Gone are the days when people used to fear posting their photos online or chatting with strangers in chat rooms. The rise of YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter (to name a few) has broken the barriers to sharing personal information online. Now, some people are even encouraging connections offline…on their cell phone.
Ryan Fitzgerald, a 20 year old unemployed Massachusetts native, recently posted his cell phone number via a 49 second YouTube video on April 20. Three days later, the video has spawned 110,000 views, 361 comments and 5,000 phone calls and text messages.
This isn’t the first time that someone has shared their cell phone number via YouTube, but Ryan is the first to commit to receiving 100,000 calls. He genuinely wants to speak with anyone, anywhere. His video has even prompted some to step up and defend his actions.
As usual, traditional media has picked up on the buzz around this video. The Boston Globe even spoke with a criminologist at Northeastern University to discuss just how dangerous this experiment can be. “But the question is, why take a risk like that when there are so many other ways that are far less dangerous to be altruistic, to be generous, to be helpful to other people.”
Feel free to check out Ryan on YouTube and view his response video where he addresses his naysayers directly.
The much anticipated MySpace News went live this morning.
Based on articles from TechCrunch and Reuters, the new site “resembles a mix of Google Inc.’s Google News, which collects stories and arranges them based on thematic similarities and Digg.com, which displays stories suggested by its readers and displays them according to their popularity ranking”. MySpace is utilizing Newroo, which is similar to Memeorandum.
The site doesn’t look too bad right now, especially for being in beta form. I was expecting something a little more extraordinary with the initial launch. It seems like a great concept, but I’m concerned that it has already been done. Hopefully with their large audience the site will definitely take off.
As information becomes more easily accessible on the web, the public and media are putting more pressure on companies like Microsoft and Google to be more transparent. However, true transparency can only happen when both sides communicate fully, meaning that the audience must be transparent too.
First it was Justin.TV and now Robert Scoble is broadcasting live while he is at the Web 2.0 conference. Robert admits that being “on” all the time is exhausting. and both Justin and Robert have turned off the cameras at times, to the disappointment of their audiences. Justin turned his camera off right before he got intimate with a girl on a date. Viewers complain that they are not getting the full transparency promised. But transparency is a two-way street–the public cannot expect to get to see and know everything, without investing or participating fully themselves.
Sure there are tons of people watching and they message the live broadcasts, but how much of themselves are they revealing? Not as much as Justin and Robert. Yes, the public demands transparency, but shouldn’t we have to participate fully and be totally transparent ourselves before we demand others to do so?
When I needed to study for the SAT, I bought a book. Not to say I used it, but I at least had the thing. Kids these days have another choice: B4Class.
Launched and promoted by 18 year old Sofia Loginova, this new website has gotten a lot of publicity around Boston, unfortunately, some of it, as reported in Boston.com, has not been so great.
It is billed as a social network whose goal is to “provide a fun and interactive online community that is user-friendly and allows members to freely and safely meet other great people.”
What makes this site different is the way they are targeting the teen market: offering “something nobody is offering … free online tutoring for your GMATS, LSAT and SAT’s.”
Young entrepreneurs have always been a part of the social web. MySpace, Facebook, and many other very popular sites have all been created by young people with big dreams. The problem has become that these days, everyone is trying to capture the magic that the two social networks mentioned above excelled at generating.
There are many sites flooding the social network space that have no real distinguishing features, quality layouts, or most importantly of all, user appeal. As these “out-of-the-box” social networks become cheaper and cheaper, social networks are becoming the “must-haves” of the web2.0 for everyone, right in line with blogs.
The problem is that just having one is not the important thing here. It’s execution, execution, execution. Having the platform is not enough, you need the content, the users, and of course, the plan to make it all work.
