Toluu

The Social Networker

Covering all things in the Social Software industry and networks

Virtual Gratification Syndrome (VGS) - new Repetitive Posting Syndrome (RPS)December 1

A subset of VGS has surfaced in the wild of social networking recently.  Be warned, no known cures exist today!!!  But I have the medical definition already written out.  As the title of the posting suggests, it is Repetitive Posting Syndrome (RPS), a new part of VGS.

Some new services like Ping.fm and Hellotxt.com now offer the ability to submit the same content and postings to multiple sites.  Instead of creating a simple flow between them (such as the ability to submit RSS to Twitter or have your Twitter postings show on Facebook, etc etc etc). You write a post once and then have it show up at every social network you define.  Between the two sample I listed, that covers over 20 different sites and networks.  This ability to submit to all at once enhances the feeling and empowers the person cursed with VGS.

So far, the only know way to force temporary remission, not a cure, is direct combating of RPS from the followers of the person afflicted.  I have seen interventions take place where followers band together and 'unfollow' the poor RPS sufferer.  What they do not realize is that by simply making noise about not following that person, they have wreaked havoc with the VGS.  Services like Qwitter, t

My micro-community is better than your social networkNovember 24

In a discussion today in a group chat (that is based around an upcoming conference) it was brought up how to effectively communicate and locate each other when there will be upwards of 8,000 people there, in person.  How do you quickly sort through a large Twitter stream, or how do you build a location awareness service around conference rooms spread across 3 hotels and open areas?  Without making your own tools, it adds a high level of complexity.  Services like Brightkite are not really made for that type of location service, even with the awesome ability to upload pictures.

What soon came to mind was that this little micro-community, far exceeds the benefit of posting and weeding through the larger macro-community.  That is why sites such as Ning as so popular.  You can build a smaller, manageable community that deeply serves the needs of the users, instead of being trapped in function based on large scale deployments.  I whipped this ugly drawing up quickly.

Examples of any micro-community is one built around your blog for starters.  You are the core of

Social Media and Real EstateNovember 20

I attended a conference on Tuesday from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) put on by their Center for Realtor Technology.  Here are some interesting statistics from a room with almost 300 people, all in the surrounding area of St Louis, MO.  Keep in mind anytime you see the number of people saying yes, that would include me raising my hand.

• Who has a blog - 12
• Who has used Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or the like - 30
• Who has kids that have used those - 100
• Who has used Twitter - 3
• Who reads RSS feeds - 2
• Who uses instant messaging - 100

So what I began to notice was the average age in the room was well into the 40's.   I am not saying this is old at all, just a large gap in how this market does business.  Agents there live in the world of social networks.  Real social networks of friends, family and then the tiers around those people.  That is how they get business.  Referrals are the goldmine.  Cold calls suck.  Here is the gap.

As more people search first on the Internet for homes (see the new service coming from Dwellicious) they spend less time have agents randomly look for homes.  It is not surprising when a call is received with the prospect stating, I want to see a specific list of houses I have already gathered, shall I email or fax it.  That should have been the first sign

Virtual Gratification Syndrome (VGS) - the publisher aka Minutia-streamingNovember 17

It has been a couple months since I had another VGS posting in the series,  I need to address all the publisher's of random content just to blog, serve a feed or tweek a twitter.  With the introduction of both aggregation and lifestreaming (definitions here Link )  sites that pop up like a high schooler's acne, we are drawn to learn every infinitesimal detail about someone.  People that start strong with business purpose and a particular topic in mind are soon flung into VGS where they must tell us when they wake, how many times they put spoon to mouth with cereal and then how bad traffic is.  I am not saying that for extreme and funny stories this is not appropriate, but everyday?  When do you realize that you are no longer lifestreaming and are minutia-streaming?  I don't need to know you cat took a nap (mine does), I don't need to know how long it took you to drive to work today (34 minutes), I don't need to know how many spoonfuls of cereal you had (large spoon and half bowl so I guess 35?) nor do I want to know your location information on every block corner as you walk to lunch (10th and Washington).

How much time do you now lose daily not only putting out as much content as you can, but sucking it down from others like it is the life giving superstitious water only found in movies.  Can you quantify the return you get from the amount you

Trust versus the APINovember 12

Recent events in Twitterland have brought into question how easily we trust any website that simply asks for our password, while informing us for no reason do they maintain or record it.  We simply shrug and willingly give it away.  So where is the breakdown?

The first one is in the difference between a new site needing access to account information that is not possible through the public feeds or profiles.  So to compensate, we get asked for our password.  In the fray of getting a ranking number, you the user, missed an entirely serious issue.  Not only were you sending your credentials to a non SSL login area, it was clear they were using the login for something far more than stated in the About pages.  I prefer the sites that offer a string that you provide (like FriendFeed) that is unique to you, but not your password.  You then enter this API information and the site goes about their business.  You can then change your API key if required to protect your account while never giving up your password.  Looking through EverythingTwitter this evening, I realized that quite a lot of the web based add-on tools (see the category there) do not ask for a password.  They have found a way to access enough information via API calls that