also find an evolutionary niche - humans love elites, and expertise is quantitatively valuable.

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The Bebo abuse department have once again failed to respond usefully to clear abuse of their service, and violation of their Terms of Use.

Gareth

You recently reported abuse for member Leyla H on October 29, 2006. The best thing for you to do is block this person from your profile. If you ignore this person chances are they will get bored and leave you alone. I have provided instructions below on how you can do this.

To block/unblock a member follow these steps:

1) Visit www.Bebo.com and sign-in using your email address or username and password.

2) Navigate to the profile of the person you wish to block. You can do this by clicking on their username or photos in your profile. Alternatively, access their profile by going to http://username.bebo.com.

3) Under their profile photo, find the ‘Block’ link and click on it.

4) Click the button ‘Block This Member’.

Please note that this matter has now been CLOSED. If you feel this Bebo member continues to violate our Terms of Use after you have your block in place, you can submit another ‘Report Abuse’ form.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Please do not reply directly to this email.

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Just a short note for Bebo users hitting this site from Google searches. My previous post, regardin the nefarious ‘homepagecam.us/cutie223′ seems to have hit a nerve.

The spam you received was an advertisement for a (now removed) porn site. This was, to the best of my knowledge, the first commercial Bebo spam - if you come across any others let me know.
Just like email, the Bebo message system provides unscrupulous advertisers with an opportunity to send hundreds or thousands of unsolicited messages, almost certainly automatically, and very cheaply. If even a small number of these messages result in sales, bingo the bad guys make money.
You can do your part to prevent messages like this in the future by contacting Bebo directly, reporting the message you received, and requesting they remove the ‘feature’ that allows sending a large amount of Bebo mails to users not on your friends list. Such messages explicitly violate Bebo’s terms of service.

Although the message you received cannot itself harm your computer, sites like the one it linked to can contain Trojan virus’s, which could infect your PC. To protect against such threats, always use a safe web browser, like Firefox 2; install antivirus software, like AVG antivirus; and firewall software, like Zonealarm.
If you’re afraid your machine may have already become infected, run an antivirus scan, then download and run an anti Spyware package; Spybot, and Ad Aware are both free and good.

Finally, never use your credit card on a site which is not trustworthy. If in doubt, use a third party service like Pay Pal or Google Checkout; which will minimize your potential losses to the individual payment made.

Hope this helps. See you on Bebo.