Scott Karp argues that for those that are over 30, email and cell phones make up the majority of their social graph. He is completely right. You won’t see my mom tweeting on Twitter and you won’t see her updating her status on Facebook (even though she now has a profile). My friends that fall into the 30-something crowd aren’t tweeting up up a storm (except for a few social media connoisseurs). Ultimately, Scott Karp has successfully stated the obvious. I would like to pronounce here and now that the sky is blue (when there are no clouds and the weather is nice).

What I think is interesting is how our social graph is changing. Email came about in 1965 and by the 1990s most of us were using email. Compare that to the rate of growth Facebook has experienced in the past year and a half. While most people’s social graph may currently be stored within emails and phone the real story revolves around the shift that is taking place. Focus on what the early adopters are doing and a small portion of that eventually spills into the mainstream.

Scott Karp suggests that most young people are communicating via cell phones. He may be correct but I would surmise that this is shifting drastically. The majority of college users are heavily active on Facebook and once they find a reason to communicate elsewhere (e.g. Twitter), they will. Rather then focusing solely on where the social graph is today I’d like to figure out where it is going and be properly positioned to reap the benefits.

Think of all the application developers that ended up with millions of users on Facebook. Think of all the top social media thought leaders that now have thousands of followers on Twitter. While it’s not the best business strategy to be positioned too far in the future, you should definitely consider making smaller investments in the future because those small investments can ultimately lead to massive success. If you read this blog chances are you are an early adopter. So where is your social graph? Do you think other peoples’ social graph will slowly begin to mimic yours? Are you tired of hearing the phrase “social graph?”

When attending the Web Community Forum a few weeks back I decided to start using Twitter on a regular basis after seeing how many conversations I was missing out on. I suggested that I might even be addicted to Twitter. Today, Matthew Ingram delves a little deeper into what is taking place when we use Twitter. Twitter provides a unique platform for communicating and has its own rules, the same way that chatrooms and IRC channels do.

I can opt to spend ten to thirty minutes responding to someone via a blog post or I can take ten to thirty seconds posting a response via Twitter. If you look at my volume of Twittering versus blogging in the past few weeks, you will see that my “tweets” have been much more frequent than my blog posts. Previously, I found philosophizing about Twitter to be a waste of time because I thought Twitter was a waste of time.

Twitter isn’t a waste of time though. It enables me to maintain communication with those that I have “weak ties” to (as Matthew Ingram points out). It has also helped me foster relationships with individuals that I may never have been connected to. In the world of digital communication, Twitter will soon rank among email, blogging and instant messaging. It’s a public chatroom that I can choose who the participants are. There’s no better chatroom online.

Is my obsession with Twitter unnecessary? I know plenty of my readers are not active Twitterers. Am I crazy?

Back at the beginning of September I discussed my desire to help create a Silicon Valley-like atmosphere here in D.C. Yesterday, I had three meetings with individuals, two of which are currently running their own startup. I will be posting interviews with both of them in the coming weeks. Over the course of the day, one topic seemed to come up in each of my conversations: the rise of a start-up communnity in Washington D.C.

Everyone seemed to think that the primary reason behind D.C. not building a thriving start-up community is that venture capitalists in the area are overwhelmingly conservative. I have to agree with this but it is beginning to change. Sean Greene (who I interviewed last week) and LaunchBox Digital will be just one of the contributors to this. Eric Litman of Washington VC (who I will be interviewing next week) will also be contributing to this as well.

Be confident that there are more to come. One of my own personal missions with the Social Times is to help leverage the site’s technology channel (we will soon add additional channels) to help build a thriving start-up community in D.C. With the rise of things as simple as D.C. Tweetups (I have been to two in the past couple weeks) and other local events, I am confident that it will happen.

I will be hosting an event about “How to Get Funding for Your Startup in D.C.” on February 13th. I haven’t officially announced it yet and haven’t picked a location but be confident that I will be working hard to put together many more events that revolve around building this community. I’m not the only one. People like Jared Goralnick, Justin Thorp, Peter Corbett, Rana Sobhany, Jimmy Gardner, Martin Ringlein, Ann Bernard and the Why Go Solo team, Ross Karchner, Jason Garber, the local VCs, developers, designers and many others (sorry if I didn’t get your name in here … feel free to shout in the comments) are also helping to build this community.

It won’t happen overnight but 2008 is going to be a big year for us. I seriously believe that while there was the rise and fall of the netpreneur era in D.C., it is rising again and I think it is possible to make it permanent this time around. I will host as many events as possible to help contribute and I will continue to post interviews with the people that are help building this community. What are you going to do to help? What’s missing? Can it be done?

Updated Community Contributors
Will Kern
Zvi Band
Jesse Thomas
Brian Williams

There is more drama taking place on Techmeme today but surprisingly it is not about Facebook. The drama began with a posting on Slashdot in which countless complaints about Google reader’s new shared feature have been posted. These complaints are practically identical to those being heard when Facebook launched Beacon. As Robert Scoble points out, the solution is simple: Granular Privacy Controls.

All social sites must now introduce granular privacy controls that enable users to both opt-in and opt-out of social services. Additionally, privacy settings must be available on a contact by contact basis. Facebook now provides these features and soon enough you will be able to modify your profile for each contact group. While not all the features are required, basic privacy settings definitely are.

If Google is going to succeed with their OpenSocial project, they will need to rapidly adapt and make changes. Users are forgiving so long as you make the necessary changes immediately. Otherwise, your users will leave and never look back. This time around I think that Google deserves a get out of jail free card but they won’t be receiving such gracious givings in the future. Just as Facebook has made their mistakes in navigating the social web, so will Google.

Google needs to be even more careful though given their massive user base. Integrating email with other features is also a risky game. It appears that even Google is willing to take a few more risks to try and make things just a little more social for us all.

A good friend of mine, a female we will refer to as Megan, mentioned to me the other day that she has a problem networking. She is an attractive young woman who works in PR, the same work that I cut my teeth on, but has ultimately failed at networking.

I gave Megan some quick advice and I figured I would share it with all of you.

Network with a purpose: Megan is not an effective at networking because she has nothing to base being effective on. If Megan meets a hundred people that can give her no clear networking advantage, Megan has failed. I always act like I am looking for a job, even if it’s for a friend, and I try to network with influential people that can employee me or other people. Dating, getting invites to events, meeting people in a different career field are all valuable ways to gauge your networking.

Networking is not about you: Megan is a great girl, but she knows it. She tends to talk about herself and her past a little too much. I live life based on Dale Carnegie, I let people talk about themselves and interject when only necessary to spur on more conversation.

Seal the deal: Networking is a long and drawn out process, but don’t make introductions that way. Get in, make your introductions, be polite and listen, then move on and meet new people. When trying to network don’t fall into the trap of talking with the same person all night.

Your friends are the enemy: I love hanging out with my friends, that is why they are my friends, but when it comes to networking they are a nightmare. I can spend all night chatting with my friends about nothing and have a great time, but I haven’t networked. If you must network with a wingman use each other as a tool to spur on conversation or set a limit to how much time you will actually chat with your friends.

I would love to see what some of you out there have to say about networking. Feel free to write me or leave a comment on this post.

-Anthony

LinkedIn just released “5 Tips to Jumpstart your Career in 2008.” Naturally interested, I took a look, and was relatively pleased with what I saw in the headings, but a bit disappointed to see that it was mostly flouting its own services. In any case, with the New Year rolling around, it’s a great time to start thinking about how we brand ourselves online. As times change, our online presence is becoming all the more important. I see my college friends, who are now teachers, still posting their drunken party pictures on Facebook.

I also see lawyers adding clients on Facebook that shouldn’t know about one another, which could constitute enough of a breach of confidentiality to risk the lawyer’s career. On the other hand, I see a brand new, massive opportunity for professionals to market themselves online. The trick is to remove the unprofessional things from your online identity, and to be meticulously aware of how you present yourself.

LinkedIn recommends that you work to build your own brand online. This has never been more true than today. Bloggers and YouTubers have become quasi-celebrities virtually overnight. I’m personally good friends with the “bridezilla” girls, whose YouTube hoax landed them spots on Good Morning America and a few big late night shows.

Once you have people’s eyes and ears, the potential for business and to help your career is massive, and there are tons of places online to make yourself known. To the authors of the LinkedIn article, this means using their site. Perhaps it’s a good place to start.

LinkedIn recommends that you be at the forefront of people’s minds. With people glued to the internet these days, it’s a great time to remind them that you’re the person who does what you do. It’s important to add old friends and acquaintances, and to broaden your network of people who know who you are, so in time they can know that you’re the #1 person for you line of work. If people see you as someone who is well connected with something impressive or important to say, it could work wonders for your career in the long run.

The article suggests that you make smarter decisions. Essentially they mean to draw off of the knowledge that you can get from others online, as opposed to trying to appear to be the expert. There’s a fine balance between seeming like you know what you’re doing, and seeming like you’ll pretend in any case.Learn from the people around you, act humbly, and don’t let stupid arguments end relationships. Re-read your e-mails 3 times before you send them, and stay away from MSN for very highly charged discussions.

LinkedIn says that you should prioritize your time. That means you should use their services to research the professionals you work with so you’re fully prepared when you meet with them. This is indeed quite true. When working on projects in general it is very important to know who is championing your project in the background. Who the potential benefactors are and generally who who have to woo in the process?

Keep in mind people will also research you. That’s why it’s all the more important to vigilantly filter what makes it into your online identity.Lastly LinkedIn suggests that you stay on top of your industry. It’s true. Changes are happening very quickly, and the group of people in the know is generally small but accessible. A ton of people are talking about Facebook apps and development, yet the forums are relatively silent.

Get into forums and discussions related to your line of business, keep yourself caught up, and make yourself known to the others! It will pay dividends in the long run, I promise. When I do business with a new person who I meet online, which is happening more and more, the first thing I do is check out their profile on LinkedIn and other networking sites to see who they know, how connected they are, etc.

Keep this in mind, realize that people are checking up on you, and give them something to look at that will make them want to work with you. Show them you’re connected, show them you’re intelligent, show them what you do. Just take my advice and be careful: many things online can’t be taken back once sent, and people may have the ability to post things on your profile that you wouldn’t want people seeing.

-Jonathan Kleiman

Earlier today, the extremely popular social network hi5 announced the launch of two new music applications that leverage the OpenSocial API. hi5 currently has more than 70 million registered members making it slightly larger than Facebook who is rapidly approaching 60 million users. The two applications are Qloud and iLike, both participants in competing social network platform launches including the recent Bebo launch.

CEOs at each of the participating companies appear to be satisfied as expressed in their press release. We are very pleased to increase the depth of our music offering for our members around the world, making it easier for them to find, listen to and post more of the music they like on their hi5 profiles,” says hi5 Networks, Inc. CEO and Co-founder, Ramu Yalamanchi. Ali Partovi, CEO of iLike, appears equally satisfied: “We are thrilled to offer artists and fans the ability to connect on hi5, a massive social networking site.”

Mike Lewis had an equally enthusiastic quote included in the release. He should be happy considering their other announcement that they have partnered with Thumblay, “the largest and fastest growing mobile entertainment content destination in the U.S.” The partnership will enable users to find and purchase ringtones across all of Qloud’s My Music installations. I’ve included a screenshot of the hi5 version of the My Music application.

When I spoke with the CTO of hi5 back in October, he expected their platform to be ready 12 months down the road. It appears that the OpenSocial API has enabled quicker integration of external applications. I have yet to receive comment from any of the participants about challenges faced during the development phase. I’ll be sure to update this post if I receive any further comments.

This morning I had the opportunity to sit down with Sean Greene, the Co-Founder of LaunchBox Digital in Washington, D.C. LauanchBox Digital provides entrepreneurs with seed funding to help get their startup off the ground. LaunchBox Digital also serves as an incubator by providing critical resources necessary to an effective launch. Check out my interview with Sean to learn more about their company.

PlayFirst, an online publisher of casual games, has raised $16.5 million in a Series C financing round led by DCM. Existing investors, including Mayfield Fund, Trinity Ventures and Rustic Canyon Partners, also participated in the round. In addition to raising their Series C round, PlayFirst will be partnering with RockYou to enter the social networking space. The first game to be promoted via the Facebook platform will be Wedding Dash.

According to a statement, the partnership with RockYou will “enable the company to continue to expand its new business model of incorporating microtransactions into its popular games.” This sounds strikingly familiar to the strategy used by Buddy Media, the company that I broke the news about their first two rounds of financing via my AllFacebook blog. The partnership with RockYou appears to be centered around driving traffic to their first game on Facebook.

PlayFirst appears to be in direct competition with Miniclip who provides flash based games for the web. There are limited details about what “microtransactions” will be involved but I have a feeling that it will be some sort of reward system since, as John Welch, CEO of the company states, they have already integrated virtual goods into a few of their games including “Wedding Dash.” As Shervin Pishevar emphasized in my interview with him last week, social games are a rapidly expanding business.

It will be interesting to see how social gaming evolves over the coming months.

Over the past month I have been trying to come up with a strategy for The Social Times. It started as an expansion of my AllFacebook blog. I began covering social technology and planned on sticking to that plan. Since then I have been modifying my strategy. The plan has finally manifested itself into something that I think is going to be extremely valuable for both readers and writers. The new mission of the Social Times is

To empower passionate individuals to cover the topics that they are most passionate about while learning the ropes of new media. We are a breeding ground for new media professionals and entrepreneurs.

I will start off by focusing my efforts on the Washington D.C. metro area. We will have multiple channels that will focus on local content but I will also continue to cover the evolution of social technology in general. Social technology will only be one channel though. Over the coming months there will be a lot of changes taking place at The Social Times. I am proud to announce that I have hired my first employee, Anthony LaFauce.

Over the next month we will be hosting events around the metro area and will be updating our design to reflect our multi-channel strategy. As media evolves I am finding that it is empowering for individuals to write about topics that they are passionate about. Our job at The Social Times is to get the writers paid through advertising as well as provide educational sessions with media professionals (journalists, editors, producers, etc).

The initial channels we are covering are social technology, food and arts. If you are interested in covering any of these topics please reach out to me and let me know. We will get you on a list and I will be having a meetup for everyone involved in The Social Times within the next month. I believe that we are in the middle of a media revolution and I want The Social Times to help drive the movement. It is truly an ambitious vision but together we can accomplish it. I look forward to the future.