Levels of social networking

posted 07:17PM Nov 03, 2007 with tags delicious digg dopplr facebook flickr friends lastfm linkedin plaxo plazes socialnetworks twitter web20 xing by Lars Trieloff

Believe it or not, for more than one year I have an article draft saved in my weblog system, titled "Social Software". The original reason for writing this was that Dan Diephouse wrote about O'Reilly's Connection, a now defunct social network for geeks. Some days ago Brett Porter wrote about his experiences with social networks, and I decided to start over with this blog post.

Being user of some social networks of different flavors, I noted that the number of connections I have in different network differs strongly. One reason is that some network have a larger user base, others make it very hard to add connections, others imply a closeness of relationships that I do not want to share with everyone. So, what level of social relationships does being connected in one network imply?

Facebook
Nothing. It basically means "Hey you are on facebook as well!"
Xing, Plaxo Pulse and LinkedIn
You might be useful for my career, I better keep you in this network.
twitter, Last.fm, Flickr
What you do (listen to, or photograph) is interesting for me
del.icio.us and Digg
What you read and think is interesting for me
Dopplr and Plazes
If you happen to be in the same place with me, it would be nice to know so we can meet.

The most valuable network for me (apart from the address book synch of Plaxo) is del.icio.us, because it allows me to track and share ideas with people I find interesting and this is despite the poor network capabilities of del.icio.us. So if you would like to connect with me in del.icio.us, just leave a comment with your username,

New last.fm

posted 11:23AM Jul 19, 2006 with tags lastfm music radio web20 by Lars Trieloff

last.fm screenshot

Last:fm's whole website has been overhauled to a new design a like very much. Additionally the Last.fm Player has been replaced by a new Last.fm application that offers a much better interface to tagged music and your personal profile.

Last.fm is an online service that tracks your music listening habits and compares your musical taste to the taste of others. Based on the taste of people with very similar listening habits (your musical neighborhood), you get music recommendations. Finally there is a radio service that allows you to tune in to your personal radio, based on your musical taste, your neighbor radio, your recommendation radio or specific radio stations for tagged music.