We’re inching ever closer to a real live beta with the mobiuslive music social network project and I’m personally having a lot of fun with the final set of modules, i.e., the playlist manager and Flash jukebox. As you can probably tell from their names, the playlist manager allows users to “star” their favorite tracks around the site similar to the way you would represent a given email’s importance in GMail.

(The icons on the right side mean “Has Video”, “Has Lyrics”, “Is a Favorite”, “Buy This Track” and “Preview This Track,” respectively.) Marking a track in this manner appends it to your personal playlist, which you can then manage via a funky little drag-and-drop interface built using the scriptaculous javascript library, shown below:

You can add tracks manually using a simple form below the list (although obviously these will not necessarily be playable by the jukebox). In either case, any item you add to this list can be dragged and dropped for sorting, regardless of whether it exists within the mobiuslive library or not.

The jukebox application itself is based on the very excellent XSPF playlist specification and web music player.

To get everything to work together, we created a dynamic XML file that pulls the relevant user tracks from the database, formats it according to the XSPF specification and feeds it back into the Flash player. I had to spend a little time tweaking the player itself to be a bit more in-line wiith the mobiuslive look, but other than that, it was a fairly straightforward process.

ajax, design, flash, social network, Social Networks social software

Leopold Tolstoy begins the classic Anna Karenina with the wonderfully sticky line “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (If you’re wondering how I came to be reading an Oprah’s Book Club selection, I wasn’t. I was reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, which mentions this line as well.)

The line basically means that in order for a family to be “happy”, it must approach perfection on every front which, when viewed from the proverbial 50,000-foot level, makes every happy family virtually identical. Conversely, it only takes failure in any single aspect of familial relationships in order to make you all categorically unhappy. Because this single point of failure is often unique to every family, you could say that each unhappy family is distinct or “unhappy in its own way.”

As I was ruminating on this wonderfully concise nugget of wisdom, I realized that you could apply this reasoning to practically anything in life, but particularly in business. In order for a company to succeed, it must get many, many things right. In order for it to fail, it only needs to get one thing wrong. It’s like a minefield out there; it only takes one misstep to get your leg blown off.

The upside is that every decision you make that doesn’t kill you (or hurt, maim or paralyze you) brings you one step closer to business success. I’m a firm believer in the fact that perfection is inevitable on a long enough timeframe. Granted, not every judgement call has immediate, obvious repercussions, so you could be dead for a long time without really realizing it. Generally speaking though, if you made a call, and you survived the backlash (if any), then congratulations, it was very likely the right one.

I think about this now in the context of the next few months (which, believe me, is one of those subjects that can really keep you up nights), and have a million questions on my mind. We’ve already established that our financial situation is not particularly stable at the moment, so our options are limited by circumstances.

syndeo::media exists to build its own, internally-spun web products, but we’ve come to the conclusion that our current resources will not be sufficient to properly support all our ideas. The strategy now becomes fairly obvious: over the next few months, we continue looking for client work and refining our process. Once the appropriate resources present themselves, we can apply all our learnings to our own brands.

It’s a long-haul kind of strategy, but I can fake patience as well as the next guy. Certainly, funding from a third-party would be very helpful and we’ve already got a long list of things we want to try if and when an investment is manifested. For now though, we’re a young services company with a very thick idea folio. Feel free to hop on anytime

Some interesting thinking on web2.0. Are we moving on from the age of Web enlightenment into the post modern web? Are the clichéd terms like Web 2.0 just the start of the transition?

Enlightenment thinking was clear and organized. There were disagreements amongst the thinkers of the Era, but the Era itself was definable. Post-modernism cannot be defined except by saying what it is not. It is not modern; it is what came after the Enlightenment. “Web 2.0” suffers from the same malaise. People across the globe are publishing countless articles and books to try to define Web 2.0, but like its underpinning philosophy, it is not easily defined. In fact, to put it into a box would be to contradict its very nature.

Nice to see a some different thought on the present and future of this medium.

enlightenment, internet, new media, philosophy, post modernism web2.0

I’m a little late in posting this but I thought I would follow up from my post about the Canon competition. Earlier this month, Nikon for the launch of their new D80 decided to try something a little more visionary. While not a competition, they gave camera to a select number members of flickr and told them to shoot with the new camera. The results were then posted as a demonstration of the capabilities of the camera at the Stunning Nikon site.

A smart move. Nikon got a great example of the use of the camera. The photographers got a new camera. The community on flickr got the benefit of the visibility and the blogs got to spread the viral message.

The use of flickr was certainly a good move. It was very easy to identify the photographers who would be suitable both from the images they produce, the friends they have and the micro communities that they belong to on the site. While the Nikon campaign site uses flash (simply and effectively), it does manage to embrace flickr by providing links back to the photographers profiles. The whole current web 2.0 meme of remixing sites, although not used to its full extent is integrated.

Back to the Canon competition, the opportunity to use a mature site such as flickr that is open would have been better in so many ways. The users, the community, the CGM, the mature photo tools (tags, comments, notes, etc) and even a relationship with Yahoo/Flickr (cross promotion anyone?). As it is all API based, it could be pulled out into a site that is branded like the competition but has all the rich functionality provided by flickr. If done right it could have avoided some of the issues that I mentioned previously

To the credit of Nikon, they were ahead of the curve for the competition. As far as I am aware they are the first to do something like this. Smart, fresh thinking. I’m looking forward to seeing more ideas like this (and even more, building these sort of things at here)

Note: If you are feeling a strange sense of deja vue, this is an updated post from my personal blog

canon, competition, flickr, gallery, nikon, photo social network

Recently I witnessed what could be one of the most horrible launches of a site that I can recall in recent memory. Canon in Australia have been advertising offline and online the launch of their new EOS400d Digital SLR camera. For the launch they are running competition to win one every week for the next few weeks (plus a few minor things… like a huge holiday). I thought I’d join the fray and enter a few pics to see if I could win a camera.

On initial inspection, a reasonable looking site, with fair bit of gratuitous flash. The Australian firms Hyro and Leo Burnett managed to get their names snuck in the footer as developer and designer (If I was them I probably would be removing any association with the site).

My bemusement started when I registered an account. It errored half way through the process and still managed to get an email and an account but only having completed half my details. According to the Terms of Service many of the details I missed are required for winning the prize.

After finding the profile page and adding what was missing, I tried to upload a photo. While it worked reasonably, and even offered a progress meter for the upload, it looks as though someone was not doing any decent testing as the progress bar increased horizontally (which would be normal) but also vertically (which basically pushed the whole page downward).

The footer made me cringe… “Site optimised for Internet Explorer version 4 and above”. The html code didn’t do too much either to make me feel better, some bright spark still thinks tables are used for laying out content. What happened to web standards?

Yesterday was meant to be the launch for the viewing and voting on the submitted entries. That didn’t happen and come this morning the first indications that the gallery was about to be released started appearing… in the form of .NET application errors. Not exactly a great start but after the errors were fixed, what was left was a fairly average looking gallery without the ability to view the details of the submissions (and I would assume vote).

From looking at the number of photos it would appear that they have seen a good response (which could explain the downtime). Lots of pages of photos (roughly 2000 photos on a quick check) but no way to search properly. Yes, they have a search feature but for me did not return anything I searched for, so I had to browse through 250 odd pages to see if I could find my entry (I still haven’t found it yet!)

So a rather bumpy ride in trying to launch what appears to be a fairly simple web application. What amazes me is that they haven’t even considered making something that is engaging and that creates conversation.

What would be a perfect use for a blog to keep people updated is a missed opportunity. Presenting a personal face to keep everyone informed about the downtime or bugs would have worked to their benefit. We are all human (yes, even big multinational corporations and agencies) we make mistakes, admitting to it can work in postive ways.

The site is a very impersonal, part brouchure, part gallery with no real care for the user (I won’t even start on poor usability). Ironic, seeing that the users are the core of the site and also the purchasers of the cameras. I guess social web applications are slow to catch on over here in Australia (or perhaps a lack of vision in agency land). The benefits to brand experience in letting your members communicate is huge. Theres a handful of great photo sharing site out there that could have been used as a model, why not use what works with Flickr. Let the members be the experts, let them post the tips. Let them comment on how to use their great new Canon camera or even let the winners give feedback on their experience with the new camera. So many options for to engage in a conversation.

From the cluetrain:

Markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can’t be faked.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

Can you tell I am a little bored of cookie cutter websites with no thought for the user or their voice? I’m certainly ranting over the poor launch and yes, We are little ahead of the curve in pushing the social internet but for a site that is carried by user generated content, it is virtually a ghost town for any real human communication. Come on Canon, do us a favour and start a conversation!

Note: If you are feeling a strange sense of deja vue, this is an updated post from my personal blog

agency, canon, cluetrain, competition, gallery, image photo

A new report named S–Commerce: Beyond MySpace and YouTube (PDF) talks about two challenges with social commerce.

Traditional advertising is not as affective on social networks and the barrier to market is quite high for creating “branded socials networks”.

“The average online socialite
currently frequents three social networking sites;
when polled, these same socialites stated they would
consider participation in up to four communities. Social
saturation clearly poses a challenge for marketers
considering launching their own online social network”

Specific context and purpose is what will drive those socialites to participate.

Is MySpace without a context and purpose?

online communities, S commerce, Social Networks, Social Saturation social software

Working in this industry I get notified by friends, google, or a blog about every new social network that hits the streets. In Febuary 14th 2005 the the social software weblog (now retired) put out a Social Networking Services Meta List.

This list now stands at 380 entries. Posted Feb 14th 2005 5:55PM by Alberto Escarlate

It’s now October 2006 and lets just say that list has grown. Yet Another Social Network Service (YASNS) after another. Most of us only here about the gigantic communities when something drastic happens like MySpace power outage or a Facebook revolt.

But what started it all?

Who was the first Social Network Service?

SixDegrees.com was the original social network service website that lasted from 1997 to 2001. Wikipedia entry:SixDegrees.com

What happened to the first Social Network Service?

People who confirmed a relationship with an existing user but did not go on to register with the site continued to receive occasional email updates and solicitations; probably for this reason, SixDegrees acquired a reputation as a spammer.
.....The company was based in New York City. At its height, SixDegrees had around 100 employees, and the site had around 1,000,000 fully-registered members. The site was bought by YouthStream Media Networks in 2000 for US$125 million. Wikipedia entry:SixDegrees.com

Not all social networks make it, the more examples we have in market the more we get to understand what keeps people coming back and engaging in a community.

Cheers to Yet Another

Social Networks YASN

There’s a certain allure to starting over from scratch, when things have gotten all muddled and nerves are frayed and ideologies have gone off in completely different directions. Logically, it makes sense to just tear it all down and rebuild, but emotionally, it’s another story entirely. Our previous startup, a social software design house with dreams of world domination, was just barely getting off the ground when we collectively decided to call it quits, and to say that we were upset about the whole situation would have been a major understatement.

But those are the kind of decisions that have pretty much defined us from the very beginning—nobody in this company is here because of the perks, or the coolness factor of working in a tech startup, or the allure of a big fat IPO in the undefined future. We’re here because the work that we do has become such an intrinsic part of our beings that doing anything else would be a disservice. We help people find what they’re looking for, and we build software that brings them together. Our work is, quite literally, our lives.

In keeping with this singularity of vision, this blog will focus on the things this small band of rabblerousers find interesting. We’ll talk about the social software revolution in all its shapes and forms, what other companies are doing, and of course, what we’re doing. We’ll talk about real-world social software development, real-time search marketing techniques and real-life business strategies.

Our collective skill sets make for some interesting opinions: I come from the DIY school of social software, a screw up-prone, home-brewed approach involving four online communities that I have been slowly developing since 2001. Hunter, in contrast, led the design team at AOL Australia for several years before dropping out to work full-time on the software platform that would eventually bring this company together. Hans was a search-engine specialist who made a living bending Google and Yahoo’s search results by (what certainly seemed like) sheer force of will. Also on the team are Raymond Brown, Tom W. Lee, Kaye Inigo, Kai Rivera and Jasper Bautista, each of whom continue to amaze us both with their resilience, their dedication and their unwillingness to believe that we have no clear idea what we’re doing.

But in many ways, that’s kind of the point isn’t it? This industry is so young, and the various proponents are so pioneering, that to stand up and say, “We’re the experts in social software design” would be optimistic at best (and delusional, at worst). We’re not the experts. At this point, nobody really is. But we’re enthusiatic, we’re young and we’re not afraid to make great, big, embarassing mistakes.

We’re here to learn. We hope you are as well.

Luis Buenaventura II, Hunter Nield, Hans A. Koch, Raymond Brown, Tom W. Lee, Kaye Inigo, Kai Rivera, Jasper Bautista

October 2006

company, introduction, mission vision