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Marc Canter’s People Aggregator

June 26, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Pa_1
Marc Canter’s Broadband Mechanics has debuted the People Aggregator (currently in private alpha). Normally I wouldn’t blog about a private alpha, but there were zero restrictions on the invite so I assume that it’s OK since embargos are usually very explicit.

First off, this is one of the most ambitious Web application projects that I’ve ever seen or experienced. Finding what it DOESN’T do is more challenging than experiencing all that it does!

Everything on this site is focused on the user. Not on the content…but the human being and our connection to others. It’s focus is on connecting people to others while facilitating a rich publishing environment for aggregating disparate data about oneself, and then connecting to others by joining or building ones own community or network.

Just for grins, I just started a group (Next Generation Internet). Like the screenshot shows, I can create or join a network; build a community; or connect a community. THIS IS KEY since I have multiple affinities right now: I’m interested in Web 2.0, Macintosh, Linux, Open Source software, wiki’s in particular, politics, social shifts (demography, entrepreneurship/capital, et al), and many others. In theory I can have a circle of connectedness here and if I choose not to play in full…I can connect outside of it.

Here are just a few of the intriguing aspects of PeopleAggregator:

  • MyPage: The usual profile stuff (general, personal, professional info) along with a blog posting capability. I can also upload media or — since file size is limited — I can put in a URL pointing to the file elsewhere! This is fabulous since I store stuff on high bandwidth/high storage providers so I can point to it and it also minimizes the I.T. demands for PeopleAggregator
  • Blog search: Simple searching inside of other’s blog posts
  • Gallery: images, audio and video posted by others (which I can aggregate or delete from my stuff)
  • People: A way to find people in the site. Lots of search fields pre-defined
  • Groups: Just what you think though it’s *very* easy to set one up or join one
  • Networks: I kind of don’t get this yet. Maybe join a network of people with similiar affinities? If so, I want to be with the cool, popular, rich people please. ;-)

It’s pretty clear that Canter has embraced everything open: standards, the Creative Commons, structured blogging, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tagging and more. As he states on his Broadband Mechanics site:

Centralized social networks continue the notion of data silos, locking up end-users into a proprietary walled garden.  The PeopleAggregator is a social network web service that will be used to inter-connect the world’s social networks – together.

We can only do that by opening up and giving away our APIs and techniques for doing so. So instead of a single social network with 10,000,000 people – we see 10M social networks – with 25-150 people in them.  This vision of distributed, meshed universe of networks is what PeopleAggregator is all about.

One can come to the PeopleAggregator site and join a network we’re hosting there or create their own network and get their friends and family to join it.  We’ll host that network for free – as long as they have under >128 members.  Over <128 – we’ll add ads to the network – or one can pay to remove the ads ($10 a month.)  We’ll also offer downloads of the system, so one can set up their own ‘meta-network’ of networks. This code is open source and free to use for everybody BUT commercial interests. these ‘capitalists’.

This is an awe-inspiring effort — especially since Marc totally gets it that it’s about interconnectedness and NOT trying to create the be all, end all site that does everything. Even if you’re only a casual student of the acceleration of the participation culture that’s spawned blogging, podcasting, vlogging, MySpace, and all the other so-called Web 2.0 applications (e.g., lists here, here, here and here) then you’re gonna want to finagle an invitation from someone who is in the private alpha or certainly sign up once this bad-boy is public — and get in on the fun.

NOTE: Just came across this on Broadband Mechanics site. It pitches PeopleAggregator for different audiences.

Filed Under: Innovation, Web 2.0

Are Virtual Worlds the Future of Work? Collaboration? Play?

June 26, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Me as "Mojo Fisher"...fishin' for my mojo

While the Collaborative Technologies Conference was quite good and virtual worlds were touched upon, much of it felt staid and, dare I say, old? Mainly this occurred because of how much I’ve learned, understand and have seen in this space…and I’m most comfortable living and thinking in a strategic place so am usually two or three years out in the future with respect to technology and its uses.

What I’m realizing is that the participatory culture of which I’ve written extensively (in the search box at the upper right of my blog just type in “participation culture” to view previous posts) is accelerating demand for a whole host of new approaches and technologies. Blogging, podcasting, vlogging, MySpace, TagWorld, LinkedIn, and all the other ways to connect people are causing me to re-evaluate and re-think many of my assumptions about how virtual connections should work.

Using flat, two dimensional collaboration offerings are powerful and all of the new, Web 2.0-ish providers Foldera, Central Desktop or even Basecamp are providing extraordinarily easy to use, centralized and at-your-fingertips products which anyone who has mastered a mouse can access. For the next several years, these types of offerings will be THE way most people collaborate.

When I started evangelizing blogging and podcasting a couple of years ago to “C” level executives, they looked at me like I had three heads…until articles about it hit the cover of Business Week and within the pages of Forbes. Next up came my casual mentions of virtual worlds. Again, I could just see the bemused looks on their faces…again until Business Week had a major cover story just a few weeks ago.

Just like real life, Second Life is hosting parties, sexfests, but most germane to this blog are the collaborations, meetings and meetups that are occurring.  Stanford Law Professor, Larry Lessig lectured. Cory Doctorow held his book launch party “in world”. This SL blog lists 3-5 events every week.

Blogs like 3PointD, Collaborative Strategies,  and someone (Robin Good) who watches this space and has an intriguing article here. Even a former audio/videoblogging guy, Eric Rice, has really invested in Second Life and the virtual space.

All this said, I have a challenge getting my clients up-to-speed with wiki’s, content management and forums…let alone suggesting they buy an island in SL and build a virtual collaborative space! Plus, if you look at my avatar (Mojo Fisher), it’d be pretty hard to take me seriously if I was holding a business meeting of some kind in world (though I could dress him up in a suit, shave those sideburns, and get rid of the skin tight trousers).

People have been experimenting with mapping faces onto their avatars (pics of their actual faces). Audio and even video is being delivered (I’ve seen faux TV shows on TV’s, a drive-in movie theater under construction, and advertisers are paying to on signage and other locations in popular spaces in-world). So you can see the potential once a few things occur:

  1. Resolution gets better. While phenomenal right now, the rendering speed, texture maps and quality of movement (dependent upon internet speed, graphics rendering in your computer, and the server speeds at Linden Labs, creators of SL) will enhance and make the experience incredibly good
  2. Voice over IP. Once I can actually talk to someone vs. typing…it will be close to real-time communication
  3. A way to offer guest accounts that provide base-case avatars and an easy way for someone to try out SL, attend an event or gathering, without having to invest alot of time in building the avatar and figuring out the rules of the world.

Of course, alot of this is a non-issue with younger, completely tech savvy folks who are incredibly comfortable with virtual spaces and online behaviors. As bandwidth, computing horsepower, and system efficiencies accelerate (and you know they will!), I’m already convinced that virtual spaces will be the work, collaboration and play spaces of tomorrow.

Filed Under: Web 2.0