Social networks for every type of mind

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Nowadays there are social networks for every kind of “minds”.

“Small minds”, who want to discuss people, can join Arsebook network.

Arsebook is an anti-social utility that connects you with the people YOU HATE. upload blackmail material or publish lies • get the latest gossip from your fiends • post videos on your profile • tag your fiends • use privacy settings to hide your info from enemies • join a hate-clan to disturb people who live, study, or work around you

Following are the social networks for “average minds”:

Mashable has a post that briefly discusses about social networks for events. Another new social network for events launching at DEMO this week. This one is based around recommendations from friends. I like Attendio, but seriously, how many of these do we need? Rivals include MingleNow, ILCU and many more.

Spigit Event Platform: Spigit for conferences is an easy way to increase attendee involvement, promote speakers, improve feedback and create a quantifiable way to determine the successes at your conference. spigit is a smart, social collaboration platform that promotes interaction and is an easily configurable tool for capturing what your attendees really think about what is happening at your conference.

Social networks for “great minds” are the following:

Read/Write web has a post about Crowdsourcing and it explains about networks where people discuss ideas: At Cambrian House, people submit ideas for software products and then vote on which ideas are the best, commenting on changes or improvements they would like to see made. Development of the most popular ideas is then sourced to members of the community, who earn “royalty points” that determines how much each contributor makes. Cambrian House can be looked at as a commercial spin on the classic site, halfbakery.

CrowdSpirit is a very ambitious project that aims to utilize crowdsourcing to develop and bring to market tangible, sub-$200 electronic devices (think MP3 players, digital cameras, or game controllers). Community members will decide what the product is, from concept to design to technical specification, by submitting and voting on product and design ideas. Winning ideas will then be funded by members of the community - and after prototyping and beta testing, the completed products will be delivered to market.

Another such network is Spigit Innovation Platform:

Spigit for Innovation allows for entire organizations to participate in the process of innovation. spigit’s smart, social collaboration platform allows groups to build communities around targeted and firm-specific areas of interest, where employees can propose new ideas, share their opinions and expertise, and influence the best ideas for company consideration. spigit captures every interaction and calculates validity of content and reputation of users based on level of contributions, quality, and community feedback. Through technology, collaboration, and advanced analytics, spigit helps companies identify the best new ideas and key contributors, providing managers with deep insight into their organization and market tested ideas that can assist in making key decisions for innovation. 

Rohit Aggarwal

API for Online Social Networks

API domain for social networks is getting hotter now. Google has come up with ‘Open Social’, which enables developers to write API across social networks. You can find an excellent discussion about it here from Marc. Current partners of Open Social are MySpace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, Salesforce.com, Oracle, iLike, Flixster, RockYou, Slide, Bebo and SixApart.

Following is an interesting post from TechCrunch  (via Techmeme) :

Checkmate?  MySpace, Bebo and SixApart To Join Google OpenSocial (confirmed)  —  Google may have just come out of nowhere and checkmated Facebook in the social networking power struggle.  —  MySpace and Six Apart will announce that they are joining Google’s OpenSocial initiative.

Some interesting thoughts about API for social networks by Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:

“Full APIs for Extracting and Creating Content on the Social Network: With the growth in popularity and valuations of social networking sites, some companies have come to the conclusion that the there is an opportunity for making money by becoming meta-social network sites which aggregate a user’s profiles and content from multiple social networking sites. There are literally dozens of Social Network Profile aggregators today and it is hard to imagine social networking sites viewing them as anything other than leeches trying to steal their page views by treating them as dumb storage systems. This is another reason why most social network services primarily focus on building widget platforms or APIs that enable you to create content or applications hosted within the site but don’t give many ways to programmatically get content out.  

Counter examples to this kind of thinking are Flickr and YouTube which both provide lots of ways to get content in and out of their service yet became two of the fastest growing and most admired websites in their respective categories. It is clear that a well-thought out API strategy that drives people to your site while not restricting your users combined with a great user experience on your website is a winning combination. Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done. “

Another interesting read:

Why So Many Want to Create Facebook Applications  —  Site’s Growing Ranks  —  Seen as Potential Source  —  Of Revenue, Customers  —  Another online gold rush is on.  Entrepreneurs are scrambling to create small software programs for Facebook Inc.’s social-networking site and grab footholds in its emerging economy.

Source:   Wall Street Journal
Author:   Riva Richmond

Rohit Aggarwal

Facebook funding round getting crazier

Facebook Rumors: Making Friends with More investors  —  Two hedge funds from New York have apparently jumped into the Facebook deal.We’ve got our ear to the ground to figure out who it is but each put in about $250 million—for $500 million total—at the same valuation as Microsoft Corp.

Source:   MEETblog
Link:   http://blogs.forbes.com/meetblog/2007/10/facebook…

Facebook Raises Another $500 Milion  —  Forbes’ Elizabeth Corcoran, reporting from the magazine’s MEET Conference in L.A., says Facebook raised another $500 million yesterday in addition to Microsoft’s $240 million.  The money is supposed to have come from two NYC-based hedge funds …

Source:   Silicon Alley Insider
Author:   Peter Kafka
Link:   http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/10/facebook-raises…

Oh snap!  Faceberg raises another $500 million  —  Word up.  Hot on the heels of the big investment by the Borg only a few hours ago, Facebook has now landed another $500 million from two hedge funds in New York.  At the same $15 billion valuation.  It is on, people.

Source:   The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
Author:   Steve
Link:   http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/10/oh-snap… 

via Techmeme

Tango between Facebook and Microsoft

Source: Microsoft wins Facebook bid battle  —  Update: 12:30 p.m. see bottom.  —  After weeks of speculation, Microsoft appears to have won a battle with Google over who would get a stake in Facebook, according to a source familiar with the situation.  —  Microsoft and Facebook were close to a deal, according to the source.

Source:   CNET News.com
Author:   Ina Fried
Link:   http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9803689-56.html

Facebook Is Close to Choosing Microsoft or Google for Deal  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook Inc. is close to choosing between Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to sell ads for the social networking service outside the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.

Source:   Wall Street Journal
Link:   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119323518308669856…

Microsoft to Pay $240 Million for Stake in Facebook  —  Microsoft has won a high-profile technology industry battle with Google and Yahoo to invest in the social networking upstart Facebook.  —  The two companies said on Wednesday that Microsoft would invest $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook.

Source:   New York Times
Author:   Brad Stone
Link:   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/technology/24cnd…

Facebook and Microsoft Expand Strategic Alliance  —  Microsoft to take equity stake in Facebook; companies expand advertising deal to cover international markets.  —  PALO ALTO, Calif. and REDMOND, Wash. /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Facebook® and Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft …

Source:   PR Newswire
Link:   http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071024/aqw247.html

Facebook Takes the Microsoft Money And Runs.  —  While the storyline would have been more dramatic if Facebook had spurned its current ad-serving partner Microsoft for Google, it is confirmed that Microsoft has won the deal.  It will invest $240 million in Facebook and expand its existing relationship …

Source:   TechCrunch
Author:   Erick Schonfeld
Link:   http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/24/facebook-takes…

Three Reasons Microsoft Underpaid For Facebook  —  It’s official — the truth is less profitable than fiction.  Facebook has secured the cornerstone of its $15 billion valuation with today’s Microsoft alliance.  But at $240 million, that’s only a 1.6% slice of a much larger pie.

Source:   Epicenter
Author:   Terrence Russell
Link:   http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/10/three-reasons…

Google removes Facebooksecrets- a lie

Techcrunch reported that Google removed FaceBookSecrets because of the notice from Facebook.

 Well, I would like to disagree with this. Try searching “FaceBookSecrets” on Google and click on the ‘Cached’ link beneath the first link. You will find the revealed FaceBook code here. Is this fair on Google’s part?- decide yourself.

Update:- Google has now removed the cached page of FaceBook Secrets.

Rohit

Facebook having operational problems

It seems Facebook is having hard time in keeping the functioning of its site in place. Few days back, members were able to open message boxes of other members. Today, when I was doing a routine check of discussion board then it shows no discussion and all the past discussions were deleted. To see for yourself click, here (You’ve to be the part of this group to see it. This is Web 2.0 (Entrepreneurs) group).

Rohit Aggarwal

Structural Hole among business PhD students

Lately I have been reading journals of other disciplines- Management, Accounting, Finance, Economics and Marketing, for understanding the literature on the second piece of my dissertation. In the process I came across one observation and the ‘Structural Hole’ theory of Ronald S. Burt. Then I started thinking over both. But before I share my thoughts let me explain my observation and Burt’s theory.

Observation:

When I thought about this idea I have never read a single paper from Management, Accounting and Finance journals and had no clue about their research. To get some head start I started bugging fellow PhD students from Management, Accounting and Finance. All of them were very helpful and give various suggestions from the perspectives of their respective fields. Then I started to realize that most of the PhD students in various disciplines spend 4-5 yrs in adjacent offices but rarely interact and discuss about each other’s fields.  I wonder how drastically things will change once they all become professors.

Burt’s theory:

Bruce has already done this job very well. The gist of his explanation is the following:

This article will explore Burt’s surprising answer to the question, “Where do good ideas come from?” And it will show how to apply Burt’s findings to promote the business of collaborative innovation.…Burt has shown that more often than not, the key to innovation is not creating a good idea but recognizing the opportunity to re-use an ordinary idea from another group. Or as Burt puts it, “Can you get an idea which is mundane and well known in one place to another place where people would get value out of it?”

My thoughts:

My observation seemed to be an instance of structural hole theory of Burt and each of the business disciplines seem to be behaving as ’silos’. So, if Burt’s theory were to be true here, then one who acts as an information broker among the different business disciplines should be able to develop ‘good ideas’.  Since in this situation I am playing the role of information broker, I hope Burt’s theory works out for me. Anyway, I am enjoying my work and at the least I am satisfied over the fact that I have an idea what other disciplines research on in a business school.

Besides availing this opportunity of bridging structural holes, I am also cautious about my identity as an IS researcher and try to keep the balance. Bruce also warns about forming too many strong ties across departments:

…The goal is to encourage employees to be brokers, not to encourage different groups to stay in constant contact. Creating too many tight-knit links between different groups wastes time and smothers creativity under a blanket of homogeneity.

Rohit Aggarwal

Social Networking sites for stock market investment

SocialPicks is a community for stock market investors to share investment ideas, exchange market research, and track peers’ investment performance.

DigStock is a financial website that provides investors access to major financial news as well as user-submitted stories (e.g. stock picks and analysis) and individual stock rankings by investors. With DigStock, users rank stocks and submit stories, which are reviewed (i.e. ranked and tagged) by other investors. Only the most timely, relevant, and valuable stories go to the front page.

Stocktickr is a collaborative web site that promotes information sharing about stocks. We like to call it “social trading”. You add stocks to your stocktickr and assign tags to each stock. Unlike other portfolio trackers on the web, stocktickr captures the current price as you add a stock. When you go back to view the stocks your tracking, you see when you added it, what tags you used, any comments you added, and the price when you added it.

Gradr.com is a stock market flavored, social networking web site. gradr.com was developed from December 2005 to June 2006 and launched in June 2006. Type in the stock symbol in the search bar to view the stock you want to grade. Next, simply click the “Upgrade” link to upgrade the stock, or the “Downgrade” link to downgrade a stock. You may only grade a stock once per day. Registration is required to grade stocks.

Bullpoo.com is both an interactive stocks community and a personalized investment tool. We allow users from all over the world to collaborate and share investing knowledge through blogs, discussion, and virtual trading.

FeelingBullish.com attempts to put the collective wisdom of our investment community at your finger tips. By democratizing the process of rating and discussing stocks, our community should have access to a broader range of information, more dynamic content, and more independent perspective - things that should make our decision making process smarter.

via Information Arbitrage

Update:-

FeedTheBull  is closest to Digstock, but it is also releasing a stock trading game where users will be able to compete against each other. FeedTheBull (FTB) is a user driven, social content website. FTB allows the Bull community to submit relevant information and congregates it to one site and then the rest of the community can vote on what they like. The articles/comments/blogs that get the most votes are then promoted to the front page. This is a way to give the power back to the community.

Rohit Aggarwal

Comscore’s- Measuring the digital age

Recently Comscore releases the following statistics:

“Visitors to MySpace.com and Friendster.com generally skew older, with people age 25 and older comprising 68 and 71 percent of their user bases, respectively.  Meanwhile, Xanga.com has a younger user profile, with 20 percent of its users in the 12-17 age range, about twice as high as that age segment’s representation within the total Internet audience.  Not surprisingly, Facebook.com, which began as a social networking site for college students, also draws a younger audience.  More than one-third (34 percent) of visitors to Facebook.com are 18-24 years old, approximately three times the representation of that age segment in the general Internet population.”

I wonder how accurate are their results? Their methodology for reaching the above results is:

“This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes.”

via Techmeme

Rohit Aggarwal

Social Networks are overvalued

I completely agree with Daniel Gross of Slate. Social Networks are overvalued and companies may loose big money in the process; however, the fall would be less severe than that during dot-com bubble time.

Here are few interesting stats from the same article:

“The “social-networking” gold rush continues. Last year, MySpace was acquired by News Corp. for $580 million in cash. Now the other big social-networking sites are the subject of rumors, deals, and transactions. Yahoo! was interested in acquiring Facebook for $1 billion, but the company’s youthful founders are holding out for more. Warner Music earlier this month cut a revenue-sharing deal with YouTube. In August, Google and MySpace struck a $900-million agreement for Google to sell ads on MySpace.”

Rohit Aggarwal