danah is hating orkut

danah noticed the massive security hole that exposes private email addresses to any friends of your friends: apophenia: orkut pissyness, round 2.
She has other criticisms as well.

The orkut community for this book

The Power of Many orkut community

I know the book isn't about sex per se

But the dating chapter is going to have to deal with some of this stuff frankly, such as this thing someone just forwarded to me: Lessons I Learned From Casual Encounters w4w – w4m

Social software more useful for novices

Caterina Fake explains why the backlash against social software among the most thoroughly wired blog technorati elite distracts from the fact that social software tools are useful for people who don’t have long-crafted online social presences, in Caterina.net: Continued Enthusiasm for Social Networks.

Permission to link

Let’s be path of least resistance about linklogging:

1. I’ll add a new category (unless you think links don’t need a category but do need to be categorized using existing categories.
2. Start posting links to that category (or to any category).
3. Use the title field, but it can be a simple keyword, no requirement for pithy titles.
4. Don’t post raw URL but use bookmarklet-type approach to grab linktext and anchor tag, and then just publish or – if you feel like it – tweak, add a wry comment, or whatever.
5. If we use categories we can sort them onto the side or give them conditional formatting, maybe to make the titles look more like keywords.

Or we can wait for the next great rearchitecting….

For the geek in you

Distributed Social Software

Open source web-based apps for independent news outlets

The CAMPWARE initiative is a project of the Center for Advanced Media-Prague (CAMP), the aim of which is to develop and aggegate open-source software solutions for independent news media organizations. “CAMPWARE intends to provide a platform for collaborative software development, as well as financial support through project-related developments and a fellowship program.” They have three main products so far:

We are pleased to announce that the 2.1.4 version of CAMPSITE, Campware’s multilingual, Unicode-based web-content-management system for news sites has been released. …

LOWLIVE is the streaming remote control to on-air FM transmitters. Developed primarily to allow radio transmissions to go on-air in crisis situations with minimal personal risk to journalists and station management, LOWLIVE can be used in any situation where remote access to a sound device is necessary. Audio content for the FM transmission will be delivered over the Internet. Accessing a computer connected to the radio transmitter from anywhere through the web, radio producers can upload their own content from remote for high quality transmissions, or simply relay existing web broadcasts to the remote transmitter. LOWLIVE allows to build continuous playlists or scheduled one-off events. …

Campware is pleased to announce the 1.0 release of Cream, a free and open-source customer relationship management (CRM) system designed specifically to meet the needs of media organizations. …

LOWLIVE is the one of the three with a real-world component, using the Internet to get on-air from locations and events where transmission might not otherwise be possible.

Media will cover their backsides too

CNET covers both sides of the question—the Net alone can’t elect you; it’s hard to get elected without the Net—but the sidebar reads, “Bottom line: While Dean may not win the race, his success in raising money and awareness through the Internet has proven technology’s strength as a tool in political campaigns.”

Seattle Times tech writer skims over the social software field

Not much new (though the “so last year” line is good)—but have we already noted XFN “rel” tags?

Social networking sounds like a roundabout term for dating, and in some ways it is. A new Web site, Friendster.com, connects friends of friends in an ever-widening spoke-and-wheel linkage that draws on but goes beyond elements of pioneers Classmates.com and Match.com.

Despite its founder’s protests, though, Friendster retains the feel of friends “setting up” friends online.

In some ways, Friendster is already so last year. Tribe.net may be the true friend connector, purporting to connect people looking for all kinds of things in common. A lot of its tribal connectivity has to do more with transactions, however, than sociability.

For Web loggers, XFN—the XHTML Friends Network—enables coding links to other bloggers with a “rel” (relationship) tag. With enough participation, tagging eventually can permit virtual friendship-building.

Also includes name-drop of Meetup, MoveOn, and Freecycle. (Via Online Business Networking Blog. Links added.)

CA Dem leader thinks the Net has real impact

NYTimes feature “As New Hampshire Nears, Few Can Recall a More Frenzied Final Weekend” says,

Bob Mulholland, a longtime adviser to the California State Democratic Party, came to Manchester on a candidate-shopping trip this weekend, and with a friend from the British Labor Party, he managed to sneak into the Dean event through a back door. He, too, expressed surprise [at the crowded conditions]. “I think the Internet has changed crowd-building completely,” Mr. Mulholland said.