Archive for the ‘Social’ Category
What Tipped? Facebook or Human History as we Know It?
Saturday, December 29th, 2007The looming new year recently reminded me of something I read in June. It was a fact of human history with such a profound influence on the upcoming year that it may be the source of most of the changes of late and to come. For the first time ever, there will be more people in the world who live in cities than who don’t.
According to the United Nations Population Fund in June 2007, there are 3.3 billion people living in cities, and that number is expected to grow to 5 billion within 25 years.
Around the same time, Facebook saw unbelievable growth. Facebook had 12 million members in December 2006, and boasts around 60 million only a year later, ever climbing with an additional 250,000 new members daily and 65 billion monthly pageviews.
Proudly, my own city of Toronto is the second largest network with over one million members out of the roughly 2.5 million people living here.
There’s no doubt that Facebook has seen considerable growth in the past year, and that it will continue to. The question that hit me this morning, though, has the potential to flip my entire outlook on the world.
Did 2007 bring about the tipping point of Facebook, or urban human history as we know it? and.. what else will it mean for 2008?
Managing Facebook Friends
Monday, October 15th, 2007Are you one of those Facebook users who has added many friends and wants to be able to keep track of them in some way that actually makes sense? Yeah, me too. So, I did some research on the many friends apps out there and realised most of them did not actually do what I needed them to do.. but one did! (Thanks also to the reader who mentioned Inner circle the other day)
Inner Circle allows you to categorise your friends privately and view an RSS feed of each category of friends. Your friends don’t need to add anything, and because they can’t see which group they are in you are spared the drama that goes with sharing your list of top friends, casual buddies etc with the world. It’s for your info only. It’s a far cry from public categorisers like Top Friends, Circles of Friends, Cliques etc.
Plus, Inner Circle’s RSS feeds from within the app are fantastic! By viewing your feeds this way you will get to see heaps of stuff that was getting lost in the main feed. More info = more fun!
This is definitely the best new app out there for anyone with over 100 friends to manage. It’s also run by a developer that cares about improving the app and values feedback. So, it will only get better.
Go get your social life organised with Inner Circle now!
LateNightShots for Facebook
Friday, July 27th, 2007 
Will Chu, Mike Weber, Paul Kowssari and Erik Ober just launched a new application that lets you keep track of the local scene. Simply type in your city and browse through the various late night attractions. Additionally, it shows you all of the users that have added each location to their favorites. As soon as I signed up it immediately reminded me of LateNightShots, an invite-only social-network dedicated to DC nightlife. As of now there was only one venue for Washington, D.C. but New York city and Los Angeles has a ton of venues. As of now there are around 350 users on the application but I can see this one taking off. One feature that I would like to see is photos from each location. Additionally, it would be great to see a list of upcoming events that users can post. Aside from that, this application is well made and is easy to navigate. If you are a regular to nights out on the town, then go grab the Bar|Book application. It’s a great way to find other people that like to attend the same places as you do. Maybe you’ll even find some new places to attend!
Graph Your Friends’ Demographics
Thursday, June 14th, 2007 
Two days ago I was talking with my co-worker about how someone needs to develop an application that tracks the demographics of your friends. Then yesterday Joshua Fraser of Clemson University launched Platypus. Platypus is a simple application that you install and it automatically runs through your friends to get their demographics. It breaks down the gender and relationship status of your friends. It would be cool if there were additional features such as geographic location, etc. This is definitely a great start though. What is most impressive is how quickly ideas come to fruition on the Facebook development platform. There are tons of developers that are openly sharing their code and solutions to problems that they are facing. Just today, the first New York Facebook developers meetup took place and people shared their applications and problems that they were having. This is truly a revolution taking place before our eyes. Regardless of all the revolutionary stuff, take a look at Joshua’s Platypus application and graph your friends’ demographics.
Petbook: Facebook is not just for people
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
I now have proof that animal lovers will take over the world. A couple of new Facebook apps called Catbook and Dogbook let you set up a profile for your pets. Your pets can have friends, keep track of photos tagged with their name and all sorts. It’s madness, but it’s so much fun.
It’s not just about showing off your favourite ball of fluff, either. Facebook is being used to hook up cute, adoptable animals with potential owners. The Dogster and Catster rescue apps were designed for rescuing animals in pounds across America. The Dogster team also released Dogster cute and Catster Cute for showing off the cutest pet pics you find online.
Pet adoption is a fantastic use of Facebook’s networking potential. The Dogster team should be applauded for their quick thinking and for doing all they can to help these animals. So, adopt yourself a cutey and set up a profile for it now!
