Technically Speaking

Allen really slammed Mahalo and for good reasons. I check things out as time permits, and I just did my acid test. Well what test is that? I searched for me, that’s what I searched for. “Rex Dixon“. Guess what? Not one result. Then below it, it has “our friends at Google“, which has it correct of course.

Where does this leave Mahalo? Is it Jason’s way of just jumping in and doing as suggested - the biggest SEO ploy site of all time? Maybe. I won’t go that far and say that, but others may be thinking that. I know that Jason or whoever when they read this will go “Who the heck is Rex Dixon?!?”

Well type it in Google, Ask, Yahoo, or whatever search engine that is out there today. You will find the correct results, stacked the way they should be. Why do I use it? Eight letters I have to type. It saves time, it’s easy for me to remember, and I know how to test a search engine.

Technically Speaking, if you can’t produce the same results that the big boys do, why bother? Allen is right, grandma and the rest of America will never jump on this idea. Let me know when you have “Rex Dixon” listed out like Google, Ask, Yahoo and the rest of the big boys and I’ll come back and check it out further.

Pluggd, a company who I did a short piece on has written even more on their chunking process. Apparently it raised some questions on the Pluggd end of things. I also noticed that I have talked about Pluggd very early in the history of this blog.

So what is up with this chunk search? Well they have broken it down even further. It’s pretty cool technology. It does get you to the parts of a video faster then say just hit and miss.

So what is the main excitement around chunking? They compensate, which is how they pick out the chunks. Searching for difficult names like the golfer “Vijay Singh” could produce this result:

Technically Speaking, if that entices you some more, then I have done my job here and I encourage you to read more on their latest post which explains chunking even further.

Jimmy Huen, who I met via MyBlogLog is using his blog to chronicle his start up. Now the thing I like about his startup so far is that he is going to be revenue sharing.

What does that mean? He is going to become part of the new wave of social networks. Will this work? Well so far, other social networks that have started in this revenue sharing model have yet to launch, but are gathering steam.

What is this all about? This is basically your chance to go see what Jimmy has going on. Read his blog, his struggles at having it developed, and other tid-bits. You also now have the chance and opportunity to jump in early. With any of these new social networks, in order to share in the revenue, you should be one of the early adopters to truly benefit.

Technically Speaking, will this trend take off? Given the chance, I can see it going big time. Why? Why should all the social networks be the only ones to benefit from the money wave that engulfed them? Seriously, it’s the users that built them.

Yes, you will argue it was programming, ideas, etc… In the end though, you can have a social network with hardly any users and what do you have? Exactly. Here is your chance to get in early.

Last year I discovered radiusIM while out surfing to find a place to put all my IM/chat needs in one spot. I personally do not like to install IM programs, but being the Social Media person that I am, I needed to have one. RadiusIM was the first I ran across.

Since I had just started the blog, I reached out and contacted John Londono and asked for an interview. I had asked for my traditional 5 question interview (which then was 20 questions to give you perspective on how long ago I asked). At the time they were very very new, and John wanted more time to work the product.

Today, we learn a little more about radiusIM from John as well as his partner Zohar Yardeni.

Q1: When you created RadiusIM, did you feel that your service would gain traction over other services that do literally the same thing? I know you have the mapping in there as a twist, but do you feel it is enough to really move past your competition?

John: radiusIM is creating ‘Social IM’ on the web with a focus on location. Classic web IM has gained a ton of traction and that’s very exciting, but we are going after those IMers who are looking for something fun and different and not just getting past a firewall.

Zohar: Knowing where your friends are and who else is around is something fundamental to the social user experience and the combination with IM is very powerful. The question is whether our feature set in its current and future form can successfully capitalize on the location opportunity, and we think the answer is yes.

Q2: What are the distinctions you have over the other browser based IM services?

Zohar: radiusIM differentiates itself through its location functionality. It lets you see where your friends are and surf for people based on location. If you simply want MSN or AIM on the web, there are probably better places for that. IM is evolving, though, because people want something more social and fun.

John: radiusIM has taken a big step in that direction by adding features like location and creating an open network. Ultimately our biggest distinction will emerge as location becomes further integrated into the online experience.

Q3: Where do you feel browser based IM will take all of us? Do you feel that as there are more and more IM clients, that more people will just use browser based over downloading an application?

Zohar: Ask a handful of teens how many applications they download and install versus how many websites they visit in a given month and you’ll get your answer. The migration to web based applications in all forms is really inevitable. This trend will only gain in momentum as the adoption of broadband further accelerates and the operating systems move to more of a networked model.

John: IM in particular is tailor made for this migration as connectivity is a prerequisite and over time the web apps should have no problem providing all the same functionality as their desktop counterparts.

Q4: What are the plans at implementing other IM services not already in RadiusIM? Are there issues that you run into such as proprietary coding, etc.?

John: The networks we currently support (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber) account for a substantial chunk of the global IM traffic. Today, our mission is to stay on track and give our users what they want which is more social and location based features to enhance their experience.

Zohar: Soon, we’ll roll out a widget that will let users display where they are what they’re up to on any web page. These are precisely the types of things we want to dedicate our resources to - creating a new social platform based on location.

Q5: This is your time to address the users and readers. Anything else you would like to tell everyone?

Zohar: The main thing we want to pass along to the users is a big thank you. It’s been a great ride since we went live and the users have been a big part of that.

John: So, thanks a ton for all the feedback and keep telling your friends about radius.

Technically Speaking, I want to thank radiusIM - John and Zohar - for taking the time to answer my 5 questions. With the amount of contacts that John receives I’m sure daily, I’m happy that he remembered that I had asked for an interview a long time ago in blogosphere time!

It looks like CBS is in a spending mood. Over the last week or so, first they recently bought Wallstrip, and now it is being reported that they are buying up Last.fm. Two big social media grabs by the tiffany network.

CBS Corp. is buying a popular social-networking website organized around musical tastes for $280 million, combining a traditional broadcast giant with an early leader in online radio.

CBS is expected to announce today that it has acquired London-based Last.fm, which claims more than 15 million monthly users, including more than 4 million in the U.S.

The initial payout is well beneath that paid by rivals in the last two years for video-sharing site YouTube Inc., now owned by Google Inc., and for MySpace, the top social destination on the Web, bought by News Corp. The final price for closely held Last.fm could rise substantially if performance targets are met.

I think the major media players have finally realized what was created out here online. They see it now as a good business model, and are going full force. I say it’s about time, but I do wonder if much money will be dropped into off line businesses this year? I think as Allen keeps saying, this is the year of the buy out and merger.

Technically Speaking, I can’t wait for 2008 to see when the smoke clears.