Webware

Online-invitation service Socializr is hoping to be the FriendFeed for your social life. The site announced on Wednesday that it now aggregates invitations from MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo's Upcoming, Meetup, Google Calendar, and industry leader Evite (owned by InterActiveCorp) in addition to letting members send their own invitations. The new feature is called "Event Connect."

Socializr, which was hatched by Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, also has implemented Facebook Connect and MySpaceID so that members of those social networks can invite friends to Socializr events. A third new feature of Event Connect lets members tap into their accounts on any photo-sharing sites to pull in pictures.

You can't yet auto-sync your entire Socializr event listing with a calendar service, but Abrams said Event Connect beta testers have been requesting it and that it will probably get implemented down the road.

"The vision for Socializr was always to do more than to be a better Evite," Abrams explained to CNET News. Aggregating other invitation and event-listing services was "sort of something that people have been asking, 'Why hasn't anyone done this?' for ages."

There are plenty of event-listing services trying to take a bite out of the market share that Evite--and now Facebook's invitation service--has dominated for years. Abrams said that while Socializr is small, it's still well-positioned to grow.

"We're doing OK. We haven't taken over Evite yet, but they've been around for 10 years," he said, adding that the company is still prerevenue. "We have a lot of interesting ideas about ad revenue, but it's still premature for us. We're still only five people, and still in the product development and growth stage."

I'm as guilty as the next person for having a social network portfolio that's too big. Aside from my Twitter account, I belong to Plurk and Identi.ca, and although I use Facebook most often, I still have MySpace and Hi5 accounts.

But now that 2008 has passed and it's time for us to evaluate what we did last year and try to improve upon that for 2009, why don't we start by cleaning out our social network portfolio and start using only those services that we like best in each category? After all, spending more time on multiple services isn't nearly as rewarding as getting more quality time with the best services, right?

Social bookmarking keeper: Delicious

Social bookmarking services are extremely handy when you want to remember a site at a later time, but that doesn't mean they're all created equal. In fact, Delicious, the leader in the space, easily sets itself apart from competitors like Ma.gnolia, Diigo, and ZigTag by boasting a better interface, more users, and better tagging, which makes it easier to find and share bookmarks.

Although Diigo's highlighting options are useful, ZigTag's semantic technology tries to improve bookmarking, and Ma.gnolia aims at providing a more thorough solution, none compare to Delicious. Yahoo's social-bookmarking service now features a streamlined search function, which makes finding bookmarks simple, and its new design makes it the most intuitive social-bookmarking service on the Web. But Delicious' most useful offering--its Firefox add-on--has nothing to do with the site at all. By installing the Delicious add-on, users can tag pages on-the-fly without being forced to visit the Delicious homepage. Granted, its competitors have Firefox add-ons as well, but after using each, it quickly becomes clear that they simply don't work as well as the Delicious tool.

Taking all that into account, I simply don't know why it's worth using another service besides Delicious. It's a superior tool with more convenient options, offering the same basic functionality as its competitors. It's the cream of the social-bookmarking crop.

Micro-blogging keeper: Twitter

I'll be the first to admit that I complain about Twitter as much as the next person, but after using competing services like Identi.ca, Jaiku, and Plurk, it's not hard to figure out that it's the only worthwhile micro-blogging tool.

Granted, Twitter still doesn't offer groups and I wish it had an element of open source like Identi.ca, but the sheer number of users who comment each day on Twitter makes it the best choice for your social-networking portfolio. If you want to be a part of a community that's both lively and engaging, you won't find it anywhere else but on Twitter. And now that it's more reliable and the Fail Whale is an occasional annoyance instead of a daily occurrence, Twitter has become an even more compelling service.

As the best place to find friends, colleagues, and thought-leaders in any industry, Twitter is the obvious choice as the only micro-blogging service that should be found in your social network portfolio.

News Aggregation keeper: Reddit

Trying to find the ideal news aggregator on the Web can be difficult. Depending on your definition, there's conceivably hundreds of services that package the best stories into one page. But it's the "social" news aggregation services, like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon that lead the pack. And although Digg is the most popular service in that grouping, I'm a firm believer that Reddit deserves to stay in your portfolio as your chosen news aggregation service.

Normally, I would pick the social site that offers the largest and most engaged community. But when it comes to news aggregation sites, Digg simply doesn't cut it. Sure, it's the biggest and arguably the most important to content sites, but that alone doesn't make it the best. Instead, I find Reddit's site design, while simple and ugly to some, incredibly useful and designed to help users find the best stories as quickly as possible without gaudy extras. But the most important differentiating factor working to Reddit's advantage is its community. It might be smaller than Digg's, but generally, the comments on each story are more edifying and lack the invective that has become a staple for Kevin Rose's brainchild.

Reddit may not be the biggest, its site design may be odd, and its community not as rabid, but in terms of providing interesting stories on a slew of topics without as much "gaming," it leads the pack and deserves to be in your social network portfolio.

Social Network keeper: Facebook

Choosing the single social network to use while ditching the rest isn't easy, since most of us have friends scattered across Friendster, Hi5, and MySpace. But it's because of those few friends still clinging to the past that we hold on to all those social networks. Enough is enough. It's time to rebuff the rest and stick to Facebook.

Why choose Facebook when MySpace is still the world's most popular social network? It's simple: Facebook doesn't have the awful design found on MySpace profile pages, offers a huge, engaged community, and most importantly, it's growing at a rapid rate, which means all those friends who still hang out at Friendster, LiveJournal, or even MySpace are starting to make their way to Facebook.

MySpace still provides value and Hi5 could be a significant competitor in just a few short years, but for now, Facebook, with its addicting features, applications, and growing community, should find its way to your portfolio as you leave the others out.

Video site keeper: YouTube

Maybe YouTube is the safe choice for the only social video site you should keep in your network portfolio, but I simply don't see how anyone can choose anything else. Vimeo is nice, but much of its content is barely watchable and while Metacafe is still an interesting site worth visiting, it doesn't provide the professional content that YouTube does.

And it's that professional content that I find most valuable when it comes to YouTube. Sometimes, I want to find a music video that isn't available elsewhere and YouTube will have it. And when I'm feeling nostalgic and I want to watch an old clip from The Wonder Years, it's sitting on YouTube waiting for me. As a bonus, some of the user-generated content is pretty good too, though most of it is strange.

I know that anyone can make a case for why practically any user-generated video site on the Web should be the exclusive service in your portfolio, but when it comes to finding the obscure, professional, or just plain weird, YouTube is the only place to go. All the others are practically useless.

I'm a social-networking addict. I'm never away from my Twitter stream, I always check Facebook for friend updates, and Friendfeed is probably my favorite Web tool this year. I check out Hi5 to catch a glimpse into the future, head back to Friendster from time to time, and can't help but check in with LiveJournal every few months when I feel nostalgic.

But for all that work with social networks, I've also become a somewhat critical and cynical user. And anyone who suffers from my same addiction probably has as well. That's why I've compiled this list of some of the most annoying social-networking quirks that affect us all.

Constant Updates

Sometimes, updates get to be a bit too much. It's not that I don't like them--I enjoy seeing what my friends are up to--but when I'm constantly inundated with new relationship status updates, virtual good purchases, and status updates, it gets overwhelming.

Thankfully, many social networks allow their users to control what kind of updates they receive, but even then, it's tough to decide what you should and shouldn't see. Maybe you don't want relationship status updates for everyone, but there are a select few that you do want updates about. Worse, status updates need to be kept on, but for some, you wish it was turned off. It's an awkward balance, but changing content settings usually helps. I spend most of my time in those settings prior to using any service before I get going.

Fail Whales

I realize the term "Fail Whale" really only pertains to one service--Twitter--but it does get annoying when any social network is down. Granted, many of these issues happen when a social network is in its infancy, and over time the sites become more reliable. But again, as a social-networking addict, I find myself using new social networks each day and downtime is a constant occurrence.

(Credit: Twitter.com)

During the first four months of 2008, Twitter experienced uptime of just 98.72 percent, for a grand total of 37 hours and 16 minutes down. Bebo was down for 14 hours during the same period and Hi5 trailed slightly behind with 13 hours of downtime. More popular sites like Facebook and MySpace kept downtime to under three hours.

Am I the only person who's annoyed by that? I realize maintaining a popular service isn't easy and scaling is a major issue, but more uptime means more user satisfaction, which is a key component in the success (or failure) of any social network.

Inordinately long beta periods

Beta periods are important to the growth and development of any social network. I'm a firm believer that, when used properly, they help the company find lingering issues to fix before the network goes live to an even larger community. Even better, they do a fine job of creating a viral-marketing campaign through beta testers who are impressed with the service and share that sentiment with friends who cannot yet access the site.

But sometimes, beta periods get a little out of hand. To me, a beta period that lasts too long tells me that the company knows there are problems and is simply unwilling, or unable to rectify them. So in order to cut down on negative feedback, it keeps the site in beta when it shouldn't be.

Maybe management forgot to take the beta sign down or its waiting for a special moment. Regardless of the reason, the longer a service is in beta, the sooner I lose confidence in it.

The fight with size

I hate to say it, but sometimes, social networks are too big. Try finding your friend with a unique name on Facebook or MySpace and you probably won't have too much trouble--there aren't that many people named Apple out there. But if you try to find your old friend Tom Smith, you'll probably have more trouble finding him than you should. Sure, there are advanced search options that try to help you narrow it down by location, but what if you don't know? After college, he went his way and you went yours. The chances of you finding him are slim. And as Facebook and MySpace add more users, it's even getting difficult to find less popular names. You wouldn't believe how many people on Facebook share my last name.

But it's not just trying to find old friends that can get frustrating. When you want to add an app to Facebook, it's almost impossible to find exactly what you're looking for without searching multiple times. Due to the incredibly high number of apps on the service, simply inputting, "card game" isn't going to cut it. I'm all for having more apps and widgets on social networks, but don't you think it could be arranged better to reduce search time? I'm guessing that would make the entire community much happier.

Wednesday, I discussed all the features Twitter's competitors offer that it doesn't. Now I'm back with a discussion about Facebook and all the features its competitors offer that it doesn't. Will it take the advice and start rolling them out?

Bebo: Sharing an artist's dream
Maybe Facebook's groups feature is enough for some writers and musicians to come together and share their work, but I don't think the social network does enough.

Bebo, on the other hand, doesn't just allow users to band together around similar interests; it provides an author's nook where budding novelists and prospective journalists can show off their talents by uploading their work and sharing it with the community.

Granted, the ability to upload a Great American Novel or a poem written in a moment of despair isn't necessarily the most attractive feature to most social-network fanatics, but having the option to upload that material highlights Bebo's willingness to provide its users with more than just a community to share interests. In fact, Bebo's author's nook provides an outlet for individual members of the community to express themselves, which is a key feature in any social network. That's not to say Facebook doesn't embrace individuality, but something as simple as an area for artists only enhances an already attractive service by providing those users with another way to have exposure in the community. I don't see what's holding Facebook back from doing the same thing.

Friendster: It's all about design
What's so bad about designing your own profile page? Facebook's policy of forcing every user into a single profile design befuddles me. Sure, some MySpace pages are gaudy and downright ugly, but that doesn't mean users shouldn't be allowed to express themselves in their profiles.

That's why I enjoy Friendster's profile layout tool, which allows users to create their own, personalized profile page without conforming to the boring design Facebook forces them into. They can modify colors, choose design schemes, and generally create a more aesthetically pleasing profile than what's possible on Facebook. In fact, I think it's safe to say that Friendster's profile production functionality is the best on the market and provides users with enough tools to design unique profiles without giving them too many options to turn the entire service into a MySpace freak show.

Social networks are all about being "you" and connecting with other individuals who want to do the same. I think profile design enters into that mix.

MySpace: Singing all the way to the bank
MySpace and Facebook are often compared when we discuss social networks, but that doesn't mean they should be deemed equals. In fact, MySpace's Music integration not only makes it an attractive social network, but it also makes Facebook's service look comparatively boring.

MySpace Music is one of the best streaming music services on the Web. Allowing access to millions of songs without worry of copyright violation and offering the ability to share playlists with other MySpace users means the company's music service adds far more value to the social network. After all, networking with friends is fine for a while, but soon enough, you're going to want something more to keep you interested in the service, right? MySpace decided music was the way to keep you there and make you want to continue using its service. Facebook has yet to do it. Mark that as one (major) point for MySpace.

Don Reisinger is a social-network addict. Check out his profiles on Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed.

Social network Friendster announced Tuesday that it has been awarded its fourth U.S. patent, called "Compatibility Scoring of Users in a Social Network." It does pretty much exactly what it sounds like--it parses user profile data to find people who might be compatible as friends.

The social network, considered an also-ran in the U.S. but a much bigger phenomenon in a number of Asian countries--it has 65 million registered users in Asia--had its first patent granted in July 2006 and says that more are on the way.

"In just six years, social networking has become both an industry--since 8 of the top 20 largest Web sites in the world are social networks--and a critical platform for over half a billion Internet users globally to share, communicate, connect, and be entertained with existing and new friends, family, and colleagues," Friendster CEO Richard Kimber, whom the company hired from Google in August, said in a release.

"A core component of the evolution of social networks is the ability of the online 'social graph' to represent our real social life. Understanding the common interests between people establishes common ground to build and enhance relationships," he added.

In case you were keeping track, this patent is No. 7,451,161 and it was granted on November 11.

Developers who have created applications for Facebook's platform can now bring them over to social network Friendster. This means that Friendster supports both Facebook's code and OpenSocial, the standard created by Google for social-network widgets.

"Friendster's support of both the Facebook and OpenSocial platforms is a big win for business and individual developers, as well as for Friendster users," David Jones, vice president of global marketing for Friendster, said in a release. "For the developers that have invested resources in developing and launching a Facebook app, Friendster has now made it very easy for them to 'port' these applications to Friendster...For Web 2.0 companies that have developed apps using Facebook and OpenSocial APIs, they now have the flexibility to choose between approaches when launching applications on Friendster."

Another social network, Bebo, now owned by AOL, announced that it would implement support for Facebook's platform late last year. Friendster marketing director Jeff Roberto told CNET News that Friendster entered into a licensing agreement with Facebook, which has since made most of its developer platform open source.

Could another social network do the same? Probably. "With an open platform, it's quite possible that others will embrace it," Roberto said.

Long before Facebook was a household word, Friendster was the first big social-networking site to take off in the U.S. But in 2004, plagued by technical problems, Friendster lost significant ground to MySpace (now owned by News Corp.) and later Facebook.

Since then, it's had quite a reincarnation. Friendster estimates that 78 percent of its 80 million users, like the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, do not use Facebook. If so, it would be to a developer's advantage to make an app available on both platforms.

In August, Friendster raised $20 million in venture funding and hired former Google employee Richard Kimber as CEO. Last December, it debuted its developer platform, and in September released OpenSocial support.

On November 1, 2007, Google launched OpenSocial, a set of APIs that leverage JavaScript and HTML for creating applications that access friends and update feeds from any compliant social network. Nearly 10 months later, Google is touting the maturation of the OpenSocial specification and growing developer and user adoption.

At this juncture OpenSocial version 0.7 has an addressable market of more than 300 million social network users, including the social networks that have delivered OpenSocial applications or are actively developing them, according to Joe Kraus, Google's director of product management. Friendster, which claims 75 million users including 55 million in Asia, recently unleashed OpenSocial for its developer community. Hi5 has more than 1,800 OpenSocial-compliant applications and 66 million installations, according to platform architect Paul Lindner. Hi5 has nearly 60 million users, with 80 percent outside the U.S., according to ComScore.

Overall, Kraus said that there are more than 4,500 OpenSocial applications and 150 million installs. In comparison, Facebook, which has so far eschewed OpenSocial, has more than 30,000 applications and 700 million installs.

"We expect to reach 500 million OpenSocial users by the end of the quarter. It's also very international, as social networking is a global phenomenon," Kraus said.

(Credit: Google)

The latest version of OpenSocial, 0.8, adds a number of new features that extend beyond its original JavaScript roots. "When we launched OpenSocial JavaScript was the center, but the community wants more choice. We agreed upon a RESTful API that gives access to the social bits and is already implemented in Apache Shindig and deployed by hi5 in beta," Kraus said. The OpenSocial RESTful API specification defines how servers, mobile devices, and desktop computers interact with OpenSocial containers without the need for JavaScript or direct user interaction.

"Hi5 launched with OpenSocial very early--January 1, 2008--and we ended up building the system, which had a lot of undefined pieces," Lindner said. "We had a lot of custom work with the REST endpoint so that applications could contact our server directly. As time went by all participants came up with one-offs, but now we are bringing it all together in the community with common types of solutions for these problems. Standardizing on a single specification will allow application developers to write code once and it will work on all different containers. We are already seeing others build on REST specification. Plaxo, for example, has enabled privacy-enabled exchange of contact info."

In addition, the OpenSocial community is working on compliance tools, such as an application that determines the level of compliance for a container.

(Credit: Google)

The 0.9 version of OpenSocial will add templates and markup, making it easier to develop the user experience dimension for an application. "Templates and markup are now in discussion on public mailing lists, but we believe we are pretty close," Kraus said. Regarding when OpenSocial is deserving of a version 1.0 designation, Kraus said that the "community will make the call."

The community Kraus speaks of is the group of about 350 developers participating in the main discussion around the evolution of the open-source OpenSocial specification and reference implementation. Google obviously has major clout in the evolution of OpenSocial, but Kraus noted that just 10 percent of the major participants are from Google.

To further untether OpenSocial from its origins, Google has also proposed an OpenSocial Foundation, which would be a steward for ensuring the OpenSocial specification stays open and intellectual property and patent non-assertions are handled so that developers feel safe about using the code, Kraus said. An announcement about the OpenSocial Foundation is expected "really soon," Kraus added.

Google clearly has a vested interest in seeing OpenSocial succeed. As Google's Vic Gundotra explained at the November 2007 launch, OpenSocial makes good economic sense. "The more applications, the more usage. More users means more searches. And, more searches means more revenue for Google. The goal is to grow the overall market, not just to increase market share." Having the an open source community behind it will make Google's economic mission much easier.

Updated at 7:24 a.m. PT on Tuesday with comment from Richard Kimber.

Brush off your Monty Python and the Holy Grail references: although long forgotten by social-media junkies in the United States, Friendster is not dead yet. The pioneering social network announced on Tuesday that it has raked in $20 million in venture funding led by IDG Ventures and has hired Richard Kimber as its new CEO.

Kimber was hired from Google, of all places, where he served as the regional managing director in Southeast Asia. That's key for Friendster, which has seen most of its recent growth in the Asia-Pacific region, to the point where it's now the No. 1 social network in countries such as Singapore, as well as the Asian leader overall, according to ComScore. Friendster has been translating the site into different Asian languages and focusing on growth there rather than trying to patch things up in the States.

He takes over from Kent Lindstrom, who will remain on Friendster's payroll after serving as CEO since early 2006. Founder Jonathan Abrams left amid the site's U.S. decline, and he now runs an invitation start-up called Socializr.

"Friendster is growing at an enormous rate in Asia-Pacific and is clearly leading the competition. I believe this is partly because the Internet is transforming the lives of everyone, and it will probably become one of the greatest liberators of our time," Kimber said in a statement that seemed tinged with mild political undertones. "I look forward to growing our business further, as we continue our global growth and strong focus on Asia."

Kimber insisted in an interview on Tuesday that he hadn't implied anything political. "It's more about the fact that the Internet enables...people to connect with people that they haven't been able to connect with," he explained. "I really do think social networking has a very important role to play alongside the access to information."

When it does come to dealing with governments that might not adhere to U.S. standards of free speech, Kimber said the company is well-prepared. "Like all social networks, we are very much in touch with all the government agencies and the like. We have a massive user base already, and we're very much on the forefront of how this whole industry evolves," he said. Referring to his experience at Google, he added, "I've had a lot of dialogue with regulators throughout the area."

Indeed, to fuel that growth, the company has raised $20 million. IDG Ventures was joined in the round by all of Friendster's previous investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, and the Founders Fund (which also invested in Facebook). The last round of funding the company raised was $10 million just less than two years ago.

Kimber said the latest round will be used to hire more employees, specifically engineering talent, and opening more offices across the Asian continent. He named Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia as four countries where he'll have an executive presence.

Friendster has more than 75 million members to date. While many are still in the States, Kimber said the company will maintain its Asia-centric strategy and that any U.S. marketing will be targeted toward audiences with close ties to Asian countries.

"We're continuing to focus on the international component of the U.S. market: Americans that are interested in Asia and that have connections in Asia," he said. "We're going to pursue a segment strategy for the U.S. and then a much broader strategy in Asia."

Friendster has fully launched its developer platform with more than 180 applications available to its 56 million registered users, the social-networking site said Tuesday.

The company first announced the platform on October 25.

The developer platform was initially piloted by some well-known names in the widget world: Slide, RockYou, Imeem, Jangl, Clearspring, and Gbox. Companies and individual developers participating in the program are allowed to advertise anywhere in the application space and keep all revenue.

According to the social network, the platform is going to be as "open" as possible to make it easy for applications designed for other sites to make their way to Friendster, and vice versa. Friendster is a partner in the Google-led OpenSocial initiative and has said that OpenSocial APIs will be integrated into the Friendster Developer Platform when the much-stalled OpenSocial is "completed and secure."

This is not the first time that we've seen an OpenSocial partner go ahead and launch its own developer platform before Google's standard has gone live; business networking site LinkedIn announced its InApps platform earlier this week.

A victim of the soaring popularity of MySpace.com and then Facebook, Friendster has fallen from favor in the U.S. But the company currently claims a large chunk of the social-networking market share in the Asia-Pacific region--a fact that prompted Friendster to start launching versions of the site in different languages in the fall. Some of Friendster's developer applications reflect this: Yobo.com, for example, has created a Chinese-language music discovery application.