In a BBC article coming out of  SxSW, David Sacks, the founder of business social network Yammer, is quoted as saying that social network users are in “the process of creating email 2.0″. Granted, for the most part, people are posting status updates on their social media sites, but I disagree with the comment that Sacks thinks “it’s all people want to do.” Especially when I get up in the morning and take a look at the mounting pile of email sitting in my inbox. [source]

Email: sxc.hu

While the growth in such services is heralded as the start of the “real-time, pervasive web”, I see it as more of communications 2.0 rather than just email 2.0.

Social media and social networks are changing the way we communicate across the board, but they’re not replacing the way we send information, the way we connect, at least not 100%.

Sacks’ platform, Yammer, is an enterprise social network, designed to work as an internal communications tool, but it’s unlikely to replace email, phone calls, or the department newsletters and bulletin boards. Micro-updates, no matter what platform they’re on, be it Facebook’s “Colleen is…”, LinkedIn’s “What are you working on now?”, Twitter’s “What are you doing?”, Plinky’s inspiration questions or Yammer’s “What are you working on?”, will never replace the required meetings, full emails, or really, anything longer than 140 or 160 characters. Nothing longer than a quick request or a fast kudos on something.

In addition to all of those problems, there are frequently confidential messages that need to be kept within a select group, or even simply things that the entire company doesn’t need to be privvy to, for whatever reason.

While services like FriendFeed and Flickr allow users to share photos, video, or even comment in real time, the lifestreaming services have their place, but even when added to micro-sharing services, will still not replace email.

One of the major hurdles to doing away with email all together, is that all of the features of the lifestreaming and micro-sharing services don’t fit together in the way that users need them too. Whereas users can be on any platform for email, there is no one common micro-sharing, lifestreaming system that ties it all together in a pretty bow. For example, Twitter can be push a status update to Facebook, but not vice versa. There is no one system that can do it all, and send any information longer than a set number of characters. When was the last time you wrote an email with any kind of character limit?

It’s entirely possible that there may be a company out there working on a way to integrate all of this together, and if there’s not, then I really need to go and talk to my tech team. It’s been rumoured that Microsoft is working on a set of standard protocols which will allow people to share all of this information, regardless of what service or platform they’re using.

No matter what the “next big thing” is, I don’t think email is going to go away anytime soon.

Guy told me this was coming a while back when I’d asked about being able to save certain feeds and rearrange them as I saw fit, so MyAlltop didn’t come as a surprise to me.

Tomorrow, the “online magazine rack”, (one which all of my sites are on!) launches MyAlltop , allowing people to create custom collections of Alltop feeds. For me, it’s basically going to be replacing Google reader - at least for the sites I read regularly for news for the sites. I also suspect I’ll discover a whole ton of new sites as well.

Alltop

Every custom MyAlltop collection is a public page which can be shared with friends and fans.

One of the things that you know i s going to happen (and what I did right away) is that people are going to grab their vanity accounts, and the floodgates open tomorrow (Tuesday).

The good news is, you can create as many accounts as you’d like - one for personal use and one for your site. I don’t think you can embed anything on your site yet, but knowing Guy, I’m sure that’s coming.

Once you’ve gotten your account set up, you’ll have a personalized URL . The sign up process is uber fast, so go now - run, don’t walk - to  My Alltop and register your name before your user name gets scooped!

The popularity of LinkedIn has soared - the year over year growth is 200%, and the economy is the culprit. I’m seeing people on Twitter talking about their education, and looking for work, asking for leads. Facebook has seen growth as well, with people friending others, no matter how remote, in order to cash in on their social capital as a job strategy.

While the popularity of online social networking is transforming the nature of traditional business networking and the way people manage their careers, it also is heralding in change in the way that social networking work as well. It may be that social networking is really coming to mainstream and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.

sxc.hu

One of the important things to remember however, whether you’re on Linked In, Facebook or Twitter, there’s still a line between social networking and business networking. It’s important to remember that there are values and codes of conduct that are specific to the virtual world that will clash in the real world, and vice versa. There are behaviours and attitudes which translate well in person, when you’re joking or what have you, that simply do not translate in the virtual world.

Common sense is as necessary online as it is in person. You wouldn’t walk up to someone you’ve only just met, or whom you know very loosely, and hit them up for a job, so why would you do that online?

Social networking is no different than networking in person. You still have to put the time in to your relationships in order for them to trust you enough to pass on possible job opportunities.

The “secret” to social networking on Twitter, Facebook or Linked In is that there is no secret. Be normal, be human, be yourself ! Your social capital means nothing if you don’t take the time to build it. Yes, you will be able to gain a competitive advantage in the market when you have built up enough capital that people trust you enough to grant you access to their own resources.

The number one rule of in-person networking still applies:

Approach social networking as a giver, not a taker. What can you do to help others, rather than what they can do for you? Social networks are built on a culture of sharing, support and trust, not hard core sales, shilling or aggressive techniques.

Don’t be the person who puts a strain on your online “friendships”. The age-old question, “what are friends for?” has one key word in it that can’t ever be discounted: friend. Remember that before you rush ahead start hitting everyone you’re connected with for a new gig or yet another favor.

I awoke early on Monday morning, to see twitter alive with Skittles comments, posts and tweets crowding my screen. I knew something was going on, but didn’t bother to look until the hubbub had died down, at least a little.

Skittles CC on Flickr by Suwaif

In fact, it didn’t even cross my mind again until this afternoon, during a business meeting, where for the second time in as many weeks, I brought up something that the others hadn’t heard about, that I’d seen on Twitter or other social networking platforms. I honestly can’t remember what the first situation was - something silly that people were jumping all over and saying that the brand had made a poor move in its first social networking attempt, much like they were saying this week with Skittles.

There’s one thing that all of the people who are jumping up and down and pointing out the brand’s mistakes: we all talked about that brand, for the entire week that it did it’s social networking whatever. That’s gotta mean it’s working, at least a little, no?

Think about it. Would we even be talking about the rainbow coloured candies if they hadn’t chosen to feature Tweets mentioning the brand on their home page? Probably not, and yet, there’s a few self proclaimed pundits out there (no, I won’t link to them - they are in the crowd of those who annoy me and to whom I don’t want to offer more traffic to. You’ll find them if you look) who think that this was just a stunt to get people talking about their brand.

Sure, ok, fine. But it worked. We - everyone - talked about them. Just do a Google search for “Skittles + Twitter” and you’ll find more than 155,000 results.

Mashable said it best: Skittles is basically saying: “We get it. Whatever we can do cannot be as awesome as what you guys and girls can do, so we’ll just link to it and let you do your thing.” [source]

People might want to bitch and moan about the fact that this candy brand walked in and did this slightly…unorthodox form of corporate social networking, but the fact remains that they did something cool, brought it to their site, and engaged us. Are we’re all still talking about it. You gotta admit, that’s pretty cool, even if it’s not brand new and totally unique.

What has your brand done to get that many people talking about you - so much so that you garner more than 100 pages on Twitter Search? Think about that before you complain that the Skittles stunt sucked.

“Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users.” Stay tuned, this and more deadly news at 11.

Once again, parents are being warned that something else in the world will harm/kill or otherwise damage their children. A neuroscientist, Susan Greenfield, from the UK is claiming that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centered.

Kids and Computers. CC on Flickr, Tanya Ryno

I’ve read the article in full three times, and I am still having trouble taking the whole thing seriously.

Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, believes repeated exposure could effectively ‘rewire’ the brain. Computer games and fast-paced TV shows were also a factor, she said. ‘My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.’ [source]

I’m certainly not sure that I agree with this, but then, I admit, I am not a mother of young children. I have friends with children, for sure, and some of those children are old enough to play video games, watch “fast-paced tv” and are active on the computer - primarily on sites their parents approve - and none of those kids live for the moment anymore than the rest of us, or have a shorter attention span than anyone else.

Greenfield has taken her argument all the way to the House of Lords debate last month. She’s still arguing that all of these technologies and current communication methods will leave a generation of people with poor attention spans.

‘I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf,’ she said. [source]

While psychologists have also argued that digital technology is changing the way we think, no one else seems to be arguing so strongly against these seemingly dangerous communication methods.

The whole attitude of “the sky is falling” we’re seeing around these social networking sites and “newfangled” communications tactics makes me roll my eyes. If you’re seeing a short attention span in your child, and they are spending a ton of time in front of a computer, a video game or a tv show, perhaps it’s more important that you find something else for them to do, or you to do with them, rather than blaming social networking websites. Again, I say this without having children of my own, so I am in no way telling anyone how to raise their child.

What I am doing, however, is saying, as someone who works and specializes in the social networking/marketing field, that the entire blame can not be placed entirely at the feet of these communication tactics.

/steps off soapbox, for now.

"What magazines are you reading now?"

"Share the longest road trip you’ve ever been on"

"Have you ever gone a day without your cell phone?"

Plinky, possibly a "smarter Twitter", is a new micro-blogging platform, which, instead of asking the ubiquitous "What are you doing?" (which, like most, I tend to ignore…), provides a prompt you can answer or move onto the next question.

I signed up for Plinky (and you can find me there under colleencoplick, as you can under many other social networks), but I haven’t determined exactly where the communications and conversations part of Plinky is - which is what I love about Twitter. There’s interaction, relationships and conversations that I have with people whom I never would have met if it weren’t for Twitter.

So, anyone else on Plinky? What do you think?

[image source: plinky screenshot]

I can admit it - I geek out over statistics. I pour over my Google Analytics reports, and I ogle Omniture. I also get a little gooshy over seeing compete.com come out with statistics for social networks as a whole… oh, and my hands down guilty pleasure has got to be all of those Twitter statistics measurement APIs floating about like Twitter Grader and Twinfluence. I can’t help it, deep down, I am a dork.

Compete.com recently released their January 2009 statistics for traffic ranks to the various social networks.

I find this endlessly fascinating. Look at Twitter’s skyrocketing hurtle from 22nd place to Top 3. I’m still, and always, surprised that Classmates.com and MyYearBook.com are in 7th and 8th places respectively - I’d always used FaceBook for random connections with classmates I wasn’t friends with then really, and am not now either.

The one thing that is missing from this data, and the thing that would make it of more use is where this traffic is coming from. While these are global sites, the stats only pull from US browser information, and so sites like Orkut and Bebo, whose users are primarily come from continents other than North America, get the short end of the stick with these numbers. 

Like Caroline McCarthy from CNet said, "Still, statistics are like tequila shots. Always take ‘em with a few grains of salt and a slice of lime, and be warned that they may give you headaches." [source] That said, and while I agree with Caroline 100%, I do still love me some tequila.

[image source: Compete]

Maybe it was Obama’s inauguration. Maybe it was the Hudson River "landing" that did it. Whatever the event, something catapulted Twitter even higher into the mainstream.  For the first time last week, the market share of traffic to Twitter beat out Digg, according to Hitwise. [source]

Hitwise also says that Twitter’s rise to power is due to increased traffic to the site from 25-35 year olds. This demographic is now making up 45% of Twitter traffic, vs a meager 12% from a year ago. Digg depends primarily on traffic from Google, but Twitter gets a larger share of traffic from social networks, primarily because of the networks that already feature the service.

Another metric to note - the Hitwise data doesn’t include any Twitter activity on cell phones and other mobile devices, which means that the impact of Twitter is higher, and more wider spread than just web visits. That also means that Hitwise also isn’t counting API requests, so for anyone using Twhirl, Tweetdeck or any other one of a myriad other desktop applications.

Digg on the other hand, brags about doubling the site’s audience to more than 35 million in 2008, but according to Quantcast, Digg’s traffic is only 11.7 million in the US and 23.7 worldwide. Maybe that’s why Rose is agreeing with the claim that Digg is worth more than $60 million, hey?

Tags: Twitter, Digg, traffic, Digg valuation, Twitter traffic, Hitwise

Millions of people are converging onto the city of Washington DC for the Inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. It’s a watershed moment - we all remember where we were at the end of Apartheid, the day the Berlin Wall came down, and, we’ll all remember where we were when President Obama was sworn in.

Nadia Nascimento, the head of Vancouver’s User Generated Video Contest Platform, memelabs, is in Washington DC for Obama’s inauguration. "I realized that we were part of a story." Nascimento came up with the plan to record users hopes dreams and allowing them to record for prosperity where they were, at noon on January 20th, 2009.

Here are some of the videos already uploaded, taken by Nadia, while in DC. This was my favourite from Japan:

Memelabs partnered with The Young and Powerful Group, Farmstead Wines, and JCM Entertainment to produce the campaign, which is a completely goodwill project. The four organizations have donated their resources, and there is no financial benefit or cost of participation.

[videos provided by Memelabs]

Tags: memelabs, Obama, Inauguration, User Generated Content

I spend a lot of time wandering about the interwebs and reading articles that interest me. It makes some sense - as a writer, I’ve got an insatiable curiosity about the world, so when I stumbled across an article titled  "The mother and son torn apart by web ‘cult’ that destroys families: Teenage follower of a controversial internet philosopher tells how he walked out on his family and why he now despises them" I was easily distracted and rather enthralled.

Turns out there’s a guy named Stefan Molyneux, who claims to be an Internet philosopher, who advocates, or perhaps just encourages a practice called "defooing" - the act of "freeing onseself from one’s family of origin". Turns out there are approximately 20 young adults - all above the age of consent - who have "defooed" themselves, leaving their families and simply going out on their own. The only reason this is different than when I moved out of my mom’s house when I was 18 is that I stayed in touch, and these folks are cutting their families off entirely.

The family featured in the story  - the Weeds - are claiming that Molyneaux is a cult leader with "malign influences". Molyneaux says that his site is simple the largest and most popular philosopy site on the internet.

When the Times Online interviewed Ms. Weed’s soon, Tom (who is 18), he said “Love should not be imposed upon a child, like a chore on a ticklist: mow the lawn, wash the dishes, love your parents, I started to examine my relationships with people in my family, and came to understand that they weren’t for me… I didn’t feel like I was listened to by my parents. Whenever I tried to make my preferences felt, they didn’t respond in an interested way.”(that last complaint seems like that of a frustrated teenager, not that of a rational adult to me.)

What I’m trying to determine now is whether or not this phenomenon is any different than any other so called organization. The only main difference that I can see is that Molyneaux is using social networking tools to reach more people (there’s that broader audience again). His Freedomain Radio site primarily uses podcasts as his method of information delivery, and claims 4 million downloads per year.

Do these tools simply make it easier for people to get caught up in what appears to be a random scheme, or are families simply applying some of the new social media tools and opportunities technology affords us to blame people when their children act in a manner they don’t approve of? Is social media just a scape goat?

Tags: cults, family, philosophy, scape goat