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| Glue: Connecting Friends Through Objects Semantically Posted: 31 Oct 2008 03:50 PM CDT Last night I had an opportunity to take a look at Glue, self-described as “a contextual network that uses semantic technology to automatically connect people around everyday things - books, music, movies, stars, artists, stocks, wine, restaurants, and more.” When I looked at it, my initial thought was that this is a similar in some regards to LivingSocial. After I looked at it more I realized that the application connects the activities of users around various objects on the web. What’s interesting is that if you view a movie on Netflix and your friend goes to view the same movie on IMDB, the engine can tell your friend about your related activity. This is pretty interesting and it appears to be more about the intelligence of the engine than a feature heavy product. At first glance the application doesn’t wow users with limitless features. As you begin to dig and use the product, the benefits rapidly become apparent. While the company has not stated their intention to integrate into Facebook or other social networks, you can rapidly see the value of this tool integrated into your existing networks. Given the individuals behind this project, I’d imagine that they have this in mind for expansion purposes. Ultimately the key is building a highly intelligent engine and then plugging it into a larger network of individuals. The AdaptiveBlue team focuses on building smart products and this is definitely one of them. I’ll be interested to see how this product evolves over the coming months. For now, this is another great product to add to the team’s portfolio. The more exciting part will be watching what types of smart services and tools the company can roll out as the semantic engine behind their separate products becomes more intelligent. If you want to try out an intelligent way to connect with your friends based on the objects their interacting with, go download the Glue application for Firefox.
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| The Average Person Can’t Figure Out Twitter Posted: 31 Oct 2008 03:08 PM CDT
The biggest problem for these individuals? The 10 or 20 people that they follow need to be interesting enough for them to return to the site regularly. While a small segment of these individuals enjoy getting text message updates from their close friends, at a certain point receiving mundane updates from the average Joe simply fails to excite. Then again, perhaps following the average Joe (or should I say “Joe the plumber”?) will not provide a lot of value. The real value comes out of following those individuals that can create the most engaging media within 140 characters. Many of my friends don’t understand why I tweet and they don’t have the same virtual friends that I do. There’s an extremely engaging group of individuals on the site that understand its power and take advantage of it. Maybe I’m simply over analyzing the act of engaging with other people on Twitter. Any individual who isn’t “hyperconnected” is not going to benefit equally and I would argue is much more likely to eventually leave the site. Do you think the average person gets the same benefit from Twitter as the hyperconnected social media people do? Is there a simple way to explain the benefits of Twitter to someone who doesn’t understand what the purpose is? Personally, I didn’t get a huge benefit until I travelled around and began to witness the benefit of following the behind the scenes chatter. |
I’ve been taking a look at the usage of many Twitter users over the past few weeks and I’ve also noticed that a lot more of my friends have been joining recently. While Twitter can be an extremely valuable tool, there is a serious hurdle for it. I’ve seen many users join the site, add 10 or 20 friends and start tweeting. Within a matter of weeks their tweeting frequency dies down and eventually they stop using it.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Social Times To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
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