Niv Calderon Connected

Add people you know and care about
Don't add people you never heard of just because they asked, close circles aren't close enough for you to get feeds from them most of the time
Don't worry about how it looks, you'll see the benefit from it later
Send a Happy Birthday, try doing it every day, it'll pay you off
Meet your social graph in the real life. Real life is the extension of your social web.
Social web is the extension of your real life relationships
It's like the chicken and the egg, but here we actually know what came first
Be who you really are, don't try to fake or pretend, your social graph has a photographic memory, be careful
News travels fast, you can use it
The world is flat, you can use it
In social networks it is possible for anyone to know anyone, be careful whom you cyber with.
Share links
Share what you're doing with your friends
Comment
Work on your profile continuously, it's not meant to be a monument
Don't be afraid to remove people you're totally not in touch with
See what's up with your friends, you'd be surprised at what you might find
Reading is not enough- Comment
Write something in your blogging platform
Link to others
Be large with what you do
The places you're stopped in your social web activity are the places you're stopped in your life
But don't be reckless, be smart
Be authentic
Be loving, it's good for business, any business, even if it's not business
Remember

In the last few months I have used my social graph a few times in my efforts to characterize a system i've been working on. From my experience i have learned that many people of vision have no clue about what the market wants or what is most important to the users and I decided to just ask them for their opinion without giving them an explanation to why I do this, which, in my opinion, was irrelevant. I have used my graph to create a think tank that was totally unavailable to me in the pre-facebook era and am constantly amazed by what people say and by the amount of knowledge accumulated on a page like this. Pay attention to how people express what they think and how they interact with each other, it's fascinating. I'd love to know what you think about this after you read. Also, I want to apologize for how this post looks in my Wordpress, as this is a bilingual blog it has its language issues of alignment…i'll sort them out soon.

The following is my Facebook note and all 46 comments that came after.

In Facebook, what would you choose? (please leave a comment)
Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 4:21pm

Hey guys,

I have a Facebook question for you:
If Facebook gave you just 1 option to choose from it's basic applications,
and basic applications are: status lines, notes, photos, posted items, videos, events and groups.
1- which would you choose to be be as the only application?
2- which application in your opinion is the heart of the system?

if you were tagged, i would really appreciate it if you leave a comment, it's a kind of a pole for the job i'm doing now. Iif you weren't tagged, i'd appreciate it if you left your comment anyway, I need as many answers as possible.

===THANK YOU IN ADVANCE===

Einat Brodsky wrote
at 4:29pm on April 26th, 2008

I would choose the status line
'caus everybody needs to know what's up with me

Lior Sion wrote
at 4:33pm on April 26th, 2008

I'd start with the status, because you described you were looking for the 'heart of the system' (btw, I wonder why you call status a feature but newsfeeds not..)Order of the rest:
Photos
Events
Notes
Chat

St Zohar wrote
at 4:51pm on April 26th, 2008

im with einat

News feed.
It aggregates all the activity of my friends and in a more friendly way than friendfeed. All the rest can be done in other, open, platforms.

Julia Tyutyunik wrote
at 5:07pm on April 26th, 2008

i would choose events and photos.

Eliezer Oren wrote
at 5:18pm on April 26th, 2008

Indeed all thr fratures combined make FB what it is, so it's hard to point one as "the heart of the system" as you put it.However, if I have to pick one it would be the News Feed, givibg you a quick aggregated view of "what's new with everybody".

Guy Yom Tov wrote
at 6:02pm on April 26th, 2008

I stick with what Eliezer Oren said. I think the "what's new with everybody" is the core of the system. without it - nothing is important.

Niv Calderon wrote
at 6:11pm on April 26th, 2008

to all of you: what do you use the most?

Alon Kastiel wrote
at 6:28pm on April 26th, 2008

events

photos and status updates, but if I need to choose one i would pick the status updates.

Ethan Shalev wrote
at 7:08pm on April 26th, 2008

I'd go with events. for photos I have a server running gallery, status updates are useless to me and available on twitter.
Though the heart of FB is that it offers all these things together, with mashups of them - event photos and videos, and the such. take that away, and though you have the heart of FB, you lose the liver. and the body will die.

Einat Weinboim wrote
at 7:19pm on April 26th, 2008

Definitely the status line. It's like the new "Away" message, very similar to ICQ and Messenger, but way more important, since everyone keep changing it.

Hagai Jacobson wrote
at 8:09pm on April 26th, 2008

You can't just take one aspect of the application, its like eating only the toppings from a Pizza, however what I find here that I don't have anywhere else is the
birthday notifications, Saves alot of hassle

Nir Ofir wrote
at 8:19pm on April 26th, 2008

Niv. Do a test. Ask the same question to ppl that are not always on.

nir: good idea
I've removed people from the list here and added others:)

Tal Galili wrote
at 9:29pm on April 26th, 2008

pics.

Fuks Michal wrote
at 9:45pm on April 26th, 2008

photos.

Tal Forkosh (French Polynesia) wrote
at 9:51pm on April 26th, 2008

I Choose Life

Nadav Bruchiel wrote
at 10:01pm on April 26th, 2008

all the elements, all of them, exist and even may work better elsewhere.
it is the combination, the flexibility of usage and the fact that everyone are here that is making it what it is.

I'm actually in with Omer. I think the news feed is the heart of Facebook and the thing that separates it from other social apps.
If I had to choose one thing from the list, I'd be inclined to choose status line even though lately my status updates have increasingly been updated from Twitter more than they have directly through FB.
Coming in a close second is groups, for the reasons that Ronsho iterated above.

Dor Rotman wrote
at 11:09pm on April 26th, 2008

I don't think you can remove a lot from facebook. The key in facebook is INTEGRATION between the all the services. If I had to choose - I'd remove the Notes app.

Ron Shoshani wrote
at 11:55pm on April 26th, 2008

btw, how much FB is paying for this poll?

Adi Av wrote
at 1:47am on April 27th, 2008

For me it's events and groups.
I can use dedicated sites for photos and videos, and most of the rest may be handled by Twitter.

Ahuvah Berger wrote
at 4:06am on April 27th, 2008

since most FB users are not twitters (though you all SHOULD be) - i would have to say the status line is the most important fb application. this is how i stay connected without even asking "how are you?"

Keren Tamooz Brown Leer wrote
at 8:27am on April 27th, 2008

Photos

Or-Tal Kiriati wrote
at 9:47am on April 27th, 2008

Events. I agree with what Omer said.

Yosef Silver wrote
at 12:42pm on April 27th, 2008

If I had to pick one, it'd be events.
Status = twitter.
Notes = blogs.
Photos = flickr.
Videos = youtube.
I defiantly don't use groups to the max, and if I really want to share a posted item, I'd blog it.
Sure, events could be covered with evite, but of this bunch, this would get my vote.

Niv Calderon wrote
at 2:05pm on April 27th, 2008

To all of you:
So, you'd want to be in different places to do different things?

Amit is an old school IS

at 11:37am on April 28th, 2008

I'm with Omer, I think the mini feed is the core thing as it provides an update about one's entire activity and a peek to others' social life (which is the reason why this is interesting in the first place).
Plaxo Pulse also now tries to offer mini feeds but I guess it is just a little too late.

Joe Brown Leer wrote
at 12:15pm on April 28th, 2008

1- which would you choose to be be as the only application?
ONLY? I wouldn't bother with Facebook if it only had one.
There is no ONE application I would choose. The combo is status-photos-messages.2- which application in your opinion is the heart of the system
The minifeed. fast, short info, to lead (by choice) to other items

status lines, notes, photos, posted items, videos, events and groups?Its hard to choose…

Ilana Nijnik wrote
at 2:25pm on April 28th, 2008

Events and groups are the most useful to me. I guess photos are also nice especially since you can tag people in other people's photographs.

It took me not more than two minutes to decide to write a post about this Firefox add-on called MashLogic, (after the companie's name). I didn't know what to expect, but after the installation I went to my other tabs and saw the technology working.

In short:
You browse the web, you see regular links and you see more links that looks a bit different. Those other links will open small in-window popups (if you stand on them) and will give you information from different sources about this word or phrase, at present, most of them will come from Wikipedia and LinkedIn.

HeadUp
Last time I wrote a product review it was about Semantinet's Headup where I suggested they should open themselves to go beyond the social web, and it is my guess they have only just started there and that they're on their way to connect the dots of the normal web.

Semantics
Well, it's funny to say, but MashLogic has done just that, but the opposite- they went to connect the dots in the normal web and left the social web, or to be precise- they are not connecting everything I do as a user all over the web. I'll explain. Whereas Semantinet's Headup are looking at what people are doing all over the social web, MashLogic is looking at words and phrases and suggesting to us the users extra value to whatever we are looking for and then some more about words and phrases that are living in or near the same context.

Words and phrases becoming links that may interest you. MashLogic

User Experience
After Installing the addon you get a window you need to choose which places you want to take info from. My guess is that this list will grow in time and that it is the amount of boxes you check that decides how many phrases you'll learn more about. To the guys at MashLogic I suggest to make this settings page smaller. it's too big and there's too much to read there. My first reaction to this was that I got scared and wanted to close it. It didnt take me a second to realize I need to choose from the list of options, but the too much to read part is unnecessary. Less is more.

What Now
The world is becoming a world of mashups. Web 3.0 is somthing people are saying is going to be a world of semantic connections and technology understanding contexts. BORING.
You can stone me if you want, but I think web 3 is going to be an era where technologies will ultimately learn to co-exist with each other to the max. The foundation is already here (undoubtedly web 2 is the foundation for web 3) Look at the Open Social technology, look at the data portability vision, look at the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web, Go read about Yahoo's Open Strategy (or watch the video). In the future,  technologies that will stand alone and won't speak in both directions will be obselete, we're on our way there right now.

MashLogic vs. SemantiNet
MashLogic is what I thought missing to Semantinet and Semantinet is what's missing to MashLogic. Those are two startups that probablys tarted at the same time (2007) but went in two different dirrections.
Their future is unknown but promising. I think they should work together, what do you think?

———-

PostScript- If you are interested in a product review you can contact me via email or via Facebook

invitations to MashLogic

———-

more about MashLogic:
MashLogic at CrunnchBase
John Gannon writes about MashLogic
VenturBeat
Techcrunch

Digsby has done something no application should do to its users. I'll tell you more than that. After I'm done writing this I'm going to uninstall this program and send them a letter to be deleted from their database, they made me angry.

It's the second time in my life I'm angry at a startup I use its application, and this time i'm not going to shut up about it. The first was a Firefox plugin called Xoopit that connected to my Gmail and started sorting my attachments to give me a once a week email with all my photos in order. Joy. Not really.
Even after I removed this plugin it continued sending me emails until I said no more. I went to read the terms and conditions and to my amazement- they save a copy of ALL my emails in their server in the process. I'll say that again- by installing and registering to their service- you grant them permission to save a copy of all your emails. That-made-me-angry the first time. (this is their pirvacy policy, they may have changed it in the mean time, i talked to them back in August and just re-read the conversation with them).

Digsby became known to me 2 nights ago by a friend. I was enthusiastic about a so called all-in-one IM/EMAIL/Social Network application I could see what's going on everywhere. Well, it turned out somehow the Gtalk side didnt work but than I got a @reply from a Twitter friend telling me he's not very enthusiastic about this program. How did he know? I asked my self this question too. It appears my Digsby sent it for me, WITHOUT ASKING.
What were you thinking to yourselves? Very not cool.

This morning I got an email notification from none other than LinkedIn. "Your request to join a LinkedIn Group has been accepted", was written in the subject line. I ASKED TO JOIN A LINKEDIN GROUP? i asked myself?

What are those guys at digsby thinking to themselves?
There are 3743 members in the LinkedIn group called "Fans of Digsby". I wonder how many of them truly asked to join.

An application, whether its desktop or web, shouldn't mess with the privacy of its users. It should deffinately not give itself the privilege to write status updates for its users ( to help itself expand ) and most certanly should not attampt to link its members to groups or any other sad attampt to grow in an unnatural way. An application that does such things, who knows what it's capable of. I don't want to find out.

Haven't seen The Muppet Show in years I think, and just when I was looking to write about how social media can change the way we are in school, the way we study, the way we communicate with our fellow students and teachers (it can be in grade school, it can be in university), I found these 3 amazing short videos, each not more than 20 seconds, that made me lough out loud and think of the brilliancy the writers poses and how connected they are to what's happening today in this field. their brilliancy in taking a social phenomenon like YouTube and how people are using it, and drill down on it all the way, all the way to the point where the two characters stick their heads to the webcam. It's hilariously like that. I've never thought of the Muppets as a satire show, but than again, maybe I was too young. This is a satire to how we are when online. It's a replica of us.