Ant's Eye View - Latest Comments in Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Ale — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 17:15:12 -0000

Sorry, 2 things (no, three :-):
- I mispelled the game name: name is Second Life
- I would like to point you to this interesting article about Investors on Second Life (http://www.investors.com/ed...
And third, as it seems not to have any correlations with web-based communities, they actually have! :-)

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Ale — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:12:21 -0000

This is a great research, Sean.
I went into some of them and they seem quite interesting.

I just wanted to add a game, which is ReaLife (http://secondlife.com). I'm sure you and your readers know about it already: now it seems many Companies (but not only them, also Politicians, Organizations, etc) are using this game to "promote" themselves and add their persons/representatives into this kind of new online community world. It's more than "The Sims", more than a community, because it lets the user to interact in every possible way with other users everywhere in the world.. Also, Companies and Organizations could actually promote themselves using online tools, like in the real world.

I think I'm gonna have a deeper look into that .. :-)

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Sean ODriscoll — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:05:20 -0000

Great point...my criteria are simple. Let me re-caveat that I was not performing a review...just personal observations. But, as I look at each of these, my assessment is just a personal observation of my view of their utility to me. Yes, this is oh so selfish:) But, that is the nature of it. I like the Music story...I will dig into that a little and open my mind.

I am continuing to waste my energy on twitter...but...why not:)

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

SteveA — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:47:42 -0000

Oh, man, I have to read more than my bosses blog to get ahead???
Man, the Web is really screwing with the rungs on the ladder of success. :-P

I know you left yourself an out by claiming that this not a review of services and that you are just dabbling in many of these tools/serivces. But inquiring minds still want to know what criteria you're using even in making snap judgments. Is it value of the community to you personally, technological innovation, business impact, etc?

It's the myspace comments that make me ask (and let's table the arguments on just what myspace is for now.) We're both guys of a certain age, with a family, in a specific industry and maybe even similar interests (you like to cook BBQ and I like to eat the BBQ you cook.) So, in those respects, I tend to agree with your comments.

But, I'm also a huge music fan, worked in the business when we still sold large black circles, and still have pals in retail (yes, Virginia there are still record stores and some of them even make money) and bands. I would argue that myspace is the best thing to happen for music in the digital era, and perhaps the most successful distribution mechanism for bands, regardles of label affiliation.

There's lots of buzz around the fact that myspace has it's first real star in Lily Allen, but I'm far more interested in the impact it's had on musicians making niche music (power pop is my drug of choice) that have rabid, if small fanbases, as well as those who may have been players in the new wave/indie boom of the late 70s/early 80s who are still making great music but have hertofore lacked good ways of connecting directly with listeners,

Point being, it's the prism we view any of these things through that impacts our analysis. What prism are you using?

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Evelyn Ruf — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:01:04 -0000

Thanks for your posting on this topic - it encouraged me to re-visit some of the sites I was familiar with and investigate some which were new to me or only known by name. One of those latter ones is linkedin, which I have ignored in favor of the www.xing.com (formally known as OpenBC) business networking site which is very popular in Germany. Since you asked for opinions, here are some of my impressions...

Ning: I joined your Ning community with some reservations (will it add value to what's already in this blog?) Current opinion: wait and see.

Twitter: I would love it if my son (currently in the UK) would log his goings-on, but he couldn't be bothered. And I couldn't be bothered to learn what other people not personally important to me have had for lunch. For me, useful for loved ones only.

Wallop: Looks promising, requested invitation to join. I like the invitation only aspect - if I understand the concept correctly, it means that you aren't on exhibit subject to predators.

del.icio.us: I signed up and tagged a few sites I use a lot. Not sure if I need this. I almost always have my laptop (and my favorites) with me. Web searches find me what I need. Am I interested in other people's bookmarks? Certainly there are some out there I would find useful or interesting, but do I want to spend my time wading through lots of useless stuff to find a few gems? This is something for people with a lot of time on their hands.

technorati: I like this site for looking for blogs or blog postings on a particular subject, but I can see that bloggers would value it to see how their blog is rated. Also interesting to see what subjects people are mostly blogging about - in this respect the site is a mirror of societal fads and interests. The only downside is having to think up yet another user name and password!

Mybloglog: This site was new to me - it is fast and looks nice, so it can feed the egos of members who post their information there. I personally don't need what this site has to offer. If I click on one of someone's communities, it gives me a list of all the members of the community (I don't need that). From there I have to click on the community's URL to see what the community is about. I'd like to go there directly.

corank/Digg: I like the concept of being able to submit the URLS of external story items (e.g. blog postings, news items, etc.) to be evaluated by other users. I was familiar with Digg, but corank was new to me. Judging by the discussion in the corank forums, user ratings are not necessarily a reliable indicator of quality, however, since "thumbs-down" can mean anything from "The article is bad" to "I'm not interested in the subject matter". Also there are discussions around "spammers" who thumbs-down or thumbs-up everything indiscriminately. Nevertheless definitely worth browsing - the search functionality is good. I find it fascinating that in some respects the community determines what you look at - only the popular articles bubble up to the front page. The fact that they are popular invites you to read articles you wouldn't otherwise be interested in - perhaps at the expense of other content that you don't have time for afterwards. Manipulation by the masses? (I'm sure there's a nicer sounding sociological term for this...)

QnA: I really like this concept. QnA is also a fun place to answer questions, because you don't have to be an expert on anything special - everyone should be able to find some question they can answer. It's a question of setting up yet another account and whiling away the time browsing through the questions. This can mean wading through loads of goofy questions, though, submitted by not-so-serious members. Because of the QnA format, riddle masters are also plying their trade on the site.

That's all I had time for today...

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Sean — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:05:05 -0000

I saw this...amazing. I am playing quite a bit with Twitter and very curious to see where it goes. The performance is pretty poor still (likely from the rapid growth), but I'll hang on for awhile.

sean

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Deirdre Walsh — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:27:32 -0000

I went to the SXSW Interactive conference last week, which has more than 20 panels on community. The rage of the event was Twitter. Check out this article that states Twitter traffic increased 20 fold on March 10 (the opening day): http://www.waxy.org/archive....

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Sean — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:03:28 -0000

Oh NO!! Twittervision!!! I wish you hadn't shown me that! kinda cool.

sean

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Suzanna — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:12:46 -0000

Wow Lee, that map is amazing! I am checking out what John Edwards is doing...He's in New Hampshire, figures!

Thanks for sharing :)

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Lee — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:26:10 -0000

Great post Shawn.

Twitter is going to be interesting to watch. They have said that they are about to add group functions. I can see it being really useful to have a Bumbershoot group (for instance) where you and your friends Twitter what is happening through the weekend. It's tough right now because it's so broad. I do enjoy it though.

Have you seen this:
http://twittermap.com/twitt...

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Sean — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 01:41:04 -0000

thanks to each of you for the additions. I'll check out the article and spangy. I like the idea of twitter for some reason, but I am struck by how poor the performance is...it is sooooo painfully slow most of the time - especially for how thin an experience it really is.

sean

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Amy Balliett — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:25:23 -0000

Nice article post! Social Networking sites are inundated with unnecessary ads... The smaller more niche ones are truly the way to go. I think that "in your face" ads go against the point of a social networking site. In my opinion, when people have a personal profile page, that page shouldn't spew out advertising to all viewers as well. I don't use Myspace partially because I don't want to advertise a product I may not be too fond of while I'm trying to network with friends and relatives. Have you checked out spangy.com? It's pretty new, but from what I gather, it's intent is to cultivate intelligent conversation while keeping away the gaudy banner advertising.

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Damon Billian — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:25:54 -0000

I am personally a fan of del.icio.us, Flickr and LinkedIn. Most of the other products, while interesting, aren't things I would use on a regular basis.

I found Twitter to be highly disruptive from a professional standpoint. If they make a few changes to the product, it *might* become a more valuable tool down the road. I just read a post about a guy that turned it off after receiving a 60.00 SMS bill & it points to the need for stronger settings & filtering by the service.

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Suzanna — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:59:18 -0000

In the past I thought what was so cool about Google was how uncluttered by advertising it was, it had that cool fringe feel to it...I was worried what would happen when they got big and got advertisers, how do you maintain that indescribable feel.? This Business Week discusses advertisers increasing interest in "Social Networking"

http://www.businessweek.com...

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Amy Balliett — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:27:28 -0000

Identifying as an artist is truly subjective. One would say that blogging is an art in and of itself, so your blog could be considered your art.... though I'm certain your children view you as the next Picasso : )

At ourtbeat, we cater to all walks of art be you an artist, a critic, or a little of both... there's an artist in all of us.

Thank you in advance for checking out ourtbeat!

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Sean ODriscoll — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:42:08 -0000

I'll check it out. Beyond my 4 and 7 year olds, few would consider me an artist, but sounds like and interesting effort.

Sean

Re: Are you CURIOUS enough to be a Web 2.0 Leader??

Amy Balliett — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:07:19 -0000

Check out ourtbeat.com... we're a Seattle based start up. Ourtbeat is a professional networking community created by artists for artists. We are launching this summer, but if you want to check it out from the ground up, we're launching beta shortly. Currently, we have a simple splash page acting as a place holder as the site undergoes initial construction, but the page offers some important information along with the ability to sign up for beta and send information about ourtbeat to your friends and colleagues. As a beta tester, you will have the opportunity to fully critique the site and let us know your likes and dislikes, your needs and don't needs, and your expectations of all that is ourtbeat. From your critiques written about other sites, I have no doubt that you could easily help us raise the bar on UI. Check it out and let me know what you think!