The Social Networker

by Chris Miller at 12:13:46 PM on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Here is a hint:

Image:Big blog changes and endings are a coming...  (screenshot)

by Chris Miller at 12:21:29 PM on Friday, September 26th, 2008
I ran across an ad while on the Verizon Wireless site for their new app called SocialLife.  I was intrigued to see them get involved in social networking.  So I poked around the web to find some reviews.  BoyGeniusReport summed it up quite nicely.

Here is my quick problem with the application.  It costs money.  Come on.  With the increasing number of applications and web interfaces for phones that are totally free, why in the heck would you charge users to offer a weak, consolidated client that does not even support a minuscule amount of social networks.  As a company, if you want to run ads and keep users in the application, make it free and subsidize it with Verizon Wireless and partner ads.  Sell a headphone with a coupon, upgrade their phones, but charge for an app that they already pay for the data access on is ridiculous.

Verizon needs to wake up in how consumers utilize their phone, make the app free and add tons of new networks and capabilities.

by Chris Miller at 02:18:34 PM on Thursday, September 25th, 2008
I read about this site a while ago but heard nothing until today. All of the sudden they were open for alpha and I had an invite waiting. You know the early adopter in me. So as I loaded yet another WAS server for some testing, I went ahead and went through the steps for setting up an account.


Chi.mp

The first thing to catch you eye is that you get to pick your own .MP domain. Yes I said pick your own. I imagine they are subsidizing this somehow, but good luck making a decent one up It must be 4-16 characters but can include numbers and letters. Apparently you can redirect another domain there too from within the settings, but I still say get a good one.


What is the site about
According to their own info, it organizes your digital life (it is way short on tons of supported services yet) and provides a dashboard. All within your own domain name that you just chose. So before anyone else really started thinking about cool .mp domain names, I selected
SocialPi.mp
Each domain you choose also will double as an OpenId site, and their statement allows you to pull your data out (read as DataPortabiltiy) whenever you desire, no walled garden here.

Setting up
The normal profile information is collected, but they raise the bar when adding some of the services they currently support. here is an example of when I went to add Twitter.

Chi.mp

Chi.mp
Not only will it keep your contacts in sync between Chi.mp and Twitter, but it does not ask for your password to get set up, it gives you a random code to tweet. Well Sweet!. Many of you hate when you are required to share passwords, here is your way out.
So what are the supported services?

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Facebook
  • Gmail
  • Hotmail
  • Yahoo mail>
  • other RSS feeds

I would expect more services will come soon. You will wait a few minutes for it to grab your data and contacts. So be patient. You may also add your public IM id names as well as other blog sites, phone numbers and addresses as you see fit for people to contact you. The end result? A dashboard that displays all your info that people could see and even download the vcard file from.

There was as slowness to the site as everyone has begun hammering away. Unfortunately they did not allow me to hand out invites, maybe I can wiggle some out of them. Right now I see this as a place that will have value in the time to come, a sort of desktop for yourself and homepage for others all wrapped into one place. Give it a shot and claim your name early on.

by Chris Miller at 12:06:04 PM on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
The gPhone, Wordpress commenting system purchase, video comments and Apple App Store problems.

The roundtable discussion with Wayne Sutton, Jeff(isageek), Caleb Elston, Louis Gray, Sarah Perez and myself (IdoNotes). Just over one hour.

Find articles on our topics by following our groups bookmarks on Diigo here.






You may also download the episode if needed right here.

by Chris Miller at 03:10:47 PM on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
I was doing background for SocialStalking.com and went back to one of my favorite sites, Spokeo,  It had been a while, but I still never lost a fondness for it's features.  Well I soon discovered that they went to a paid premium service model.  So why am I not happy?
  1. It seems my account with all it's settings is gone.  Poof, vanished.  I had to create a whole new account and lost a lot of work I had put in.  Not even an option to upgrade to premium and retain my settings.
  2. They also give you a free taste of five friends to watch, but I cannot pick those five friends.  If I want to truly test the service, give me unrestricted control to watch those five and see how I like the service.  I cannot even add another alias for the ones it auto selected.  That sucked too.

Image:Spokeo has gone paid service, here is why I am not happy

I hope they read this and take the hint to make some changes on moving users from free beta to paid test to paid premium.

by Chris Miller at 12:30:00 PM on Thursday, September 18th, 2008
It has been a couple months since I had a VGS posting in the series, but this one was quite due.  Social Stalking is becoming a reality.  The ability to watch and learn infinite information about people without them really knowing you are watching is a scary thought.  I used to revel in the ease of usage at sites like Spokeo, that I even interviewed in this podcast.  Creating Imaginary Friends in FriendFeed is a highlight of the software.  All of this opens the door to Social Stalking.

How does Social Stalking work?  It begins with someone that gets so over zealous with knowing everything you do, every post you make and every thought you have, they first try to join every network you are on.  From there they attempt to be your friend.  If there is no meaningful dialog ensuing between you, you naturally raise an eyebrow.  When they show up unexpectedly at a coffee shop that you sent via Twitter, Brightkite, Dopplr, Plazes or FireEagle, they step over any boundary set.  It quickly escalates as Louis Gray found out by getting constant phone calls, emails and other communication from someone.  I am taking all of this past your point of reason.  There is ways to glean personal information from most of these networks without the person every knowing it.

But who is to blame?
1.        You are first to blame for not securing your information.  Next for even directly sharing all your information to anyone that wants to look
2.        The stalker themselves fall right after yourself since they are the ones in pursuit.  If they are spending the time to track your every move and thought, there is a much larger and looming issue than simple privacy
3.        The software is not to blame under any circumstance in this list.  It only posts what you provide and shares how you have enabled security

After some analyzing of the sites themselves that offer the services, none have a policy in place to address this concern.  Most stand aside from offering such a service to not get themselves in the line of fire of editing or user mediation.  I will say that many sites have cyber-bullying rules, but it stops there.  Simply following someone is not part of bullying.

I have a first line of attack in mind that is taking quick shape.

P.S. (Oct 21 2008) there is a great feedback posting you can find right here by Erin McMahon

by Chris Miller at 02:44:01 PM on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
The blogs have been blinking with blinding Chrome postings for a week now.  Well I stated in via voice yesterday in TheSocialGeeks Episode 7.  Google is about to take a chunk of browser market by tackling the underlying issue.  The user.

Let me slowly paint the picture I see
  • Google is the household name known globally.  Period.
  • Google always pushed new features and starts with search
  • Google takes a slice of the email market with Gmail.
  • Google takes a slice of instant messaging with a nice, light, clean client, gTalk
  • Google punches Microsoft and Lotus with Google Apps, with offline mode
  • Google announces Android to attack the mobile phone operating system market
  • Google releases Chrome

Let's focus on the build and the last few events.  One thing MS had going was Windows Mobile with the desktop to provide some limited form of applications to the mobile devices.  Pocket this and that.  Google can easily slip in and take this away.  With a lighter version of Chrome on top of Android that can take Google Apps offline, you beat what Microsoft offers.

Now let us tackle the iPhone.  The Google Gadget directory could easily overtake the App directory in terms of open, FREE applications.  Mobile mail comes natural and there will be a slew of apps to do so.  If companies like Lotus could make DWA Lite work against Android and Chrome, the iPhone loses as a business phone.  Now you gain the choice of carriers, phone models and capabilities, all backed by an ever growing company.  Chrome will come in components so you don't need the whole thing all the time, is my toher guess.

So grab your new Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, Cricket or whatever phone with Android.  Open the Chrome browser and grab what you need for capabilities.  Sync it with your online storage that is part of Gmail.  Open gTalk to have a chat and grab and edit your docs you are storing in apps.  Oh yeah, don't forget to load the Twitter gadget and all the other free toys.

You win Google.

by Chris Miller at 06:42:23 PM on Monday, September 8th, 2008
The roundtable discussion grows with Wayne Sutton, Jeff(isageek), Corvida, Louis Gray, Sarah Perez and myself (IdoNotes) in what will be the start of a bi-weekly event. We will discuss all the hot and interesting news in the social media space.  This week covers Chrome, Toluu, Social Median, abandoning your accounts, TweetRush and more.  One hour and 13 minutes of fun.

Today we cover the following items, which you can find by following our groups bookmarks on Diigo here.




Conference/Article Materials

My Files

Yes this is a blatant theft of the outline that Jess uses on her page, but I asked permission. Why?? Because I am a hardcore admin and can make ugly tables to make you developers frustrated, but this was too nice to pass up.

Also Known As: Chris Miller (when awake)

Boring Certifications: (only because someone asked twice)

  • Workplace Collaboration Services 2.5 - Team Collab and Messaging
  • Domino 7 Certified Security Administrator
  • PCLP ND7
  • PCLP ND6
  • PCLP R5
  • PCLP R4
  • CLP Collaboration (soon to be retired Aug 2006)
  • random former R4 exams
  • CLI for numerous admin areas including Domino, Sametime and Workplace
  • CLP Insane

Yes, I write some of those dreaded admin cert exams you take. I won't say which ones so you don't come looking for me, but I will say they are the real good recent ones that have been coming out.

Weapons/Equipment:

  • At work an IBM 2 GHz
  • At home a plethera of 6 machines with various Windows versions and Red Hat on a wired/wireless LAN
  • A Toshiba E740 with 802.11b (yes geek toy)
  • An Apple 40GB iPod that is filled to the brim
  • Compaq RioPort MP3 player (now in storage)
  • An EBook (REB1100) also for travel (Love that darn thing)
  • Verizon and they always seem to know how to find me, damn cell

Animals:

One dog, a Pug. He has been on this world before and seems to understand slippers and a fine cigar. Mind you that is him in the chair and not me.

Let us now also add a deranged cat that is in the process of being toilet trained. Update: Toilet traning was very very close.

Music:

Non-stop. At my desk, in my car, walking to work and back to my car downtown. In the house there is a crazy zoned set-up for you home automation geeks.

I am a self-proclaimed MP3 fiend, to which I have tried rehab 4 billion times to no avail. Next is the MP3 hard-drive for the car that I found. Now what kind of music you ask? I will never tell.

Languages:

  • Incredibly fast English
  • Very slow Spanish
  • Emoticon-ese
  • Learning Korean
  • HTML
  • Advanced Sarcasm

Geek class special abilities:

  • Notes/Domino overdrive
  • Workplace
  • Sametime
  • Active Directory (huh? kidding)
  • Quickplace
  • LMS, LVC and the other L's of elearning
  • Windoze junk
  • MS Exchange versions
  • LAN
  • TCPIP
  • Server Iron
  • Yeah, yeah it goes on some

Skills:

Get back to you here

Spells:

Hershey’s Stomach of Holding: Jess and I are fighting over who eats more chocolate. TWDUFF can help me out and vouch for me.

Character Bio:

This will take far more time than I have today. I will start with I was born and still live in St. Louis, MO. Even though for a couple years I was never, ever here and always on the road, this is smack in the middle of the US. Everything is just a few hour flight. That part is nice. No beach/ocean/coast isn't the best. But with the travel I make up for it.

Don't Panic

Looking to find me in person? Here is where I will be.




DatesEventLocation
delayedcustomer visitMinneapolis, MN
Mar 31 - Apr 4Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade SeminarCopenhagen, Denmark
Apr 30 - May 2Admin2008Boston, MA
May 10 - 15Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade SeminarLondon
Jun 4 - 6Irish Lotus User Group 2008Dublin, Ireland
Jun 16 - 19Lotus Notes and Domino 8 Upgrade SeminarSan Francisco, CA
Jun 21 - 29VacationSome island I am not telling you
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