socialmedian http://blog.socialmedian.com/ This blog presents the observations, thoughts, and opinions of socialmedian's founder, Jason Goldberg. en-US Copyright 2008 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:14:38 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification "It's like having your own version of the DRUDGE REPORT"
Just like Drudge enables anyone/anywhere to follow the stories he's clipping on any given day, that's what socialmedian enables our users to do -- at a much greater scale. 

On socialmedian you can follow people who share your interests and essentially get your news through them.  We call the people you follow your "Newsmakers."  You can easily track the stories your Newsmakers are clipping and discussing.  Best of all, you can do that across many users all in one place. 

And, of course, you can also become a Newsmaker yourself and build your own following.

As an example, here's what my own version of the drudgereport on socialmedian looks like to other users.  As you can see, there is a list of recent stories I've clipped.  If they want, my followers can just sit back and follow what I'm reading today.  (Let me do the work for them).

mypage.png

And then here is what it looks like for the user on their personalized homepage where they can view the aggregated clippings of their Newsmakers, in this case me and a few other people this user has chosen to follow.


Newsmakers.png
This is just the start but it's coming along nicely.  We'll be looking at ways to enhance this feature set, enable more
personalization and customization, and enable users to take it to go via widgets on their blogs and social networks of choice.


]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/its_like_having_your_own_versi.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/its_like_having_your_own_versi.html socialmedian socialmedian Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:14:38 -0500 Reminder: socialmedian iphone App Design Contest
Details around the socialmedian iphone app design contest can be found here.

Designers:  contact me personally with any questions.
]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/reminder_socialmedian_iphone_a.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/reminder_socialmedian_iphone_a.html iphone socialmedian Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:50:18 -0500 Who are the early most popular and notable Newsmakers on socialmedian?
After 1 week, here are some of the most popular Newsmakers on socialmedian (popular defined by # of people following their updates):

Here are some other notable individuals who are starting to develop a following on socialmedian.


And, here are a few interesting people who are just getting started (let's follow them!)




]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/who_are_the_early_most_popular.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/who_are_the_early_most_popular.html socialmedian Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:43:15 -0500 New socialmedian feature: Share options when submitting content There are 4 easy ways to submit content to socialmedian.

  1. Add a feed from a site to a socialmedian News Network (so far, our 3751 alpha users have created 962 News Networks).  This way will automatically feed relevant stories from that site.  Relevance is determined by matching the topics/keywords that members of a particular news network have chosen.  For instance, a socialmedian user has added Louis Grey's blog as a feed into the web 2.0 news network.  But, only Louis' blog posts that match the web 2.0 related topics designated by the members of that news network are automatically included.  So, the stories about baby changing/feeding don't make it into the web 2.0 news network, just the relevant postings.

  2. Use our bookmarklet to clip and story from the web to socialmedian.  One click and it's added to your socialmedian page, and all your followers are notified that you find a story interesting.

  3. On every page on socialmedian there are "Add something" links at the top right to add a "snip" (short for snippet, or a quick note), or to write some "news" (including a headline, link, and description.

  4. You can also email anything to socialmedian by emailing it to post@mysocialmedian.com. (make sure to email it from the email address linked to your socialmedian account, otherwise it wont get posted).  This is still work in progress "labs" feature.  You can learn more about it here.

Today we have added some easy share options to get your content shared with the right networks as you post it.

When adding content, users can now click on the "share options" link to decide if they want to (a) have socialmedian auto-magically share the content with their relevant news networks, or (b) manually decide which news networks they want to share the content with.  As depicted in this image:

Picture 32.pngIf the auto-share option is selected, socialmedian auto-magically will share your content with relevent networks you belong to.

If the "allow me to choose networks" option is selected, an auto-complete box is exposed which enables the user to enter in news networks they wan to share this content with.  (Can only share with networks they are a member of).

Picture 33.png
The same functionality will be available in our browser bookmarklet tomorrow as well.

Picture 34.png

]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/new_socialmedian_feature_share.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/new_socialmedian_feature_share.html socialmedian Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:40:28 -0500 Announcing the 2nd socialmedian Design Contest: socialmedian app for the iphone! 1st socialmedian design contest, we are announcing today details for the 2nd socialmedian design contest: 

design the socialmedian iphone app!
 
Win $1000.00 first prize + a free iphone3G

$500 2nd prize + a free iphone3G

iphone.jpg
Thumbnail image for SM_logo_F.jpg

*** An iphone app is one of the top recent socialmedian alpha user requests.  Here's your opportunity to design the app, win some great prizes, and get great public recognition for your design talents.

Contest details:
  • Anyone can participate.  Please email me to let me know you plan to participate.
  • The contest will run until July 28, 2008.  Entries must be received no later than midnight New York time on July 28, 2008. 
  • To enter, you will need to submit a proposed design for a socialmedian iphone application.  Your design can be submitted in any format you'd like.  JPG images preferred.  You should submit design pages for as many pages as possible to represent your design.  Submit your design by email to me.
  • Extra credit will go to designs that optimize the socialmedian experience for the iphone interface.  We're looking for user experience design here as much as graphic design. 
  • All of the contest entries will be featured on the socialmedian blog and on the socialmedian website.  The socialmedian team will select the winning design which will win a $1000 prize + a free iphone 3G device.  We will also have a public vote.  The winner of the public vote (if different from the winner of the socialmedian team vote) will win $500 prize + a free iphone 3G device.
  • The winning designs will be featured and the winning designers will receive public accolades.
  • The winning design will be likely be launched by socialmedian as our iphone application.  If so, the designer will be publicly acknowledged for his/her work (e.g. designed by "name").
  • If you do not have a socialmedian alpha account, you can access socialmedian to participate in the design contest, by clicking on "create an account" from www.socialmedian.com and using the invite code "nearlybeta"
  • Note:  also email me if you want image files for our logo, small s|m icon, etc.
]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/announcing_the_2nd_socialmedia.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/announcing_the_2nd_socialmedia.html socialmedian design contest socialmedian Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:17:04 -0500 M5 Release: Newsmakers, Notifications, Invites, & Nearly Beta Over the weekend we shipped socialmedian "M5", our 5th major milestone during our alpha phase.

This milestone is highly significant for a # of reasons:
  1. It is the last milestone before we move from private invite-only alpha to public beta.  Our next major milestone, "M6" will mark our beta release to the general public.
  2. It marks the first time that current socialmedian users are able to invite other users to check out the service.
  3. The features in this release go a long way towards making socialmedian an interactive and viable social news network.
Regarding the features of this release, here are the highlights:

  • Newsmakers.

    my newsmakers.png
     
    • This is a feature many months in the works that we are really excited about. 
    • Here's some quick background on the need for this feature.  On socialmedian, users join "news networks" on topics like "web 2.0" "iphone" or the "olympics" or "madonna" and then are able to discover news by following the activities of people in those networks.  That works great if you are in a small network but has the potential to get kinda noisy if you are in a large network.  For instance, with only ~3500 alpha users on socialmedian, there are already >1000 members of the "web 2.0 News Network" -- tracking the news clippings of 1000+ people can get a little overwhelming.  So, we started thinking about, "what if I wanted to be in the web 2.0 network but often only really care about what some of the members of the network are reading?  Or, just my designated Newsmakers.  And, with some people who I really trust and look up to, I may want to discover everything they are reading, not just articles relevant to the networks I belong to.
  • That's where Newsmakers come in.  The high level concept behind Newsmakers is as follows.  One user of socialmedian can "follow" another user by clicking on the "follow" button.  Once you are following someone on socialmedian, you can get the news through them, by following what stories they clip for their followers, comment on, submit, etc.  In essence, they become your Newsmaker.

    Here you see what someone's mini profile looks just before I decide to "follow" them

    follow em.pngUnlike other services (e.g. Twitter or FriendFeed) in which it's generally an all-or-nothing when it comes to following another user, socialmedian adds a new filter to following your Newsmakers.  When following someone on socialmedian, you can decide whether you want to follow all of that person's updates (e.g. every time they clip a story or comment, etc.), OR only follow that person's activities as relevant to the News Networks you belong to.  In the latter, for instance, if you only wanted to see Jason Goldberg's news clippings as related to technology, you could do so, and never hear a blip about my interests in wine or music, etc.

    Here, you see that I can set my preferences as to how I want to follow someone.

    follow preferences.pngAnd here, once I am following someone:

    being followed.png
  • Here, you can view the most popular Newsmakers on socialmedian.
  • New Personalized Homepage News Feed Views

    new tabs.png

    • Related to the Newsmaker feature, socialmedian users can now view their personalized homepage news feed in 4 ways: 
      • My Newsmakers (just the activities of my Newsmakers
      • My Networks (the activies of all the people in my News Networks)
      • Me (my activities)
      • All (the most recent activities of all the people on socialmedian)

  • Notifications
    • Pretty basic stuff here but we just hadn't gotten around to it yet.  We have now implemented notifications to let users know when someone else is following their updates, when a story they submit is getting popular, when they have comments, etc.

  • Find (and follow) Your Friends on socialmedian
  • Invite Your Friends to socialmedian
    • That's right, current socialmedian users can now invite their friends to join them on socialmedian.  You can easily invite your gmail, hotmail, yahoo, and twitter buddies.  You can invite your contacts to join you on socialmedian in general and follow your updates, OR you can invite them to join a specific News Network.
    • If you like socialmedian, please invite your friends to check it out!  (thanks)
Alright, that's it for now.  BUT, M6, our public beta, is just around the corner.  We're hoping to get there in the next 2 weeks.  M6 will include an all new easier way to create News Networks, and will mark the opening up of the site for anyone to join socialmedian without an invite code.

Best,

-jason & the socialmedian team.
]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/m5_release_newsmakers_notifica.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/m5_release_newsmakers_notifica.html socialmedian socialmedian Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:31:41 -0500 iphone day, paidcontent & the Guardian 3G iphone.  Last night the tech world went crazy as the first iphone apps were launched.  (nice marketing move by Apple to start the frenzy the night before the launch). 

TechCrunch thinks the new Facebook app is killer.

facebook_app.pngHere is a review of several other apps.  Kudos to my friends over at UrbanSpoon for their creativity.

Despite the hub-bub, I'm not going to get one.  I'm a crack-berry addict and can't imagine living without the keyboard. 

Here's a quick link to track all the iphone news from hundreds of sources. 
You can also register for socialmedian today using the special invite code "iphone3G" today only.


In other news of note -- highly significant to those of us in the social media world -- The Guardian is buying PaidContent for $30M.  Congrats to Rafat, Staci, and the team at PaidContent.  gmgcontentnext.gifFantastic story of new media tried-and-true journo's who perservered (at it for 6 years) and created one of the first must-read new media websites.  And, in The Guardian, they've got a great partner who really "gets it."

UPDATE:  Here's Rafat's post on paidcontent about the acquisition.

]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/iphone_day_paidcontent_the_gua_1.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/iphone_day_paidcontent_the_gua_1.html Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:33:55 -0500 on twitter, friendfeed, flash bulbs, and lunch rooms
Over the weekend I tweeted the message:  "Blog=long rants. IM=chit-chat. Twitter=flash bulbs. FriendFeed= lunchroom table."

As if to prove my point, this tweet took on a 2nd life on FriendFeed, with 41 people "liking" this tweet and a number of people commenting on it.

And, further proving my point, prompted by a friend who asked me to explain (in a blog post) what it means, I'm now sitting down to write a long form blog post to explain it all.

Let's start with email.  email basically made it darn simple easy for anyone to send someone else (or several people) a letter.  Reply-all enabled threaded discussions.  Like long form letters though, emails are expected to be (relatively) well thought out. 

IM made it darn simple easy for anyone/anywhere to have an instant chat with another person. Less formal than an email, IM took off as a way to short-text message back and forth -- sort of like talking on the phone without having to actually talk to the other person (which by the way, also enables multi-tasking and multi-chatting on IM, which was never possible via phone).

SMS/Texting is basically IM by mobile.  Send a short private note instead of dialing each time.

email, IM, and SMS were always intended to facilitate private conversations.

blogs marked a major milestone in the evolution of public conversations.  Got something interesting to say?  let the world know about it!  Share it publicly. 

The problem with blogs though is that like emails they require a lot of thought (and time).  This blog posting, for instance, was 2 days of thinking in the making and took me about 20 minutes to write.

Twitter came along and enabled anyone to easily post a public one to many note via 140 character micro-blogging notes.  Like millions of flash bulbs, people tweet what's one their mind and others tweet replies or follow on a prior tweet.  It's less of a discussion and more of a series of lights flashing.  I like this!  I like that!  Me too!  I saw this!  Wow, @someone saw that too!

FriendFeed reminds me of the school lunchroom in that the conversations that may have started elsewhere are picked up and rehashed, commented on, and amplified.  FriendFeed (thus far) isn't a place for deep thoughts and debate, rather it's an easy interface/platform for anyone/anywhere to chime in to say they like something or to leave a short note in reply.  It's the lunchroom, not the senate floor.  It's also the lunchroom in that part of it's early appeal is that it enables people to have a seat at the cool kids' table.  Thus far, the "cool kids" sit at the tech geek table and part of the allure is that anyone/anywhere can saddle up to the cool kid's table and -- provided they don't make instant fools of themselves -- participate in the lunchroom discussion.

there's more to this story (of course), as facebook, myspace, flickr et al have made the world increasingly a very public bulletin board.

Where does socialmedian fit in all this?  we'll see.... still figuring that out.
 


]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/on_twitter_friendfeed_flash_bu_1.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/on_twitter_friendfeed_flash_bu_1.html socialmedian Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:44:55 -0500 This week's alpha code for socialmedian = 2weekstobeta
To use the code, go to www.socialmedian.com, click on "create an account" and enter the invite code 2weekstobeta


]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/this_weeks_alpha_code_for_soci.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/this_weeks_alpha_code_for_soci.html socialmedian Tue, 08 Jul 2008 04:00:43 -0500 socialmedian and the Google Social Graph API We've been playing around with the Google Social Graph API over here at socialmedian lately and have today begun to slowly add some features which make use of this API.

What is the Social Graph API?

The Social Graph API makes information about the public connections between people on the Web easily available and useful for developers. Developers can query this public information to offer their users dramatically streamlined "add friends" functionality and other useful features.


As this quick demo from Google shows, the API can detect how sites are connected/related and how people are connected based on public links on websites, marked up using Open standards such as XFN and FOAF, designed to express relationships online.


At socialmedian, our first use of this API is to guess at what other sites might also belong to an individual.  i.e. in the example pictured below, in my profile settings, I have told socialmedian what my Twitter account username is as well as my FriendFeed user name and based on that, using the GSG API, we are able to instantly suggest some other sites which might be mine as well.

settings is this you.pngIn this case, we accurately find my blog, linkedin account, facebook account, etc., which I can easily one-click now to add to my socialmedian profile.

This is a fairly basic use of the API around site connectivity.  We'll be doing some more advanced work with the API soon around user connectivity which should be even more interesting.

In terms of our use of the API, here are some of the observations thus far:

  1. We wish that more services would use the XHTML Friends Network (XFN), Friend of a Friend (FOAF) markups It's very simple and more developers should be made aware of this.  More developers should be made aware of the benefits of using these markups. Right now, hardly anyone bothers using these markups.  It may not be a proper comparison...but developers started using proper html tags because that gave them SEO benefit.
  2. The response data isn't entirely clean so you need to be cautious and apply your own filters on top of it.  As an example, for one of our team members, Nishith Shah, for twitter.com/neesheeth, Social Graph API thinks that friendfeed.com/neesheeth is an unverified claiming node. However, for friendfeed.com/neesheeth, it thinks twitter.com/neesheeth is a claimed node.
  3. Also, the user connections are understandably not in real time. So can't be used in situations where you need most up-to-date information
Apart from this, as far as implementation of social graph api is concerned.. it's pretty straightforward. Just have to get around to understanding the response. It could be confusing to start with
]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/socialmedian_and_the_google_so.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/socialmedian_and_the_google_so.html socialmedian google google social graph API social graph social graph API socialmedian Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:26:23 -0500 WEBEX: sneak preview of several significant new socialmedian features On this webex we will provide a sneak preview of a bunch of exciting new features we are working on launching over the next few weeks.
 
Date:  July 8, 2008
Time:  9am pacific, 12pm eastern, 5pm GMT
 
To register and join the webex go to https://socialmedian.webex.com/mw0305l/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=socialmedian
 
]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/webex_sneak_preview_of_several.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/webex_sneak_preview_of_several.html socialmedian Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:15:49 -0500 update Twitter micro-blogging and socialmedian story clipping is just so darn easy that I have evolved towards only writing formal long-form blog posts periodically.

I'm writing this post from an Internet cafe in Mallorca, Spain, where I've stopped for a few days for some more relaxed work-days in between India trips.

The rapid pace of development continues at socialmedian as we inch ever closer to moving from current invite-only alpha to a public beta -- hopefully in just a few weeks.  There are currently a bit more than 3500 socialmedian alpha users and the ongoing alpha user feedback has been tremendous and continued usage really good.  Thanks!   Of particular note, nearly 500 of our alpha users (of a sample size of 800) responded to our most recent survey last week.  Thanks so much!

Here is some top-level data:
We're currently planning a major feature release for July 11th and then another for July 21st.  Stay tuned....

]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/update.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/07/update.html socialmedian Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:06:08 -0500 socialmedian alpha stats update, june 12 2008
We shipped our first alpha on March 3, 2008 and we've been adding new features just about every other day since, as we respond to feedback from our alpha users.

We add new alpha users regularly as we digest feedback from current alpha users and then bring on some more users to test the newer features with.  We had about 50 alpha users at end of March, 500 at end of April, 2300 at end of May.

There are now 3357 alpha users.  We hope to move from alpha to beta in about 4-6 weeks.  We need to finish some more features first.

Our primary vehicle for issuing alpha invites is via Twitter, where we release new invites every Tuesday.  Most of the last 2000 registrants have come via our twitter tweeted invites.

socialmedian users can create News Networks on any topic.

Our 3357 users have created 807 News Networks on topics big and small.

Some of our most recent member-created News Networks include:

the Fred Wilson News Network

SMU FOOTBALL

Tony Romo

prescription drugs and suicide

Asthma

Socialutions

The most popular news networks on socialmedian are:

Created by: Sunil on Feb 15, 2008
Users: 1033
Sources: 87
Stories in 24 hours: 89

Created by: Nishith on Feb 15, 2008
Users: 626
Sources: 90
Stories in 24 hours: 364

Created by: Jasongoldberg on Feb 12, 2008
Users: 584
Sources: 56
Stories in 24 hours: 146

Created by: Ajayagrawal on Feb 15, 2008
Users: 509
Sources: 30
Stories in 24 hours: 78

Created by: Jasongoldberg on Mar 29, 2008
Users: 351
Sources: 42
Stories in 24 hours: 17

Created by: Jasongoldberg on Feb 17, 2008
Users: 268
Sources: 80
Stories in 24 hours: 468

Created by: Jasongoldberg on Feb 22, 2008
Users: 257
Sources: 33
Stories in 24 hours: 32

Created by: Deepa on Feb 13, 2008
Users: 208
Sources: 35
Stories in 24 hours: 116

Created by: Deepa on Feb 27, 2008
Users: 148
Sources: 15
Stories in 24 hours: 22


Created by: Jasongoldberg on Feb 17, 2008
Users: 139
Sources: 39
Stories in 24 hours: 24

]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/06/socialmedian_alpha_stats_updat.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/06/socialmedian_alpha_stats_updat.html socialmedian socialmedian Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:54:09 -0500 Fred Wilson's News Network Last night Fred Wilson went on a bit of a tirade on twitter about his desire for a good news aggregator for his favorite blogs.

Fred tweets:

is there a techmeme that is full of people like seth godin, jeff jarvis, dave winer, scoble, umair, calacanis, nick carr, etc? ie people about 11 hours ago from web

i want someone to build an aggregator of blogs written by people not companies about 11 hours ago from web in reply to ispivey

 @stein yes, FF can do that. but i have to do that work. the beauty of techmeme is gabe does that work for me about 11 hours ago from web in reply to stein

@Shripriya i don't use a feedreader. i use techmeme, hacker news, del popular, etc so i need an aggregator for the things i want to read. about 10 hours ago from web in reply to Shripriya

@gaberivera i'm back for a brief reply to gabe. search rules. if writing a stored query like that was done over months of usage, i'd love it about 10 hours ago from web in reply to gaberivera

You can follow the discussion and responses over at summize.

Alright Fred -- you asked for it, you got.  Plus a whole lot more.

socialmedian presents the Fred Wilson News Network. 

Picture 28.png


It has a running summary of posts from Fred's favorite blogs (we started with the blogs he mentions above), with a stored continuous search on key topics. 

New blogs can be added as sources.  Only the blogs entered will be searched.  

Topics can be added/voted on/edited/deleted.

Members of the Network can clip stories to highlight them to other users, comment on them, email them, share them, etc.

Right now, anyone can join this News Network, as all socialmedian News Networks are currently "public."  In the near future, we'll also enable Fred to make this a private network (if he so desires) and only include certain people in it.

If you would like to check out Fred Wilson's News Network on socialmedian, I've opened up 50 new alpha invites for socialmedian using the code "fredwilson" -- just go to www.socialmedian.com, click on "create an account" and enter the code "fredwilson" to get started.

    
]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/06/fred_wilsons_news_network.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/06/fred_wilsons_news_network.html socialmedian fred wilson socialmedian techmeme twitter Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:26:11 -0500 Weekly Tuesday socialmedian alpha invites
We're keeping the "iphone" invite code open for socialmedian alpha for the rest of Tuesday.
Feel free to retweet, blog about it, and forward. 150 new invites avail. ]]> http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/06/weekly_tuesday_socialmedian_al.html http://blog.socialmedian.com/2008/06/weekly_tuesday_socialmedian_al.html socialmedian socialmedian Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:09:45 -0500