The full trailer for The Social Network, the highly anticipated film written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher that retells the origins of Facebook, has just landed – see below.
Coming October 2010
Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
Diaspora, the anti-Facebook
May 13th, 2010
Straight out of NYU, four engineering students have decided to take on Facebook with an open source personal web service that put’s individuals in control of their data, called Diaspora. Chronicled in both The New York Times and Mashable, these four ambitious young entrepreneurs have set their sites on what is becoming the new Microsoft on the Internet – Facebook.
The Diaspora team — Daniel Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg, Ilya Zhitomirskiy and Raphael Sofaer — strongly believe that sharing information via social network and maintaining a reasonable level of privacy should not have to be mutually exclusive. Their project Diaspora is to build a social network that allows everyone to install their own “seeds”, which is a personal space with the user’s photos, videos and anything else they like, within the larger social network. Their “seed” would be fully controlled by the user and they can choose who they share their data with, if at all.
It’s back…Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)
May 7th, 2010
When I started this blog back on September 25, 2009 my first post was a simple “welcome” message with a YouTube video clip produced by Erik Qualman author of the blog called Socialnomics. Interestingly enough, YouTube subsequently removed that video for copyright issues. The video was titled Social Media Revolution, and it was a series of very interesting facts and stats that demonstrated the massive change social media is making on our lives. A good introduction to the reason I started this blog.
Well Mr. Qualman is back at it again with his latest creation, Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh). In this latest creation Qualman has included some pretty interesting and powerful social media stats, such as;
Which social network is best for you?
April 27th, 2010Searching for the best social network that satisfies your current needs? Courtesy of Wired.com, here is a simple flowchart to help you figure out where you should spend your time.
Click to enlarge.
Facebook Streamlines User Data Permissions
April 22nd, 2010As part of a series of announcements Facebook made at its annual f8 conference regarding its new Open Graph API, they will also be changing how user data access permissions work for third-party applications and web sites. This may sound a bit boring on the surface, but could have substantial positive benefits for all of us who run websites that leverage Facebook Connect (soon to become Open Graph) to enhance our users experiences.
Facebook will be getting rid of the multiple dialog boxes that developers have had to implement in the past which can be pretty intrusive to user interfaces. Now there will be just one box, and developers will need to ask for the specific types of data they want to access, rather than asking for users to share all of their profile data.
In the sample screenshot below, you can see the “Cool Social App” asking for access to public information, email and photos.
Real life account of social media’s disruptive forces.
April 14th, 2010
Throughout high-tech history there have been countless over exaggerations of how some new trend will “disrupt” our lives and lead us into a new era of enlightenment. While I have always embraced technology, I too have been very cynical of over-hyped claims often made by these same self proclaimed zealots. Ironically enough, I started this blog a few months ago to not only highlight some interesting new human interaction trends driven by usage of social media but to also voice that same cynicism in what has become a high-tech playing field littered with pompous, cliche touting tools. As I continued to pen stories I kept telling myself, “don’t believe the hype”. Until now…
…ok, ok – a bit melodramatic I know. But do you really believe social media will change everything? After yesterday, I think it just might.
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010…
Are you guys doing that stupid Facebook stuff again?
April 9th, 2010
Facebook has now hit the big time. Forget about the millions of users, piles of revenue and astronomical valuation -Facebook has officially come of age. Earlier this week, Facebook was parodied on South Park as the gang mocks the world’s dominant social network to perfection.
The hilarious episode, “You Have 0 Friends” captured perfectly how addictive and downright crazy Facebook frenzy can be. Stan, the lone child not yet on Facebook, is forced to join under the peer pressure of his friends, which leads his girlfriend to jealously pour over his profile (sound familiar?) and his father to insist that he add every one of his relatives — and to “poke” his grandma. hahahahaha!
Check out a clip from the episode below:
Ben Stiller launches Stillerstrong to build a school in Haiti
December 3rd, 2009
Film and comedy star, Ben Stiller, launched a new social media driven charity campaign today called Stillerstrong to raise money to help build a school in Cévérine, Haiti. His tagline, “Stillerstrong, stealing great ideas from other charities to build a school in Haiti” pretty much says it all. Stiller’s semi-satirical initiative launched today via the Stillerstrong’s Facebook, Twitter, Causecast and a branded Web site.
Stiller spent last summer in Cévérine, Haiti working with a local school in need of drinking water, food and expansion. Stiller has used his brand of sarcastic humor to launch the funny but serious Stillerstrong initiative.
The Stillerstrong campaign, as you can see from the clip above, is not-so loosely based on cycling legend Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong campaign. Inspired by his work with the Livestrong campaign in the past, Stillerstrong was born.
New social gaming player, Good Game Productions launches
December 3rd, 2009
San Diego, CA-based Good Game Productions just announced their launch to build a new generation of games for Facebook and iPhone platforms. Founded by gaming industry veteran Grantley Day, the company plans to focus their on MMO (massively multiplayer online) games for the two social media platforms.
Good Game Productions say they plan on using virtual goods model of social gaming that has shown so successful for companies like Zynga and Playfish. Players will be able to get up and running and playing for free but will be able to accelerate their characters development by buying items – think Farmville’s market for new farming items. Here is a brief demo the company has posted on its YouTube channel:
MMO games have been quite big in the PC gaming world for sometime but have had difficulty making a successful transition to social networks. Looking to break that trend, Day and his small team – two full-time and four part-time employees – have embarked on a rather challenging journey.
No smartphone? No worries. HipLogic brings smartphone functionality to the masses.
December 2nd, 2009
HipLogic announced today they have have closed a $7 million in Series B round from Benchmark Capital, Stage 1 Ventures, Bay Partners, and Accrue Sports and Entertainment Ventures to bring smartphone intelligence to mass market phones. Don’t have an iPhone, Droid, Blackberry or Palm – no worries. HipLogic’s platform enables smartphone-like applications to work on non-smartphone’s. With all the attention on the many rich applications hitting the smartphone market, its important to note that smartphones are still the global minority when it comes to cell phone usage. HipLogic’s solution targets that large mass market segment, bring cool apps to the masses.
This new round of financing follows a Series A round the company raised back in 2008 when it was called Numobiq. With new round, HipLogic is looking to accelerate their rollout of their easy-to-use application platform for lightweight mass market phones.
