SocialTimes.com

Posted: 13 Nov 2008 02:37 PM CST

This morning the big news is that Live.com, Microsoft’s primary portal which was originally just a search engine has gone social, providing users with profiles and activity feeds of their friends’ latest activities. As Mike Arrington writes, “Users are automatically connected with any friends they have on Windows Live Messenger, which is by far the most popular instant messaging service worldwide.”

With 268 million users using Windows Live Messenger, the company has access to around 16.7 percent of the world’s internet population. That’s more than double Facebook’s user base. It’s clear that social technology is becoming ubiquitous and this is one more step that emphasizes the trend. The largest news about the new site is news feed which imports user activities from around the web.

The new service also includes a number of features that mimic Facebook. For instance you can tag all of your friends in photos in Windows Live. There is a limitless number of tools, far beyond those that other social networks currently offer. For example there are online productivity applications that are integrated directly into the Windows Live experience.

There is also a robust mobile experience which includes access to your feeds, your friends, Microsoft Hotmail, and a number of other services. The bottom line is this goes far beyond what existing social networks provide, it is a web-based suite for your life. One thing that’s interesting is how Microsoft clearly sees Facebook as a competitor to their social networking service.

The two features that Facebook appears to be lacking in the matrix below is customization and blogging. While there has been chatter of a potential blogging platform launching on the site, Facebook is far from enabling users to customize their own profiles. This new Live.com service is huge and it emphasizes how social features are simply one component of our complete online experience.

To learn more check out last night’s Techcrunch post.

-Windows Live Social Network Comparison Matrix-
Chart from Windows Live Reviewer Guide

Apps for Democracy Announces Winners

Posted: 13 Nov 2008 01:27 PM CST

-Apps for Democracy Logo-

Today the DC Office of the Chief Technology Officer and iStrategyLabs announced the winners of the Apps for Democracy Contest. Within the final week, the program received a large influx of new submissions resulting in 47 total submissions with the winners announced this morning by Adrian Fenty at One Judiciary Square.

This was the first large new media contest by the Office of the CTO and I’d expect more of these to come in the future. If you are looking to still have an influence in the contest, there is the People’s Choice Award which will come from users voting on the Apps for Democracy site. You can head over and vote if you are interested in participating.

Tomorrow night the People’s Choice Award will be decided at 7 pm. Tonight there will also be an awards ceremony and celebration downtown. This is a really exciting event for D.C., emphasizing the government’s commitment to supporting local technology innovation. I had the opportunity to speak with Vivek Kundra, CTO of D.C., last month and he emphasized his ongoing commitment.

In the coming months there will be some very large announcements related to building the D.C. metro area’s emerging digital economy. I’m personally excited to be part of this growing community. For those of you wondering about the contest winners, the top two are below, and the rest have been posted on the Apps for Democracy website.

Indie Gold
iLive.at

Agency Gold
DC Historic Tours

Zynga Launches iPhone Poker Application

Posted: 13 Nov 2008 10:05 AM CST

This morning Zynga, the leading social gaming company, announced this morning that they have launched their “Live Poker” iPhone application. The company claims that this is the first “live game” on the iPhone, meaning that it’s the first to interact with other players in real-time. I’ve actually played a version of the classic game Connect Four in real-time but perhaps this is the first high-end live game. I’m guessing that they mean this is the first live poker game on the iPhone.

The application lets you play with other players that are actively playing the company’s popular Texas Hold ‘Em game across other social networks including Facebook and MySpace. Also of interest is that this is the first iPhone application to leverage Facebook Connect. The free version of the application, which you can access here, provides you with 1,000 free chips a day.

If you wish to upgrade you can purchase the $10 version of their application and you’ll have 40,000 chips daily. As Erick Schonfeld points out, trying to get any more chips on a daily basis will be challenging since the iPhone platform doesn’t allow for micro-transactions yet. Zynga is the first social gaming company which continues to grow on other platforms while extending on to the iPhone platform.

Social Gaming Network (SGN) has experienced massive success on the iPhone platform but it has appeared to sacrifice their social platform games at the expense of their mobile games. Playfish, the current leader on Facebook (according to Adonomics and Developer Analytics) has yet to expand into the mobile space. When I interviewed Sebastien de Halleux back in August, I asked him about whether or not they planned on expanding on the iPhone.

He said that they were looking into it but didn’t provide anymore details. It’s clear that the social gaming space continues to heat up and Zynga continues to be one of the leading competitors in social gaming.

MySpace for Blackberry Now Available for Download

Posted: 12 Nov 2008 11:00 PM CST

-MySpace Blackberry Screeshot- For those interested in using MySpace for business, the company has just launched their application on Blackberry devices. This now extends the company’s mobile presence from their existing platforms which previously included Sidekick, iPhone, and Android. Facebook on the other hand has decided to avoid Android for the time being as they are sticking completely with the iPhone.

Honestly, Facebook is making a bad decision but at least the company has had a presence on Blackberry for at least a year. You can download the MySpace application by visiting www.blackberry.com/myspace or m.myspace.com. I have been skeptical about the use of MySpace for Blackberry as I wrote over a month ago when they first announced the service.

I had a chance to test out the application briefly and it’s fairly robust. The application includes access to your inbox, friend requests, profile comments, friends, and photos. Given that we’ve already covered the application previously, I’ll spare the thorough overview and instead point you to their mobile site where you can download the application. Also, if you are an extremely avid user of Blackberry, check out the Blackberry community where you can talk about your experience.

Will you be using this application? Do you currently use MySpace and would you use it for business purposes?