Social Media Gems

ifttt - Stands for If This Then That. You know how most online services have alert functions now? For instance, if you receive a message on Facebook you can have it email you or send a text to your phone. Well ifttt is that kind of service but you can apply it to anything. You can have it call you every time one of your friends checks into the bar down the street on foursquare. It ties into an impressive number of services, including: Craigslist, facebook, Flickr, foursquare, most Google services, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube and more. It's already been immensely helpful in setting job search alerts on Craigslist. I highly recommend.

gdgt - A show-off-my-collection site for electronics. Create lists of things you own or want to own, from the past, present and future. Compare lists with others, comment and ask questions. It's also an interesting place to get new updates about the latest interesting technology coming out.

Weotta - A social planning site, useful in finding an itinerary for an unplanned weekend night. You enter what kind of crowd you're running with, what mood you're in, and Weotta will give you a list of things to do. For example, one plan is to grab dinner at a new cajun restaurant, go see the Deftones in concert, and then drinks at a hip, bayside bar. They only have San Francisco and New York so far but I'm really excited to see what they do with the service.

Google Buzz Issues

Why did Google release Buzz without a closed beta as they traditionally have with their products; such as Gmail, Voice, and Wave?

Fans

A new study says 99% of US Online Retailers are planning to have Facebook Fan Pages, and 91% are planning to have Twitter accounts. Theoretically this is to both build a fan base and keep in touch with their customers about upcoming products and sales.

I've always seen the attempt to build "fans" around a retail outlet rather disingenuous. Consumers generally shop at one retailer or another because of low prices and convenience. I imagine there is generally no one who are actual fans of retailers, outside of Sharper Image/Brookstone gadget enthusiasts. I'm sure this massive move to online representation will separate retailers along those two lines: those who see this as a real opportunity to give their customers the information they need, and those who use this to attempt building an imaginary retailer fan base.

Twitter Widgets

I'd like to update my Twitter feed, and find a nice clean way to post it on various sites. Right now my feed sits at the top of this blog, as a plain RSS feed. I've tried using the official Twitter widget but it becomes misshapen and weird when I try to place it in the sidebar on this page. There's also an interesting looking batch of widgets I found on a site called Wish-a-Friend, but it's much busier than my page:


Twitter Widgets - Twitter Backgrounds

What Twitter widgets do you use? Have you seen any nice, clean ones? How does my plain RSS Twitter feed look? Do I even need to change it?

Where Do We Go From Here?

I think Twitter has just about reached the market saturation where first adopters will start looking for something new. It's considered a legitimate news source and most social networking users are hip to it, if not our parents yet. With Twitter becoming mainstream what could be next?

Posterous,Tumblr, and similar services have been slowly gaining popularity for a while. Situated somewhere between Twitter and a blog, these are ideal places to upload brief clips of text, day-to-day snapped photos, and the occasional short video. While they're a brilliant amalgamation of current web communication they seem to be a bit too involved for the average webizen.

Robo.to is a service between Posterous and Twitter. It's in my opinion a simple step above Twitter, adding Facebook and blog integration and a short, 30-sec looping video of yourself. While enjoyable I think the reason it hasn't taken off has been the webcam feature. Yes it's incredibly fun and an innovative integration but as curious tech users have found since the debut of webcams we aren't always looking our best when surfing the web. As much as I love Robo.to I rarely update it because most days I'm sitting in front of the computer in frumpy pajamas and with wild, unruly bedhair.

What these services and most speculation don't take into account however is that the next "hot" webapp is bound to be something we can't quite imagine just yet. As much as Facebook is going after Twitter because they believe them to be competition, they really aren't. True, the service is taking FB's place in the internet spotlight, but it's proven itself more of a news service than a social networking platform. The next big thing may bear some passing resemblance to the two giants, or may take one of their features and expand upon it to the point of a worthwhile, brilliant service in its own right, but it will be an unlikely service we did not instantly recognize for its similar potential.

Taking that into account, what are the basic characteristics of both Facebook and Twitter that it may have? Both services let users share simple, small content broadly and include a networking component. While we may not recognize it's form, it's a good bet the next web service hit will fit these basic criteria.

Tweet Sale?

An excellent, though short, piece on Mashable today about the pros and cons of putting Twitter up for sale.

I am impressed at the lengths Facebook has gone to in their bid to clone/outmaneuver Twitter's features and appeal. FB has made it clear they see a rival in Twitter, and they're interested in being the top dog in Social Networking conversations once again.

I like the suggestion that Twitter sell to a company such as Google or Apple. If they did end up selling to Facebook there's a very good chance their unique service would be buried under the multitude of communication features on Facebook. I enjoy having different conversations on the two networks and worry that Twitter would disappear in such a move. If they were bought by a company that is known for making various, unique web platforms and fostering real development (as is Google) they would gain both the support to become a top social networking service and the security to keep them from being absorbed along the way. It would be nice to see them continue on their own, but the climate is beginning to feel like Facebook is in for the kill and Twitter needs some protection.

Audio Wars

MySpace announced it has acquired music sharing service iLike, which allows users to share songs and playlists over social networks and via a Last.fm-like iTunes plugin. This consolidates MySpace's emphasis on music and bands in their network but interestingly it's also a move to block Facebook invading this territory.

According to the article above, iLike has a music sharing application on Facebook that boasts 10 million users. This chunk of the userbase theoretically will lose access to the application and need a replacement. Seeing as how these users potentially have accounts they've made on iLike that can be ported over to whatever iLike-based application that MySpace creates there's a chance they may take an interest in the network again.

It's a very smart move by MySpace. The few people I know who still prefer the network over Facebook primarily cite its music support. Based on what we've seen so far FB may be content to let their rival keep that userbase but this is clearly a move they need to address as it affects their own service.

Digital Selves

There are a number of services online that make an "e-penis" list of the things I've listened to, read, played, or watched. I religiously update both my Shelfari and MyAnimeList accounts, and Last.fm takes care of itself as does Steam. I'm trying to find a comparable site to keep my movie reviews and ratings, and I was using Flixster on Facebook until I logged into the application with my actual Flixster account and it deleted the year and a half of ratings and reviews I had made while not technically "logged in." Great feature. IMDb is likely the place to go, and Mashable put out a list of 10 top social networking sites for movie lovers.

I'm both curious and squeamish about exploring what makes these kinds of sites so addictive. Squeamish because I'm afraid all I can point to is they help me feel like I've done something "productive" with activities that might not otherwise be considered "productive". Sure, I just logged two hours in Team Fortress 2 and grabbed a handful of achievements, or I finished three more episodes of Nodame Cantabile, but I could have been spending that time studying Japanese. I can't help but come to this conclusion because I also tend not to be very social on these sites. Sure I've got real life friends on Shelfari and Steam, and I keep an eye on their updates, but I'm mostly content to see myself chip away at the massive list of films I haven't seen or books I haven't read.

Is there inherent value in having these lists? Beyond justifying how I spend my time and sometimes not being able to remember all the media I've consumed.

I'd Like to Buy the World a Twitter

Rumors are flying that Facebook is developing a Twitter app, another one of those boxes on your wall, that would, well, let you use Twitter within Facebook. This would keep Facebook users on the site and let the less tech-savvy explore Twitter while not having to leave their familiar Facebook home. I have a feeling this large portion of the Facebook demographic would be interested in Twitter if they tried it but likely can't be bothered to go figure out how it works or jump into a new service where there's no one they know. It may not bring over the long-time power users of Twitter however, as it remains to be seen how feature rich the app is or even what it looks like. Without the features of desktop clients such as Seesmic Desktop to parse my Twitter information, I wouldn't be terribly interested in switching over to this app.

As much as I abhor Facebook's misguided contortions in its attempt to block the rise of Twitter, I have to admit this is a smart move to co-opt the service's users and it would be a win-win situation for both services. It would keep Facebook users on Facebook and improve the ability of the service to keep users in touch with their friends, its core value. At the same time it would bring Twitter to the attention of Facebook's 250 million users.

Facebook for Better or Worse

Facebook has made two changes to its service recently that reflect the two directions it could go in: the ability to send status updates to the entire Facebook network, and the placing of the Event feature directly in the "What's On Your Mind?" box.

The first change, the ability to send your status updates to "Everyone" on Facebook, allows you to broadcast your updates to everyone on the Facebook network. It reflects the company's desire to be everything to everyone. It's a move clearly designed to target Twitter and co-opt their design into Facebook.

The second change, the placing of the Event feature directly in the Status Update box, makes it easier to send a quick event to your network/friends, such as getting together for a drink after work that night. It's a useful enhancement of Facebook's core features, and it makes the service more useful in communicating with your friends.

The status update change has gotten more press because it's an attack on a company that Facebook sees as a competitor. It's the wrong move. Facebook is a useful collection of tools to keep in touch with your friends and organize your social life around. It's become as big as it has because it streamlined the social networking concept. (Remember how you had to go through four different pages to post a comment to your friend's wall on MySpace? Not to mention all the bugs.) Twitter is a service best used for getting news and updates from and about important people and events. Sure, many people have their friends on Twitter but I know my friends' Tweets get lost in the deluge of other stories from the celebrities and news outlets I follow. On Facebook I can get, and want, just updates from my friends about their lives.

By trying to be all the hot things on the Internet at once and attack Twitter, Facebook is losing what made it popular. Allowing me to send my status updates to everyone on Facebook does not enhance my ability to stay in touch with my friends. As Mashable points out in the above article, this change will at best be wasted man hours in programming and at worst will erode Facebook users' confidence that the network is a place for them.

All Aboard the Twitter Train...

...But where is it going?

An article on Rotorblog today points out exponential growth in Twitter's ComScore web traffic ranking and that the social communication tool has become the third most popular social networking destination aside from Facebook and MySpace. This is interesting because most articles I see about Twitter nowadays point out the celebrity rush to jump on the bandwagon, how many corporations and celebrities jump on it in the hopes of driving traffic back to their site, it's ghastly "replacement" of regular blogging (which people have been conjecturing and complaining about since it popped up on the Social Media radar), and the other long-standing gripe about how meaningful is a 140 character form of communication?

These two opposites seem to suggest to me that Twitter's not going away anytime soon and the grumbling is really just anxiety about where it will go next. Which is a good question: what's the next logical step from here? As social communication becomes more truncated I think Twitter fills a desire to say something terse but meaningful. No Tweet can be longer than 140 characters so there's little room for a spectrum of worth. When I Tweet about the turkey sandwich I ate for lunch and Neil Gaiman Tweets about his book winning a Newberry Award, they're limited to the same amount of information, are both easily digestible. I would argue this is a function filled by Facebook's Status too.

So if short social messaging fills such a cozy niche, what could people possibly want more?