Where is Google Contacts?

The latest couple of days the buzz has heated up around something new from Google.

It started a while ago when there was talks about Socialstream and the evolution of Orkut. That Google enhances in the Social network arena is expected. And Orkut might be a good starting point.

But.

Some rumours are talking about Google taking a meta role in social networking (ie as a provider of your social graph). In order to do this, starting from Orkut is not a good option.

You need to start from the address book.
Your social graph contains all people you know, and they might not yet (or ever..) be part of a social network application.

And Google are really weak in the address book area. Don't you think? It is actually odd that Google have a good calendar application. Calendars are definately not as mainstream as address books.

Thus I expect Google Contacts to be announced soon. Or Google Address Book. Or Google Rolodex.

What's your bet?

I am me. Are you you? And should we be?

Online identities are a privacy issue. Or?

Myself I am posing as me. In this blog and in other places. Why? Because of one of the main reasons to participate in online communities and forums is to connect to new people and reconnect to old friends.

However to many people the online exposure is a bit scary. Here's a recent post on Mashable stating that around one third of the user have used false information in order to safeguard themselves.

A good post on the datamining possibilities on the web today is here. Have you looked into what's available about you lately?

The available information comes from a number of sources. Some are Social Networking sites where you provide information. In parallel other sources generates information around you (the white pages/phone directories on the internet is only one example).

Social Networking sites obviously have an important role and responsibility in this area. Here's one post discussing this.

How do you cater for this evolution? Have you considered it?

And finally - a video clip from South Park on the same topic.

Happy anniversary :-)

The smiley turns 25 today - how could we live without it ;-)

Read the history here.

Yahoo! Mash - first impressions

I got an invite to Yahoo! Mash, the new Social Network site from Yahoo, this weekend. I have started to play around with it, but not that much yet.

One notable feature - it is not only you who can edit your "profile page" on Mash - you can allow others to add stuff as well.

I also note that a lot of modules utilizes feeds (of course..), but you need to set the feed URL directly (no auto-discovery of feeds given a page witha a feed). I guess this is fair for the early users, but in order to get to the consumer mass market you need to make it simpler (ie provide a Twitter user name rather than the RSS feed URL for your Twitter profile). I also didn't get my blog feed to work (using my Feedburner feed).

Oh well, I'll continue to play around. My Mash profile is here. If you'd like an invite to Yahoo! Mash drop me a line or post a comment here.

Creating the buzz, one potential way?

I just signed up for yet another Social Media startup site, Dorbit.net. This one was quite funny.

The site is not in English originally. You can tell from the usage of the English language. However it is a bit funny. Makes you want to explore the language rather than the features.

I invited my friend and collegue Daniel (it takes two to tango). His profile displays like this:
I like the text:

I am this way
Hello, my name is Daniel Glifberg, I have 36 and my birthday is the 2 of April. At the moment I live in Sollentuna, Stockholms Lan, Sweden and I am in couple. I am heterosexual. I would like to contact with people of my country.

Profession
I am Telecom. I am working in an office.


Physical aspect
I have 1.8m of stature, 94Kg of weight approximately, tengo some kg of more, and physical aspect white.



Makes you want more - right? A potential way to create the buzz and get visibility in this crowded arena.


And thanks Daniel for letting me use your profile as an example. (Mine is here)

(And a clarification. The text in Daniel's profile was generated by Dorbit, not written completely by Daniel)

Leadership 2.0

I have for some time argued for "Leadership 2.0" as a natural member of the Web 2.0 family tree. I also see "Leadership 2.0" as a needed ingredience for "Web 2.0-success" (whatever is meant by that), as well as part of The Killer Attitude.

However I locked my thinking into "Leadership 2.0 as an individual competence". I have changed my mind. Leadership 2.0 is probably related to the overall leadership/management profile of an organisation.

I was triggered into this direction by a very interesting thread on LinkedIn answers.
The original question in this thread was "A good Manager does things right, while a good Leader does the ...right things. What does it take to do the right things, right?"

This triggered a number of very good answers. One example:
"I read somewhere that a manager maintains the status quo and a leader upsets the status quo." (posted by Doug Miller)
On spot if you ask me... This is one of my favourites from the thread. (To be fair Doug continues "I think that statement is a little blunt")

The overall thread (read it!) shows a clear opinion around the difference between a manager and a leader. I assume that there exist individuals that are clearly both, but you are more likely to find a good manager or a good leader, rather than both in the same person.

The next step in the reasoning is that, depending on what phase an organisation is in, the overall profile of the management shall be blended with different portions of "managers" and "leaders". For startups and organisations that need more change management you need a higher degree of leaders.

Do you agree?

Technorati, here we go...

To claim this blog in Technorati I include this: Technorati Profile

Blogging considered mainstream

Just noticed that this has once again been confirmed in a study. See posts here at 901am and at synovate.

This confirms the statement I made that I'm a late majority blogger...