by Sujoy on March 12, 2008
Remember the thing called Opensocial that Google came up with when rival Facebook’s fraction of a fraction was bought by Microsoft, making them worth 15 billion $. But that’s like ages ago. The current buzz is that Yahoo, which was about to be acquired by Microsoft, is now joining forces with the Opensocial Alliance. According to NY Times, Yahoo is considering to join the alliance which will enable it to create more tools and services which will work across many platforms. The Opensocial gang as of now consists of Google, Friendster, hi5,Ning, MySpace Orkut,Xing and many others. If Yahoo joins, that would make Facebook the odd one out. Clearly, if Facebook continues to go independent with their own API, and the rest of the entire Web 2.0 following Opensocial’s API, it would not be long for facebook to eithr face its doom. But then, World’s youngest billionaire – Mark Zuckenberg isn’t that dumb, yeah? If Yahoo for sure joins Opensocial, Facebook might get forced to switch to Opensocial API for its applications. Finally, we might get to see a uniform distribution of API for application developers. Yippee!!
Related Post:Yahoo Plans to Join OpenSocial Alliance?
Image Courtesy:Thomas Hawk
by Sujoy on February 7, 2008
Now Mixx has been around for quite some time now. I have been an avid user of this social bookmarking/networking website and I quite loved the services that it provided. It’s user friendly interface and user-base made up for almost all of its shortcomings. But yes, the need for a Mixx Mail Service was felt. Not anymore. Introducing, Ladies and Gents! the Mixx Mail.
Now you can send a Mixx message or mail to your Mixx friends, as you do on other social bookmarking websites. I have quite a few friends on Mixx, and have always felt the need to communicate with a user before adding him/her up. Now, I can do that easily. The Mixx Mail service can be used by clicking on the little mail envelope icon that appears next to your User ID on your profile page. You can select whom to send the message, and even conveniently select all of your friends. There’s no CAPTCHA code here. Good Thing-Bad Thing, You decide! As far as I am concerned, I think Mixx is consistently working to improve its services and I’m loving it. More so because, it’s easier now to share stuff now on Mixx, now with a personal touch. What’s more lovely is the way Mixx Mail looks when you send a message across many friends. It could actually turn out to be like a discussion thread with the latest post in the bottom. So forums, messages and discussions all covered at one single strike.Go Mixx!!
by Sujoy on January 27, 2008
MySpace can be actually termed as the living room of the internet. It is one of the most visited sites across the world, and is still the market leader when it comes to Social Networking. We all know about the irritating scattered layouts with the invisible fonts and the translucent templates. But what was charming about MySpace was, anyone who wasn’t a friend/acquaintance could be denied permissions of having a peek at our private files, ie-photographs. The privacy settings in MySpace were one of the first ones to appear in Social Networking sites, well until Facebook ruined the day. But the party got totaly spoilt with the emergence of many hacks available online, through which pics of even private profiles could be viewable. [Continue Reading]
by Sujoy on January 26, 2008
The Google Social Networking site, hugely popular in Brazil, India and Pakistan, turned 4 years old this 24th. As expected, the logo was changed, and is shown above. I joined Orkut in late 2004, back in the days when it was quite exclusive, and was invitation only. It has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 3 years with the number of members exponentially multiplying, and communities spawning like anything. Orkut has also often been a target of moral police due to its “Anonymous/Fake identity” enabled features. And this has more than often caused disturbances and uproars, especially in India.
A t Year 4, Orkut is now open to all. Does that mean, it is going to be more of fake and pseudo profiles, more spam invitations to even more spam communities, or is Orkut fighting back? Orkut has seen a lot of changes, especially in the last one year, with the addition of new features. Like the Report Spam to Scraps, and also New Privacy Options. And now, the ultimate measure in tracking down spammers. Apparently, whoever creates an Orkut ID, his/her IP address, ISP provider address and machine name will be logged in the Google server. So, no one in the Orkut network is a stranger for Google.So beware anyone who is planning to play a prank against any sensitive person/organisation. They might get in touch with Google and hunt you down.
In the coming year, I have a lot of hopes from Orkut, as it still remains my favorite social networking community. Primarily because I have all my friends here. But also because, I still see Orkut having enough room for improvement, and also we are yet to see the actual dawn of Opensocial on the Orkut platform. Let’s hope that 2008 be a fruitful year for Orkut. Cheers!
