Friendster nets another social networking patent

Dec 10, 2008 by Dan Taylor    10 Comments    Posted under: News, Social Media, Technology

Some might argue that Friendster is the one that started it all, and if you look at the historical data, they might just be right.  Friendster was the first social networking platform, as we know them today, to really gain any traction and start connecting users.

Due to a series of mistakes and misplays, Friendster quickly found itself in a very distant backseat to then up and comers MySpace and Facebook.  However, don’t write Friendster off quite yet, as they’ve somehow managed a popularity campaign in Asia of all places.  However, Asia isn’t the only place seeing a lot of Friendster these days; so is the U.S. Patent Office.  Friendster has recently received their fourth patent, with another twelve plus applications currently in the works.

Their most recent patent concerns the “compatibility scoring of users in a social network”.  To put that in digestible English: a method for analyzing and determining just how similar social network users are to each other.

Let’s look at that again.

Friendster has been granted a patent on a ‘method’ used to judge the similarity of different users across a social network.  In other words, one of the main mechanisms that’s fundamental to finding and suggesting friends on a social network – Friendster now has a patent on it.  Whoa.

San Francisco based Friendster was granted these patents based on the fact that it was the first social networking site to gain traction in what is a now crowded marketplace.  A bit like the great land grab of the late 19th century (think Tom Cruise and Nichol Kidman – Far and Away), Friendster was first on the spot, and offered a number of features that are now standard operating equipment on social networking sites.  Friendster also currently holds patents on: how people are connected on a social network, the process of friends encouraging each other to upload content, and ways for users to manage social-network friendships.

So what does it all mean?  Sure they’ve technically got the patents, and technically all other social networking sites are in direct violation of these patents be using these technology without forking over a dime for it.  Theoretically, Friendster could step into a court of law and demand that MySpace and Facebook cough up a buck or two every time a user adds a friend.

So far, Friendster hasn’t bothered to flex the patent muscle, but they’re very well within their rights to do so.  Obviously, Friendster isn’t commenting about their future legal strategy.

Facebook Connect goes live

Dec 5, 2008 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: News, Social Media, Technology

Stand back and get ready social web users, Facebook has officially opened the single sign-on technology floodgates.  Facebook’s ‘not-so-under-the-wraps’ Connect feature is now live, and can be implemented by any site via the company’s web developer platform.

Facebook says that 100+ sites have added the technology during the pre-launch testing phase, and/or plan on implementing the tech in the coming weeks.  You may have heard of just a few of them: Digg, Gawker, Vimeo, CNET, and several major universities.

Facebook’s 125 million (gave or take a few…but who’s counting?) users can now participate on any one of these sites by signing in with their Facebook ID.  This Facebook login will then in turn re-broadcast their actions on this site to their friends within Facebook.  Facebook ensures that users will have privacy controls so that only approved info gets the re-broadcast (‘cause I’d hate for my comments on imalumberjackandidontcare.com to be rebroadcast).

Connect will also assist in matching up your Facebook friends on this external site.  I.e. you may not have known that Kaveh Rastegar is also a member of Vimeo, and enjoys indie filmmakers.  Connect will ensure that the two of you also have the options to be friends on Vimeo.  Likewise, if Kaveh posts a comment on a video, and logs in via Connect, his comments will then show up in his news feed for all his friends to see and comment on as well.

However.  Having these open standards does carry a bit of a price tag.  The social data that is collected by using these interacts gets fed back into Facebook.  By utilizing the Connect technology, the site owner agrees to share any data it gathers about users who use Connect with Facebook – and Facebook alone.  Hmmm.  Facebook has found itself in this tub of hot water before (think Beacon Advertising System), is this just another attempt at skirting the issue by having third-party sites collect the data?  Hopefully, I’m way off here.

This technology is nothing new, as OpenID and Open Stack are currently in existence, but have been a bit late to the party, held up by a not-so-hot user experience and security.  OpenID and Open Stack are a set of open source technologies being developed by Google, Yahoo!, MySpace, Plaxo, and other social sites that would allow the end user a larger system of portable data.  Truth be told, I’m a big fan of Facebook, and could easily see them getting this one just right.

And apparently, I’m not the only one.  In a recent press release, Facebook states that,

“two out of three new registrations at participating sites were generated through Facebook Connect during the testing phase.”

66%!  Wow!  And the sticky sweet Facebook goodness doesn’t stop at the registration page.

“users who logged in using Facebook Connect were 50 percent more likely to participate socially on a website than non-Facebook Connect users once logged in.”

Dang!  Those are some mighty big numbers.  While the jury is still out on whether Connect can deliver all that it promises, it’s looking mighty good thus far.  Let’s keep an eye on this one.

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ThinkGeek – win a $250 gift certificate

Oct 10, 2008 by Dan Taylor    6 Comments    Posted under: Technology

A real quick one here that I just wanted to point out to my follow geeks readers:

Win $250 of ThinkGeek Stuff AND Your Very Own Zombie Horde to Protect it!
Win a Zombie Horde and a $250 TG Gift Cert!

Unless you’re one of those crazy minimalists, everybody likes free stuff. So we’ve decided to give two lucky winners $250 worth of ThinkGeek STUFF just because we like you. Not only are we giving out free stuff (in the form of two $250 Gift Certificates) but we’ll also provide you with your very own 5-member Zombie Horde to protect it. How do you enter to win such a fabulous prize? Simple. Just follow us on Twitter or post on our Facebook Wall and you’re entered. Easy Peasy. On Friday 10/10/08 at 11:59pm Eastern time, we’ll choose one random winner each from our Twitter Followers and our Facebook Wall to win a $250 ThinkGeek Gift Certificate and 5 Plush Zombies.

So get your Web 2.0 on, kids and follow us on Twitter or post on our Facebook Wall. Want to do both? OK, congrats – you’ve just doubled your chances of winning. Killer.

Twitter Follow us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/thinkgeek

Facebook Post on our Wall on Facebook:
http://www.new.facebook.com/pages…6399067073

If you’re not already familiar with ThinkGeek.com, feel free to purchase and and all of my christmas presents there.

Sorry I got this so late, but just heard about it today.  Go fire up your twitter and facebook accounts and give a shout out to the thinking geeks by midnight tonight

Boomers going digital

Sep 12, 2008 by Dan Taylor    6 Comments    Posted under: Technology

According to a recent report by the NPD Group, baby boomers are a key demographic segment for digital products and marketing.  The study, “Entertainment Trends in America” reveiled that Baby Boomers who stream video are 15% more likely to buy a CD, DVD, or movie tickets (I can only guess that they’ve not yet mastered the art of the torrent).

While once only popular with youth and teen segments, baby boomers have come of (the digital) age, and are enjoying more and more online participation.  Recent consumer surveys found that 61 percent of baby boomer Internet users (aged 44-61) had visited streaming or downloadable video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.), and 41 percent had visited social networks (linked-in, Facebook, and MySpace).

“There’s an ongoing misperception that certain Web activities are the exclusive domain of young people,” said Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for The NPD Group. “That misperception could cost the entertainment industry, in terms of lost opportunities to target valuable consumers.”

The study also went on to find that more than half of all Web users surveyed (57 percent) visited social networking sites within the past three months.  ‘Young’ internet users (13-34 year olds) are far more likely to visit social networks and more often, but baby boomers that visited a social networking site did so on average 8 times over the previous three months (slightly less than once a week on average).

Getting down to the dollars and cents, NPW found that boomers who regularly use social networking or streaming video sites were more likely to buy CDs, DVDs, and/or movie tickets.

“As more consumers of all ages spend more time online, there’s potentially going to be less time for them to consume entertainment content in traditional ways,” Crupnick said. “These findings underscore the growing need for entertainment companies to promote and distribute digital entertainment content online, in order to keep pace with the changing needs and desires of consumers of all ages.”

It may come as no surprise that boomers have already mastered the art of email and web surfing, as the results were nearly universal across all age groups.  Online shopping came in with nearly similar results with 8 out of 10 users making an online purchase sometime during the past three months.  Teens and young adults reported a slightly lower score however, possibly due to lack of plastic (credit cards).

The survey was done by the NPD Group of Port Jefferson, NY, and included over 11,000 consumers, with results balanced to reflect the internet –connected US population of age 13 or older.

Rebuilding – Slowly

Jun 15, 2008 by Dan Taylor    12 Comments    Posted under: Uncategorized

Hmmm…ok. Bear with me here folks. As you can see, TTS is back, but in a Humpty Dumpty kinda way.

If you’ve made it thus far, you’ll notice that you’ve been redirected from turnthescrew.com to blog.turnthescrew.com. Yay…I managed that much.

Pretty much everything works just the way it should…except we’re missing over a year’s worth of content. This should, technically, be no problem, as I exported the database that was sitting on the former host’s server. This is where things start to go crazy. Upon uploading the backed up database, the front page appears, along with the associated content, BUT any linked articles, pages, sections of the site show up as 404 errors.

Hmmmm…well…the data is there, I’m just somehow not making the connection. As I said…this should be a learning process for us all.

CSI, Facebook, and Method Man

Apr 30, 2008 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: News, Technology

Sounds like the intro to a joke eh? Bear with me, and I’ll tie these three together, and (try) to make a decent point.

I watched the latest episode of CSI last night (Las Vegas of course, New York doesn’t even register for me, and while Miami is ok, nothing beats the original). During the opening credits, I happened to catch ‘Guest Appearance – Method Man‘. Hmmm…ok, i thought. Given Mariah’s stellar screen debut, and Britney Spears’ oscar winning performance, I wasn’t expecting much from a Musician come actor (although, I did think that Eminem did a decent job in 8 Mile).

Well, shut my mouth, because Method Man (aka Clifford Smith) did an outstanding job. His role centered around a Vegas club owner who was serving a short 8 month sentence for a ‘weak ass weapons charge’. While he’s doing time, all hell breaks loose on the outside with a double homicide centering around the woman who raised him, a high priced prozy, a boatload of cash, and his baby mama. Method Man delivers an outstanding performance, completely believable, and never for a second did I think that he was pushing the boundaries of his acting ability. He’s even portrayed as the like-able criminal who stages a breakout, only to save the life of his future child, while never putting up a protest to return to jail after the scene plays out.

The Facebook tie in.

Ok, perhaps just because these are areas of interest to me, but this line jumped out at me like a red flag. During an initial interview with Captain Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) regarding the relationship between two of the female characters, Method Man is quoted as saying:

“…one minute, they’re sending each other cupcakes on facebook, the next, they’re trying to kill each other over a broken curling iron…”

After my initial chuckles died down, I got to thinking about this digital culture comment. Two years ago, this line might have been written a bit more like so:

“…one minute, they’re sending each other glitter tweety birds on myspace, the next they’re trying to kill each other over a broken curling iron…”

And while many others have already written about this topic, let me just put it here in writing; In 2007

“MySpace showed a yearly growth of 19 % Facebook grew at a rate of 125%.” – mybroadband.co.za

Clearly this facebook reference by Method Man (and respectively the CSI team of writers), is yet other subtle mention of what I’ve been preaching for a while now: Myspace is a dying horse.

Sure while myspace still enjoys a much higher share of eyballs, March 08 compete.com data puts Myspace at 68,339,999 visitors, with Facebook receiving 31,233,452 vistors (both figures based on US traffic only), the growth rate is the important factor to watch. In March 08, yet again, Facebook is the clear winner with a 9.3% growth rate, Myspace, 3.9%.

While I’m not sure that Facebook is ever going to overtake the eyball count that News Corp.’s Myspace has, in my opinion Facebook has already won the battle of cultural superiority. While Method Man/CSI’s cupcakes on Facebook reference was the first integration of Facebook that I’ve heard in a television series, I’d bet the farm that it won’t be the last.