Social Software + Web 2.0 + Social Graphing
January 31, 2008
TIM O’REILLY
Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
In November 2002, Clay Shirky organized a “social software summit,” based on the premise that we were entering a “golden age of social software… greatly extending the ability of groups to self-organize.”
I was skeptical of the term “social software” at the time. The explicit social software of the day, applications like friendster and meetup, were interesting, but didn’t seem likely to be the seed of the next big Silicon Valley revolution.
I preferred to focus instead on the related ideas that I eventually formulated as “Web 2.0,” namely that the internet is displacing Microsoft Windows as the dominant software development platform, and that the competitive edge on that platform comes from aggregating the collective intelligence of everyone who uses the platform. The common thread that linked Google’s PageRank, ebay’s marketplace, Amazon’s user reviews, Wikipedia’s user-generated encyclopedia, and CraigsList’s self-service classified advertising seemed too broad a phenomenon to be successfully captured by the term “social software.” (This is also my complaint about the term “user generated content.”) By framing the phenomenon too narrowly, you can exclude the exemplars that help to understand its true nature (((Does the term Digital Storytelling suffer from too narrow a framing and fixing of termonology?))) . I was looking for a bigger metaphor, one that would tie together everything from open source software to the rise of web applications…
…Now, five years after Clay’s social software summit, Facebook, an application that explicitly explores the notion of the social network, has captured the imagination of those looking for the next internet frontier. I find myself ruefully remembering my skeptical comments to Clay after the summit, and wondering if he’s saying “I told you so.”
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s young founder and CEO, woke up the industry when he began speaking of “the social graph” — that’s computer-science-speak for the mathematical structure that maps the relationships between people participating in Facebook — as the core of his platform. There is real power in thinking of today’s leading internet applications explicitly as social software.
Mark’s insight that the opportunity is not just about building a “social networking site” but rather building a platform based on the social graph itself provides a lens through which to re-think countless other applications. Products like xobni (inbox spelled backwards) and MarkLogic’s MarkMail explore the social graph hidden in our email communications; Google and Yahoo! have both announced projects around this same idea. Google also acquired Jaiku, a pioneer in building a social-graph enabled address book for the phone…
…* As these various data graphs become the indispensable foundation of the next generation “internet operating system,” we face one of two outcomes: either the data will be shared by interoperable applications, or the company that first gets to a critical mass of useful data will become the supplier to other applications, and ultimately the master of that domain…
…Ideas themselves are perhaps the ultimate social software, evolving via the conversations we have with each other, the artifacts we create, and the stories we tell to explain them.
Yes, if facts change our mind, that’s science. But when ideas change our minds, we see those facts afresh, and that’s history, culture, science, and philosophy all in one.
How would digital storytelling feature the social aspect as the explicit ‘act’ (= families?)? How do you incorporate social graphing (= family tree? …bloodties translated as social (most communicated with) ties)?
How do you socially graph artefacts (e.g. photos) when they become mixed into other peoples stories?
traffic data = social links – location links – event links
Net promotes centralization
January 31, 2008
The Radiant and Infectious Web via WolrdChanging.com
NICHOLAS CARR
Author, The Big SwitchIn January of 2007, China’s president, Hu Jintao, gave a speech before a group of Communist Party officials. His subject was the Internet. “Strengthening network culture construction and management,” he assured the assembled bureaucrats, “will help extend the battlefront of propaganda and ideological work. It is good for increasing the radiant power and infectiousness of socialist spiritual growth.”
I now see that I was naive. Like many others, I mistakenly interpreted a technical structure as a metaphor for human liberty. In recent years, we have seen clear signs that while the Net may be a decentralized communications system, its technical and commercial workings actually promote the centralization of power and control. Look, for instance, at the growing concentration of web traffic. During the five years from 2002 through 2006, the number of Internet sites nearly doubled, yet the concentration of traffic at the ten most popular sites nonetheless grew substantially, from 31% to 40% of all page views, according to the research firm Compete.
…..It’s not hard to understand how the Net promotes centralization. For one thing, its prevailing navigational aids, such as search engine algorithms, form feedback loops. By directing people to the most popular sites, they make those sites even more popular. On the web as elsewhere, people stream down the paths of least resistance.
Data is the Intel Inside
January 31, 2008
data is the intel inside via O’Reilly Radar:
That least-understood principle from my original Web 2.0 manifesto, “Data is the Intel Inside,” is finally coming out of the closet. A post on the Google Operating System Blog entitled Google is Really About Large Amounts of Data notes that in an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in October, Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search Products and User Experience, “confessed that having access to large amounts of data is in many instances more important than creating great algorithms.”
In particular, Marissa admitted that the reason for offering free 411 service was to get phoneme data for speech recognition algorithms. You heard it first on Radar. What’s also interesting, though, was her note on why they want better speech recognition algorithms right now: to improve video search. There’s an interesting principle here, namely that the obvious applications for a technology (e.g. transcription or speech recognition interfaces) aren’t necessarily the ones that will have the biggest impact. This is a great reason why companies like Google are increasing their data collection of all kinds (and their basic research into algorithms for using that data). As the applications become apparent, the data will be valuable in new ways, and the company with the most data wins.
More thoughts on opening up systems/networks to amass users and hence data by O’Reilly Radar:
…open systems don’t mean the end of competitive advantage, but instead simply move the competition to new ground.
For the current generation of Internet applications, sometimes referred to as “Web 2.0,” the data collected from users is the true source of competitive advantage. And the first movers, the companies that understand and apply this insight, have services that get better fast enough that their competition never catches up.
The power of a social network like MySpace or Facebook isn’t in its software or its control over which applications get on its platform. It is in the critical mass of participating users. Ditto for eBay, Skype or YouTube. Even less obvious cases like Amazon, where user annotation makes for the best product catalog in the world, and Google, whose search index and ad auction are both driven by user participation, show the power that comes from harnessing the collective activity of everyone who uses the service.
Cellular carriers need to embrace this insight. Winner-take-all profits can be achieved by opening up their networks and then harnessing community contributions (including the contributions of software developers) to improve — or invent — new services.
DataPortability
January 31, 2008
connect, control, share, remix
Existing Technologies (invent nothing) + Turnkey Reference Bluprints (Keep it simple and open – put it all in context) + Simple User Story (Create the ‘Intel Inside’ brand)
Philosophy: As users, our identity, photos, videos and other forms of personal data should be discoverable by, and shared between our chosen (and trusted) tools or vendors. We need a DHCP for Identity. A distributed File System for data. The technologies already exist, we simply need a complete reference design to put the pieces together.
Mission: To put all existing technologies and initiatives in context to create a reference design for end-to-end Data Portability. To promote that design to the developer, vendor and end-user community.
More Online Remixing Tools
January 31, 2008
A web based tool for remixing, sharing and publishing video and audio
Make it Personal. Mix, Discover, Interact, Publish, MobileCast, Personalize your media like never before.
Eyespot is working to create a mutually beneficial ecosystem of website publishers, content providers, and advertisers. In the increasingly competitive online world, these stakeholders face real problems: website publishers need differentiators to drive signups and retention, content providers need engaging interactive campaigns to drive discovery and sales, and advertisers need immersive online experiences to drive brand awareness.
By putting creative tools and rights-cleared media into the hands of influencers and connectors, Eyespot enables social media and participation culture like no other company. Enabling influencers and connectors in turn leads to the creation of content that attracts legions of viewers, thereby completing the ecosystem that benefits all parties.
Eyespot provides video editing and sharing software that can be easily embedded in any website. Unlike other video editing solutions, Eyespot technology is easy-to-use, intuitive, and accessible for all end-users. Our solution includes next generation video sharing technology, enabling users to share not only via email and embed codes but also to mobile phones, portable players, and other connected devices.
Eyespot content screening technology employs audio, video, and text filtering techniques to protect website publishers against copyright infrle content. As part of our turn-key solution, our filtering technology protects brands while maximizing monetization opportunities.
Eyespot’s ad insertion and product placement technologies complete our turn-key solution. By providing contextual advertisements as an information service rather than as intrusive annoyances, the Eyespot platform brings audiences together with advertisers and content owners in unprecedented ways.
Photobucket + Online Adobe Video Editing Tool
January 31, 2008
The sharing is in the mixing
In the past YouTube has been accused of being a “fake sharing” site as it doesn’t provide the tools to remix video.
A “true sharing” site doesn’t try to exercise ultimate control over the content it serves. It permits, in other words, content to move as users choose. - Lawrence Lessig
In February 2007 Adobe launched online editing tools with Photobucket - Tim O’Reilly blogss about it:
I love that in addition to “slide shows,” “order prints”, and “share album,” photobucket now will add “Remix video.” Remixability is a huge part of Web 2.0, and the ability to modify video as well as just to consume it is a huge part of bringing video into the mainstream of Web 2.0.
The functionality is pretty basic. Both Photobucket and Adobe are reaching out to the millions of users for whom even Premiere Elements or iMovie are too much. And they may well be right (though I hope to see more of the amazing features of Flash video, like layers and more complex soundtracks, added in future.) In our conversation, Alex Welch, the CEO of Photobucket, talked about the hunger that their users have for online editing tools.
…There will be no advertising introduced into the created video stream. He pointed out that users are far more engaged when creating and managing content than when just viewing it (as anyone who reads Kathy Sierra knows!) “Advertisers are looking for more than just standard IAB units,” he says. Here there will obviously be a huge opportunity for advertisers to offer branded video libraries as components for remixing. The host site sets the policies about how the video is branded and monetized.
Hats off to Geoff Baum and Lalit Balchandani, the creators of the product.
This is a huge step forward in the democratization of media on the web.
What Photobucket has to say about the Adobe mashup:
Once editing is complete, the resulting video mashup can be embedded into any web page, blog, or social network profile by copying and pasting a snippet of HTML code. The mashup can also be shared with family and friends using Photobucket’s built-in sharing tools. Photobucket recently launched features to enable quick and easy posting to blog services and social networks such as Blogger, Xanga, LiveJournal, MySpace, Bebo, and Facebook directly from within a Photobucket album.
About Photobucket
Photobucket is the easiest and most reliable way for people to create, manage and share their personal media online. Photobucket is the web’s most popular creative hub, linking billions of personal photos, graphics, slideshows, and videos daily to hundreds of thousands of web sites, including: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Friendster, eBay, Craigslist, Blogger, Xanga and others. Photobucket’s more than 35 million users upload more than 7 million personal photos, graphics and videos to Photobucket every day, and the site is growing at a rate of 85,000 new users a day. Photobucket currently serves over 70% of all content links to social networking web sites and serves over 3 billion images and video requests every day. The company actively moderates content to create a safe environment for its users, partners and advertisers. Photobucket has offices in Palo Alto, California and Denver, Colorado and is located online at www.photobucket.com
MySpace launches Photobucket integration into the MySpace Comments Editor – December 20, 2007
MySpace today launched a really useful Photobucket integration into their ever-popular Comments Editor on MySpace.com.
Here’s how it works:
* Login to your MySpace profile and go post a comment on a friends profile.
* In the comments editor, click on “Add Image from Photobucket”, and you can log directly into your Photobucket album — all without leaving MySpace.
* Browse your Photobucket album to find the image you want to post; click on the one you like and click the “Add image to comment” button.
* All without leaving MySpace!
Facebook® Enables Users to Share Video, Photos, News, Blogs and More From Anywhere on the Web – October 31, 2006
Photobucket is an online personal media hub for photos, videos and graphics. Photobucket’s 27 million users can now share their Photobucket images and videos on Facebook with just one click of the link to share on Facebook.
