Stumble it!
Del.icio.us it!
Yes it’s true. OK we know it’s some personal assistant doing all the dirty work, but US presidential candidate Barack Obama has now joined LinkedIn in a bid to reach the masses. Oh ya and btw, Obama is three degrees away from me.
He was also cheeky enough to pop a question ” How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive?” and got 100 answers immediately. Wait I just refreshed the page and it’s 107 replies. OK Refresh page again…and 112 replies! Amazing. Go see for yourself. LOL.
President 2.0 indeed.
Stumble it!
Del.icio.us it!
Read about the Google Doubleclick acquisition and how it is deemed as anti-competitive in this report by Scott Cleland.
Stumble it!
Del.icio.us it!
James Hong, one of the founders of the popular 6 year old picture rating site, came out and spoke about the reasons behind the recent overhaul of their business model. You’ll realise that it’s a piece written from the heart, straight to the point and without beating around the bush.
I have always admired James and Jim for their independence and simplicity…and now for their honesty.
James touches on two things: The state of the online advertising market and the general entrepreneurial setting. He also relates his experience regarding employee policies, hiring, and competitors.
Previous post about Hotornot here. Techcrunch coverage here.
Stumble it!
Del.icio.us it!
I would like to highlight this piece of research done by Danah Boyd, a doctoral student at University of California-Berkely, about friends, ‘friending’ and social networks.
Unfortunately and clearly, you can see (she also mentioned it) that the sample size was only limited to US based youths. Apart from highlighting the rather worrying online idiosyncrasies of US pre-teens, this paper gives you another perspective about the definition of ‘friend’ and puts that in context with social networks such as Myspace and Friendster.
“As a kid, you used your birthday party guest list as leverage on the playground. ‘If you let me play I’ll invite you to my birthday party.’ Then, as you grew up and got your own phone, it was all about someone being on your speed dial. Well today it’s the MySpace Top 8. It’s the new dangling carrot for gaining superficial acceptance. Taking someone off your Top 8 is your new passive aggressive power play when someone pisses you off.”
“When people first joined Friendster, they took cues from the people who invited them. Three specific subcultures dominated the early adopters — bloggers, attendees of the Burning Man [14] festival, and gay men mostly living in New York.”
Stumble it!
Del.icio.us it!
I had a discussion with a few friends couple of nights ago regarding Facebook and Jaiku. We were carried away with the banter and one rather interesting point that was brought up was about seeking attention. This got me thinking about my usage of these services. Why do I use it in the first place?
I think we all have a need. A need to express ourselves. And part of this need will be satisfied by knowing that some other person (close friend, relative etc) will hear about our expressions or our routines, for instance. The other half, I guess, would be satisfied by purely expressing ourselves, whether it’s our views, emotions, thoughts etc. It’s about sharing as well. For example, knowing that my friends are also using these services ‘inspires’ me to update it regularly. Not to seek their attention, but to continue the indirect, (a) synchronous, non-invasive means of communication. Merely updating your Facebook account could also be a form of communication to, for instance,:
a) Let people know you still exist (a good/bad thing warrants another debate 
b) Communicate with you
c) Allow people to remember you in their sub conscious mind
Some people may choose to express themselves in certain ways, some none at all or some in as many ways as possible. It’s unfair to classify someone as “attention seeking” if (s)he decides to use many avenues to extend his/her views/expressions/emotions/thoughts to the world. =)
Stumble it!
Del.icio.us it!
Semi-big news from Google on two levels. One: They have just launched their own google channel over at Youtube so that Googlers can post presentations about company matters or stand etc. Second: Youtube launches their online video editing service called Youtube Remixer.
Apart from Photobucket, who recently launched their online video editing service with Adobe, Jaycut, the social online media editing service, now also faces competition from the heavyweight fighter Google.
