Google social network fun and games

The chatter these days is about the new Google social network about which something new will be announced later this Fall, but hardly anyone I've noticed is talking about the Google social network that already exists. Google has been building it for years, and Google introduces new features nearly every week. They just don't make a big fuss about it because it is so incremental.

Maybe there will be a big splash later this year with a new roll-out, but maybe the big splash will be that Google just tells folks what they have been working on and slowly introducing all along. It will seem like a big splash and a surprise. One of the tricks is that Gmail is still by invitation only, as far as I know. You can't just go and sign up for a Gmail account because you want one, and the main way to notice the many social features that are, as of right now, up and running is to have been using the Gmail service for a while, in connection with Google Buzz, Google account profile, Google Voice, Google Reader, and Feedburner, to name what seem to be the most important ones. Oh, I forgot that Google Blogger, along with other blog platforms can be integrated through the Google Buzz connections.

I read today that Facebook and Skype are negotiating an integration of services somehow.

Google is already doing telephony in a much bigger and broader way. Say Android. Do you know about Google Voice?

The best thing about the existing Google social network is the expansiveness of it. It's not at all like living in a box, as with some social networks I've encountered.

If Google really has a bunch of new features that are soon to hit the streets, I'm excited.

Social media and structured data - Friend of a friend (FOAF)

"Local. Mobile. Social. We're talking about street gangs here. Local mobile social media is for nothing but high-tech street gangs." 
—oOo—

"The dynamic of our society, and particularly our new economy, will increasingly obey the logic of networks. Understanding how networks work will be the key to understanding how the economy works." - Kevin Kelly, New Rules

An important type of network related to understanding the human economy is the human social network.   Describing the wide variety of human relations isn't easy. The Yupik language of the Inuit has a worf for a degree of friendship that translates roughly as "I like you very much, but I wouldn't want to go seal hunting with you." Seal hunting involves long weeks in very close personal contact under difficult circumstances.

Nevertheless, there is a movement to create a Web of machine-readable homepages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do. It is called the Friend of a Friend (FOAF) movement, and this post represents the full extent of my research on the subject.

Resources:

Semantic Web - FOAF
Drupal includes a FOAF module. Drupal is an Open Source social media publishing platform.
FOAF-a-Matic - Generates FOAF XML from user input data.
RDFweb FOAF Project 
FOAF Project Org
FOAF on WIkipedia

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Twitter

B2B social network Xing free for freelancers

Xing, an international B2B social network for businesses similar to LinkedIn, has now made it possible for freelancers, such as myself, to have a company profile for free.  See Xing.com, or my own Xing profile.

I can't say as yet what good may come from it, but I'm just fishing.

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Twitter

Social network marketing - data portability

Social network marketing
Data portability
Watch list item to follow

You have probably seen data portability in action.  For example, if a web application asks to have access to your Facebook account data or seeks you to share your Yahoo! email address list.  Or, if you have a Google account, you know that a single user name and login works across all of Google's many web based services and features.  That's data portability in action.

There is a grassroots organization online devoted to the idea of data portability at Dataportability.org.

"With cross-system data access, interoperability, and portability, people can bring their identities, friends, conversations, files, and histories with them to your service, cutting down on the need for form-filling which can drive people away. With minimal effort on the part of new customers, you can tailor services to suit them. When your customers browse networked services and accumulate experiences, this information can update on your service, if people permit it. Your relationship remains up-to-date and you can adapt your services in response, even when they don't visit. With mutual control and mutual benefit, your relationships remain relevant, encouraging continued usage."

It's an advanced topic for small business web site owners, and the useful application of the features of data portability in a social networking context are extremely specialized and custom, at the moment.  Impractical to pursue for most of us, but good to be aware of.

Tom Fox
Louisville, Kentucky
Tom Fox on Twitter