Tarpipe begins to tackle personal content overload

Thanks Mr. Cracknell at LittleLucifer for this post from cnet

Posted by Rafe Needleman

Tarpipe is one of the most curious experiments in social media that I've seen lately. It takes personal content (e-mail messages, primarily) as input, and can shunt it to one or more desinations, transforming it in the process. For example, I created a Tarpipe e-mail address that will take a pictures I send it and posts it to Flickr, update Twitter with a link to the Flickr page, and put the picture and the Twitter URL in an Evernote record for me. All I have to do is send the e-mail.

Tarpipe looks a lot like Yahoo Pipes. They work in similar ways: Users drag service and function boxes around on the workspace and connect them with blue tubes to control the flow of data. But Yahoo is about taking inputs from several sources and then creating a universal RSS output. Tarpipe is more about directly updating personal content services like Twitter, Flickr, Friendfeed, Delicious, and Evernote, which Yahoo Pipes doesn't do. The service has the potential to be the answer to the lament I first talked about in The looming crisis: Personal syndication overload.

This workflow takes an e-mailed photo attachment, sends it to Flickr, posts a TinyURL link to it on Twitter, and archives the photo and the Twitter link in my Evernote account.

The app will currently update several personal services: The ones I mentioned, plus a few others like Tumblr, Plurk, and Jaiku. But one problem with the system right now is that, unless you are a programmer, it's inflexible as to inputs. You can e-mail Tarpipe items, and manipulate that data. You can also use an online form for input, but you cannot create complex workflows around form data, other than to direct it to the services you've connected to your account. (The developer interface is apparently quite robust, though.)

Twitterpipe: Coming
One thing end users can't do, at least not yet, is ask Tarpipe to monitor a personal RSS feed (like a Twitter account) and then process that for further transmission to other services. RSS "slurping" is coming, Tarpipe creator Bruno Pedro told me.

Tarpipe keeps a log of all the data it's handled for you.

That's one of the things I'm waiting for. I would like to continue to use the input methods I'm comfortable with (for Twitter, that means Twhirl) and have Tarpipe selectively send my output to other sources based on content (perhaps using hashtags).

The other thing I'm waiting for, which Pedro is working on, is community aggregation. When this is running, you'll be able to monitor and reply to your audience as they comment on your posts. This solves the issue of fractured community for people who contribute their work or thoughts to multiple sources. The concept is this: Tarpipe will track all the items it posts on your behalf. It will monitor those posts at their new homes for replies from other users. It will be able to notify you of those replies so you can participate in discussions that spring up. (Related: MyBlogLog; Typepad Comments.)

The system may also help you connect conversations together that are on different services. For example, if I use Tarpipe to post a photo to Flickr and a link to the photo on Twitter, and then the conversation picks up Twitter, Tarpipe may be able to attach that discussion to the Flickr page.

Pedro told me that Tarpipe may also get features to help its users meld their social networks together on the various services they are signed up for. He calls this the "unified social graph," and says, "You'll be able to follow your social network, invite your contacts to Tarpipe and send messages to specific people."

And finally, he's working on adding new content destinations to Tarpipe, like Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Picasa, and video sharing services. Richer programmatic access (more APIs) is in the works, too.

An interesting effort
Tarpipe is not done. It's too hard to use, and key parts of its feature set have yet to be built. It is, though, an extremely interesting middleman service for handling what is becoming a real problem for a lot of people: Personal content management not just for what we read, but for what we create.

See also: Ping.fm, Pixelpipe, and Friendfeed.

Living and Learning with New Media: Findings from a 3-year Ethnographic Study of Digital Youth

Thanks Futurelab for releaseing this report on young people and social media

by: danah boyd

For the last three years, I've been a part of a team of researchers at Berkeley and USC focused on digital youth practices. This project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation, brought together 28 different researchers (led by Mimi Ito and my now deceased advisor Peter Lyman) to examine different aspects of American youth life. As many of you know, I focused on normative teen practices and the ways in which teens engaged in networked publics. We are now prepared to share our findings:

• Two page summary (pdf)
• White Paper - Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project (pdf)
• Book - Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media

Already, write-ups of our research have hit the press:

• Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing (NY Times)
• Time online teaches kids important skills, study finds (Mercury News)
• ... and many more

Needless to say, we're excited by our research and uber excited by the coverage that we're getting. For years, we've been finding that youth do amazingly positive things with the technology that they use. Yet, during that time, we've watched as parents and news media continue to focus solely on what is negative. We're hoping that this report will help adults get a decent sense of what's going on.

For those who are only familiar with my research, I strongly encourage you to check out the report to get a better sense of the context in which I've been working. I focus primarily on "friendship-driven practices" but the "interest-driven practices" that motivate creative production, gaming, and all sorts of user generated content are tremendously important. I focus primarily on what happens when teens "hang out" but there's also amazing learning moments when they mess around and geek out with one another.

The book is currently available only in draft form but an updated print version will be available in the future. In the meantime, enjoy, and feel free to ask questions!!

Original Post: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2008/11/20/living_and_lear.html

Tags:

• danah boyd
• new media
• research
• social media
• teens
• young

Online ad spend boom Down Under

Cheers Elizabeth Lloyd at imedaiconnection for this rundown on the state of affairs in the Australian online ad space

The latest figures show Australia has a bright future, both for online advertising opportunities as well as broadband subscriber growth.

According to the International Telecommunication Union, 74.3 percent of Australia's population is online -- out of 20.6 million inhabitants, 15.3 million are online (as of December 2007). With statistics like this, it is no surprise that Australia is one of the top 20 countries with the highest number of internet users.

What is interesting to note is how the internet has changed Australia's traditional media use. The World Internet Project in July 2008 published a report titled "CCi Digital Futures Report: The Internet in Australia" detailing:

• For users, the internet is now their most important source of information. Just under seven in ten users described the internet as 'important' or 'very important' compared to a third for television and less than a half for newspapers or radio. Internet users spend less time watching television, listening to radio and reading newspapers than nonusers.

Advertisers are starting to notice the shift from traditional to digital media -- it is evident in the rising online advertising expenditure. With growing internet penetration rates (in just eight years the number of online users has more than doubled), online advertising expenditure in Australia has showed record quarters. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Online Advertising Expenditure Report, which was published in June 2008, states:

• Online advertising expenditure in Australia for the second-quarter of 2008 totalled A$412.5 million, the largest second-quarter recorded. This is an increase of $28 million (or 7.3 percent) from the first-quarter of 2008, and is an increase of $87 million (or 26.7 percent) from the second-quarter of 2007.

What has contributed to increased penetration rates and the shift to digital media for information consumption is growth in the broadband market. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports that 22.8 percent of Australia's population falls in the broadband subscriber category (as of September 2007) -- just under four in five home connections are broadband.

Broadband does make a substantial difference to peoples' use of the internet. "The internet is more highly valued by those with broadband connections and they use the internet for longer and for a greater variety of purposes. Younger people have been quick to integrate the internet into their lives, they use the internet more and particularly for entertainment," according to the CCi report.

The internet is widely embraced in Australia. However, a digital divide does exist as a fifth of the population has never used it. With or without broadband, internet use varies greatly between different groups. The CCi report has found that "men, students, employed persons, younger people, higher educated and higher income individuals are all more likely to use the internet than women, retired people, home-makers, older people, lower educated and lower income individuals".

Aside from the demographics, what is interesting to note is the type of online media that is receiving the most attention. The IAB report cites that:

• The largest online advertising expenditure was search and directories, which comprised of 45.3 percent, while general display advertising and classifieds advertising accounted for 27.8 percent and 26.9 percent of the total advertising expenditure for the second-quarter of 2008, respectively. Finance, computers and communications, and motor vehicles sectors continue to be the dominant industries using general display advertising, and comprise over 50 percent of the general display spending.

Marketers take note of the online user demographics as well as the dominant sectors in all forms of online media. It is evident that Australia has a very promising future -- both for online advertising opportunities, as well as broadband subscriber growth. Not only does the number of broadband users increase, but online advertising expenditure statistics are very impressive.

Elizabeth Lloyd is co-founder and chief revenue officer, 9Global, Inc.

Digital technologies that will change how you market

By Matthew Klein thanks to iMediaConnection for helpful listings on tomorrow's technologies.

We know that tomorrow's media will be digitally integrated, but what will that media entail? Get the inside view on the next wave of digital media opportunities.

Steve Ballmer predicts that in 2015, there will be no media that is not IP-enabled. In other words, 10 years down the road, there will be no distinction between "traditional" and "digital" when it comes to media.

In this future world, I predict that much of the planning of media will remain the same. There will still be a human side to the equation of planning and negotiation. It is the stewardship that will evolve beyond the tear sheet reporting of traditional media and into the action and behavior tracking of the digital media today.

Print goes digital

Many people in the media believe they are currently witnessing the swan song of the newspaper industry. However, the combination of the advancements in e-paper and the proliferation of ubiquitous Wi-Fi leads me to believe that the newspaper industry will experience a resurgence -- once the term "paper" is redefined through electronics, that is.

Consider that major companies such as LG Phillips, Bridgestone (QR-LPD), Fujitsu (Clerk Browser and Fabric PC), Siemens (color flexible displays for packaging), Samsung (carbon nanotube based e-paper) and even Hearst (FirstPaper) are all moving rapidly towards the development of thin, LCD screens that will one day be flexible enough to roll into one's back pocket. While on the morning commute, people will consume news from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or the The Chicago Tribune with the click of a button, all wirelessly transmitted via ubiquitous Wi-Fi networks.

Outdoors gets more interactive

The future of outdoor advertising will also be digital, and thus interactive, according to a presentation, which profiles technology from a company called Catchyoo. Catchyoo is in the "interactive out of home" space, like Reactrix and Bubbloo. It provides not only outdoor interactivity products, but back-office scheduling and remote management software that allows for mass distribution to multiple locations simultaneously. This creates a new media business model for outdoor advertising akin to the way we distribute ads on the web today.

Another example of the digital shift in outdoor comes from Inwindow Outdoor and their Interactive Storescapes. With the ability for people to interact with the outdoor advertisement via motion, speech or Bluetooth, the day will come when media companies are being asked to report on the engagement time, downloads or views generated by their outdoor media buy.

Radio plays

Now, consider the evolution of radio. You've probably seen the Ford Sync commercials profiling technology that is powered by Microsoft Auto. Ford Sync is a voice-activated mobile phone and digital music system for your car. With digital music, the technology is currently taking advantage of what is essentially an in-dash MP3 player or MP3 player plug-in. But with interactive radio, there may come a day that you get into your car and plug a memory card into the dash of your vehicle. As you are driving along, you hear a song you like, but the artist is not announced. With two-way digital radio (check out U.S. Patent # 6990312) and the interactive voice response capabilities that you find in Ford Sync and OnStar, you may simply say "song information" and your radio will read the metadata (yes, as I said in my last article, the word "geek" will be applied to media of the future like never before) from the digital broadcast signal and tell you the artist, title and album. You then say "bookmark" and this information is stored on your SD card for later retrieval.

Translate this capability into the advertising world and you get a scenario much like online marketing today. A commercial comes on the radio, which may be behaviorally, contextually or geographically targeted, and you say "bookmark" because you want to check out the service or product at a later time. The advertising information is stored on your memory card and you continue on your day. Later, you plug your memory card into your home media hub (today's IP-enabled game console) and the day's requested follow-ups are presented in some sort of browse-able format. If we continue the trend we are on today, the advertisement was served via an ad-server with digital radio ad-serving capabilities, so the media company that placed the ad has the ability to report on the number of "listenings," "bookmarks" and "conversions" for a given spot. Forgive the "listening" and "bookmarks" metric term assumptions -- these are to be figured out by the IABs and Web Analytics Associations of the world at a later date.

The new TV

Television has been the medium that is most often referenced when discussing the convergence of IP-based technology and media. Given the technical and adoption hurdles required to implement the digital outdoor, digital print and digital radio visions previously mentioned, interactive TV is also the nearest to becoming a reality.

Cox Communications, Comcast and Time Warner are already experimenting with nascent forms of this in key markets, and are expected to begin implementing targeted, on-demand and personalized forms of advertising through their systems in 2010. Personal TV: The Reinvention of Television is a great whitepaper from Forrester on this topic. Needless to say, one day television advertising will also be targeted, interactive and measurable.

With this future vision in mind, it is clear to see that web standards are becoming advertising standards. The language of online media marketing today is the language of the media marketing of tomorrow.

In my last iMedia article, I discussed how crucial it is that the major components of digital media marketing (online display, email, organic and paid search, mobile and web analytics) must be integrated. It is equally crucial that the digital and the traditional media be planned and managed in an integrated fashion. Today we recognize this because of scenarios such as measuring the traffic of a print or TV ad based on a special URL, ensuring that our paid search is aligned with our offline advertising or measuring the cross-media effectiveness of our whole campaign. But it is even more crucial that traditional and digital is integrated because entrepreneurs and engineers are working diligently to ensure that tomorrow's media will all be digitally enabled.

Jeremiah Owyang's - Recommended Web Strategy Reading

Thanks Jeremiah

October 18th, 2008 | Category: Social Media

I started my social media career at Hitachi Data Systems (I’ll actually be speaking to Hitachi in Tokyo this coming week) and eventually become the online community manager. One of the keys to being a successful community person is to be a resource (or lethal generosity) to the entire industry you want to serve –rather then just a vendor pitching jockey.

In the spirit of sharing, over the past few weeks in client calls, I’ve referenced these posts several times, one of the challenges of my blog layout is that it’s difficult to find the most visited or commented posts, here’s some I think you’d enjoy.

The Many forms of Web Marketing for 2008 (translated into 5 languages): A large index, be aware of the toolset before you begin crafting a strategy. I’ll be updating this for 09, so please leave a comment, I’ll credit you.

The Irrelevant Corporate Website (translated into 10 languages): “Blasphemy!” A marcom manager told me yesterday.

The Many Forms of Web Monetization: an important post for startups in today’s economic times.

A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media: This is the list you want to stay off of.

List of Social Media Strategists and Community Managers in enterprise corporations: Unlike a wiki, I vet each submission and check their profiles to the best of my ability.

Impacts of Social Media on Customer Reference Programs: If your company harvests positive brand mentions and make case studies and toss the negative ones, they need to read this.

Social Media by Industry: Auto, Finance, and Insurance. Need to find examples for your boss or client? These lists can help.

List of Communities, Virtual Worlds, and Social Networks for Youth, Boomers, Retired, and Beyond: Need to reach a specific demographic, this list is a start.

Applying Social Computing to the Entire Product Life Cycle: If you’re thinking about social media for marketing only, you’ll need to expand further.

How to Successfully Moderate a Conference Panel, A Comprehensive Guide: I’ve been moderating quite a few panels, and have found some patterns that work for me. I still need to self-check to make sure I live up to my benchmark.

How I use Twitter: I often tell people I don’t mind if they unfollow from on Twitter as I’m very high volume, but there is a method to how and why I use the tool.

If these resources were helpful, I’d love to hear your feedback in comments. Recently I conducted a survey to find out what readers wanted to see more of, and it’s case studies, but I’ve found them too laborious to write for a blog post.

I’ll write you from Japan, (I’m traveling 4 out of 5 weeks) I’m going to enjoy a little big of quiet time on the plane to settle my mind, and hopefully write up my findings from last week’s roundtable as well as provide a status on the upcoming wave report on community platforms. Following Japan I land for a night back in SF then depart to Dallas for Forrester’s consumer forum, where I’ll be leading an interactive session with some of the world’s top interactive marketers, if you wanted to schedule time to talk with an analyst, here’s the lineup.

Great social graphics from David Armano

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7855449@N02/sets/72157606844282993/

Don't forget to credit the man if you use them!

Bunch of interesting digital things

Thanks McCrudden for these

http://www.summize.com (twitter search tool)
http://www.netvibes.com/rgleeson (Renny's netvibes page that shows what he reads to keep up)
http://www.compfight.com (a flickr search tool that WILL FIND YOU PICTURES YOU WANT)

http://www.twistori.com (the twitter/summize tool searching twitter for 'love', 'hate', etc.)
http://tinyurl.com/5lgtrk (MadV on YouTube - he did the "one word" video thing where folks wrote on their hands)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoOCiaxIZF4 ("Follow Your Instinct" Choose-your-own-adventure video)
http://www.thewhalehunt.org/ (jonathan Harris's whale hunt site)
http://www.wefeelfine.org/ (Jonathan Harris's blog 'feeling' scanner)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fwQTHYTJQA (Star Wars "Revelations", the first ten minutes of the Fan Film.)
http://thisissand.com/ (The falling sand toy. Try it. You like it)
http://blip.fm/invite/rgleeson (Blip.fm - the endless playlist and song recommendation tool - this is an invite from Renny to join)

Http://www.ted.com (great website, clean interface, amazing films)
http://www.conversespellingbee.com/ (the converse spelling bee)
http://flickr.com/groups/whats_in_your_bag/ (the flickr group where people dump out their bags and photograph and tag the contents)

http://www.brandtags.net (clicking 'whatever it is they say it is' link lets you choose by brand to see responses to date)

http://digg.com/ (the user generated news source that feeds many blogs around the web)
http://labs.digg.com/ (different ways to look at the stories and experience of digg through some pretty freaking cool interfaces)

http://www.dipity.com/ (the timeline builder into which you can import flickr, blogs, twitter, etc, and see them on a timeline)

http://www.constantsetting.com/ (pulls sunset images from flickr in an endless slideshow)
http://www.noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/ (Miranda July's stovetop interface)
http://www.opensourceresistance.net/ (the video of the NIN secret concert and "raid" by SWAT team - the conclusion of the Alternate Reality Game)

and as a bonus,
the future of pornography (mapping avatars/real world persona over robots you can interact with)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-hg4qCaR74

the robot that will hunt down the last surviving humans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJJQ0zNNOM

Web building made easy!

The agency web design tool dashboard!

Introducing Knol

Wikipedia, Meet Knol
By MIGUEL HELFT
Seven months after Google began testing a service called Knol, a Wikipedia competitor, the company on Wednesday finally rolled it out.

The search expert Danny Sullivan aptly describes Knol as “Like Wikipedia, With Moderation.” Articles on various topics are penned by individuals, and in many cases, experts — not collectively by the anonymous masses. Knol authors can choose to benefit from the “wisdom of the crowds” by letting others edit or supplement their articles. But those changes make it into Knol entries only with the author’s permission.

Knol, which, by the way, is short for knowledge, is making some people uneasy because it further transforms Google from a search engine that helps people find content into a site that helps people create and publish content.

Even though it will make money on many Knol pages with its AdSense program, Google promises that the objectivity of its search engine will not be compromised.

“We will treat Knol pages as we treat other Web pages,” said Cedric Dupont, a Google product manager. “If there is a Knol that is the first place in search results, it deserves that place.”

Of course, on many searches, it is Wikipedia’s ad-free pages that show up at the top of search results.

Mr. Dupont dismissed speculation that Knol was designed as a Wikipedia killer: “Google is very happy with Wikipedia being so successful. Anyone who tries to kill them would hurt us.”

There is a striking similarity between one aspect of the two sites. The text of Knol articles uses the same font as Wikipedia. Mr. Dupont said that is simply coincidence, as it is a commonly used font.

For now, Knol has only a few hundred articles, compared to the nearly 2.5 million in Wikipedia’s English language version. And for now, the best place to follow the debate on whether or not Knol is a Wikipedia killer is on the Knol entry on, where else, Wikipedia.

 Thanks to the New York Times for this post also found at:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/wikipedia-meet-knol/index.html?ref=technology

9 myths about widgets

Off the back of what I posted yesterday showing how Coke and Nike are using widgets well - here are 9 widgets faux pas so to speak. Thanks to iMedia Connection for these:

1. Widgets are trinkets (Consider: how have widgets have evolved exponentially since their Jurassic days)
2. Widgets aren't important (Actually, widgets will soon be the new model for the construction of whole websites)
3. Widgets are only about social networking (But as more traditional media companies and web portals become more comfortable with user-generated and user-mediated content, the industry is likely to see the widget world expand far beyond the realm of social networking)
4. Widgets are social application unto themselves (Think: widgets are still fairly small components of larger pages -- not distinct microsites. Widgets must still compete with other widgets and other content on a page)
5. There's no room for ads on widgets: (Fact: widgets are ads. At least, they can be. With the ability to insert dynamically changing feeds and run video within widgets, advertisers can take advantage of the medium to develop much more dynamic, richer campaigns. Widgeads?)
6. You can't make money on widgets (Consider this: When consumers use widgets to exchange notes or send messages, the widget itself becomes a product or a conversation. And for the successful advertisers who can use widgets to build a user base and generate clickthroughs, "The value of that conversation is ridiculously high")
7. Widgets are blind (False: widgets are in fact informed by social data. Each widget can be used to construct a unique social graph that tracks both user demographics and time spent with that widget across the web)
8. Widgets don't bring traffic (If that's the case, the publisher isn't using the widget correctly)
9. Widgets aren't viral (But they can be: to make widgets viral they have to contain video, photos or music, as well as some content that offers genuine value to users)

Visit http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19736.asp for the full article.

How to widget well - some examples

Here are some examples of how famous brands are using widgets and using them well... I think its a good thing that there isn't strong branding on the CokeTags because it gives some credibility to Coca-Cola when they say that "they believe that connecting people and giving them a way to share what matters is one of the many things that helps define The Coke Side of Life". But le me know if you agree or not? Here are the links thanks to Contagious:

Nike has developed ‘MyNike+Mini’, an avatar-based widget that can be downloaded as a screensaver or saved to your Facebook profile. You can customise your own ‘mini me’ runner and give them a look put together from a stock selection of hair, eyes, mouth, nose, shoes, clothing and facial hair. If you so wish, your avatar can bear no resemblance whatsoever to the sweat-soaked, red-faced real version.
http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus

Watch out for the nifty CokeTag, coming to a social network near you. A customisable widget, the CokeTag enables social networkers to promote themselves and their interests. Thanks to a set of expandable menus, users can store and display bundles of their favourite links. A built in click-tracker lets the creator keep count of exactly how many people have looked at their CokeTag and what links they have chosen to follow. Currently in beta on Facebook, the widget will soon be made compatible with Bebo and MySpace.
www.coketags.com

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/News%20Article.aspx?REF=836&IsArchive=false

White lable social network tools

Great overview of the offering here from Jeremiah. Thanks man... if we ever get to met i owe you a beer!

List of “White Label” or “Private Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms

February 12th, 2007 | Category: Industry Index, Social Networking, Web Tools

Note May 28, 2008: If you’re one of the vendors listed on this page, I’m conducing research for Forrester Research, please learn more on this post.

Social Networking goes mainstream
I was recently asked by a buddy to name off some social networking platforms that could be branded or changed as needed (that’s where that term ‘white label’ has come from). It’s somewhat relevant as Om Malik has now asked a rhetorical question if Social Network tools are just a feature of website. Overtime, like blogs, these will ‘normalize’.

What is “White Label” Software?
This is software you can brand and integrate tightly into your existing domain. The user experience should be near seamless, therefore any company can have their own MySpace. Kindly do not submit Social Networking tools that don’t meet this criteria, as the list can extend to hundreds if not thousands of companies.

The List
Here’s a list of Social Networking platforms, or suites that you could take and rebrand, if you know of any others, please leave a comment (many of the following are from those that left comments, like Gideon who left quite a few links). Not sorted in any particular order:

BlogTronix
I met Vassil, the CEO, I think it has a chance of giving Sharepoint a run for it’s money given it’s Intranet type features

Sharepoint
Microsoft’s collaboration suite is getting social networking tools for it’s 2007 version, I’m waiting for Microsoft to call me to do a demo.

Five Across
SF company just acquired by Cisco

Community Server
I was looking at this while at a previous role, this is what the famous Channel 9 was built on, as well as Dell 1to1 and Xbox

PeopleAggregator
I’m having dinner with Marc Canter tonight of Broadband Mechanics, I’ll be video interviewing him to learn about his “white-label MySpace-in-a-Box”

Social Platform
Just saw this one, looks pretty interesting. (Update: Feb 2008, now acquired by ONEsite)

SiteLife from Pluck
Pluck already has some other products this could be interesting.

Affinity Circles
This seems to have quite a few educational clients, interesting.

Kick Apps
White label hosted version.

Web Crossing
Social networking and collaboration suite.

Crowd Factory
“Platform that allows you to create a social network site similar to MySpace”

CollectiveX
Doesn’t appear to be a white label, but it’s certainly a Social Network, pretty interesting.

ElggSpaces
“Elgg Spaces allows you to create social networks for your organisation. You decide if the network is private or public.”

Me.com
“Build your own community with SNAPP! It’s as easy as point and click”

Onesite
“Customized white-label social networking partnership solutions for large media, entertainment, and community brands.”

PHPfox
Looks like it has some of the open source apps I’ve used before glued together for a social network. I wonder if this will be a dedicated feature available to most web hosts.

Select Minds
“SelectMinds pioneered corporate alumni programs over 7 years ago and continues to push the boundaries of technology in this industry to provide corporate social networking solutions that help our clients and their current and former employees build and maintain the professional relationships that drive success.”

Small World Labs
“Small World Labs provides the design, implementation, and hosting services for your online social or professional network.”

Social Network Server
“Our platform creates two versions of your site,
one for the Web, and one for mobile phones.”

Sparta Social Networks
“We are a full-service social network solutions company, specializing exclusively in the social network arena. ”

Phpizabi
“With literally thousands of websites powered by PHPizabi including everything from simple friends sites to the most complex networking super sites out there.”

Leverage Software
“…suite of functionality which includes personal profile pages, people-matching, blogs, chat, polling, rss, discussion groups, file sharing, widgets, targeted advertising, and robust customer and community analytics…”

Going On
“Organizations of all sizes can use GoingOn to build interactive communities around their most important initiatives and benefit from the open and compatible “network of networks” environment.”

Momo
“Got a brand? Build your community today and start generating incremental revenue from user generated content..”

Drupal
“Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal can support a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.”

Awareness (formerly iUpload)
“At the core of the Awareness solution is an on-demand social media platform that combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies – blogs, wikis, discussion groups, social networking, podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc. – with security, control, and content moderation. Awareness builds these features into complete communities for companies, or customers use the Awareness API and widgets to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into their own web properties.”

HayStack
“Haystack gives businesses the ability to build social networking capabilities into their websites, encouraging customers and sales reps to create more personal connections. Haystack can also be used to help individuals within organizations connect with each other.”

OmniFuse
“We specialize in rapid creation and adoption of online social networks using our FUSION platform. FUSION combines social networking software with consumer generated media technology to provide a marketing and community building tool for brands, organizations, and other verticals.”

Prospero (Acquired by Mzinga, March 2008)
“We enable organizations to easily, quickly, and cost-effectively develop branded, integrated communities and social networks comprised of message boards, blogs, ratings, and chats and to manage them using a single, intuitive platform.”

LiveWorld
“Liveworld builds, operates, and moderates social networks and online communities with a difference that creates real solutions to meet real business goals. We are distinguished by these advantages”

Userplane
“Userplane is the premier provider of communication software for online communities. Five hosted web apps comprise the application suite – each adding core, must-have features to thriving websites. The apps are robust yet lightweight, cross-platform with no user installation, and customizable for a site’s specific needs.”

Ning
“Ning is the fast and free way to create custom Social Websites!”

The Port
“Grow a community and extend your members’ visit to your site. Provide robust social networking tools to stimulate community interaction and foster word-of-mouth.”

Joomla
“Joomla! is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal homepages to complex corporate web applications.”

eFriends by Altrasoft
“…is an online social networking software that allows you to start your own site just like Friendster and MySpace. The E-Friends software allows members to connect to people in their personal networks and community, creating a new online interactive resource that is based on a trusted network of friends and associates on the internet.”

intronNetworks
Complete graphic and content customization
“Can be attached via web services to any database. User Features include ability to interactively search and filter results of matches out of 1000’s of users in seconds. ” (From comments as I can’t copy and paste any text as the site is in flash)

DZOIC
“start your own social networking portal? If so, then you have just found what you were looking for. Feature Rich User End, Advanced Admin Console, Paid Membership Integration, Flash Instant Messenger and Chat, Fulfeatured Modules”

Boonx
“Use flexible and powerful community software and implement your brilliant idea in real life. Build a community site using Dolphin, and enhance it with Ray and Orca.”

World Web (in German)
I can’t confirm this site meets the criteria, since I don’t speak German

Dave Networks
“provider of an integrated video distribution and social community platform designed to ignite brands.”

Village Engine
“We created a social networking technology as we felt that there were no really good software out there.”

Neighborhood America
“The Trusted Leader in Social Networks for the Enterprise”

Movable Type
Recently announced social features and APIs

Lithium Technologies
Successful Customer Communities

Group Members International
“Outsourced White Label Enterprise Level Hosted and Managed Social Networking Community Platform”

Vibe Capital
“Vibe Capital builds Web 2.0 community software solutions for vertical market sectors”

Social Groupware
“Social GroupWare is an approach to create a Free on-line platform for Social Networking with the most known success story as Business Networking Club of Milan, Italy- http://www.milanin.com”

World Dating Partners
“We build your brand… not ours. Earn the highest income possible with your own branded or white label site. A Free solution to fit your ideas, plans and financial expectations”

Kwiqq
“Kwiqq.com enables online communities for travel, media and football. Our product provides a complete social networking solution ‘out of the box’ and is fully customisable.”

Go Lightly
“GoLightly provides communication and collaboration solutions for community-minded organizations. Our social networking tools give your members the ability to interact with you and each other in powerful new ways.”

Atlassian Confluence
“Confluence is an enterprise wiki that makes it easy for your team to collaborate and share knowledge. Confluence - The Enterprise Wiki. Adding, sharing and finding content has never been easier. These benefits come with all the additional features needed to make it a part of your business:

conVerdge
“ConVerdge is a social media, networking and community building specialist. We help clients around the globe take advantage of the shifting consumer preferences to connect, communicate and share content online. We have created a superior platform that enables us to white-label our turnkey hosted community solution for portals that want to quickly establish themselves with the best of web 2.0 technologies. With Converdge, we empower both large organizations and small businesses to customize, personalize, target, distribute and monetize their brand by delivering a robust, scalable and reliable solution.”

Rsitez
“Group Networks, Social Networks, Photo Sharing, Blogs, Live Chatrooms, Dynamic Searchable Profiles, Videos, Articles, Events, Calendar, Forums, Jobs Database, Private Email, Instant Messenger (IM), user generated content and more.”

Pringo
“Pringo Networks offers a complete social networking and media sharing platform allowing your company to effectively build an integrated online community around your existing user base. Pringo Networks provides the power and flexibility of state-of-the-art social network solution on your site. With features surpassing the leading popular networks, the Pringo technology can offer you and your audience the same functionality as MySpace, YouTube, Tribe.net, Bebo.com and then some!”

FriendSite
Your own Sub-domain. With our social network site, you simply add a sub-domain (an A record) to your website, and this can be whatever your choose… http://members.yourdomain.com, http://community.yourdomain.com, etc.. or even your own dedicated domain name - your choice.

SixApart
“Extends blogging and social media platform to user-generated content in internal and external communities. Movable Type Community Solution (MTCS), a package of social media features built on top of the popular Movable Type 4 platform. The Movable Type platform powers many signature websites and blogs around the world, from the Washington Post to the Huffington Post, from General Motors to Nissan Motors, and from Boeing to BoingBoing.”

Satmetrics (Formerly Informative)
“Marketing 2.0 is about digital democracy and the wisdom of crowds – where prioritized content trumps mass media; and where collaboration and communities of customers drive growth and innovation. Informative provides interactive market solutions that engage customers and identify their top priorities.”

Mixxt
“Easily create a social network that looks, works and feels exactly as you want it to”

Plone
“Plone is a ready-to-run content management system that is built on the powerful and free Zope application server. Plone is easy to set up, extremely flexible, and provides you with a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities, web sites, extranets and intranets.”

Diso (Wordpress)
“DiSo (dee • zoh) is an umbrella project for a group of open source implementations of these distributed social networking concepts. or as Chris puts it: “to build a social network with its skin inside out”.

KREM social networks (Netherlands)
“Realize the potential of social networks”

Social Engine
“Build your own niched, customized, viral social network. Start simple and buy features a la carte”

introNetworks
“introNetworks, Inc. offers an award-winning platform that facilitates the creation and management of these private business communities with world-class, easy-to-use tools that visually display relevant matches between people, companies, products - virtually anything. The result? You build loyalty, learn about your audience, and drive revenue.”

Vitrue
“Our Advanced Platform enables companies of all sizes, including some of the world’s most visible brands, to leverage social media to enhance their brand value and long-term business success. Whether it’s through the development of promotional web campaigns and communities, or by integrating into the fabric of a company’s business, we use our expertise and advanced technology to help brands connect with consumers on a deep, interactive level. More about our Solutions..”

Wild Apricot
“Build a professional looking website without having to call up expensive nd busy web experts. Wild Apricot’s software provides professionally designed templates and tools to easily adapt the look and feel”

Acquia
“We are a new software company that will provide value-added software products and services for the Drupal social publishing system. With over two million downloads since inception, Drupal is used by web developers worldwide to build compelling websites. Diverse organizations use Drupal as their core social publishing system, including media companies, non-profit organizations, publishers, and many others. Acquia plans to accelerate and extend market adoption of Drupal by advancing the core technology and offering value-added software products and network services that dramatically speed deployment and reduce risk.”

CoreSpeed
“CoreSpeed provides cohesive private-label online marketing, ecommerce, and social media platforms for your enterprise with our flagship Web 2.0 product, CorePlatform”

Flux
“We’ve developed an expansive toolset and powerful platform to give you a huge range of features: content sharing, member profiles, customized page layouts, photo and video uploads, easy technical integration, and so much more.”

Higher Logic
“Higher Logic provides hosted Social Networking software for non-profits and member based organizations. Our products integrate with your membership management system to give your members new and exciting ways to communicate with one another.”

TamTamy
Enterprise Social Network

Some great sites

http://nolaf.org/ - really nice engagement site that keeps the product (taco chips) involved in a relevant but not overwhelming way.

http://www.ponoko.com/ - Based in San Francisco, Ponoko is the world's largest marketplace for product plans. Creators and consumers use these plans to share, buy, sell and make individualized good

http://www.panedia.com/ - Create the world's best interactive destination content. Shot by Professional Photographers. Freely available to end users, with low monthly fees for commercial licensing. The world in images!

Happy World Internet Day

Monday, October 29, 2007
By Seana Mulcahy

Well, I must say I had no idea today was named World Internet Day. While we don't have the day off work, I thought it would be fun to pay homage to our way of life. Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

The Internet is named after the Internet Protocol, the standard communications protocol used by every computer on the Internet.

Who created the Internet? Well, according to Net History, the popular belief has sprung up that the Internet was invented by the Pentagon in 1969. The theory goes on to suggest that the Internet network invented in the Pentagon was designed to survive a nuclear attack.

The only thing historians seem to agree on is that it was not 1969, or the Pentagon, (or for that matter Al Gore). From there on, there is a wide divergence of views on when, where, and by whom the Internet may have been invented.

Whoever created it, we've come a long way. Now most of us can't imagine a world without the Internet. Do you know when the term "Internet" became commonplace? Believe it or not, it was in 1996.

As defined by Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet, the Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching, using standard Internet Protocol (IP).

It is also defined as a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services such as: electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.

The words Internet and World Wide Web have been misused for years. To further clarify, the Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks -- whereas the World Wide Web is a collection of interconnected documents, images, and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.

Today, as you know, we have many sources for measuring the online audience at large. Internet World Statistics reports that as of September 30, 2007, 1.244 billion people were using the Internet.

Nielsen//NetRatings reports the August Digital Media Universe Estimate to be 516,991,633.

I'd thought I'd share some of my favorite online resource sites with you (in no particular order):

The Living Internet http://www.livinginternet.com/ is a free, in-depth site that provides all the stats, facts, figures, etc. you'd ever need.

Refdesk is one of my favorite sites. Check out the link to many online resources at http://www.refdesk.com/netsnap.html.

BUBL http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link/i/internetusagedata.htm is a robust catalog of Internet resources.

The Internet Society http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/ provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organizational home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board.

Alexa http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500 allows you to view the top sites in the Web by country, language, and subject.

NetFactual http://www.bubl.ac.uk/link/i/internetusagedata.htm is a guide to finding facts about the Internet.

Yahoo's got a great site rich with Internet stats, demographics and definitions:
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Statistics_and_Demographics/

The Pew Internet & American Life Project http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work.aspx?category=50 studies what people do online - as they look for information, communicate with others, make transactions and entertain themselves. Data about online activities are gathered through public opinion polling, online surveys and other research methods. Also check out the PEW Internet and American Life Web site -- http://www.pewinternet.org/.

So happy Internet Day, dear readers. I can't imagine life without it. Share a favorite link or two with us.