Social Computing

Or at least the door is cracked! A couple years ago I wrote a post about online software and pointed to Boing Boing’s piece on Open Office running ads on the buses back and forth to the evil empire.

NY Times reports that the the intense ad war may just have worked! Microsoft is releasing an open document format in the updated Office 2007.

Popularity: 5% [?]

In another experiment with online interactivity, Jeep and Marvel comics are creating a user generated comic book. While its not really open source, it still offers a sense of community participation by inviting users to submit story panels that may be translated into a developing comic book. Joe B informs me this is a variation of an idea by comics theorist Scott McCloud.

Popularity: 2% [?]

if you’re like me, you’d rather leech onto someone else’s brainpower, than try to do too much figuring out yourself. Some when it comes to technology that allows me to create quite painlessly (from a mental sense), I’m on board! Like ning, openkracow is a open source site that shares code and make creating applications fairly simply. This site is focused on craiting masup. Pretty cool.

Popularity: 3% [?]

I’ve explored a few different social searching sites, but nothing really grabbed me or made me feel like I was missing something if I didn’t use them. Not sure if this one will be any different, but it has some interesting features. Searchles allows you to connect with other folks who are doing similar search and post those searches to a common pool. Sort of a social my delicious I guess. You can search tags and groups to find like minded searchers. And the idea behind it is that people may find potential networking parnters for business, creative projects, etc. I notice several business groups on their, so this might have some interesting possiblitites. Time will tell.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Uplay me promises to track your listening preferences and connect you with other people who listen to the same music. Could be interesting, could be freaky.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Going to a new city? Lost in your own city? TechCrunch just reviewed the newly revamped Ask City, and they’ve made me a believer!

Ask City is  a cool tool for looking up restaurants, movies, events, dog parades, and more. It combines maps, reviews, and a variety of customization like saving snapshots while I search, integration with other sites and services, notes on maps, and e-mailable permalinks of my searches. Ask City may become my new first stop for finding out about where in the world I live.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I know all the talk over the last year has been about YouTube, and I’ve spent my fair share of time browsing and uploading. But today I tested blip.tv, and I must say: it rocks!

This video sharing service offers RSS feeds for your videos, automatic blogging and cross-posting options, multiple formats and even multiple uploading options. And this is just the start. If you are serious about videos or setting up an online channel. Use blip.tv!! I love it!!

Popularity: 3% [?]

I wrote about the idea of integrity and integration earlier in the month. The divisions between our personal and public lives do not appeal to me. I want to live as a whole person whether in the workplace, the ministry, the home or even online. When working at Philips, I had the opportunity to use my interest in creativity and play to lead workshops among co-workers. This excited me because within the workforce, I found a way to integrate personal interests with work in a way the I believe benefited the company.

Another key interest in my life has been community/relationship building. That’s why I track social networks and trends in culture. I am interested in how these trends online and offline will impact the formation of relationships. I’ve had the privilege of bringing this interest in community building into several companies, but the focus has primarily been within a company not between the company and their outside stakeholders (customers, vendors, et al).

So I’ve tried to find connecting points between this interest and the company I’ve been working with most recently: Jewelry Television. We’re making some baby steps toward community/social networking. They recently gave approval for me to start a Jewelry Television blog. It’s very low radar right now. We’ve not promoted or mentioned it much at all.

This is still an ongoing experiment. While I want the blog to direct people to our site (so I post ads and videos from the site), I also want to blog to reveal the human side of the company and open the door for conversation with customers. Eventually, it is a step toward building a more socialnet based dialogue between JTV and customers as well as other folks online.

Take a look at it, if you have chance and give me any feedback. I’d appreciate it.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Not that I’m encouraging anyone to spend more money this season, but if you’re interested, Larry Chase sent out a list of interesting of shopping sites that you might want to check out. I think I’ve written about some of this before, but here are the highlights:

FruCall -  One quick call tells you if an online price beats the store price. “Frucall not only reads back the best online prices to you, but it also allows you to buy items directly from online merchants while you’re on the phone!”

CyberMonday – Shop.org set up this site to show all the various deals online today.

Dealcatcher – Comprehensive list of online and offline deals.

Like.com – A shopping search engine.  This is an interesting concept that captures photos of celebrities and allows you to search fashion items they are wearing and find similar items for sale.

Shop Local – Find all the deals in your neck o’ the woods.

Pronto – Named “”Best Online Price Comparison Site” in 2006 by Kiplinger’s, this site searches product reviews to create an overall product rating and then it connects you to various online merchants.

ThisNext – This a social shopping site that lets you connect with like-minded to find their recommendations on specific products.

Kaboodle – Another social shopping site that lets you organize your wish lists from various sites on the web.

Bidnearby – Find the closest ebay auctions to your zip code area and save or avoid shipping.

Google Checkout – It’s growing.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Move over Bill Graham, looks like latest greatest concert promoter could be the AARP! Apparantly the teen set are not the biggest market of music consumers. Instead, the RIAA suggests that the 45 and older group in the biggest, most reliable music consumer sgement. According to the NYT, “Last year fans 45 and older accounted for 25.5 percent of sales, while older teenagers (a group more prone to music piracy) represented less than 12 percent.”

Watching the growing graying trend in music appreciation, AARP promoted a Tony Bennet tour and may begin a whole series of promotions and other iniatives to target this group for potential AARP members.

This may have some interesting implications for other developments online including the future of online social networks. I still expect a hybrid to develop of online/offline networking groups that relate to the older groups. We’ll see.

Popularity: 1% [?]