Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Boulder Facebook Developer Garage Live
Thursday, March 27th, 2008I’m watching the Boulder Facebook Developer Garage live right now. If you are interested, check it out below. Thanks to Kevin Cawley for posting it.
SXSW & Variable Blogging
Thursday, March 6th, 2008As you’ve probably noticed, my blogging has taken a hit over the past week. I’ve been at Graphing Social Patterns and I’ll be at SXSW for the next week. I’ll be posting regularly on The Social Times with liveblogging and video coverage. I will also be liveblogging Mark Zuckerberg on Sunday on this site and posting a copy of the video soon after.
I will be back to regularly scheduled posts later in the week and I will definitely have any breaking news updated on this site. If you are going to down in Austin at the event please feel free to give me a shout. The easiest way is through my Twitter account but you can also shoot me an email that’s on our contact page.
Benjamin Ling at Graphing Social Patterns
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
Benjamin Ling of Facebook is currently speaking at the Graphing Social Patterns conference. I hate to be overly critical of Facebook but as usual the presentation displays nothing new. Benjamin is giving an overview their new profiles and how the wall is different. I’m not quite sure why Ben called this a “sneak preview” because it definitely isn’t. Ben is going over how many applications, application developers and number of users engaging with applications are on Facebook.
Ben is going over how they are trying to “remove friction” on Facebook. They are trying to make it so you can write an application once and use it everywhere. This can be done via Facebook’s licensing model. This licensing platform was announced back in January the same day that the Bebo platform launched. Ben is going over other things that have already been covered on this website including partnerships they’ve made with Joyent and Amazon.
Ben is now pitching usage of the developers marketplace. Following this, Ben is discussing the mult-language capabilities now available on the platform. He is mentioning how they are in Spanish. I actually wrote about how they launched German on Saturday. Now Ben is discussing how to leverage the social graph. I can’t describe how rehearsed this presentation sounds (just a side note). They have a really pretty visualization on the screen showing how people are connected via the social graph.
Ben is now going over what is usually brought up by all Facebook presentations: they have the largest photo application in the world. Sometimes I wonder if Facebook’s PR firm creates these presentations. Ben is now discussing how they are going to add Facebook payment services. This has been rumored to launch during the first quarter this year. Applications will be able to access the same payment system that is used for purchasing gifts on Facebook.
The next topic discussion is spammy applications. He discussed how they have decided to remove forced invites and displays a screenshot for reporting. He is emphasizing that people should be building high value applications such as the Visual Bookshelf application that has been created by the D.C. company, Hungry Machine. That’s the end of the presentation. It was well rehearsed and the powerpoint presentation was phenomenal!
Charlene Li At Graphing Social Patterns
Monday, March 3rd, 2008Today and tomorrow I will be at the Graphing Social Patterns conference in San Diego. There are a lot of great speakers speaking at the event. If you are here, definitely stop by and say hello! Right now Charlene Li of Forrester Research is speaking on stage. She speaking about the future of social networks.
Charlene’s first topic of discussion is the components of social networks and how they are going to evolve. There are four primary points of discusion:
- The Profile - This section will eventually evolve toward universal identity
- Relationships - There will eventually be a single social graph
- Activities - There will soon be a social context for activities (I think this is through tools such as twitter)
- Business Model - Social Influence is the value within the social web.
Charlene is giving a basic overview of the current issue being the issue of multiple identities. As she suggests, eventually we will have a universal identity which will most likely come from our email address. At the same time we will see universal identity foundations emerge as leaders such as OpenID. Additionally, a few major players will serve as the main focal points and interesting enough these will be the older companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and Plaxo. In order to get to the future, companies will need to work together via groups such as the Data Portability Workgroup.
Charlene is discussing the bill of rights for users of the social web which was published by Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington. So what is the social graph? Charlene is presenting the images generated by the friend graphing applications on Facebook. The fundamental flaw with her existing social graph is that there are a lot of people missing from her Facebook social graph.
People missing includes colleagues, parents, extended family, school parents, neighbors, babysitter, walking group, etc. Charlene is emphasizing that many of the people in her social groups aren’t members.
Charlene is now talking about social media fatigue and how this is a problem. The result is going to be new entrants that help break open the clutter taking place on the social web. They will most likely be the older companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo! and other large players. I partially agree with Charlene on this but I wonder if even Google will be successful at making the social web a less complex place.
Charlene suggests that relationship mapping will soon be automatic and permission based. She also is discussing what people are doing today on social networks. Charlene is also explaining how the social aspects within Facebook and other social sites can be extended to other sites such as Amazon and Yahoo!. Tools such as search, financial portfolio management and others can all be “socialized.”
Charlene suggests that each person will eventually have a “personal CPM.” I could not agree more with Charlene on this point. Just this weekend I was doing a weekly braindump and concluded that it makes no sense that these sites get to monetize us through our social profiles. I’ll save you from any elaboration on this topic currently. She is now discussing the evolution of social platforms. The various phases were: walled garden services, portal aggregators, search freedom and we will soon see data portability and finally ubiquitous social networks.
In order for us to make the transition to data portability and ubiquitous social networks we will be a trust relationship with users, Charlene suggests. Companies will not compete on locking users in but instead on creating the most compelling social experience. Charlene adds that we need to start developing useful social applications. This has been a serious complaint since the platform launched last May. Another suggestion of Charlene is to integrate social networks into existing activities.
Here’s her slideshow:
Community Next Event in LA
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Yesterday when I released my March events list, I failed to include one other event that will have a significant social media presence: Community Next. The Community Next conference will have some great speakers including:
- Josh Berman - Co-Founder of Myspace
- Robert Scoble
- Veronica Belmont
- Scott Rafer (Lookery)
- Martin Green (Meebo)
- and more!
If you want to take a weekend trip out to LA, the weekend of March 29th is when you will want to be there. Community Next is also partnering with Twiistup to host a free happy hour. Twiistup has also been attracting a lot of buzz so I’m sure these two together will produce an event to remember.
Upcoming March Events
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008March is an extremely busy month for events. I will be speaking at as well as attending a few events around the country. There are also some Facebook oriented events that I won’t have the fortune of attending.
One of the conferences that I’m most excited about is next week’s Graphing Social Patterns conference in San Diego. The conference has an all-star list of speakers from the social technology space including Charlene Li, Amit Kapur of Myspace, Benjamin Ling of Facebook, David Glazer of Google, Seth Goldstein of SocialMedia, Mark Pincus of Zynga, David Recordon of Six Apart, myself and many many more! This conference is a must attend for anybody in the social technology space. For those east coast social technology people that won’t be able to make the trip out to California next week, there will be an exciting announcement of a local conference coming in the next week so stay tuned! If you are interested in attending, check out the Graphing Social Patterns website and use the discount code gspw08spbl for a 30 percent discount.
I can’t believe it’s already here! Next week is the beginning of the South by Southwest Interactive festival. This event is when practically everybody from the interactive field converges on the town of Austin for one week of non-stop partying and networking. Mark Zuckerberg will be keynoting the event. I will be sure to post the video of his talk on this site as soon as it takes place. There are panels taking place throughout the entire event as well as a trade show and exhibition of the latest products to come out of the interactive industry. Take a look at the hundreds of speakers attending the event and you’ll immediately realize this is a who’s who of the entire industry. If you will be attending shoot me an email or add me on Twitter and say hello! If you want to learn more about the event check out the SXSW Interactive website.
The second SNAP Summit will be held on March 25th in San Francisco. I had the fortune to speak on a panel at the first SNAP Summit. While I won’t be attending this one there is a great list of speakers including Dave Morin of Facebook, Aber Whitcomb the CTO of Myspace, Jia Shen of RockYou, Dave McClure, Naval Ravikant, Jeremiah Owyang and many more! If you want to learn more about the event, please check out the Snap Summit website.
I will be speaking on a panel March 26th at the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit. One of the keynotes will be from the Wall Street Journal journalist, Walt Mossberg. The event’s purpose is to bring together those organizations that are leaders in the baby boomer market. While I am not a member of this market, there is a panel on leveraging social networking for business that I will be speaking on. If you are in D.C. and aren’t booked on March 26th, I highly recommend checking out the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit.
The Facebook Effect
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Last Friday a group of my friends and I set out for a fun little evening of free vodka, art, and snacks at the Swedish embassy. We had RSVP’d via Facebook and left our apartments early to attend was was sure to be a crowded event.
We knew the event would be crowded by the over 2,000 people that RSVP’d online to attend. The event, organized to meet the needs of about 300, would surely be overwhelmed by the massive interest of over 2,000 Facebook users.
Arriving half an hour early my friends and I were no where near the front of the line and began working if we would be able to even get in. According to the Washington Post the lines for this event stretched around the block and through most of Georgetown.
To be honest after my friends and I gave up waiting online after an hour and half. We were in sight of the entrance but were becoming turned off by the wait. We all wanted to be part of the event but found it difficult to wait in a line for an event we were uncertain of.
This event really demonstrates the massive marketing potential of Facebook when trying to attract the crowd. Massive groups of friends were waiting online together to attend this event and you could almost see the how it must have spread through the local colleges in DC; 1 friend inviting 5 friends who invited 5 more.
From what I read the event was a success. Well dressed mid-20’s experiencing culture. If you look at the event from another angle you have to wonder if the House of Sweden did the right thing by posting the event on Facebook.
Social media is a great way to get exposure, but sometimes that exposure can go viral, and you have to be prepared. The House of Sweden held a great event and used Facebook to drive traffic to the event. The one thing they failed to do was plan for the massive draw they had created.
If you know about any other event happening around the DC area let me know. I love attending all sorts of events and enjoy seeing how they are marketed. Do you think that the House of Sweden did the right thing posting the event on Facebook?
Graphing Social Patterns West
Thursday, January 31st, 2008 
After a successful Graphing Social Patterns in October, Dave McClure has teamed up with O’Reilly to bring a second Graphing Social Patterns West to San Diego March 3rd and 4th. I’m going to be hosting a panel on “Driving Fanatic User Engagement & Addictive Retention.” The purpose of the panel is to learn how to create more engaging applications so that users keep returning to your application. Also joining me on the panel is Mike Sego of (fluff)Friends, Keith Schacht of 42 Friends LLC and Tim O’Shaughnessy of D.C. based Hungry Machine LLC.
There will also be some great keynotes by Patrick Chanezon of Google, Amit Kapur and Jim Benedetto of MySpace, Charlene Li of Forrester Research, Benjamin Ling of Facebook and others. The conference will be expanding to cover MySpace and Bebo given the opening of their platforms. Want to get a 30% off discount? Use the following code when you register: gspw08spbl.
To learn more about the conference check out the Graphing Social Patterns West website. I’m also proud to announce that there will be a second edition of Graphing Social Patterns later this year in the Washington D.C. area. I will be helping organize the event so if your company would like to participate in the east coast version of the event please reach out to me.
Social Times Launch Party This Thursday
Sunday, December 9th, 2007I just wanted to invite all my readers to my Social Times launch party happening in D.C. this Thursday. If you are in town then you should definitely register for the event and drop by. It is from 6:30 to 9:00 at MCCXXII which is 1223 Connecticut Avenue. The Social Times is my new site that will be dedicated to covering everything that’s social on the web. We will be hosting a number of events around the country starting with D.C. and New York city. If you are interested in sponsoring or hosting an event please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
What type of stuff will we be covering? Tons of things related to the convergence of social technology, media and advertising. I’m sure this vision will manifest itself over time but for now there will be a heavy technology focus. Check out my first video with Hooman Radfar, CEO of Clearspring below.
Using Social Networking Tools Event
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007Today, I’m attending an event on “Using Social Networking Tools” in D.C. One of the speakers at the event is Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook. I will be streaming the entire event on my new Social Times site. Here are more details about the event:
Politics always has been about social networking, whether it was a union worker getting his family to a rally, or a ward boss getting his neighbors to the polls. The new wave of social networking websites and related tools just supercharge an individual’s ability to do this and make a political impact.
Come to a lunch event where the New Politics Institute explores how to do politics in this new social networking environment. Social networking is one of the least mature of the new media tools transforming politics, so figuring out effective strategies is more difficult than with tools that have been around longer like blogs. That’s why we are ending our fall roll-out of the 2007 New Tools Campaign of eight tools with a whole event devoted to social networking.
We will be bringing together four experts who know the technology and the best new strategies, and can clearly explain what works. They are:
Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook, one of the big two social networking sites where an explosion of politicking is going on. Chris has written a memo for NPI that will be released that day on all the ways social networking is being used in politics.
John Hlinko, President and CEO, Grassroots Enterprise, a DC Communications firm helping politicos use new media and tactics.
Cheryl Contee, Vice President, Fleishman-Hillard has worked with progressive organizations like U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Amnesty International and ACLU to get their messages out through social networks and engage their supporters.
Ben Rattray, Founder and CEO, Change.org, an up-and-coming smaller social networking website dedicated exclusively to serving social and political groups.
The event is open to the public and is free to all. Feel free to spread this to anyone in a progressive organization who might benefit.
