[Social Media] Sex, Lies and the Internet

This is a Geeky Guide Public Service Announcement
(Because I like being ironic)


This fellow is Robert Tarroza Stewart (who may also be this Robert Tarroza Stewart or this Robby Tarroza). I do not know him from Adam but through the wonders of social media I came across his profile in the weirdest way this morning. I still wish I hadn't - my life would be so much better for it. But everything happens for a reason and so I'm here today to tell you a little about his involvement in an incident this morning and why you ought to be wary.

You know how annoying it is when one of your Facebook contacts is tagged in some image that isn't even a photo of them? Yeah, it was one of those cases. But what surprised me was that the image was some supposed "Notice the Public" posted from Mr. Stewart's Facebook account. And image was just...wrong. Wrong probably isn't a sufficiently strong enough term for it but words fail me right now.

You see, the "posters" were indicating that a certain person (from this point on we shall refer to him as The Victim) supposedly had HIV and was intentionally spreading it to other people. Pretty strong accusation, right?

For the record, redacted versions of the two posters can be found after the cut:

[Social Networks] Why I'm Still On Shelfari

I've been a Shelfari user since 2007 and surprisingly, I'm still a pretty active user. I didn't think that I'd remain on such a specialized social network since (1) I kinda figured sites like this were fated to die in the wake of Facebook and (2) Facebook. But I'm still on Shelfari and I've given up Flixster, which was another specialized social network that I had signed up for at the same time I joined Shelfari.

In 2007 Amazon invested heavily in the site and about a year later they completed acquired the site. It took a while before we really started to see proper integration or enhancements to the site since then but in recent weeks we've finally come full circle.




As announced their official blog, Shelfari started allowing users to sign into the site using their Amazon logins. But this is more than just an excuse to get rid of one more login - it's opened the doors to much tighter integration between Amazon and Shelfari and who knows what else in the future.

[Movies] The Social Network (2010)

Facebook is the biggest things since, well, I dunno. Social networks are always hit or miss when you get down to it - some succeed while others fail. Of course Facebook stands out compared to the others given how wildly successful it has gotten by making sure that the experience started in an exclusive, controlled setting and then grew from there.

Like any other tech giant, the story behind the origins of the company have piqued the curiosity of the world. One author or documentary filmmaker or another have tried to reveal more and more insights into the history of Facebook from different perspectives or angles. Some of them good, some of them bad - it's just the way that things go. Who knows what stories are actually the real ones - we tend to gravitate to the more interesting, controversial or probably exaggerated ones. Everyone loves a scandal after all.

It was pretty surprising how quickly this movie came into being, but then again Facebook is popular enough to get a priority budget and shooting schedule. The end results were pretty interesting and it does make for a rather entertaining movie.

[Social Networking] Why Giving Up Facebook Games Is A Good Idea

Image via Wikipedia

When privacy concerns over Facebook started to pick up after the OpenGraph annoucenment in April, I was one of those geeks out there who was a bit worried about how Facebook was doing business. Sure, I know I'm savvy enough to set the myriad privacy settings in Facebook to a level of sharing that I'm comfortable with, but I know not all my contacts are. Given the chances that access to them leads to access to me and the plain and simple fact that Facebook was offering our information to marketers around the world at our expense, I really needed to think about what I was doing.

While I didn't join the others on Quit Facebook Day last May 31, I have significantly changed the way I interact with the service. The main reason I remain on the site is the plain and simple fact that as a networking tool, it's hard to match. This is only because I have too many contacts (and not necessarily "friends") on Facebook related to my role as alumni representative for my high school class. So yeah, that sort of left me tired to the service, along with a few far-flung friends who didn't appear to be ready to jump on over to Diaspora or something.

So after the big announcement about simplified privacy controls, I felt a little better but still remained unconvinced that this would lead to everyone being smarter about their Facebook usage. Case in point, a friend of mine recently received an invite from a person who was not allowing anyone outside his network to add him. How weird is that, right? The challenges go on.

But beyond my decision to stay on Facebook, strip my profile of all likes and interests, cull my friends list of acquaintances that I didn't trust my data with and surf the site only using Google Chrome's Incognito Mode, I also made the hard decisions of quitting all my Facebook games.

It was the best decision of my social networking life.

[Facebook Apps] Mafia Wars

In my efforts to try and build up my Wired Wednesdays, I'm trying my hand at reviewing Facebook applications.

I have to admit that in terms of Facebook Apps, I mostly stick to games. I mean seriously, I don't need more productive apps since I have those built into other services I have or perhaps within my Firefox installation. Of course this can't be all that bad - there are a LOT of pretty good games on Facebook these days that make it a robust gaming platform in its own right. No wonder most offices don't allow access to the site, hehe.

As a first venture, what better app to feature than one of the most popular ones around?

Mafia Wars has pretty much become the flagship browser game for Zynga these days. Let's face it - with over 5,000,000 players, it's a pretty strong game by anyone's standards.

Mafia Wars follows what has become pretty much the standard format for many Facebook games but within the mafia / mobster theme. Here you take missions to earn money, loot and of course experience, which you'll need to reach higher levels. The social aspect of the game comes in when it comes to each player's "mafia", which consists of invited friends who also play the game. The larger your mafia, the stronger you could potentially be. Add in the extra balance element of a variety of weapons, upgrades and vehicles and you can create a pretty robust player.

Image by billynom (Hates Marmite) via Flickr

I like the game since it plays on the limitations of Facebook (or other social networks like MySpace) as a primary platform. Since people are not on the site 100% (I hope), the main limitations of the game are time-based such that you earn energy and eventually money based on a variety of timers. Thus there's no benefit in playing straight throughout the day - you really have to leave the app and wait for more energy to be regenerated.

What I like most about this game in contrast to other Zynga offerings that follow the same style is how they've chosen to deal with the conundrum of the importance of friends. In most other Zynga games or other games of this nature, normally even the jobs / missions you take require increasing numbers of friends as a prerequisite before you take the subsequent missions. Zynga didn't follow that model this time around (I've seen it in Space Wars) and thus one can continually play the game and reach higher and higher levels without needing to resort to desperate friend-recruiting.

Even playing style plays a bit of a factor based on your initial character. You could be just an independent busy bee who wants to do jobs all day and not be too aggressive. Others still can choose to defeat as many other players as possible in order to advance. Ultimately the playing style and strategy is up to you.

I can see why not everyone likes the game. It can get a bit repetitive as you take more and more missions and there are those moments of frustration when you need to continually repeat older missions in search of particular loot items that you'll need in order to execute later tasks.

The recent addition of the option to fly to Cuba and take missions there has been rather refreshing - certainly a nice touch on the side of the developers in terms of their continued efforts to keep the game fresh and interesting. They've tweaked the game options a bit such as having businesses instead of money farms like restaurants and businesses in terms of the NY side of things. You really need to try it to find out.

Mafia Wars remains to be one of my favorite time-wasting Facebook Apps and it gets 4 Tommy guns out of a possible 5.

[Social Networks] Is It Time to Leave Multiply?

Image via CrunchBase

A few years back I decided to streamline my online activities and cut down on my social networks. It took some doing but I eventually killed of Friendster, Ringo and Birthday Calendar at the very least a few other specialized ones. What I was left with was pretty much LiveJournal for my personal blogging, Shelfari for my books, Flixster for my love of movies and Multiply to act as my photo sharing center and pretty much mirror of my personal blog and my Geeky Guide reviews. The arrangement has largely worked out over the years, that is until I finally gave in and created a Facebook account.

As annoying as some of the changes have been to Facebook, the site remains one of the most robust social networks (and gaming website) that I've ever seen and the ease of which I can share random images, videos and interesting links is something that's hard to match using any other service.

Recently Multiply has been making a number of changes too and what's most annoying about the changes is not just how awkward the interface has become, but the fact that they're clearly trying to copy Facebook in some made attempt to remain competitive somehow. This has me thinking - is it time to leave Multiply?

As always, the main things keeping me on Multiply on Multiply are (1) the sheer volume of content I've loaded onto my profile and (2) the network of contacts I maintain there. Number 2 isn't as big an item anymore, I know - most of these same friends are also on Facebook or share some other network I cater to like Plurk or Twitter. Ultimately, contacts were one of the last things tying me to Friendster as well when I was weighing my options and it became a no-brainer whether or not I should stick around.

So now it becomes a question of content - my personal blog entries are all there, albeit only as an exact mirror of my LiveJournal blog. Most of the photos that I have on Multiply are already on Facebook, although migrating those uniquely on Multiply will be painful since I no longer have the hi-res originals for any of those photos.

Oh Multiply, I was much happier with your old interface and how this kept you unique. Now your Inbox is clearly trying to mimic Facebook's News Feed. You've added the option to create Notes as a way to "compete" with Facebook's status messages. You've even added a suggested friends feature just like Facebook. Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to clone Facebook? If Multiply starts offering applications, I am so done and over with the site and I'll just stick with Facebook, I suppose. Why should I maintain two sites that try to do the same thing, albeit one does it a lot better.

And it really does! Sharing videos, links and individual images are a LOT easier on Facebook than they are on Multiply. Why the heck did you change your video import process? Why does a new tab / window need to be opened to edit the video I just imported from YouTube? Why is posting a link so complicated? Why did you have to hide my nice visual network calendar like that? The questions keep on coming.

Have you readers ever found yourself in the same fix? Do you find yourself wondering why your social network of choice has turned into yet another Facebook clone? Do you ever find yourself thinking that you're maintaining too many sites that all do the same thing?

What's your criteria for whether or not a social network or website is worth keeping? When do you decide to abandon ship? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter- just mention it in the comments or maybe even email or IM me directly.

[Browsers] Why I Still Need Firefox

Image via Wikipedia As you know by now, Google has come up with its own browser called Google Chrome, and it's pretty slick. It's not quite the perfect browser yet, but I have gone as far as setting it as my default since the speed benefits alone are just insane.

Yet despite that, I still have Firefox active on my system and am still using it. As with all beta products, Google Chrome still has some geeky needs that Chrome is just ready to fulfill. Here are some of my reasons for still using Firefox with all its bells and whistles.

Blogging - Writing these Geeky Guide entries isn't exactly easy and every little bit that helps me blog better counts. I tried using the Flock browser for a time since it claimed to be the more social browser with lots of blogging options, but it never really worked for me personally so I quickly abandoned that. What did work great for me was the Firefox extension Zemanta, which is just so convenient to use and helps me save time in terms of adding relevant links to my entries. Thus I continue to blog for the Geeky Guide using Firefox in roder to ensure I still have access to Zemanta. Plus I don't get unusual behaviors when navigating Photobucket, where I store a lot of my images.

Facebook Apps - I'm not that heavy a Facebook App user. In fact if you do check out my profile, it'll look pretty spare compared to most other geeky Facebook users out there. I don't quite know why - I guess I got sick of all the vampires and stuff. Despite that, I still have a few more passive games that I do like playing like Mousehunt and My Heroes Ability, both of which don't operate correctly when using Google Chrome. Others have reported side errors when tagging photos or commenting on content, so I guess Firefox needs to stick around a bit for this.

Remember the Milk - Firefox has really spoiled me when it comes to my favorite to-do list application, Remember the Milk or RTM. One of the best things about RTM is its many integration options with Google services like Gmail and Google Calendar. Of course for certain aspects like the Gmail sidebar to work, you need to install an extension to overlay RTM's sidebar when viewing Gmail. While Google Chrome still doesn't support extensions, I guess I have to load my to-do lists manually using Chrome or by going back to Firefox to have them side-by-side with my email.

Extensions in General - While it was possible to live without extensions before, after using Firefox for so long it's rather hard to understand how we could even do that. I control Winamp exclusively through FoxyTunes these days and of course it's been ages since I've last seen advertising because of AdBlock Plus. Then there's my favored social bookmarking-ish service, StumbleUpon, which remain a favored way of passing the time and looking for new things to blog about. Until Google Chrome adds in extension support, I guess I'll have to live a more minimalist life in terms of my browsing activities as well.

Then again, I still have Firefox has a pretty robust, albeit slower, backup browser. Oh joy.

[Software] Field-Testing Digsby

Image via Wikipedia I've been a longtime fan of the multi-platform IM client Pidgin (formerly Gaim) given it's simple interface, tabbed conversations and of course its ability to access multiple IM platforms from one location. It certainly made my chatting experience a lot easier and helped me maintain accounts on multiple platforms and thus increased accessibility to more friends and contacts regardless of their platform of choice.

The initial test seems promising thus far and I'm liking the increased focus on appearance beyond just function. Let's face it - Pidgin works but has never been known to be the prettiest IM client around. Digsby tries to answer that by offering lots of options like skins and new ways of presenting the chats themselves similar to how Google Talk handles things plus new features like the ability to move conversations out of the tabbed window and into a new window of its own.

Plus Digsby is trying to be a more central location for you to manage more of your services including email and limited social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Beyond mere notification management, you can event go as far as composing new email messages and updating Twitter / Facebook statuses and the like. Plus it also adds in Facebook IM contacts in the list, something that Pidgin has yet to add.

I'm curious as to how Digsby is able to handle audio / video chat since this is something Pidgin still does not support at this time. Once I've done a lengthy enough test, I'll post a more formal review of the current version of Digsby (which is build 15142).

[Opinions] Extra H's and Other Such Letters Bug Me

I'm a pretty diverse enough and open-minded fellow in most things. Sure, I have my own opinions on various matters that I choose to defend very strongly when needed. Then again, there are those things that I guess parts of me will never accept and just can't get over.

Now as much as I respect the complicated conventions and philosophies that go into naming your children but there's one thing that always seems to cross the line for me...extra letters. Top of my list are those extra H's that frequently find themselves in the middle of perfectly good names but there are other letters that try to join in the fun in names an in conventional conversation.

It's even worse when these turn out to be self-nominated names that people decide to use on internet forums, social networks and chat rooms.

I mean seriously, why do we go in adding these extra letters to names already pretty much accepted. H seems to be one of the easiest to throw in since people just assume it'll somehow be silent. However what they don't quite realize is that technically speaking, the added H can be pronounced and it makes the name theoretically more nasal / breathy.

You know what I mean right? Mark becomes Mhark or Mharck. Miguel becomes Mhiguel. Hell, can you imagine my name, Rocky, as something as horrible mangled as Rhocky? Ugh! What makes people do this? does it make the name seem somehow cuter or more interesting to them? Do they understand what it means to go through life as a Mhay or a Sahm or a Bhobby? It just seems so wrong to me and I curse parents who do this to their children.

Then there are those who change the Y's at the end of sentences to double E's like happee instead of happy or partee instead of party. Plus the local convention of turning the honoric "po" into "pow" or "poh" and all that gobbledy-gook. The list just goes on and on and on.

Thus I appeal to parents and silly teens thinking of various of their names for social networks or general internet use - please don't add extra and unnecessary letters!

[Music] The Silversun Pickups

Normally, Philippine media is pretty good at playing the local version of Where's Waldo when it comes to international news. In any given high-tension international conflict or major entertainment event, someone is out there bound to be determining if there are any Filipinos involved. You have to admit, we've become a rather global people, albeit not necessarily in the front lines most of the time. We're subtle that way - more behind-the-scenes in that respect, I suppose.

As much as I pride myself in generally keeping abreast of entertainment news relevant to me like new bands of interest, it kind of irks me to realize that before this trip to the US I had never heard of the Silversun Pickups despite (1) their style of music appeals to me, (2) their drummer is a Filipino and thus should have generated some buzz back at home and worse, (3) he's technically my uncle. Go figure.

In my own defense, they're not quite mainstream just yet and mainly still tagged as an indie rock group and many features I've read describe them to be "on the brink of stardom" and hence not quite there yet either. The description fits, I suppose, but then it seems only right that I do my share to help push them over the edge. Family ties aside, they're a pretty good band.

The Silversun Pickups (SSPU) are based in Los Angeles and started about 3 years ago. The group is composed of 4 actual real-life friends - a somewhat rarity in the increasingly scientific and formulaic world of the entertainment industry that "creates" or "constructs" music groups based on prevailing trends. The band is composed of guitarist/lead vocalist Brian Aubert, bass player Nikki Monninger, drummer Christopher Guanlao and keyboardist Joe Lester.

Their sound feels like a bit of a blast from the past - the past being the 90's era of rock and yet with its own distinctions that bring it to life in the present. They're often compared to bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and I'll have to admit there are similarities but at the same time there are significant differences. As much as everyone wants to look for that entirely original sound, I doubt that's fully possible anymore given the rich wealth of musical history we're burdened with - any band is bound so sound something like musicians that have come before them. The challenge is presenting a unique mix of those diverse elements and to turn them into something greater.


Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye

The SSPU's claim to fame was their 2006 single Lazy Eye from their album Carnavas (cover art above) and led to many other opportunities for them. They've made most of the late night rounds on shows like The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Last Call with Carson Daly. In addition, they've played / toured with groups like Wolfmother, Snow Patrol, OK Go, and the Foo Fighters, to name a few. These tours have taken them well away from Silver Lake, California to venues like the UK, Ireland and other parts of Europe.

The SSPU are currently working on their second album and perhaps this is what's going to help them reach out to more audiences and further define their style and sound of play. They also have other performances in the coming months including one that will take them to Tokyo, Japan. As much as I'd like to list they'll be coming to the Philippines, that kind of support won't happen right away until more people at home realize what a great band they are.

For more information, the web is filled with stuff since the band is very supportive of online media, partially attributing some of their success to the blogosphere and various social networks. You can find them (of course) on MySpace and Facebook and of course Wikipedia, to highlight a few of their more major online locations other than their official website.

[Social Networks] Facebook in Real Life

I only recently jumped onto the Facebook bandwagon and I have to admit I've done my share of application invite spamming and playing around with Slayers, Fuzzys and trying to take over the world. It's a pretty fun social network compared to most others I've ventured into and it's no real biggie for me at this point.

Then again, there are those social network enthusiasts who really live within the realms of these kinds of sites and the results can be pretty scary. This next video shows just how weird some of the Facebook interactions really are when translated into the context of real life...


#3 - FaceBook In Reality - Hilarious Video

[LiveJournal] Another LJ Strike

LiveJournal has left the building by Stéphane Delbecque.

If you're a LiveJournal user like myself, then you must have encountered at least one friend who posted the following message (or something similar):

For those of you who don't already know, there has been a strike scheduled for Friday, March 21st, 2008, during which we hope to have many members of LiveJournal provide LJ with absolutely no content for twenty-four hours. This means no posting and no commenting. If you post elsewhere and have it set up to be posted through a feed on LiveJournal, don't do it. Stay away from LiveJournal for twenty-four hours. We are not simply users who can be tossed to the side and ignored. We are the people who make up LiveJournal. Without us, without the content we create, without our words, our voices, our creativity, our participation, there would be no LiveJournal. This is a fact, and it needs to be realized and understood and then taken in to consideration when making decisions regarding the way that LiveJournal is run. The strike is only a few days away, so there isn't all too much time to prepare. While this is unfortunate, it isn't enough to keep this strike from taking place. It will take place, the second it is meant to, and it would be best to have as many people take part as possible. Please, spread the word. Spread it fast. There are only a few days to organize this. If you find that you care about LiveJournal or care about the people you interact with on LiveJournal or simply want it to remain a place where you can entertain yourself without constant censorship and money-hungry practices being thrown in without the consideration of those who use the service, act now. If you don't wish to spread the word, that is fine, but please: refrain from using LiveJournal on Friday, March 21st. Do something else for a change. It's for a good cause.

In the past year it seems more and more LJ's userbase has been growing increasingly disappointed with the various business decisions being made related to the site by the various owners who have taken over the once-independent blogging community site. I can't say that I blame them - many changes don't quite sit too well with me either although I'm not sure how well thought-out this latest strike is when you get down to it.

This all started when the Russia-based media company SUP acquired LiveJournal last December, the second changing-of-hands for the site after Six Apart first purchased the site. As expected, changes were bound to happen over the first 100 days and to sort of manage those changes and the expectations around, the LiveJournal Advisory Board was announced with some pretty big name LJ users such as LiveJournal inventor Brad Fitzpatrick

Then the big change happened last March 12, 2008 when LiveJournal, Inc. killed off Basic (free) accounts for new users rather silently without an official announcement but just a change in the FAQs that read thus:

Basic Account is an option available to accounts which were created before March 12, 2008. No account created after this date can be turned into a Basic Account.

Naturally once the LJ community got wind of this, they were outraged (myself included). A lot of users opted to remain on the Basic / non-ad-supported level of accounts since they were just here to blog, provide more content for the site as a whole and not deal with the monetization aspect. Still, there were benefits to the Plus / free ad-supported level that many users opted for, which was good since it did provide revenue for the site apart from those users who actually pay for their accounts.

A lot of people weighed in their thoughts on the matter, one of them being LJ Founder Brad himself. Also, here's Danah Boyd's reaction to the change - she's also on the Advisory Board. It seems despite members of the LJ Advisory Board voting against this change, the business side of the site decided to go on with their decision to remove the Basic level and thus force all new sign-ups to have ad-supported blogs at the very least.

LiveJournal, Inc.'s official statement didn't really do much for the user community - essentially saying that they were sorry that the change was so abrupt but touch shit, the decision stands. There are now at least 5000 comments on that news statement pretty much all angry about the decision.

So now the users tried to mobilize a strike over the course of this week - here are the official reasons for the content strike. It seems to have built off the context-driven LJ philosophy espoused by Brad Fitzpatrick, which I think makes sense, although there were weird offshoots of the strike that are supporting the strike for various reasons. The 24-hour content strike is set to start in about 20 minutes from now at 12:00am GMT on March 21, 2008. I'm going to do my best to support it by not visiting LJ at all for the next 24 hours.

In terms of the reasons for the strike, I can more or less support the belief that LiveJournal, Inc. needs to work on its method of communicating such changes in the future. Since they opted to even create an Advisory Board, it implies their wanting to get the support of the user community in making any changes and that they value the opinions of these bloggers. If they just wanted to run things like a business, then they never should have formed the Board.

However from a business side of things, I can see why the decision needs to be made. There are very few social networks that do not rely on some level of monetization. The same users who want LJ to continue to have a free option are the same people who spends hours and hours on sites supported by contextual advertising like Google AdSense. Heck, most of the major social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster are all highly ad-supported and even smaller sites like Mutiply are also ad-supported. We still continue to cater to these sites and aren't forming strikes about them just yet.

So as the strike begins, I think we need to remain focused on the real reason for it - it's not about whether or not a Basic level of accounts should exist, I think. I support the strike since SUP implied that they valued the users in actions like the creation of the LiveJournal Advisory Board and need to support that philosophy if they're serious about it. If not, then let's dissolve the board and just get on with our lives with a perfectly non-nonsensical business relationship since that's what SUP seems to want now. Let's see just how many users remain when LJ stops being a community and just another monetized, business-driven blogging platform.

Only time will tell.

[Web] Scrabulous Song

With Hasbro threatening to kill the popular Facebook application Scrabulous, the denizens of the web are trying to fight back in the only way they know how - through parody and viral video!


SCRABULOUS

[Social Networks] A Look at the New Shelfari

In recent weeks, book-centric social network Shelfari has made a number of updates and improvements and it's about time like a geek like me settle down and talk about them. After all, this is the one of the few social networks that I still cater to, mainly because I use it as a virtual library.

First thing you'll notice is the overall new look with a cleaner header, a more thought-out series of tabs dividing Shelfari's various features in logical groups that stand out more in the current color scheme and a more integrated updates page covering any new friend requests, new activity related to books on your shelf, a more convenient view of comments called Public Notes left on your page and other items related to your friends and your groups.

Not a bad start to things, but the real treat comes in later.



The biggest change definitely has to be the new look to the shelf, as was announced last December. Instead of just one view of things with slow-loading pop-ups and even slower navigation tabs, the shelf now features a rich wooden skin to make it seem like those nice old shelves at gran's place and new sub-levels to your bookshelf covering books you've actually read, books you're reading, books you plan on reading and books you own. It helps distinguish what books you really have versus those you just might have an e-book copy of or may have just read after having borrowed it.

Overall I have to admit there have been big improvements in page loading time. They've added a lot more options to the pop-up detail windows so you don't have to navigate away from the shelf view so much in order to change shelf assignments for a book or to write a review. These were newer bells and whistles just launched this January.

I still wish you could manage tags well enough from the shelf view, but then you can't have it all, I suppose.



The actual Book pages aren't that drastically different. You still get the same rich set of information about the book in question, links to members and reader groups that have the same book listed in their shelves and of course tagging options and reviews. I'm happy it saves changes a bit faster than before, although you can still feel the seconds ticking away as the "Updating" dialog continues. The best change I've seen so far, as subtle as it is, is the fact that tags are now organized alphabetically when you are typing out your tags, so it's easier to double-check what "standard" tags you have already used previously. I just wish they hadn't disabled the feature automatically marks used tags in bold, thus also helping you identify if you typed your tag correctly, at least based on past tags used.

Overall Shelfari has managed to release a wide array of performance tweaks and UI improvements that definitely give you more reasons to stick around with the site to see how far it'll go. As much as I have respect for LibraryThing, they still require you to pay for more than 200 books whereas Shelfari remains to be free and they're steadily working on design improvements. Kudos to Shelfari! Let's see what other features they might roll out this year.

[Web] Resisting Social Networks

Tipping Point + Social Media Network by undersound

These days, social networking sites seem all the rage. I have to admit that in the beginning, I did my fair share of exploring such sites. I was out and about on the web early enough to experience SixDegrees.com, what many consider to be one of the first social network services on the web. While it died out by 2001, the framework was pretty much there.

For a time I had a number of profiles - I had accounts on Friendster, Downelink, Orkut and even defunct local GLBT network Fabuloush for a time. Heck, I even had an account on the notorious hook-up site Guys4Men for what it was worth. As the number of social networks grew, I got more and more saturated and eventually in mid-2005, I decided to clean up my online accounts and get rid of the clutter. I left all those social networks behind.

Most of my friends could never understand why I did that - having a Friendster account in the Philippines seems almost like a requirement for the online generation of today. I guess I got tired of all the people claiming to be friends with me and so it just felt too weird. Throw in all the people at the office who knew of me but did not know me personally, and it all just seemed overly weird.

These days I only have Multiply, Shelfari and Flixster. I liked Multiply since it's a great place to host photos, videos and a back-up of my LiveJournal plus you have better relationship definitions and viewing controls. Shelfari is really just an online version of my library and Flixster plays on my love for writing reviews. The last two are keen because of how focused their natures are.

Now that doesn't stop people from trying to get me back on the social networking bandwagon. Friends and family alike keep sending me invites for this network and that. I doubt I'll ever go back to Friendster - it just seems overly cluttered as compared to the modern offerings these days. I don't feel at all tempted by MySpace given how public it seems and more often than not it has become a haven for sexual predators, haha. Don't even get me started on LinkedIn since I think I spend enough time with my officemates so getting into a social network them doesn't make sense to me.

Facebook seems to be getting a lot of attention these days and there's been a significant increase in invitations for the site that I've been receiving as of late. A friend arguing for the site pushed how the applications were really what made Facebook different even though it started just as a college-centric social network service. Still, I don't see a big reason why I should just yet.

Even though I like the more focused networks, I don't feel inclined to join either iLike or iMeem anytime soon. I like my music but I don't see myself hanging around a website built around music since I'm never any good at remembering artists, albums or song titles.

Others argue that it's a great blog-promotion tool to get into one of these things but I don't know if that's the track to go. Is there really a significant rise in traffic brought on by social network activity? I don't think it would be enough to merit all the spam and bacn that comes with it.

So what do you think? Am I just being a stick in the mud for keeping out of the bigger social networks for now? Do you need to be sociable to really enjoy these sites? I'm really looking for your comments and thoughts on the subject and wondering if you can explain why you continue to support these sites. Do you have a particular social network you feel especially strongly about? Why would you recommend it to someone like me?

Let the comments fly!

[Web] Online Directory Services?

Okay, so technically speaking I'm default representative for my high school batch and I'm getting tired of manually managing the directory.

I'm a good geek, right? I should be able to find a way to may this process a lot easier with all the tools at my disposal, right? Isn't there a cool, web 2.0 site that helps people manage directories?

The first idea that came to me was to utilize an shared online spreadsheet, like with Google Docs. It seems straightforward enough, but in order for it to be convenient, everyone needs to have a Google Account to use the service and at the end of the day it's just a spreadsheet program, which is not very inviting for high school alumni on the go.

That got me thinking about the possibility of hosting a wiki, probably because of the recent wiki work I've been doing to have my efforts documented in the Pinoy Blogopedia. Wikis can be cool, but again not very easy to use and perhaps even worse than using an online spreadsheets program given how technical it is.

Host a social network you say? That's another idea - I might be able to control the number of users, have them host images and update their own profiles, as needed. That may be just the possibility I need, but I don't know of a good social network hosting service.

Do any of you have other ideas in mind? What other online solutions exist for managing an online directory for high school alumni? I'm wracking my brain yet nothing comes to me just yet - HELP!


Photo linked from brutal's photostream.

[Digg] Ann Coulter: "Take Away Women's Right to Vote"

Digg is always a fun source of interesting items on the web in a fashion entirely different from other services like StumbleUpon given it's much more democratic (and highly vocal) audience.

Of course there are always folks like Ann Coulter who manage to say the most interesting things at the the right time to catch everyone's attention. Let's face it - she's pretty much know for her no-holds-barred approach to pretty much life in general and has always demonstrated little concern for what everyone else thinks.

So when this story hit Digg, of course it caught my attention (and apparently the attention of 1719 other people at the time of this entry).

This is yet another clasic Ann Coulter gem:

"If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and “We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?”

Oh Ann, you know we love you.

[Web] MyBlogLog Yahoo ID Integration

Despite the fact that the actual purchase of blog-centric social network MyBlogLog by Yahoo feels like ages ago, it's only this week that the site started accepting Yahoo IDs for logging into the site. Similar to how Flickr was previously integrated into the Yahoo network some time back, the process appears to be allowing folks to associate their existing MyBlogLog details with their Yahoo profiles.

Thus far the process seems largely seamless and I was able to get things merged without issue, although some have reported occasional complications and irritations like having your Yahoo Avatar as your default avatar in MyBlogLog. I think it depends on how you manage their integration wizard, which gives you the option to re-submit data such as your location or to just pull your existing data from your previous MyBlogLog account - this will require you to sign in one last time with your old credentials.

While it's nice to have one less password to remember, it's somewhat sad to see our garishly green friend become yet another Yahoo service among many. I doubt most users will mind the change, but of course there will be those independents who will chafe against this integration and call for the previous state of semi-autonomy from the Yahoo network.

[Web] Spock is Now in Public Beta

Personal search engine Spock has gone into open beta this week so general sign-ups are now possible. I wanted to get in before but didn't make it to the closed beta testing phase. Darn.

The premise behind Spock is that it's a search engine more geared towards finding people and not just individual pages related to that person. It's ambitious given what they're trying to do - part search engine, part social network and part privacy issue.

I like the concept of trying to link together all pages, web services, email addresses, phone numbers, etc about a person in one place. Putting people at the search philosophy is certainly a great idea. Of course the challenge is how to manage that information well, how to associate the right details to the right person and of course how to protect that information from being used abusively.

I created a profile for two reasons - (1) to test the service out and (2) to see what information I could control about myself. The pages are loading really slow right now, I assume because of the sheer volume of new users testing the service out. The options seem simple enough - you can add tags to describe yourself more, link people to you, associate web pages you have profiles on and of course add personal details like your birthday, your email addresses, your phone numbers, etc.

The index is pretty small for now (still in the millions) but there are a surprising number of people already there - probably more because of their adopting the databases of social networks already out there. However they are actively trying to grow it over time and this is what gets some people nervous how the site's spiders are trawling the web for personal information and making it available in one place.

It's too early to give a final verdict on the site for now, but it does seem promising and scary at the same time.