Two million members for the London Network on Facebook.

Byrichard

There are now two million people who consider themselves to be part of the London network. It is currently the biggest network Facebook has to the best of my knowledge. I know it was the largest before and there’s a good chance it has remained so.

That’s a lot of people. There are 117 events occuring just for today. There are almost a quarter of a million post on the group wall and the top three posted items are Clarkson’s story about bank pranks, Israeli girls and a crash on the m40.

Now what would encourage so many people to join this facebook network. Are they all immigrants or students, are they people who have friends in this city so they decided to become part of the network. What does it mean from a social point of view?

As i’ve mentioned there are 117 events for today, 165 for tomorrow, 161 the day after and so on. Does this mean that as a person London living in London I could get everything I want and need socially via what the London network is telling me is going on? Would I be able to fill an entire day with activities via this network? It could be interesting to try it and see what happens.

Are you part of the London network? 116 of my friends are listed as such. How about you and your friends?

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Plaxo Pulse and Facebook

Byrichard

For all of those privacy advocates I’m on your side for this issue. With a lot of communitis you create a profile and friends can see it. What you give them are both your name and possibly phone number but no more. When you’re building a database of contacts you must ask for it.

When you add friends to outlook, address and other applications you’ve done research and the users have given their consent. That’s not the same as harvesting them direct from facebook. No one said they wanted you to have their e-mail address. No one chose to give you those details.

If you want them ask for them. Taking contact details from 5000 people is unethical and wrong. That’s very similar to spam behaviour.

What makes this worse is that Plaxo is associated with this. I use Plaxo pulse and you can see it on the right side of this column.  I don’t mind their services but for people to harvest their friend’s data without prior consent will help increase this feeling of insecurity.

We’ve had that debate on Seesmic, on Facebook and other online communities. If we want real communities transparency and trust are key. Stop abusing it.

The Scoble Vs Facebook event

Byrichard

This is a response to a post on Segala: Scoble opens up debate about walled gardens after being booted by Facebook.

There are two key factors to take into account. The first of these is the issue of privacy and the second is the free flow of information.

Unlike most other sites facebook is both hated and detested by different groups of users. As a recent university graduate and member of the international community it’s a great way to keep up with what my friends are doing without having to make hundreds of five second phone calls.

The second aspect has to do with Openness. Facebook was started as a forum based on one campus in one university but due to it’s popularity expanded further. As a result it became a national and then international sensation. That’s whilst still a student based website.

This is where the issue of privacy plays a key role. If we are to trust this website then it must make sure to do everything within it’s power to stop information collected. That includes e-mail and phone numbers,

What you display is your choice and your friends can do what they want with that information, within the limiations set forth by facebook.

That’s where trust comes in. Without trust Facebook will dissapear much faster than any network because people give real names, real relationships and real addresses. Identity theft would be a disaster.

Now how does this all fit in with Robert Scoble?

He’s got over five thousand facebook friends. If he decides to collect all the details we’ve offered up to facebook then both Robert Scoble and Facebook will suffer. Scoble for a breach of trust. Facebook for the same.

Now what good has come of this so far? We’ve seen that they take privacy very seriously. So seriously that they’re ready to get a storm of criticism for banning one of it’s best known members (within the geek community).

I actually feel far more secure in how Facebook deals with my information now that this has come to light. I think that if facebook bring this point to light they are going to gain a great amount of credibility.

The friendship Wheel

Byrichard

Whilst looking at another person’s Facebook profile I noticed something. Two thirds of the people were connected to each other yet one third had no connections. It made me think about the nature of the friendship wheel and how it demonstrates how you use facebook.

If you use facebook for real world friends and connections then the friend wheel will show that the connections are many and diverse. Everyone knows everyone else and there is a real sense of community. In contrast take a look at the friendship wheel of someone who adds people they have never met and the nature of the friend wheel changes entirely. Everyone appears isolated.

I like seeing that there are so many connections between my friends on Facebook and aim to keep it this way for as long as possible.

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Why i dislike how people use Facebook.

Byrichard

Facebook was a great idea. It was great because it was an online method by which to meet people within your network and to get to know them before you drop by the bar. It was especially good for those who are shy. As more people started using it though something bad happened. Mid and late adopters started using the website.

In itself this is a great thing because it means that you can find man friends and communicate with them. It was a way of re-creating connections with people you haven’t seen in a decade or more. The drawback comes when people are used to it and have added their friends.

They want something new and they go to applications, they want more features and so the api mentality was applied hence the fun wall, zombie biting and more. The drawback is that when you’ve got twenty friends you might reject the same request twenty times. When you’ve got five hundred you may reject it five hundred times.

Another flaw is how people use facebook’s funwall and other wall application like they used e-mail before that. These people are sending out a huge amount of junk and it’s a problem. A problem that’s meant I use facebook far less.

Why are people using a new form in such a bad way, Why are people using a social networking platform for nothing more than spreading rubbish? Is facebook no more than an advertiser’s paradise for giving us junk. Beacon generated a large quanitty of negative press as a result of what it was doing with user’s data.

In some ways it’s as bad as television advertising and the freesheets. It’s got great potential but due to the lowest common denominator it’s no longer as interesting an application as it used to be.

How long till we start getting spam via these networks. Is there a place for advertising on social networks. Are consumers not active seekers of information?

I’m a blog reader. I skim through over four hundred rss items a day and I get a lot of information this way. I’m an active seeker of information that relates to my interests. As a result is there still the need for old media style advertising. Would not narrow casting and conversation generation become more interesting propositions. That’s what Chris Brogan writes about. It’s what Nik Butler of Loudmouthman is doing.

That’s what Danacea of Forbidden Planet has to explore, along with many other companies. How, in an environment where people are reading more and more articles a day do you create brand awareness?

How do you allow people to find out about your interests? Groups are one good way because they’re passive. You join a group, your friends see it and they may decide to join that group too, without you having to ask them to.

The whole concept of inviting friends to open applications is counter productive to an enjoyble user experience on fa(r)cebook. Why use a network that generates more work than pleasure?

Here’s a continuation of the discussion by Anne Zelenka of GigaOm.

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Open Social vs Portal facebook

Byrichard

Loudmouthman, amongst others was expressing his desire for a means by which to aggregate all our online data through one central account. I though of Freebase and Openid and how they could work. Google though had other thoughts. Whilst Facebook behaves like a portal opensocial helps agggregate content. Facebook assumes thatyou come to their website, spen an hour there and then disconnect. Opensocial assumes that you are an active participant of the new socialmedia landscape on several websites at a time.

We currently have a growing number of people that spend more and more time using new technologies to communicate with others. Most of us have flickr accounts, joost accounts youtube and more but for our friends to keep up is a challenge. Getting them to sign on to any social network is particularly hard. Myspace was the key website for a while before facebook overtook.

In the past two days I’ve joined Lijit and Open Social. Both work the same way. They take your user id. in my case warzabidul and you tell them which networks you’re part of. The content is then aggregated to a central pag. As more and more friends join open social and lijit so you should get a greater sense of what they are up to. It’s a convenient way to keep up to date with what friends around the world are doing.

Look at the sidebar to get an idea of how Plaxo Pulse is using the opensocial idea. Florian Seroussi also pointed me to this article that should help you understand what it’s about.

I’m looking forward to more people using it and I love the great flexibility that it will give it’s users. If you’re using it them write a comment and I’ll visit your site to see your social media presence.

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Bill Palmer of Iprong 3c, twittermail3k twittter 3k+

Byrichard

Today’s news is as follows. Having seen that Bill Palmer of the Iprong podcast and website would add the 300th friend on Facebook I decided I would take this opportunity to add him. His podcast is “for the ipod generation so take the time to listen to it. It’s mainly about iphones and ipods but mixes in quite a few artists in the process.

The second event was becoming the 3000th person to use twittermail. I saw someone mention that they were up to three thousand and I decided to be the 3000th. Now that’s done it’s great. It’s twice as great since it helps to emphasise that I have reached over three thousand tweets since becoming a twitter member.

The last bit of news is that it’s blog action day tomorrow. The topic is going to be the environment so right anything with an environmental conscience for your blog and share it with the world.

That’s it for tonight.

The Facebook Friend Density Map

Byrichard

The Friend density map is an interesting one. It shows you where the highest concentration of your friends is. It’s a good idea when you’ve got friends spread around the world as we do. It’s a shame it’s limited only to the US at the moment. I can only see six percent of my friends this way.


Friend density map


I sent a quick message to the creator of the API and I hope he resolves this issue in the near future.

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England is Top EU country for social networking

Byrichard

According to a recent article in the Times England is top EU country for social networking with 5.6 hrs a month spent on social networking websites such as Facebook:


Britons are the ‘social networking’ champions of Europe, displaying a far greater appetite for websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo than fellow citizens on the continent.


British internet users spent an average of 5.8 hours a month – about a 11 minutes a day – on such sites, in comparison with their nearest rivals the Germans, who spent 3.1 hours a month (6 minutes a day), according to research.


source It’s an interesting figure. Why would England be the top country for social networking? Does university attendance and movement from town to town make a difference? Does the fact that people are so spread across London mean that they are more inclined to stay in touch via electronic methods rather than in person?


I’d like more information on how they came up with these figures.

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People appreciate video of an event for the second time

Byrichard

A few months ago I filmed the Silent Disco in Paddington station, one of London’s main train stations. As a result of the coverage of the event many people were happy to see it. With the footage I have recently filmed of the events that took place on the 6th of October I am once again getting a lot of that appreciation through facebook comments.

It feels good and I need to find more events to cover that will get this type of response.

update:–

I’m also really looking forward to watching the trends on tubemogul as I see whether it will increase over a period of hours or a period of days. It’s always fun to watch how many views you get over a period of weeks and months.