Location Based Social Networking With Vodafone And Pocket Life.

Location aware social network, Pocketlife has gone public and I am already loving it! If you are a cheating type, I think you should stay away from this network because the other half, you are playing on will know where you are!
Not entirely true, it is only if you let it slip as privacy features allows to you be visible or not based on your preference. But if you are willing to let your friends and close ones know where you are, it is a pleasent service. What is more is that one could integrate with their Myspace, facebook profiles. Pocket Life is compatible with over 30 phones, you can find a list of compatible phones here but my iPhone has to wait a bit till it is labeled "coming soon". But my partners blackberry bold is doing fine.
Pocketlife has the giant Vodaphone behind it's back. The fact that the vodaphone is the largest telecom company with it's hands in many mobile companies all over the world, might help pocketlife to beat it's mobile social networking competitors.

Tags: Location aware social network, pocketlife, Vodaphone, iPhone

RIAA Gets Facebook To Shutsdown Playlist!

Part of what used to be Michael Arrington's Playlist page.

In the face of litigation threat, facebook has cleared away all the traces of playlist from users pages and banned the playlist application from the face of the facebook. According to Techcrunch, they released the following information;
"The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) initially contacted Facebook last summer requesting the removal of the Project Playlist application for copyright violation, and recently reopened those communications. We have forwarded the RIAA’s letters to Project Playlist so it can work directly with that organization and music labels on a resolution. In the meantime, the application must be removed to comply with the Facebook Platform Terms of Service. Our hope and expectation is that the parties can resolve their disagreements in a manner that satisfies the developer and copyright holder, that continues to offer a great experience to music fans, and that doesn’t discourage other developers from using Platform to share their creativity and test new ideas."
Winnie with a 15 Billion valuation is not a hotdog I guess, you solve your problems and I will watch!!. Read more at TC.

Tags: RIAA, facebook, laylist

How To Make A WEB 2.0 Hit Without Millions Of Users.

I have been involved and written about Social|Median a few times, from the earliest S|M to the latest acquisition by XING. A more well laid out and conscious article by Lois Gray has done a time line of his articles and the progress of the S|M as well.
It is possible to do a WEB 2.0 revolution. A well laid out plan of where you want to go and stamina and determination to get there. Oh about those millions of users, start with a few hundred and go to the rest with the help of them.

Tags: Socialmedian, web 2.0, XING, Lois Gray

AtomKeep To Ease Your Social Network Pain

I came across Atomkeep which is in beta and they are promising to keep all your accounts strewn all over the internet in one place and synced.
I did register myself and there are multitude of netwokd supported and many more are on the way. I have not tested much yet but the attempt at solving the information and network overload seem to be happening. I think it is time that we could manage all our accounts from a single point. So if you are interested, find out for yourself here.

Tags: Social networking, account aggregation, atomkeep

Social|Median Acquired By Xing

One of my favorite social news networks, Social Median has been acquired by Xing! According to a post by Jason Goldberg, The entire socialmedian team will be joining XING as part of the acquisition and Jason himself be relocating to Hamburg, to lead a major new initiative at XING, the XING Application Platform.
Since I joined the Social|Median, pre beta stage, I had a very high regard for Jason, the team and mostly, the idea. I saw it grow from few net works to more than I could count. Eventhogh the number of networks were large, I could chose what I wanted and I also added what I liked or loved. Some people thought that I was worthy to be concidered a newsmaker and I found a plethora of nice and decent people I could concider as news makers.
I have been a regular daily user of the site, Social|Median and a proud owner of initial S|M tee shirts that Jason and team gave away to good people like me!
I wish all the best to the Social Median team and specially to Jason, from whom I learned how to be nice to people and be available, even when people are not looking for you.
Best of everything Social|Median!

Tags: Social news, Socialmedian, Jason Goldberg, S|M, Social|Median

New Open, Social Features in Yahoo! Mail, My Yahoo! and Yahoo!

Following up on a promise made earlier this year, Yahoo's commitment to re-wire Yahoo!, Yahoo is adding social functionality across the Yahoo! network. They also inviting and opening up to integrate content and services from third-party developers and publishers.

Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) into Yahoo!'s market-leading products will help users keep up with the information and people they care about most, creating a more socially relevant Web experience. Today, Yahoo! is announced some consumer product updates that demonstrate the progress, including:

• Yahoo! Mail - Announced separately today,Yahoo! Mail's smarter inbox focuses on streamlining access to a user's most relevant and useful information. The new Welcome Page surfaces email messages, information and activity from people users care about most, and the integration of relevant third party applications will allow users to be more productive, all from within their inbox. The Yahoo! Mail smarter inbox is the company's largest-scale implementation of the Y!OS initiative to-date.
• My Yahoo! - Beginning today, My Yahoo! users can enhance their personal start pages by adding applications created by third-party developers. Built using the Yahoo! Application Platform, these interactive "apps" will range from productivity tools to games, and will infuse My Yahoo! with new social relevance. Also being launched today, a new My Yahoo! Theme API lets third-party designers create and share their own look and feel for My Yahoo! pages, giving users access to an even wider range of creative backgrounds and styles.
• Yahoo! Toolbar - Available for a sneak preview later this week at toolbar.yahoo.com, the new Yahoo! Toolbar will provide constant access to essential online tasks and up-to-the-minute news from the sources that matter most. Features of the new Toolbar that will rollout to users next year include:
  • Apps for checking new emails from Yahoo! and other popular Web-based email providers, monitoring or searching for items on eBay, and finding local movie showtimes.
  • Alerts that notify a user about Updates from their personal connections - including their friends' recent activity across the Yahoo! network and eventually, elsewhere on the Web.
  • Personal search suggestions that surface the sites a user has visited and provide vertical search results directly from the Toolbar.
• Yahoo! Updates - In addition to surfacing friend updates in the new Yahoo! Toolbar and Mail, Yahoo! will begin sharing relevant updates within Yahoo! Music and Yahoo! TV. Yahoo! Updates enable Yahoo! users to have visibility into the online activities of their connections across the Yahoo! network, such as a recently Buzzed article, a hotel review in Yahoo! Travel, adding a new app to My Yahoo!, or a rating on Yahoo! TV. Earlier this fall, Yahoo! began displaying activity updates in Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Buzz, and will include activity updates from other social sites across the Web in the coming months. The Yahoo! Updates platform is also available as an open API, allowing any site on the Web to submit activities into it.

"Yahoo! reaches one of the largest and most-engaged consumer audiences on the Web. As we enable more choice for our users and infuse social functionality across the Yahoo! network, we are delivering on our promise to create the best place for people to start online - and return to again and again - to get everything that is most relevant to them," said Ash Patel, executive vice president, Yahoo! Audience Product Division. "By opening up to third-party innovation on Yahoo!, we are also providing new opportunities for publishers, developers and ultimately advertisers to reach and connect with more than half of the world's online population."

Y!OS: Year in Review

• Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP) - Being used by developers to create innovative applications and consumer experiences, YAP is a framework for building web apps that can be distributed across Yahoo! and beyond. In just six weeks, already more than 4,000 developers have begun building apps on this new platform.
• Yahoo! Social Platform (YSP) - YSP is a set of Web services that leverage the personal connections users have across Yahoo!'s services. This platform helps Yahoo! and third-party developers infuse relevant social experiences into a variety of products and apps on and off Yahoo!.
• Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) - Yahoo! Search's open Web services platform, BOSS, enables companies and developers to leverage the Yahoo! Search infrastructure to fuel custom, innovative search experiences. Already, the BOSS API serves over 10 million queries per day.
• Yahoo! Homepage - The new Yahoo.com, currently in limited user testing, will provide access to the best of the Web from a single online starting point, including apps for people to use to check on Yahoo! and third-party email inboxes, eBay auctions and searches, and much more.
• SearchMonkey- The SearchMonkey developer tool enables developers to create applications that show enhanced Yahoo! Search results for their listings. In turn, this provides searchers with a more useful experience by including links, images and other sought-after information directly on the search results page.
• Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) - YQL, a technology innovation underpinning Y!OS, is a new web service API that lets developers access other web services using an SQL-like language rather than typical programmatic access. YQL's goal is to make data from Yahoo!, as well as from across the Internet, universally accessible through a single common interface.
• Universal Profile- Yahoo!'s recently updated universal profile allows people to centrally manage their identity across Yahoo! and make it easier to connect and share with the people who matter most to them.

OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial meets My Yahoo! with the Yahoo! Application Platform

Tags: Yahoo, y!OS, Open Social

A New Tab On My Social!Median Home, TODAY

New Tab On S|M

I visited Social|median today to notice a new tab called "TODAY"(Tabs were too stealthily modified by Jason and Co, which I did not even notice and I liked Jason's comment even more, "Best modifications are which are not noticed by the users!") .
It was an instant hit with me. I have been one of the first users of Social Median and I have seen how it is growing, growing for better everyday.
I am a more of a reclusive type but now I am forced to vote for my favorite newsmakers, clip articles that I find interesting and more and look for best commenters. Best of all, I am interacting with people. I think one of these days I have to thank S|M for making me an open person!
I am looking forward to it! Thanks Jason!

Tags: social median, Social networking, Social news, SM Today

Twitblogs, WordPress For Twitters!

I am hooked on twitblogs, an Alpha stage service for Twitter. I was reluctant to use twitter because of the limitations and the trouble I had to go through to implement links etc.
Now I can even have images attached to my Twitter posts in the twitblogs and a whole lot more.
I think you should explore and post at Twitblogs.

Tags: Twiblogs, Twitter, WeSeePeople

OpenSocial Hackathons All Over The Asia Pacific.

I read on the APAC Developer blog that OpenSocial Hacking Storm is taking place all over the Asia Pacific region. There will be three 3 OpenSocial hackathons taking place, simultaneously in Vietnam, Singapore, and Australia. And the orgnizers think that there could be as many as 100 developers. The Vietnam and Singapore groups will focus on creating applications to be submitted to the OpenSocial contest for Southeast Asia. The Austrailian group will be creating iGoogle applications.
According the same blog, Singapore slots are all full but there might be a chance in getting a place in Hanoi (Vietnam) or Sidney (Austrailia) groups af you act hastly.
eXo Platform, WebPal Networks, and e27 have been great supporters of the event.

Then Next week the OpenSocial Hackathons will go to China and the venues will be Beijing (12/16) and Shanghai (12/18). The people in China could register here.

There will also be an OpenSocial hackathon for developers in Japan on 12/18. If you'd like to register, you can do so here. This event will feature OpenSocial partners MySpace Japan and Recruit.

APAC Developer Blog: OpenSocial hackathons happening throughout APAC

Tags: OpenSocial, OpenSocial APAC, OpenSocial Hackathons

Le WEB 2008 Kicks Off In Paris, And You Can Watch it Online.

Le Web 2008 has kicked off in Paris, France for the fifth time since it's inauguration. The conference is said to be off to a grand and you are able to watch it free, online, if you are so inclined. The show is streamed courtesy of Swisscom and Ustream. Ustream has provided a show room and chatting facility as well. In addition to chatting (which is very interesting at the moment) there is the actual show schedule on line in the room as well.
Le WEB is said to have 1600 attendees from 26n countries (why only 26?) and said to be the largest tech conference, in either side of the broken Berlin wall! But I think none should miss the startup competition.

Tags: le web, tech show, web conference, leweb08, le web paris

OpenSocial Is One Year And A Few Days Now!

Oops, I missed the party and I missed posting about it. Just as an example of how time flies, OpenSocial is one year old and they seem to have had a good time celebrating and brain storming the next year.
There is a very nice blog post with photos and such at OpenSocial API blog, Follow the link.
OpenSocial API Blog: OpenSocial's birthday wrap-up: it's good to be one

Tags: OpenSocial, Social networking, OpenSocial API blog

Losing Your Degree To Social networking.

When I saw that title "Social Network Profile Costs Woman College Degree", I went what? but as I read the article, it was evident that something else was afoot.
I guess she had made mistakes in her professional and academical carrier, before letting a photo and a comment about her supervisor, provide the last stroke, that chopped her off from getting the degree she desired.
If you want to keep social profiles, it is fine, we all do. Just be a bit wary of people who sees what you do and use it for their advantage. Keep you friends circles closer and netizens at arms length. If you really want to show you finishing six packs in one go, think, before drinking as well as posting that drooling picture. If you must post it, perhaps you can post it in another profile with a nick name like "Drunken Pirate". So your college teachers (don't they have better things to do?) will not be able to find their students in lingerie commenting on that mole on teachers face.
Read more at read write web.

Tags: Drunken Pirate, read write web, social etiquette, social network, myspace

"dash of social" With Google Friend Connect

Google Friend Connect is open to all webmasters in it's beta form, according to the official Google blog.
"We're pleased to share that Google Friend Connect is now available in beta to any webmaster looking to add a "dash of social" to his or her site. This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code — no advanced coding or technical background required."
So tell about yourself and find out about others and we will learn to see people for what they are and we all can say we see people.
If you did not know already, you do not have to come up with a new username and password to use Google Friend Connect, you can use your existing Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID account. You also can use your existing profiles form social networks like orkut or Plaxo who have joined Google Friend Connect.

Official Google Blog: Google Friend Connect: now available

Tags: google, friend connect, Google Friend Connect, orkut, Plaxo, Google, Yahoo, AOL, OpenID, "dash of social"

Wordpress 2.7 Is Ready For You, Tomorrow!

Even thought this is a Blogger based blog, I do have wordpress based blogs and I love the capabilities of the wordpress. I have blogs that are hosted myself as well as one blog on the wordpress.com.
The version 2.7 promises to make everything even better and I am really looking forward to it. Most of the improvements are in the admin are and blog readers will not be subjected to witness these changes.The changes in the admin area are remarkable.
You can read more about the release here at wordpress.com blog.
"WordPress 2.7 is coming to WordPress.com, and will go live on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 8pm Eastern Time. That’s 5pm Thursday in California, 1am Friday in London (UTC), 8am Friday in Jakarta, noon on Friday in Sydney…find your time here."

Tags: WordPress, bloggers, WordPress 2.7

Britney Beats Obama (People That Search Engines Saw)

It is the year end and search engine aggregates are rolling in. But it is surprising what people search. On this ask page, I could only find three items that "I might have searched".
On the Yahoo page I found more people that "I have searched" for. But as John Battelle says, the whole show if boring. Perhaps that is why I am still here! Looking for People that matter.

Tags: weseepeople, searching for people, Yahoo, ASK

Socially Inclined VoIP App, VoxOx

VoxOx 1.0.1 Beta Reviewed | VOIP IP Telephony

http://snapvoip.blogspot.com/