Web 2.0

UPDATED Facebook launches great Twitter substitute – for all the family

05/01/2007 by simoncollister 4 Comments

Been away from blogging for a few days but have returned with this great find (even if I say so myself) over at Facebook.

I posted a few weeks ago about Facebook bringing a whole host of social networking tools into its site – including the Twitter-esque ‘Status Updates’.

Well, it seems that as of last week that these status updates became available via RSS, mobile and through a dedicated ‘Friends Updates’ page pictured below.

Reading the Facebook blog it seems that Status Updates were introduced a year ago (does that pre-date Twitter?), although the latest changes have only appeared "recently". According to the blog entry, the specific changes include:

"Your friends’ three most recent updates on the home page
A brand new page to see all your friends’ updates at once
An RSS feed to put your friends’ updates in your reader of choice
The ability to subscribe to a friend’s updates via SMS
The ability to easily update status from your phone by sending an SMS to Facebook starting with the "@" character"

To be blunt, it is Twitter – well, it is a slightly more involved version of Twitter although argubly not quite a challenge to Jaiku.

All looks great as far as I’m concerned but the big question is: what impact will this have on the likes of Jaiku or Twitter?

From a technical perspective probably not a lot – both tools perform the same basic function but from a community point of view I think Facebook’s new offerings may have an impact on Twitter’s use.

I mean I use Twitter – not a lot, but I do and furthermore I like it. Similarly I use Facebook – more than Twitter – but for different purposes and I love it.

Most of my Twitter contacts (blogger/techy/work contacst) are also on Facebook but very few of my Facebook contacts (purely social/old school/university/work contacts) are on Twitter.

It stands then, that if I wanted a tool that gives me live updates of what all my contacts are up to at any given time then it has to be the Facebook offering – by far and away.

Where Jaiku fits into this I’m not quite sure….

*UPDATED* For the time being this service looks set to the US. Trying to find out when it heads our way.

Technorati tags: Facebook; status+updates; Twitter; Jaiku

Thousands going Twitter cold-turkey right now!

03/19/2007 by simoncollister 3 Comments

As I sit in front of my computer feverishly writing my latest CIPR Diploma assignment I notice that my phone has stopped giving me minute by minute updates on other people’s lives and gone unusually quiet.

Something in the back of my mind links this to someone’s earlier tweet about Twitter being slow, so I take a look at Twitter. Shock horror! No Twitter…

There must be thousands of twitter addicts going cold-turkey as we speak. Some might have even reached for the Twitter-methodone, Jaiku!!

This is great for me as I can get on with work without any distractions. Hang on, I’ve just realised I am blogging about the fact that Twitter is down….. do I have a problem?

Technorati: Twitter; crippling addictions

UPDATED The Twittering point

03/14/2007 by simoncollister 7 Comments

I won’t go to much about Twitter. Plenty of other people are doing just that. But Twitter seems to reaching some kind of tipping point, partly evidenced by the vast take up among bloggers I read (well done Drew B for being one of the first to Tweet) and partly due to the sheer volume of people twittering which is apparently causing problems for Twitter’s servers at certain times of the day.

Personally, I like Twitter when it’s put to the right use. I also like Ian Delaney’s view of Twitter:

"People who post updates up to a dozen times a day (and more) would probably need to be blood relations or on their way to deliver vital medication to you in order to warrant a subscription delivering updates on their every movement."

On the other-hand people like Steve Rubel are looking deep into the value of Twitter as the next great comms/web tool and seriously seeing tweets replacing blog posts.

But here’s something else not many people are talking about. Take a look at the chart below:

While there has been a Twitter explosion over the past three months, Jaiku, which is an almost identical tool to Twitter, has barely lifted its head above the parapet.

Why is that? Metcalfes Law? Or something else? One feature I like about Jaiku is that it allows you to insert snazzy little icons to illustrate what you’re doing and how you’re feeling.

Plus Jaiku’s webspace is more web 2.0 and down-right nicer than Twitter. But it goes to show that functionality and ‘who came to the party first’ syndrome plays a big part in getting noticed. Perhaps Heather Hopkins at Hitwise can help out with some stats??

I like Twitter for the right reasons and can see why people dislike it for the right reasons. But if you want to understand Twitter’s popularity, take a look at this grpahic from Mashable‘s Pete Cashmore (apologies for pinching it off Ian Delaney):

*UPDATED*

Heather Hopkins has kindly taken up the challenge and posted some really fascinating stats about Twitter/Jaiku.
Drew B has penned an epic salute to Twitter’s greatness – as well as some top tips to make the most of your feed.

Technorati tags: Twitter; Ian Delaney; Metcalfe’s Law; Jaiku; Drew Benvie; Heather Hopkins; Hitwise

UPDATED George Osbourne MP: The social impact of the web

03/08/2007 by simoncollister 1 Comment

Apologies to anyone who previously expected to see an exciting post about the social impact of the web and instead found a load of random characters! I was posting from the event on my phone and it seems there was a problem uploading it with Typepad.

Anyway, George Osbourne’s RSA speech was a follow-up to his much feted Olsen Lecture before Christmas.

GO outlined his vision for government that places value in three distinct areas:

Access to information
Social networks
Open source

The main thrust of the seech looked at the way the internet is democratising information the access to information. Not much new here but it was good to hear a politician talking about it.

GO went on about how traditionally only a few people in power had access to info but now the public not only had access but knew how to find what they wanted.

The result being that tax-payers often knew more than civil servants and wanted to know where their money was going.

Under a Conservative Government, GO went on, there would be a shift from a Government-centric approach to a citizen-centri approach. This shift would not only be a technological one, but a cultural one – something the current Government have failed at. GO pointed to basic uses of technology making forms available online or for download but said these were merely new ways of doing the same thing.

On the subject of social networks, GO scored a few political points saying how great networks were but that most political ones at the moment were Tory ones. Ignorig the fact that it is easier to build them in opposition GO claimd that the bottom-up approach of networks would never be allowed under a New Labour Government.

Open source in GO dictionary more accurately represents open source information which brought us back to his ‘access to info’ argument from earlier. But interestingly GO talked about the financial benefits of o/s pointing out the ways in which businesses can leverage off shared wisdom. Not sure if this is a scoop or not but he annouced the Tories will be teaming up with a Cambridge University buisness school profesor who will be commissioned to look at the potential for o/s business in the UK.

GO also reckoned that moving to o/s platforms in the public sector could save £600m.

All sounds good, but the big test will be whether the Tories can turn great rhetoric into reality.

*UPDATED* The FT had the £600m saving story yesterday; David Wilcox has a great write-up on Thursday’s event.

Technorati tags: George Osbourne; Open Source; Conservatives; Royal Society for the Arts; RSA

Wikipedia feeling the pinch?

02/09/2007 by simoncollister Leave a Comment

Nick Carr has a good post today reporting on the Lift 07 conference in Geneva.

He reports on the speech made by Florence Devouard, chairperson of the Wikipedia Foundation. Carr quotes Devouard as saying:

"Wikipedia has the financial resources to run its servers for about three to four months. If we do not find additional funding, it is not impossible that Wikipedia might disappear."

However, this comment is put into context by a spokesperson from the Foundation in a comment on Nick’s blog which clarifies that Devouard did not intend to impy that the site will be closing anytime soon.

That aside, Carr points out that what began as a case study of the power of the gift economy, Wikipedia now seems to be running up bills faster than the public can gift their time and, in reality, hard cash. Citing another delegate at the conference, Bruno Giussani, Carrs adds that:

"Devouard said the encyclopedia is currently running 350 servers and needs about $5 million to sustain itself."

Apparently, its recent fundraising efforts raised about $1 million.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Wikipedia-hater and am completely sucked into the whole gift economy/social production thing, but this does raise an issue over how organisaitons deal with this type of economy.

Another blogging delegate, Phillipe Mottaz believes this is:

"another illustration of how difficult it is to find the proper business model in the digital age, and more precisely in this case in what Florence called the ‘gift economy.’" Not even gifts scale for free."

It’s a fair point, but perhaps the key is in the idea of having a proper business model. Presuming that the gift economy is a new economic model, are we relying too heavily on existing ‘models’ for business rather than looking for new ones?

As social media/social production is just that: a social enterprise, why aren’t we looking to anthropologists and sociologists to help explain how society and rapidly changing societal values are shaping new economic models.

Also, given Devouard’s speech comes a week on from Jimmy Wales’ comments about banning PR agencies from editing content on Wikipedia I would have thought he would have remained open-minded about the future of the site.