www.dpingram.com

I find it very interesting that Facebook is getting so lauded, and getting so much success, from opening up its API to allow external developers to create new apps that leverage the Facebook platform. And I totally agree its a GREAT startegy.

When you make software there is an enormous feeling of competitive pride and ownership in what you produce, but in this wiki mass-collaborative world its true that no matter how much resource you muster you simply cannot compete with the mass of creative talent and production resource that exists outside of your own company.

The move by Facebook brings to mind the fundamental decisions that IBM and Apple made right back at the start when they were developing and marketing their personal computers. Apple figured that if it kept its intellectual property to itself it could reap all the rewards from the emerging personal computer market. IBM took the opposite approach and licensed its IP to other manufacturers to make PC that were clones/compatible with their PC standard. Who won? Well, though Apple is gaining ground, I’d say that IBM won the first 25 years of this battle.

The same could be said for Palm, who decided they would keep their proprietary Palm OS to themselves and own the whole market. Wrong. Though Palm is far better than MS Windows Mobile, MSWM can be licensed by any hardware manufacturer, and so Palm simply cannot compete with the sheer number of competitions.

So, with Facebook openning up its API, how can it not get thousands of developers writing apps that leverage its platform. OK, so they cant charge for those apps themselves, and some of those apps may well be competitive with internal projects, but they see the bigger game. At a stroke Facebook has recruited thousands of new developers, for free, who will go on to make Facebook THE BEST of its kind. There is NO WAY that MySpace or others can keep up with them.

It takes a brave decision to do this, to loosten the reigns, but thats what todays wiki mass-collaborative market is all about. It is those companies that are brave enough to recognise this that stand the VERY BEST chance of winning.

Just reading Wikinomics - How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.

See other books I am reading here on my bookshelf

Users of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are “chronically unfaithful” with nearly half regularly using more than one site, and one in six using three or more, according to a report.

Source: Times Online

Software companies are responding to the desires of users to be able to publish/host and use images as they wish without the limitations and censorship of sites like Flickr and Photobucket.
Check out BAYimg which lets you upload, host then use (i.e. link, embed, etc) your photos without the censorship that the big guns apply.

I sense the beginning of a bcklash towards ‘those that would control our media’, afterall, it’s our’s, can’t we use it as we wish.

See this great interview with Jason Calcanis (founder of Weblogs, ex-AOL, currently Mahalo)

He covers subjects as diverse as Mahalo (human powered search engine), the recent Ask “algorithm” ad campaign, raising money in Europe v’s US, different perceptions of entrepreneurs by US and UK media, plus the great quote, below…

“You have to forget about the cynical people, they’re not important. Any good idea is not going to be understood by half the people you tell it to, if it’s a really good idea. And the best ideas, probably two out of three people are not going to understand them.”

Intruders.tv is the new video blog network, started by Vincent Camara, that coverts the web 2.0 startup space globally.

Winchester Open Coffee Club, the informal networking event for internet and entrepreneurs, investors, and marketeers, held its first meeting this morning at Costa Coffee in Winchester.

More about Open Coffee Clubs Worldwide here.

We had six people turn up: Andrew Thompson (CRM consultant at IBM), Marc Lyne (CEO, izimi), Curtis Nash (Gresham Computing, Compliant Phones Ltd), Philip Murphy and Philip Rudland, and me. It was a small gathering, I guess first ones, especially outside of the major cities, usually are, but one that I hope will grow month to month. Next Winchester OCC is at Costa Coffee (above the Brooks Centre car park) in Winchester on July 19.

Andrew Thompson let us in on an idea he has for personal vehicle telemetry which sounded like a neat idea for petrol heads and for fleet managers. Its something that he’d like to develop further and is looking for some direction/business guidance for the project. Curtis, who I’ve worked with before but not seen for several years, was just as I remembered: straight talking, no bull, and overflowing with great advice, contacts, ideas and tried-and-tested advice on getting ideas off the ground and to market.

In summary, it was a small but very interesting gathering of people all looking to do out-of-the-ordinary things. I’m off to the London event now, expecting around 100 people at that one, so its clear we need to grow our Winchester group somewhat. If you’re located near Winchester, Southampton, Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Andover, Salisbury, and of course Winchester or surrounds and your involved or want to get involved in an internet startup, come and join us. The next event is on July 19, 8.00am. Details are here.

The Times today reported a possible deal between Newscorp and Yahoo! whereby Newscorp would divest itself of MySpace to Yahoo! in return for a 25 stake in the enlarged company.

John Delaney of Ovum says it all here - it sounds like a possible smart move for all involved.

By the figures alone, and not even considering John’s comments about the strategy, based on Yahoo!’s value of around $37bn, that makes MySpace worth around $9bn.

Other reports on the story here, and here.

I’ve mentioned previously about the free DIY social network builder websites, like Momo, Ning, eTribes, Vox - see here - but its worth another mention because I figure its not yet common knowledge that these tools are out there.
Ning, for example, lets you build a fantastic social network, complete with all the ‘core’ features you’d expect, for free. For example mywiitv, and classroom 2.0.

Social networking is definitely becoming a commodity, and on one hand you may see that as an outflowing of value, and on the other hand a mass opportunity. There are lots of great fast-followers that twist the original ideas to create something new or with niche appeal.

JUST ADDED (13:45 UDT): Also KickApps

This exceprt from BBC News Online…

Online social networks already allow users to share photos, videos and update friends on everything they do. Now a new generation of sites is going a step further, using satellite positioning to track users’ whereabouts.

Ian Walker is making his way across the car park outside of his office on Liverpool’s Edge Lane.

His friends can watch his journey into work because he’s connected to Bliin, one of the new generation of social networking sites that is using satellite positioning technology.

Users with Global Positioning System (GPS) enabled mobile phones log-on using a small application loaded onto the handset.

See the full article online here

Several other companies are developing sites, including Trackut and Canadian-based Kakiloc, however the dominant websites MySpace and Facebook say they currently have no plans to integrate tracking systems.

The is also mentioned on Mashable here, and other details on Technorati here.

I was reading yesterday about a ‘new’ branch of analytics which has been coined SNA, or social networking analytics. Once you can see past the marketing name, it gets quite interesting, as you can read about here.

In essence it promises to let advertisers mine information about how we are all connected to one another and to companies whose products we use, what we say about our friends and about those companies - a whole new depth to market research.

Sounds very interesting for those that are able to harness and make sense of the information. Big brother is definitely watching us!!!