Monday, December 27, 2010

Social Networks

Today and yestarday I was doing a research on social networks, micro blogs etc. The evolution is a spiral. This is not my expression. It comes from the philosophy of Marx and Engels. So we always come to the same point but on a different level. Using this universal low of social evolution I try to look the current status of Internet. In the beginning 1994-1996 we were using BBS systems chat software to do the same what everybody is doing using http protocol on the web browser now. I remember a software called "Hotline" that was offering chat (instant messaging in private and public chat rooms) BBS (Bulleting Board System) leaving messages, news, access to files that you can download or upload. I remember the IRC channels (mIrc on PC and IRCle on MAC etc.) again abilities to chat in private and public rooms and transfer files. The instant messanger ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Instant Messenger and many others, where you can send and receive instant messages in a private chat. After that they have evolved allowing conferent chats file transfer video, audio etc. Google was a turnign point in the Internet evolution in 1997. I have to mention Skype. It was a revolution. It has only the ability to talk, but the quality was just great. Everyone of the instant messaging softwares try to do the same, but not very well. Skype was and even now remains the leader in the audio chats. As I writing this mostly for me I may come later and change some things. My point is that there is nothing new under the sun. The new social networks are offering the same services we had before but wrapped differently. And something that is very important all these services area interconnected. Before the softwares for communication were using different protocols, ports, were for different operating systems and they had no links between each other. For example you can find somebody in ICQ but if he had account in MSN or Yahoo Messenger you can not directly chat or follow his activities. Everyone is using the webbrowser now to comunicate with his friends. We have a common platform, the browser is the uniwersal Graphic User Interface. Java Script, Ajax, Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Java allow building applications for this universal platform. I would say Java Script and Ajax are the main reason for this explosion. Every browser has Java Script. Each operating system has browser. So you realy write only once and use it everywhere. The difference between the computer and mobile phone is fading. Soon we will have only 1 universal device that is going to connect us to the global brain (cloud). The social networks are just the beginning of the process of linking all resources to each other and making it look like a human brain. And everythign is base on blogging. What is a chat it is a microblog that doesn't last longer than your session. What are the comments - the answers in the chat that last longer. So everythign looks like a global chat but with trace. Whatever you say now leaves a trace and can be found. The most important thing is taht we have a search capabilities like google. You may have many things but if you can not find them it means you have nothing. There is a saying "You don't have to have much, but to be able to have it on time". Google gives me this opportunity. For example I have a lot of files with my notes on my hard disk but it is difficult to find the file I am looking for. So I prefere to make a search in google and find something about the topic. SO what is the use of my hard drive if I just store huge amount of things but I can not find anything. Yes I agree there is a software to organize the files etc. but it takes time. And I have never had time to do it. Google does it for me. This is their job to index and make the content searchable. So I better move everythign to internet. I can work from different computers and my things always will be available on time. This is the reason I started this blog. Not that much for others but for me. To make my life easier. If somebody else can benefit from my work that is fine if not it is also fine. My brain gets easily destructed and I jusp from one topic to another but this is fine. I can come later if I like and change it. If not will stay the way it is. At least I will have my ideas recorded. So about the social networks.

1) I started with the definitions of the terms. Just google it.


For me the log is to register something. So you put what you are thinking. Records in reverse hronological way that allow someone to leave comments. Microblogs, Picture Blogs, Video, Audio MP3, podcast all this things are blogs. With abilities to follow the author and find all his posts. If this is a mictroblog we will have twitter. Videoblog is YouTube etc. Facebook is a databse of profiles which are linked to each other - social network and you leave messages on your wall and all your friends have it. Another way of following someone.

For me is very important to find a blog not only by author but by topic also or by used words. And we have this from google. The search engine searches by given term. With the same search I can find everything about a given person including his blogs. So the search engine unleashes the power of information and knowledge.

There a lot of different types of blogs

An MP3 blog is a type of blog in which the creator makes music files, normally in the MP3 format, available for download. They are also known as "musicblogs" or "audioblogs". MP3 blogs have become increasingly popular since 2003. The music posted ranges from hard-to-find rarities that have not been issued in many years to more contemporary offerings, and selections are often restricted to a particular musical genre or theme. Some MP3 blogs offer music in Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) or Ogg formats.

The blog is very easy to build. It can be a part of a CMS (Content Messaging System). You just add at the bottom of each page a field for comments and you are done. You can add a mechanism for allowing and showing comments, disallowing comments but showing existing etc. there are 4 combinations. The only important is to be able to search for blogs and follow (subscribe) to some authors or topics (I am not sure subscribing for a topic is very popular on the social networks).

1.2) What is a forum? - Web Definition WiKi

Forum or message board - online discussion they differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporary archived. Forums have their own language; e.g. A single conversation is called a 'thread'. A forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: forum - subforum - topic - thread - reply. Example phpBB. http://www.phpbb.com/

1.3) What is WiKi? - Web def WiKi

The people colaborate on 1 article. And also there is a Version Control System.

A wiki ( /ˈwɪki/ WIK-ee) is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.[1][2][3] Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative wiki websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.

1.4) What is BBS (Bulletin Board System)? - Web def WiKi

A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users, either through electronic mail or in public message boards. Many BBSes also offer on-line games, in which users can compete with each other, and BBSes with multiple phone lines often provide chat rooms, allowing users to interact with each other.

1.5) What is a Social Network? - Web Def WiKi

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes", which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

1.6) What is a chat room? - Web Def WiKi

The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology ranging from real-time online chat over instant messaging and online forums to fully immersive graphical social environments. A chat room is a Web site, part of a Web site, or part of an online service such as America Online, that provides a venue for communities of users with a common interest to communicate in real time. Forums and discussion groups, in comparison, allow users to post messages but don't have the capacity for interactive messaging. Most chat rooms don't require users to have any special software; those that do, such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC) allow users to download it from the Internet.Chat room users register for the chat room of their choice, choose a user name and password, and log into a particular room (most sites have multiple chat rooms). Inside the chat room, generally there is a list of the people currently online, who also are alerted that another person has entered the chat room. To chat, users type a message into a text box. The message is almost immediately visible in the larger communal message area and other users respond. Users can enter chat rooms and read messages without sending any, a practice known as lurking.

1.7) What is a podcast? - Web Def WiKi

A podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The word usurped webcast in common vernacular, due to rising popularity of the iPod and the innovation of web feeds.
The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting. A list of all the audio or video files currently associated with a given series is maintained centrally on the distributor's server as a web feed, and the listener or viewer employs special client application software known as a podcatcher that can access this web feed, check it for updates, and download any new files in the series. This process can be automated so that new files are downloaded automatically. Files are stored locally on the user's computer or other device ready for offline use, giving simple and convenient access to episodic content.[1][2] Commonly used audio file formats are Ogg Vorbis and MP3. In many respects, this is closer to traditional publishing models associated with books and magazines (as opposed to radio, which uses a live stream).


Video podcast (sometimes shortened to vodcast) is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures. The term is used to distinguish between podcasts which most commonly contain audio files and those referring to the distribution of video where the RSS feed is used as a non-linear TV channel to which consumers can subscribe using a PC, TV, set-top box, media center or mobile multimedia device. Web television series are often distributed as video podcasts.
However, the term podcast has from its inception described the distribution of digital media files, including video and audio via RSS enclosures and hence the terms video podcast, vodcast, and less commonly vidcast, are redundant.

Video logs (vlogs) also often take advantage of web syndication to allow for the distribution of video over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for automatic aggregation and playback on mobile devices and personal computers (See video podcast).

1.8) Web syndication - Web Def WiKi

Web syndication is a form of syndication in which website material is made available to multiple other sites. Most commonly, web syndication refers to making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary of the website's recently added content (for example, the latest news or forum posts). The term can also be used to describe other kinds of licensing website content so that other websites can use it.


1.9) webcasting - WiKi

A webcast is a media file distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand. Essentially, webcasting is “broadcasting” over the Internet.
The largest "webcasters" include existing radio and TV stations, who "simulcast" their output, as well as a multitude of Internet only "stations". The term webcasting usually refers to non-interactive linear streams or events. Rights and licensing bodies offer specific "webcasting licenses" to those wishing to carry out Internet broadcasting using copyrighted material.
Webcasting is also used extensively in the commercial sector for investor relations presentations (such as Annual General Meetings), in E-learning (to transmit seminars), and for related communications activities. However, webcasting does not bear much, if any, relationship to web conferencing, which is designed for many-to-many interaction.
The ability to webcast using cheap/accessible technology has allowed independent media to flourish. There are many notable independent shows that broadcast regularly online. Often produced by average citizens in their homes they cover many interests and topics. Webcasts relating to computers, technology, and news are particularly popular and many new shows are added regularly.


OpenID allows you to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create new passwords.

You may choose to associate information with your OpenID that can be shared with the websites you visit, such as a name or email address. With OpenID, you control how much of that information is shared with the websites you visit.

With OpenID, your password is only given to your identity provider, and that provider then confirms your identity to the websites you visit. Other than your provider, no website ever sees your password, so you don’t need to worry about an unscrupulous or insecure website compromising your identity.

OpenID is rapidly gaining adoption on the web, with over one billion OpenID enabled user accounts and over 50,000 websites accepting OpenID for logins. Several large organizations either issue or accept OpenIDs, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, Sears, Universal Music Group, France Telecom, Novell, Sun, Telecom Italia, and many more.

So when you try to sign in on the OpenID enabled website it connects to your provider. In my case this was google and google ascs for permission to share information about me. When I give this permission the info is taken even to create an account for me. So google will turn into a central accounts repository. zoho.com is the site that accepts OpenID. There is a button Sign In with Google, Yahoo, Facebook.

It allows you to login even if you don't have a password for the site supporting OpenID. If you try to login the normal way without using the OpenID Google button or another OpenID providers you will get error.

Another site that works with OpenID http://www.blippr.com

2) So there is no need anymore to have a web site. Whatever you want to make available you can publish in blogspot.com, YouTube, Slideshare etc. and create a buzz in google. The people will follow you and read what you are saying


2.1.1)
Before Google was allowing FTP blogging. So you provide google with the FTP access to the folder where you want to have your blog. The administration of the blog happens on google website, but your visitors can continue visiting the old URL and see the blog. So for Example we had a domain vecinosdeavalon.com. I have created a folder blog_test and gave google FTP access to this folder. Google was uploading files there and changing the content of the pages. When our users want to see our blog they were going to http://vecinosdeavalon.com/blog_test/blogger.html. But the administration of the blog was done trough google account. This is not available anymore. Google just allows subdomains for blogspot.com for example coolcsn.blogspot.com so if we want to have blog we can not use our own domain anymore to host it. But google offers redirection. SO you still may have your own domain and google can redirect to blogspot. H:\vecinosdeavalon\blog_test

2.1.2) Now you just have to login to your google account and choose blogger from your "My Account" section. you can create a new blog. Just choose the name (it shouldn't be taken) it is going to become a subdomain of blogspot.com for example coolcsn.blogspot.com give the name of the blog and you can strat posting. Under each blog you can have unlimited amount of posts (I hope) but up to 10 pages per post. So this is a mini website (blog)

2.1.3) http://wordpress.org/ - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

2.2) For pictures

The pictures you want to publish (picture blog) you can publish on

2.2.1) http://www.flickr.com/ (Yahoo)

or



2.3) Video on

2.3.1) http://www.youtube.com/ (Google). Login with your google account or use the channel name and the goolge password. Attancion You can not rename the chanel and your username. So be careful. http://www.youtube.com/user/coolcsn

or

2.3.2) http://www.magnify.net/ The Magnify.net free product allows you to gather videos from across the web and build your own video channel for free!

Key Features:
Free webpage builder
Webcam capture
Video discovery from the most popular video sharing sites
Twenty 50 MB uploads per week
Social networking with friends
50/50 ad inventory share

but there is only 31 day evaluation the rest we have to pay

2.3.3) something locale for your country http://vbox7.com

You always have the choice to search by topic or by author. The channel that you have in YouTube gives you the chance to have your own url but doesn't allow you to change it or to change the user name. In most of them you can not change the username even if you don't have a channel.


2.4) Audio and podcast


or check this


2.5) Start your own business


2.5.2) https://www.paypal.com (owned by eBay they also own Skype)


2.6) For presentations
http://www.slideshare.net for presentations

2.7) There is a free place to create a forum with phpBB http://www.myfreeforum.org/

2.8) To subscribe to a blog forum web site etc. use Atom or RSS use google. It is like following a site. WHatever they say trough the feed you get it.

Your google account can turn to be a central point of your business.

2.9) social networks: FB = facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Digg, My Space, MSN (Windows Live), Plaxo - address book for live.

Facebook offers Like, Comment, Share. When you Share it shows up on the walls of all your friends.

So in fact you can find hosts everywhere and they are interconnected. So even if you have a site it needs to be linked to one of these social networks.

The system in facebook actualy is person centrik. It is mainly for sharing profiles. Your profile is like an object and whatever you do may add more properties to your profile. If you go and register in a My Space you can link this to your profile and the people will know you like the music now.
Also when you are new the system imediately will show you the people you may know or with similar interests so you can feel like a part of the group. It is nice. So in facebook you have a second "me" that can be found and makes it easier to introduce you and meat people with the same interests. It offers you preset of people that you may meet, search in your address books in yahoo, hotmail, google etc. so it searches by e-mail, gives you the ability to search for someone by name or e-mail with a search box. So it is like the dating sites with abilities for micro blogging.

The facebook "wall" in fact is a subscription to a blog of your friends. In fact you are subscribed to the blogs of your friends. WHatever they publish shows up as like anews feed on your reader. So again everythign is a blog / subscription pattern.

2.10) For starting and sharing code in a projects

2.10.2) http://www.hosted-projects.com/ - this is not free. But you have WiKi + trac, SVN,
Bugzila, Webdav

2.10.3) http://unfuddle.com/ they have a free plan

2.11) For file sharing


2.12) For Mail and Apps zoho.com It is using OpenID there are buttons for Google, Yahoo, Facebook


What is Zoho all about?
Zoho is a suite of online applications (services) that you sign up for and access from our Website. The applications are free for individuals and some have a subscription fee for organizations. Our vision is to provide our customers (individuals, students, educators, non-profits, small and medium sized businesses) with the most comprehensive set of applications available anywhere (breadth); and for those applications to have enough features (depth) to make your user experience worthwhile.

What is the main advantage of using Zoho?
Zoho is bringing together a wide range of online applications making it easier for individuals and businesses to manage all their work while dramatically reducing the cost. But being more productive and saving money is just the beginning of using Zoho. As we continue to integrate the various Zoho services and innovate on new ways of getting things done, we hope that you will find working online not only more rewarding, more collaborative, but more enjoyable. You can read some of our blog posts to learn more about some of the advantages of working online. Here are a couple of sample posts: "Offline vs. Online". and "Business at the Margins". a post by Zoho's founder and CEO.

2.13) OpenId creation and using

2.13.1) MyOpenId - Create OpenId https://www.myopenid.com/



2.13.2) Check if your OpenId works http://voyageurfoundation.org/index.php?/vms-test/zend-open-id-consumer/ or simply http://voyageurfoundation.org/zend_open_id_consumer.php

2.14) Online spell check http://www.jspell.com/public-spell-checker.html

2.15) Online source code sharing and distribution

2.15.1) http://github.com

2.15.2) sourceforge.net

2.15.3) http://code.google.com/

2.15.4) http://pear.php.net/package/Services_Twitter

2.16) You can even create an image that is going to follow you recognising you by the e-mail entered gravatar.com

2.17)
2.17.1) xe.net Exchange rate calculator
2.17.2) exchange rate history http://www.x-rates.com/cgi-bin/hlookup.cgi

2.18) your own private social network http://www.ning.com/

All these services like blog and forums look like the e-mail. We receive an e-mail, we reply. The original text gets shifted to the right using angle brackets ">". If we reply to the reply, another single bracket gets added to the left of the existing content ">>". So by looking the brackets on the left you can see how deep you are in this process of sending, replying, replying to the reply and so on. Isn't that look familiar. This looks to me like a forum. The blog has only 1 single level after the original the comment of the comment doesn't get shifted to the right or indicated on any way, but virtually is the same thing.

So nothing new under the sun. Just well forgotten old, wrapped differently. What really makes difference is the ability to search for someone and follow him. For Face Book whatever your friend says shows up on your wall. So you don't have to search trough the publications to find what the people you are following say. It looks like RSS or Athom subscription to the publications of the people you follow.

It looks like just knowing Internet sites and what they offer turns to be a science. Google makes it easy to find and offer you the best service in a given topic. So we have to suppress the first impulse to build it if we are developers and google search for what we need. If we can puzzle together something on a very high level that is great. Virtually all major players in the IT industry try to offer similar services. You just have to pick one. My choice is Google. You can take a look Microsoft and Yahoo also. But as I say there is nothing new under the sun. Your e-mail client is able to find all your incoming e-mails from a given person and sort them by dates. If you open a given e-mail you will see the history of your conversation with this person. So one e-mail is a single thread (topic) in a forum or blog. Imagine you always CC the e-mails you create or reply. So everybody will follow whatever you say. So the inbox of each one of your friends is like a facebook wall. Facebook Twitter Linked in are nothing else but improved inboxes. Yes the maybe the way they do it is different but the idea is the same. You can achieve the same effect with the old very well known e-mails. It is nothing else but form of communication, where everything you say gets logged and it is searchable by you or others. Just the messages get organized on a different way. But I have to admit that everything in the life is like that. Just using very well known things differently. For example the weal or the hot water. You can use the water for washing, cooking, drinking, propel something and making thousands of other things. So everything in Internet is just passing messages back and forth between computers. Another words the water in internet is the single message. So for example we can use e-mails as instant messaging system, private or public chat room, forum, blog, facebook, twitter etc. Imagine you are sending an e-mail from your e-mail client to a person that sits a front of its e-mail client. Usualy the e-mail client automaticaly checks for new e-mails on the server every few seconds or minutes. So the e-mail will be received in a very short period of time. The person replays and sends back the e-mail. You get it, replay and send it back and so on. This e-mail turns to be a private chat room or instant messanger. This e-mail also keeps the conversation in a hyarchy fashion. Becaouse remember the answers get shifted to the right. Just imagine now that you are sending the very same e-mail to a group of people and each one of them CC to everyone participating in the topic. This e-mail just turns to be a public chat room, forum or blog. So imagine now that you are able to ignore the e-mails you are getting from different people you you are "subscribed, follow. make them friends" to only persons you are interested in. This turns to be a twitter or facebook. So everything is messages, messages, messages and the abilities to sort, filter, search and organize them in a different fashion. I am not reinventing the weal here I just try to understand it. If it is useful for somebody else that is fine if not that is fine too. It is nothing new. It is all about how you make the people to think about it. It is all about how the messages are presented.

What about the so called channels? On the regular old fashion radio and TV channels there is always something going on, but you can not choose the program you want to watch. This is disadvantage. If the movie already started you can not do anything about that but just wait and hope they will show it again later when you will be free. In internet it is much easier. It is like the entertainment system in some of the plains. You can choose from movies, music, games magazines etc. and play it from the very beginning or from the moment you like. It is great. It actualy looks like a renting the media and playing at home where you can do whatever you like. You can watch it when you like, stop it continue later etc. So instead of channels I would rather call these services libraries. If they keep all the content all the time it is rather library. If they have to remove the content after a given period of time I would rather call it channel. So the best would be when you login or just land on such page to play by default the latest program streaming. But you also should be able to watch something from the past. So yes there is a reason to call it channel. For the people like me that doesn't produce content every second it is mostly like library where they put the videos, pictures, audio, articles etc. and the people can go there and choose one of them in conveniant for them time and watch, listen, read, comment.

So again to summorise we don't need to be web devellopers or understand how this things work to start our adventure in the world of Internet. It is a beautiful forest full of suprises and fun exactly like the life - the greatest jurney ever.

Some terms:
Sign Up = Register
Sign In = Log In
Sign Out = Log Out

The only down site of this internet based living and working is that you have to remember a lot of usernames e-mails passwords. You can use (and usualy people do that) only 1 password and username. The same password is dangerous but conveniant. The people like conveniance. Using the same username is not that easy. Very often the choosen name is already taken. Open Id comes to solve this problem. You login on only 1 place lets say yahoo or google and all other services you try to access will share the fact that you already gave your credentials and you are in. I strongly believe that if we have only 1 programming language 1 operating system 1 type of computers etc. the things will be much easier for us. "Less is more!". Unfortunately we don't know which language is the best, what operating system is the best etc. Only the time and life can tell. "Everything is insignificant and doesn't make sense, but it is very important that we just keep doing it." Let's remember that we all are brothers. We are born naked and we all will die without taking anything with us. So by default we don't have anything. No mather who we think we are or what we do we are equal. Lets just enjoy this great journey called life. The greatest pleasure is not in ariving but traveling.

In fact the e-mail you are using for registration on different websites plays the role of your openId almost. Because in case you lose your password on one of other sites you can require to send you the account details there. So in fact the most important think is the e-mail you are using to register.

Notice somethign very important. If you just close the tab after login in one of your accounts, you are not logged out. So you (or somebody else) can open a tab type the url of the service you were using and just continue. This is because the cookie for the domain remains in the computer. It is usualy removed (if remember me is not checked during the login) when the broser session gets closed by closing the entire browser. Even if you start another instance of the browser you still will be logged in.
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