ThinkUp captures your posts, replies, retweets, friends, followers, and links on social networks like (but not limited to) Twitter and Facebook. ThinkUp stores this social data in a database you control, and makes it available to search, sort, filter, export, and visualize in useful ways.

ThinkUp is a free software project licensed under the GNU GPL, founded by Gina Trapani, sponsored by Expert Labs, used by the White House, and built by an enthusiastic community of contributors like you.

In 2006, the artist and computer scientist Jaron Lanier published an incisive, groundbreaking and highly controversial essay about “digital Maoism” — about the downside of online collectivism, and the enshrinement by Web 2.0 enthusiasts of the “wisdom of the crowd.” In that manifesto Mr. Lanier argued that design (or ratification) by committee often does not result in the best product, and that the new collectivist ethos — embodied by everything from Wikipedia to “American Idol” to Google searches — diminishes the importance and uniqueness of the individual voice, and that the “hive mind” can easily lead to mob rule.

At the Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh this week, there was a conversation on social networking data. Someone made the point that there are several different types of data, and it would be useful to separate them. This is my taxonomy of social networking data.

A place where you can collaborate with other people to investigate things 1. Start an investigation 2. Invite other people to help you investigate it 3. Collaborate and share answers

Onlangs gaf ik voor een klant een workshop over sociale netwerken. Tijdens de voorbereiding constateerde ik dat dit begrip vaak wordt verward met communities en social media. Ik merkte dat ik behoefte had aan een duidelijk kader. Niet om een semantische discussie te starten, maar om te voorkomen dat je ongemerkt met 3 onderwerpen tegelijk aan de slag gaat en door de bomen het bos niet meer ziet. De inhoud van de zoektocht deel ik hier met jullie en ik ben erg benieuwd naar jullie feedback.

Computing and communicating through the Web makes it virtually impossible to leave the past behind. College Facebook posts or pictures can resurface during a job interview; a lost or stolen laptop can expose personal photos or messages; or a legal investigation can subpoena the entire contents of a home or work computer, uncovering incriminating or just embarrassing details from the past.

research also seems to support Ms. Boyd’s contention that social media “mirrors and magnifies” our social divisions, rather than removes them. “We can use technology as a tool to connect with people, but we can’t assume that it will eliminate all of the serious issues we have to face in this country,” Ms. Boyd said at PDF. “Pervasive social stratification is being reified in a new era.

Following our API update last week, today we’re releasing the BackType Connect Plugin for Wordpress. It brings the functionality of BackType Connect to the Wordpress comment system, showing conversations from other blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit and more inline with the comments on your blog.

What is more important, the rights of the mass, or the rights of the individual. In the western world we tend to assume an inverse relationship between individual rights and social control. More social control leads to less individual rights and vice versa. Marshall suggests that individual rights may be less important than the ‘greater cause’ of being able to provide more value to users if data is freely accessible.

The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation. At a minimum, they’ll expect the social environment of work to reflect the social context of the Web, rather than as is currently the case, a mid-20th-century Weberian bureaucracy.

One of the paradoxes of early 20th Century management was the observation that companies are best run as dictatorships, while countries are best run as democracies. Why was this?

I think that there's something to be said for how today's youth are thinking differently than their parent's generation. But I don't think that it's simply "caused" by new technologies. I think that we're living in a society that has different priorities and I think that multi-tasking is more deeply prioritized than sustained attention by professional circles today. I think that we are being trained to be "creative" thinkers rather than productive doers and I think that this means that we are encouraged to draw connections between new things. I think that we are living in an environment that is structurally divided and that sociality is increasingly mediated. But I don't think that the technology is to blame. I would argue that we're addicted to our friends, not the computer.

MIT research shows that 40% of creative teams productivity is directly explained by the amount of communication they have with others to discover, gather, and internalise information. In other MIT studies, research shows that employees with the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive than their colleagues. Furthermore, those with the most cohesive face-to-face networks are 30% more productive. This reinforces similar research by Aral, Brynjolfsson & Van Alstyne [3] that highlights the importance of these networks because they “strongly influence information diffusion … and access to novel information”. Availability of these networks, their research shows, is a highly significant predictor of worker productivity.

Jongeren vinden online privacy steeds belangrijker. Bijna de helft wil niet dat vreemden hun profiel kunnen bekijken. In 2007 wilde nog iets meer dan een derde dat niet. Steeds meer tieners (85 procent) schermen daarom hun persoonlijke gegevens af, vooral het emailadres. Ook meldt 44 procent hun achternaam niet meer en met name meisjes worden voorzichtig in het toevoegen van personen die zij nog nooit hebben gezien.

The one major idea behind the Del.icio.us Lesson is that personal value precedes network value. What this means is that if we are to build networks of value, then each person on the network needs to find value for themselves before they can contribute value to the network. In the case of Del.icio.us, people find value saving their personal bookmarks first and foremost. All other usage is secondary.

Anything goes on the web. We find out why we share personal details online and explain our obsession with social networking

While the information about me on the Web is not terribly exciting, I do leave a little bit of information on every site I visit. And therein lies the rub. Say something in passing on a social site and it may come back to haunt you.

First, there was Carrotmob. This spring, in a not very publicized move, San Franciscan Brent Schulkin (after incubating the idea for some time) went to 22 food & liquor stores in his neighborhood, trying to see which ones would agree to make energy efficiency improvements if he could bring in a lot of customers at an agreed-upon time.

Let me provide you five dangers that arise due to our changed online behavior. These dangers should make us realize that when (not if) we move into an era where data becomes currency, we will need to develop better privacy and security measures to go along with that.

Data, marketing, information, YOU - that's where the money is. Chris Rock the comedian said it best: "There's no money in the cure, the money is in the medicine". There's no money in selling you a one time boxed product. The money is in establishing an addiction that goes beyond asking you to come back for more, but promising you a better more powerful high, each time you contribute more to the social cloud. You might say, "I don't mind being advertised to if it keeps services free". But how much of your data are comfortable with being bought and sold? Your online searches for the last month? Sure why not. But how about your first name being attached to those records? (possible by cookie). Big business has commoditized your data, and it is now being bought and sold en mass, this is already an established fact. Don't get me wrong, I'm a user of Facebook, Digg, Flickr, etc. but I do my best to give post as little about myself as possible to get the most of what I want to get out of tho

Elgg is an open source social network. Elgg allows you to take full advantage of the power of social technology with elegant, flexible solutions for organisations, groups and individuals.

Here are three techniques using web tools that can help you become more personally accountable in your career.

DiSo (dee • zoh) is an umbrella project for a group of open source implementations of these distributed social networking concepts. or as Chris puts it: “to build a social network with its skin inside out”.

Marketers spend a billion dollars a year targeting influentials. Duncan Watts says they're wasting their money.

Overzicht van de sociale webdiensten per productcategorie, in een prisma.

Open Data Definition allows you to copy your data from one social network to another, keep track of your friends network and synchronise your data across services. Simple to use and trivial to implement, this is your fastest route to true data portability.

mixin lets you share your daily activities and intentions to get together more often with your friends

Are you my friend? Should I friend you? Or you me? I have a very large backlog of inquiries on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and all the rest.

Thomas reminded me of why I sometimes think I am Silicon Valley's latest early adopter. Most people I know around here seem greatly enamored with each and every "shiny new object."

Gen Y is taking over. The generation of young adults that's composed of the children of Boomers, Generation Jones, and even some Gen X'ers, is the biggest generation since the Baby Boomers and three times the size of Gen X. As the Boomers fade into retire

Social networks are becoming more open, more interconnected, and more distributed. Many of us in the web creation world are embracing and promoting web standards - both client-side and server-side. Microformats, standard apis, and open-source software are

I wonder how most organizations are handling the role of community manager. I’m curious where a community manager reports. Marketing? HR? Customer service? I wonder how organizations are justifying the cost, and what they believe the role entails for le

There are an increasing number of new "social applications" as well as traditional application which either require the "social graph" or that could provide better value to users by utilizing information in the social graph. What I mean by "social graph"

I recently completed my biggest project yet; a fully fledged social network aimed at female college students. The difference? It’s built on Wordpress MU.

One of several user-interface ideas and suggestions for working with microformats.

Reference list by Danah Boyd