The reason I like Google Alerts, is that when I get behind on my blog reading I still get pushed information via my inbox.

Check out what come into my inbox today.

Social Network Poem.
“There are no social networks. There is only one social network. My social network…But your site is not my social network. It’s just part of the online social ecosystem.” see the full post at The Man in Blue

Also, check out a new IDC document that came out about Social Network Advertising.
Social Networking Services in the United States — Popular, Yes, But How to Monetize Them? Price $3,500.00
“Operators are only beginning to learn how to monetize social networks. Advertising will eventually be big”
Exciting stuff, reminder… keep reading blogs

It’s always a happy day when some of your hard work gets a little recognition. Ross Dawson over at ReadWriteWeb had compile an interesting list of the Top 60 Web 2.0 Apps in Australia.

3eep managed to make a Top 20 spot (coming in at number 19). Congratulations to Nick and Rob. A little recognition for all the hard work never goes astray.

We’ve been working steadily improving 3eep since its launch, adding lots of great features and improving user experience. It’s really only the beginning though. We are looking forward to helping push 3eep to greater heights in the coming months with lots of exciting things to be added.

For those with an eagle eye, you’ll probably notice we didn’t make the top 60. We don’t have any of our own syndeo::media branded Australian web2.0 apps, something we are planning on rectifying. While we don’t have anything to announce today, stay tuned for some interesting local apps coming soon.

Its been quite a while since I last posted but I thought it was fair time to add something. Luis had posted briefly a few days ago about the launch of 3eep our latest project that has been keeping us busy since December but as project lead I didn’t get a chance to update.

3eep is a sporting community that enables fans, players, coaches and managers to communicate, manage their teams or show their passion (even if they don’t play). We are very excited to let it see the light of day (as of course are the team over at 3eep too), for me it is something close to my heart being a rather passionate volleyball player.

For us the 3eep site is the first live implementation of our new social software platform. The platform – media::core has been under development for the past few months, taking the key elements in most social networks (blogs, forums, user management, etc) and putting them together into a solid system based on Ruby on Rails. Months ago, we started from a blank slate and so could build it directly off the cutting edge code base for Rails that became the new Rails 1.2 (luckily it went final before the launch of 3eep). This gave us great set of core functionality with things like REST web services, easy RSS/Atom integration and of course all the other features that make Rails such a joy to work with.

The 3eep site extended off this core platform and integrated all the things you see in the 3eep site. Teams, Clubs and Sports, along with the member management in MyZones. We had a lot of fun (and hard work) putting together the initial functionality for the beta. Like most of the sites we develop, it is just one point in the evolution of the site, one we are looking forward to continuing.

So what are you waiting for… stop reading this post, head over and start sharing your passion.

Joshua Porter over at Bokardo has been writing some excellent posts lately. A common thread seems to be surfacing that the current method for designing sites is now not suiting the needs for a social web. Social interface design (which I covered previously) is becoming crucial.

Information Architecture now needs to adapt to also suit the changing environment.

Joshua’s recent post on Thoughts on the Impending Death of Information Architecture has some interesting thoughts coming from some of the big names in IA. These names realising the changes that are coming and the need to react to them (although not liking the change).

With the growth of things like folksonomies and search, the structured (preplanned) web is becoming less important. Things like the perpetual beta and understanding desire lines are changing the way that sites are developed. Developing a completely resolved site that is locked in, unchanging from day one does not work. Only through adapting, fine tuning and understanding the desires of the users of a site, that a site can be constantly relevant.

I think the “death” of IA is a little too strong. Like the sites that we are now building, it too has to understand and adapt to the changing environment.