My Best Shots of 2009 (According to Flickr)
The problem with a new social network like Buzz, or a dying network like FriendFeed, is the lack of active users combined with the high interest from a-listers. It means the big names overly dominate, and the smart posts by everybody else are ignored because they never gain any traction.
This is not the fault, and even less, responsibility, of Scoble, Louis or Jason. The network's developers need to recognise this stage in the site's life cycle and program/filter accordingly. If they don't they will lose the interest from the majority of users, and as a result the a-listers will move on too because of a dwindling audience.Update 15th February 2010: Louis Gray speaks about the issue here.
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I have spent some time over the past month playing with location check-in games Foursquare and Gowalla. They are pretty similar, but have some vital differences that make choosing pretty easy.
The first comparison is the interface. Foursquare doesn't do well here. While not ugly as such, the UI gives the impression is has been designed by an engineer. It's perfectly navigable, but isn't pleasing on the eye. Gowalla on the other hand looks very pretty. Both are fast and intuitive enough, but I would much rather be looking at Gowalla each day. Gowalla also wins on creating check-in points. It's very easy to do on both, but when your GPS signal info isn't quite up to scratch, Gowalla makes it very easy to update in their web interface. When you add further details to Foursquare check-in points, it can make them vastly more inaccurate. The only way to sort this is to contact Foursquare themselves to make the change. Very Web 1.0! My only minor gripe with Gowalla is that their categorisation system doesn't seem to have enough options. As for the game itself, Foursquare seems very competitive. It's about making your way up a league table agains your friends, while Gowalla is about collecting and sharing. It's a matter of personal taste, but I much prefer the later. With Gowalla winning on all three of these tests you would think it would make my decision for me. unfortunately for Gowalla there is one more test. How many of my friends are on it. Foursquare wins hands down on this test and until that changes, I'll have to put up with the shortcomings of an otherwise inferior experience. Winner: FoursquareComments [3]
Knuckle dragging racist in four syllable word shocker. Talk about stinking elite hypocrisy!
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Some people in my office (I'm looking at you @rayaddison) have far too much time on their hands.
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I decided at 5am today that I was going to clean up my web presence and instead of spreading myself across a series of domains, I would lump them all in to one using sub-domains.
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