What Open Social Isn’t?

Many people think that Google’s Open Social is a new social media network. It is not. It is just a common set of APIs.

Why is everyone saying that Open Social is the Facebook Killer?

To be honest, I think these people are dreaming. Facebook is here to stay. However, Open Social is taking a huge swing at Facebook and it is hitting it right in a very vulnerable spot. Facebook is a closed network that is coded in its own programming language. If developers want to create an application to work on Facebook, they have to use Facebook’s own programming language. This makes it very difficult to port the Facebook application to another social network.

While this will certainly create some problems for Facebook, I don’t think that this it the killer app that brings Facebook down. But, only time will tell.

Why is Open Social good for us?

More web applications. That’s right. These open APIs will allow web application developers to develop a lot of cool new applications. I can’t wait to see what they bring us!!

If you are interested in learning more about Open Social, here are some more great articles.

• Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web
• Open Social – The Social Network For Companies Scared of Facebook
• Google Reputation Management Disaster With Open Social
• Google’s “Open Social”
• Open Social And Web 3.0
• Keeping Up With Google OpenSocial
• OpenSocial: Led by Google. Social Networks Band To Take on Facebook

Some of us are still trying to get our heads around the idea that Valleywag is pretending to be outraged at the idea of someone snooping into the private affairs of other people. I mean, hello? Valleywag? The guys who follow Eric Schmidt around on dates? Man oh man.

That is too funny and so true.

Michael Krigsman from ZDNet is not surprised, but thinks that Facebook should prohibit their employees from doing this. In fact, he compared it to the IRS snooping around people’s tax returns.

Mac Beach thinks that this is a much bigger problem at Facebook. According to Mac Beach, Facebook consistently and pervasively disregards people’s privacy.

I think that Facebook should implement a policy prohibiting employees from doing this. But, I think that the more important thing to gain from this story is an awareness of the privacy concerns that the Internet raises.

We need to be careful about our online activities. Social Networking is great, but it is social. Just like you wouldn’t share certain things with your colleagues at work, you shouldn’t share certain things about yourself on social networking sites. These social networking sites leave a trail on the Internet about you. People can piece together a lot about you by doing a Google search, checking out what pages you Digg, and who your friends are on Facebook and Linkdin.

Tell me about your online privacy concerns.

Well, now it is my turn, but with a little wrinkle.

My Goal: To create the ultimate list of articles about StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is my favorite social bookmarking site. It is a tremendously easy bookmarking tool and an great social site. I think that StumbleUpon has some of the best social features of any site. You can see what sites your friends like, send articles to your friends and send traffic to well deserving content.

How To Enter: There are two ways to enter and get a backlink.

1. Leave a comment listing one or more articles about StumbleUpon that you have written.
2. Leave a comment listing two or more articles about StumbleUpon that you have really enjoyed.

What You Get: If you participate, you get the following,

1. A free backlink to your site or articles
2. A great list of articles about StumbleUpon

Deadline: Sunday October 28, 2007

Please note that I reserve the right not to post to any spam sites or sites containing inappropriate material.

Update:   Please note that I am looking for articles about StumbleUpon, not articles that have been submitted to StumbleUpon.  As an attorney, I am embarrassed that I created this confusion.

Jaiku, like Twitter, is a microblogging platform. Jaiku advertises itself as an activity stream and presence sharing service. I have used both Jaiku and Twitter and must admit that I like Jaiku better than Twitter. However, I have more friends on Twitter so I tend to do more tweeting.

Jaiku has halted sending out new invitations, but existing members can still send out new invitations. If you would like one, please send me an email. Otherwise you can apply for an invitation here.

Although going from zero to over a million users a month in less than two years is heartening, msnbc.com operates on another scale entirely. While Newsvine may be well known in early adopter circles, we want every college student, every farmer, every weekend journalist, and every household to have their own branch on the ‘Vine. In order to spread this idea further, we could have gone out and raised a lot of money, quadrupled our staff, and gone it alone, but when one of the finest news organizations in the world is headquartered right across Lake Washington, the potential of partnering with such a great team is dramatic.

This is a very interesting development. Mainstream media is starting to gobble up social media sites. While this is just one acquisition, I believe that we will see more mainstream (or old-stream) media sites move to more social distribution. However, it will be interesting whether Internet user will embrace these ventures.

Why would you want to submit your posts to over 30 social bookmarking sites?

• Google Indexing – I find that when I submit my articles to a lot of social bookmarking sites, my articles get listed with google very quickly. Additionally, the social bookmarked pages also rank very high in google.
• Traffic – I get some nice traffic from each social bookmarking site.
• Backlinks – Many of the social bookmarking sites that you submit your articles to will give you backlinks. This is an often underutilized strategy among bloggers and internet marketers.

How does SocialMarker work?

1. Place SocialMarker Bookmarklet onto your Firefox toolbar
2. Go to the article you would like to submit and click the SocialMarker Bookmarket
3. Edit the Bookmark Details Box to include a description of the article, tags, title and url. The title and tags should already be filled in by SocialMarker.
4. Sign in to the first social bookmarking site and submit your article.
5. Then hit the “Next” button to move onto the next social bookmarking site.

Here is a list of all of the social bookmarking sites currently available through SocialMarker.

Sites like Digg and Netscape (now Propeller) are great, but you are interested in only a very small percentage of the topics. That is why a social tagging site like Sphinn is so great. Because Sphinn focuses on a narrow niche, it acts as a hub for bloggers and Internet marketers. We are starting to experience an explosion of social tagging sites cloned off of Digg. For those trying to compete with Digg head-to-head good luck. However, there is a great opportunity for the social tagging sites that focus on a specific niches.

Guide to Using Sphinn:

Topics: Sphinn has three preset tabs to display the current Hot Topics, the newest topics (What’s New), and the most popular stories of all times (Greatest Hits). This is a great way to navigate through the stories being posted on Sphinn.

Categories: As mentioned above, Sphinn focuses on a limited number of categories. Each of the eight Categories is broken down into subcategories. The categories are as follows:

1. Google which is comprised of Google SEO, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, Google Searching, and Google Other
2. Yahoo which is comprised of Yahoo SEO, Yahoo Paid Search, Yahoo Publisher Network, Yahoo Searching and Yahoo Other
3. Microsoft which is comprised of Microsoft SEO, Microsoft adCenter, Microsoft Searching and Microsoft Other
4. Search Marketing which is comprised of SEM, SEO, Paid Search, Link Building, SEM Industry, In House SEM, and Other Search Marketing
5. Social Media which is comprised of News Sites, Bookmarking, Networking, Blogging, and Other Social Media
6. Online Marketing which is comprised of Web Analytics, Contextual Ads, Affiliate Marketing, Display Advertising, Usability, Domaining, and Other Online Marketing
7. Searching which is comprised of Ask.com, AOL, Local & Maps, Mobile Search, Video Search, Tips & Tools, and Other Searching
8. Other which is comprised of Sphinn Zone (information and articles related to Sphinn), Jobs Wanted, Jobs Offered, and Water Cooler
   

Sphinn Live: One a my favorite features of Sphinn is the Sphinn Live tab. Sphinn Live show you the posts that are being Sphunn and commented on in real-time. This is a cool way to see which article are up and coming.

Sphinn Feeds: I love the Sphinn Feeds features. Sphinn allows you to subscribe to various feeds so that you can see the posts in your RSS feeder. If you are a blogger like me who is always looking for topics to blog about, Sphinn Feeds is a great way for me to quickly browse stories being written by other bloggers. Sphinn has the following feeds:

1. Hot Topics Feed – This feed is for all of the topics that make it to the Hot Topics section
2. New Topics Feed – This feed is for all topics as they are posted
3. Comment Feed – This feed allows you to subscribe to all of the comments that are being left on topics

In addition to these feeds, Sphinn has promised additional feeds in the future to all you to subscribe to your friends’ feeds and feeds based on specific topics.

How to Use Sphinn:

1. Sphinn Others’ Articles – Become and active member of the community. When you find an article that you like, tell your fellow sphinners that it is a good article by Sphinning it.
2. Submit Articles – Have you read a great article that you think other Sphinners would like to read, then submit it. These sites are only as good as the information being submitted.
3. Comment – Start a dialogue about a story. This is a feature under utilized on Sphinn.

Here are some other great guides on Sphinn:

• Sphinn – The Social News Site that Every Search Marketer Should be Using
• Sphinn – Our Social Site for Search and Internet Marketing Professionals
• Fool-Proof Sphinn-Bait Tactics To Reach the Front Page
• Sphinn – In Depth Traffic Analysis and Advice
• Sphinn – The Internet Marketer’s Digg
• Sphinn It
• Why I Prefer Sphinn Over Digg
• Can You Get a Lot of Traffic From Sphinn?
• How to Find the Hottest Breaking Stories on Sphinn

You would think that Netscape would redirect the netscape.com url to Propeller, but it doesn’t.  You have to use the url propeller.com.  Be careful not to type in propellor.

Many people were critical of the Netscape site, but I am glad that it has been reborn.  I feel like one of the few who really liked Netscape.

It is very easy to join CoComment.

First, go to CoComment and register.

Once you have registered then, either install the Firefox extension, which I highly recommend, or install the bookmarklet.

The last step in the setting up process is to go to CoComment’s test site and verify that CoComment is working.  Once you enter your comment on the test site, you can go to the “My Conversations” page and see your comment that you left on the test page.  Now everytime you leave a comment on a blog CoComment will record that comment in the “My Conversations” page and you can go back and check to see whether anyone has responded to you.

Here is a screenshot of my “My Conversations” page.

Like any good online service today, CoComment also has some very good social networking features.  You can join groups to share common interests and share conversations that you have found interesting.

Bloggers and social networkers are changing the world as we know it. Don’t kid yourself, many around us don’t like what we are doing. Many have built multi-billion dollar industries designed to sell you products and services through your television and your newspapers. However, you, the revolutionary, are destroying the society they have created. You are stealing their treasure and destroying the value of their property. Through your use of blogs, websites, podcasts, home videos, etc. you are engaging in economic terrorism of the likes that has never been seen before. Be careful, be very careful. The mass media industrial complex will try to crush you!!

Ok, well that might be a little dramatic, but you are experiencing a revolution and you are a participant. We are all participants.

Newest on the Net’s primary purpose is to discuss the newest innovations involving the Internet. At this time, I feel that blogging and social networking are most revolutionary and most profound innovations of our life time. Blogs are changing the way we communicate. Never has it been easier or cheaper to share ideas with the world. Blogging platforms like Wordpress, Vox and Blogger and video platforms like YouTube make it almost free to disseminate information. With only a computer anyone can become a journalist, novelist, political theorist, satirist, editor, or educator.

While blogs have removed the barriers to entry for publishing, social networking has allowed the mass dissemination of this information. A revolutionary is just a crackpot if no one listens to him. But through the use of social networking sites, it has become much easier to find people to read your writings, to listen to your podcasts and to watch your videos. Blogs are the guns of this revolution and social networking is the gun powder.

Thankfully this revolution is non-violent and I can participate while sitting in front of the computer in my underwear!! You can thank me later for not uploading the picture.