Most of the comments and trackbacks from my post on LinkedIn confirmed that LinkedIn has momentum as a business social network. However some Facebook fans believe that LinkedIn is only enjoying a temporary time in the sun.
For example Stowe Boyd, a man who knows a thing or two about social media, had this to say:
“Bernard Lunn thinks LinkedIn is in a great spot because 80% of his contacts are there, and Facebook isn’t real for business yet. Wait six months, Bernard.”
I am not sure what Stowe is predicting in six months. However I am interested in prediction markets, so how about we define a specific prediction and then revisit it in six months? If Facebook and/or LinkedIn were public companies, we could test our predictive powers in the stock market with real money. However because they are private companies (for now), we can just do this for fun and bragging rights. Anyway public companies are now all boring, predictable enterprises; we have to recreate the fun in the private markets.
So the prediction, we think, from Stowe is this:
“In 6 months Facebook will have more of your business contacts than LinkedIn”.
We'll check back in 6 months whether that prediction comes true. But for now we'll run a poll to see whether RWW readers think LinkedIn can hold off the Facebook challenge in business networking. Please take a moment to vote in this poll:
This week's poll asks: will Facebook join Google's OpenSocial? The results so far:
Yes 45%
No 46%
Open What? 9%
From the comments on our original post, the 'Yes' camp thinks the benefits include Facebook getting more widgets and developers. Other comments: Timothée said that "Web 2.0 needs normalisation". MikeB asked: "how long can it [Facebook] continue to be a walled garden?". Kiran thinks that "it would be a mistake in long run if they [FB] don't conform to the standards."
In the 'No' camp, Dennis Howlett pointed out that it's a moot point "until identity management and interoperability are clarified [...]". Jon Burg said "there's no reason for Facebook to open the exit doors." Sean Tierney commented that Facebook will "join when it's in their best interest to do so and right now it doesn't make sense." Donv69 said that "Facebook is still too young to start making such moves. Google could easily cripple them using OpenSocial."
So, some excellent pros and cons mentioned in the comments. Also see Marshall Kirkpatrick's analysis of OpenSocial and Josh Catone's thoughts on why Facebook doesn't need OpenSocial.
But let's see if we can break the deadlock. We've all had over a week now to analyze OpenSocial and see how Facebook responded to the pressure (it unveiled a new ad network). So tell us what you think in the poll below:
Last week was all about OpenSocial, Google's project that will tie together Google, MySpace and many other social networks in a common developer environment. The goal: one common set of code to create widgets from. This strikes at the very heart of Facebook's platform, which is not open and forces developers to use proprietary languages to create their widgets.
So, the big question this week will be: will Facebook bow to Google and join its OpenSocial club? The reality is that, for now, developers will create widgets for both Facebook and OpenSocial. Both have very large user bases. But long-term, Facebook risks its user base slowly leaking away and (re)turning to MySpace - or perhaps even niche social networks in the OpenSocial alliance - as more and more cool widgets get released on those other platforms.
Today I've read a couple of compelling posts arguing against OpenSocial (see Jack Schofield's post in the Guardian) and for Facebook (see Mark Cuban's post). And as our own Marshall Kirkpatrick and Josh Catone wrote, OpenSocial isn't that open and so perhaps Facebook doesn't have that much to be scared of.
What do you think: will Facebook join OpenSocial? Or will they snub Google and do their own thing? We're keen to know your opinion! Have your say in the poll below, and in the comments.
Being a big Radiohead fan, I was quick to go and buy their new album 'In Rainbows' via their website. As has been reported, there is no set price for the album - you input your own price, or get it for free. I mulled it over in my head what I should pay and in the end I opted for 7.50 pounds, equivalent to US$15. It came through on my credit card as NZ$22, which is almost exactly what I paid recently for the latest Foo Fighters CD (an actual physical CD that I bought from a shop). My reasoning for 7.50 pounds for Radiohead was that I'd pay what I usually pay for CDs - but in the knowledge that the extra profit will go to the artist (Radiohead) instead of the record company and shop. Being a fan of Radiohead - and of artists ability to earn a living independently - I figured this was fair.
However reading Fred Wilson's post today, in which he said he paid 2 pounds for In Rainbows, made me wonder what others think is a fair price. I'm sure some people paid more than me, and others would've paid less. It's chump change whatever way you look at it, for anyone earning a wage, so it's not really about the money from the consumer's perspective. But there is certainly an interesting principle here about what you think an album sold via an artist's website (or their social network page) is worth. So even if you're not a fan of Radiohead, insert your favorite artist in the poll below and let us know what you're prepared to pay if the 'middleman' is cut out.
This week's poll complements our feature, Non-Profits and the Web. We're asking about your online donation habits. We're not interested in how much you donate, but the frequency. Although having said that, there is an option for those who donate irregularly but give large amounts. Because it may be easier for some people to do that than to donate every week online. In any case please participate in the poll and let us know:
This week's poll is a tough one, because we're asking you to predict the future. But we hope you're game enough to vote, because it'll give us some clues on what to write about in Web Future Week ;-)
We're asking: Which Web technology do you think will have the most impact over the next 10 years? In some ways it's a follow-on to a poll we ran at the end of 2006, asking about 2007 Web Trends. But this one is a longer view.
It is of course very difficult to predict what will happen in 10 years time, given how fast technology moves. Who would've predicted in 1997 that a search engine company would rule the Web tech world in 2007. Probably not many people, given that Google wasn't formed until September 1998. It's possible that the dominant web technology of 2017 doesn't even exist yet, or is a twinkle in a Stanford Uni student's eye (or maybe a Shanghai Uni student).
Our poll this week asks: Which tool do you mostly use for word processing?. We've had a great response, with 837 unique votes so far. The results are very much in favor of desktop word processing tools, which is a little surprising considering the early adopter readership of Read/WriteWeb. Microsoft Word has 47% of the vote, followed by OpenOffice with 15%. Google Docs isn't too far behind OpenOffice, with 13%. But it looks like the Web Office still has some way to go before it is used as the primary form of office software. The results so far, in order:
1. Microsoft Word 47% (391 votes)
2. OpenOffice 15% (125 votes)
3. Google Docs 13% (105 votes)
4. A Text Editor (e.g. Notepad, Emacs) 7% (58 votes)
5. Zoho 6% (48 votes)
6. Another desktop word processor (please comment) 5% (42 votes)
7. ThinkFree 4% (37 votes)
8. Other tool (please comment) 2% (15 votes)
9. Another browser-based word processor (please comment) 1% (9 votes)
10. StarOffice (Sun) 0% (4 votes)
11. Zimbra 0% (3 votes)
This poll is about the Web Office, our feature this week. We're looking to find out your current word processing habits - have they changed much now that online word processing is an option? Not wanting to sway the poll results, but currently I use browser-based word processors much more than desktop ones. I find it very handy to type in the browser and share documents with my workmates and others. How about you? Please participate in the poll below:
A July Pew report indicated that 57% of U.S. internet users have watched videos online and most of them share what they find with others. The 18-29 age group, at 76%, watches the most online video. Our network blog last100 further reported that 19% of adults watch online video on a typical day.
News is the most popular genre of online video with every age group except for those ages 18-29, for whom comedy is watched more. YouTube is the most popular destination, with 27% of online video consumers saying they watch or download video from YouTube.
It's on that latter point that this week's poll will revolve. Read/WriteWeb readers are likely to use a larger variety of online video sites than the Pew audience, so we're curious what the results of this poll will be. Note that there are literally hundreds of video sharing sites on the Web - we listed a lot of them in our February Online Video Index. So we can't hope to include them all. But shout out in the comments if your favorite online video site isn't in the list.
Our poll this week asks: What is your favorite online music streaming service? So far, last.fm and Pandora have been engaged in an epic struggle - both have led the poll at various times during the week. As of now, last.fm has gone back into the lead. Here's the top 5 so far:
last.fm 32% (207 votes)
Pandora 30% (197 votes)
Yahoo Music 9% (61 votes)
iTunes Music Service 8% (52 votes)
Rhapsody 4% (27 votes)
Note that FineTune and Live365 were added late to the poll, but both have more votes currently than AOL, MSN and Zune. There's still time to cast your vote though, so please do so in the poll below:
