fynspire.com blog

ActiveRDF - Putting the semantic web on rails

ActiveRDF is a library for accessing RDF data from Ruby programs. It can be used as data layer in Ruby-on-Rails, similar to ActiveRecord (which provides an O/R mapping to relational databases). ActiveRDF in RoR allows you to create semantic web applications very rapidly. ActiveRDF gives you a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for your RDF model: you can address RDF resources, classes, properties, etc. programmatically, without queries. Activerdf website Really great tool for building ruby properties from the web.

Go Back In Time With Google

In celebration of its 10th Birthday, Google has decided to let you take a gander at what Google used to look like in the olden days of 2001.

Happy Googling: www.google.com

Apple Gives a Little

Apple has decided to actually give in to the pained cries of their iPhone developers; they have finally agreed to drop the NDA for released iPhone software. It's a timely move, being that many developers were feeling strangled by their inability to share code and innovations with one another.

Perhaps, after the G1 launches, we might start to see Apple making more concessions to their developers.

Post Roundup

Here are some good reads:

On TechCrunch:

Microsoft needs to understand that Facebook is the new Outlook.

Even though Apple is an uncompromising overseer, you will keep doing their bidding.

The sweet sound of MySpace Music has a distinct monetary quality.

Facebook is NOT a social network, it is a social utility--so stop playing games!

And over on Silicon Alley, Hank WIllaims tells us what recent U.S. economic troubles mean for the techworld.

The Buzz on Android

Dan Frommer post at Silicon Alley pretty much echoed my own feelings about the new G1 phone. I was pretty disappointed that the new G1 would be launched with an initial price of $180, only 20 bucks cheaper than the iPhone. As I've stated before, I thought the best route for T-Mobile and Google would be for them to avoid positioning themselves as a direct competitor to the iPhone, but rather as a cheaper, more flexible, and more accessible option. Instead they released it as a product in the same price range, with essentially similar features, minus the universally applauded design and UI.

However, as Frommer points out, "The good news: It's early. Remember Apple's first mobile phone project -- the still-born ROKR? Exactly. So maybe Google has an iPhone waiting to surprise us somewhere." By all accounts, the G1 is a fully functioning smartphone with a platform sure to attract the eye of many a developer hungry for some freedom. Google still has plenty of time to shock and awe us, because they succeeded in delivering the essentials.

Eric Schonfeld over at TechCrunch declares that the G1 is "no iPhone, but it's close." Although it lacks the design finesse of the iphone he points out that the G1 does have a handful of features that the iPhone lacks:

The first Android phone even has some things that the iPhone doesn’t, like a full keyboard that flips out from under the screen like on a Danger Sidekick (Andy Rubin’s old company). And it also sports a nubby little scroll ball like on a Blackberry (I thought RIM had a patent on that). And did I mention the compass? It’s got one built in (in addition to the accelerometer and the GPS), so that when you look at StreetView on Google Maps and swing the phone around it shows you a picture of what you are facing. Some developer is going to write a cool hiking app that taps into the compass, I’m sure. Oh, and there’s one more thing. You can run more than one app at the same time. That’s huge.

Schonfeld and John Biggs from CrunchGear both make the excellent point that the G1 has cemented the idea of a smartphone being a mini-laptop. Biggs writes:

iPhone started the ball rolling and Android is about the finish the job. The change? Phones are now officially computers and the expectation for most users is that they behave in the same way a powerful laptop or desktop PC would perform, albeit in a considerably more compact package.

The overall take on Android seems to be cautiously optimistic--not so much about what the phone is, but about the ways that Google could grow. Google and T-Mobile have delivered an impressive phone, that can't help but be overshadowed by the iPhone. In a sense, the G1 manages to be successful by being comparable to the iPhone. Their ability to deliver this makes me hopeful about future phones and the direction of their development.

Update: Wired is not too impressed with the G1.

Virtual Racism

An interesting study conducted on Second Life found that users interacted more negatively with darker-skinned or obviously African American Second Life avatars.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Internets

Apparently only Japan is ready to grapple with the emerging Internet environment. A survey of 42 nations' broadband connections, condcuted by Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo's Department of Applied Economics, found that Japan was the sole country deemed to be "future-ready," or capable of sustaining "visual networking, HD video streaming, 'consumer telepresence,' and large file-sharing. These activities will require a download speed of roughly 11.25Mbps and an upload of 5Mbps, which still isn't common in many countries today."

"Moreover, because the study also found significant correlation between a nation's broadband quality and its advancement as a knowledge economy, policy makers may need to consider how to create an environment to improve key broadband performance parameters in the future."

Japan is winning the Internet war.

MySpace Discovers Uploading

MySpace is finally allowing users to upload video directly to their site as well as allowing users to "hook up a camcorder, go to MySpace TV, and click the â€œRecordâ€? button to record a video to the site on-the-fly."

Those Kids Sure like to Socialize

They're having a wild time over at the TechCrunch 50 conference discussing (among many other topics) "Youth and Culture."

Most, though not all, of the companies profiled during the session were social networks trying to carve out new ways for kids and tweens, and teenagers to interact with one another through creating avatars, providing gossip, and virtual hangouts.

Very Interesting . . .

Here are some interesting posts:

TechCrunch has three Demos they think you should keep your eye on.

Apparently the German government does not approve of Chrome.

And to get out of a sticky legal situation, Apple dug up Kane Kramer and dubbed him the inventor of the iPod. Kramer invented an iPod-like device in 1979, unfortunately it didn't gain much traction and his patent on the item expired. Luckily, Kramer now gets some credit and a little cash as well.

The Android Approaches

This morning on TechCrunch I ran across a post about G1, the phone that's pegged to be the first Android phone from T-Mobile. After hearing insiders grumbling about how Android was bound to be overrated, slow, or hideously late, I must admit that I was beginning to feel a bit lackluster about the platform. However, after laying eyes on these sketches from the Android Guys, my excitement has returned.

The phone seems to take its basic design from the Sidekick, which I think is an excellent move. The Sidekick is a popular phone, and users enjoy its design. The iPhone is remarkable and revolutionary; it would have been foolhardy for Google and T-Mobile to try to out-design Apple--a battle they would have undoubtedly lost. By taking the Sidekick's basic design as a starting point, they avoid trying to re-invent the wheel, and can be comfortable having a strong industrial design base, freeing them up to focus on the most important aspect of the phone: the Android platform.

I look forward to Android launching. If it has a minimum of bugs and launches in tandem with T-Mobile's efforts to open an app-store, Android could do a great deal to move mobile applications and technology forward. What most fascinates me about the Android is the potential for it to effect Apple. I don't expect Android phones to push the iPhone off of its well-deserved pedestal; however, I will be interested to see how Apple would be forced to respond to a thriving open design platform. What would Apple feel the need to do to remain the darling of designers and developers? At the least, I suspect they might have to loosen the strangle-hold they maintain over the apps. I also suspect that an Android phone will be cheaper than an iPhone, thus opening up smartphones to the more price-conscientious market, and allowing greater market saturation for smartphone technology.

This is of course speculation, and entirely dependent on the ability of Google and T-Mobile to launch the Android platform and G1 phone on time with a minimum of bugs, and in way that attracts and maintains developers.

MySpace Still Cleaning up in the U.S.

Although Facebook is the world leader in social networks, MySpace still has more American users. Michael Arrington, over at TechCrunch speculates that MySpace dominates the U.S. market because of how it caters to musicians. I think he's absolutely right.

Every band has a customized MySpace page with streaming music and a concert calendar. Whenever I discover or want to investigate a band in order to decide whether or not I should by tickets for a concert, I inevitably seek out their MySpace page to check out their sound. Facebook is trying to address MySpace's musical supremacy through iLike.

Facebook doesn’t appear to be engaging in any direct music strategy at all. Instead, they’ve placed their bet on iLike, a third party application that has no streaming deal (they piggyback on Rhapsody). Last month Facebook announced that they’ll give iLike special access to Facebook through their new Great Apps program. All official and most off record messaging we’re hearing is that iLike is Facebook’s music partner for the long run.

From the sounds of it, iLike appears to be a bit convoluted. Arrington's description makes me imagine that accessing music on Facebook will require a lot of clicking, or more clicking than I'll feel enthusiastic about.

Post Roundup

Valleywag has leaked videos of the first Android phone.

Great posts on TechCrunch:

-How to Demo Your Startup--a great post on the do's and don'ts of presenting your startup.

-Why Twitter Hasn't Failed: The Power of Audience--Interesting analysis about how Twitter succeeded by allowing users to find and address a particular audience.

-iPhone Apps: One Month and 60 Million Downloads Later. But Not One Of Them Is A Killer App.--About the impressive, but not too impressive first month of the iPhone App store.

Most iPhone Apps Are Failing To Leverage The Network Effect.

Ars Technica:

Opinion: Why laptops will kick PC desktops to the Curb.

Linux everywhere: mobile Internet devices and the cloud--"At the LinuxWorld expo in San Francisco, Ars met with Linux Foundation president Jim Zemlin to discuss the future of the open source operating system and the impact it will have on emerging mobile and embedded technologies."

And Wired and Ars Technica both cover The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and DEFCON controversey:

Judge zips MIT students' lips on mass transit fare exploits

Federal Judge in DefCon Case Equates Speech with Hacking

Facebook Sues Zee Germans

Apparently, before suing StudiVZ, Facebook first tried to buy it. StudiVZ is essentially a Facebook clone established in Germany before Facebook could creep over to Europe. StudiVZ has almost 10 times the traffic of Facebook in Germany, which surely doesn't please Zuckerberg and the gang.

MySpace Apps Start to Pay Off

According to Silicon Alley, MySpace's app platform is beginning to pull in money for developers at a rate similar to the pay out they receive from their Facebook apps.

That's according to the ad network OfferPal, which provides virtual currency and rewards programs for about 350 apps on social networks -- mostly Facebook and MySpace. The company tells us that their clients are seeing the same returns from apps on each network – about $75 per 1,000 daily active users and $150-$200 for the higher engagement applications. Matt McAllister, the marketing director for OfferPal, said this is a recent development – since June.

Sridharan speculates that MySpace's app platform is taking off because they added more features, and that Facebook's page redesign may have scared some developers into MySpace's welcoming arms.

It will definitely be interesting to see how both networks develop and what role apps play in that development. For all its popularity, Facebook never quite succeeded in killing MySpace, in the way that MySpace killed Friendster (though it is currently priming itself for a comeback). MySpace has a strong lock on music, and still caters to particular social groups, like goth and techno kids, while Facebook managed to attract users who were turned off by the music-blaring, pink-skull explosion that MySpace evolved into. Facebook also seems to be oddly attractive to "older" users (users in their 30s who refused to use MySpace) who found it to be a great way to reconnect with classmates.

Essentially, both are managing to survive by successfully endearing themselves to particular communities. I wonder if we will start to see differences in the types of apps that developers deliver to their respective platforms, based on perceived differences of the audiences.

Apparently Not so Cuil.

When Cuil.com (pronounced "cool") debuted yesterday, the New York Times and other news outlets and blogs were wondering whether it would emerge as a Google-killer, a search engine capable of challenging Google's search supremacy.

Apparently, Google has very little to fear. The popular consensus seems to be that Cuil still has a great number of kinks to work out. When I first tried to use Cuil its servers were so bogged down with new traffic I had to wait at least four minutes for it to process my query--which is fine. I anticipated that the servers would probably have trouble keeping up with the onslaught of interest. However, Cuil failed to deliver in the nature and usefulness of the results it returned.

When I type "steampunk" into Google the first entry that pops up is a Wikipedia post defining the term, that's followed by a variety of sites that concentrate on the steampunk movement. However, when I type "steampunk" into Cuil the first results page is dominated by entries from steampunk.com. It's results are much less useful and interesting. I'm also not a fan of the UI. The manner in which boxes of text and images are staggered over the page is a little overwhelming to confront. I do like the idea of pairing images with each entry, but ultimately the images associated with each result were not topically related to my search and thus useless to me.

All this is not to say that Cuil doesn't have potential. It does, but they're going to have to work a lot harder.

A CEO's Right to Privacy?

I feel the need to point out that I don't own a single Apple product. Not one. The closest I come is to using the Quicktime Player on my ancient PC laptop; and yet, I can't seem to stop myself from writing posts about Apple, the iPhone, and Steve Jobs.

Currently, the blogsphere is all a-titter about the state of Steve Jobs' health and whether this information is a "private matter" as one apple executive told a shareholder during a conference call about Apple's 2008 Q3, or if it is indeed fit for public airing because of the heavy ties between Apple as a company and Jobs as a brand.

The mere mention of this topic has provoked outrage on some comment boards. Commentors on Silicon Alley (rather unfairly, I believe) accused Henry Blodget of fishing for clicks by writing about the topic. While some ran to his defense and wrote that the topic is indeed very worthy.

I definitely understand why Jobs wouldn't want to feel compelled to continuously comment on the state of his physical health. Jobs is notoriously secretive, rarely deigning to give interviews, and very controlling about the personal information he releases. However, Jobs' ties to Apple are unique in that I cannot think of any other major brand so strongly tied to one specific individual. To most of Apple's shareholders, Jobs=Apple. And concerns about the state of his health could very understandably affect stock prices.

Location, Location, Privacy

Michael Arrington has an interesting post on TechCrunch about how he believes it is a mistake for Facebook and Myspace to not incorporate the iPhone's location awareness feature into their networks.

He acknowledges that both have stated that they intend to release future versions that will incorporate the technology, but he argues that a speedy adaptation can drive user growth and open both social networks up to new audiences. Arrington implies that both companies are proceeding slowly because of legality and privacy concerns.

I believe it's extremely smart of Facebook and Myspace to proceed with caution. The iPhone's location awareness feature presents so many wonderful opportunities as well as dangers. Any technology that can broadcast your location to others presents a myriad of privacy concerns, and when stepping onto such treacherous terrain it's best to proceed with caution. Missteps could not only result in lawsuits but possibly endangering of users safety.

I'm pretty excited to see how a mobile culture will evolve, and my imagination has been greatly piqued by the opportunities that the iPhone's location awareness technology presents, but the initial companies that seek to capitalize upon it must move forward in a thoughtful way that acknowledges and anticipates the potential pitfalls inherent in the technology.

Any major players that utilize it would do best to set up systems that allow users to opt-in to sharing various levels of information with particular or specific groups of people. I as a user would want to have a great deal of control over how my information was shared.

Beware The iPhone's Killer App

Pandora is apparently cleaning up like gangbusters on the new iPhone. Techcrunch has seen fit to hail it as the iPhone's killer app and declares it to be their "flat out favorite application so far."

TC points out that the iPhone and mobile devices are exactly what internet radio needs to be relevant.

Currently, Pandra is the fourth most popular iPhone app.

The Crucial iPhone Cab Cluster

Danah Boyd, has a great post on her blog about the iphone and the potential ways it can transform social interactions once it achieves a particular level of saturation in certain social clusters.

Boyd caught a cab with a driver who happened to be borrowing his cousin's gen1 iphone and seemed to be quite taken with the device and the potential it had to ease the difficulty of navigating LA's perilous traffic, as well as making it simple for him to connect and keep track of his fellow drivers.

Boyd writes:

Cluster effects in mobile will be what happens when the LCD is not texting. From there, you can innovate. Sure, we're going to see a plethora of mobile social network sites and mobile location friend services and mobile dating and mobile media sharing communities. The first wave will always be a translation of the web. But once you have cluster effects, you can also start innovating and finding new services and tools that allow people to connect in meaningful way. New games can emerge. New social services. Innovation in this space will be iterative - it will involve throwing things out to the market and seeing what consumers do and do not do. It will require iterating based on their practices and not trying to shove those curvy creatures into square holes. But there's no point in leaving the starting block until cluster effects are underway because, sadly, iterating in imagination land inevitably leads to techno-utopian fantasies instead of meaningful applications.

iPhone App Excitement

The iPhone App store opened yesterday and had many a techie giggling like a schoolgirl with excitement.

The New York times has an interesting article about iPhone apps, and how Steve Jobs has done an excellent job of avoiding some of the pitfalls that ensnared Apple in the original PC race--namely that Apple failed to entice developers to develop programs for their computers. All of the techies I know are extremely excited about the iPhone and the opportunity to flex their developing muscle and write an app.

Well played Mr. Jobs. Well played.

Google Daycare: Take II

Last month I wrote a post about the battle over daycare occurring at Google's Mountain View campus.

According to a column* in the New York Times, Google set up a series of focus groups to guage the reactions of its employees to the 75% price hike that will accompany Google's brand spanking new daycare facility. Parents openly wept at three of the four meetings. Not to be deterred, Google has decided to continue with its plan to open a daycare facility that will cater to its wealthiest employees, although they have decided to offer some employees scholarships to the new facility.

Google also found a solution to it's 700 individual long daycare waiting list--they decided to begin charging a fee for being on the list. Problem solved.

* It feels a little too opinionated to actually be an article, but the New York Times has not labeled it a column.

Some Call it Obession, Others Call It Love

According to the lovely folks at Silicon Alley people have already begun lining up outside of the Apple NY store in anticipation of the 3G iPhone. The line is about ten deep.

Although the lovely 3G will be priced at a mere $199 or $299, apparently the monthly fees are destined to more than make up for the $400 or $300 one might have saved by not buying the original iPhone.

There's always a catch.

The Saga Continues

I swear, this whole MSFT-YHOO debacle has more chapters and installments than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. I had basically tuned the whole saga out for the last couple of months, until this post on Silicon Alley intrigued me enough to revisit it.

Henbry Blodget wrote about a statement that Carl Icahn had issued regarding the conversations he and Steve Ballmer have been having in regards to "the industry in general but, more importantly, on how Yahoo! and Microsoft can do a transaction together."

Icahn reveals that Ballmer told him (and yes, that phrase does inherently sound like the opening of a tidbit of high school gossip) that Microsoft just might (perhaps, maybe) be interested in discussing (the possibility) of buying the Search division of Yahoo! or (perhaps, maybe, at some moment in the future)buying all of Yahoo! But, only if the members elect a new board and scuttle the troublesome individuals who blocked Ballmer's earlier efforts (yes, Mr. Wang, they are talking about you).

Blodget, who owns stock in Yahoo!, is unmoved by Icahn's intimations, and says he wants more details about what sort of transactions might take place (and if the capital offered would be attractive to holders). He's made it clear that to get his vote, Icahn will have to present a clear direction for Yahoo.

Valuing Social Networks

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch has some really great and interesting analysis about determining the value of social networks.

In addition to looking at page views and unique visitors, Arrington argues that it would be helpful to look at how much advertisers are willing to spend on users in particular markets and estimate a social network's value based on how much advertisers are willing to spend to get access to their users.

I believe an effective way to value a particular user is based on the average Internet advertising spend per person in the country they live in. The higher the spend, the more value the social network can get out of the user by serving them advertising and other products. That means that, for now, users in a handful of key countries are worth far more in terms of revenue potential than those in the rest of the world.

According to Arrington's data Myspace is them most valuable social network followed by Facebook and Bebo. But, because Myspace has such a large share of U.S. and other valuable markets, Facebook has only 1/20 of Myspace's value.

Arrington's analysis is extremely interesting and definitely speaks to the ongoing discussion about how to monetize and value social networks. Dan Frommer over at Silicon Alley does a good job of dissecting Arrington's analysis as well.

MySpace Re-Design

Two weeks ago MySpace launched their new website re-design. Myspace does look cleaner--though they unilaterally installed a "Friend Update" reader on everyone's profile, and added more space for lovely advertisers.

Although the re-designs were both commissioned around the same time, Facebook launched earlier, and MySpace appears to be following in its footsteps. In an attempt to hold onto their current users, both sites were simply responding to user feedback that complained about jumbled pages.

You can click here to see a screen shot: Myspace.

Grumpy Googlers Grumbling

Valleywag has an interesting post about Google's new daycare center and what they believe it portends for the rest of the company.

Apparently, Susan Wojcicki, (a former Googler, and the current sister-in-law of Google co-founder Sergey Brin) decided that Google's daycare accommodations weren't quite up to par, so she started designing a new daycare facility for Google. The new one is gearing up to open and many Google employees are shocked to find that the new facility is a tad pricer than the former--70% more expensive to be exact. The monthly cost has risen from $1,070 to $1,710 for preschoolers and from $1,470 to $2,390 for infants.

Understandably, these recent events have some Googlers more than a little upset, not merely because of sticker shock, but because of what they perceive to be the top-down, heavy-handed manner in which the operation was carried out.

Valleywag sums its opinion on what this incident might reflect about the changing nature of Google's corporate culture:

Google used to be a place where rank didn't matter: If the numbers showed you were right, Larry and Sergey could be persuaded. That Brin let his sister-in-law's wealthy whims rule over the interests of hundreds, if not thousands, of working Googlers shows that Google is becoming yet another big company, with an insular clique at its heart. What it proves is that at Google today, it's not what you know. It's who you know.

The AP Is Not Adjusting Well to 2.0

The Associated Press is not adjusting well to teh internets. Micheal Arrington has banned all AP stories from TechCrunch after the organization issued DMCA takedown orders to the Drudge Retort for posting links to 7 stories that featured between 33-79 words quoted from AP stories and the links to said stories.

According to a New York Times article the AP decided to backtrack a little bit.

Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was â€œheavy-handedâ€? and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.

But, as Scott Rosenberg at Wordyard points out, the AP is still demanding that the Drduge Retort delete the posts.

This is a prime example of someone not adjusting well to the 2.0 world. Most organizations and writers believe that having someone feature an excerpt from your article or post and then link back to your content is a good thing--a VERY good thing. I can't quite perceive what the AP's objective is. What do they believe they will gain in discouraging and alienating bloggers from linking to their content? Their actions show a serious lack of foresight and are most probably the harbinger of greater problems for the AP unless they get their act together and adjust to the rules of the game.

The Future is Social

Last week, Scott and I met with Howard, our business adviser and began the process of hammering out vision and mission statements for the company. The meeting was interesting and exciting because it not only helped us focus our vision for the company, but allowed us to discuss our vision for the future of social networks.

The proliferation of smartphones will help to strengthen the bonds between social networks and real-time social interactions. As smartphone use grows, and the technology and apps improve, the reach of social networks will expand until most social activities and interactions will be referenced by a social network framework. For example, if you hit it off with someone--let's call her Sophia-- at a party, you would whip out your smartphone and get Sophia's name, number, and email. Instantly, you'd pull up Sophia's profile and befriend her on whatever social networks you use (Facebook, Myspace, Bebo--whatever). All the information for your friends and contacts wouldn't merely be saved in your phone; instead that information would be stored and organized within a social network platform, either uploaded to the phone or accessible from the phone via a cloud-computing setup.

If you wanted to email Sophia an invitation to your birthday party or call her up to invite her to the beach, you'd open your phone, go to your social network platform and either email or call her from within that network. Or if you wanted to introduce Sophia to some of your other friends, you would access the video conferencing technology on your respective phones and allow Sophia to meet and hangout with them.

As smartphone usage continues to increase and the technology improves, the possibilities for social networks are immense, varied and exciting. Social networks initially took off because they were a convenient and expeditious way of strengthening and maintaining connections. Technological innovations will continue to allow social networks to perform that role, in addition to the roles of sharing increasingly complex data and/or music, and becoming platforms that allow two or more individuals to collaborate on projects and easily share the results of their efforts with the rest of their friends or the internet at large.

Smartphone: On Hold

Ever since I started spying business commuters typing anxiously into their Blackberries, Iâ€™ve been fantasizing about owning a smartphone--a compact and smartly designed little device that would allow me to quickly look up bus timetables, find directions, send out emails, and organize my calendar at anytime and anyplace I desired. But, as of yet, this thought remains a distant fantasy.

Two weeks ago Scott bought the iPhone 2G (yes, we know that the iPhone 3Gâ€™s release is imminentâ€”but he just couldnâ€™t wait). He was as happy as an eight-year-old the day after Christmas, and began talking excitedly about how I too should buy an iPhone.

â€œI donâ€™t want an iPhone," I told him.

Scott paused for a moment, completely incredulous. â€œWhy donâ€™t you want an iPhone?â€?

I didnâ€™t know I needed a reason to not want one. â€œWhy would I want one?â€? I asked.

Scott sputtered for a moment and began quickly listing off the iPhoneâ€™s numerous selling points.

Now, when I told Scott I didnâ€™t want an iPhone, I wasnâ€™t being completely truthful. A part of me does want an iPhone. Theyâ€™re shiny and pretty, with a host of capabilities that would be convenient to have at my fingertips, but thus far Iâ€™ve been turned off by the price (though at $200, the 3G is starting to look tempting), being joined contractually with At&T, and the thought of being inducted into the cloistered world of Applephilia is just plain irritating. Apparently my rationale for hesitating to hop into the smartphone pool is (or was) shared by many other women. Yesterday, the New York Times published an article detailing the surge of women purchasing and using smartphones as the prices have dropped and the design and functionality have improved.

The truth is, Iâ€™m a conscientious late adaptor. The men in my family (my father and my brother) are very eager early adaptors. As soon as a new device emerges they simply must have it, to explore and play with. I admire their deep love and fascination with technology and I think itâ€™s fantastic that I can get exposed to the new devices through them. But, although I read about the technology and take the opportunities to play with the products, the prices such devices command usually make me gun-shy. So, I have to be patient, but it finally looks like the smartphone price range is beginning to enter my ballpark.

Facebook: Killing Apps and Alumni Mags

According to the New York Times and Silicon Alley, Facebook (and other social networks) are putting the squeeze on Alumni magazines and possibly creating more hurdles for Facebook app developers with its profile redesign that would tuck away the majority of apps away unless a user went looking for them specifically.

The New York Times' article explains that the dominance of social networks like Facebooks has rendered many quarterly Alumni magazines obsolete. Alumni used to look to the magazines to find out which of their classmates had landed new jobs, moved to different states, had babies or gotten married. Now with the click of a mouse they can access to all that information, sans glossy paper. Some schools aren't quite hip to the game, and are resisting aligning themselves with social networks or migrating their content online. Some schools, like Harvard, have opted to expand their web presence while maintaining their Alumni magazine and focusing its content away from information that can be more easily gleaned online.

According to Silicone Alley's post, Facebook's redesign could spell trouble for app builders.

Right now, when users add applications, they are asked whether they want to add the app in a box their friends see when they view their profile. As of today, this option is automatically checked. But when the redesign goes live, the option won’t even be there. Users will have to proactively decided to display the app.

But they argue that in the end the change might simply help weed out bad apps.

Google in the Gears

Google keeps making inroads and edging in on Facebookâ€™s territory.

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch reports that â€œMySpace has integrated Google Gears into its messaging system, which will back up all messages to a userâ€™s local machine and allow for very fast search and sorting.â€?

MySpace is using Gears to allow its messaging to be much more useful, by allowing users to search and sort their messages. The Gears integration will also make MySpace messaging much faster by localizing a lot of the processing on the users desktop; thus freeing up MySpace servers, and saving them a nice little chunk of change.

Arrington argues that Facebookâ€™s messaging system suffers from the same ailments that MySpaceâ€™s used to have. He implies that Facebook would benefit from using Google Gears, but admits that itâ€™s not likely given how Facebook and Google are battling it out for social network supremacy.

Social (Network) Security

The EU is considering subjecting social networks to regulation. According to Ars Technica the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has released a preliminary draft of a report on online security. They found that â€œsome of the main threats identified . . . through social networks involve digital dossiers, face recognition, and social engineering attacks on enterprisesâ€? as well as phishing, reputation damage, ID theft, stalking and cyberbullying.

The report also recommends some strategies to combat security flaws, such as calling for â€œregulatory review of social networking frameworks, increased transparency of data handling practices, more education for users on security, and discouraging (or banning outright) the use of social networks in school.â€? While the other suggestions are sound and reasonable, discouraging or banning social networks in schools is short-sighted. Social networks can be a powerful and effective tool for schools, by allowing educators to connect with students (as well as allowing students to connect with other students).

Although the full version of the report hasnâ€™t been released, the preliminary draft draws attention to an issue that social networks will increasingly have to grapple with: how to ensure users are able to maintain their privacy and security. As social networks evolve and continue to branch out into niche markets, some of which will focus on storing and sharing personal data, these questions become more and more pertinent. This past March, a security breach allowed Byron Ng to access Paris Hiltonâ€™s private photos on her Facebook account, and just as recently the web community has started discussing how FB users could find themselves the victims of security breaches through FB apps, that donâ€™t have high security standards.

It will be interesting to see how U.S. companies react to the EUâ€™s report once itâ€™s fully released, and the type of security dialogue that will emerge.

Facebook’s Upcoming Facelift

Yesterday, tech blogs scattered far and wide ooh-ed and ah-ed as Facebook released screenshots for its upcoming profile redesign—set to launch in a couple of weeks. Facebook is hoping this redesign will address the concern that in all its post-app glory Facebook profiles have started to appear a tad cluttered with penguin eggs, pirates, and ninjas. They’ve opted to introduce tabs that will allow users to view the functions that they wish to see.

I was a Myspace straggler and despite the numerous invites I received from friends to come join Facebook, I took my sweet time signing up. When I did, the Facebook I saw was just as (though I might argue more) cluttered as Myspace, despite the claims of many that they had gravitated to Facebook to escape the sparkly, pink, Youtube-storm that Myspace had devolved into. However, I prefer Myspace’s clutter to Facebook’s. At this point the clutter you see adorning a Myspace page is indicative of the user’s personality—they chose that pink cross-and-skulls background, they chose to feature that Family Guy snippet from Youtube. On Facebook, vampires and knights don’t actually say very much about the user—other than indicating that she has enough free time on her hands to contemplate what type of medieval royalty she is.

Facebook’s makeover is timely and is a good step towards soothing users who’ve become agitated with impersonal apps sprawling across their profiles.

That's My Data, Bro.

Michael Arrington wrote a fantastic post at TechCrunch about Data Portability. He discusses Facebook's recent decision to nix it's deal with Google and rescind it's decision to give Friend Connect access to Facebook's API.

Arrington argues that despite Facebook's claims that it changed its mind because of privacy concerns, its real motivation for reneging on the deal is Facebook realized that doing so would undermine its strength in the social network market by allowing Google to position itself as "the most important social network without actually having a social network." By acting as a "platform provider with tools that power social networks" Google could come to dominate social networks. Going along with the deal would have also undercut Facebook Connect--which mirrors Friend Connect.

He points out that Facebook, Myspace, and Google are all so hungry to launch products that provide data portability, because it obviously endears itself to being a means of expanding and strengthening each company's presence in the market, and pulling in more profit. But, the idea of entrusting our personal information to the wavering consciousness of for-profit companies (who have hungry boards to appease) is just as bad as it sounds. Data portability mechanisms should be non-for-profit like OpenId.

Facebook, Myspace, and Google won't really provide users with data portability, merely a truncated version of it that suits each company's objective.

Music is Dead. Long Live Music.

Just as the tech world is currently debating ways to monetize the web, the music industry juggernauts are desperately trying to figure out how to re-monetize music. Ever since 1999 when Shawn Fanning debuted Napster and struck the first major blow, the music industry has proven unable to come to terms with the impact of P2P technology and the dramatic way it has reshaped the audioscape.

Toddler and a Tyrant
The music industry, or to be specific the RIAA has reacted to P2P with all the grace and composure of a two-year-old being deprived of a piece of candy. It has responded with legal tantrums and unleashed teams of rabid lawyers to sue and defang the P2P networks as they appear and disappear like gophers in a carnival game. And, when its not suing P2P networks, it turns its attentions to bullying former customers.

The Gig is Up
Unfortunately, the game is over for the RIAA, and all of its legal machinations and attempts at back-room wheeling and dealing are the evidence of its death throes. Its attempts to force colleges to monitor file sharing or create a file sharing tax levied by internet providers have proven unsuccessful. The RIAA will never again pull in the sort of revenue that it did during the early 90s--at least not from record or single sales. Downloading is far too cheap and seductive to allow record companies to reap pre-Napster rewards.

Instead of alienating its customers with pesky and cumbersome,DRM schemes , and threats or lawsuits, the RIAA needs to remove its head from the sand and refocus its assets on selling what the people are interested in. The public is still hungry for music, but much less willing to pay for it--or only willing to pay a fraction of what the RIAA is desperate to get them to pay. But, people are willing to pay for convenient, unencumbered access to large catalogs of music, and they're willing to pay for music byproducts, such as concerts and t-shirts.

The RIAA is going to have to get accustomed to making less money, and reconfigure itself so it sells what people are willing to buy. I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I'm quite certain that the RIAA will continue with its questionable legal tactics as it alienates and sues former customers, until public outcry forces Congress to step in and tighten legal standards about access to ISP information. Not until we see rolls of bankruptcies (like in the airline industry) will the RIAA take the necessary painful steps that will allow it to prosper in a post-P2P audioscape.

Yeah for Yahoo!

I must admit that I've been following the Yahoo!-Microsoft tussle with soap-opera like interest. Watching the events unfold has had all the delicious components necessary for any successful daytime drama. You have two companies, both aging, and not necessarily gracefully. And you also have Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo! fighting to keep his baby from being devoured by the Microsoft behemoth. Yahoo!'s protestations have at time seemed desperate and unconvincing, like a worm wriggling to escape an extremely voracious early-bird. While, throughout it all Microsoft has continued its advancement like a military tank through Tiananmen Square, undeterred by anything or anyone thrown in its path. And, until recently, Microsoft seemed destined to win, but Yahoo! has finally delivered some counter moves to stall Microsoft's advance.

Microsoft first made its aggressive unsolicited bid for Yahoo! in February. Mr. Yang and Yahoo!'s board rejected the offer claiming it was too low. Many industry insiders scoffed and believed Yahoo! was just angling for more time/or money and would eventually fold lovingly into the arms of Microsoft, rather than risk a hostile takeover.

I usually root for the underdog, especially when the odds look insurmountable, and I couldn't help but to feel some sympathy for Yahoo!, though it's hardly an ingenue and largely brought this situation on upon itself by making management decisions that allowed it to weaken to such a point where such an offer might be tenable to its shareholders. Still, something didn't seem "fair" about the whole process, and I found myself silently hoping Yahoo! might pull through.

Yahoo! has postphoned its annual shareholders' meeting and has still yet to set a date. Both Microsoft and Yahoo! have leaked letters to the press, trying to either tempt or soothe shareholders into their respective camps with an assortment of sticks and carrots. Yahoo! even made a rather unconvincing play when it released an investor presentation that predicted the company would double its cash flow in 3 years--a ploy that made most individuals roll their eyes.

I had began to face what I perceived to be the inevitable, eventually Yahoo!'s shareholders would revolt, especially after it rejected Microsoft's bid for a second time and Yahoo! would go gently into that good night. But, for the first time, Yahoo! has made some counter moves that actually have teeth. According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo and AOL are close to making a deal, and Yahoo! is going to run a two-week test of Google's AdSense on some of its search pages. Both elements combine to deliver a one-two punch that puts Yahoo! back in the game. This won't necessarily save Yahoo! from Microsoft's hungry jaws, but it could mean that Microsoft will have to dig significantly deeper into its pockets if it wants to pull Yahoo! in. However, if Yahoo!'s quarterly report proves to be strong, Microsoft will have to take its bid home, and seriously reconfigure if they think acquiring Yahoo! will be worth the sweat and effort

Yet, it's important to keep in mind that AOL isn't exactly at the pinnacle of its success. Yahoo's latest defensive move, might prove to only be successful in forcing Microsoft to ante up.

Extra! Extra! Tech News Roundup

Here's a little roundup of some good/interesting articles floating around the internets:

Musing on the Future of Social Networking, "I saw the Future of Social Networking the Other Day."
TechCrunch

Hackers Threaten U.S. Financial Security, Not . . . Um . . . The Subprime Mortgage Crisis
Wired via Valleywag

The Economic Slowdown Hits Silicon Valley
New York Times

More in the Yahoo-Microsoft Saga
Silicon Alley Insider

Google "Borrows" 37Signals Campire App
Silicon Alley Insider

Time Magazine's List of the Top 25 Blogs

RIAA Gets Taken to Task over its Illegal Investigative Methods
Ars Technica

How to Go Out of Business

Tom just posted a great entry over on Swift Kick Central: "How to Bankrupt a Startup."

Here's your no-fail plan for failure:

- hire a CEO who doesn't know anything about your business/industry.
- over engineer everything and build more than you need before launching and testing.
- worry about growing your site without considering how you are going to make money.
- spend a lot of resources building up your company infrastructure before starting.
- make your plan to have x employees by x time.
- never question your current business plan.
- don't check your growth against your cash flow.
- don't have enough cash.
- make sure everyone you talk to fills out a NDA and only talk to people who will fill out a NDA.
- don't make an exit plan.
- make raising investment money the main source of your revenue.
- don't start until you have all the money you need.
- follow every new fad on the web.
- micromanage everything.
- ignore the naysayers and continue to drink your own Kool Aid.

Google App Engine

Google is moving into the development cycle
http://code.google.com/appengine/

So, they aren't doing anything special here. However, because they are Google they are getting a lot of attention. The only advantage to using Google's App Engine is that you can scale easily. Which is normally a pretty big problem for some small startups or facebook applications.

I did like watching Bret write a python app. Even though I cringed when I saw Bret write raw sql statements in the demo.

I will be excited when they support more languages and get all the bugs worked out.

Right now it looks like a bunch of Capistrano recipes.

Social Networks become More Sociable

In his article â€œOnline Chat, as Inspired by Real Chatâ€? Brad Stone explores how a new wave of start-ups are working to make the social networking experience more interactive. Vivaty, based in Menlo Park, California, is working on creating software to transform your one-dimensional social network profile into a 3-D chat room. You and your friends are able to choose avatars and interact in your room, which (depending on what you choose) may happen to be a goth warehouse or a 3-D version of your own profile, replete with your photos and favorite YouTube videos adorning the virtual walls.

When the 3-D avatar technology eventually gets paired with sound and vocal communication capabilities, social networks will transform from personalized internet message boards to virtual hangouts.

Twiddla Graffiti

My friend Bosco recently turned me on to Twiddla. It’s a whiteboard that allows you to take basically anything (documents, websites and images) and comment collaboratively on their content, either by dragging a pencil around the screen and circling and erasing items, or by creating virtual post-it notes. You can either type commentary back and forth in a dialogue box, or you can use a microphone and speakers to talk directly to whoever you’re working with. You can sign up and create an account, or access the services as a guest. It’s web-based, and you don’t have to suffer through a complicated set-up process.

Bosco used the program to work on a project with someone who lives across the country, and found that using Twiddla was actually more productive than meeting in person.

I played around with the program a bit and found that it was quite intuitive, plus it’s always fun to commit acts of virtual graffiti and draw moustaches and monocles with a virtual pencil. I’m not the only one who’s impressed either; Twiddla just won the SXSW Web Sward for Technical Achievement.

Un-Flattening Social Networks

In Danah Boydâ€™s paper "None of this is Real: Identity and Participation in Friendster,â€? Boyd discusses how Friendster served to â€œflattenâ€? social interactions, because a user only had one profileâ€”one faceâ€”to show all of their online friends. Facebook announced that it is working on adding privacy features that will help to address that issue. It will give users the options of deciding who can or canâ€™t access certain parts of their pages. By allowing users to decide on the level of access they want to grant their online â€œfriendsâ€? Facebook allows users to reinforce a real world construction of reality in which we divulge different layers of our personalities to selected groups.

When I first read about Facebookâ€™s new privacy features, I thought they represented a negation of the idea that online interactions would lead to the â€œend of privacy.â€? My first thought was that as technology advances, if users are given the option to, they will adopt methods to make their online worlds emulate their real-time experiences, replete with walls and ways to vary the depth of their interactions. However, as I thought more about it, I realized that Facebookâ€™s upgrade really represents the next step in our societyâ€™s continuous â€œredefinition of privacy.â€?

At this point, having a blog or having a social network profile featuring your pictures is about as revealing as having your number in the phone book. Our idea of privacy has evolved tremendously in the past decade. Hardly anyone feels shy about telling the masses on Facebook or MySpace about their love of bocce ball, pro-wrestling or bikram yoga. You might not want your parents, college recruiters, or future employers to see your beer bong and clubbing pictures , but no one feels an overwhelming sense of shame about having them floating around the web.

As we become more web centered and social networks continue to leap from our PCs to our cell phones, the distinctions between our online and real-time worlds will melt, blur and meld until people will be hard pressed to differentiate between them. The framework that underlies our online interactions will continue to borrow more from current real-time structures; however, this will have the effect of moving us deeper into online cultures by giving us the measure of control necessary to create and maintain those relationships without having adverse effects on the rest of our lives. (As an aside, this â€œredefinition of privacyâ€? will make people more accountable for their online behaviorâ€”trolling will be substantially less rewarding when others can make the links from someoneâ€™s incendiary comments to their actual social network profile and real life.) It serves to un-flatten the online world and move it closer to being three-dimensional, more compelling, and more compatible with complete integration into our real-time lives.

I Don't Feel Lonely Anymore

â€œI donâ€™t feel lonely anymore,â€? I told my roommate this morning. â€œI have 10 friends on Facebook.â€? After my first day at Fynspire, I realized that I would absolutely need to finally join Facebook. I had been â€œjust about to do itâ€? for approximately five months, but my initial day on the job delivered me a swift kick in the pants and made me usher myself more fully into the social network du jour.

No longer could I content myself to prance electronically about MySpace, befriending bands I would never go see live in concert, it was time to join up with the other coeds on Facebook. In truth, it was fun to finally join Facebook, just as Iâ€™ve enjoyed my first two days with Fynspire.

As a formerly non-tech person Iâ€™ve found myself constantly referring to Wikipedia to enlighten me as to the meaning of choice phrases and acronyms like folksonomy and APML. And Scott and I have been excited about the upcoming visit of the SwiftKick executives Kevin Prentiss and Tom Krieglstein for the Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience this weekend.

Iâ€™m especially excited about meeting Kevin and Tom because Iâ€™ve been reading and learning so much about the social networking program weâ€™re building with them: Red Rover. My anthropological interest has been highly piqued as Iâ€™ve slowly become acquainted with the process of building social networksâ€”the process of creating systems that allow people to strengthen existing connections and build new ones.