Follow via:
RSS

The Social Web

From Facebook to MySpace, YouTube to Second Life, social software is reshaping the world we live in. Steve O'Hear provides daily news and analysis of the emerging social web.

Steve O'Hear

Steve O'Hear is a London-based consultant, educator, and journalist, focussing on the Internet and all aspects of digital technology. He advises businesses and not-for-profit organisations on how to exploit the collaborative and publishing opportunities offered by the Web, and has written for numerous publications including The Guardian and Macworld. Steve is also the director of a new documentary on Silicon Valley, called <a href="http://www.insearchofthevalley.com">In Search of the Valley</a>, and in 2002 was made a fellow of the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Art.</p>

Latest Posts

Facebook: when targeted ads cause offense

It's easy to brush off an irrelevant or offensive ad if it's the result of a sledge hammer campaign that "has nothing to do with me". But when it gets personal, it's personal.

September 3, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

Live Feed: Facebook takes lifestreaming mainstream

As much as I love Twitter, and A-list bloggers constantly bang on about FriendFreed, Facebook will be the one to take lifestreaming mainstream.

September 1, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

Yahoo Buzz! opens up, let the gaming begin

Buzz, Yahoo's social news site and “meme tracker”, has opened its submission process so that any site on the Web can now be 'buzzed'. Prior to today, only select publishers were allowed into the program, with around 400 sites vying for the top prize of being featured on the Yahoo.com homepage.

August 19, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

Snap2Face: Facebook lands on Windows Mobile

Just like their iPhone, Palm and Blackberry brethren, Windows Mobile users now have a native Facebook client for their cellphone. Snap2Face isn't an official effort but comes courtesy of New Jersey-based Magnifoca Inc.

August 14, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

Lessons from Twitter's SMS shut down

The news that Twitter has shut down its outbound SMS service in the UK highlights two problems with our industry: A consumer culture whereby you can't charge for something that was once provided for free (the Web 2.0 syndrome), and that Silicon Valley doesn't understand Europe.

August 13, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Mobility

Twitter moves to combat 'follow spam'

In a move to combat so-called 'follow spam', Twitter has begun limiting the number of people any one user can follow.

August 12, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

BlueWhaleMail: Facebook messages "pushed" to your cellphone

I'm not a fan of Facebook's messaging system, but for many it's fast replacing email. It's not surprising then to see a company targeting this trend by offering a "push" solution for Facebook messaging on a cellphone.

August 11, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Enterprise Software

Parents spy on underage social networkers

Children regularly circumvent age verification systems on social networks such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook, according to a new survey of young people's online activities in the UK. In response, reveals the survey, net savvy parents are monitoring their child's underage social networking activities by spying on their accounts.

August 7, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

MySpace lands official presidential debate gig

News Corp.-owned MySpace is continuing its push to become the online destination for U.S. politics amongst the social networking generation.

August 6, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

Malware arrives - proof that Twitter is nearing mainstream?

Micro-blogging service Twitter may not yet reached a tipping point among my own non-techie circle of friends - unlike Facebook which is everywhere - but that hasn't stopped the cyber criminals moving in.

August 5, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Security

Facebook developer fund: apply now

"Get your app funded and running on Facebook while learning from the best", boasts Facebook's developer fund. Cash incentives to help feed the social utility's proverbial brain.

August 4, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

Powering Facebook's proverbial brain: your Identity, Social Graph, and Lifestream data

In Tim O'Reilly's influential Web 2.0 manifesto', written in late 2005, he wrote: "The race is on to own certain classes of core data: location, identity, calendaring of public events, product identifiers and namespaces. In many cases... the winner will be the company that first reaches critical mass via user aggregation, and turns that aggregated data into a system service."While O'Reilly wasn't talking about specifically about Facebook, let alone Facebook Connect which was only announced this May, he could well have been. In Facebook Connect, the company is making a play to own at least two, and possibly three, classes of data: a user's Identity, Social Graph, and Lifestream.

July 29, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Social Media

F8: Zuckerberg's keynote takeaways

I've just finished watching live stream of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's keynote speech at this year's developer conference. Here are a few of the major takeaways, some of which will warrant further analysis at a later date (it's 11pm here in London).

July 23, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Enterprise Software

Social browser Flock wants to be fashionable

It's actually a pretty clever strategy by Flock: Build customized versions of the company's social browser, populated with vertically-targeted content from an array of partners -- and in return expose Flock to those sites' communities.

July 23, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Enterprise Software

A few thoughts on Facebook's redesign

Facebook announced the unveiling of the social networking site's latest redesign today but I refrained from posting until I was able to actually try it out for myself.

July 21, 2008 by Steve O'Hear in Collaboration