23 Musings

Thanks to Read/WriteWeb for posting this interesting study in a nice easy to view Slideshare way.

There's some interesting thoughts about structure, how identity is managed, the types of networks available to users, followed by case studies of some of the major players.

Further to my recent post on how young people are overexposing themselves on social networks and my earlier post on self-PR online there are a couple of issues being discussed on this topic in the news today.

First up, the Guardian has a piece on the legality of using the internet to investigate job candidates. They're saying that it could actually prove to be illegal and an infringement of a candidates privacy if potential employers use the internet to look into their background. Academic institutions could also be at risk of infringement here as they too are apparently using the web and social networks to look into applicants backgrounds. Personally I cannot see how this could be the case. The information is freely available and has been posted with that knowledge (or at least the poster should be aware). It can't contravene data protection laws in that case. Of course, turning down a candidate because of their Facebook profile would be against HR laws but I'm sure no company would use that as the reason for not hiring someone, they'll come up with another reason the profile will just have made their minds up.

Secondly, there's an article on the Inquirer which suggests that the UK's Revenue and Customs department (yes the one's who loast all that personal data) are now using social networks such as Facebook and MySpace to catch criminals who have gone missing. An unnamed customs official claims that social networks are proving to be a useful source of information for tracking wanted persons down. The official suggests that it has led to a number of successful arrests.

So all this goes to show that your trail of data left behind on these sites is highly useful to anyone wanting to trace or assess you. Self PR is hugely important now, and this will get more and more important as the information connectivity provided by the web gets more pervasive into society.

I posted ages ago about the risks of posting too much info on social networks. It's all too common now for potential employers, universities and parents to use Facebook etc to find out what people are doing in their personal lives.

Now the Information Commissioner's Office has launched a website aimed at helping to protect young people in the way they use social networks.

The ICO have found that more than half of young people asked divulged far too much information and failed to keep it private. More telling still, 71% of 2,000 14 to 21-year-olds said they would not want colleges or employers to do a web search on them before they had removed some of the material. Two thirds of those questioned accepted as friends on such websites people they did not even know. Some 60% posted their date of birth, a quarter put their job title and almost one in 10 gave their home address.

So the ICO have launched this site to help inform young people about how to protect themselves on Facebbok and MySpace (amongst other social networks).

Very interesting story on the Channel 4 website today.

Apparently, a Facebook user has logged an official complaint with the UK Privacy Watchdog after it transpired that trying to leave Facebook didn't actually mean that your data was all deleted and removed from their servers. Actually, when you try to leave Facebook all it does is deactivate your account and keep the data on their servers so anyone who changes their mind can easily sign back up again.

Now that's all well and good, but storage of personal data and photos of someone who doesn't actually want to use your service is blatantly against the UK Data Protection Act (I believe). The act is designed to protect people like you and me from having their personal data misused in any way. Facebook definitely have the resources and technical know how to offer a way to delete the data for those who really want to delete an account. By not doing so they are making it very difficult for users to clean up their trail of data, it could take hours to go round the site deleting everything you've ever posted or uploaded.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out! I do wonder whether MySpace and Bebo etc offer this full deletion service or whether they are also possibly infringing on ex-users privacy.

For development... Don't get too excited as this doesn't guarantee them dominance in the social networking world but Google have a bit of a coup as they've announced MySpace, Bebo and Six Apart are going to be working on Open Social too. Apparently Google have been in talks with MySpace for about a year on this (which explains the recent appetite to open up from MySpace). Techcrunch has more here.

Here's the official announcement from Google on their blog, and here's the link to the API's which is now live.

And for an insight into why this is all happening, here's a video from a Google event last night explaining more about why it's good to be open.

The full list of Open Social members is pretty formidable (MySpace, Engage.com, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, imeem, LinkedIn, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, Bebo and XING). Should Facebook be worrying? Well right now all the announcements mean is that there will be an amazing amount of openness between the members of Open Social and there should be some pretty amazing development going on. It doesn't yet mean that people will leave Facebook for anywhere else (although the chances of that will get greater).

There may be an opportunity here for an early adopter of Open Social standards to create an uber social network which features functionality and data from all the participating networks. It makes the evolution of the life stream much more important and likely to appear sooner. It also gives choice, no longer do you have to stick with anyones interface, you should be able to move away and go to other places while still keeping in touch with the networks.

Just a quick post to publish some of the thoughts that are appearing on the web about the huge valuation of Facebook. The $15B valuation makes it the 5th most valuable U.S. internet company according to Michael Arrington at Techcrunch .
Is a company with no evidence of profit actually worth such a huge sum? Possibly; it has the traffic (the most important thing for any site which will derive most of it's revenues from advertising), it's just signed a deal with a good technology partner (Microsoft), it's open standards should help it (unless of course MS integrate their services with it, how open would it's platform be then?) and with the current bubble mentality it's likely to get more investment very easily.

The BBC has published 15 reasons why Facebook may actually be worth $15B. Very interesting, my comments interspersed in blue:

1. The network has gone viral in the last 12 months, with more than 50 million users worldwide and a user base that is growing faster than great rival MySpace. According to Facebook, it adds 200,000 new users each day.
Yes, it's certainly a traffic monster! The growth rate is astounding, but that could slow as it must reach a saturation point eventually. The eyeballs is great for advertising revenue though so that should guarantee them a profit (eventually). They need to be careful to avoid the saturation point though, keep it fresh, become the webtop of choice and don't let anyone launch something more interesting (or the fickle web users will forget about you very quickly).

2. The average user spends 3.5 hours a month on Facebook - more than the average user on rival MySpace - which is increasingly attractive to advertisers.
Funny one this; I don't spend long on it at all, in fact I've taken to updating my status via a browser plug-in now. So a lot of people must be using Facebook as their email and communication alternative, that's what they need to do to keep the eyeballs, become a default location for peoples web browsing.

3. Facebook is the current Web 2.0 darling - popular with ordinary users and "tech heads" alike.
Darling of the moment, but it could easily slip from being the techies darling, especially with Microsoft on board.

4. US research reveals that Facebook users come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college than MySpace users - increasing that attraction for advertisers.
Not sure on this one; often the more prosperous will be the earlier adopters anyway, and as Facebook descends closer to the more chavy MySpace I believe the demographic will change anyway.

5. Microsoft's investment makes them a serious player in the growing market of "social advertising". Social network profiles are full of personal data that users voluntarily hand over, which is very useful for targeting adverts.
Big point this one! The data Facebook is gleaning is amazingly powerful to an advertising network. Facebook could be one of the first websites to carry adverts that are actually contextual and useful to their targets, this can result in a huge revenue stream if done right.

6. Sixty percent of Facebook users are outside of the US - so Microsoft's investment buys access to a global audience quickly and simply.
Microsofts ad network is global anyway and there are plenty of other places they could have invested in to get a global market. Global doesn't matter as much as size (as the old adage goes).

7. Facebook is the new web: The decision to open up the network to outside developers turned Facebook into a destination for many uses, like messaging, photos and video. Of course, as Facebook is on the web it could never really be the new web.
Facebook could be the newest web if it integrates with Microsoft Live platform... That could be huge and really make it into a webtop.

8. Every major content firm with an online presence is either working on a Facebook application or has already launched one - from Google to the BBC.
Hype; everyone will always try to dive into something new which gains popularity as quickly as Facebook. I don't believe that is any sign of value.

9. According to a report, 233 million hours of work are lost each month in the UK due to staff looking at social networks. Advertisers can now target people when at their desks.
Advertisers have always been able to target people when at their desks, now they can target them on another site where people are actually very engaged and in my opinion less likely to interact with adverts than a traditional site or portal.

10. The openness of Facebook is attracting a wealth of talented developers who can launch their applications to millions of users quickly.
Yes, but this helps those developers make money it doesn't increase Facebooks value directly, only indirectly. Of course the better the developments the greater amount of traffic is attracted...

11. Facebook messaging is the new e-mail. Everyone feels stressed from a deluge of e-mail from unwanted people and companies. But Facebook messages are always from friends.
How long till spam becomes a feature of Facebook??? If Facebook could integrate with Live Mail and become the email destination of choice that would be the coup of the decade.

12. Facebook's "status updates" have become the easiest way to let friends know what you are doing and how you are feeling at any given moment.
Along with Twitter and a multitude of other status alert services. I do like the Facebook status engine, but it can get annoying. We need better ways to filter the types of alerts sent!

13. Facebook thrives on playful applications such as Pirates, Zombies, Super Wall and Top Friends, which have made the network a place to play as well as communicate.
And they add no value! All style no substance this aspect of Facebook, it needs more productivity apps and networking features to be really succesful and not end up another MySpace.

14. Facebook is the acceptable face of blogging - you can reflect your life and personality online without being seen as a "blogger", which often carries a geeky stigma.
Geek? Me??

15. Facebook is worth $15bn only because Microsoft says so. The value of Facebook is based on a 1.6% share of the firm being worth the $240m Microsoft paid for it. Microsoft and Google were in a bidding war for a slice of the firm and both companies have large pockets. This was not just business, this was personal, according to some analysts.
Very true! It will take a market valuation for me to believe it is worth so much, and even if it had one I'm not sure $15B is worth it in it's current state. A year down the line, if it becomes a web starting point of choice then it may command a valuation many times higher!

Some good, thought provoking points from the BBC there!

So Google owns a social network called Orkut. I'll forgive you if you didn't know that as it's not the best known of the social media darlings of the moment, that accolade sits with the Facbook, MySpace and Bebo's of this world.

However, Orkut is actually doing really well, organically growing in markets around the world where even Facebook doesn't really get a look in. Orkut is doing really well in both Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions. In Latin America they command double the traffic of Facebook and MySpace combined with approx 12 million monthly visitors. In Asia-Pacific they command 11 million visitors per month and have recently taken the lead as the most popular social network. In the US however they receive just 600,000 visitors per month, although that is climbing.

Business Week has a good article on Google's social ambitions which muses that they will be releasing a new set of API's for Orkut (around November 5th) and some of their other services, allowing developers to build on these and turning Orkut into a platform (similar to Facebook). Google may take a slightly different tack to Facebook though and open up much more transparently, allowing developers to create much more value from applications than purely poking or throwing things at Facebook pals. Orkut may see apps such as one that allows users to see who is online of their friends on Facebook and vice versa. There's also talks of Orkut and Google Maps mashups, GMail and Calendar apps etc. Sounds much more useful than Facebook already!

Of course the article mentions Socialstream too, which I blogged about in August. That's the biggy! Get this kind of cross platform social network integration working and you're onto a winner. Make your social network the hub for it and you will see immense growth (in my opinion).

I wouldn't write Google off quite yet. Orkut has a lot of potential and Google have the tools and the muscle to make a big dent in the other social networks traffic graphs!

So the backlash has begun. There are groups on Facebook devoted to keeping it free of the kind of useless apps that are popping up daily on the platform and other groups begging it not to turn into another MySpace (which is interesting when MySpace has recently added structure and clarity to profile layouts). Brad Stone wrote a great article in the NY Times about the proliferation of applications for the platform.

And now we have the ultimate app! Dramatic Whitespace is just that, a square of whitespace which you can place on your profile. Developed by a guy called Adam Bildersee it has 21 active users (not bad for something that does nothing).

I get loads of app requests from friends to become anything from a zombie to a keeper of virtual goldfish. Now none of that adds any value to my experience of Facebook, what I want are apps that add functionality, add value, integrate with other web services I use, deliver me useful information and allow me to make Facebook a homepage for my browser. Currently my homepage is Netvibes (including a Facebook app which means I don't have to visit the social network too often) which I love, Facebook has a long, long way to go before it could ever provide that much usefulness.

The popularity of Facebook is really starting to show, they've taken over the Myspace mantle and are getting hit by subpoenas.

In this latest one, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating Facebook accusing them of not keeping youngsters safe from sexual predators.

Undercover tests have been conducted of Facebooks safety controls and procedures which should protect innocent young users from solicitation by adults. These controls aren't working according to Cuomo.

The problem here is that no matter how good the controls are users are likely to be too blaise about them and leave themselves open to approach. Quite how Facebook can control that I'm not sure. Also, the type of people who prey on youngsters are unfortunately likely to find ways around them by enticing users to interact in other ways.

It's a really difficult issue; in an ideal world no one would ever be put in a position where this could happen, in reality with the internet being an open and free platform for communication, that will never be possible.

I hope the attorney generals office see this and instead of firing off legal requests go to the table with the big social networks and discuss ways this can be worked around.

Now if I had some spare cash I may be tempted by this!

Forbes report that a groundbreaking patent related to social networking is coming up for auction very soon. The "Jaipuria Patent", U.S. Patent 7,047,202, and a pending continuation-in-part application, which are amongst the foremost patent filings related to the social networking industry. The Jaipuria Patent was filed in 2001 and claims priority to an earlier application filed in India in 2000 -- before the growth of the social networking industry. These patent assets will be offered as Lot 54 at the Ocean Tomo Fall 2007 Live IP Auction on October 25th at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.

The patent involves means for building a user and community driven secure social network, flexible privacy features for users in maintaining their online social network, and a means to refer users to one another via a referral network. In addition, the patent covers a social networking technology that is driven by user privacy features - fundamental to all successful social networking services today. Now that all sounds pretty familiar doesn't it?

Other features are (quote from Forbes) 'Among the many social network features disclosed and claimed in the patent and pending application are: fundamental technology used to develop and maintain an online social network; creating an online social network including individual users and groups; searching a social network to identify users and groups for keywords and then identifying a chain of contacts leading to the targeted user or group; flexibility in granting user defined privacy rights and access levels to control availability of user's personal information and contacts with respect to others in user's personal and extended network; process of anonymous referral networking using a link by link request forwarding system; and accessing and using social network via the Internet or wireless devices.'

Now, Facebook, MySpace and Bebo all use these types of functions as fundamental parts of their services. I'm confused as to why the owner of this patent hasn't tried taking legal action in the past. The only reason I can see for selling this is to try to make money from someone who may use it either in a lawsuit or to sell it to an existing network. Although if it hasn't been used up to now then I'm a bit sceptical as to its value. Will be interesting to see what it goes for!

So we've all read the recent reports of businesses banning Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to try to prevent employees wasting time. We've also read the stories about recruiters and employers using social networks to check out prospective hires. Now the TUC (Trade Union Congress) have stepped up and issues some guidelines to help employees and employers make informed decisions about usage in the workplace. They also discuss the possibility of it being discriminatory to not hire someone based on their Facebook profile when they might be the only candidate with one (good point!).

There's some guidelines for TUC members here, and some guidelines aimed at employers here.

It's quite amazing to see something like this happen. The TUC is generally an old school organisation so to see them tackling this kind of issue is testament to the huge popularity and buzz surrounding social networks at the moment.

One day...

I've been blogging recently about the problems with multiple social networks and keeping in touch with everyone and how good it would be to have open standards and API's to allow intercommunication and development between platforms.

Well now someone has taken the brave leap to propose and open standard called Open Friend Format. From their blurb: OpenFriend is a set of standards that allows Social Networks to discover any of your friends already on their networks while still protecting your privacy. The ultimate goal is to standardize and make transparent the user experience between importing and exporting of contacts from various social networks. OpenFriend allows for social networks to implement a standardized way of exporting their contacts and discovering relationships between new and existing users. It also allows for sites to generate documents detailing the relationship between people on different social networks.

This is a great step in the right direction and I for one am right behind this push to standardise and aggregate the networks!

Be careful where your banner adverts appear! When you serve ads through a network it's really tricky to keep an eye on where they appear and what the content surrounding them is referring to. Yes you can specify the types and categories of sites they appear on, you can even specify the actual websites it gets placed on, but some are finding that this level of control is not enough.

We had an issue a year ago where we were running millions of impressions a day on a behavioural ad network. We were targeting the travel and leisure community and also major portals but somehow we ended up advertising holidays on a link farm site which had a rather less than decent advert for a swingers club on the same page as our advert! Needless to say as soon as this was spotted we pulled that site out of our target group. We could of course have been placed on many other sites like this during that campaign without even knowing it...

And then there's websites like Facebook. Social networks are really difficult to target for advertising as being full of user generated content you have no control over what your advert could appear next to. Vodafone has now experienced this and has pulled all advertising from Facebook after it's banner was displayed on the group profile for the British National Party. Vodafone pulled the ad straight away, but other brands such as Virgin Media and Orange have also appeared on that page.

I can't see how Facebook could possibly control to a granular level where adverts are appearing in relation to the content on the pages. It will be a really difficult task and so if a lot of their big advertisers start complaining about the content on the pages their ads are appearing on it could spell trouble for their revenue streams quite quickly.

This is the trouble with user generated content and advertising. As bad as Facebook content can be I'm sure MySpace is worse. With the increasing popularity of corporate responsibility it is only going to become a bigger issue!

In a growing trend, the Telegraph reports that many firms are blocking access to Facebook over fears that employees are wasting time on the site. MySpace and others have been banned too. It's testament to the huge popularity of Facebook that this has happened, it's only in the last three or four months that Facebook has really taken off in the UK, and already people are desperately trying to keep employees off it.

Will this hurt Facebook's growth? I don't think so, users will visit the site in their own hours instead. Is it hurting companies productivity? Social networks are the second biggest culprit of in work time wasting after web based email, so definitely, or this type of article wouldn't be necessary!

Facebook has bought Parakey a start-up created by the Firefox co-founders. Parakey is all about a web operating system and bridging the online and offline experience with storage and synchronisation in mind.

This sits very well with Facebook in my mind. Facebook is fast becoming the social platform of choice, for it to add offline capabilities and tie itself to the desktop would be a huge advantage. Imagine synching your address book and email to Facebook apps, storing images etc that get auto uploaded when you next connect to the Facebook platform etc.

Facebook could become a platform if they play their cards right, they just need to be very careful that the users don't drag it down to MySpace's spangly eyesore level.

There are rumours that Google wanted Parakey too but the offer of pre IPO Facebook shares was too tempting for the Parakey execs (unsurprisingly).

I blogged in March about the new trend of social networks (and blogs) being used by recruiters and employers to screen potential candidates prior to even meeting them. There's been more press about this in the last few months but interestingly today Oxford Uni has been exposed as using Facebook to find out which students have been causing problems and playing pranks since their exams.

The BBC carries the news today about this. Oxford Uni Students Union has posted about this on their website, warning all students to log in to Facebook and raise their privacy level to prevent the prying eyes of uni staff viewing their profiles.

Let this be another lesson for those who post away on social networks such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace with no thought for the impression their postings may have on people they maybe would rather did not know about their latest antics...

A good post from Pete Cashmore on his Mashable blog here. Pete's spotted, and disseminated, what instantly becomes obvious the moment you get onto the MySpaceTV site (launched today). It looks very similar to YouTube!

I'm sure MySpaceTV will be hugely successful amongst the MySpace community, but how successful it will be outside of that will depend largely on the content that MySpace can get onto it's player. It's going to need to use it's relationships with media owners (NBC/News Corp anyone) to get prime content on it's site if it stands a chance of competing. And that's only competing on copyrighted content, how will it fair on user generated content?

As I said, they've got the social networking bonus of MySpace to play on, and you can bet that the player becomes the only video player allowed on MySpace, so they'll get UGC from there. But will it have the pull to attract the guys who are making amateur films etc as those are the ones who have embraced YouTube so completely.

I don't think this will kill YouTube to be honest. I think the connotations of being associated with MySpace won't help, it's my opinion that MySpace needs to adapt to survive beyond being a playground for teens and they currently show no desire to make that shift.

It looks like MySpaceTV has been launched as a YouTube killer, but I don't think it will cut it without a killer gameplan as well!

This is brilliant! I'd like to see the same done to MySpace as that would be hillarious, imagine the tweed backgrounds and knitting widgets ;-) Social networking could be a very strange landscape in the future, I'm sure the teens will rebel and find new places to connect without the likes of us old fogeys.

News out today that Yahoo have bought Rivals.com the college sports website for an undisclosed amount. Is this an example of them just desperately trying to play catch up by buying anything popular? Or is this a shrewd move given the possibility of MySpace coming into the fold?

Rivals.com would make a nice addition to a social networking feature and would give them access to a huge community of college goers (and sports fans) which is something Facebook have sewn up so far. Maybe Jerry is already having an impact, although this has of course been planned for a while!

News Corporation has discussed swapping MySpace with Yahoo in return for a 25% stake in the resulting group.

A deal would demonstrate a quick (and profitable) return on News Corp’s investment in MySpace, which cost it $580M in summer 2005. Yesterday Yahoo was worth $37B. A quarter stake in an enlarged company would be worth $12.3B.

News Corp is interested in a deal even if it means losing some control of MySpace because it would give the media group exposure to a far larger internet-based business. It also gets them away from the reliance on one service which currently is losing ground to Facebook. For Yahoo, it gives them a foothold in the social networking world and a huge user base to apply Panama to. Google currently serve ads for MySpace, I’m sure that wouldn’t last if Yahoo gets involved.

It’s an interesting deal and I actually kind of hope it goes ahead. Hopefully Yahoo could apply some of their years of internet knowledge to MySpace to make it less cheesy and more appealing to other age groups than the teens it currently serves so well, and for Yahoo the benefit really is in the advertising possibilities that would be opened up to them.