CheezeDMG Blog

Recently there has been mention of Google’s new social graph API (an API is n interface for letting a program communicate with another program over the web), the main question of course is what is it?

Well the best explanation we have so far, is

“it’s an automated tool that pulls all your social data into one stream”

Currently a user could have many friends on several platforms, using an application powered by this API that user could both search for and receive updates/information on those friends regardless of chosen platform.

The API works like a search, it uses the public URLs of a user (blog, LiveJournal, Twitter account etc) and the public connections between users, the links on each others blogs or homepages to locate and index friends of that user.

By checking all of the connections the API can tell if the friend is genuine and the application can act accordingly. Developers can use this to create apps that can keep friends in touch of each other regardless of their chosen platform. Similar tools, that work to harness all your social data into one stream have been around for a while, sites like Pownce and Jaiku (now a Google company) have been streaming this knowledge for some time by pulling in your RSS feeds from social sites.

A good example of this API in action is Plaxo Pulse, the first to use this API it shows users updates of other friends on multiple platforms – effectively the user can have a friend RSS feed that shows updates on blog entries, media uploads (photos, videos etc) – continuously updated and all automatic.

So this is cool, and part of Google’s continued aim to make sense of the web. Now with their social API, they are now trying to make sense of the social web and of human connections - but where will it end?

You can see the API pages here.

2007 was the year Social Networking (SN) really hit the mainstream and Facebook was its poster-child. The site, originally conceived for use by US college students, threw open its doors to the general public in September of 2006 and took just 12 months to reach and ultimately surpass all of its competitors. Audience figures from Internet research company Nielsen//NetRatings allow us to look more closely at Facebook’s meteoric ascent to dominate the Social Networking landscape.

The chart below plots the average monthly visitor numbers of the UK’s five largest social networking sites throughout last year. The figures are measured in thousands.

(source Nielsen//NetRatings)

From a position of 5th on the grid at the start of the year ended 2007 the clear winner with close to 9million unique monthly users. The only other site to show significant growth over the same period was Bebo. Windows Live Spaces ended the year in a marginally better position than it started it and Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace managed to hold its ground. FriendsReunited was the only Top 5 site, in a buoyant overall market, to actually lose significant numbers of users.

The difference between the fortunes of Facebook and its closest rivals is made even more apparent by this chart, which plots month on month growth in visitor numbers, indexed to December 2006. It clearly shows Facebook increasing its visitor numbers by 900%, which is in stark contrast to the virtual stagnation of its rivals.

(source Nielsen//NetRatings)

Of course, unique visitor numbers are not the only indicator of a site’s success. Venture capital and IPO’s notwithstanding, the cold, hard, commercial light of day eventually dictates that Social Networking sites are in the business of selling eye-balls to advertisers and, in this transaction, it is page impressions which are the primary currency.

The following chart plots the UK’s Top 5 Social Networking sites by monthly page impressions. The figures plotted this time are in millions.

(source Nielsen//NetRatings)

It is interesting to note, that when measured by this metric, the two sites propping up the bottom of the Top 5 are different from before. Faceparty and Hi5, whilst being respectively only the 9th and 11th most popular Social Networking sites in terms of monthly visitor numbers, are very successful at getting their users to engage with site and make it into the Top 5 in terms pure numbers of impressions per month.

Bebo and MySpace both maintain their positions in the Top 5 with Bebo ending up ahead by a narrow margin. However, after starting the year well behind its more established rivals, it is Facebook which had shown the most impressive annual growth and ended up the clear winner, with monthly page impressions peaking in November at 4.24 billion.

This story is still rumbling on, it started this morning when highly influential blogger, Robert Scoble, had his Facebook account locked. He had been violating the terms of service by running an automated script on FB to see if he could integrate the data he had on FB with that on Plaxo. As the day has ensued, Robert has actively blogged about it (readership in the influential hundreds of thousands) and the ‘2.0′ community from Twitter to Techmeme has been a buzz with comment opinion and support. Robert can explain the background here.

Why is this important to us? Well, the early adopters are already saying FB has had its day (which won’t neccasarily impact huge numbers this year but it is a significant comment) and the trust that people have offered to FB by sharing their information is being seen as not reciprocal. It is also important to understand just how quickly a story like this can break, and user opinion can start to shift. We are already seeing Facebook Groups appearing on Facebook urging the reopening of his account (admittedly only 201 members so far) and no shortage of negative commentary about Facebook.

So what we are witnessing here could be just a very public and high profile spat between Scoble, representing the early adopters and FB, rapidly being seen as ‘the establishment.’ The challenge with major and influential networkers like Scoble, is that when they pick up and endorse the ‘new’ alternative to Facebook, there will be many who follow.

We’ll post more on this once the fire has settled down. You can continue to watch it over at http://scobleizer.com or sign up to Twitter.com to see real time interaction on this subject. (Connect with www.twitter.com/jamieriddell and I’ll show you who you need to follow.) Techmeme also has a great bunch of links and commentary.

This first fight of 2008 could be significant in the future of Facebook, you heard it here first!

Recommendations have always been an important part of any decision making process when seeking out what you need. And the art of recommending is officially as old as the hills, so it comes as no surprise that in this modern age, a recommendation still holds a lot of weight.

After posting my last article about the rise of human edited search results, I discussed it on Twitter.com with my social network there. Nick Butler, aka Loudmouthman (www.twitter.com/loudmouthman) raised the point that any social network such as Twitter can be its own recommendation engine, and he’s right. The Twitter community are constantly sharing knowledge, links and opinions and are always keen to help. So whilst sites like Twitter may not be officially a search engine it is still an important source of knowledge and recommendations.

As we move into 2008 we again need to think about the importance of our content, and of course of service, delivery and all other parts that make up a business. We have seen the rise of blogging as an important tool for recommendations or otherwise so we should not forget the growing channels such as Twitter (and not forgetting Jaiku) which, when used with your community can be an important source of knowledge and dissemination.

Come and ask us for recommendations, join us on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/jamieriddell

www.twitter.com/loudmouthman

You may have seen a lot of talk about Google launching Open Social - so what is it? Well in a nutshell it is an API standard that other companies can use to open up their site and connect with other sites and apps. For people or companies looking to create an app to go onto Facebook, they need to use the Facebook coding. If they also wished to do this on MySpace, and Bebo and Skype, then that would be 4 x the work assuming each site has different coding requirements.

What Google’s Open Social does is offer a centralised code structure which site owners can use quickly to allow much greater uptake of app development and therefore integration.