Open Web Awards by Mashable: The Finalists

As part of the Open Web Awards, the finalists for the first four categories have been determined by voters according to Mashable. Below are the finalists:

Category 1: Mainstream or Large Scale Network

Bebo

Netlog

Vois

Category 2: Application or Widget

MindTouch Deki Wiki

Quintura

Widget Bucks

Category 3: Social News or Social Bookmarking

Digg

Reddit

StumbleUpon

Category 4: Social Search

Copenda

Facebook

Wink

The final voting round to find the winner of each category has begun already till Thursday, December 20th at 9:00 PM PST. The winners will be announced shortly thereafter…at Mashable, and the finalists will be covered in the days after.

Update: There will be an award ceremony at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco on January 10th, 2008.

SocialCrunching Becomes Beta

I started this blog just 4 weeks ago and my experience with blogging about social networking has been very challenging. For one thing, there is always something related to social networking to blog about and even with other projects on my shoulders, this blog has been able to be relatively consistent with quality posts, decent traffic, and just a few readers.

At the moment, I've decided to concentrate on blogging about social network startups only, which I've been doing, except that the blog has covered so more information about existing social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, etc.

I've been reading Mashable and other social networking blogs and I've come to a conclusion that these blogs post practically anything that forms news around social networks and more. Thus, this blog SocialCrunch will now create a niche by posting gists, news and info about new social networks in any industry or field whether, music, fashion, sports, professions, etc, thus profiling them in relation to new and existing trends in the social media webspace.

I have called this new dimension the blog is exploring SocialCrunch Beta!:)

LinkedIn Launches Intelligent Application platform

LinkedIn, the social networking site for business professionals is finally unveiling a new application branded LinkedIn Intelligent Application platform that would allow third-party developers to build applications that work within the social network.

Using the API, developers will be able to create widgets and integrate LinkedIn data into other applications, as well as create applications that will integrate with LinkedIn. Google’s OpenSocial platform is sure to be supported, and some others are also planned.

The company has also announced an application with BusinessWeek. The application will let readers of a BusinessWeek article search their LinkedIn networks of personal connections for people associated with companies mentioned in the story in a mouseover popup style. Something Mashable thinks is not the best way to introduce the API. View a preview of the application here.

LinkedIn says it will take a more cautious approach, looking for companies that add value to the site instead of throwing open the doors to everyone. Hmm, what does that suggest? That they want only business productivity applications and anything that doesn't fit that description (perhaps Facebook's applications) will not be welcomed?

Open Web Awards 2007 by Mashable

Now that the first phase of the Open Web Awards by Mashable is officially over, speaking of the nominations, you can now vote for your favorite large social network.

From the results so far, you will notice that Netlog.com has more votes (37.8%), with Facebook following behind (23.7%) and Vois.com on third position (10.1%). LinkedIn grabs 8.9% while Myspace gets 6.2%. I would be following the voting process as the day goes by. You will be able to vote up until 11:59pm PST on Sunday, December 16th.

Please visit Mashable to vote for your favorite large social network!

Twitter Gets Banned in the United Arab Emirates

Twitter has joined the hallmark of social media sites banned by the United Arab Emirates due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates. With this ban, the UAE has decided that its residents shall tweet no more.

The disabling of social networks is becoming increasingly popular. According to Mashable, YouTube experiences country-wide bans with a fair degree of regularity (Beijing, Thailand, Morocco, Australia, and others). Also, MySpace and Facebook have gotten so big that they don't bother about the number of countries that ban them.

But whether or not these social media sites are banned or blocked, as the case may be, users would continue to be loyal to them.

Bebo's Open Media Move

Bebo, this week launched its Open Media, a new platform that gives Bebo users the ability to include premium music and video content in their profiles. Media companies, on the other hand, are able to use their own branded video players without being charged for access to the Open Media platform.

This means that partners can tap into Bebo’s 40 million users, provide content, carry their own advertising and retain all the ad revenue for themselves. Having redesigned it's site, Bebo users will now have a Personal Video Profile, where they will be able to store their favorite videos and share them with friends.

One of the most important aspects of Bebo's Open Media is the fact that partners will be able to set up their pages and control how their content is distributed all by themselves, through the "Channel Profiles". Users will also be able to receive online and mobile alerts when new content appears on the media channels they choose.

How all this will affect Facebook’s recently announced pages will depend on advertisers preference, but according to Mashable, Bebo’s slant towards videos, music and entertainment will imply that Bebo will be carving a smaller, more focused niche for themselves.

Google Launches 'OpenSocial' Platform

As first reported at TechCrunch, Google has announced a social networking platform called OpenSocial, which includes tools to allow developers to create applications that utilize personal and social data contained in participating social networks - the first step toward putting you back in control of your online relationships.

Google appears to be supplying the "social graph" - the map of relationships between people that makes it possible for you to see when your friends add applications, photos or new connections to their profiles - with tools to allow developers access to the social graph and other personal data on participating networks.

Several players in the social networking space such as Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Orkut, Ning Engage.com, Friendster, Hyves, imeem, MySpace, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as well as widget developers RockYou, Slide, iLike and Flixster have all signed on to supply applications based on the platform. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is not on the list.

According to Mashable, Google finally released their open source container sample on November 9. After looking through it and the accompanying documentation, it definitely provides a good starting point for potential OpenSocial developers to begin forming the basis for their applications.