Abhishek Tiwari

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What do these social networks have in common? I have my profile on all of them (and many more like them), I have friends on all of them and I find it increasingly challenging to keep up. Not to mention all the spam from MySpace and other messages are clogging up my Inbox.

I am sure most of you are in the same boat. Few years ago it was multiple versions of Instant Messaging and now the same issue is with the social networks. As with IM, one doesn’t have all their friends and acquaintances loyal to a single service. To add to this nuisance there are services, which allow you to launch your own social network. Oh man… haven’t we had enough?

The blogosphere is calling this problem the “Social Network Overload“. Fred Wilson (The VC) and Jason Calacanis have even declared bankruptcy on social networks.

Is there no end in sight? Is there no light at end of the tunnel? Just like the consolidated IM applications like Trillian, Adium, Pidgin and VelvetPuffin (read my post about VP), is there no consolidated social network?

Enter SocialStream — Quite possibly the answer to our problems
SocialStream is a Google sponsored project at Carnegie Mellon whose goal is to rethink and reinvent social networking. Their approach is to deliver this rejuvenated experience by delivering a unified offering. Check out the demo video below:

Download the Hi Res Quicktime version
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Recently I came across a PodTech show on the Scobleizer. Robert was interviewing Chandra CEO of Velvet Puffin, who was demonstrating their offering in a buys SFO restaurant.

So I decided to test drive it myself. At first it seemed like any other web based IM solution (kinda like Meebo). Once I registered, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that Velvet Puffin launched the IM application and installed it seamlessly on my desktop as well. Apart from registration form I had to do absolutely nothing to install the application. People, this is as seamless as it can get. Yes, not even AIR or Silverlight mumbo jumbo. I am truly impressed with this approach and want to try out at work where the network typically blocks other IM applications at the network level.

Enough about desktop support. What came next was even better. VP does offer integrated IM functions (MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo, MySpace, AIM etc) and multiple accounts like most other popular applications (Adium, Pidgin, Trillian etc). However its their smart integration of social networking/media features is what makes this very special.

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Just last week I posted a comment on Guy Kawasaki’s blog, asking him to setup Truemors for facebook. Read my comment here.

Well lo and behold thats exactly what he announced today.

As I mentioned in my comment, this makes absolute sense. By itself Truemors has had some decent success. Lot has to do with Guy’s reputation itself. However the service is fighting with the likes of Digg and other news sites to be another successful destination.

But now within Facebook, its a different deal. It is positioned as an application versus a destination site. The best part is that as an application it already has access to 30 Million users. It’s kinda like getting a primo retail spot in a top mall. I talk about this on my Social OS post.

Secondly, I think this application will work well for the Facebook user demographic. All the teen students would love to use an app, which let’s them spread rumours. Also the positioning of “Tell Your Friends” is just perfect.

I would like to see some numbers in next few weeks. Good luck Guy!

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Over past few weeks I have been introduced to two new products in the Social Communication space, Pownce and Twitter. Some say that these are competing offerings, but I dont seem to think so. To summarize my thoughts on these:

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  • Pownce is a much improved and simplified way to talk to your friends or coworkers. On paper the features offered by this service do not differ from an Email client.
  • It however delivers a much nicer experience around messaging with a social feel to it.
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  • Twitter is a service which allows you to broadcast “What are you doing now…”.
  • It attempts on easily blogging quick, random and transient data about its users

Both these services offer some nice and unique features. I played with them for over past few weeks. I even tried integrating them with my blog to really derive the power of these services.

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Yes you heard it right, Social Operating System. Let me explain.

In May Facebook organized its F8 conference in San Francisco, attended by around 800 developers. Mark Zuckerberg (the 23 year old CEO ) mentioned that today’s social networks are closed environments and Facebook wants to end it.

End, they certainly did. FaceBook launched a very comprehensive API program for 3rd party developers and services. Typically services expose high level APIs to get access to user data and preferences. 3rd parties can write to those APIs and extract data for their services.

For example a service like Plaxo 3.0 accesses APIs from GMail, Yahoo and LinkedIn to collect user information to offer integrated contacts and calendar management (check out the video). However one cannot use Plaxo’s integrated contacts or Calendar from Google, Yahoo or LinkedIn. Integrations are typically one way and offer some form of integrated experience. However there are very few examples of bi-directional deep integrations. Such deep integration would offer unparalleled experience to the users and not to mention the stickiness / loyalty it brings to the table.

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