I hope you are well and remember me from my last email. If not, allow me to remind you. After coming across your site speedmediablog.com while doing some browsing on Google, I found it somewhat related to the subject of my sites. That is why I offered to buy spot for text-links on your site.

Do come back to me on this if you would like to hear more.
Waiting to hear from you,

Cheers,
Steven Patrick

http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_002570DE00740E18002573AF005D3DA0.html?ref=technology

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119973082626572521.html

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/01/09/cisco-the-next-facebook?referer=sphere_related_content

Social Wire's vision is pretty neat and seems to fit better with how I think . Level 3 platform specific to the requirements of social media -- that's brilliant.

Great analysis on 'Level 3" platform solutions from a business perspective. I agree that social media companies need to first and foremost provide network value to third party developers before they provide IT value. A platform is only as strong as its user base (ie. network or social graph).

Case in point, Ning. Marc considers his own company as a Level 3 social platform. Yet Ning's platform adoption by developers has been limited (compared to say Facebook's) precisely because it had less network value to start with. If I'm a developer building apps I'm looking for the highest ROI. Cost savings provided by bundled IT services in Ning's platform does not outweigh greater user acquisition using Facebook's platform.

My own company, Social Wire, is a Level 3 social application distribution platform. But unlike other Level 3 platforms we don't have the problem of providing network value to developers since applications built on our platform and using our framework are compatible with all the major Level 2 social platforms... Facebook and OpenSocial sites.

We provide the cost-savings developers crave from bundled application IT management and code-sharing, as well as immediate access to large networks of users.

Best of all, applications part of the Social Wire "network" can share information through our own API. No this is not recursive, It goes to fill a market need of social application information sharing.

Keep posting as frequently as you can! Very helpful and insightful!

Atif, this is the key line in your splendid and well-thought out analysis. Indeed Google and Yahoo both function great as aggregators,. but without a social grid underlying their aggregation portals their content just sits there to be consumed by the user... i.e. "Searched"

Why? We live in an era of hyper-personalization, hyper-customization and automation after all, don't we?

Laying out a social grid allows aggregators to broadcast or perhaps "friendcast" their content more efficiently and effectively. It doesn't do away with the "search and retrieve" model, but it definitely complements it very strongly.

At this moment there are billions of pieces of content that go unconsumed because it doesn't find its way to targeted audiences. In Facebook even that lonely tagged wedding photo finds its consumer via the "news feed" rather than sit out there alone in the blogosphere... (the sad reality about rss feeds operating in the wide web is that it does not have traction amongst mainstream users. funny how facebooks newsfeed is the exact same thing, but bundled in a consumer friendly way the technology is very effective.)

Anways look for Google to start building something similar with Orkut (long-shelved social grid). Rumors are they already have plans to open it up like facebook....

M

But, indeed compare to MySpace the quality of content, people and activity is far superior and engaging ... And if AOL instant messanger is any witness (your buddy list is the social network) .. once you have the users one can launch all sorts of content innovations around the people (or as cisco say "Human Network").

But, people business is tricky too ... it follows a herd mentality and there have been networks that left orkut and landed on FB ... Could Second life steal some of FB's thunder ?

Great post otherwise !!! thx.

The reason portals have done so well is exactly this: they bring to the users what they are most likely to need. I have been involved with the design, development and deployment of several portals (or dashboards) that provide up to 80% of the required features/options to all users. They can customize an additional 10-15% of the contents. For the rest of the stuff, they would just have to go and fish independently, outside the domain (or confines) of these portals.

Outside of corporate environment, however, the general populace has certainly not embraced them with the same zeal. How many people manage a MyYahoo page, as compared to the size of the entire community.

You are absolutely correct is asserting that news/contents based on a pre-selected criteria is very limiting. I, for one, like to be surprised with things I know nothing about, that could contribute a different perspective. Hence my fondness for NPR and for some special interest websites that can be termed as obscure at best!

As regards the genius of google, I'd like to reserve my comments. Despite their phenomenal success, and off-the-charts stock performance, I'm still on the fence as to the stay power of their search prowess. It's all in the algorithm, right? If so, what is stopping some guys and gals in a garage (or, more appropriately, in the computer lab of a well-funded university program!) to go one over? I've been asking this question of a lot of folks, from varying backgrounds, and it does appear that my views form a minority. Still ... I choose to stubbornly cling to my reasoning!

Thanks for many stiimulating topics. Where do you come up with them? Mind sharing your background??? Feel free to send a private email (nmoghal==AT==cccinternet==DOT==com).

Nadeem

http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0813/044.html?token=MTYgQXVnIDIwMDcgMjM6NDQ6NTQgKzAwMDA%253D

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aWAWq4DtVtb8&refer=us