A fortnight ago I got a mail from a site stating that I have registered on it long back but have not used its services since then. Thanks to my knack of reading the log files and examining the cookies, I was appalled to find that I had never been on this site before. After further investigations, I came across a scary fact. The site that has sent me the mail had all the details and information about me which I normally have on my profile on various social networking sites.

Now the situation was clear in front of me. There can be two possible reasons for it. Either these social networking sites are selling the user information or hackers have the keys to their databases. Though both of these reasons were born out of the fear and insecurity, but were quite impossible. I had a discussion with few of my friends who are part of the cyber world and then after a long discussion I came to conclusion that it was none other than me who did the foolish act. This website only exploited it. Read more…

Introduction

This whole 2.0 thing has been notoriously gaining popularity for the past some time – Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Business 2.0 and now, Intranet 2.0. Many say it has become like a fashion to add 2.0 to anything that’s some what different from its ancestors. But this is not the case. There’s remarkable difference between 1.0 and 2.0 and we have been talking about them. In the same series, this time we will try to figure out the anatomy and structure of Intranet 2.0.

Intranet as you all are aware of is private version of Internet. With the development of Web 2.0, Intranet has also undergone some changes. Let’s just give you a hint what we will be talking about in Intranet 2.0 through the following example.

Serena Software, a vendor of enterprise change management software having employee strength of 800 Facebookpeople and working from 18 different countries across the world, has replaced its traditional intranet with Facebook as a front end linked to a low-cost content management system behind the firewall. According to the Company President and CEO, Jeremy Burton, the company organizes Facebook Fridays and encourages employees to find fun and personal connections in the work place.

Read more…

That was my reaction when I heard about a networking site Bigadda (Bigadda means spoiled) but it actually meant big adda (big hangout). I browsed through the site just to see what is the hype all about. You hear about it on Big FM. Believe me guys it’s just a stylish version of DesiMartini.com (whose ads has been making rounds of the TV now-a-days.) The layout, the whole look of the site gives the same feel as DesiMartini. It has certain resemblance to Hi5 as well. If you see the site it will remind you of a mix of a lot of social networking sites running currently. Except the login page I think they have not put in much effort in anything. Read more…

In the youth culture of social networks, the worst thing is to grow old and boring. I doubt if the Facebook whirl will continue for very long. I recently took a look at the new Plaxo Beta about a month back and I agree that Plaxo does have some advantages; they have a user base of 15 million and the new features directly address the challenges Facebook will have in moving to the business community. Read more…

There goes another website for all the Digg fan boys and techno geeks – Pownce, a website and desktop application that allows users to send music, photos, messages, links, and events to friends. When you send your file, link, message, or event you have the ability to broadcast it to your entire list or message people individually.

File size is limited to 10mb per file sent, or for twenty dollars yearly you can sign up for a “pro” account, which allows you to send files up to 100MB. (Note: the pro account also makes it so you won’t see ads and you get a special badge next to your name)

Review:
In few recent articles I read, people claimed that Pownce might be a Twitter killer, but I don’t agree to the same. Yes Pownce is a lot similar to Twitter as it has desktop applications. But I guess it is based on communication of information not information communication. Its impossible to block or remove unwanted spammers or e-stalkers. Lack of SMS and RSS feeds breaks the communication chain. May be all these are very minor flaws but do we want to see too many of them?

On the other hand, re-locating people on Pownce is very easy, with an added plus of the friends of friends feature. This is something Facebook and a few others could do with looking at.

One major pet peeve I have about social networking or social bookmarking or microblogging websites is that they do not allow us to use our e-mail address book to see if friends are already on the site. Pownce doesn’t allow you to check for that, plus their search is rather clumsy.

Overall, Pownce is a nice site and application but the functionality can be questioned until they make some changes, this site is just for early adopters and not all that practical.
Send To Friend

There was a rush of high school students pouring in after Facebook opened to everyone last year September. This resulted in a huge number of high school teens registering for Facebook. Despite the rise of high school teens enrolling on Facebook was still framed as being about college.

I believe that this is indeed a change taking place, but it’s not a shift so much as a fragmentation. Until recently, teenagers were flocking to MySpace. The picture is now indistinct. Some teens are flocking to MySpace while the others are flocking to Facebook. What they choose is kind of sticky because it seems it primarily has to do with opting for something different to break the monotony.

The other reason for this is the ideal substitute provided by Facebook after MySpace dangerously estranged “good” kids. Parents weren’t nearly as terrified of Facebook because it seemed “safe” thanks to the network-driven structure.

I suspect that this will be received with criticism, but my hope is that the readers who encounter this essay might be able to help me think through this. In other words, I want feedback on this piece.

Well I think with social networking sites pouring in everyday users have started to make choices and have been more critical over where to land. A huge amount of users change accounts everyday looking for something new in social networking. In my previous blog I mentioned a shift from MySpace to Facebook that has been very prominent. There is a similar case where I went through this social networking site and saw endless flaws in the same.

One can trace a lot of friends at Hi5 than on others, and it is a delight to meet new and old friends on the web. Yet the site is buggy! At times it doesn’t allow us to add some people as friends. Some friends get deleted automatically. And its text forms are buggy, for example, when we edit our profile and try to save it, it doesn’t get saved and then we have to type everything again. Its the same with the message form. And most of the pages on Hi5 have JavaScript errors, which isn’t much good for a professional site.

I hope developers of the site overcome these issues soon, before people have moved onto other social networking sites.

I won’t say that Facebook is the next Google. It is a whole new religion- not just a space copy for people. The first thing to check when one gets online in the morning and before they go to bed. It’s addicting no doubt.

I recently signed in and just can’t stop exploring it. So many features, such a classic layout, the navigation is very well made too. There are loads of opportunities there for the smart marketer.

• You can build, or hire someone to build, little applications that Facebook users can add to their own Facebook pages. Custom applications can ‘go viral’, passing from user to user, very quickly. If a user adds, say “Trips” to their pages, then all of their Facebook friends will see that one of their friends is now using the same application. They, in turn, may use it. After that, their circle of friends see it and do the same, and so on.

• Blog import: You can import your blog to Facebook and then anyone in your Facebook circle of friends will see it.

• Rubbing elbows: The site offers a lot of opportunities to network and connect with lots of players in their given industries.

Learn about Facebook, folks. Sign up today, and spend a few minutes playing with it each day. It will pay off in the long run. Even if Microsoft buys them, this site has dug in its feet deep as a networking and marketing tool.

I have a whole lot of friends with Orkut accounts. I tried exploring it few times and noticed few flaws in the manner it functions. I see more "friend" requests on Orkut than I have seen on any of the other Social Networking Websites.

I must say though, after taking a look at the site content I was surprised to see the public information being displayed. It isn't limited to just friends, or friends of friends, but instead is easily available to anyone who would care to see it. In fact, other than your name and how many "friends" you have, your relationship status is the most prominent thing listed. Do I really want to know if my business acquaintance and distant friends are single, married or divorced. Read more…