Spreading OpenSocial Across the Web

Spreading OpenSocial Across the Web: "Any web site can be a container for OpenSocial, any web site can add social features even if it's not a social network - that seems to be the idea behind Friend Connect, a new piece from Google's social puzzle. Friend Connect will allow the users of a site to add profiles, to import their friends from other social networks, to use social applications in the context of a site.

Paul Buchheit wrote last year that 'there's no such thing as a social network'. The social aspect of a site is just one of its many features. 'Real products need more functionality in order to somehow deliver value to their users. It is this other functionality that defines the real purpose of a product, not the social network, which exists only to enable or enhance the core purpose.'"

Ning's Infinite Ambition -- Viral Networks -- Social Networking Start-Ups | Fast Company

Ning's Infinite Ambition -- Viral Networks -- Social Networking Start-Ups | Fast Company: "Here's something you probably don't know about the Internet: Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a billion-dollar business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will kill for the chance to throw money at you.

It isn't just a site where users can build their own social networks -- Ning is a model of how to create a perpetual growth machine

The secret is what's called a 'viral expansion loop,' a concept little known outside of Silicon Valley (go ahead, Google it -- you won't find much). It's a type of engineering alchemy that, done right, almost guarantees a self-replicating, borglike growth: One user becomes two, then four, eight, to a million and beyond. It's not unlike taking a penny and doubling it daily for 30 days. By the end of a week, you'd have 64 cents; within two weeks, $81.92; by day 30, about $5.4 million.

Viral loops have emerged as perhaps the most significant business accelerant to hit Silicon Valley since the search engine. They power many of the icons of Web 2.0, including Google, PayPal, YouTube, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flickr. But don't confuse a viral loop with viral advertising or videos such as Saturday Night Live's 'Lazy Sunday' or the Mentos-Diet Coke Bellagio fountain. Viral advertising can't be replicated; by definition, a viral loop must be."

Ning - Create your own Social Networks!

Ning - Create your own Social Networks!: "Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds."

twitter.zappos.com

I must confess that I've never really "got" Twitter, so today I went on a campaign to follow as many participants as I can to try and get a sense of the zeitgeist. The article belong is the best into I've seen and the first thing I noticed was that it seemed more useful via a mobile phone that a web browser. I've started using Google Talk as my main interface. When you type help into it you get a menu:

Reply with what you're doing.
'invite' to invite a friend.
'follow' to receive updates.
'track' to track interests.
'whois' for info.
'off' to silence.

Typing the commands gives more help. You can follow me by typing: follow CardHolder. You can silence me with: off CardHolder and unfollow me with: leave CardHolder.

Perhaps the most interesting feature was one i wasn't previously aware of, you can track keywords that you are interested in as they come up in peoples tweets. To track "yui" for instance you type: track yui. The opposite operation is: untrack yui.

I've set up a series of tracks on topics of interest to this blog, we'll see how it goes.

---MG

twitter.zappos.com: "I know that I've been spending about half an hour every time I try to convince my friends to sign up for Twitter. At first, they think it sounds interesting but aren't really motivated to sign up. Sometimes it's been a multi-week long process. But finally they relent and sign up, probably just so they can shut me up. I walk them through the signup process, step by step, and then slowly but surely, they become addicted and their lives are never the same again.

So to save me from having to give the same spiel over and over again, I decided to create this page for anyone new to Twitter."

Twubble

Twubble: "Looking for more people to follow?

Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. Click the button below to get started."