The Key to the Magic Quadrant of Social Software

A few posts back I did a quick comparison on Microsoft MOSS 2007 and IBM Lotus Connectins to see which one is best suited for Enterprise 2.0, for Corporate Social Networking. One of the criteria we've developed in our TeamPark approach at Sogeti is that the software needs to be S.O.C.I.A.L.

In this comparison I also showed the Gartner graph on Social Software;

In their review, Dogear Nation rightly pointed out that for instance Yammer, Facebook, Twitter and so on are missing. So where have the Garter researches been?

However, the graph also shows that none of the currently available platforms moves into the socalled 'Magic Quadrant';

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a proprietary research tool developed by Gartner inc., a US based research and advisory firm. It is designed to provide an unbiased qualitative analysis of a “markets’ direction, maturity, and participants

Time to work magic

In the upper left quadrant we see both Microsoft and IBM named "challengers" with a great capacity to execute (read established corporate penetration), in the lower right quadrant we see a number of "visionaries" like Atlassian, Jive and Socialtext. The majority however falls into the lower left quadrant of "niche players" and no solution has made it to the magic quadrant yet.

What does it take to get into the magic quadrant? In blunt translation of the Gartner graph it should be Microsoft buying Atlassian for instance to combine 'completeness of vision' with 'the power to execute'. But that is not the correct answer.

If we mix up Jive with IBM or Atlassian with Microsoft it does not create a winner, it will not be a magic quadrant recipe, because it will undoubtedly be a functional cocktail from a technical point of view, not from a social point of view. It will result in a (probably very good) platform which offers everything you would want, but in the end won't work.

The 'ppp' Protocol

What does it take to get into that magic quadrant? Basically this is an identity management based issue. In my opinion we use the web in three ways:

1. Private
2. Personal
3. Professional

Probably we should rename 'www' to 'ppp' ;) .You could argue the terminology though, it could just as well be personal, social and professional. However, I think theseare the three domains to which we use the internet and with the current cloudcomputing trends this will create a new paradigm for identity management (IdM) and this will be the key in stepping inside the magic quadrant.

In the 'old days' we had our home pc to facilitate our 'private need', meaning we used it to store our documents, photos and accessed the internet to find information for our hobbies. We also had a corporate pc on which we stored our work related documents. And in the Web 2.0 age we started to use the internet for social interaction.

Nowadays, more and more is shifting towards webbased functionality. We use Google Docs for our documents, share our photo's on Picasa, Webshots, Flickr, Paintbucket or wherever. We started blogging, and we started Tweeting...

Each of these three domains is becoming more and more webbased and it confuses us, it frustrates us. We're constantly putting up content on a variety of sites, distributing our lives through various media to various audiences and we often find the content should move beyond the boundaries of just one domain and we end up duplicating the same information to another blog or wiki.

IdM Divergence is Key

The current trends on aggregation, the creation of lifestreams is convergence; pulling the content of various media into one single lifestream distributed to all our contact. Regarding the three domains however, we want - no, NEED - divergence; one single point of entry and the option to distribute it to different audiences, across the boundaries set by these domains. One of the functional prerequisites is the ability to organically group contacts (there are more ;)) regardless of the domain they are confined to.

This is, what in my opinion, will make it impossible for each of the platforms mentioned in the Gartner graph to truly claim the Magic Quadrant. Each of these solutions focus on one particular domain; social / personal or professional. The Magic Quadrant platform needs support all three domains in one coherent mashup of these multiple online identities we have fostered with ample mechanisms to guard our privacy, with the appropriate tools to include and exclude people to see certain types of information. It needs to be able to discern who is allowed to see which part of a certain domain

What is Social Software?

A few posts back I did a quick comparison on Microsoft MOSS 2007 and IBM Lotus Connectins to see which one is best suited for Enterprise 2.0, for Corporate Social Networking. One of the criteria we've developed in our TeamPark approach at Sogeti is that the software needs to be S.O.C.I.A.L. But what exactly does it mean?

As of this moment we only have a Dutch version of our book available, so I'll try and write up a few bits and pieces here on the blog.

Social Software

The foundation of Enterprise 2.0 is social software. A TeamPark which has a lot in common with MySpace for instance, but with clear differences.

What should your TeamPark look like? Whatever we think of and eventually build, a core requirement should be that it should be a place where people like to come to, without directions in their function description or receiving notification all day long to let them know something of interest has been added, or changed. A corporate hangout which lets people experience community and mutual interest. Various literary sources call this aliveness, as an important quality of social websites and, as far as we're concerned this pretty much nails it. It is just like in real life, as people are looking out for signs of life to find a place to socialize. Once inside that environment it takes some time to find the talk of the town.

It is not really that difficult to sum up what is necessary to build a social website, more or less. Which means; which are the elements that give a website a social character. A website on which you lookup a telephone number or are reading a text is not really social. In no way you can see what happens or who else is there, what the others think and there are definately no options to collaborate. A social environment does show these signals. As soon as you can see the presence of others, track their activities it suddenly gets a lot more social. It is perceived entirely different, and these signals, or stimuli, create an environment to interact. Which (inter-) actions actually do take place, and the result of these actions in consequence is primarily dependent on the focus the designer puts in the environment. The design of the website is a dominant factor, both the layout as the interaction design, in delivering the right stimuli.

All these stimuli a social environment offers, will stimulate people to engage in conversation, produce content and share ideas.

A conversation is quickly started by allowing users to react to a newsarticle. Different sorts of conversations can be facilitated by various web elements ranging from Instant Messaging to Chatboxes, Shoutboxes and a forum.

If there is a lot of content added to the environment, it will become important to weigh (rate) and filter which will allow content to surface that really has value, is popular, interesting, funny or up to date. With these mechanisms you avoid an information overload and stimulate quality.

As soon as a website starts to get a lot of users, the urge to create subcommunities arises. Each of these will form itself around special interests or themes. In large groups individual ideas are lost in the din and a sense of anonimity grows. A well designed social website stimulates growing optimum sized communities.

Finally, it requires enough mechanisms which truly enable to leverage the talent of the crowd. These are called aggregationmechanisms. Participation and UGC (user generated content) only is not enough.

Translation: Johan Vermij / VeeJay Burns
Original: TeamPark Method, the development of the intelligent organisation Page 13/14 by Arnd Brugman and Patrick Savalle, Sogeti Netherlands.

Top of the Blogs

Suddenly a couple of new links to the MindBlizzard blog appeared on my Technorati Ranking, which off course I don't mind at all. First of this set of links was Who's The Biggest? Redux by the Second Effects blog who compiled a list of the Top 100 blogs on Second Life.

No surprise I found myself somewhere down the middle, just one spot below "Ambling in Second Life" by my good chum Aleister Kronos, who's at number 61. That was some comfort... or not?

Well, there is one problem with the list...

A number of these blogs have been out of order off late. To see a list of who's no longer blogging anymore read this blogpost from November last year in which I list some of the blogs which haven't been updated in a while. Most notably the 3PointD blog, the once leading Second Life blog which has produced absolutely zits in the past year and a half and still neatly ranks number 52.

We all know that Technorati ratings are a wee bit iffy at times. A lot of people noted this and ArminasX has just updated the blogroll. In this second version the MindBlizzard blog dropped to spot 82. I can't say this is an error, as I must admit I have not been blogging on Second Life much off late. As said, MindBlizzard and Ambling were on the 61 and 61 slots in the first version, Ambling now dropped to 88, which is also quite amazing since it hasn't had a single blogpost in over three months. So despite the tweaking, the list will probably never be perfect.

We can work out intricated queries, tweak and reasses the quantitative rankings of the blogroll, but there is no way we can measure value, or quality in these blogs. I myself have not blogged Second Life as there was nothing special to blog from my point of view, no new companies entering Second Life, but I could have blogged myself to death in spotting every new inworld fashion designer, which just isn't my thing.

A second link I'd like to mention comes from the notorious GoFugYourSL which produced A Dandy List of SL Blogs, an alternative blogroll, without judgement or ranking, just alphabetically sorted.

I'm going to give you the entire 585 long Redux blogroll though, with the ranking included. Browse them to see which ones you like and dislike without paying attention to their ranks. In BOLD you will see some of my (still active) favorites:

# 1 Massively# 2 Official Second Life Blog# 3 iheartsl.com Second Life's largest community blog# 4 New World Notes# 5 VintFalken.com# 6 Torley Lives# 7 Not Possible IRL# 8 Fabulously Free in SL# 9 Free*Style# 10 Ana Lutetia inSL# 11 Dusan Writer's Metaverse# 12 Rezzable# 13 Prokofy Neva# 14 Second Style Fashionista# 15 Shopping Cart Disco# 16 Gwyn's Home# 17 UgoTrade# 18 Kzero# 19 SL iReports: Your news of a virtual world - Blogs from CNN.com# 20 Achariya.net# 21 Virtually Blind Virtual Law# 22 Alphaville Herald# 23 The Click Heard Round the World# 24 What Is This Crap?# 25 Fashion Victim# 26 Slmen# 27 The Metaverse Journal - Australia# 28 Mermaid Diaries: Natalia Zelmanov's Second Life Adventures# 29 Aviatrix :: Zoe Connolly# 30 El Opinador Compulsivo# 31 Living in the Metaverse# 32 Second Effects# 33 The Electric Sheep Company: Blogs# 34 The ARCH# 35 Corduroy# 36 Men's Second Style# 37 DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age# 38 It's Only Fashion# 39 maitreya# 40 Your2ndPlace - Comments# 41 Closet Crisis# 42 casa del shai# 43 CodeBastardRedgrave.Com# 44 Ewing Fashion Agency# 45 Botgirl's Second Life Diary# 46 Ch'know?# 47 Are we not men?# 48 Alliance Virtual Library# 49 Verbal Stew# 50 Hibernia on the Skids# 51 Designing Nicky Ree# 52 3pointD.com# 53 Prim Perfect# 54 The Heliograph# 55 FUTURE-MAKING SERIOUS GAMES# 56 Geta# 57 Be Less Stupid!# 58 Tuli's blog# 59 Girl Wonder Speaks...about Second Life# 60 Soign# 61 Second Arts# 62 Ivalde`s Heim# 63 Kitty Witchin# 64 SL Fashion Notes# 65 SL Fashion Police# 66 Fleur Skins# 67 'Kota's Knickers# 68 :: Dutch Touch :: Outlet - Second Life# 69 M is for Myg# 70 caLLie cLine# 71 An Engine Fit For My Proceeding# 72 Ophelia Drowns# 73 Second Stindberg# 74 CeN's Two Cents# 75 My SLife on the D List# 76 GION PROJECT# 77 CommonSensible# 78 Canimal.# 79 APLINK - itsReal# 80 artilleri# 81 Uma's Style Diary# 82 MindBlizzard blog# 83 Clyde# 84 The News from BardHaven# 85 Ryker Beck dot COM# 86 Reading Radar# 87 Kyoot# 88 Ambling in Second Life# 89 chignon - a Virtual Style Blog# 90 Fashion Consolidated# 91 Second Life of Dreams# 92 Phasing Grace Social Architecture and Virtual Worlds# 93 SL Fashion Avengers# 94 More Than Meets the Eye# 95 SLOG# 96 -Ana Lutetia-# 97 GoSpeed Racer a Second Life Avatar# 98 Brooklyn is Watching# 99 GoSpeed Racer a Second Life Avatar# 100 Through my eyes..# 101 ~silentsparrow~# 102 Long Awkward Pose# 103 Around the Grid# 104 Half Arsed# 105 Tenth Life# 106 SL FASHION DIVA# 107 Dedric Mauriac# 108 Philotic Energy# 109 Fashion Labyrinth# 110 Another blog!# 111 Digital Image# 112 Carissa's Closet# 113 Discursos do Outro Mundo# 114 Dwell On It# 115 Eladrienne's Other Life!# 116 Grid Expectations# 117 Nexeus Fatale# 118 Aspire Model Management# 119 Mui Mukerji# 120 Draconic Kiss# 121 r u n w a y + k i d z# 122 The Realm of the Red Rose# 123 SiniStyle Decapitated# 124 cognitive dissonance# 125 My Second Closet# 126 Radio Riel# 127 Ingmann Design Group# 128 GuRL 6# 129 *ICING* Second Life Vintage inspired Fashions by Miko Omegamu# 130 Koreshan Pointe# 131 SugarCube;Memoirs of Second Life# 132 Veyron's Adventures in Second Life# 133 Looker Lumet# 134 { Zaara }# 135 SLimply the Best# 136 JUICYBOMB All the Juiciest in Second Life!# 137 A Stroll Through Caledon# 138 All Ears in Second Life# 139 Alysha's Second Life# 140 Architecture +# 141 Lucas Lameth (luc) Fashion Jewelry# 142 On Your Toes# 143 starley.com# 144 MONTA# 145 PERSONA's Blog# 146 Business Communicators of Second Life# 147 adam n eve# 148 Fallobst# 149 *AnnaH*# 150 LaBicyclette# 151 Muse Fine Jewelry# 152 Ravishal Ramblings# 153 bijouaholic# 154 Cylindrian's Grace Notes# 155 CronoCloud Creeggan, Virtual Fashionista# 156 Rheta# 157 Studio Wikitecture: Opening Architecture# 158 SLShop-a-holic# 159 Songs from The Nightingale# 160 ~flirt~# 161 Pandora's box# 162 Less Than 3# 163 Whole Lotta Rosie!# 164 Rebel Hope Designs, Inc.# 165 My Digital Double# 166 She's So Unusual# 167 セカンドな日常 - livedoor Blog（ブログ）# 168 SySy's# 169 Tres Blah# 170 UberNoggin# 171 What *IS* Willis Talking About?# 172 Timothy's Second Life Experience# 173 Muism# 174 The Minor Mishaps and Adventures of Skusting Dagger# 175 DARK EDEN PLAZA# 176 Mischief# 177 Second Tense# 178 Royal Blue# 179 Shoshana's Musings# 180 Punch Drunk# 181 What's New ?# 182 Red-Headed Step-Child# 183 Just me, dinee# 184 Alienbear Jewelry Design# 185 MG fashion# 186 Exiled in SL# 187 Mimikri hot couture# 188 Chey's Second Life Blog# 189 Metaversal Arts# 190 Unique Needs!# 191 Aenea's Second Life# 192 Harajuku Box# 193 Refuge# 194 Hey Girlfriend# 195 BEWITCHED HAIR# 196 Virtual Silks and Fantasy Review# 197 All Things Tiessa# 198 Fashionality# 199 How's your world?# 200 PixelDolls...# 201 Second Life Male Style and Fashion# 202 Tori's Blog# 203 Wrath Paine# 204 The Journal of Dr. Darien Mason# 205 House of Nyla# 206 Sascha's Designs - Elegant Ballroom Gowns# 207 Diversity Hair# 208 Lady Adventuress# 209 Loki's musings on first and second life# 210 amiko*amikino# 211 Evans Avenue Exit# 212 The Winged Girl Blog# 213 ShopArmidi.com# 214 Tao's Thoughts on Second Life# 215 glamourazzi# 216 The New Observer# 217 Dot in Second Life# 218 GRIDSTYLE.COM# 219 My Virtual World# 220 Content Confessional# 221 -Analise-# 222 Best of Both Worlds# 223 Poid Mahovlich# 224 Bitter Thorns Blog# 225 First Impressions# 226 KessKreations# 227 Berry's Blog# 228 Designing Insanity# 229 Truth# 230 Virtually Dressed# 231 Diamonds and Rust Podcast# 232 Honour's Post Menopausal View# 233 Alienbear Gupte Virtual Life# 234 *AC Aphrodite Creations*# 235 Inspired - Kawaii Fashion in Second Life# 236 It's A Scaggs Life!# 237 Sin Trenton# 238 Ramblings of a Red Headed Kitten# 239 Second Life: Music, DJs, Nightlife, Art and Creativity# 240 http://snatch-sl.blogspot.com/# 241 Vanity Universe# 242 Virtual Neko in Second Life# 243 Willowing Wisps# 244 iCandy# 245 SLink# 246 STELLAR by Lexi Morgan# 247 The Rummage Box# 248 The Connolly Telegraph# 249 A Second Look# 250 Bliss Beningborough Couture# 251 Experiments with Avatars# 252 Avenue Models# 253 avocatio virtualis# 254 #NAME?# 255 PXL Creations# 256 Ambergris Deadly Fashions# 257 Imperial Elegance# 258 Oh, hush!# 259 Passionate Neko Dreams# 260 ArtsPlace SL# 261 Charity Dogsbody's Booke of Sensible Advice# 262 CONNIE in a SEC# 263 secondguru# 264 The Life of Abigail Raymaker# 265 Fallobst# 266 Zippora's life# 267 Nyte'N'Day Official Blog# 268 The ramblings of Violet# 269 The Winter Market# 270 Y Me digitally encoded genetic machismo# 271 YABU SIM# 272 Proceedings of the Royal Society# 273 Free Speerit# 274 Genevieve Lutetia# 275 Nimil# 276 Second Wave Fashion# 277 Punk Shack# 278 La Sylphide# 279 Emery# 280 Phantom's Republic# 281 Second Life Shopping Sherpa# 282 Beth's Second Life# 283 Decoy# 284 Lo Lo# 285 overcooked# 286 Popfuzz# 287 Shep Korvin - Blog is the new Black# 288 everyday second life# 289 Miss Cornelia Rothschild# 290 Moonshine Clothing# 291 The Lady and The Tramp# 292 Woo's!# 293 Lick, Don't Bite# 294 CREAMSHOP# 295 LF Fashions# 296 Pedro Meya Marty - Agentur f# 297 Second Life Stylewatch# 298 The Dressing Up Box# 299 Vitamin Ci# 300 Crimson Flow# 301 Omega Point A blog by Catherine Winters# 302 Sunn's World# 303 Moggs - a second life# 304 Glamorpuss# 305 Blunt Fashion Sense# 306 L o s t A n g e l . H e a d q u a r t e r s# 307 ma vie d'avatar: ma vie sur second life# 308 SLC# 309 Novocaine# 310 Beta Technologies# 311 IYan Writer in virtual worlds# 312 Little Gems from My Second Life# 313 ::eLDee::# 314 Curious Kitties Island Update Blog# 315 LaynieWear# 316 ::ANA_Mations::# 317 DEVILISH CUPCAKE# 318 Digital Dragon Designs# 319 Digital Eyes# 320 imagendivine.com# 321 Kathar.in# 322 Meet the Petermans# 323 Pix3lizeD Th0ughTs# 324 The Diary of a Caledonian Baroness# 325 500 Year Diary# 326 Accessories by Eolande# 327 Honey Wendt in Second Life# 328 Ingenue# 329 Kabalyero# 330 Solange! Fashions# 331 A Piece of Candy# 332 DragonFly Designs, Inc.# 333 Alphamale# 334 Kryptonia's Weblog# 335 Ai Baroque on Wordpress# 336 DrFran Does SL# 337 I Make HUDDLES# 338 The Fashionable Heart# 339 Eyana Yohkoh's Blog# 340 Metaverse Law# 341 Sensual Designs# 342 Digital Knickers# 343 Mela's# 344 Posh Pride# 345 Ravenwear: The Anti-Trend# 346 Scripter Syndrome# 347 Sio's Second Life# 348 The Cindy Kesey Show# 349 Eloise's thoughts and fancies# 350 Second Life's a Drag!# 351 The Virtual Version# 352 Trudeau Classic Sailing Yachts# 353 Winter Moon# 354 Eclipse# 355 Hairapy# 356 theshadow's Alternative Second Life Fashions# 357 VictoriaV Fashion# 358 Vidal's Dolly Realm# 359 World of IBIZARRE# 360 Aether Chronicles# 361 EarthStones# 362 DollyRock: Second Life Clothes# 363 I'm a Gracie Girl!!# 364 Freda's Fine Fashion Magix# 365 :The Cute Institute# 366 The Bon Mots of Phineas Matova# 367 BijouxOr Gold Jewelry# 368 =^.^= Neko Gear =^.^=# 369 The Excellent Second Life of Chartreuse Muni# 370 [CRAP] Fashion# 371 Awesome Designs# 372 Catt's Creations# 373 Gwendolyn Cassini Creations and Scripts 'r Us# 374 Illuminati Designs Updates# 375 Just fine# 376 MAU's# 377 Niki's Notes# 378 Rustica# 379 SubliminaLuminations# 380 Argent Eyes# 381 CTK# 382 Fashion Predator# 383 Frequency's Oscillations# 384 Jolie's Boutique# 385 Material Squirrel# 386 Ookami Ningen# 387 Ribbons Learns to Swim# 388 Serenity Mercier# 389 comme il faut - by Moire Georgette - virtual fashion# 390 Hexed (Formerly Escape)# 391 Second Life - Notizie e Commenti su Second Life# 392 Second Life Games# 393 Subtle Submission# 394 The Antiquity Gazette# 395 The Chilbo Road Press# 396 Viva La Glam.# 397 Comments for Yxes Muses# 398 Glass Earth# 399 Izzyisms# 400 Livin# 401 Not Your Typical Lady# 402 Project Q/Gematria# 403 SinSkins# 404 SlCoolMag# 405 Soda - Bubbly Fashions# 406 Cala - Transgender in Second Life# 407 2nd Lifer# 408 Mascha Boa's Fashion# 409 Prissy Pixels# 410 Reaction - a Surfers Revolution# 411 *~*HopScotch*~*# 412 Bewitched Designs# 413 Cailyn's - Classic Jewelry# 414 Dings Digital's Diary# 415 First Flower# 416 good deeds of a sailor to be# 417 JetDoll# 418 Kyra's Kloset# 419 Mashooka Designs# 420 pixie dust and tantrums...# 421 Rich Desoto# 422 Second Life at hand# 423 Second Mirage# 424 Selling in Secondlife# 425 Calico Ingmann Creations# 426 enkythings - Virtual High Heels# 427 Larue# 428 Machinations of an Evil Tiny Kitty# 429 Newbe's Steam Powered Blog# 430 Steamjunk# 431 Studio Sidhe# 432 Taunt# 433 TimeForce 10# 434 Tuli's Favorites# 435 !TM Hair Styles by Tami McCoy# 436 Daikon Forge# 437 Liquid Velvet Studio Designs# 438 rosemary galbraith# 439 Second Life Conceptual Creations# 440 The Velvet Room# 441 Torrid Tales of a Compulsive Swooner# 442 AMACCI# 443 FETISH FASHIONISTA# 444 Beq's adventures in second life# 445 Fortunate Productions# 446 A2NZ : When creativity goes global# 447 deadaswe's weblog# 448 Interests of Isolde Flamand# 449 Vignette# 450 ~Serenity Style~# 451 Beats n' Pieces# 452 Burroughs Jewellery and Eyes# 453 Caledon Early Bird Social Club# 454 Dreambits# 455 E.Laval Fine Clothing# 456 Fetch Alternative Blog# 457 Forceme Silverspar's adventures in Second Life# 458 House Of RFyre# 459 INDIRA BEKKERS - Second Life Fashion# 460 Samantha Speaks# 461 sf design - avatar clothing by swaffette Firefly# 462 **THE CLOSET**# 463 Explorations of the White Foxx# 464 Gideon Television Superstar# 465 Iron Raptor# 466 Nicola Escher - Journal# 467 Sparkle-Skye# 468 Tamed Frustration# 469 The Family Jewels# 470 Virtual World Business.com# 471 Warm Winter Nights# 472 Woolly Wildcat Writings# 473 Angie Mornington# 474 For All Your Household Needs# 475 From the Flames# 476 Jana's Classic Designs# 477 Make Money Online With Richard Palace# 478 Marion in Wonderland# 479 Mirrorlabs: Skin Studio Blog# 480 Quarter Life Crisis# 481 Soliel Snook# 482 The Llama's Den# 483 The Second Life Great Expedition# 484 Veronique's Second Life# 485 Wild Thing - Male Clothing# 486 Meta.Live.Nu# 487 Skidz Partz On Secondlife# 488 Contest Central by Impressione# 489 powers of creation# 490 Hair Solutions# 491 MRO SHOW ** LIVE **# 492 secondfluid# 493 :!:Lavish Style:!: by Katy Angel# 494 [Poptart]# 495 Acedia Diary# 496 Asri Falcone Originals# 497 Derek# 498 Diary of an avatar# 499 Elegance Hats# 500 Goto Desoto# 501 LDinSTL says:# 502 Mael's Mindforge# 503 Oh no Crippy Oh# 504 Ordinal's Cabinet of Ephemera# 505 Rave Nation Blog# 506 .: Na# 507 ~KorvinKreations~# 508 A NEKO's LIFE in SL# 509 AudSLife# 510 Balderdash- Bagatelle and Trinketry# 511 Baronial Notations# 512 Diva Designs# 513 Eye Candy Designs# 514 Fae Designs# 515 Fashionably Dead# 516 From The Eye Of The Storm# 517 Frontier's Horizon# 518 Fuel# 519 Ki-Squared# 520 Makeda Cole# 521 Mal Burns Annex# 522 Moriash Moreau: My Second Life# 523 My Second Life is the New First# 524 Paw Prints# 525 RaceSL# 526 sezmra.com# 527 Something Different# 528 SYD: Style Your Destiny# 529 Taffy Apple Designs# 530 Tea Monster# 531 Through the filter of a Victorian Aesthetic# 532 TorridWear# 533 trash palace - electronic music club# 534 Treasured Visions# 535 Tully in Second Life# 536 Tweaktocracy# 537 Violet Voltaire# 538 Wildefire Walcott's Mistressy Musings# 539 Your Godless Goddess# 540 Anti Cute Clothing Second Life# 541 BiancaF# 542 Brigid Ashwood Fantasy Artist# 543 Caliburn Susanto# 544 Essentia# 545 Handbags# 546 Mannon's Fashion# 547 Mircat# 548 Mollster's# 549 OOpS# 550 Random Acts of Style# 551 Return to Secondlife# 552 Ships of the Line# 553 Khaos Klub Information Website# 554 Blog of House of Lu; Paper Couture# 555 Caliente Express# 556 celtgrrl# 557 Ephemeral Creations# 558 Flower and Willow# 559 ICoN# 560 Inside Second Life# 561 Life by Proxy# 562 Made for No Reason# 563 Metaverse Week in Review# 564 Miriel in the Metaverse# 565 newly born# 566 NPSL: Nonprofits in Second Life# 567 Riven's Nest# 568 Savoir Hair# 569 Second Life Blogosphere# 570 Second Life Fashion Addict# 571 Second Spice# 572 ShenS Blog# 573 Skin Within# 574 Stella's Mall on Stella Isle# 575 Sweetest Sin# 576 Technopaideia# 577 The Agile Mind# 578 the Artists' tea party# 579 The Source of Power# 580 Trin's Tantrums# 581 Voodoo Style# 582 Welcome to the Train-Wreck Love Life# 583 Women of Second Life# 584 Yoshino's Second life blog# 585 Zagoskin Haute Couture

Who are your Twitterfriends?

Most people are pretty honest in building their social network at sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo, connection to people with whom they have a real relationship. It also helps that if you want to connect with someone out of the blue, you often have to enter the person's email address.

Building your friendlist at microblogging site Twitter works differently though. On Twitter you send out your message to the world. Everytime you blurt something into the Twitterverse there's a good chance it gets picked up by someone you don't know. If they like your tweet, there's a good chance they'll start following you, and if you politely follow them back, you'll get into a new network, building your own. Networks on twitter can expand pretty fast to thousands of followers.

Stars of Le Web 2.0 often have massive lists of followers, like Barack Obama (555,878), iJustine (285,034) Guy Kawasaki (100,318), Robert Scoble (74,688). It's impossible to pay attention to everything your 'friends' say when you've got such a list to monitor. Chances are that you're barely able to follow about a 100 or 150 of them actively.

One of the nice tools that plug into Twitter is the Mailana social network analysis system, which taps into millions of messages, tweets and pulls up a nice graph of your Network. If your list of followers has grown too big to manage and you start to forget who your real friends are, maybe it's time to pull up a graph of your own to see who you've been interacting with. The image below is my Twittersphere, which you can explore here.

Sparkle Second Life to iPhone

Genkii Announces Sparkle IM, a Virtual Worlds Communications Tool for iPhone and iPod Touch

TOKYO, Mar. 24 -- Genkii today announced Sparkle IM, an easy-to-use chat and communication tool for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows you to access the Second Life and Opensim virtual worlds over Wifi or 3G networks.

"Second Life and Opensim rely on high-end computing hardware and broadband for a full, immersive virtual world experience," says Ken Brady, CEO of Genkii. "But what about when you're away from your computer, at school, at work, traveling, or when you simply don't have the time to launch the full application?"

Sparkle IM allows you to do exactly that. You can use the following features immediately: send and receive IMs, send and receive offline IMs, region chat, send teleport requests, accept friend requests, and change your start location.

Sparkle IM supports Second Life, SL Beta Grid, OSGrid (Opensim), and any other custom server connection compatible with Opensim/SL.Sparkle IM launches with a special introductory price of $4.99 and is available in the iTunes App Store.

As we develop new features, Genkii will post additional announcements and information at http://sparkle.genkii.com/.

About Genkii

Founded in Tokyo in 2008, Genkii is a cutting-edge group of geeks working on a wide variety of mobile, virtual world, and social media applications.

Internet to shatter advertising business

My basic premise is that the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the king’s horses, all the king’s men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again. To analyze this statement we need a working definition of advertising, and I proposed the following, which is as general as I could make it:

Advertising is using sponsored commercial messages to build a brand and laying to locate these messages where they will be observed by potential customers performing other activities; these messages describe a product or service, its price or fundamental attributes, where it can be found, its explicit advantages, or the implicit benefits from its use.

It is frequently argued that the advertising industry will provide sufficient innovation to replace the loss of traditional ads on traditional mass media. Again, my basic premise rejects this, suggesting that simple commercial messages, pushed through whatever medium, in order to reach a potential customer who is in the middle of doing something else, will fail. It’s not that we no longer need information to initiate or to complete a transaction; rather, we will no longer need advertising to obtain that information. We will see the information we want, when we want it, from sources that we trust more than paid advertising. We will find out what we need to know, when we want to make a commercial transaction of any kind. The conventional wisdom is that this is exactly what paid search helps us to do, but all too often they are nothing more than a form of misdirection, as I explain further below. Instead, we will use information that we trust, obtained at the time that we want to see it.

Read the rest of this very interesting article at TechCrunch.

Companies spy on Twitter

Although it's been around a while already, suddenly Microblogging service Twitter, is the talk of the town, overly hyped and going supernova with unsurpassed growth rates over 1300%. For those unaware of Twitter: It's nothing special. It lets you type 140 character messages to the world, or anyone who cares to read your digital farts.

Nonetheless, Twitter is getting more and more popular and getting a lot of mainstream attention as twitterers like @BreakingNewsOn often bring breaking news way ahead of traditional media. In its wake we've seen all sorts of people turning to twitter to get attention. When I say all sorts of groups, I really mean all sorts of groups. On the serious side we find (of course) Obama, the Governator, Dutch Royalty and Dutch politicians (find the list on kamertweets.nl) for instance, and on the other side of the spectrum we find a list of pornstars who'd like more than 100 character lines in movies. Over the past months I've also seen an invasion marketeers on Twitter.

Most of Twitter's richness though comes from add-on applications that allow you to search on certain topics and handle multiple streams.

Due to its nature of 140 characters max per textmessage, people are often too honest, to blunt in their statements about almost anything and the number of stories about people who got into professional trouble after their boss picked up a tweet is growing. Online Marketing and CRM company Salesforce now adds to this, in offering a new service which helps companies to spy on Twitter.

Your Customers Are Talking in the Cloud.Where do customers go for service today? More and more often, it's not the call center. What used to be everyone’s favorite way to access customer service has become a jumbled mess of touch-tone navigation and poorly trained outsourced agents. It's no wonder customers are looking elsewhere. Today, real wisdom lives in the cloud. Web communities. Twitter. Facebook. Forums. Blogs. Google. The cloud is where customers are turning for service.

Salecforce just recently launched their Service Cloud offering (January), and promised it will include Twitter in the very near future, which basically means that you pay them a bunch for doing queries on Twitter. Companies will have to pay fees in excess of $ 1.000,- per month. After two months of service, Salesforce already registers 6.800 customers for their Service Cloud offering. According to Alexandre Dayon in a Venturebeat article yesterday, there is a huge interest in listening in on Twitter:

Most people on popular microblogging site Twitter (which just turned three) have probably seen customer service-type queries from other users — questions about how to make a product work, or complaints that it’s broken. I have even posted some complaints of my own. That’s one of the reasons companies like Google have created their own Twitter accounts, and its why Salesforce.com is adding Twitter integration to its customer service product, which it calls the Service Cloud.

This, of course, is the positive, official view on the Service Cloud offering, the more realistic version is that companies want to know what is said about their products and service, not to help you, but to do damage control if a customer has been 'too honest'.

Of course, there are exceptions; official corporate representatives who are not on twitter to monitor comments on their company, but for the love of Twitter itself. These folks are usually very accessible and welcome comments about their companies.

Corporate Social Networking

All around us, companies feel the need to go Social. As the web grows and companies see their employees blog and interact, share knowledge everywhere, suddenly we have to take Social Networking behind firewalls and create a corporate walled social garden.

It's not that big of a surprise senior management sees merit in embracing social networking as communities are pretty loyal and dedicated. It would be nice if we could bind our employees so strongly and also use their creativity to get better. It's probably no surprise either that they just don't quite get the essence of social networking. In the end it is about information, about knowledge that is the company's main asset, isn't it?

It's not in the functionality.

The next thing your senior management will probably ask for is a thorough analyses of requirements and a turn up a full list of features. A Social Networking site should have blogs, wiki, forum, chat, and so on. Over the past month I've been doing just that and made a thorough comparison between Microsoft MOSS 2007, IBM Lotus Connections and Telligent Community Server. Drawing up comparison charts, listing the functionality is a cumbersome job. Especially when the result is that there hardly is a difference. All platforms offer more or less the same functionality.

They're all the same, or not?

When it's all about the same, the obvious choice for senior management is to stick to what they know and we already use inside the company. From this reasoning, many companies will probably go for Microsoft MOSS 2007 (or MOSS 14 if they can wait until 2010) as it will offer the basic functionality you would want and integrates well with the other corporate software, and even allows you to keep sharing those all important documents.

It's like playing in a rockband.

Last week I attended a presentation by my Swedish colleague Andreas Sjöström, who founded the website inarockband. In his presentation he said working for Sogeti was like playing in a rockband:

inarockband.com builds on the analogy that working for Sogeti is like playing in a rock band.

Just as rock musicians we are serious about our passion, instruments and customers. In our creative work we understand that everyone in the project plays and important role, just as every instrument counts.

Working with Sogeti is not about working your career, but about your passion. Be passionate about your work, try to excell and in excellence delight the crowd.

In my opinion, Corporate Social Networking also fits this analogy. Blogs are a stage to enthuce and delight, communities a place to share passion. When we look at platforms to support this we are looking for simplicity, easy to use software instead of massively complicated configurable packages. The most suitable software for the job is Social, Organic, Collectively Intelligent, Alive and Linked.

It needs to be S.O.CI.A.L

We at Sogeti are passionate about our job. We like to excell. Small wonder we are constantly working up new books on best practises, creating new standards and methods. One of the latest books we've come up with is about moving from Crowd to Community. The second part of the book deals with the Teampark idea, a method to implement and adopt social software inside companies. In the next release this part will be extended and worked out into a full approach.

In the acronym S.O.CI.A.L my colleague Patrick Savalle has tried to capture what the elements are that empower social software:

These are the key elements for Social Software. From this vantage point, there is a clear winner when it comes to Enterprise platforms: IBM Lotus Connections. Whereas MOSS will excell in sharing explicit knowledge, LC will tap into the implicit knowlegde of your workforce.

Into the Magic Quadrant

I'm not saying Lotus Connections is the perfect match, but from an enterprise point of view, it's closing in on the magic quadrant, as Gartner puts it:In the graph IBM is not yet in the Magic Quadrant, and Microsoft isn't far behind. Don't get me wrong, MOSS isn't a bad product, not at all and I'm not saying IBM has done the trick yet, but they're slightly ahead at this point in time. In June last year, the CIO magazine also ran an article on IBM vs. Microsoft in the Social Software space and concluded:

While both vendors showed their products could integrate with existing e-mail systems (especially e-mail systems that they sell, such as Notes and Exchange), IBM’s Lotus Connections looked, at minimum, a year or more ahead of SharePoint in its social computing capabilities out of the box.

It was a lot prettier looking, too.

If we look at the road ahead, this conclusion still stands with Lotus Connections 2.5 going into Beta in April and expected to go Gold by Mid July whereas Microsoft MOSS 14 is due for early 2010. However, it is more than just release dates. It is about the core focus of the product. In terms of S.O.CI.A.L aspects, LC2.5 still has a more informal, organic, people centered approach than MOSS 14, which (from what I have seen under NDA) still is more formal and hyrarchical focussed on information, despite all it's slick tricks.

Scaling the Walls

Identifying the right triggers to create Social Networks is not a guarantee for instant succes though. On the one hand, setting psychology loose on Social Webdesign to delight the crowd and direct communities, creating emergent behaviour is tricky, but on the other hand we have the issue of the walled gardens. Companies will try to contain these platforms behind their corporate firewalls.

About a year ago I did a project in wich security played an important role. The client went into extremes to protect its data. However, all it's corporate knowledge, its value, could be found on Wikipedia for free. Knowledge and creativity are hard things to contain, they will find a way. Take blogging for instance.

From a bloggers point of view, his main drive will probably be to build a reputation. Blogging is more than just jotting down short things you are passionate about. You want to excell and gain authority. A global audience will probably suit you better than a limited corporate stage can offer.

Regarding this, Hutch Carpenter wrote an interesting article on his blog "I'm not actually a Geek" where he asks how much scale is actually needed in Enterprise 2.0 Employee Adoption.

Blogs: The nature of a blog is a single person’s thoughts, observations and ideas. Inside companies, these applications can be tools for the ongoing recording of things that fall outside the deadlines and process-oriented activities that make up the day. Making them public is a great way to share these contributions with other employees and establish your record of what’s happening. If only a few key people blogged inside a company, there will be value in that.

The article raises many interesting issues, but the question remains if we should take it all behind walls. It is quite true that Blogs do not require a large scale adoption, It will take justa few catalysts to start interesting corporate blogs, but if you want your employees to excell, to put effort into this Social Environment you have to offer them a worldwide stage. Have them interact with the world instead of limiting them to peers.

From a knowledge point of view we really have to consider which information really is actually a corporate asset. Is it knowledge on technology (which probably is out there on the web anyway) or is it about privacy, personal data and sensitive information about competitors or clients?

It's a brave new world

When you carefully look around in your company you might find these catalysts; passionate people who engage and delight the crowd. These thoughtleaders and visionaries inside your company probably have their own blogs, as they will be sharing their passion, having a global stage to build their reputation. Do we really want to confine them inside corporate walled gardens? Will they combine the pursuit of their personal passion and delight the corporate crowd? You will undoubtedly find out they will put more effort in personal blogging than in corporate blogging if we rigidly put our Corporate Social Network behind firewalls.

The current Social Networking trends focus on aggregation, pulling together updates from a variety of media into a single lifestream. If I look at my Plaxo Pulse stream for instance puts my twitter messages and my blogposts into a single update stream which is visible for all my connections. The next challenge will be to move from this information convergence to information divergence. This divergence will allow me, as a blogger, to write one passionate article and distribute it to the medium I chose and the audience I choose. This divergence will even more require personal and professional digital presence to blend, calling for better identity management and privacy measurements. In short, getting into the Magic Quadrant of Corporate Social Networking will not be about more features, but about smart blending of corporate and private digital identities.

Stalking made Easy

As the social web continues to grow, and more and more people are filling in their personal details everywhere, it is no wonder specific social search engines start to pop up, which can actually turn up all kinds of embarrassing and potentially invasive information about you.

Besides making online stalking easy, specialized search engines are making it increasingly easier to combine socially shared information together into a highly detailed profile of our virtual lives. These specialized search engines go by a variety of terms such as "social search" utilities or "people search" utilities and many of them brag of their ability to search deeper than even Google. [InfoPackets]

We all see it happen, but sofar I have not seen any serious attempt at redesigning the identity management and privacy issues on the web. It will take years untill we will figure out how to tackle this problem as it will probably take a full redesign of the entire internet architecture at base level. For now, you have to take charge of your online identity. Tips and tricks on how to regain some control can be found at PC World, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Podcasting for Sharepoint, MOSS 14

Over the past month I have been doing a Proof of Concept to see which Enterprise software would offer the most social value. The main focus was on the differences between IBM's Lotus Connections 2.5 (going into Beta in a few weeks) and Microsoft MOSS.

At our offices in the Netherlands we have a version of MOSS 2007 running, but apparantly we were not using it to its full extend, so Microsoft felt we were not giving them a fair chance and they did a full proof of concept at our offices in Paris. I must say, I was a bit surprised. Microsoft Moss (Sharepoint) is actually better than I had thought.

We also received a preview of the upcoming MOSS14 release, which should head into Beta later this year and will probably arrive early 2010. Without going into specifics, it won't be a surprise that Microsoft will continue the trends they set with Office 2007, using contextual ribbon menu's and throw in a lot of Silverlight. Of course, there will be more focus on social networking. One of the features Microsoft included in the presentation was an external kit, the Podcasting Kit for Sharepoint (PKS) by Codeplex. This kit went into beta last month and also heavily leans on the Silverlight technology. PKS can also be added to the current Sharepoint version of course.

What Can You Do With Podcasting Kit for SharePoint (PKS)?:

• Listen and watch audio/video podcasts, anywhere on your PC or mobile device (Zune, SmartPhone, or any podcasting device)
• Share content by producing your own audio/video podcasts and publish them on PKS on your own.
• Connect and engage with podcasters via your integrated instant messaging program
• Find the most relevant content using the five star rating system, tag cloud, search engine and provide your feedback via comments.
• Get automatic podcast updates by subscribing to RSS feeds fully compatible with Zune and other podcasting devices
• Simple RSS feed based on a defined podcast series
• Simple RSS feed based on a person
• Dynamic RSS feed based on search results (will be implemented later in 2009)
• Play podcasts in real-time using Microsoft® Silverlight™ and progressive playback
• Retrieve instant ROI and metrics with the ability to track the number of podcasts downloaded and/or viewed, instant feedback via rating system and comments, and subscribers via the RSS feed
• Access the richness of SharePoint to extend the solution: workflows, community sub-sites, access rights, editorial and more
• Customize your own PKS User Experience

Enterprise 2.0 adoption

Yesterday I came across an interesting article on the "I'm not a Geek" blog on social networking inside companies, or Enterprise 2.0. In this article Hutch Carpenter asks how much scale is needed in Enterprise 2.0 employee adoption.

The article has three sections;

1. Varying Adoption Levels Required



2. Consider the Purposes of the E2.0 Applications

Blogs: The nature of a blog is a single person’s thoughts, observations and ideas. Inside companies, these applications can be tools for the ongoing recording of things that fall outside the deadlines and process-oriented activities that make up the day. Making them public is a great way to share these contributions with other employees and establish your record of what’s happening. If only a few key people blogged inside a company, there will be value in that.

3. Implications
   

   Greater required participation correlates to greater impact on a company’s value: Generally, you could change the metric in the chart above from percentage of employee involvement to impact on company value. The increased participation means the associated application will also have a larger effect on the company’s strategies and operations. It’s not an tight correlation, but a general trendline. Exceptions will abound.

Read the rest of the article here.

Google unfit for Social Web

Over the past years we have seen two major trends on the internet; one is the so-called web 2.0 stuff, social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace etcetera and the second trend is Google taking ousting one rival after the other, gaining dominance on the web. Today a new study says these two trends are incompatible:

"NEW YORK Google doesn’t care about social networking. But perhaps it should, since social-networking platforms are gradually making search less relevant.Those are just two of the more pointed conclusions found in a report issued today by Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield, who examined MySpace’s business and its long-term ad relationship with Google. In the report, Greenfield reiterated a contention he made last July that the underperformance of search ads in MySpace is not simply a product of the non-responsive nature of these sites’ users. Rather, according to Greenfield, Google’s algorithm isn’t well-suited to social-networking sites -- and that’s something Google isn’t necessarily concerned with."

I'm not sure Google isn't concerned with social networking sites, but it certainly is an interesting statement. What is particularly interesting is why Greenfield things Google is not suited for Social networking;

"The reason the company doesn’t care, said Greenfield, is that the basic functionality of social platforms like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter is "diminishing the importance of search.” He points to users’ growing inclination to search for specific information by tapping into friends’ and colleague's knowledge through platforms like Twitter’s own search product, as well Facebook’s status update tool."

The rise of the social web brings people together. Friends and professional networks are the way to provide the necessary information, as these are sources you trust and value.

3Di OpenViewer 1.0 beta

found a movie about 3Di OpenViewer 1.0 beta on youtube.

"3Di OpenViewer" runs on IE as activeX compnents and enables you to view SecondLife or OpenSIM on web browser. I find "chat", "sit", "touch" commands on the right side of the viewer.

One interesting thing is avatar control. You know, in second life we move avatars by keyboards, but on 3Di OpenViewer you can move your avatar by mouse. I guess it's helpful especially for beginners.

Social Networking made easy

Having trouble to explain to the management what social networking is? Well, here's the summary: It's all about S.O.C.I.A.L: It's just a 5 piece puzzle

Microsoft takes Kumo for testdrive

In previous blog entries I've written about Microsoft loosing the online battle to Google and why they desperately need to team up with Yahoo. Google offers a whole suite of online applications, but at the core is of course Google's searchengine and this is where Microsoft wants to take the battle to in launching their new searchengine 'Kumo'

Earlier this week Microsoft announced that the company had started testing the new service, which is supposed to be much more intelligent that Google's. It is supposed to understand syntax and the relation between queries. Last monday CNet reported :

"Word that Microsoft was close to launching the new search tool began with a Twitter posting by Powerset co-founder Barney Pell, who now serves as a "search strategist and evangelist" for Microsoft. In the posting, reported by enthusiast site LiveSide, Pell did not mention the Kumo name, but said that the site was getting an updated user interface and new brand.

"Barney was referring to our internal testing environments," the Microsoft representative said, adding that the company had nothing to announce today. "We are not in a position to confirm what will come to the market or when." Microsoft acquired Pell's Powerset in July. "

According to yesterday's news at CNet, Kumo is a rebranded version of Microsoft Live Search. However, to stand more than a snowflake's chance in hell, Kumo needs to be a whole lot more than a mere revampt of the Live Search, which is the 3rd largest searchengine and currently has a marketshare of 8,5%, trailing Google (60%) and Yahoo (21%) by miles.

In yesterday's article at CNet they also laid hands on an internal Microsoft email calling out for testers. Here's a wee bit from the article:

In spite of the progress made by search engines, 40 percent of queries go unanswered; half of queries are about searchers returning to previous tasks; and 46 percent of search sessions are longer than 20 minutes. These and many other learnings suggest that customers often don't find what they need from search today.

We believe we can provide a better and more useful search experience that helps you not just search but accomplish tasks. During the test, features will vary by country, but you'll see results organized in a way that saves you more time. An explorer pane on the left side of results pages will give you access to tools that help you with your tasks. Other features like single session history and hover preview help accomplish more in search sessions.

Also from the same CNet article, a first screenshot of Kumo

For now, Kumo is the projects codename, but the blogoshere doubts it will be the final brandname. Officially, Kumo is Japanese for 'Cloud' and 'Spider' but sounds a little too much like that crazy dog, Cujo, from a Stephen King novel (according to ZDnet)

iPhone dominates mobile web

ArsTechnica published an article on the latest NetStatistics report, which shows that nearly 67% of the mobile web is iPhone generated:

The iPhone's Mobile Safari continued to kick butt and take names in February, though its numbers dropped from January in the face of strong competitors, according to research firm Net Applications. While this firm's data—culled from traffic observed across its "exclusive on-demand network of live stats customers"—differs somewhat from another study we saw in January, the conclusion is still the same: the iPhone still dominates the mobile Web.

According to Net Applications' most recent survey of the mobile browser market, the iPhone OS commands nearly 67 of mobile browsing worldwide. Its closest competitors have yet to break double digits, with Java ME (which collectively represents the stripped-down browsers on most regular phones) leading the pack at 9 percent, Windows Mobile in second place at 6.91 percent, and Symbian and Android following closely with a tie for third at 6.15 percent. The mysterious "Other" category accounts for 2.75 percent. What is perhaps most interesting about February's mobile OS market share numbers, however, is that the iPhone seems to have lost a little ground to the competition.

This corresponds with an article in the Dutch techmagazine Emerce, which featured an article which stated that iPhone users generally use 30 to 40 times more datatraffic than other mobile web users.