Facebook was very prominent in the news this week: first with the acquisition of Friendfeed and then with the possible introduction of a special Facebook browser (which already was predicted on Capgemini’s Technology blog). Google introduced this week a lot of social features and even Apple seems to take social networking seriously.
Social collaboration tools
- Should you be paid to participate in social media?
Employees are a key element in social business. Designing roles for employees in social business requires particular thought around ecosystem (i.e. how they connect with others), hivemind (i.e. their level of social calibration), and dynamic signaling (i.e. content creation and distribution). - Behavioural transition strategies for E2.0
- The Top Myths to Avoid Change in Social Media & the Role of “Antibodies” in Today’s Corporation
- Social Media Inside the Firewall Roll-out Best Practice
- Is Apple finally taking social networking seriously?
Facefeed
- FriendFeed should have been part of Facebook from Day One
True confessions time: I created a FriendFeed account some time back but never really used it. I was already deeply entrenched in Facebook by then and was starting to see some value in Twitter – so I jumped into FriendFeed and created an acccount. - Revealed: why Facebook acquired FriendFeed
Facebook has splashed out almost $50m (£30.3m) on FriendFeed, the start up that allows people to see what their friends are doing in real-time on social media sites including Digg and Twitter. Will McInnes, managing director of NixonMcInnes, examines the strategy behind the deal. - Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook’s “official” R&D department!
- Could Wordpress Be the Natural Successor to Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook?- The SiliconANGLE
I say ‘quite possibly so’ – though it’ll be a long road to get there. I say we’re headed towards a Federated real-time web, and Wordpress looks like it could be best positioned to take the helm of that ship.Friendfeed (and their acquisition by Facebook) has been the topic of conversation here at SiliconANGLE as well as much of the blogosphere yesterday and today. I don’t doubt that this will continue for a while. Louis Gray probably best captured the emotional aspect for most of us early adopters who were on the system chatting away with the immediate family of the founders when it was just us:
Rockmelt (The Facebook browser)
- The RockMelt Mystery. Is it Just a Facebook Browser, Or Will It Break The Mold?
- facebook://
Facebook has the size to introduce its own browser-like platform, its own operating systems and perhaps even its own hardware line. Facebook could disrupt the Web and create a new (proprietary?) standard on how the new Web could be. They can, because one out of every six people that is online, has a Facebook account. They can because they have got such immense amount of data and people who are spending so much time on it, people will miss it when it is gone. - Netscape Founder Backs New Browser
Mr. Andreessen is backing a start-up called RockMelt, staffed with some of his close associates, that is building a new Internet browser, according to people with knowledge of his investment. - Why I'm suspicious of the Facebook 'RockMelt' browser
Social Google
- Google Reader Unleashes A Gaggle Of Nice Social And Feed Management Updates
- Google goes social but not in a Facebook kind of way
It’s no Facebook. And it’s certainly not Twitter. But Google today introduced a social element of its own – called Social for iGoogle.The company introduced 19 new social gadgets as part of the launch. In a sense, the only difference between the previous gadgets for an iGoogle page and these gadgets is that friends with the same gadgets can see your updates and even engage in a game with you. - iGoogle Releases Social Gadgets
- A flurry of features for feed readers
- Google updates Reader, Youtube, iGoogle
Web development
- JavaScript 2.0: A Sneak Preview
As a developer and writer, part of my job is to stay informed of current trends in the web world, whether it be company mergers, online-shopping trends, or programming technologies. I'll admit that it's hard to keep up with everything that's going on in the industry these days, but one tidbit of news is making the rounds that is raising a lot of eyebrows: the drafting of the JavaScript 2.0 proposal. The new JavaScript 2.0 / EMCAScript 4.0, isn't due to be finalized until the end of the fall of 2009, but it's already garnering lots of strong reactions – both good and bad. Today, we'll be taking a look at some of the proposed specifications and you can decide for yourself whether they constitute improvements in the language or merely unnecessary standardization. - How to Use Operating System Styles in CSS
- Will Microsoft Implement HTML5 in Internet Explorer?
- PHP is the Future
Augmented reality
- Discovering Papervision3D: Best Design Practices and Tutorials
- Beam your ads onto Buckingham Palace with this new AR app
Metaio, an augmented reality specialist, is developing an app that allows brands to place 'virtual ads' in real places like landmarks or tourist attractions for consumers to view via their mobile phone.
Mobile
- Nokia Considering Ditching Symbian For Open Source
- How to Create Your First iPhone Application
- Majority of CIOs still reject the iPhone, but resistance is weakening
Tools
- 16 Apps That Make Sharing Large Files A Snap
- Free Tools to Back Up Your Online Accounts [Cloud Computing]
General
- Forget the iPhone app, Google Voice coming as a Web app
- 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging
- 15-24 Year Olds in the U.K. Encroach on their Elder’s Social Networking Space
The number of 15-24 year olds visiting social networking sites reached 6.8 million in June, up 14 percent versus the previous year. Though the overall audience of social networkers in this age segment is up substantially during the past year, the time they spent on social networking sites is down 9 percent. The overall decline in time spent on the sites appears to be attributable to younger users spending less time on secondary social networking sites. - The Evolution of Blogging
Dave Winer’s ability to peer into the future is uncanny. He was talking about a river of news long before the current activity streams became popular. He was evangelizing RSS long before there were blogs. I could go on and on about his prescient observations, but it’s his warnings that are especially prophetic. - Social Media Revolution
- 'Spotify are the new pirates': Swedish artist
Swedish musician Magnus Uggla has withdrawn his music from streaming music service Spotify claiming his "songs are being given away". - SQL pie chart
My other half says I’m losing it. But I think that as an enthusiast kernel developer she doesn’t have the right to criticize people. (”I like user space better!” – she exclaims upon reading this). Shown below is a (single query) SQL-generated pie chart. I will walk through the steps towards making this happen, and conclude with what, I hope you’ll agree, are real-world, useful usage samples. - Google Website Optimizer Case Study: Daily Burn, 20%+ Improvement
This post will show exactly how one start-up improved their homepage conversion rate (visitor to sign-up flow) more than 20%, then 16% again, with a few simple changes and Google Website Optimizer. - As Media Brands Build Their Own Communities, They Must Evolve Their Business Model
Rick Mans is Information Architect and a social media evangelist within Capgemini. You can follow and connect with him via Twitter or Delicious
