Archive for April, 2008

Growing up, I moved just about every year.  Occasionally we stayed in one place for longer, say two or three years, but we also had shorter stints to make up for those more lengthy “visits.”  All tallied, I moved twenty-one times before I left home for college at the age of 17.

I don’t bring this up to gripe about my nomadic childhood, but only to help contextualize my current wanderlust.  I learned some valuable lessons as a result of the constant change.  Some enjoyable and some painful, of course.  I realized that change is good, but change for the sake of change is bad.  And that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and yet, sometimes it is.

Sure, there were tears for “lost friendships” and there was certainly sweat when the moving trucks arrived.  Life was sometimes “on the edge” and often I felt out of control and along for the ride.

I’ll admit, though, I certainly don’t think I would be who I am had I had a “normal” stable childhood, living on 100 Easy Street, Anytown, USA my whole life.  I’ve learned how to adjust to new and different environments, how to build friendships that last regardless of proximity, and certainly about the geography of the United States.

Oftentimes growing up, I felt like I had an outsider’s perspective on many things, in particular my peers.  I saw how so many people just did things because “that’s what you’re supposed to do.”  I saw countless individuals living the lives they never fully decided on, breathing and functioning as a result of inertia as opposed to choice.

That’s when I decided that when the day came to spread my wings, I would rely on a combination of logic and gut feeling to evaluate new opportunities.  I determined to never close the door or open the door to something without taking my blinders off and without being scared to hear a new idea or two.  It would be easy for me to verbalize that because I moved all the time growing up that I wanted to settle in one place as an adult.  And yet, as a result of the incessant moving, I realized that there simply isn’t a “one size fits all” solution to life and life’s opportunities and decisions.

I’d say that I presently have a fair share of wanderlust inside me, yet I think I’ve found a rational way of handling my inner drive for change.  It has helped me examine, accept, and reject opportunities with a clear head and a clean conscious.  I’ve learned that if you don’t knock, no one will answer.  If you’re not building trust with individuals, it’s hard to close deals.  And if you are YOUcentric, you can count on less in the form of support.  I’ve learned to rein in change and to harness the power of new ideas.  I believe wanderlust isn’t simply about geography, it’s a paradigm.

It’s also this wanderlust that has brought my wife and I, along with my employees, to the beautiful and strange Tinseltown (LA) for the sake of personal and business endeavors.  We’ve spent the last several years building Epsilon Concepts around Southern California.  The golden state is a golden land of opportunity in our industry and we determined that this change (relocating 2700 miles in a bizarre cross-country employee caravan) was a change that made sense.  With a logical approach and a patient manner, we delved into the journey and we’re relieved to find that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, but so far it’s been pretty green (albeit sprinkler enhanced).  Sure, there will be ups and downs and I’m sure I may curse LA every now and then one of these days (Utopia isn’t located anywhere on Earth, last time I checked!), but I’m truly thankful to be in this town and that my wife, company and I tapped into our collective wanderlust to help make this dream a reality.

Report: Social Media Challenging Traditional Media

“The report states that ‘video clips, blogs, podcasts, social networks and RSS are all essential components of the online media diet.’ Here are some of the key findings:

• 83% watch video clips, up from 62% in the last study in June 2007
• 78% read blogs, up from 66%
• 57% of internet users are now members of a social network
• RSS consumption is growing rapidly up from 15% to 39%
• Podcasts are now mainstream digital content, listened to by 48%

Social networks have been ‘a key driver for the growth of social media’:

• 22% of social network users have installed a widget or applications
• 55% have shared photos
• 22% have shared their videos
• 31% have started a blog
• The world’s biggest social network is MySpace with 32% weekly reach followed by Facebook on 23%

The report also states that social media is a global phenomenon:

• Top markets for blogging – China 70% of internet users write a blog, Philippines 66% and Mexico 60%
• Top markets for social networking – Philippines 83%, Hungary 76% and Poland 76%
• China is the world’s largest blogging market with 42m bloggers versus 26m in the US”

Why Marketers Love Small Social Networks

“Marketers who think bigger is better may want to reconsider, at least when it comes to social media. Ad spending on those sites is predicted to top $1.6 billion this year, according to eMarketer. However, much of it will be plunked into smaller, emerging social networks.

While My Space and Facebook get all the attention, social media focused on topics as remote as knitting or bird watching can be a strong branding target these days, said Anthony Acquisti, strategy supervisor with emerging media at OMD, New York. His running tally of emerging social networks, now up-wards of 7,000, is evidence of an explosive market.

These more focused audiences should be popular with brands because “relevance,” he said, “trumps size.”

By 2011, eMarketer estimates, half of all adults in the U.S., and 84% of online teens will use social networks. That’s both a golden opportunity and a colossal headache for brands trying to nail down the best new network for their campaigns.”

Looking to make a splash with the launch of your social networking start-up?

Step #1: Get featured on Mashable

“Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of meeting many of our readers at our various events around the country. Without a doubt, the number one most frequently asked question at these events has been “how do I get my startup featured on Mashable?” While there is no secret sauce, I thought I’d take this opportunity to remind people what we’re looking for and why we choose to cover some startups and not others.

Your startup should:

• Be a cool product
• Fit into Mashable’s “coverage universe”
• Have not already been covered to death elsewhere
• Submit to our Startup Review series
• Personalize your pitch
• Be concise
• Come to our events

Your startup does NOT have to:

• Be overly complex
• Be venture funded
• Be friends with Mashable staff
• Have a PR firm
• Be a startup at all

Remember, we’re also entrepreneurs, and we want to help great startups get the word out and be successful. We depend on you as much as you depend on us, so please keep your news coming and we hope to see you at an event soon!”

Step #2: Get Featured on SocialNetworkingWatch.com

Send your story to “tips@socialnetworkingwatch.com” and address it to Mark Brooks.

Step #3: Go to the next Social Networking Conference in San Francisco, California

“Q: What is the Social Networking Conference?

1. Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
A tutorial like you’ve never seen before, complete with talking foxes and examples based on chunky bacon. Also, keep an eye out for the most entertaining side bars you’ll ever come across.

2. More great tutorials:

• Nuby on Rails.com
• Really Getting Started in Rails

3. Ruby on Rails on Hotscripts.com

4. PHP vs. Ruby on Rails. An evolutionary story of a Web Developer and his tools- A great comparison of the super-hero abilities of RoR and PHP. At the very least, this is a good primer on the differences (and similarities) of both.

5. Ruby User’s Guide

6. The Complete Ruby on Rails Manual

7. For more links, screencasts, and other RoR goodness, go to Ruby on Rails.org

The  social networking realm is still going strong, according to Computer Weekly and Forrester Research.

“Business spending on Web 2.0 technologies will rise over the next five years, growing 43% each year to reach £2.3bn globally by 2013, according to Forrester Research.

The five-year forecast projected that business spending on social networking technologies, RSS, blogs, wikis, mashups and podcasting will rise as firms try to gain a competitive advantage from social networking technologies by connecting closer with customers and improving employee collaboration.

“Social computing and Web 2.0 marketing is still in its infancy, and in general, the market is still in an experimentation phase, but in the long run, the effect of Web 2.0 will be enormous,” said Forrester Research Analyst Oliver Young.

Large enterprises such as General Motors, McDonald’s, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and Wells Fargo have all made heavy use of these tools, and 56% of North American and European enterprises consider Web 2.0 to be a priority in 2008, according to the study.

Currently, large businesses are spending more on employee collaboration tools than customer-facing Web 2.0 technologies, but Forrester expects that trend to reverse by next year. By 2013, investment in customer-facing Web 2.0 technology will dwarf spending on internal collaboration software by nearly a billion dollars.”

1. Handmade French candles

(thanks Cisco)

2. Autumn (pic)

3. Vijay Singh’s swing (vid)

4. Nigerian Folk Music (wiki)

5. Penn & Teller explain sleight of hand (video)

6. Albert Einstein’s Relativity Theory

7. The Elegant Universe (documentary)

As a means of communication, words are incredibly important. In lieu of verbally exchanging words, we use written text to do the bulk of the communication for us online. Any degree of miscommunication can have far reaching consequences (online), so every “i” has to be dotted, every “t” crossed, and every word weighed.

However, good content, like the emperor who needed to put some clothes on, should always strive to look first rate.

Enter typography, whose sole aim is to dress words up so that they look good. Its noble aspirations are simple: to make the reading experience easier, by relegating itself so far into the background that it’s never noticed.

Regardless of how tricky typography on the web can be, it is the responsibility of everyone on a design project (both team members and stakeholders) to bother about a website’s type. After all, if you want me to take the time to read your marketing pitch, or your smashing novel, why should it also be hard for me to read it?

If we’re on the same page so far, then here are some guiding principles on selecting type:

1. Read it- Just because you’re writing a masterpiece on Antiqua doesn’t mean you should write it using Antiqua. Reading the material (to understand it) will provide a better understanding of the copy’s context, and the user’s needs. This in turn translates into subtle changes to the over all look and feel of the website.

2. Know your audience- Blaktur is not the way to go on a pre-school program’s website, so it’s important that you know who your audience will be.

3. What will it look like?- Convention over configuration is not always a bad thing so keep in mind that there are limitations on the available font choices. Here’s another good article on the topic.

4. It’s not the end of the world- At the end of the day, your decision is subjective since there is no “end all” formula. As long as you diligently address the above, the whole time remembering that “it takes five hundred small details to make one favorable impression”, you should be fine.

1810 - 1913

When someone dies, the usual inscription on the tombstone is the year of birth and the year of death, separated by a dash, along with an epitaph in memoriam.

The initial reaction is to do the math, and figure out how old she was when she died (shameless you!).

What’s interesting about the whole thing is how much we concentrate on how long she lived, when at the end of the day, it’s the dash in the middle that defines what we remember.

JFK is a favorite of very many people. Nixon, however, is a different story because it’s what they did that we remember, and cherish (or detest).

Everyone wants a great website. And why not? If you’re really worth your mettle, and treasure your audience, you should make the effort to have a good website.

The problem is not wanting a great website. It’s the “I want it now!” paradigm that kills the potential for greatness. It’s too easy to give in to the temptation to rush a project so that “we can get it over with.” As a result, revisions are often rushed, features are cut down, etc…, all in an effort to bring the project completion schedule as close to 5 minutes as possible.

In the process, the end-users are forgotten, there are holes in the features, and somehow the message gets lost in all the noise.

The use of time, in and of itself, is nothing unless value is being delivered. Like life, it’s the quality of the time spent that determines the level of success (or failure) that’s achieved.

Design projects are tasking endeavors that take time, and significant effort. You shouldn’t decide to get a website “because everyone else has one”, then relegate it to “side project” status, and expect to get a website you’re going to be truly proud of.

How about this for a new way of thinking: it’s the quality of time spent on the project, not the quantity, that matters.

• JuiceCaster Nominated for Best Mobile Social Networking Solution in the 12th Annual Webby Awards
  “LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The 12^th Annual Webby Awards has nominated Juice Wireless’ mobile social networking application, JuiceCaster, for the Best Mobile Social Networking solution of 2008. The Webby Awards will announce the winners on May 6, 2008 and honor them at a star-studded gala in New York City on June 10. Additionally, from now through May 1, fans around the world can cast their votes for JuiceCaster in The Webby People’s Voice Awards presented by Nokia by visiting www.JuiceCaster.com.”
• Raketu Releases New Mobile Social Networking - Now Users Can Contribute, Communicate, and Share from Their Desktops and Mobile Devices Anywhere
  “NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Raketu, a leading global Internet communications, information, and entertainment company, today released its mobile social networking application. In addition to Raketu’s voice calling, SMS-Texting, file sharing and other communications, information and entertainment services, the new application allows any user, anywhere, to contribute, share and interact from any device. Raketu’s new Mobile Social Networking is also available on any desktop through the browser and the Raketu download client, so that users on Raketu’s website, mobile websites and from the download client can actively participate and share information in their social network no matter where they are.”
• Wirenode: Create Mobile Sites in Facebook
  “Wirenode is a startup from the Prague, Czech Republic. It’s platform for mobile publishing. Everybody can create mobile friendly website very easily, with no technology knowledge in their web browser. Created mobile websites are immediately accessible from all types of mobile phones. You can create mobile website with multiple pages, images, mobile RSS etc…
  Free version of the service is used by individuals, who created more than 6000 mobile pages. Premium version is used by marketing agencies and mobile operators for creating landing pages and small mobile portals for mobile marketing purposes.”
• Itsmy.com Reaches 1 Million Users on Mobile Phones
  “April 9, 2008 (Munich, New York, London, Madrid) – itsmy.com, one of the world’s fastest growing mobile-only social networks, has announced one million registered users. The ad-funded mobile community dedicates every user a free personalisable mobile homepage with a unique mobile web address (myname.itsmy.com) to show and tell all friends – the main reason for the fast viral growth. All users register via the browser of their mobile phone in mobile internet, wherever they are. Gofresh, the company behind itsmy.com, is a Telecommunications company with main focus on live entertainment combined with social networking - wherever, whenever. Gofresh targets with itsmy.com the leadership for off-portal mobile communities in US and EU in 2008.”
• 28 Million Mobile Subscribers Responded To At Least One Mobile Ad
  “According to a new report from The Nielsen Company, twenty-three percent (58 million) of all U.S. mobile subscribers say they’ve been exposed to advertising on their phones in the past 30 days. Half (51% or 28 million) of all data users who recall seeing mobile advertising in the previous 30 days say they responded to a mobile ad.”
• Frengo’s Mobile Toolkit Makes Your OpenSocial Apps Mobile
  “Mobile media company Frengo has revealed its OpenSocial mobile Toolkit today, enabling developers to “share” their existing applications from other OpenSocial participating networks for mobile use. In order to support this, Frengo has created an OpenSocial-compliant mobile platform, which means mobile extension for your existing apps. RockYou is a launch partner.”

We are proud to formally announce the launch of www.golfingmyway.com! GolfingMyWay.com (GMW) is a tech start-up based in Seattle, Washington and founded by three partners, John Robinson, Jake Horton, and Scott Rasmussen.   Positioned to unify golfers from around the country, GMW is a result of their collective vision and planning for what a golf-focused social network can be.  From high school golfers to members of elite country clubs, GMW offers innovative features around a sport we all love… golf!

Whether it’s analyzing your game with My Stat, viewing and critiquing your swing with My Swing, searching for golf courses and/or country clubs with Course Search or simply networking with other golfers, GMW delivers the tools you need to repair your game, connect with golfers, and keep your scores low.

GMW and Epsilon Concepts worked together on the project with Epsilon Concepts taking a proactive approach to all aspects of the application and helping to bring GMW’s vision to life in the best way possible.  The project was managed via Basecamp for clean and organized communication and project work-flow and is the result of many hours of communication and collaboration.

In GMW’s words:
“We are really pleased with the results that Epsilon Concepts has provided. The quality of work that they have created has been second to none. They have done a great job of taking what we have asked them to do and creating a solid custom social networking platform with a concrete foundation that we will be able to build upon in the future. Rob did a great job in forming a team that would suit our needs and specialize in the areas that we needed them to. We were also pleased with the use of Basecamp to aid in communicating with the programming team. Epsilon Concepts proved to be devoted to the project since day one and successfully helped us get our social networking project off the ground.“

• Visit the website here
• Read the case study here

• 28 Million Mobile Subscribers Responded to At Least One Mobile Ad
  “According to a new report from The Nielsen Company, twenty-three percent (58 million) of all U.S. mobile subscribers say they’ve been exposed to advertising on their phones in the past 30 days. Half (51% or 28 million) of all data users who recall seeing mobile advertising in the previous 30 days say they responded to a mobile ad.”
• Social networking websites protect children, says Bebo
  “Social networking websites are taking their duty to protect younger users more seriously following a sea change in attitudes, according to Bebo’s safety officer.Dr Rachel O’Connell said sites such as Bebo, which attracts users mainly aged between 16 and 24, have been driven to take online safety more seriously by a strong commercial as well as social imperative.”
• Facebook for Blackberry racks up a million hits
  “BlackBerry users have racked up more than one million downloads of a Facebook app in the five months since it launched. Facebook for BlackBerry - which is free to download and launched on 24 October last year - allows users to perform a variety of tasks including sending and viewing messages, making Wall posts and ‘poking’ other Facebook users. A user’s status message can also be updated on the go, and friend requests can be made and responded to. In addition, users can take photos on their phones and upload them directly to Facebook.”
• Sampa Launches Private Blogs for Families
  “Website creation service Sampa is getting more vertical. A few new options have been added to the service for creating themed websites for users to set up blogs to be shared privately with friends and family. This appears to be somewhat of an extension from the family tree-building tool that Sampa released last year, especially given the interactive functions that Sampa did include previously. In fact, the family tree capabilities are integrated into this new feature that Sampa is releasing. The premise is to offer an interactive and easily communicated way in which a user can share blog entries (stories) and photo albums with the people to which they’re the closest.”
• 7 Brand Name Social Networks
  “When big brands decide something is hot, they will move in and attempt to copy it. Sometimes they actually succeed at their goals, and sometimes…well, let’s just say that results are less than spectacular. We’ve sampled 7 well-known brands that tried their hands at creating a social network.”

It seems like “Google it” has now become the de facto answer to any question with an unclear answer (is it strange that a man-made machine will provide a plethora of options to answer most questions?).

When the Internet became widely available a little over a decade ago, I doubt anyone had the slightest idea how revolutionary this thing would be. Obviously, that’s a different story now: in today’s world, it would be foolish to deny that this “series of tubes” (techno remix here) has had a significant effect on the way we think and live.

In fact, that last sentence is probably the understatement of the year. The Internet has so revolutionized the developed world that there are very few parts of our lives untouched by this force majeure.

The news reader no longer has to wait until morning to read the news, or wade through mind-numbing commercials to get the jist of the situation on CNN. Instead, the news is available to anyone who wants it, anytime and anywhere. All available in a dizzying number of customizable formats: email, text message, RSS reader, and the list goes on.  And not just read the news! They can share it with friends through email, recommend it to total strangers on StumbleUpon or reddit, and discuss it with a healthy vigor (Google even lets you make your case if you’re the subject of an article and there’s more on the topic in this NPR podcast).

Traditional media now has some very, very stiff competition. The behemoths are slowly catching on, lest the Internet leaves them in it’s dust. To be fair, there are exceptions to this. One of my favorites is the BBC, who have always provided excellent content for as long as I can remember, and continue to do so even today.

This radical shift is by no means limited to just the news: almost any topic you can think of will do. The accessibility of the the Internet now means music like Mongolian folk rock (video) is just as readily available as Paul Simon (an even better example might be Finnish band, the Leningrad Cowboy’s performance of Sweet Home Alabama, with the official Soviet Red Army Choir. I’m not kidding). It’s an open secret that the Internet is not so slowly eating up music labels profits (IMO, Janis Ians The Internet Debacle is still a classic on the topic).

The list goes on and on:

Wikipedia has made knowledge sexy again. In what other world can you carry a whole encyclopedia in your back pocket?

Traffic is getting more difficult to battle, and work sites are more expensive (and many other reasons), more people are beginning to working from home. Businesses are also finding that this is more productive (and cheaper), and so more are allowing their staff “telecommute“. Some have never even met their colleagues, even though they work together regularly.

Shopping too has become a lot easier (a slight understatement, I admit). From groceries to books, to shoes, and just about anything you can think of.

The Internet has also managed to destabilize the traditional balance of power of society by allowing everyone to participate. By bringing lots of small voices together, the little man is now making enough noise to make a difference. American politics (with Howard Dean, Ron Paul, and more successfully, Barack Obama) is a perfect example of this. Governments who have tried to control the volume can attest to the difficulty of doing this (Egypt had this experience a few years ago, and more recently is China’s experience with Tibet).

The Internet revolution is here to stay. Will you be a part of it, or would you rather be left behind?

1. Kobe Bryant

Exhibit A: Kobe’s Top 10 plays of 2007

Exhibit B: The impressive numbers he’s consistently posted

2. Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point

3. Apart from the fact that it gets the equivalent of 137 mpg, and is one of the most beautiful cars on the road today, the Tesla Roadster is undoubtedly a solid choice for a car (assuming the $98,000 tag doesn’t scare you, that is).

4. Michelangelo’s Ceiling

5. Hans Rosling’s Debunking 3rd World Myths (this is a highly recommended video, if only because it’s very interesting. If you like numbers, you’ll also love the material from Gapminder)

6. The Ipod

7. Alaska Air’s Airport of the Future (say goodbye to those dreaded airport queues)

8. Google

9. Mariah Carey’s voice (video here)

10. StarChase: To the growing dismay of Cops fans, one day high-speed police chases might be a thing of the past!

• Craigslist Is Our Mirror, Nothing Better (Or Worse) on TechCrunch
  “I flipped on the news today (yes, my actual television, not sure why) and the big story was Craigslist gone wrong. Someone placed an ad on Craigslist saying that anything at a home in Jacksonville, Oregon was up for grabs. People responded, and carted away most of the belongings of resident Robert Salisbury. He arrived home to thirty people picking over the last of his stuff. Even the man’s horse was taken.”
  Apparently, sticks and stones may break your bones and words written on Craigslist may indeed hurt you!
• SmartyPig is One Smart (Social) Savings Plan on Mashable
  “SmartyPig is a recently launched site that brings a community approach to a single savings goal. With SmartyPig, you actually set up a savings account with the bank it’s partnered with (West Bank), and invite others to contribute to your savings account. The idea is to set a goal (for a new bike or books for college), and allow others (parents, grandparents, friends) to contribute to your achieving this savings goal. These goals can be set as private or public. SmartyPig has introduced a highly secure system in which others can send money to your savings account, and once your goal has been reached, you can withdraw the funds (unless you cancel it all together).”
  What a great concept, I wish I had this when I was a kid! If you’re looking to raise money for a mission trip or college or any other goal, this site adds serious value!
• Employees should be banned from searching Facebook profiles of job applicants, says children’s groups on Daily Mail
  “Studies show one in five employers use the internet to check out candidates and two thirds of those admit their final decision has been influenced by what they found. Checking networking sites is also common practice for recruitment agencies with research showing more than 60 per cent of British executives are signed up to Facebook or similar. The children’s charities argue that this is akin to nosing through someone’s diary and is examining whether existing discrimination laws could be used to prevent the practice.”
  I agree that many employers use social networking sites to learn about candidates, but I’m not sure I agree this practice is unethical or should be banned. If you choose to post stuff online, it’s your choice. The fact that it will remain online and can affect hiring chances is a fact of life in the world of web 2.0. This is why taking a proactive approach to your social networking and promoting yourself in the right light is very important. In fact, I registered SocialScreeners.com for that entrepreneur that wants to make a business out of social networking screening services!
• MySpace and Friends Need to Make Money. And Fast. on Wired
  “The numbers are amazing. MySpace’s membership has ballooned from 20 million people in 2005 to 225 million today, an average annual growth rate of 513 percent. Rival Facebook grew at 550 percent a year during the same period. LinkedIn’s rate was 182 percent. Yet one social networking metric is distinctly underwhelming: the one with a dollar sign. Lookery, an ad network specializing in social media, offers display ads on MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo for only 13 cents per thousand times the ad is served (CPM); Yahoo’s average CPM is estimated at $13. Video ads on MySpace reportedly fetch just $25 per thousand showings; CBS charges $50 on affiliated sites, NBC as much as $75.”
• Will Musician’s Custom Networks Create Disarray On Social Web on Mashable
  “Want to network with rapper 50 Cent? How about befriending Kylie Minogue? Or Ludacris, or the Pussycat Dolls, for that matter? If so, perhaps you should look elsewhere than, say, MySpace, the default service for most things musical on the social Web. The alternative destination to hit? Well, actually, there is more than one place that you will be able to go to to connect with some well-known artists. Musicians are looking to go from the mass complex that is MySpace to locations a little more personal. Some are putting together their own sites meant to connect with a fan base devoted exclusively to them and their projects. Case in point: Thisis50.com.”
• Wikipedia Passes Another Milestone: 10 Million Articles on Mashable
  “Wikipedia, the community driven encyclopedia, passed a huge milestone this week in the form of 10 million articles in over 250 languages. As explained by Emily Chang, the 10 millionth article was a biography of a 16th century English goldsmith and painter named Nicholas Hilliard, written by user named Pataki Marta.”
• Evolution of the social network on BBC News
  “Recent reports of social networking’s demise may be slightly premature. Sure, some users are completely fed up with receiving friends invites, being “bitten”, “poked” and indeed having sheep thrown at them. And there has been a 5% slowdown in new UK users to the larger social networks, Facebook and MySpace, between December 2007 and January this year. But Alex Burmaster, an analyst at Nielsen Online which compiled the figures showing the decline, says: “The slow down in social networks is being somewhat exaggerated. It’s a natural form of any growth that we see in the online eco-system.”
• Online social networking sites spring up for the religious on KeyeTV.com
  “Online social networking sites crop up for the religious About two-thirds of Americans today use the Internet for some type of religion or religious experience. Experts say social networking online is fast becoming a heavenly experience.”
• Social networking sites to go 3-d on The Editors Weblog
  ” Through social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, people can keep updated with their friends by posting messages back and forth or by checking status updates. But imagine if the social networking world became 3-D. Based in Menlo Park, California, Vivaty has been creating 3-D virtual chat rooms that people can add to sites where they spend most of their Internet time. Users will choose pre-existing avatars to represent themselves as they do on services such as Second Life, and navigate through a gothic urban warehouse, seaside villa, or another of the dozen environments. Users will also be able to create their own environment wherever HTML code can be imbedded. Vivaty plans on allowing companies to construct their own virtual rooms with their own décor and messages.”
  Very cool; we’re planning on a 3-d social networking service offering soon as well as I believe this can potentially have huge value to the right niche social network.

The best add-ons in the world for the best browser in the world (Firefox)

1. Save online articles and such with To Read Later or Readeroo

2. Procrastination is now a thing of the past with MeeTimer (better yet, try RescueTime)

3. Discover the web with StumbleUpon, and maximize screenspace with Littlefox

4. Why don’t you email your tabs with Send Tab URLs?

5. Please, Remember the Milk

6. Make the Internet yours with Greasemonkey & enhance the Gmail experience with Better Gmail 2

7. For everything Google, there’s the Google Toolbar every installation of Firefox should have

8. Attaching files to Gmail is now a breeze with DragdropUpload (and while we’re on the topic, sharing files has never been easier with drop.io)

9. “Clip” the parts of any website you like with Clipmarks

10. Having problems filling up your Gmail space with email? Use GSpace to store files for online access later

11. If you like tabs, you’ll love Fancy Numbered Tabs