August 17, 2007

Adobe vs. Microsoft
Hmmm. I'm pretty slow discovering Inside Facebook which is a mine of information about the fast evolving Facebook platform for both developers and about software companies who make Facebook apps.

August 04, 2007

Fascinating discussion by James Hong about Reinventing HotOrNot (part1, part2, part3)

"PEOPLE are the killer app" is probably attained the status of a truism in the social software world. But it's still worth keeping in mind as a "guiding star".

As an intriguing aside. HotOrNot is now smothered with adverts for illicit dating sites. Hadn't really looked at or thought about this before (honest!) but when you start to consider it, internet dating really is bringing a hell of a lot more liquidity and plasticity to what you might call the "sex market".

And in the process, the incumbent institutions (eg. marriage) are getting pulverised. In the UK, the Tories are currently banging the drum for marriage. But look how the internet is a) revealing the degree of dissatisfaction within it, and b) helping people route-around the restrictions it places on their erotic lives.

Is online dating creating a more efficient sex market? And if so, does that mean that more people are now getting more sex? Is that turning up in any other social statistics or having further knock-on societal effects? Are we happier? More at risk from STDs? More dissatisfied?
Hmmm ... I wonder why people are setting up groups on Ning when they didn't on Tribe?

The functionality looks to me to be pretty similar.

August 03, 2007

Read/Write Web Netvibes Launches Facebook Widget

(Platform Wars reference nothing to do with me ... call it synchronicity)

Update : Umair pitches in and calls it an "anti-platform war" in that suppliers aren't trying to lock-in the users to their system against others, but are desperately trying to be as open as possible (and co-operative / inter-operable with other players).