Crenk

Just recently I’ve been able to play with the new relaunch of Strands. The social networking site falls in line with popular sites like FriendFeed and PlaxoPulse, and looks to aggregate your social networking habits all in one place, but extend to even recommending things you might like.

Some will say that the multitude of social network platforms are watering down the market, and while that may be so, there are always small distinctions that separate them from one another. I for one thoroughly enjoy my Strands account specifically because of recommendations. Now even though I am new and still meeting people on there, I enjoy going through profiles and looking through recommendations.

Strands single handedly battles the information overload and filters your “feeds” from different social network sites. You set up your profile the way you want Strands to respond. What I find especially interesting is that Strands does not just support the major players in the game, but also reaches out and taps into lesser known social networks such as Hype Machine and Meneame (Spanish Digg clone). This really creates a sense of inclusiveness as opposed to exclusiveness.

Strands “evangelist” Drew Olanoff on Twitter is a great person to follow on Twitter for day to day happenings with Strands. Sure he incorporates details of his personal life, but he works to build strong relationships with the communities he’s a part of and welcomes feedback on Strands.

If you’re looking for a method of “life streaming” that is functional and easy to use, definitely check out Strands. I don’t see it knocking off the heavy hitters like FriendFeed just yet, but I do see some major success for this social networking site.

Currently the site is still under private beta, but you can sign up at their site to receive an invite, or if you’re really nice to a certain someone on Twitter, perhaps…just maybe an invite might float your way!

Fire Eagle, a Yahoo property, has opened up its doors from beta to public use. After spending some lengthy time in development and beta, Fire Eagle looks to answer the question…Where Are You?

For starters do not mistake Fire Eagle for another social network, it is not. Fire Eagle works in conjunction with a variety of other social networks with new additions being worked on daily. This enhancement allows users of specific networks to know where you are, provided you update. Fire Eagle takes the address, location, or name of the place you are at and creates a map that others can see.

I have attached Fire Eagle to work with BrightKite and so far it’s been amazing. I’ve set up alerts to notify me when my friends are nearby, and I can always look at maps to see where my friends are worldwide, a very nice effect. Of course this app is made even more useful by allowing you input your location from your mobile device.

It’s great to set up impromptu meetings, a quick happy hour with friends in the neighborhood, or finding directions to where your friend is waiting for you.

Fire Eagle works with the following applications:

• BrightKite
• Dash
• Dipity
• Dopplr
• eKit
• Fire Widget
• J2ME mobile updater
• Lightpole
• Loki
• Map My Tracks
• Metosphere
• Movable Type
• Navizon
• Outalot
• Outside.in
• Plazes
• Pownce
• Rummble
• Spot
• Wikinear
• Zkout
• Zonetag
  

While at the SummerMash party in Austin last week, I was introduced to a breakthrough site that had just launched in beta the week prior, MySites. A MySites representative spoke with me briefly to highlight some of the amazing features his site offers.

Some might say that MySites tries to be too much, but I think they execute their offerings very well. Let’s take a look at the Virtual Desktop aspect first.

MySites does a great job of storing up to 10GB of items, to include photos, movies, and music. While it can’t necessarily import files from Flickr, iTunes, or any other site, you can personally upload your own files. With 10GB of space available you can set up your virtual desktop with more than enough to keep it functional. The files are stored in folders that you have to double click to open, just like your real desktop. You have access to the full customization of MySites which makes it a great addition to the usual items you can place on there like calendars, emails, sites, etc.

The flipside of MySites is the Social Networking aspect. MySites fully intends for you to share your content with friends and across as many sites as possible. With the ability to add buddies and designate which files can be accessible, it’s sure to be a great place to gather to share all of your uploaded files. Seeking others with similar interests is also possible, and is encouraged to fully extend your network via MySites.

As of last week MySites could not connect to any currently existing social network site, but again the site is in beta. I was assured that future offerings would be made available as the site is built out.

There is famous and there is infamous, and StumbleUpon (SU) can make you both. In a recent event, Darren Rowse of Problogger got a first hand look at what SU did to make him infamous.

Darren has been a big supporter of SU, thus using it very heavily to rate sites across the net. In return for his dedicated support of others sites, a great number of his readership returns the support by stumbling his articles, creating a supportive community. Yesterday, he was notified that StumbleUpon had not just blocked, but banned him for abuse.

This misunderstanding hit the media networks in approximately an hour and a half the entire situation was resolved thanks to dedicated fans, but more importantly a customer friendly, transparent company willing to be open on the errors they make.

While many feel that SU was in the wrong, I find that measuring a business by how it admits and handles its errors is more important than assigning blame. SU did a fantastic and prompt job responding to Darren and Problogger was reestablished.

What is StumbleUpon?

StumbleUpon, similar to Digg, allows you to vote for sites, increasing the popularity based on user support. Once a site has been stumbled, a chain reaction through the social network is viral, and many sites see an increase in traffic.

A toolbar installs into the browser header once downloaded. This allows them to “stumble” a site, a basic “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” If you “thumbs up” a site, you are allowed to provide a brief description of the site and your rating. If a site has already been stumbled then you’ve simply boosted the sites rating, which affects the frequency in the rotation of random sites that SU will display. StumbleUpon is heavily monitored for abuse to provide a level playing field for all sites involved.

I for one enjoy and fully support StumbleUpon, and encourage you to explore the application and while ranking sites is always enjoyable, clicking the “stumble” button can take you to sites you may never have found otherwise.

Photo Credit, tris

Since the development of social media one area that hasnt really evolved yet is the beer or alcohol social network. So at this moment where do you head to rate beer? Well as far I know there are 3 key places to head. Ratebeer, BeerAdvocate, and Beer Suggest. Currently, all these sites are growing but the clear leader has to be Ratebeer. The site has  huge database with some great beers in their and a very active user base.

However that being said, no really site has been able to establish the equivalent to what Snooth has done in the wine industry. Snooth has a brilliant looking site that in as equally rich in features as it is in user contributions. I think there is a real big potential to have the leading site in this market, I just wish I had the time to produce such a site.

Yesterday I was sent a very interesting link and it lead me to BuddyFetch. BuddyFetch is a unique search engine that allows users to search for fellow IM, social networking and even online dating users. The itself is very simple to use and has a nice layout, but im still not too sure if it is actually worth using. The user inputs some keywords into the search tool and then a list of people appears below. From the search results you can find out their gender, age, location and which network they are on.

BuddyFetch is search some of the largest social networks out there such as, Myspace, Bebo, Hi5, Meetup, Youtube, Friendster, Facebook, PlentyofFish and more.

The idea is a very simple one, but quite effective. I cant say im the type of person who is desperate enough to spend even 10 min on this tool to try to find a  date, but you never know it might even find you a date!

Here at Crenk we have already reported about Myspace and their new music offering several times. It seems now that the launch is imminent. The LA Times has reported that Myspace will be launching their music offering as early as tomorrow. The new service will compete directly with iTunes and will be offering music downloads, streams, videos and mobile phone ring tones, along with related items, such as merchandise and concert tickets.

Stay tuned for more coverage about the launch in coming days.

It has been reported that Chinese social network QQ made $523 million in revenues last year, which actually is almost four times more than Facebook. Facebook only turned over a revenue of $150 million, and while they reported a $50 million loss in 2007, QQ reported a profit of $224 million.

However, the most surprising stat is that QQ earned only 13 percent from online ad revenue. The majority of their revenues come from virtual goods, games and even mobile services made them 21 percent of the total. Facebook, wake up, this is the way forward. Services will always make more money than advertising.

I was just reading a very interesting post over at GigaOM which discussed the possibility of Automattic (Wordpress creators) creating an application to turn Wordpress into a social network. It is rumoured that Automattic have just hired Andy Peatling, who is the guy who created BuddyPress, which is a Wordpress-based social network. The next key is that on Matt Mullenweg’s blog, he writes:

It’s clear that the future is social. Connections are key. WordPress MU is a platform which has shown itself to be able to operate at Internet-scale and with BuddyPress we can make it friendlier. Someday, perhaps, the world will have a truly Free and Open Source alternative to the walled gardens and open-only-in-API platforms that currently dominate our social landscape.

Now does this mean that Matt just wants a piece of Zuckerberg and what he has, or does he really want to develop a product that Blogs, Forums, and Social Networking, together?

Im all for open source software and I think what Matt has done with Wordpress and possibly also trying to create with BuddyPress is the way forward. Open source software is nearly a part of every developers life in one form or another. Improvements in this market will always be moving and social network is the newest market to get involved in.

ebuga is a startup that is looking to explore the automotive market of social networking. The company has already launched 5 versions of its product, in Spain, Italy, UK, Germany and Austria. All the sites are identical except they are tailored for that exact market. Ebuga claim that their site is a vertical social network, designed to harness the power of community enabling users to make informed decisions about their next car purchase. I must agree that the site does this, but there are so many floors in the design and execution.

The ebuga system has a lot of features, maybe even too many. These features include car reviews, dealer reviews, group creations, digg like news aggregator, wiki system and more. Currently the UK version of the site has over 800 users which is not too bad for a social network that only began at the end of last year.

After looking at the site is seems to be very unclear on how all the sections work and where they start and finish. The sites white background doesnt distinguish all the key features in each section and doesnt highlight the content. It all seems to just roll into one and fades out.

I really do suggest the guys at ebuga really think a lot more about their layout and think about putting each feature into its own boxed system and highlighting the key features in each area. Additionally, I noticed no advertising on the site, so I hope they already have a business model planned but in the products initial stages they are trying to keep the product clean and fresh, which is the right approach.

Overall, I think this idea and site has a lot of potential and really think the group can do quite well. However, the site needs to have a completely new design in my opinion and needs to clean up all the features into one nice package, so the average car lover can love the site. Thus, the average car lover is not know to be the smartest person in the world.