Comments on: "Hit the Dancing Frog...You May BE A Winner!"

"Hit the Dancing Frog...You May BE A Winner!"

rzklkng — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:39:56 -0800

The next stage of evolution for social networking AlwaysOn, a social networking business site, is working on an ambitious new project, GoingsOn (screenshot), that encompasses most of the hot features that are all over the web, like photos, videos, and dating info. More in comments...

By: rzklkng

rzklkng — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:41:05 -0800

I was wondering how the big picture of social networking, consumer created content, and big media companies is supposed to work. It even gets more curious with NewsCorp's impulsive (and expensive, $110m over market capitalization, whatever that means) half-billion dollar plus acquisition ($580m) of MySpace parent company Intermix (MIX). Enter AlwaysOn... Now, what gets interesting here is that you can integrate your various online personas in one place, since GoingsOn will be based on open standards. That means (just like saavy users do already via Wordpress or MovableType):

Within that same page, you'll be able to pop up the profiles of people you're interested in contacting, or, yes, dating -- and as we understand it, GoingOn wants to be able to do that seemlessly from other sites, including Friendster, Tribe and so on. It will apparently let you post blogs, photos, video to multiple networks and outside sites, too.

Expect this to bring about a whole new set of questions concerning ownership...I know I personally got a little concerned about Technorati's announcement of a commercial blog monitoring application, meaning that they would be profitting of the work of others without compensation. The arrangement with GoingsOn seems to indicate that the network operators will split revenue from advertising and web services. You can argue the semantics (but they index you and drive traffic to your site...) but should they be able to profit of your work without you receiving a cut"? Or maybe this is really a good thing, finally tying our internet identities into some sort social currency. Results for GoingsOn: ~~Technorati~~, Clusty, Icerocket, ~~Blogpulse, Blogdigger~~.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:49:56 -0800

Looks like a cheesy friendster knock-off with a RSS feed parser, like a bloggy version of LinkedIn, actually. Oh, and a ton of little ads in the bottom footer. I suspect the readers of AlwaysOn will probably adopt it, but not many others.

By: Dag Maggot

Dag Maggot — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:50:15 -0800

All the fun of of a portal, seemlessly blended with a Friendster clone. 1998 called, they want their business plan back.

By: rzklkng

rzklkng — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:53:23 -0800

matt, I'd expect that you'll be "wooed" by them. It seems like "more" than MySpace can offer, and the guy behind OurMedia made it? I definitely would prefer to roll my own rather than give up control.

By: camworld

camworld — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:10:09 -0800

I'm not convinced something like this will work. It's a neat idea but there are "too many cooks in the kitchen" for it to be successful. Open standards are good, but only if developers and companies choose to use them.

By: ijoshua

ijoshua — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:15:27 -0800

meh.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:28:29 -0800

The interface makes my eyes water. It's busy. Really, really busy. And the list of partners at the bottom of the page? Insaaaaane.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:29:21 -0800

Mixing together a lot of popular things is not innovation. Might make a lot of money, though, but AlwaysOn is not exactly a popular site with the teenybopers. Someone once described Fast Company and Wired as "bussness porn". That's what AlwaysOn strikes me as. Unthinking, pro-corporate drivel.

By: twsf

twsf — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:46:42 -0800

This seems like a self-congratulatory hairball. I haven't yet found a use for any of these business networking sites except wannabes pestering me to link to them or give them lots of my time for advice/free consulting. Add in all this other functionality and it makes about as much sense to me as spending hours blogging about "getting things done"...

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:48:18 -0800

gee whiz, that's a heck of a nice PR hit there. what everyone else said. a "next-generation social networking site" seems like it would be more.... useful. there's a difference between social networking and a do-it-all DLA.//

By: Ogre Lawless

Ogre Lawless — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:20:27 -0800

Mixing together a lot of popular things is not innovation. No, but venture capitalists love it or so the theory goes, though most folks who did lost their shirts in dotbomb.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:24:23 -0800

ahhhhhhh!!! *this* is what their interface looks like? i thought i was going to have an aneurysm as soon as i hit the page. "busy" doesn't even begin to describe that. i can and have written better "social networking" sites than that drivel. matt, I'd expect that you'll be "wooed" by [Lycos]. It seems like "more" than [AltaVista] can offer, and the guy behind [WebCrawler] made it? I definitely would prefer to roll my own rather than give up control.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:40:59 -0800

here's a screenshot if anyone's curious about the previous comment. loathe as i generally am to self-link, i figured i shouldn't let that hang. if any of the members of the mefi community have comments on the project, i'd love to hear them. :) (disclaimer: DNS is acting a bit weird today thanks to our previous hosting company)

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:43:35 -0800

(if DNS fails the direct IP should work)

By: me3dia

me3dia — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 13:53:10 -0800

This looks a lot like Yahoo 360° to me, but uglier. The social networking field is getting really crowded. I'm sure every media company thinks they need to get into that market, but when everyone has to put profiles on a dozen different networks in order to reach all their friends, the concept is no longer working.

By: Freen

Freen — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 14:47:26 -0800

The thing is though, no one has figured out how to make any money off of it. Seriously, myspace was bought for half a billion. That means something in the realm of $50/user. Their revenue model was almost totally based on CPM, at about 90 cents each. Basically, its the whole early nineties all over again. User growth before business model.

By: Freen

Freen — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 14:49:42 -0800

Also note: The things you call the "the hot features that are all over the web, like photos, videos, and dating info.", they aren't really new. They've been around forever.

By: rzklkng

rzklkng — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 15:45:17 -0800

Freen, I understand, but this product doesn't seem like it's targeted towards the typical MeFi user...more so the regular web and email user. They have no idea about Flickr, del.icio.us, or MeFi for that matter. And as far as money goes, I guess it will be based on 1.) aggregating and selling customer info, 2.) the sale of upgraded services and 3.) regular advertising. Internet advertising is growing in excess of TV advertising, which is why Murdoch spent too much money for MySpace after too little deliberation.

By: tpl1212

tpl1212 — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:22:21 -0800

AlwaysOn made it to my sh**list when they made it clear I could fart my way to the moon easier than I could unsubscribe from their emailings... This looks...unimpressive? Do people still use social networking sites? I guess so...there will always be single people.

By: BlackLeotardFront

BlackLeotardFront — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:34:25 -0800

Sorry, but no social network will be "next-generation" if it is some shit on the web with RSS or some other woohoo web app on it and delusions of grandeur. What WILL be next-gen is something like AIM mixed with Friendster mixed with Blogger plus a little dash of eMule and maybe some mefi, del.icio.us and Flickr, and NONE OF THIS MUST BE IN MY WEB BROWSER. It must take up few resources, be easy to use and practically automatic, running in the background, remote accessible, and all that. I don't know when this will happen or who will do it (bets on Google for the real thing) but until then its just another friendster clone, refined a bit but still ultimately doomed by overpopulation, web based-ness, and such.

By: rzklkng

rzklkng — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:07:49 -0800

Well, so what does it need to be? IMO, the problem with the web and all of the individual services don't sum up to you as an online person. You have no social currency. I'm thinking about this thing - scroll down to "Distributed Credibility: Challenges of Trust". Does something like GoingsOn help solve that?

By: IshmaelGraves

IshmaelGraves — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:30:24 -0800

I know I personally got a little concerned about Technorati's announcement of a commercial blog monitoring application, meaning that they would be profitting of the work of others without compensation. That's Google's entire business model (and MeFi's, for that matter, inasmuch as MeFi has a business model). I don't see anything wrong with it. Providing organization of and access to publicly available content adds value. Do people still use social networking sites? I guess so...there will always be single people. That, my friend, is a vicious and unwarranted slur on the single among us, most of whom, I expect, would rather have red-hot needles stuck through our eyeballs than attempt to form a relationship via MySpace or its ilk.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 19:59:08 -0800

By: tsarfan

tsarfan — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 03:13:45 -0800

are we to assume through the screenshot that noah and ev are involved in this?

By: tpl1212

tpl1212 — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 04:55:25 -0800

That, my friend, is a vicious and unwarranted slur on the single among us, most of whom, I expect, would rather have red-hot needles stuck through our eyeballs than attempt to form a relationship via MySpace or its ilk Apologies, Ishmael and to all the single-folks ;) Meant only to point out that despite all the dressing up these site developers/designers/companies do...from what i've seen, 90% of social networking is...well, dating. Nothing new there. would rather have red-hot needles stuck through our eyeballs Social Needleworking?

By: VulcanMike

VulcanMike — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 05:39:25 -0800

AlwaysOn made it to my sh**list when they made it clear I could fart my way to the moon easier than I could unsubscribe from their emailings... I had the same exact experience. AlwaysOn can introduce whatever they want, but I'm sure as hell never going to be an early adopter or consumer advocate for any of their products. Companies have spent the past 3+ years claiming to have the next big social networking product. Friendster, Orkut, MySpace, Yahoo360 and other industry niche networking such as LinkedIn, Monster Networking... 380 in total, according to the Social Software Weblog. I'll believe someone has the "the next stage of evolution for social networking" when I see it, not when I read a press release from a notoriously big on hype and small on delivery organization.

By: rzklkng

rzklkng — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 07:12:42 -0800

In further research, and for those who want to understand the MySpace experience without getting involved in it, k5 has a snark-filled piece on it. Also, Rupert has joined up as well.