Erlend Wilhelmsen

Facebook vs MySpace, do we have a winner?

In my book, it's FaceBook. This is a company that understands the real power behind wikionomics, open-source, and collaboration. I just don't see that with the MySpace team. Especially not at the top level. It's old thinking vs new thinking.

With FaceBook releasing their F8 platform (more info here), it shall be interesting to see how MySpace answers - if at all.

Twitter works part-time

Apparently, the Twitter folks didn't get the "It must scale" memo. The site has been down a lot lately and it is becoming a big issue for some users. If it becomes too much to handle, have a look at Jaiku. There is little doubt that Twitter's model is hard to defend. There are virtually no barriers to entry so unless you can grow your userbase very fast (popularity) and keep the users happy - you could be yesterdays news... fast. I like Twitter. I hope they can sort their reliability problems. Hanging in there, for now.

Self-improvement tools - Part I

Several new sites offer self-improvement tools. I had a look at Traineo, MyFoodDiary, PeerTrainer, Skinnyr, and FatSecret. These are all US based and since most of the US population either seems to weight too much or would like to loose weight - this is where the money is. We'll have a brief look at two of these. First up:

FatSecret. Creating your account is quick and easy: Basic personal details, then, set goal: "loose 60 pounds." The next step is to "select your diet".

Are you elite?

Some very interesting results to draw from PEW Internet & American Life Report (PDF). Check out this quick summary/commentary from TrendSpotting.

Are you a CyberSpace Shaper?