I definitely agree with the point Obama made in the following video — that the single biggest thing our next president will need to do is repair the damage that has been done by our current administration to the United States’ reputation around the world. Part 10 ‘Single Most Important Issue’
Big news — Facebook has a new & VERY formidible competitor — “OpenSocial”. The New York Times is reporting that Google and a slew of partners are going to launch OpenSocial on Thursday. What is OpenSocial? TechCrunch says it is
a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:
Profile Information (user data)
Friends Information (social graph)
Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)
In addition to Google’s solution to social networking, Orkut, the partners in this project are LinkedIn, hi5, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning — a pretty impressive list (though I didn’t realize anyone still used friendster) of partner sites with a massive collective audience.
Google wants one ring to bind everyone — in otherwards, they want to build a completely open social graph. I really hope this solves the single sign-on issue once and for all. So, what does this mean to Facebook (who is focused on mapping the social graph inside their platform)?
I’ll be the 1st to say, I love Facebook (though I probably have too many apps on my profile that I don’t use) — it keeps me in touch with many, many more people than I could maintain contact with on an individual basis.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, especially without detailed information about how opensocial sites will be connected — but, to compete with the “openness” of opensocial, it seems Facebook is going to have to allow developers to build apps that integrate with fb that function outside of Facebook. The web is opening up — a walled garden is not going to work in the long-term. I should be able to login to any website and that site should be able to utilize (w/ my permission) both my lists of friends & profile information to provide a more valuable experience than without that information. Entering personal information on EVERY single site is annoying as hell, yet right now, it’s almost essential to get any value out of all these new web 2.0 sites. Hopefully, OpenSocial can relieve this annoyance across the web.
This is probably a separate conversation, but where does this leave MySpace? They were already losing steam just competing against facebook’s growth– with another formidible competitor with deep pockets, I can’t see them gaining traction.
The race to build an open social graph should be very interesting…
Max Levchin was one of the early founders of PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in October 2002. Max, now 32 years old, has a net worth of roughly $100 million and could retire if he wanted to — yet he is still working 15 hours a day at his new company. It’s refreshing to see a young millionaire not blowing his millions of dollars on wortheless material crap — upscale dining, fancy cars, dozens of houses, etc.
There have already been dozens of people who have blogged about this, so I’m not going to bother to write anything more. But this is HUGE news — check out Techmeme for further reading.
Why isn’t the US taking a more pro-active approach to clean-energy development?? Oh yeah, I forgot — short term economic stability & growth is more important than cleaning up this planet for our children and grandchildren.
You Do! Duh. Everything with your name & a link back to your website belongs to you.
There was a ton of commentary about “who owns your content” as a result of the Move – Active Rain lawsuit a couple weeks ago — should you focus on building your own content on your own servers or exert time creating content on existing platforms with built-in audiences? This topic is not specific to the real estate industry; it’s a fundamental strategic business decision for every business spending time building an online brand through blogging.
In my mind, the answer is pretty simple — own and devote time to your own (primary) web audience, but also take advantage of opportunities to reach broad audiences. You need to realize as long as attribution is provided, your content is building your personal brand no matter where that content is posted. I’ll never tell anyone that spending time building your own audience is a bad idea — but what I will tell you is that building your own brand via blogging is hard; it takes lots and lots of time and energy. If you don’t realize writing (content creation) takes a shitload of time, you either a) have not been writing very long or b) don’t write very well. If you don’t have the time (a lot) and dedication (a lot) required to build your own audience, save your energy & blog on someone else’s platform with built-in traffic.
Though I’m in favor of building your own web presence on servers that you control (spend $10 a month and set up a free blogging platform like WordPress), you also need to capitalize on opportunities presented to you to build your brand. Writing article after article is not a good use of time if no one is reading that content. Ask any blogger — building an online audience is definitely not easy and they’d likely love to write on a blog with 20x (or more) the audience that their own blog has as a way to gain personal brand awareness.
Take my specific case as an example. In addition to having a fascination with real estate, my passion is in the convergence of technology and business. As a tech blogger building my personal brand for the next several decades, I devote time every week to my blog — which I will own forever. That said, would I guest blog on TechCrunch or Mashable or Read/WriteWeb? Absolutely; I’d be an idiot not to. Those blogs have massive, massive audiences. When building your brand, the same dynamics as a company selling widgets are at play — reach is important. Would you sell widgets through a distribution deal with Target or just sell them via your own web site? I think any smart business owner would choose to utilize the opportunity with Target, even though that distribution channel can ultimately be shut down at any time. Why? Because Target reaches million of consumers — instantly.
In summary:
Create your own presence and spend time creating unique content
This way, you control your audience forever (as long as you can keep them that is) and have strategic flexibility to do as you wish
Take advantage of opportunities that provide access to large, built-in audiences
This is the quicker way to built your brand
All content you create online is building your brand (assuming you are given attribution)
Here’s an awesome video worth watching from the students at Kansas State University — “the basic idea [was] to create a 3 minute video highlighting the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime.” The whol video was brainstormed on a Google doc (200 collaborators & 367 edits) and filmed during one class period.
Here’s the original post at Digital Ethnography. Digital Ethnography “is a working group of Kansas State University students and faculty dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography.”
I just came across an interview with Jessica Flannery of Kiva at WorldChanging, which has become a regular daily read for me. The interview was conducted by Robert Katz, who is a regular contributor to NextBillion.net, and goes into some of the lesser known aspects of Kiva. I found the interview on WorldChanging, but it was also posted at NextBillion. As many of you know, I’m a hugehugesupporter of microfinance — and I think what Matt and Jessica have accomplished with Kiva is simply amazing.
One thing I would like to highlight is Jessica’s answer to the last question of the interview, which I thought was awesome –
RK: What do you want NextBillion.net to know that we don’t already?
JF: Pursue your passion. Peel away the boundaries between you and the people you want to work with. If you do that peeling, you can build connections that change you and change the world. In the course of pursuing passion and peeling away boundaries, you become vulnerable. Don’t fight it. Strive for vulnerability – beautiful things can happen out of it. In that same light, here’s my one-liner: never, ever think you are better than anyone else. If you can live like that, and work in the BOP context, then you can really change things.
According to TechCrunch, myspace is launching a platform for developers, adding increased privacy controls, and letting you group friends. Sounds a lot like Facebook.
Not that I care (I rarely log onto myspace anymore) — but seriously, when the hell are they going to launch a myspace “newsfeed”??
Deliver open, industry-leading platforms that attract the most publishers and developers
Obviously, point number 2 will drive Yahoo’s revenue, but numbers 1 and 3 are the ones that are interesting from my perspective — they seem to be leading Yahoo right toward Facebook’s focus as a social utility. My “starting point” on the web is now Facebook; it’s always the 1st site I check when going online at home (not at work). I now only occassionally visit Google’s main search page (but use Google Reader everyday), which seems weird. Point number 1 says Yahoo wants to be a starting point for most consumers, which is the position Facebook currently occupies — at least for me. And point number 3 has a focus of “being open,” which is the strategy Facebook has used to become the starting point for millions of people.
Though I love Facebook, I’m hopefully optimistic Yahoo can make strides toward becoming more social. They have Flickr, MyBlogLog, Del.icio.us — now they just need to integrate the properly. They already have massive amounts of traffic, so they have a much easier road to being a social platform than just about anyone other than Google.
So, can Yahoo! pull it off?? Can they beat Facebook at their own game?
People that read this blog know I’m passionate about microfinance. And tonight I got even more inspired — my friend and I just sat through an inspiring presentation by Ingrid Munro. She is the founder of Jamii Bora, which is a microfinance institution (and more) in Kenya. The talk was organized by the Seattle chapter of RESULTS.
Ingrid’s story really made me realize anything — and I mean anything — is possible. She started her microfinance program with 50 beggars in Nairobi, Kenya in 1999. There are now 170,000 members bringing themselves out of poverty, with the average loan being $95. The goal is to reach 1.5 million Kenyans by 1010 (I think that was the year). Jamii Bora has disbursed a total of roughly $28 million dollars (US) to its members since the program began. Only .6% of the loans have been written off. Not only that, but Jamii Bora is more than just a lending institution; it provides health and life insurance, a business school, housing, tumaini (new hope), and levuka (become sober).
Jamii Bora’s motto is simple — “If I can make it — you can make it.” Part of every members’ time is spent talking to others in the community to share their story of how they brought themselves out of poverty — as a way to inspire others to do the same.
Here are some of Jamii Bora’s values –
It does not matter where you come from.
What matters is where you are going.
We don’t accept excuses.
The way to hell is paved with excuses.
We used to think the sky is the limit.
Now we know that not even the sky is the limit.
There are three main things that I really loved about Ingrid’s philosophy — she believes in the importance of everyone “climbing the ladder,” she doesn’t want you to feel sorry for those living in the slums due to the message it sends, and her belief that ANYTHING is possible.
1) You’ve undoubtedly head the saying “I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it” — the same applies to those looking to escape poverty. Individuals are the ones that have to climb the ladder out of poverty; no one can do it for them. If you continually give people money, you’re not really helping them in the long run. Yes, you may be extending their lives because they have money to eat for another couple days — but in 2 years, has that money made a difference in their lives? Are they any better off? Do they have any new skills? Microfinance is all about sustainable change by enabling people to bring themselves out of poverty.
2) She doesn’t want people to come visit or help because they feel sorry for those in the slums of Kenya; she wants you to visit and help so that those in Kenya can INSPIRE YOU. Feeling sorry for people is not the answer, as it sends the wrong message — that you are better than they are, which is obviously not true. Be inspired by what others are doing with fewer resources than you have at your disposal.
3) If you haven’t yet realized anything is possible, then get with the program and hammer it into your brain. Success is mental — and that starts with realizing there are no barriers to reaching your goals except yourself.
Thanks to RESULTS for bringing such a great speaker to Seattle and thank you to Ingrid for an inspiring presentation.
For those of you interesting, here is a google video with a 2006 presentation Ingrid Munro presented at the Global Microcredit Summit 2006 held in Halifax, Canada. Microcredit Summit Campaign Director Sam Daley-Harris briefly introduces her to the audience at the closing ceremony of the Summit.
Myspace (blue) is definitely losing the battle with Facebook (red). Here’s a chart from Alexa charting reach over the past year. Yes, I know Alexa stats are not great, but I think the overall trend is correct.
Remember the brouhaha about AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) and the awkward language in their user agreements that prevented people from among other things criticize them. (As Bill Maher says, I kid the phone companies.) AT&T, seems to have taken the feedback from blogs and is changing the language of its terms of service. An AT&T spokesperson emailed us with the following statement.
We are revising the terms of service to clarify our intent. The language in question will be revised to reflect AT&T’s respect for our customers’ right to express opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. And we will make clear that we do not terminate service because a customer expresses their opinion about AT&T.
It’s pretty cool to see a massive corporation react to blogger feedback & change their terms of use as a result. I sense this is going to start happening more and more as influential bloggers gain influence.
I'm going to need good contacts in all these areas at some point in the future, but nothing is immediate. When I get to the point where I need these services, I'd rather use someone I've known and trusted for awhile rather than having to go seek someone out. But if you want my business and to be recommended by me, don't pitch me; build a real relationship and the biz will come later. You can start that process in the comments here (or on any of the blogs I write), via a personalized email, or on Twitter
People that read this blog know I’m 
