Do you remember that terrible yearbook picture of you, with the feathered hair, two-inch thick Coke bottle glasses and braces? (Don't even mention the giant forehead zit.) That one? It might be coming back to haunt you.
TechFlash reported this week that Classmates.com has an "ambitious plan" to digitize high-school yearbooks and offer them on the site.
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According to TechFlash, Classmates.com CEO Mark Goldston laid out plans to digitize yearbooks, among other initiatives, as a way to differentiate itself from other social networking sites. The initiative comes after the company reported a nearly 20% profit loss in the fourth-quarter from the previous year. Goldston said the company plans to offer free thumbnail views of the yearbooks, but will charge for full-size views as well as DVD and hard copies.
In addition to yearbook scanning, the company plans on developing apps for both Facebook and the iPhone, as well as getting in on the business of class reunions.
Goldston told TechFlash that the company is looking at a "major reunions initiative that will allow us to be more involved in the planning and selling of tickets, travel-related revenues, and the creation of reunion-specific products and services that we can sell to our users."
We found ourselves wondering where exactly Classmates.com is going to get all of these yearbooks. Will schools have a collection and willingly hand them over to the site for use? Or will the have to pay some sort of royalty? Even more importantly, will they be scanning in clean, unadulterated copies of yearbooks or are we going to be able to see all the silly, dirty and downright mean things we all wrote when we were in high school?
We know that when many of us graduated high school, we weren't yet aware of the fact that everything we said and did could end up permanently enshrined on the Internet.
Perhaps our saving grace here is the fact that Classmates gets only a fraction of the traffic of Facebook or Myspace and is largely kept behind a pay wall.
I had some free time this weekend, so instead of going to party, I decided to look into Google Buzz. It's not every day that a major social site is launched. I wanted to find a way to find my friends quickly, and gain many followers. I started by looking into popular users and finding friends we have in common. It was pretty tedious, but I noticed I could add as many people as I wanted. So I built a script that would auto-follow everyone in someone's list. The idea is was people would see that I was following them, and some of them would follow back.
The post was written by Ramine Darabiha, an entrepreneur (CEO of MySites) and occasional blogger at Nerdstalker and his own blog. You can follow him on Google Buzz.
ReadWriteWeb's full coverage and analysis of Google Buzz:
The Power of Friends
There is a thriving and active community on Buzz. The most followed user is currently the social media blog Mashable, with 17,000-plus followers. Many of the early adopters seem to have already made the switch, to the point that I've noticed a significant drop of activity from friends on Twitter.
When I started using the service and saw that I only had a handful of contacts, I was quite disappointed. No matter what I posted, I received very few replies. It was like talking in a vast ocean of emptyness.
I wanted to see what the service was really like, and decided to engage as many users as I could. I thought this would be an interesting experiment, and also felt very excited by the idea of joining a new community, especially if I could become one of the first power users.
I find it very difficult to communicate on Twitter. To me, it often felt like a one-sided discussion, where superstar users with an agenda would promote their company or consulting business - basically, a competition to get retweets and @ mentions. Most of my attempts to have smart discussions were either constrained by the character limit, the fact that you would only see the latest messages, or the lack of threaded comments. In a way, Twitter is very much about right now, which makes it difficult to keep track of.
I remembered how in the early days of Twitter, Robert Scoble followed every user who followed him, which brought him a lot of users. As many power users know, Facebook has the 5,000 friends limit, and Twitter has the 2,000 user limit, which gets lifted after some time. Buzz has no such limit at the moment.
So I set myself the very daft and unrealistic goal of being to Buzz what Robert Scoble is to Friendfeed. As I learned this weekend, following several thousands of people is a valid strategy to engage a large amount of users, but it is also a double-edged sword. There is of course no way anyone can actually follow that many people. This is a shame, as there are some users whose updates I care about more than the others. This would be fixed with the support of groups or lists, however.
Approximately 10% of the people you follow will follow you back, even if they don't know you. Interestingly, these users will engage in the discussion, comment, and like your stories, much more so than on Facebook and Twitter. However, this could be due to the novelty aspect.
I appreciate the service much more now that I have a considerable following. There is always someone who will be interested in what I post, what I care about. In my opinion, this is true social media.
Are you using your real name on your social network profiles? According to the European Union's Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), that's a big mistake. A new report, published to coincide with Europe's Safer Internet Day, details the dangers of using social networks and lays out 17 "golden rules" for keeping safe on social networks. The report's authors are especially worried about the proliferation of mobile social networks and, among other things, recommend that users turn off all location-based services whenever they are not absolutely needed.
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The report argues that you should always protect your social networking accounts by using a pseudonym. After all, the authors say, your real friends will know who is hiding behind your nickname and will still be able to find you easily. We are not quite sure if this is a very realistic proposition, though some of the ENISA's "Golden Rules" are quite reasonable.
17 Golden Rules
Here are the rules:
Pay Attention to What You Post and Upload:
Consider carefully which images, videos and information you choose to publish
Never post sensitive information
Use a pseudonym
Choose Your Friends with Care:
Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know
Verify all your contacts
Protect Your Work Environment and Avoid Reputation Risk:
When joining a social networking site use your personal e-mail address (not your company e-maill address)
Be careful how you portray your company or organization online
Do not mix your business contacts with your friend contacts
Do not let anyone see your profile or personal information without your consent
Do not leave your mobile phone unattended
Do not save your password on your mobile phone
Use the security features available on your mobile phone
Protect Your Mobile Phone and the Information Saved on It:
Be careful what you publish about someone else
Inform Yourself:
Read carefully and in full the privacy policy and the condition and terms of use of the social network you choose
Protect Your Privacy With the Privacy Settings:
Use privacy-oriented settings (check who can see your pictures, who can contact you and who can add comments)
Report Stolen Phones Immediately:
Be careful when using your mobile phone and pay attention to where you put it
Pay Attention to Location Based Services and Information of Your Mobile Phone:
Deactivate location based services when not using them
What do You Think?
Most of these rules seem quite reasonable, but are you really going to use a nickname for your social network profile? Do you find it hard to keep your private life and work life separate on Facebook? Let us know what you think in the comments.
KnowEm allows individuals and brands to ensure that they have claimed their favorite username or their brand's name on over 350 social media services. Just type in your favorite username and KnowEm will check if it is still available on these sites.
Today, KnowEm announced the launch of a number of premium services aimed at small businesses and enterprises. For a one-time fee, KnowEm will create profiles for a brand or individual on over 150 social media sites. For a slightly higher fee, the company will also populate these profiles with your information.
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In addition, KnowEm also announced that it has acquired FriendsCall.Me, a service that is quite similar to KnowEm and also aims to help brands to make sure that their names aren't being used by squatters.
Is Your Name Available?
The basic free version of KnowEm makes it easy to find out if your favorite username is still available on over 350 popular social media services. Just type in your favorite username and KnowEm will check if your name is still available on these sites. Given how closely our online identities are often tied to one single username, it only makes sense to claim the same username on every site and to ensure that somebody else isn't impersonating you. Other services that offer similar free features include Namechk (148 sites) and Usernamecheck.com (68 sites).
Premium Services
The new premium services extend KnowEm's portfolio by giving businesses additional services for claiming and monitoring the use of their brands. For users of the Corporate Edition ($349), KnowEm will create profiles on 150 social media sites and populate them with photos, bios and descriptions. A cheaper version of this services ($99) only includes the signup process, but users will still have to populate their profiles by hand. For an additional $49 per month, KnowEm will also register your name or brand on new social media services as they launch.
Eric Eldon at InsideFacebook reports that the social network has begun experimenting with a new option for users to report the senders of friend requests as someone they don't actually know. The prompt appears after you click to ignore a friend request.
Actually knowing a person isn't a requirement to be their friend on Facebook (unlike LinkedIn, for example), so this is an odd choice of words, but presumably the vast majority of the site's users do only want to be friends with people they've met. Facebook has strict limits on the number of messages and friend requests a person can send, but apparently that hasn't worked well enough.
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Two years ago MySpace added a requirement that any friend requests sent had to be verified as human using a CAPTCHA. That cut spam friend requests on MySpace down dramatically. There is no such requirement on Facebook.
Dealing with information overload and spam are key steps in creating and maintaining a user experience that keeps people coming back to non-essential websites like social networks - as opposed to email, which you'll keep using anyway because you have to.
According to Eldon, Facebook hasn't determined yet what it will do with these reports when filed. We regularly hear about people claiming abuse by the Facebook anti-spam team but every time we call Facebook about one of those complaints, the company's response seems quite reasonable. People do a lot of obnoxious things on Facebook. I don't know any of those people, though, and plan on clicking a button that says so when the opportunity arises.
Eric Eldon at InsideFacebook reports that the social network has begun experimenting with a new option for users to report the senders of friend requests as someone they don't actually know. The prompt appears after you click to ignore a friend request.
Actually knowing a person isn't a requirement to be their friend on Facebook (unlike LinkedIn, for example), so this is an odd choice of words, but presumably the vast majority of the site's users do only want to be friends with people they've met. Facebook has strict limits on the number of messages and friend requests a person can send, but apparently that hasn't worked well enough.
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Two years ago MySpace added a requirement that any friend requests sent had to be verified as human using a CAPTCHA. That cut spam friend requests on MySpace down dramatically. There is no such requirement on Facebook.
Dealing with information overload and spam are key steps in creating and maintaining a user experience that keeps people coming back to non-essential websites like social networks - as opposed to email, which you'll keep using anyway because you have to.
According to Eldon, Facebook hasn't determined yet what it will do with these reports when filed. We regularly hear about people claiming abuse by the Facebook anti-spam team but every time we call Facebook about one of those complaints, the company's response seems quite reasonable. People do a lot of obnoxious things on Facebook. I don't know any of those people, though, and plan on clicking a button that says so when the opportunity arises.
Favrd, the now-retired (creator-destroyed) aggregation site for Twitter "favorites," began as the irreverent offshoot of a community of influential designers and developers -- people like Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies), John Gruber (@gruber), Jeffrey Zeldman (@zeldman), and Dean Cameron Allen (@textism), the site's creator.
You don't need to know the lofty origins of Favrd, though; if anything, they're antithetical to the point. Favrd ran on a "no-webcock algorithm." ("Webcock" was Dean's term for shamelessly self-promoting "new media gurus.")
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This guest post was written by Kim Gaskins, a writer for Latitude Research.
In an interview earlier this year, web developer Rafael Torres (@rafitorres) remarked: "A common concern for all of [the creators] was the idea that the social web had been invaded by a certain class of individuals who were apparently only concerned with marketing themselves and their brands through fake social interactions."
How Many Stars in the Sky? Infinite: and That's Too Many.
Simply put, I think what happened to Favrd was that a new crop of users appeared who didn't know how to value the currency, and thus they inadvertently devalued it. They were arbitrarily plastering their stars around town to promote themselves, like "take-out menus hung on the doors of other restaurants." Dan Wineman (@dwineman), "The Favrd Situation"
In this way, currency (devalued) only serves to commodify valuable content.
Remiel (@remiel) makes some generative suggestions here to "inject scarcity back into the equation." What if Favstar instituted a new metric... ? "The result, ideally, is... a truly useful list of vetted Twitter content, reliably worth reading. In short: a great, alternative Twitter filter."
"I hate when clever, elegant things leave the web." Jeffrey Zeldman to Dean Cameron Allen, commenting on "The Stars Look Down"
Favrd: The Black Sheep of Bottom-Up PosterCommunities
Cohesive communities like Favrd, grown organically without a pointed goal -- especially the communities grown around liberality of mind and well-placed puns -- have some people asking, "yes, but what's the point?"
Therein lies the point.
"I've met lots of people, collaborated creatively with a few and even had one stay on my couch during his trip across the country. All wonderful experiences." Jon Dascola, commenting on Zeldman's "The Stars Look Down"
SmallCanBeBig is a charitable non-profit that harnesses the power of small, direct donations for families in need. Mark Nikolewski (@mnik) is lead designer and art director for the organization; from his personal experience in the community, he can trace back thousands of dollars in direct donations to SmallCanBeBig from Favrd members. He estimates that the community supplies about 20% of the organization's (@smallcanbebig's) retweets, without accounting for any secondary networking effects. Mike Monteiro (@mike_FTW) has been one of SmallCanBeBig's most outspoken supporters, incenting donations via Twitter in Favrd fashion: "SmallCanBeBig: Tell you what: you donate $50 and I will tweet a PERSONAL INSULT which you can RT to show your friends how cool you are." (Visit SmallCanBeBig.org directly to donate sans personal insult.)
Josh Hopkins (@thedayhascome) began tweeting about the medical condition of his daughter (born January 2009) as a part of the Favrd community, which rose up with overwhelming support while Lucy underwent serious operations and prolonged hospital stays. (Josh and his family will be participating in the March for Babies in 2010 to raise money on behalf of Lucy's name. If individuals would like to donate money to The March of Dimes, on behalf of Team Lucy Kate who is walking in the Indianapolis event, more information is available here.)
"Keep starring the heavens, kids. #thankyoutextism" (via @pagecrusher)
A more comprehensive directory of projects from the Favrd community is available here.
Microsoft researcher danah boyd took a decidedly different approach when considering social networking at today's LeWeb conference. In speaking to a room packed with more than a thousand entrepreneurs, investors and journalists, boyd explained how we tend to focus on the positive aspects of social networking services. Technologists tend to praise web publishing for its ability to encourage artistic expression and public dialogue. In contrast, boyd makes the point that negative and disturbing web content can also serve as a vehicle for change.
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boyd explains how those who monitor online profile information, tend to have something to gain from it in a negative way. For example, oppressive governments often monitor the web for signs of criminal activity in order to enforce laws or suppress certain activities. Nevertheless, boyd believes the visibility of violence, drug use and criminal activity can also be used by regular netizens for constructive purposes.
"There must be eyes on the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind. The sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce a sufficient number of people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks."
boyd believes this same concept can be applied to online safety and health. She explains, "The web makes available all parts of society and it's up to us to find a way to make it constructive." With Facebook's user base often cited as being bigger than the population of all but 4 countries in the world, netizens have the visibility to do more than simply consume content. boyd's presentation reveals that while the Internet has the power to uncover the abuse and oppression that is happening around us, ultimately it's up to us to decide whether or not to acknowledge and help remedy them.
Being one of the first social networking sites in existence certainly doesn't establish you as the best or most popular. For this reason, Friendster leaked a video outlining its look and product features. According to TechCrunch, the company is set to release the new product features tomorrow morning. If the below video was meant to get prospective users excited for a revitalized service, they could have approached it from a different angle. Below are the top four reasons Friendster's new messaging needs to change.
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4. It's You! Up Close and Personal: When you're trying to brand yourself as an alternative to "generic sites" you might want to come up with messaging that differs from that of a recent $100 million dollar campaign already launched by Yahoo.
3. Your Own Look, Your Own Style: In August, Microsoft was widely criticized for Photoshopping a man's head and subsequently changing his skin color. In this case, all of the models involved appear to be both racially homogenous and between the ages of 18-30-years-old. Ironically, I would be able to express myself with "[my] own look and [my] own style"; however, the visual message here is that those who do not fit this image would be misfits.
2. [You Can] Send Gifs: If you're going to show how your network is different from Facebook and MySpace, you should focus on product features that people care about - like mobile uploads, geo-locational applications, news feeds and anything from this decade.
1. Connecting Smiles: This tagline doesn't conjure images of a fun social network. It does however relate to the tragic fact that up to 1 in 50,000 babies are born as conjoined twins. The phenomenon happens when identical twins' bodies are fused in utero and the surgery to separate these poor children is often complex and life threatening.
Some LinkedIn users will have noticed a change to the navigation and user interface of the LinkedIn.com website, announces a company blog post. The business-focused social network is in the process of rolling out an updated design that aims to improve and simplify site navigation while also offering a cleaner, less-cluttered look. Does the fresh coat of paint hit the mark?
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What's New: Navigation Improvements, Lots of Whitespace
One of the main new features of the revamped LinkedIn is the global navigation bar at the top of the page which links to all the site's features including profile, contacts, groups, jobs, your inbox, and more. Click on any of these items and a drop-down menu will appear providing you with further options. This gives the most important navigational aspect to the site a more modern look than it had before when each section was displayed in clickable tabs of different shades of blue.
The company also touts how the new look and feel also makes room for more page content with less scrolling needed in order to see everything on the page. This is also true to some extent. However, on your homepage where network updates and group updates are featured, the amount of scrolling depends on the size of your network and how active the network members are. For example, under the "group updates" section, updates for the past seven days were posted followed by a section that included updates from the prior week. That actually led to quite a bit of scrolling to see them all. It's not necessarily a bad feature, though. After all, LinkedIn isn't the sort of site we're logging into on a daily basis so it's nice to be able to catch up when we're there... even if that means the homepage screen extends downward forever.
Also new on the homepage are moveable, collapsible sidebar modules which can display things like who's been viewing your profile, events, job listings, applications you've added, and more.
Cleaner Look Highlights Ads
One downside of the site's "cleaner" look is how much more noticeable the ads are now. Of course, to LinkedIn this may be an upside. Although the ad placements are no different than before, the new look makes them really stand out. Since everything is now black or blue text on a white background, the full-colored ad at the top of the screen is the first thing to draw your eye upon login. There's also a text link ad directly below the global navigation that demands your attention. It's in the exact place where a company message would normally appear and the font used is a darker, bolder blue than anything else on the site. Both of these elements are somewhat distracting, but we suppose there's nothing that you can really do about ads. Still, we wish that the network had taken a page from Facebook's book when it came to ad placement - when you log into Facebook, the first thing you notice is the content and the updates, not the ads.
LinkedIn says the updated design was based on years of data from usability research but what you're seeing now isn't necessarily the final product. They're still iterating and, based on user feedback about the new look, they may make some additional changes in this and other areas.
Still Needs Improvement: the LinkedIn Inbox
One thing that still hasn't improved, sadly, is the LinkedIn inbox. Although the homepage view of the inbox provides a handy "take action" button which lets you quickly accept, reject, or archive requests, the full inbox view still forces you to click each message to accept or reject requests - there are no bulk actions you can take from the inbox screen besides archiving or marking messages as read or unread. Even worse, after accepting or rejecting a request, the message remains in your inbox until you manually archive it, necessitating quite a bit of additional work if you've let those invites pile up.
What Do You Think?
Are you impressed with the new look for LinkedIn? Or did you prefer the old tabbed interface better? LinkedIn obviously hopes that by simplifying the navigation and site elements which help to better engage users that they will spend more time exploring and interacting with the various site elements. Do you think that will be the case? Or do the underlying features of LinkedIn need improvement as well?
Do you remember that terrible yearbook picture of you, with the feathered hair, two-inch thick Coke bottle glasses and braces? (Don't even mention the giant forehead zit.) That one? It might be coming back to haunt you.
I had some free time this weekend, so instead of going to party, I decided to look into 
Are you using your real name on your social network profiles? According to the European Union's 
Eric Eldon at 
Microsoft researcher danah boyd took a decidedly different approach when considering social networking at today's 
She references "eyes on the street" -- a concept coined by urban sociologist Jane Jacobs in her book 
Being one of the first social networking sites in existence certainly doesn't establish you as the best or most popular. For this reason, 
Some 
