"Info Techno Pacto"

The social web is changing greatly as it has already proven over the past year. The problem with most of these web applications is that they depend on a social hook to keep users interested and engaged in the content. This is going to be consistent until someone finds a way to automate the process of consistent social engagement. For example we have blippr which is a social site where users review and rate media they have experienced. Users have to sign on, find the product, put a smiley face and actually think of a constructive review to make sense in under 160 characters. Now there is also a shelving application where users who have a mac can use a web cam and look up ISBN’s of products and record them digitally in their libraries. It would be nice if these two technologies could be married. That is obviously just one example.
But the web has many applications which are just missing a link, it may be apparent/obvious or could be the most obscure thing in the world. But many of these social web applications need some extra processing features to make them unique. They must realize that they are not Facebook competitors yet and learn to not work off of the huge client base who uses applications to not be bored with what they have. They web applications have to diversify in every way possible form the web or else I feel all the research and beta testing with these applications will be for naught. They will die out because the owners will not be able to compensate for the server overhead or even care for the applications.
Well unless they turn OSS which is what many will have to do: give the burden of failure to others to take upon themselves and turn trash into treasure even through some of the trash is already treasure (yes I know sound riddling).
I really just cannot wait for the future where web and life are truly intertwined. Yeah the iphone is starting to do that but its not that well integrated enough. The iphone acts as a hub of sorts. I can see the next step of this type of technology being reliant on implants. Everything we do will be recorded. And the best part is, we will enjoy it. We will embrace the technology and live out our science fiction fantasies and there will be discrimination between pure humans and cyborgs but that’s always expected as it is a natural part of every society.
Maybe I expect a far out future that doesn’t seem so far out with recent developments being made in technology. Either way this new technology needs to develop faster and make some changes just as open source ideology and reality tv has taken hold of our world, because I’m ready for change.

The communication conundrum is interesting. We struggle between juggling with text messaging on the phone, calling on the phone, email, and instant messaging. That is actually a rather lot for communication technology users to handle. So what we are definitely seeing here is a consolidation of services. In matter a fact the iPhone and many other phones have already begun this by integrating many of the services mentioned above into a singular cellular device. The problem with these applications was the performance related to their usage, which rendered them almost useless. The iPhone was not the first to consolidate but the first to perfect the formula.

So what happens as we consolidate instant messaging and texting? Texting could end up being phased out. Also wi-fi networks are on the rise steadily and consumers looking for cheaper and effective alternatives VoIP could phase out phone lines altogether. Imagine a future without telephone lines in view and communication is such a normal part of society it comes with your social security number.

I believe America needs to fully consolidate not only services but the infrastructure as well. Bu this can’t happen because businesses are slow and most definitely unsure how to make a mainstream market out of VoIP. Some companies are leading the way, but their impact is little to near noticeable. Even with this service of voice over broadband we have the worry of hackers splicing into calls. Security & encryption is going to be a big overhead for these services as well. But I’m hopeful about the future of communication, a future where infrastructure, hardware and software are combined and perfected.

http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10007955o-2000559826b,00.htm
http://applezoom.com/2007/06/09/iphone-revolution/

Music is a very social phenomenon. I mean we dance to it, share it on our ipods and zunes now, and talk about it. So it was only a matter of time till the proper social web 2.0 sites started popping out of the wood works. For this subject we have two really unique sites which are used completely differently but serve the very same purpose, sharing music and socializing with it.

The first is Hype machine which allows users to search, explore and listen to music legally. It is basically a tracker for the multitude of music blogs out there all mashed into one little hub.

The second is Muxtape. Users can create a mixtape consisting of 12 songs and distribute them to other people who may stumble across them. It’s a cool way to get friends to listen to tracks if you happen to forgot your music player.

http://hypem.com
http://muxtape.com

Facebook recently released a tool to query the amount of key words accumulated over all Facebook users based on the amount of times these words appeared on profile walls. This is great because I can see that if I enter in “Clinton, Obama” I can see that over the course of the election that Obama’s name appears more often than Clinton’s name. This could be safe to say that Obama is more talked about than Clinton. Then there’s some fun searches to find like “hi” is used more often than “heya” or “whats up”. I think this is a neat little tool to get Facebook users to think out of the box a little. Maybe use the data to start up some interesting conversation or to make conclusions about what’s going on with users in general.

http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/index.php?

Video games have always had a place in my heart as being the new age of artistically created worlds which can immerse players in the story. Some of the most successful games to do this were Final Fantasy 6 and Baldur’s Gate (at least for me). These games offered imaginative worlds and awesome mechanics to keep players, who happened to stumble on the game like myself, hooked because it was something unseen before. Gamers are different now. In an ever increasing social world, these games have to adopt as well. Hence the rise in MMORPG’s and multiplayer counter parts along with originally single player games. It makes people wonder whether or not a wonder of a game named Bio Shock that had an amazing story and game play, but lacked the multiplayer component, would still be played today if it maintained a social atmosphere of competition. Its what is making games such as Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 so popular now. It is to the point where the multiplayer matters more than the single player. Its funny how times have changed but at the same time makes me wonder, “what is the next step?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldurs_Gate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_4:_Modern_Warfare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3

What isn’t a social site nowadays? I found this small beta site, which allows user to discuss and talk about books! Yes books! This site may be the new way to semi-privately-socially discuss books without being laden in product advertisements or immature or fake reviews. Users can add tags and review books. They currently have the service set at 200 books maximum list capacity and anything over requires a subscription.

Goodreads is another site with the same focus but offers a cleaner interface, and keeps the content on book reviews. Users can organize their book shelves and set up what they may want in terms of read, wish list and so on.

These sites are cute and focus on a literate and narrow audience (of book readers) which is very welcome. The real gem of a site that I recently found is a site called blippr. Blippr, while still in beta and slowly gaining a user base is focused across books, movies, games, and music while keeping reviews down to twitter like posts (160 characters, sorry for the jargon) and add a type of facial to expression from a scale of =D - =(, literally. The site is clean and works rather well and is slightly new enough to be a contributor.
Try these sites out now!

http://www.librarything.com
http://www.goodreads.com
http://www.blippr.com

So there is one thing that the Facebook has accomplished and that is a consistent view of what is happening all around your Facebook friends. People have well accepted the idea and others are taking it a step further.  Enter Social Thing and Friend Feed. These application are now combining multiple social sites into one giant aggregation of a feed. So instead of just Facebook, you will see YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, and so on in one giant feed. Social Thing seems to be rather small, and Friends Feed has actually encompassed all of the social sites rather well and has even pumped out some sharing and publishing features to already make the service a great choice. The great thing about these sites is that they also open users up to a multitude of other social networking sites  which I will end up covering (a rather unintended but gracious effect for users and web companies alike).

http://socialthing.com/
http://friendfeed.com/

DRM is probably the worst thing to come out of music and entertainment companies. Obviously there was a need for it as consumers and thieves alike needed a clear warning about the implications of illegally downloading music. DRM has since been a giant virus that has been affecting media files by placing guidelines on these fairly bought products. Now the Microsoft DRM apparently will be shutting down their support to retrieve license keys August 31st leaving customers with more trouble in maintaining their paid music. DRM has been deemed necessary when piracy was rampant, now it has only become a deep scar in the software world.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080422-drm-sucks-redux-microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys.html

So I haven’t used my profile site of choice, Facebook, in awhile and when I came back to check it out I realized the developers of this profile site integrated a new feature. This new feature is the inclusion of profile based chat. That’s right now Facebook friends can bypass looking up friends screen names and can start messaging almost instantly. The funny thing is that this feature has not been widely received by many. Actually the real problem with this application is that is lets users know when their Facebook “friends” are online which can ruin the privacy factor (till an invisible status comes out).  I feel that the Facebook team is trying to eliminate the notion of the word stalker by constantly trying to put all of its users in the know.  Has it worked before? Definitely, as proof in the news feed users have been accustomed to using. In time Facebook chatting will be as normal as regular instant messaging.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=12811122130

So today I was in the mood to find a new web application to organize my To-Do’s. The reason I decided to look for this is because often I am on multiple computers at a time and on different operating systems. Obviously I can’t install the same applications over computers I do not own, so I have decided to get in the habit of using web applications, which can be accessed over all applications. Many web applications are perfected such as Google reader, Google mail, and Google calendar (forget Google Docs, its only nice for collaborations). The one application that Google did not put out was a To Do list application. So when I scoured the Internet I found a pretty nifty application called Remember the Milk.

The interesting thing about this application is the fact that users can share To Do lists and tasks with other users. This is great for having users who need to collaborate and even share tasks with each other. But more so its interesting to find how applications are turning social. Pretty soon we may find everyone sharing every aspect of their lives and privacy will not exist anymore.

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/