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Scrapplet Launches Netvibes Competitor Posted: 23 Dec 2008 02:25 PM PST What started as a Facebook app has grown into a full-fledged stand-alone service that lets you make scrapbooks (of sorts) from web content you find interesting or have created elsewhere on the web. RadWebTech has just launched Scrapplet, an alternative to services like Netvibes or even Tumblr, as it lets you collect items from across the web as well as integrated content from social networking and microblogging sites. It’s easy enough to make a Scrapplet: import photos from your MySpace or Facebook accounts, add friends from these social networks as well. Layer in your FriendFeed and Twitter stream, along with various RSS feeds. Find something you like while you’re surfing the web? You can pull it with Scrapplet’s Firefox browser plug-in. What makes Scrapplet so easy to use, however, is its drag’n'drop interface for easy customization and organization of content. You can make as many Scrapplet pages as you’d like, similar to Netvibes. Scrapplet’s biggest differentiating factor, however, is probably its portability options, which let you take a given Scrapplet page and embed it elsewhere across the web (including Facebook and MySpace). Its usability and smooth interface make Scrapplet an attractive tool, but given the number of aggregation services already out there I wonder how Scrapplet will make its service even more useful than it already is. So far, Scrapplet’s business model is pretty clear–it offers a premium account for an ad-free Scrapplet for about $2.95 per month. But in terms of utilizing individuals’ actual pages and collections therein, making it searchable, further integrated with social networking platforms such as Facebook’s, and finding other uses for such collected data are all ways in which Scrapplet can continue to build out its service, which has already taken some significant leaps since its inception as a Facebook application.

MySpace Suicide Leads to Missouri Cyberbully Laws Posted: 23 Dec 2008 01:02 PM PST Cyberbullying is one of those semi-intangible acts that plays into the mysterious anonymity of the web, but that hasn’t stopped legislatures from trying to curb this very harming behavior. After a high profile suicide case in 2006, which was a result of cyberbullying that had occurred on MySpace, the state of Missouri has been trying to get more laws in place to better prosecute cyberbullying. Ars Technica reports that a handful of changes made to the state’s harassment laws includes cyberbullying, which is something other forms of legislature across the world may begin to layer into their own existing harassment laws. The case that encouraged Missouri to include cyberbullying in its harassment laws involved a young girl that committed suicide after receiving several threatening and manipulative messages via MySpace. Megan Meier believed that these messages were coming from a teenage boy that she liked and flirted with, but the situation took a turn for the worse when the boy started accusing Megan of being mean to her friends and acting in a sexually indecent manner. Meier told her mother about the messages and the two got into a fight, with the young girl eventually committing suicide. Weeks later, it was discovered that the messages were in fact coming from a neighbor, who was also the mother of one of Meier’s former friends. From looking at this case, it’s clear that there are several levels of illegal behavior to consider, from breaking MySpace’s own Terms of Service by using an account for harassment purposes to the actual harassment itself. And prosecution alone may not be the only thing a harasser will have to worry about if they participate in cyberbullying. Earlier this month a man was compensated for the personal damages caused by a cyberbully, setting a precedent in China for a legal battle of this nature.

When Social Networks Are Actually Used for Social Networking Posted: 23 Dec 2008 10:28 AM PST We’ve seen so many social networks launch in the past four years, it makes even my head spin. But one key differentiating factor between many of the peripheral social networks and the major players like Facebook is the actual ability to network. Socially. The benefits of social networking (with a purpose) began to come into focus when MySpace musicians found they could connect with each other and audiences on a professional level. And when it comes to social networking for the rest of the professionals out there, LinkedIn is the place to go. Even though Facebook hasn’t always had the best format for direct networking with the purpose of finding a job, it’s still very useful for this objective. So now that millions of people across the U.S. are in need of a job, no thanks to our current economic crisis, many are turning to Facebook and LinkedIn for recommendations and job leads. Such a twist isn’t really all that ironic–those services that prove core to consumers are the ones that will survive the downturned market. But what’s interesting is the new mainstream focus on social networking as it’s being used for real social networking. MSNBC has a full article on how you can best utilize social networks for finding a job. It seems obvious, but since social networks have been used for so many other things (photo-sharing, event planning and promotions, marketing), that we sometimes forget that leveraging your real connections can lead to virtual networking in the productive sense. This could be a great opportunity for Facebook to take its social graph to the next level, perhaps even focusing on some of the networking capabilities that enable users to meet those that can be most helpful–beyond the recommended friends section of one’s homepage. LinkedIn is of course more equipped to handle the job-specific needs of a user seeking work or growth of one’s network, but it’s also been adding more features that look similar to Facebook’s in terms of staying informed to one’s social graph activity. Even though both Facebook and LinkedIn have not been fully immune to the woes of our current market, having features that appeal to job-seekers may further insulate these networks for the long haul.

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