Technically Speaking

It is quite amusing to me to see the number of social networks on the scene today. First up is one of the newer niche social networking startups, fabfemme, who I talked about a bit the other day. Now even though it is a lesbian and bi-sexual woman’s network, I figured I’d tool around to see what it was all about.

I will have to be honest, I don’t see any user base yet. I did a global search on the social network. I only found less then 30 users. Now the distressing thought here is, even though one of the main complaints about MySpace these days is the only “5 tracks on myspace” music thing, they still have numbers.

This is in direct reference of course to MySpace being FREE, and fabfemme wanting to make it a pay social network. I am starting to think that FabFemme may need to rethink their business model, as they do not seem to be gaining any traction so far. I actually hope this post helps them gain some traffic, as you will see below.

Another social networking startup I recently talked about is Vertagio. They are free, and the last time I talked to the founder there, he told me that network traffic was up 2000%! That is a huge leap, and I am glad to have (I hope!) helped. Every time I log on, I see new users signing up there; new profiles listed.

When it comes to social networking, I believe the free is always going to win out. Allen of CenterNetworks even nicely enough syndicated that article.

Case in point. Look at the mass growth that MySpace China (MySpace.cn) has going on; talked about here/with screenshots. I read somewhere that one user already had 1500 plus friends on his friends list!

I guess that is like a few hundred in America, when you consider that China is 1 billion strong population wise! With regards to this, I have not heard any statistics about MySpace Espanol. Nor have I heard anything about MySpace LatinoAmerica, both which I talked about here. The other launch this past week.

I almost forgot one. There of course is the other new twist on social networking which is that place called - inpowr. The social network about yourself! Woo Hoo!

Their motto should be “When you get tired of looking in the mirror, jump on inpowr!” Please understand, I haven’t had a moment of sarcasm in a few days. Seriously, it does sound like a cool place, but I wouldn’t really classify it as a “social network”. Socializing with yourself is kind of, well, “weird“.

Technically Speaking, social networking is on the rise still, and to try to make money by charging is still not the way to go online; especially when everyone else is still running the free business model. Always stick with what works. When you are in beta, don’t charge; at least those are my thoughts on this.

It is Friday, and the feeds show it! Nothing major is going that hasn’t already been talked about earlier this week. If you missed something, just scroll to the bottom and hit the “previous” link.

NLL on YouTube - Sorry YouTube, but this is not the NHL. If you think that hockey hasn’t gained a foothold as a spectator sport, I highly doubt that the NLL is the answer. No offense to the fans of the NLL, just being realistic.

AOL India - I’d like to hear some responses from India on this one. Is it a good thing?

FoxTorrent - The BitTorrent client that Akamai has created.

$450 million - That is the price that Viacom is still reportedly paying for Last.fm. This just hit as I was rounding up the articles for this round up.

ScratchYourself - Sound like a very cool flash thing. I wonder if it catches on?

Technically Speaking, that was it. Really. Things can change in a few hours though. I think the Chinese are going ga-ga still over having MySpace.cn actually launched now.

I’m sure once the hype dies, it will be like that guy pictured with his head down on his laptop (the screenshot at the bottom of the MySpace.cn post!).

Yes, scratch yourself, just don’t do it on Rex TV right? Link Blog is up to date! More possibly later… Go watch the chair (until the UStream.tv intermission mode kicks in - stream dies!).

*Updated* - NY Times released some more information for their morning edition. Here is a snippet of what they said

SHANGHAI, April 26 — Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is bringing MySpace.com to China, a latecomer that is betting it can overcome that handicap by competing unconventionally as a start-up.

The News Corporation signed a deal to license the brand for its popular online social networking site and allow local Chinese entrepreneurs who understand their market to pick and choose to build an indigenous business. Using this approach, the News Corporation hopes to succeed where other Western Internet ventures have failed.

MySpace.cn or MySpace China, it is Live and World Wide as announced earlier.

Now one thing that writer didn’t have was the Chinese character set loaded. When you are world wide live like, well, Rex Dixon is, “You gotta roll with Chinese characters!” Come on now, we know that China is the most populated country on this planet, so when you roll you better have some Chinese characters rolling in your browser.

Anyways, I had to go check it out, and it’s “MySpace”. Now the cool thing is once you have that Chinese character installed, you can hover over any link, and it shows up in your lower browser bar in English! Now I did find some cool pages there, like this one. I will simply title this page “Doggy Worship, Doggy Love“. It’s in Chinese, but pictures state what is going on here.

One thing that is curious in the doggy-people pictures from above, I think these are in America? Not quite sure, as even though the Chinese characters are installed here, I still can’t read it without translating it somehow.

Technically Speaking, MySpace.cn rocks, well as hard as MySpace can rock. Here are some MySpace China screenshots below; you will have to go view the doggy one for yourself. There were a bunch of them, couldn’t fit them all in on one screenshot.

Hovering over Chinese links shows in the browser lower bar in English.

This guy pointed out on the lower left is either already bored with MySpace.cn, or has been on MySpace.cn long enough!