Pandora Squared - Web and Business Architects, Consultants, Social Media Marketing, Software and Blogging hope not hype

Khoi Vinh has an interesting post on the various different models used by social networks for representing friends.

We have chosen to go with a model similar to Flickr for our engine but its not the only one that works. Interesting to see some alternative thoughts on on the subject.

The second day of Manila Web2.0 Training begins with a comprehensive overview of Web2.0, social software and communities.

The webcam is live:

Mercury News talks about THE MOST SUCCESSFUL SITES LINK PEOPLE, SERVE UP LOCAL INFORMATION

“The growth in blogging reminds us the Internet is fulfilling its original promise about participation,” said Gary Arlen, a research analyst and president of Arlen Communications. “This medium empowers users in such a way that they can do what they want and be heard.”

The most popular sites on the internet are Social. Most Popular Global Sites on the web

8. mySpace.com

17. Wikipedia

19. Blogger

26. Craigslist.org

46. Xanga

47. Adult Friendfinder

49. Geocities

53. YouTube

54. TheFaceBook

63. Orkut

64. Live Journal

82. Hi5

84. Match.com

85. Flickr

89. Friendster

I’m sure there is many more in the top hundred that you could call social.

It’s sure interesting how quickly many of these made it to the top so fast…ahhh the power of social.

The latest A List Apart has an good article called Anonymity and Online Community: Identity Matters. It seemed a little light in its coverage of online communities but does cover some important steps to community building. An interesting read.

I wish I could have seen it in person but here is a transcript of an excellent speech by Danah Boyd on Glocalisation at Etech. It covers some very important aspects of community building and interation by different cultures.

“Organic community growth, embedded design, and the ability to connect culturally local communities through global network are the way to form large sustainable communities.”

USAToday.com has an article about Osama Bin Laden fan clubs build online communities

“On Orkut, at least 10 communities are devoted to praising bin Laden, al-Qaeda or jihad (holy war) against the United States. They can be found easily through a simple English-language search of the site. The largest bin Laden community has more than 2,000 members…â€?

I wonder why this is happening on Google’s Orkut, do they think Google will protect information and not hand it over to any government?

The Internet usage in the Middle for 2000-2005 has grown 450% while the rest of the world has grown 180%.

Using social software has huge political benefits for both sides.

In Iran you can no longer access Orkut.com

Zed to the Power of n equals Pandora Squared

Most business today see themselves as transmitting a signal to an audience that listens to that signal, reads that content or consumes that product or service. Under this impression to increase the value of your audience you must increase the strength of the signal, or make more noise via advertising.

An*1= An Or If you have 20,000 subscribers * 1 conversation = 20,000 subscribers (This is Sarnoff’s Law of Broadcasting)

Don’t do the Ostrich Think about it. Everyone runs around talking about “Protecting their brand� and answer this Mantra by having no feedback mechanisms for users or consumers to converse. This head-in-the-sand thinking spends millions on advertising while the users that want to talk about their experiences will find another venue.

If you don’t enable the conversations occurring in market today, someone will for you. (Hey Chaps- this doesn’t mean building bigger than Ben-Hur portals and “Destination communities� keep reading)

Some businesses are embracing social software tools, they know it is important but they may not understand why. Many get upset and others ask the very important question

“How do you make money on blogging?�

It is not just blogging: it is internetworking; it’s enabling, listening and participating in conversation. Internetworking (Metcalf) says that when you connect your subscribers or audience into a network that can intercommunicate the value of your network is squared. You’re making your invisible market visible.

By using tools like blogpulse, technorati, or subscribing or aggregating groups of blogs via RSS you can listen the conversations in market about your product, service, brand, political initiative, medical practices, farming innovations, new methods in AJAX, new tricks for Ruby on Rails or how IBM supports the Java Ecosystem.

(An)(An)+1 = An2+1 Or If you have 20,000 subscribers and allow them to see each other and intercommunicate the value of your network is squared plus one or Four Hundred Million and one.

(20,000)(20,000)+1= 400,000,001 (This is Metcalf’s Law of internetworking)

Reeds law of group forming networks nearly Metcalf’s law to the power of ten. We call this

Zn

(Zed to the Power of n) or Pandora Squared.

This is taking everything one step further. As my Aussie Mates say its Full-On! This isn’t some Super Size of the same bland boring thing. This is adding an entire string of garlic HEADS to the pasta sauce versus a few cloves. This isn’t making some sweet mango Salsa. This is real the deal sauce 100% minced chili peppers (I prefer a mix of Asian and jalapeno’s).

It slipped under my radar the other week but Ma.gnolia has stepped out of beta. I was able to beta test this a while back and was impressed by the functionality that they were including.

While its a YASBS (Yet another social bookmarking service), it does do it very well. Design is great and usability is top notch. I’ve always found del.icio.us to be horrible in that regard and while there are many others out there that do a good job, ma.gnolia is very polished. I was not suprised to discover that handful of the gurus have contributed to the site including Jason Santa Maria and Eric Meyer.

What is interesting is that there is more than just the standard bookmarking. The social features are strong with groups and profiles but what I like was the inclusion of featured linkers, personalities or groups who provide links on the site. I had a similar idea a few years ago but happy to see a good implementation.

Now, if they can get their API out it would be great for some browser plugins and public remixing.

Technorati Tags: Magnolia, Social Bookmarking, Web2.0, Social Software

For those who expressed interest in Breakfast Bytes there has been a update to the date of the event. It has now been moved to 8th March.

For more info or if you haven’t registered yet, head over to the Breakfast Bytes blog for more details.

Technorati Tags: John Butterworth, Australian Interactive Media Industry Association, AIMIA, Colin Caldwell, 3rd Sense Australia, Brad Howarth, Australian Anthill, Breakfast Bytes, web 2.0 seminar, web 2.0, TechCrunch, Hill & Knowlton

Not an official test but a fun one non-the-less I talk about it in my personal blog livingtrends. Imagine grabbing a laptop, a webcam, syncing with a wifi you don’t know exists and where its located, and webcasting a party the aim of which to see how many people will link up in various parts of the world and who does?

We hit 4 continents in 15 minutes thanks to the likes of super networkers Bala Pillai and we met while doing this event Howard Bloom a thought leader in human behaviour.