The Chatting Holy Grail

As 2008 comes to a close, we can take a look back at the year's biggest news stories, technological advances and discoveries. I have been watching my crystal balls and I can tell you that nothing hypnotised me like the spawning growth of social media networks. As a blogger I always trolled the net looking for cutting edge tools. I wasn't disappointed, they came in leaps and bounds.

I admit that the year 2008 had many Firsts; ironically while scientists working for mission critical sectors such as NASA were breaking all human records with their escapades on the Martian surface and searching the heavens for life, most of us were glued to the more mundane technologies such as the Iphone and Blackberry, the tantalizing Barack Obama winning the presidency and Lewis Hamilton winning Formula 1. Yeah that is true otherwise tell me, where were you when it was announced that for the first time astronomers have spotted a planet 3 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting a star outside our solar system.

On the social side of things we saw the emergence of sites where you can load a bunch of vacation pictures into a set, write a good narrative about the pictures and send a link to family and friends. Or better still other sites allow you to create blog entries in a network of other travel bloggers. Social network sites have evolved just like most things do.

Now you can not only describe and tag photos but you can also create a large map that highlights the regions you've been to. Once you are satisfied with your carbon prints, you can then share this with friends by sending the url or by posting the map on your social network profiles.

Yes, social network sites were the newsmakers of the year 2008. Think about the likes of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Digg, they all took a fare share of the year's record books. If you don't believe me, ask John McCain and Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama was propelled to victory by money and votes generated by these social networks sites, a concept that was brutally denounced as a fad just a year ago. Well that is the positive side.

On the negative side, the economic doldrums dealt the social networks sites a deadly blow. Most budding sites that were poised to upset the apple cart by providing competition to those already established were bought off while others simply folded. For example companies like Imeem and Buzznet ran into financial trouble, Twitter bought Summize and Comcast bought Plaxo.

The twin-brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss settled a lawsuit against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whom they accused of stealing their plan and business code while all three were students at Harvard and Zuckerberg was employed as a ConnectU programmer. If you missed the story here is a very short background. The brothers, who happen to be ConnectU's founders, originally sued Facebook in 2004, claiming that founder Mark Zuckerberg had swiped their code and business plan after being employed as a ConnectU software developer while the three were students at Harvard University.

The duo are slated to receive a mixture of cash and Facebook stock as part of the settlement. The brothers gained money but lost medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics where they finished 6th in the boating competition. Reaching the final at the Olympics is no mean feat though.

The other downside of social network marketing is that although these sites have connected millions of people, this has not translated to fat bank accounts. It is amazing that sites such as Facebook with over 100 million members are not making bucket-loads of money. Industry experts have voiced concern that social networking users do not view ads, no matter where you put them or how well you target them.

The year 2009 might see a slight change as companies such as MySpace put into place serious cash generation business models. The sites have helped rekindle old ties and friendship. However, they are making people more lazy to follow conventional human interactions besides eating away at homework times and employers' time as workers continue posting even during working hours.

Something else less talked about is the breach of security and privacy for members of these sites. People have blindly decided to display details which should be kept private. Astonishingly an Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court in December 2008 approved lawyer Mark McCormack's application to use Facebook to serve legally binding documents after several failed attempts to contact a couple at their house and by e-mail.That is the future of social network sites.

Not much is known about the other middle tier players in this sector on how they are doing. All we know is that, well the big shots have stolen their thunder. I am talking about social networks (forum scripts providers) supporting actors such as VBulletin, Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal and others. We can only hope that they survived the economic crises. We would like to see them taking their place in the New Year.

I will keep watch here for you while you celebrate your success, failures and above all the sheer feat of surviving the 2008 economic crunch. I wish you the very best.

Seed Newsvine

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