Blogs

According to Hitwise, an internet traffic monitoring group:

“Facebook was the top-visited Website for the first time and accounted for 8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010. Google.com ranked second with 7.19 percent of visits, followed by Yahoo! Mail (3.52 percent), Yahoo! (3.30 percent) and YouTube (2.65 percent).”

The rise of Facebook to the top seems inevitable since more people rely on websites with shared information with other people than what we would find in algorithm-driven search websites.  This could also mean that people trust online content (videos, photos, etc.) that is shared by people within their network more than going to a random website via a search.

Think of this as an example. People will watch YouTube video embedded in a friend's Facebook wall. Since they are on Facebook, they will decide to post their thoughts about the video underneath that video, share to other friends, etc. These activities will count towards Facebook’s traffic as the said video is determined as trusted content from a friend.

Facebook applications, especially online games, are another factor that heavily contribute to its popularity.

For this year, we are expecting a tighter competition between Google and Facebook. With Facebook setting the trend, don’t be surprised if Google keeps trying to place a dent into the social web market. Its previous attempt with Google Buzz was timid at best.

I recently blogged that "Flexibility is required for .au domain registration, renewal periods", after my participation in the Australian Domain Administrator (auDA) 2010 Names Policy Panel.

I stressed particularly that the 2-year minimum/maximum domain registration period is contrary to the needs of business, and I pushed for the auDA Board to allow 1 year to 5 year registrations of .com.au domain names to bring Australia in line with other countries.

This discussion, as well as the dozen or so more that the 2010 auDA Names Policy Panel analysed is part of a Discussion Paper we released for public discourse. Please click here to read.

You are also encouraged to take part in a survey, where the domain name registration period is one of a number of questions you are able to respond to, thus become part of the Australian domain name policy setting process.

Please click here and complete the survey BEFORE 21 January.

A new social network startup has been getting a lot of attention. It is called Path – the Personal Network. Hmm, personal? Does this not translate to anti-social?

Path is a San Francisco-based startup with some high profile employees from the tech industry. Dave Morin, who helped build Facebook Connect and the Facebook Platform, left the company this year to start his own venture and be the company’s CEO. Shawn Fanning, the co-founder of Napster, is also heavily involved in the project. Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, is an investor.

The Path Blog issued a statement conceptualising their network,

“Path is the personal network.  A place to be yourself and share life with close friends and family. The personal network doesn’t replace your existing social networks – it augments them.

Path allows you to capture your life’s most personal moments and share them with the 50 closest friends and family in your life who matter most.

Because your personal network is limited to your 50 closest friends and family, you can always trust that you can post any moment, no matter how personal. Path is a place where you can be yourself.”

A concept that makes it unique: You're limited to 50 friends.  Yes, 50 (and no more than 50) of your closest friends.

This magical number of 50 was based on the research of Robin Dunbar, an Oxford professor of evolutionary psychology, claims that the average human can only maintain about 150 stable relationships. For some reason, Dave Morin decided we can have no more than 50.

Apparently, there is such a thing as having too many friends and I think this is the problem Path team is trying to solve. When you follow hundreds and hundreds of people on Twitter, or have more “friends” on Facebook than you could actually know, you lose the closeness that those networks intend you to have with the people that you care about.

And what else is new on path: Path lets you know who's seen your photos. That's not possible with Facebook, but another social media service, LinkedIn, lets you know who's seen your profile, so it's not entirely new.

And now I’m wondering if Path will catch on. Aren’t there too many social networks already? Isn't any newcomer going to have trouble competing against that 500-million-user Facebook? And Path's 50-friend limit... It is their differetiator, but is it their advantage? Time will tell.