Facebook decided to block Google’s FriendConnect

Charlie Cheever from Facebook has hurled first real bomb in closely observed attempts by  social networking platforms to "open up".  Data portability promise got first reality check of ToS violation.

Facebook spent couple of days brainstorming on Google's "grand design" and came to conclusion that it's better to block them right away. So no Google [...]

Comcast buys Plaxo - $150 million proof that media consumption is now a social activity

Finally Comcast bought Plaxo. We have been hearing rumors of this event for some time now.
It's equally fun to watch how Arrington is matching CNet on every news story out there. He managed to get most important bit of information. Price tag:
The rumors were accurate: Comcast will announce their acquisition of social contact list [...]

Sharing Slideshare presentation using Gmail (Plain text mode)

| View | Upload your own

Blogged with MessageDance using Gmail | Reply On Twitter

After Myspace Data Availability and Facebook Connect, Google Announces FriendConnect.

Two weeks, three announcements and wild west world of social networking is all topsy turvy.  Following Myspace and Facebook announcement, Google today gave a preview announcement of FriendConnect. Goals of FriendConnect are:

Drive traffic: people who discover interesting sites can bring their friends with them, and can opt-in to publish their activities on those sites back [...]

Three Reasons To Question Comments As We Know Them

I am jumping into comment related meme started by Fred Wilson. He made a well articulated case for using Disqus. He mentioned three reasons - Threaded discussion, Shared profile and email convenience. I completely agree on email feature. Its a big missing feature in existing blog conversation design.

Threaded discussion [...]

Myspace’s Data Availability - The walls are coming down

Facebook and Myspace are extremely busy in wooing  developers. Yesterday Facebook announced changes in Profile display and API support. Today Myspace came out with a significantly expanded approach to data sharing. Or as they are calling it Data Availability. Myspace also formally joined Data Portability group.
Let's understand full significance of this announcement from developer's [...]

Breaking news using Twitter. From Reuters to Reuwitters.

Still remember the day when I was telling folks how Twitter will one day do the job of Reuters. Looks like we are getting closer to that possibility. Adam Pasick, not surprisingly on Reuter blog,  is using this little incident to illustrate how Twitter is now the starting point for lot of breaking news:

At about [...]

Google Reader gets into anywhere to anywhere sharing.

By now every serious social media industry participant must have read Clay Shirky's brilliant essay. Delivered at Web 2.0 conference in Stanford, he wonderfully articulated the new media world we live in -
.. people in the media world don't understand. Media in the 20th century was run as a single race–consumption. [...]

Publishing tools for super-busy blogger suck!

It’s a common complaint that if blogging was easier to do there will be more people doing it. Blog setup, blog posting, formatting, proof reading and post-post comment supervision, list of stuff to manage goes on and on. All that adds up to big drain on time. Its a hassle because it takes time. If [...]

Dot Teen: Portrait of a Facebook Generation

Graziella Jackson wrote this well researched piece on .teen phenomena. Plenty of interesting points to digest and debate. Teenagers “heart” many new things.

Website Snapshot

Dot Teen: Portrait of a Facebook Generation
Today’s teens are roughly the same age as the Internet. Digital spaces provide an [...]