Posts Tagged ‘MySpace’

Prominent web commentator Seth Finkelstein is no fan of Wikipedia - and even less so of its founder Jimmy Wales. Finkelstein’s Infothought blog regularly features sharp criticisms of both, and while sometimes it can be perhaps overly negative about Wikipedia itself (he likens its functioning to that of a sweatshop, due to the ‘exploitation’ of unpaid contributors), I cannot help but feel that when he is critical of Wales he is sometimes right.

The folks at Facebook have had a busy week. They began with announcing a forthcoming data portability product called Facebook Connect, (which marks the abandonment of their fundamental ‘walled garden’ approach to user data management) and then went on to ban Google’s own data portability service (Friend Connect) from their Facebook API, stating a violation of terms of use as the reason.

Some bloggers and commentators have been contemplating if this might mark a new phase in the development of social networking, with the earlier co-existence of the main players now giving way to a more open tug-of-war for market share. After all, new user uptake is slowing down, and one way for social networking sites to continue to grow will be to compete for the existing users of competitors…

This week saw Myspace win a huge victory against junk mail in the form of a record £120m legal judgement against two spammers. Their press sources are claiming this represents the beginning of a serious spam crackdown. For many however, the question remains; is this genuinely likely prove an effective example in curtailing spam, or simply turn out to be yet another high-profile waste of time?

Parallels with the record industry’s efforts to discourage illegal downloading with much-publicised lawsuits come to mind. Despite generating quite a few short term headlines, the lawsuits rarely achieved their purpose of scaring downloaders into paying or abstaining. The odds of getting caught were simply far too remote to warrant desisting.

It’s official; companies are finally recognising that outlawing social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook in the office is unlikely to work. Moreover, not only is it a futile task, but it also represents a massively missed opportunity to improve the efficiency of an organisation - and the quality of employee experience.

For many years the office watercooler has been the focal point for social encounters in the office. Now, in the age of Web 2.0, we are seeing a steady revolution in our corporate social lives. Degrees of connectivity within organisations are on the up - and not across traditional lines of the corporate communication structure. Instead we are forming links between points previously left unconnected, all thanks to the corporate social network.

This week has seen some interesting developments concerning two of Web 2.0’s biggest stars; YouTube and MySpace. While MySpace unveiled its rival to Facebook’s Platform system (more on this later), YouTube announced the launch of its Partner Programme in the UK. The scheme will enable users to earn money from their videos by becoming ‘YouTube Partners’, qualifying them for a share of revenue generated from advertising that runs alongside their videos, proportional to the popularity of their clips.