Yesterday LinkedIn launched their own application platform. And there is some good news for those who already have existing applications on other sites, as they have decided to go for the open standard of the OpenSocial application framework. In other words: if you already have applications on MySpace, Ning, or Bebo you can easily port your existing apps to the LinkedIn.
And with that, LinkedIn is probably a network where any application can reach a whole new user base, as it definitely is the place where people come to do serious business. One of the first few applications to jump aboard is London based Huddle who integrated their online collaboration tool straight into LinkedIn.
Clearly, OpenSocial applications on LinkedIn are an opportunity to reach a different kind of consumer, and more importantly get in contact directly with other businesses. Current companies that have already joined the LinkedIn application directory are Amazon, SlideShare, Google, Wordpress, and a few more.
Not really sure that Facebook is the place that people “share documents and collaborate in ideas” but it’s certainly true that it can help teams and colleagues gel together. It’s a bit like the pub session after work where you find out things over a beer with someone that you never knew, and would probably never have known with just a polite chat next to the stationery cupboard.
In a similar way to the culling of available friends in my Messenger list during working hours, there are disadvantages to not giving people freedom to communicate online in the workplace. I know I’ve pinged questions to friends over Messenger that were beneficial in a work-related way, that I wouldn’t have bothered picking up the phone for otherwise.
Obviously you’ll always get people that take advantage of these things, but the same people will find other ways to time-waste online anyway, regardless of the channel.
Here’s a quick list of what they’ve just announced:
General Availability - Beta period is over
EC2 SLA - 99.95% uptime
Windows machine instances
Features planned for next year:
Load balancing
Auto-scaling
Cloud Monitoring
Management Console
Ess Ell Ay - Lite
The SLA target of 99.95% means that EC2 can finally be presented as a valid alternative to traditional dedicated hosting to clients who care about SLAs (which includes, er, all of them). Although 99.95% doesn’t compare very favourably to some hosting providers’ 5 nines guarantees, it’s a lot better than no SLA at all! Developers have been clamouring for Amazon to step up and deliver the goods for a looong time now, and now can rejoice.
Windows in the Cloud
Also of interest is the possibility of running Windows machine intances - we have always been committed to using Free/Open Source server platforms, but occasionally get a request for Windows servers (mostly from big, multi-national clients). An unholy mix of Windows Server running on Amazon’s Xen setup may sound scary to us OS purists - but may be just the way to satisfy those clients who insist on the Microsoft platform.
2009 for the really good stuff
With the announced 2009 features (Auto-Scaling etc), Amazon looks poised to crush the various businesses that have created user-friendly offerings that leverage EC2 as a hosting platform (RightScale, Scalr et al). However, we reckon that the new Amazon features will, like the existing features, still lack a full-featured web-based management toolset. So expect RightScale and friends to shift focus to bolstering their product usability and support systems instead of the hard technology.
So here are the key components that make the Amazon cloud a viable hosting solution:
Like many people, we have been toying with EC2 and using S3 for backups for a long time. Now we can finally justify investing in AWS as a production platform.
So I’ve been having a spin around Pet Society’s world this week - more quality Facebook entertainment from Playfish.
In a large nod towards Animal Crossing on the Nintendo platforms, it’s a character-building, wander-around-town affair. You’re rewarded for beefing up your avatar in the way of clothes, collectables and additions to your home, as well as being responsible for health, hygiene and happiness. It’s well polished and has hidden depths in the form of trophy achievements, hurdling(!) and other events.
What grabbed me about Pet Society is its closeness to the aforementioned console series whilst remaining accessible in a web-based format. Its platform also means there’s no additional financial outlay in terms of hardware for the player - find a web browser and you’re away. Admittedly it’s not quite the same experience in terms of depth, but you’ve got pretty comparable gameplay for the casual gamer without the need to buy a DS or Wii (and you can hop in and out of a stealthy game at work).
Connectivity is also made easier by being web/Facebook based. Hooking up with a friend on a Nintendo DS involves finding a Wi-Fi connection and prearranging identifying tags. Including a friend in Pet Society takes about two clicks - you’re already online if you’re playing, and your Facebook friend list is always to hand.
Obviously this is light comparison with Facebook and the console world, but it’s an area which will be opening up more in the near future. As the Flash Player advances and 3D libraries mature, there are interesting (and fun) times ahead.
Cristiano’s blog has a Tip Me request on the right hand side
A successful micro payment solution, a way someone could give 30 pence to read a web page, has been a dream of web content publishers like the Economist, FT and so on since the dawn of the web.
Usually it has failed as a concept due to two factors:
high relative transaction costs (PayPal) who wants to pay a bank 20 pence to handover 30 pence?
people spend too much time thinking about the purchase - most people apply the same due diligence to all purchases they make, only varying slightly depending on the purchase price (if you are the type of person that buys the first suitable chocolate bar you see in a shop, you’re probably going to buy the first suitable house you see).
i.e. there is high relative thinking time cost to a micro-payment - 5 mins to buy a CD wirth £15 is okay but spending 2 mins to buy a blog article for 30p is a waste of time
But, in social media, like the rest of the web, there is still a demand by content producers (now singleton bloggers) to monetise their content. Charging a monthly subscription (the solution favoured by the traditional media brands) isn’t going to work as they simply don’t have enough content to warrant it. A newspaper provides thousands of content items a day, a blogger struggles to produce one a day.
However, like the traditional “busker” a blogger can attract funds through tipping. Enter tipit.to a nice tipping service that I discovered on the home page of new Nudge developer, Cristiano Betta.
TipIt screenshot
The tool lets you create a tip fund (like £2) and then quickly give 50p here and there to bloggers when you appreciate their posts. If you haven’t got a fund together you can just pledge a tip until you have paid in enough to your fund. According to Reinier Zwitserloot, from Tip it, about 75% of pledges are already paid up and the average tip is 50p or $1.
So who is using it? Well, take up is about 50% bloggers and 50% donation drives and service requests (like competitor service chipin). They are moving into providing the service for music artist pages, remember last year’s Radiohead tip jar approach to releasing an album.
So, tipping is being used on the social web. However is it the finished product?
For me to leave a tip, I really need the social pressure as when leaving a restaurant with friends (a cynic might say the real customers to whom I want to demonstrate my generosity ;o).
Tipping on the web might work if my friends can see I’ve been to a site (mybloglog, facebook connect) but forgot to leave a tip… so for tipping to work on the social web we need to mash-up tipit with facebook connect.
Toby just read your blog and left a tip of 50p…. that might encourage others to do the same.
Not sure why Twitter, the world’s most popular micro blogging tool, is such a big hype? You’re probably not the only one out there so don’t worry. Twitter is probably one of the few web applications on the internet that has lost features in time while gaining users at the same time. It’s quite clear that the power of Twitter can therefore be found in its inherent addictive nature, not its external feature set.
People install custom desktop clients or visit the homepage hourly to “stay up to date with what their friends are having for breakfast”. The end result is a user base that will continue using Twitter no matter how often the service goes offline. If you’ve gotten addicted too, make sure to add the Nudge London team to your list of friends and let us know what you think.
Nudge has been beta testing the Spotify music player for several months now. It’s greatest strength is the ability to share songs and even entire play lists with a single URL.
Rather than send songs around in cumbersome 3Mb files you can simply send a 20 character URL. This will revolutionise the discussion around songs. Now every blog and web site that refers to a song can link its readers directly to the tune in question.
So…. now we’re at the end of the day - you probably need to chill out a bit? Well why not try this super cool Nudge says unwind playlist from the team here at Nudge (you’ll need the Spotify player to play it). Listen to Matt’s Radiohead track, Paulius’s Red hot chili’s or my Mika version of Relax. The in-house DJ prize goes to Iskandar who found the gorgeous Samba Da Bencao.
I have a couple of invitations left so email me if you want one and start listening to the coolest music from the boys at Nudge.
Together with MRM Worldwide we put together this social utility to provide social access to the Mastercard Buzzworld campaign via your Facebook account.
The main campaign takes the “buzz” on top holiday destinations - comments and posts by travellers around the world - and promotes it on the main campaign site: http://www.pricelesstravel.com
The app then extends the campaign into the Facebook social network by adding social features and actions. These included:
share your upcoming trip with friends
comment on the holiday plans of friends - for instance giving advice on places to see
send friends a virtual holiday gift such as a bucket and spade or a virtual cocktail!
Not really sure that Facebook is the place that people “share documents and collaborate in ideas” but it’s certainly true that it can help teams and colleagues gel together. It’s a bit like the pub session after work where you find out things over a beer with someone that you never knew, and would probably never have known with just a polite chat next to the stationery cupboard.
