Fees come to social networking

Grok Headline matches for Fees come to social networking

Online Dating Innovator eTwine.com
Officially Launches its Wildly Popular
Social Networking and Online Dating
Website with Several Thousand Members
Following Completion of Beta Testing
Phase. Unique website integrates online
dating with social networking, event
planning, and bl0gs.

Online Dating Innovator eTwine.com
Officially Launches its Wildly Popular
Social Networking and Online Dating
Website with Several Thousand Members
Following Completion of Beta Testing
Phase. Unique website integrates online
dating with social networking, event
planning, and bl0gs. 09/15/2004 02:13 AM
eTwine.com has officially launched its unique online dating and social networking website after several months of beta testing. eTwine integrates online dating with social networking, event planning & management and an interactive blogging tool to create the most complete social site on the net. [PRWEB Sep 15, 2004]

eTwine.com Launches Fun & Interactive
Free Blogging Tool and Becomes First
Social Site to Integrate Blogs with
Social Networking & Online Dating
Features

eTwine.com Launches Fun & Interactive
Free Blogging Tool and Becomes First
Social Site to Integrate Blogs with
Social Networking & Online Dating
Features 08/13/2004 12:47 PM
eTwine.com integrates new interactive blogging tool with its existing social networking, online dating, and event planning features. Members can share their blogs entries with friends and other members, as well as rate other blogs, add comments to any entry, and sort entries by most popular and highest rated in this unique feature. [PRWEB Aug 13, 2004]

Social people don't need social
networking

Social people don't need social
networking 12/14/2003 09:54 PM
Kevin Werbach points out that social networking sites like LinkedIn and Tribe and so forth have very little to offer highly connected people like Esther Dyson, who would nevertheless be a real asset to the network:

Esther and Pierre don't need LinkedIn to reach pretty much anyone they want to contact. Yet there are a whole lot of folks who want to reach them, and don't have a personal connection to do so. So the service worsens their email overload with little corresponding benefit.

Link

Adding Fees To Social Networks

Adding Fees To Social Networks 01/27/2004 02:24 AM
Okay, take an idea that's being done to death all over the internet for free - with new (sometimes deep pocketed) players showing up every day. Then, wait until the market is so saturated that most people are already getting sick of the idea... and then try to charge for it. That appears to be the plan of Tickle (formerly eMode) that is now going to try to start charging for some aspects of their "social network" Friendster-clone. Since they know they're the first, and they must know they're going to face backlash, they're only charging if you want to contact someone who is separated by more than four degrees from you - at which point, I wonder what the point of social networking is? If the idea is to meet friends of friends because they might have similar interests, what's the value in using such a system to meet a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend? Isn't that just a stranger? There are lots of ways to meet strangers online that don't cost money.

Get Yer Social Networking Here

Get Yer Social Networking Here 01/24/2004 09:30 PM
Sometime in December, somebody flipped a big switch and all of a sudden everyone was inviting me to join their Linkedin network. Then suddenly last week the Kozmick Finger pointed at Orkut, and near as I can tell, all the geeks on the planet have spent this weekend busily inviting each other to be Orkut pals. It all seems mostly harmless; mind you, I haven’t actually got any use out of either of ’em. For what it’s worth, all the Orkutians seem to be heavy geeks, while about half the Linkedincrowd is VCs and businesspeople. I don’t think it’s gonna change the world, but I’ve been wrong before. To those whose invitations I’ve declined: sorry, nothing personal, it’s just that I feel I ought to either have spent some face-to-face time with you or been in some substantial online interaction.

Social Networking?

Social Networking? 08/17/2004 05:42 PM
So I have this account - that I spent some time setting up and inviting people to by the way - on one of the social networking services, but I can't remember which one.

Lycos tries to tap into social
networking with new look

Lycos tries to tap into social
networking with new look 02/11/2004 08:34 PM
Another recently debuted site is Orkut.com, designed by a Google engineer, though the site's connection to the search company is unclear. ...

social networking as a web service

social networking as a web service 01/27/2004 02:23 AM

These folks totally groks it..... (their names are Grant and Cyndie Berg.)

back and forth over the social portal play. Zawodny on the point missed: Stokes misses it not just once , but twic e.

Om nearl y follows him off the "they just want my rolodex and why should I give it to them" cliff, but veers at the last instant and manages to strike a glancing blow at a worthy target by alluding to social networking services embedded in client applications -- and spawns some interesting comments. Marc Canter's beating the FOAF drum again. I'm looking forward to peopleaggregator's next rev. Sifry's apparently working on FOAFing up Technorati, too. It isn't an accident that Sifry's tagline is web services for bloggers.

Anyway... back on topic...

Look, Friendster didn't get $10m solely on the basis of its current business model. It sure as shit didn't get it on the basis of its software / infrastructure [and I hope they're spending some of that money on some engineers].

They got it because, as Jon Udell and others have pointed out (can't find link -- may be misattributing), user-contributed data is a valid currency for the next generation of online [web] service[s] businesses. And anyone who can succeed at being a primary conduit for user contributed data which has bearing on purchase decisions and product / technology adoption/popularity has a great opportunity.

What Stokes seemed to miss, which Jeremy alluded to initially and Marc re-iterates from another vector:


"The place to make the money is by adding value added, functionality, tools, services - what have - AROUND these most basic of all instinctful notions. Not by charging for the right to do them - in the first place!

So a PeopleFinder or FriendRanking or Introduction manager or Private email or IM enabler kind of platform - would be augmented with value added tools - to become a new business model. This what I mean by 'new kinds of tools."


... is that web services technologies are going to enable a Friendster, an Amazon, and a Google to operate in a unified manner delivering synergistic services to groups of connected (define it any way you want) people with shared interests.

This is what people are hopping up and down about, and I think there's some solid cause [lineofsight - code + words + pictures]

I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy.  2004 is looking to be pretty interesting.

Social Networking Blues

Social Networking Blues 01/25/2004 05:16 PM
I'm on Ryze. I'm on LinkedIn. I never touched Friendster. For some reason, Orkut appealed to me. Perhaps its the "in affiliation with Google" tagline? It's getting to the point where we need a Trillian for these types of sites. FriendFan is coming. Microsoft already has Wallop. When will it ever end? How many friends does one really need? Infinity (plus one). Won't you be my neighbor?...

Decentralised social networking

Decentralised social networking 01/05/2004 10:24 PM

I know I'm late to the party, but my recent experiments with LinkedIn and Friendster have got me all interested in the potential of software that bulids on top of people's own social networks. There's just one thing that's been bugging me, best explained by this quote from Om Malik:

The question I have is: why the F**K should I share my network of contacts with these commercial entities. They are like BlogSpot that does nothing for my brand equity and in many ways chews me out after making the network connections. Thus what I want is a "MoveableType" of social networking. Blogs took off because it was about one person - me. My social networks should be of my making for me. Lets figure out a way to cut out the middlemen.

Via John Battelle, here's the answer: Plink, a social search engine which uses information crawled from decentralised FOAF files. It's nicely put together and could be just the incentive I need to finally put together my own FOAF file.

Plink is also a nice example of the kind of thing the semantic web hopes to offer. People provide information in easily parsed formats, then others bulid third party applications on top of them that may never have been envisaged by the creators of the original standards. Feedster is another great example of this effect in action.

Anti-social networking

Anti-social networking 06/17/2005 04:25 PM
Glenn Fleishman writes in the NY Times about a Seattle cafe that gives free wifi on weekdays but is wifi-free on weekends in order to encourage conversation......

Social Television Networking

Social Television Networking 06/28/2004 05:22 AM
While lots of media companies have been trying to figure out how the whole "social networking" phenomenon impacts their business, it looks like AOL is trying to take the concept to the next level while also being true to their plans of "convergence." They've patented the concept of buddy list TV sharing. The idea is that you could see what your friends were watching on TV and immediately tune in yourself. It's not too hard to see how this would work. Already, the latest version of Yahoo Messenger includes the ability to see what music your friends are listening to and immediately tuning in yourself. This idea tries to go a bit further. For instance, someone could set up a chat room around a particular TV show, and could then play that show, while everyone else could discuss it in real-time. To understand what you're watching, it would require a set-top box that would tie into your internet connection as well. Of course, it's unclear how such a system will work in an age of TiVo when no-one watches a show at the same time.

Social Networking Hangover

Social Networking Hangover 02/10/2004 02:41 AM
As many, many people have predicted, there's a point at which all of these social networking services become... kind of pointless. Everyone piles in, and "connects" with anyone they've ever emailed and then you get the big "um... what do we do now?" question. It appears that despite the early rush into sites like Friendster, the fad is losing steam, just as it did five years ago with sixdegrees.com. It's cool for a few months, and then you realize there's nothing else to do. The various services are desperately trying to add on features that will bring back users and keep them engaged, but it turns out that the thing that seems to attract most people to these sites is the signing up and linking part - and after that, there's not much interest. The article includes the interesting stat that, despite five million registered users, Friendster received less than 1 million unique visitors in December.

Rescuing Social Networking

Rescuing Social Networking 06/17/2005 03:27 PM

Recent reports of the demise of Social Networking Applications (SNAs), voted "technology of the year" by Business 2.0 just two years ago, are increasing. Most recently C|Net's Molly Wood reported on Five Reasons Social Networking Doesn't Work. While LinkedIn and eCademy are hanging in there, many of the other entrants into the SNA space are really struggling. I reported last year on what I thought was wrong with the first generation of social networking applications, and I haven't seen any significant improvements become mainstream since then. Wood complains that existing SNAs offer the user little to do, take too much time, don't provide a customized audience, are socially awkward, and don't provide much that other features of the Internet don't do as well or better. It's not clear what problem they're trying to solve, other than to provide a list of not-very-well qualified contacts for people online who are looking (mostly for customers, employers or dates). They remind me a lot of Chamber of Commerce meetings, with consultants and agents outnumbering 'real' businesspeople, five sellers for every buyer. I belong to several SNAs but use them rarely, since my blog provides me with a more robust network than any SNA could ever hope to do. The challenge, as with most business and social problems, is getting attention. Because good stories, useful, researched advice and helpful, informative conversations command attention, these are the tools of the trade in face-to-face networking events. Face to face meetings also provide a huge amount of non-verbal information that allows people to make considered judgements and to establish trust, which virtual forums can only accomplish awkwardly, and over time. The lowly telephone, and Skype, are an improvement. Most of us can converse iteratively faster and more competently in a voice conversation than in a message thread, and get past the awkwardness and misunderstandings faster as a result. I've had some excellent Skype conversations with people I have never met in person, and some ghastly ones. I have proposed a more robust, multimedia, multi-view Simple Virtual Presence (SVP) tool such as what is illustrated above. There are people more technologically competent and agile than I am who are achieving such presence using a combination of tools now, but for most of us this is still just a dream. SNAs are therefore inherently not very good for building relationships or for collaborative work. How are they at finding people for valuable personal or business relationships? Once again we're back to the too many sellers, too few buyers problem (it's the same with dating services, I'm told). Useful SNAs need to be under the control of the customer, not the vendor. They would be better advised to reinvent themselves as a kind of very detailed person-to-person 'yellow pages', to separate users' 'what I have' and 'what I need' personas, and to focus specifically on the former, in a lot more detail, with credentials and samples of offerings. In a way, that's what blogs do, providing a space for one individual to exhibit as much of himself as possible in as much detail as possible, which is why many recruiters are now starting to peruse blogs in the search for extraordinary people or matches for very difficult fits. So a good SNA could offer a condensed version of this: Who I am, What I offer, Who recommends me, and Samples of what I do. Then the buyer can browse this 'catalogue' and, if he thinks I might have what he's looking for (personally or professionally) he is given contact information (ideally with the richness of Simple Virtual Presence) to confirm through conversation that my offer meets his requirements. Simple as that. Forget about the discussion forums and the form-filling and all the other bells and whistles that just complicate use and chew up time. Just give me a yellow pages on steroids. Once some standards emerge on formats for this information, it could then be possible for people to post this information anywhere, in the agreed-upon 'SNA2' format, so that we would no longer have to post my information to each SNA 'yellow page' directory -- the SNA tools could go out and harvest it automatically wherever we posted it, so we would only have to maintain it once (perhaps on our blog-jacke t, personal website, or other online space). So then we would have three easy-to-use SNA tools, working in tandem, all built around the 'customer', the guy looking for something: The standard-format 'yellow pages' displaying our personal 'offerings', A Simple Virtual Presence tool to qualify those offerings and to enable powerful conversations, and Blogs as 'personal filing cabinets' that people could browse if we were away from our phone/SVP tool, or if they wanted to see some more of our stuff before attempting to call us and offer us a job, a contract or a date. What would really make SVP cool would be if we could meter it, so that the tool could track time we spent on each call and, with the agreement of the other party, automatically bill them and pay us for our time at an agreed-upon rate. Because it's the value you add person-to-person, helping them in their personal context, once the introductions are over and they know they've found the person they want to 'hire', that could finally realize the promise of online commerce.

Social networking for fish

Social networking for fish 11/17/2003 03:07 PM
Ken Rinaldo's amazing 'augmented reality robotic fish tanks' will have their first showing in Lille on the 6th Dec: "Augmented...

Is Social Networking a Snore?

Is Social Networking a Snore? 06/25/2004 05:22 PM

David Hornik (Venture Blog): All Social Networking Panels Are the Same. So in an effort to save you a bunch of time and aggravation, here's a transcription of this evening's event. I believe that it is essentially a transcription of all past and all future social software panels, so read it and free yourself of the need to ever attend such an event yourself.

Really, read it for yourself...

Transcendental Social Networking

Transcendental Social Networking 02/10/2004 09:21 PM
Stewart Butterfield and Co with some really groovy stuff. Motto: Don't build application, build contexts for interaction. The architecture of entertainment has been shaped by the idea of Immersion. Play is about people, not places [Thumbs Up] to this. Architecture...

Bringing social networking to everything

Bringing social networking to everything 04/25/2004 02:40 AM

I'm sorry I disagree.....[read response after article].......

The next big thing in online social networking.

According to Reuters Social networking sites, which look to introduce friends of friends or people with common interests, have grabbed the attention of Internet users and venture capitalists but many are still looking for ways to make money.

Online dating siteTickle ( >2million profiles) launched a People Search service on its network that includes AskJeeves' . The partnership fuses the uncertain social networking phenomenon with a search model that has proven invaluable to both consumers and marketers on the public Internet.

Kolabora news expert Scott Allen blogs in his Social Networking News: According to Tickle CEO James Currier, “Search is a natural way for online social networking to move forward”. (..) "Tickle people search brings online search full circle, back to letting us find the right people to talk to.”

Reuters press release (April 22)

read more in the full articles quoted from three blogs

- Ask Jeeves Brings Search to Tickle (ClickZNews)< BR>- Jeeves, what’s the next big thing in online social networking? (Online Business Networks)
- Education — the real "next big thing" in online social networking (Online Business Networks)

[Smart Mobs]

I'm certainly in favor of putting social networking into context - but search is not a context.  It's sort of like getting it backwards.

It's not about bringing search to social networking.  It's about bringing social networking to everything.

be kottke's social networking proxy

be kottke's social networking proxy 01/27/2004 01:21 AM
will accept testimonials for food

When it gets to dogs, this social
networking thing has gone to far

When it gets to dogs, this social
networking thing has gone to far 09/03/2004 04:57 AM
Today I received an long 'zine email from David Weinberger, who reminded me that he had set up a neighborhood on the fashionable new geographically-based academia-powered social networking site, i-Neighbors, so I went and checked out North Berkeley, the neighborhood that I, slave to blog-fashion and still hoping that somewhere, somehow, someday, I will find out what these social networking sites are good for, had created after reading David's initial post. To my great surprise I was no longer the only member of the i-hood, quite a few other people had moved in. As I was checking out their pages, I saw that one of them had a link with his pet's name. I clicked and was taken to ... Dogster. Apparently this is old news to many, but it was the first I had heard of it, and its companion site, Catster. On one hand this makes sense. There may even be a business model buried in there somewhere -- a lot of pet owners are fanatical about their pets, as anyone who has recently followed San Francisco politics and the battles between the dog owners vs. the Natural Areas Program can attest. And they spend a lot of money -- Americans spent 32.4 billion dollars on their pets last year, and upscale pet businesses are doing well. Or there may not be a business here -- remember the sock puppet? Whatever the business rationale, this is nuts. Social networking for pets? Give me a break. It is a symptom, not a cause, but what does it say about what our priorities are in this country? Nothing that sits well in my stomach....

Social networking is NOT a market - dude

Social networking is NOT a market - dude 05/04/2004 07:45 PM

No Business in Social Networking. David Coursey can't find the value in paying to find out who his friends know. So where's the business model for LinkedIn, Ryze and other business "social networking" sites ? [eWEEK.com Messaging and Collaboration]

Somebody please tell David Coursey to stop thinking that social networks are the answer.  They're only the path to enlightenment.  Yes people are important - but people as a business model is nto going to happen - and is a no-no anyway.

It's what you do WITH the people that matters. Why is that so hard for folks like DavidCoursey to grok?

Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares?

Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares? 05/22/2004 05:16 PM
I'm speaking at the Churchill Club on blogging and social networking, June 3rd in Palo Alto. Should be lively event, moderated by Dan Gillmor and Tony Perkins. Other panelists include Jason Calacanis, Charlene Li, Mark Pincus and Ben Smith. These...

New Social Networking Service from
ObjectsSearch.com

New Social Networking Service from
ObjectsSearch.com 03/22/2005 04:55 PM
ObjectsSpace is a new free service designed to let users stay in touch with friends and colleagues. [PRWEB Mar 22, 2005]

Lycos Taps Into Social Networking (AP)

Lycos Taps Into Social Networking (AP) 02/11/2004 04:32 PM
AP - Terra Lycos, trying to carve a niche in a Web portal realm dominated by its rivals, hopes an overhaul will make it a major player in the trendy Internet field of "social networking."

Next generation Social Networking
systems

Next generation Social Networking
systems 02/14/2004 02:34 PM

Orkut put up a special Valentines Day feature yesterday - which I used to it's fullest capacity!

It a really simple messaging system - which enables folks to attach an image, a pre-canned statement and colorize the background of this 'virtual Valentine.  The nicest thing is that it appears on the top of your personal page - and is formatted perfectly!  And normal messaging is turned off.

What this shows is that Orkut is actually breaking out of the mold of YASNS.  Sure the spam feature is inane and may well 'cause it's demise, but at least he's willing to try something new!@ $%#^$%^%#$&%^#$#

As danah says - everything needs to be put into context and it's clear Orkut really DOES think of his system as a dating machine.  Right on!  Focus and context is key!@^%$&%^$

So what else makes up a NEXT generation social network?

Well make sure to check out Ludicorp's new Flickr system.  I've been trolling around it this morning and I've YET to find anything wrong!  Now I just need to get soem friends to exchange photos with and IM with. 

Flickr is the first social net to intergrate IM and to use the social net for something BESIDES just mating or buying classified ads.  Watch for a new generation of systems that treat social networking just as another crucial feature - just as Multimedia and the Internet are thought of today.  I mean - who WOULDN'T build a system today without media or on-line built into it?

That's where we're going with social nets!

Lycos Taps Into Social Networking

Lycos Taps Into Social Networking 02/11/2004 08:34 PM
Another recently debuted site is Orkut.com, designed by a Google engineer, though the site's connection to the search company is unclear. ...

Online Social Networking MiniGuide

Online Social Networking MiniGuide 08/27/2004 01:30 PM
I have just completed my latest Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation titled "Online Social Networking" and this 13 page research paper lists many resources both new and existing that will help anyone who is attempting to do information and knowledge research about online social networks currently available the Internet. It is freely available as a .pdf file (674KB) at the below link from the Virtual Private Library™:

Online Social Networking an Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.

http://VirtualPrivateLibrary.BlogSpot.com/Online Social Networks.pdf

Mix and Match social networking features

Mix and Match social networking features 01/12/2004 03:01 AM
Ch ristopher Allen on Social Network Services....

Christopher Allen on Social Network Services…

Posted Jan 11, 2004, 11:11 PM ET by Judith Meskill

Christopher Allen, founder of Alacrity Ventures, an angel capital investment firm, writes a two part series in his weblog — Evaluating Social Network Services and Followup to “Evaluating Social Network Services”……… — on the accounts he has created with Ryze, Tribe.Net, LinkedIn, and Friendster. Chris reflects, on what works and what doesn’t work for him with each of these services. He concludes his first post with a description of what he feels would be “The Perfect Social Networking Service”:

My ideal service would have the the multiple professional affiliation features of LinkedIn, but also allow me to show non-professional affilations. It would allow me to form intentional communities like Tribes.Net, but would also let me do a Wiki in addition to a message board. It would have meeting/party invite services like eVite, and blogging features like LiveJournal. It would have an endorsement system like LinkedIn integrated not only with professional endorsements, but personal endorsements as well, and you could even endorse intentional communities. It would let me better map and control my network, giving different friends different privileges. It would handle the release of my personal information like Ryse, but less clunky.

What would your “Perfect Social Networking Service” look like?

 [The Social Software Weblog]

Social Networking Stretches its Reach

Social Networking Stretches its Reach 04/09/2004 03:58 PM
Two smaller companies move to integrate the concept of mapping social connections with mobile-phone text messaging and with Web conferencing.

Yahoo 360! Gets into Blogging and Social
Networking

Yahoo 360! Gets into Blogging and Social
Networking 03/17/2005 02:33 AM
"Yahoo Inc. is preparing to introduce a new service that blends several of its Web site's popular features with two of the Internet's fastest growing activities — blogging and social networking."

eTwine Offers Social Networking And More

eTwine Offers Social Networking And More 09/16/2004 03:25 PM

Direct and Related Links for 'eTwine Offers Social Networking And More'

Internet Week reports that “eTwine has officially launched its social networking Web site”. I must say that on the surface, it sounds a lot like Friendster or one of the other social hubs that people are flocking to these days. At any rate, it will be interesting to see how the whole thing turns out….

Social networking sites are not very
secure

Social networking sites are not very
secure 01/04/2004 06:13 AM
lack of security social network sites have .. virtual identity theft .. SecurityFocus .. Cet article

securityfocus.com/news/7739
track this site | 5 links

orkut, google's social networking app

orkut, google's social networking app 01/22/2004 08:41 PM
my mom still does not have her own social networking service yet

Orkut - Google Social Networking

Orkut - Google Social Networking 01/23/2004 02:22 PM
Google (kinda) Offers Social Networking called Orkut
Acording to this CNET artice, Orkut is the outgrowth of a personal project by Google Engineers Orkut Buyukkokten. He created "Orkut.com in the past several months by working on it about one day a week--an amount that Google asks all of its engineers to devote to personal projects". And oh, by the way:

"Membership to orkut is by invitation only.
If you have a friend who's a member of orkut, have them invite you to join."

The story of Social Networking - part II

The story of Social Networking - part II 01/07/2004 05:17 PM

LA Times on history of social software sites.. LA Times has a rehash on the history of Ryze, Friendster, Tribe.net and LinkedIn. Friendster founder Abrams signed up with a fledgling Ryze in August 2001 and helped with its first real-world mixer in Palo Alto. Soon he was talking to Scott and others about a site simply for dating that would echo the real-world way people meet -- through their friends. A serial entrepreneur, Abrams did a substantial amount of work on Friendster alone in his apartment. Then he raised money from several individuals. Among the first investors were Tribe founder Mark Pincus and his friend Reid Hoffman, who later launched LinkedIn. Both put down an initial $7,500 and now own 5% of the company between them. Friendster gets some revenue from advertisers and aims to turn a profit next year, though it won't say how. "Neither of us thought it was going to be a good investment," Pincus said. But that view changed this spring, when Friendster got him "a really good date," he said. "That made me a believer." [The Social Software Weblog]

 

1UP: putting social networking into
context

1UP: putting social networking into
context 07/03/2004 01:29 PM

I've waited a few days for it to settle - but it looks like the world's first digital lifestyle aggregator is live! It's called 1UP.com - and put out by Ziff-Davis Media.

Yes - THAT Ziff-Davis. After selling off their on-line properties to CNet (including Dan Farber and the ZDNet crowd) - Ziff-Davis is back in the on-line business in a big way.

They appraoched me in December (thanks to Geoff Workman) to help them build a killer, no holds barred, get a lot of attention and go out on a limb - cutting edge system - which would combine social networking, personal publishing and what ended up to be 26 portal front-doors.

The site is about gamers and gaming.

It puts social networking into a context of gamers by matching them up to each other - based upon what games they own, what games they want to play and even matches wish-trade lists.

There are some NEW things for social networkers - like a PeoplePlace - that feature both People and Club 'pings' and a nice Facewall search results screen. Gamers can search for folks via name, location, games, interests, age or game genre - or any combination.

There's all sorts of folks coming to the site - from wunderkid editors and gamerdudes to grannie gamers and metro sexual gamers.]

There's an 11,000 game database built in, and your typical game portal features - like cheats, downloads, reviews, top 10 lists, news - blah blah blah - the list of features goes on and on.

I'm having fun with customers - creating custom clubs, special promos and eventually new kinds of tournaments. We created allot in four-five months, so we're not done yet, but you can expect this system to support RSS, FOAF, OpenReviews and every other new format coming out representing new kinds of micro-content and communications.

This will be THE site that all the other gaming sites will copy in the next 12 months. In the mean time - there's plenty of other ways of positioning DLAs - into web services, content, on-line communities and all sorts of brands.

Hardware and software companies will ALL offer DLAs within five years - so the only question is: "who comes first?" In each sector DLAs will change the playing field - making it possible for after-market revenues, viral marketing and sticky happy customers.

So now all my ranting and raving may make sense.

Gamers review games, like to buy things and certainly want to interact with each others. Watch for a traveling roadshow to connect cyberspace to meatspace "meet your cyber buddy at the Cow Palace!"

Gamers are blogers now, have lots of friends and are joing Clubs in droves. Oh yah - for every action a gamer does, he/she gets points - which are then used for contests and to redeem objects.

So the next time someone asks "what's a DLA" - you just tell them - 1UP.com.

So what's YOUR context? Been wondering how ot make sense of social networking and personal publishing? Let Broadband Mechanics get you there.

We plan on building lots of these DLAs over the next five years - before we get bought out. Apple and Microsoft are doing it - so should YOU! So we're open for business - interested parties inquire here.

BTW - in case you're wondering - I'm "TheMacroMind".

Eurekster Social Networking Engine

Eurekster Social Networking Engine 01/22/2004 02:11 AM
"...trying to combine the social networking craze with search engines. Invite your friends, form a group, and get searches personalized based on the group search habits."

Are Enterprises Ready for Social
Networking?

Are Enterprises Ready for Social
Networking? 01/07/2004 01:53 PM
While vendors prep new offerings, enterprises are looking for examples of ROI and assurances that the technology won't violate privacy or damage hard-earned relationships.

Social Networking Vendors Aim for the
Enterprise

Social Networking Vendors Aim for the
Enterprise 01/07/2004 01:53 PM
Having started beta tests and raised funding, a string of vendors are ready to launch new offerings in the new year that promise to expand users' business connections.
Grok Description matches for Fees come to social networking
GrokA matches for Fees come to social networking

Fees come to social networking

The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: