Plaxo turns address books into Web social networks
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Plaxo, which makes software for  PC users to keep address books up-to-date, said on Sunday it is  helping millions of members open up their online datebooks to  build social networks like MySpace or Facebook.
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The online community is introducing tools for developing games, media-sharing features and other programs that better integrate with the Internetâs leading social-networking site.
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The Web 2.0-social networking phenomenon&#39;s seemingly irresistible force field has ensnared yet another niche: travel.Dopplr, a hosted service, allows users to track the travel schedule and whereabouts of themselves and their friends through a visual interface reminiscent of Facebook, rather than traditional means such as e-mail.Although the application is still in private-beta phase, its backers have wasted no time in courting workers in large enterprises -- those with the most intense travel schedules. While for most users, Dopplr is invite-only -- a buzz-building gimmick harkening back to the early days of Gmail -- the company more recently created the Dopplr 100. Employees from the 100 companies on the list can sign up for the service. Among the 100 are Sun, Microsoft, and IBM.Other startups, such as Tripit, are also trying to marry social networking and travel itineraries. Tripit takes user-submitted information such as airline and hotel confirmation e-mails and uses the data within to generate a tailored itinerary, replete with maps, local weather info and the like. It also allows users to create lists of friends.But Dopplr may stand out in terms of early buzz -- the company claims nearly 100,000 users -- and for quickly orienting itself around business users.Dopplr&#39;s chief operating officer, Taneli Tikka, said the company&#39;s enterprise ambitions arose from research into their existing user profiles. &quot;We analyzed the user base and found that clearly there were industries ... that were using it more than others,&quot; he said.James Governor, an analyst in the U.K. with Redmonk, is a vocal cheerleader for Dopplr. (Governor also shares an office with Dopplr founder Matt Biddulph, but says their business relationship ends there.) Governor recently issued a challenge to software companies listed on the Dopplr 100 through his blog, urging employees to sign up.He says Dopplr ultimately provides &quot;manufactured serendipity,&quot; for social and business-related scenarios.For example, if you had to travel to a distant city on business, you might well spend the night in your hotel room alone. But Dopplr could alert you to the presence of a friend or colleague who by happenstance is also in town, Governor said.Governor also notes the enduring presence of Web 2.0 conferences, despite the ever-growing richness of the communication-centric technologies that give rise to such events. &quot;Increasingly we work and meet in online interactions. .... That&#39;s not to say it&#39;s not rich, but it&#39;s no substitution for face-to-face contact.&quot;&quot;Some people don&#39;t like other people, and Dopplr probably isn&#39;t for them,&quot; he joked.Dopplr could also help enterprises save time and money, Governor speculated. A company might send three teams of workers with slightly overlapping responsibilities abroad on separate trips over time, for different reasons. &quot;With Dopplr you might be able say wait, let&#39;s send one guy on all three calls.&quot;The question outstanding, though, is how Dopplr will evolve its service into something fully enterprise-ready.One crucial topic for CIOs is security. Business users have given Dopplr feedback regarding this issue, according to Tikka. &quot;That&#39;s definitely something we need to carefully look at. We think companies should keep their confidential information with them and keep it confidential,&quot; he said. &quot;We would only be limited to kind of trivial stuff that doesn&#39;t really help if someone was to eavesdrop.&quot;In the meantime, Tikka said, Dopplr plans to monetize its service through a couple of avenues. Later this year, the company hopes to offer subscription-based premium accounts, which would include assorted value-added services to the basic platform. The company also intends to deliver finely tuned commercial advertising based on user profile information. Also in the works are plans to extend the Dopplr 100.
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Blog network, which began as a single celebrity-gossip property and has since expanded to a whole set of women's lifestyle titles, is adding a social-shopping site.
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The Web 2.0 application Doppir lets users track their travel and buddies at once.
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Social networking site adds Skype service
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People who sign in to the newest social network won't be looking for dates or posting a list of their favorite movies. They will be searching for companies to invest in and listing their interests in areas like clean energy or enterprise software.
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New social networks are building businesses based on exclusivity and limiting the number of users.
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The EOS combines multimedia delivery services, a social network platform, and tools for service providers.
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Think of it as a corporate MySpace for Moto Guzzis, or a Facebook for flatheads. (Harley flatheads, that is.)
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A collection of sites with first-person accounts and photos
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New social networking site lets users share photos, videos, and more.
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Scores of vendors are now in the &quot;white-label&quot; social networking platform business, according to a running tally by a Forrester Research analyst.Instead of a proprietary platform like LinkedIn or Facebook,&#160;such companies offer a framework to enterprises or individuals wishing to build an online community tailored to their tastes and needs. The platforms are being used for everything from marketing and branding to internal enterprise use.It&#39;s hard not to let out a low whistle when you scan this post at analyst Jeremiah Owyang&#39;s blog.&quot;Yup, I&#39;m the analyst focused on this space, and not even I can keep up with the many vendors,&quot; Owyang said via e-mail.&quot;The flood in this market is due to low barriers to entry from easy-to-deploy software, an influx of venture money wanting to get in on the &#39;so-net&#39; action and media frenzy from existing social networks like Facebook, MySpace and others,&quot; he said.This particular bubble could soon contract, Owyang suggested. &quot;Like the [content management system] industry in the late &#39;90s, expect to see some major acquisitions from major [enterprise resource planning], media, and Web companies ... traditional CMS vendors are currently adding &#39;social features&#39; to their products -- most without success -- and will resort to acquiring vendors to fill their suites.&quot;Surviving companies will become marketing partners for enterprises, not just software providers, he predicted. &quot;Let&#39;s not discount technology completely, it can be an edge, but the ones that will stand out will have a full solution,&quot; he said.Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps, said Owyang has a point.A successful social-networking site &quot;has very little to do with technology,&quot; he said, and &quot;more to do with how you program and nurture a successful community.&quot;The company wrote a white paper, &quot;Nine Steps to a Successful Online Community,&quot; that spends only a limited amount of time talking about technology.Like other companies, KickApps&#39; hosted platform is set up to let customers handle customizations. &quot;We need to have a scalable business on a self-service basis,&quot; Blum said. &quot;If we relied on going out and talking to every one of our customers, it wouldn&#39;t work. It doesn&#39;t scale.&quot;However, KickApps offers tools that run the gamut from a simple-to-use editor for adjusting look and feel, to more robust developer APIs. The company claims that about 14,000 sites have been built with its platform.In contrast to the relatively new KickApps, which started up in 2005, Sparta Social Networks is a veteran in the space, having formed in 1999.That seasoning will help the company as the category contracts, said its CEO, Jerry Sheer. &quot;We&#39;ve got eight years behind us. We understand the space more than these new players.&quot;The company is also banking on its J2EE-based platform, which is ideal for large enterprises, Sheer said.Sparta will apply advanced analytics and metrics to derive meaning from social networking data. &quot;We&#39;re going to do some very interesting things,&quot; Sheer said, adding that a social network is essentially a &quot;focus group on steroids.&quot;That strategy ties into a trend Owyang sees: companies offering &quot;insight, intelligence and data&quot; about online communities. There&#39;s yet another related category as well, the analyst notes: firms pushing Web collaboration offerings.From the wide range of choices, G-Unit Records picked Ning, a company formed by Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen. Ning targets both consumers and businesses with its hosted offering.Chris &quot;Broadway&quot; Romero, who oversees digital media at G-Unit Records, said Ning was the right platform for rap star 50 Cent&#39;s social networking site, citing its ability to &quot;stand in the background.&quot;&quot;Unless you&#39;re an administrator, you don&#39;t have to see their name too much,&quot; he said.Romero said Ning &quot;could run a little faster,&quot; but mused, &quot;Every time you add someone with the power of 50 Cent, it&#39;s going to bend the walls of any system out there.&quot;Seventy-five thousand people are members of the site, according to Romero. That growth was driven by person-to-person referrals, not traditional advertising, he said. &quot;It&#39;s definitely the way of the future,&quot; he said of social networking as a marketing tool. &quot;Everyone should do it.&quot;It may not matter much if enterprises find themselves with fewer offerings to choose from down the road, he suggested: &quot;It&#39;s more about the person&#39;s vision than the tools, most of the time.&quot;
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Darren Barefoot takes Rojo to task ...  "I can kind of see what they're getting at, but I'm not sure it's the right approach. Has the market demonstrated that it wants all-in-one info-sharing, social networking solutions? I don't think so."  Rojo is the first service of its kind to integrate weblog aggregation (info-sharing) and social networking - of course the market hasn't prove itself -  the market is still growing!  The entire social networking, weblog aggregation, and wiki space is going to be opening up wide this year.  We're seeing a lot of new web services being deployed on an almost daily basis.  "Their generalist predecessors--Friendster, Orkut, Tribe--were nifty to play with, but ...
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The online application vendor has ported its productivity tools to the social networking site.
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The local merchant social network brings some complementary elements to Citysearch's offering.
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By Anick Jesdanun THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  NEW YORK -- The operators of the online hangout Facebook wanted to help users save time by highlighting changes their friends make to their personal profile pages.