For all those using Plaxo (Pulse) - now you can show your pulse to others by embedding this widget into your site pages. It’s a breeze to create and embed into existing pages. I don’t really see any great benefit from this though, unless you embed this widget into a site you own (for example into your MySpace page, or on Facebook) and want to promote your other site/blog with a social approach through Pulse (well, ok I guess that’s one benfit ). Anyway, this is what the widget looks like in action…

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It seems Facebook is continuing to open its content for the general public. After making user profiles visible to the general public (and search engines), Facebook applications will soon be available also, or rather the about pages for applications. These application about pages will be visible to the search engines which means that users will be able to use search engines to find Facebook apps. Logged out users will be able to read reviews and discussion boards so they can get the full picture of what the application has to offer. Privacy will be respected, so the pages will only show first names for all users, and profile pictures only if the user/developer has allowed this in their private security settings. Users who are not logged in on Facebook will only be able to view content on the about pages.

According to the post on Facebook Developers, the goal of this changes is to make developers’ applications more visible to the public so users can find applications they love using, and gain more potential users who’ll try the apps. Application about pages should appear in the search results of search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Live and ASK in the next couple of days.

I am not sure visitors will search applications “they love using” on search engines. If they love using them, it’s probably because they already use Facebook regularly. Do they really need to look for Facebook applications in places other than Facebook? The new change will be more beneficial in terms of search engine marketing (SEO in particular). The developer company or individual developer will benefit by getting found on the search engine through such an authoritative site or page. A link from the about page to another site (developer’s blog or home site) would be very valuable in that case. With Google (working on its own social network) and other search engines making attempts on getting more exposure on Facebook, the “SE visible” application about pages are about to take on a very significant role. Developing applications and a presence on Facebook is becoming an important Internet marketing ingredient for companies, and as such an important part of SEO in the future.

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Facebook users will now have the ability to view news from Google News within their Facebook profile through the Google News Facebook app, introduced yesterday. It’s still in beta, so experiments are going on, and there will probably be changes over the coming weeks.

The user chooses news categories to monitor, pretty much the same as on Google News personalization, except every news item can be shared with a Facebook friend by sending it directly, or by sharing it through the profile. There are also options to save a story to My Stories and to view stories sent by friends (Stories from friends). Additionally, the app allows the user to create their own news category (custom section) and save stories with a particular topic.

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Some time ago I was talking social networking with a friend and colleague, and we were discussing Twitter among other services. His main argument was “why would someone be interested in what you were doing a couple of minute ago”. I must say I was kinda skeptical towards Twitter in the beginning. I saw a lot of people using it on their sites, but what I saw were things like “I am chasing my cat around because it just whizzed on the carpet..” or something like that. Indeed, judging by this example one might ask what the value in such a service really is. Well, at the Web 2.0 Summit, there was a situation where Twitter was actually used to bypass a bad network connectivity problem. As you can see in this post on WebWare, there seemed to be a problem with spotty network connectivity, so participants decided to Twitter this conference.

Take a look at this twittercast from the Web 2.0 Summit. This may just be the alternative to live blogging from conferences, although there is no pictures and videos (but then again, this would require good network connectivity, which as mentioned, wasn’t present). Here is the twittercast from Web 2.0 Summit:

It seems we have a new term in the Internet glossary - twittercast - live coverage from an event through the use of Twitter.

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Google decided to intriduce Google Shared Stuff profiles into Google Maps. User who decide to share a map they have created (viewed), can now have information from their Google Shared Stuff profile shown together with the map (for example, the user’s picture appears with the map). This adds the personal touch to Google Map sharing, and since it’s integrated with a whole lot more through the Shared Stuff profile, we could say Google Maps are now Social Google Maps.

Here is a video explaining the new addition to Google Maps:

Google has already entered the social networking playground with opening in a big way in early November 2007. This is another move that clearly reveals the path towards a new social Google dimension. Is Google Search somewhere at the end of the social network evolution for Google? I wonder what Google search results would look like then.

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I guess this was only a matter of time, but AdSense is finding its way onto Facebook through targeted publishers. Although AdSense has been around on Facebook ever since launch through personal pages, Google is now taking a more direct approach by creating a network targeted specifically at Facebook publishers. According to this post on VentureBeat (there is also an illustration of what this looks like), Google is making efforts in getting third-party Facebook app developers to show AdSense on their application pages. But these AdSense are not just plain old ads; they are targeted specifically for advertisers who want their ads to appear on Facebook. Google was only to quick to exploit this opportunity, especially since the other two main competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo, both have Facebook in their sites, with Microsoft already having signed a deal with Facebook to show its ads across the site.

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This is Ray

Seems like almost everything on the Internet is going to open in the future. There was a lot of talk about open social graph, but now there is talk about open borders. Open borders pertains to the latest announcement by IBM and Linden Labs (who are to blame for the existence of Second Life :)) who have proposed an idea about avatar (online persona) portability on other online services. The idea is to use the avatar you have designed in Second Life (for example) and use it in the same shape on other Internet destinations. Given that it takes about an hour or so to develop your own avatar for Second Life, it is understandable to expect people to endorse such an initiative.

According to this article, such a virtual passport system may take years to develop, if it isn’t first stopped by the kind of conflicting interests that occasionally dampen efforts to draw up standards in the fast-changing technology industry. Open social graph has already hit friction, although there are legitimate obstacles to achieving such a standard.

IBM and Linden are planning on discussing this idea on the forthcoming virtual worlds conference in San Jose (where else; think SES :)) in California.

On the other hand, Second Life recently introduced audio to the service, which is a great new way to have meet ups in this virtual world. Apart from the obvious, this can be a great tool for a more serious presence in a virtual environment. Why not schedule a meeting with potential partners in a business venture in Second Life. Pick an island, be in touch using maybe Twitter, and discuss “in person”, by voice, about future projects that will change the world. Well, maybe this would be taking it too far but I wouldn’t be surprised. Too many books have been written since a long time ago talking about things that are happening now. It seemed like science fiction back then…

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Remember Skreemr, the MP3 search engine? I wrote about SkreemR here a while ago. Well, there are small changes in the way the site shows results.

First of all there is the “AudioRank”, showing a number between 0 and 100, which represents the overall quality and reliability of the MP3 file in question. The higher the number, the better the chance the file is actually available for download and with good sound quality. The analogy with PageRank is probably not unintentional, so are we looking at something serious here, or just an interesting catchy phrase? Users can also rate every result shown with 0 to 5 stars. Every result shows its current star rating, which naturally right now usually shows “unrated” since this is still new I guess. Since Skreemr has had a Facebook app since the beginning there is also a small button for every result which allows a user to share that result/file/song on Facebook.

Anyway, small but interesting changes which show the people behind SkreemR are going to take this project further.

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Blabberize.com is a new social network that simply enough lets you upload a photo and add moving mouth shape that moves according to the words being spoken. It’s a lot of fun, and people really have crazy ideas with this. Just browse their site and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Play the video, it pretty much explains everything…

Head on to Blabberize.com and have some fun!

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Facebook released a press release with the latest statistics regarding site performance. I won’t go into detail here because there is plenty to see for those who like to watch numbers in the Facebook press release, but I will quote some of the interesting stats:

• More than 42 million active users; 200,000+ new registrations per day since January 2007
• Over 55,000 regional, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks
• More than 54 billion page views per month

The numbers are impressive, especially the steady growth. It’s no wonder Microsoft is interested in investing close to $500 million for a 3-5% stake in Facebook which is now valued at $10 billion. The price for such a moderate stake is quite big, but looking at the latest stats, there may be good reason for that. If Facebook continues to grow, and with more steps taken towards opening Facebook towards developers thus creating space for further major development, the company may even bust the $10 billion threshold to go much higher. Let’s hope Facebook’s growth doesn’t resemble a balloon being blown up too much.

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