Inverting the Social Network

ReadWriteWeb covered a recent presentation by Kevin Marks of Google on the Social Cloud. Utilizing the Social Graph is currently something that is in the realm of developers. They dream up new applications that leverage our shared connections and Google's OpenSocial API makes it easier to deliver these applications to a variety of Social Networking sites. This is all well and good but I believe that adoption of OpenSocial could lead to a new phase in Social Networking. Let me explain... In the current evolution of Social Networks we have the different sites competing to be the leading social network. This has seen Facebook extend beyond its college roots to a more general audience. However, I am convinced that we as individuals separate out aspects of our persona by using different sites. For example, I tend to use Facebook to stay in touch with family and close friends whereas my professional network is on LinkedIn. If OpenSocial reaches a critical mass and makes it easy for us to join up and connect with friends on new sites then we could well see the next phase of Social Networking. This is a world that may be hinted at by Marc Andreessen's Ning. A world of niche social networks that address specific aspects of our persona. Our network of connections may exist in our address book, or in a networked resource like Plaxo, but we will enhance that core web of personal connections with discrete networks that address particular interests. When you think about this, it points to a world that turns the current Facebook model on its head. It is this view of the future that drives my interest in Data Portability. We should be the owners of our social cloud of connections. That information should not be held hostage by the sites we use. This is a fascinating debate on a vitally important issue. It is an issue that the vast majority of people do not fully comprehend the ramifications of.

Google acquires Plaxo?

One of the rumors circulating is that Plaxo has indeed found a buyer - Google. This rumor has more plausibility than the rumor of Google acquiring bebo. 

Plaxo has their Pulse service that is maturing nicely. In the social networking space Plaxo is a well established "glue" service. I am one of the many users that make daily use of the address book integration to keep my contacts up to date. I have written about the power of this feature in previous blogs.

Plaxo was an early adopter of Google's OpenSocial API and they have done a great job of pulling together information for their users from the various social networking services. One of the feeds I have in Google Reader is from Plaxo with an update on all my contact's twitter, blog, flickr and other postings. I am betting that it is this technology that is of interest to Google. The other piece is the background synchronization Plaxo offers with Outlook and the Mac OS X address book as well as with mobile handsets. I bet android could benefit from this capability.

Synchronization tools are looking like one of the battlegrounds in the near future. As smartphones expand their functionality it will become critical that information can move seamlessly between the various computing platforms we use and the web cloud. Anyone with robust tools in this area has an advantage because building robust synchronization software is not a trivial task.

If this rumor turns out to be true it just confirms that Google is busy building the next market while Microsoft is desperately trying to gain a position in a maturing market.

Spock as Social Network Glue

Last week I wrote about how I stumbled upon a powerful social networking combination. Rather than thinking about which service should I be choosing I realized that a trio of new services make a powerful complimentary combination: LinkedIn + Plaxo + Spock.

Spock has become a great resource for finding people. I find it so useful I actually created a Plug-in for the Mac OS X Address Book. With this plug-in I can click on a person's email address label and choose an option from the context menu to lookup the email address on Spock.

If you would like a copy of this little utility go to http://www.ekive.com/spock/getscript.html

Let me know if you find it useful.

The Christmas and New Year period is a time to reach out to family and friends. To help me do this I turned to Shape Services and their IM+ web service for iPhone and Skype users - s4iphone.com . This neat web application allows you to log in to Skype and using SkypeOut place calls to any phone number. This is great for making inexpensive international calls. The service works by prompting you for a number at which to call you. The service then places two outbound calls. One to whoever you want to call and the other back to the phone number you nominated. This could be your cellphone or a landline phone you have access to. The two calls are then connected. This is a cool service. You can pay $4.95 per month to use the service or buy a perpetual license for $25.00. You also need to buy SkypeOut credits from the Skype Store USA. This is a really useful service and well worth checking out if you have an iPhone.

The IM+ Service is set to become even easier to use with the rumor that the next release of firmware for the iPhone will allow sites to be bookmarked and added to the main menu screen. GearLive has the scoop in a video showing off some of the features coming in the forthcoming firmware release. We can expect to see the firmware launched around MacWorld.

Spock - Social network power tool

Back at the Web 2.0 Expo in the spring Spock launched. For those of you that have not checked it out Spock can be described as the Web's Who's Who. In the nine months since it launched it has grown significantly in richness. One of the things I have realized is that an awful lot of LinkedIn users are also on Spock. 

In the last few weeks I have spent some time looking around on Spock. I realized that I am one of the top 500 Spock users. That was a big surprise. All I had done is tag people that I discovered with tags that were relevant to them.

I have also been using Plaxo and Plaxo's Pulse service. Plaxo is a great way to keep up with what friends and colleagues are doing. The biggest benefit I find from Plaxo is the integration it provides with the address book on my Mac. This integration keeps me up to date when people I know, who are also on plaxo, update their contact information. 

Now, I have been following the tales of people like Robert Scoble on their use of Facebook and hitting the limit of 5,000 friends. I have also been experimenting with Facebook and MySpace but get frustrated because some of the locations I work from actually block FaceBook and MySpace - Luddites!

There has been a lot of debate about the merits of Facebook versus LinkedIn. Personally, I believe they are complimentary, more than competitive. However, during all this experimentation I think I may have stumbled upon an incredibly powerful solution for social networking. What is that power combination?

LinkedIn + Spock + Plaxo.

LinkedIn is a great service for professional networking. Spock is a great people search engine that helps you discover people on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Pownce, Twitter and other social networks. Plaxo provides great feeds to keep me up to date on friends activities and posts and more importantly keeps their contact information up to date. I still realize that the majority of people I want to connect with have LinkedIn accounts. Each of these services plays a vital role. Let's take an example of what happens.

I can do a search for people with similar interests on Spock, for example Enterprise 2.0, I can find a link to people's LinkedIn profile. You can reach out with Spock and request a Trust relationship. The next step is that you progress to creating a relationship with LinkedIn. One of the neat features with LinkedIn is the ability to download a vCard to add to your address book. This is when Plaxo kicks in. If you download the vCard and add it to your address book it typically contains a person's email address. The background integration with Plaxo then discovers if this person is on Plaxo and you can suddenly find that address record populated with additional contact information, depending upon what information the person has chosen to release through Plaxo. 

This is incredibly powerful. I had been thinking that I would need to choose between Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo as my social network of choice but with the addition of Spock in to the mix I realize I don't need to choose and the combination of services becomes even more powerful.

When you think about it. Spock is demonstrating the potential that Google is grasping at with their OpenSocial initiative. If you haven't checked out Plaxo or Spock, do so. You owe it to yourself if you need to network. As you move in to 2008 it will supercharge your abilities to network.