I’m about to drive downtown to speak at the Boomer Business Summit on a panel about social networks and blogs for boomers. This is definitely foreign territory for me. The main boomers I know are my parents and their friends. So how are boomers using social networks? I know that both my parents are on Facebook and use the site regularly. I don’t think they are the average boomer though.

I’m curious to find out what type of social networks the boomers are involved in and what their thoughts on transparency are. As I posted about this morning, Gary Vaynerchuk suggests that the world is going to become increasingly transparent and we won’t be able to hide from ourselves. Ultimately the truth about everyone will be public information. I think that the boomers may be one of the last generations that aren’t totally transparent.

Then again I have friends that avoid putting all their information online. They are not going to become Twitter users anytime soon. They use the web for email, instant messaging, news and stalking their friends on Facebook. Are you a boomer? What types of social networks are you active on? Do you think boomers are more hesitant to become more transparent? What suggestions do you think I should make for the boomers while at the conference?

According to Andrew Einhorn, Indiana has now banned sex offenders from all social networks, chat rooms and instant message applications. While the ban will be put in place it doesn’t ensure that they won’t still use the services. As such parents should still be actively involved in monitoring their children’s online activity.

As children become socially engaged online at a younger age, the security of children is becoming increasingly important. As such various measures are being taken across the country but these actions take time as they work their way through our government’s bureaucratic systems. My guess is that we will soon see the active monitoring of computer use by registered sex offenders.

It’s a similar concept to house arrest. If you are a threat to society online, you probably should be monitored. We are going to see a huge wave of legal issues arise over the next decade all related to online issues. As citizens spend more time online, it is increasingly important to protect individuals’ privacy. Additionally as more time is spent online I have a feeling that we will begin to see the policing of digital activity. What do you think?

Yesterday, Gary Vaynerchuk posted one of his daily thoughts on life. The primary argument that Gary makes is that good will defeat evil through social media and the internet. I couldn’t agree more. While you can create a false image of yourself online, eventually you will be exposed for who you are. Then again, I believe that people will always be exposed eventually because in my world, the truth always wins.

You may be asking, “what about those that don’t use social media?” Every member of the next generation is using social media and the world will soon be completely connected. Am I scared? Well I’m concerned if the government tries to take over any of these organizations but given that the internet provides true democracy, I don’t see that happening in this country anytime soon (at least I hope not).

Being connected all the time and making your life public forces you to be a good person. You can’t run and hide. Instead, embrace the fact that you are good and you will be rewarded. If you aren’t good at heart you are going to be eventually exposed. It is going to become increasingly difficult to outsmart the system because it is becoming engrained within us. Watch Gary’s video to learn more. Do you agree?

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to sit down for lunch with Laurence Hooper and Dan Goodman, the creators of Loladex. I discussed what their new application is about. The new search service has been launched completely on Facebook. The purpose is to integrate social features into search and include reviews of local businesses. This service could build a dedicated user base just as Yelp has given the simple ability to post reviews of places you have visited.

If you look closely, Loladex has limited each of their reviews to 140 characters, the same number of characters limited to text messages. As I mentioned in conversation with the Loladex founders, it would be amazing if I could get off a plane anywhere and simply text what the best local restaurants are. The system would return the results based on what my friends have replied with.

I mentioned the same thing to D.C. based Hungry Machine previously when they launched their relatively popular Restaurants application. The best part of Loladex is that you can rate practically anything. Want to find a local doctor or dentist? Check out how your friends have rated them and get feedback. Currently I use Twitter for asking these types of questions but Loladex could bring this service to the masses.

The primary challenge for Loladex will be building an initial user base. If I can review any company that is in my community and get responses via text as well as through Facebook, I’ve found a useful service. If my friends aren’t using though it’s not very useful for me. If Loladex can build a dedicated user base I can see this application gaining a lot of traction. Considering that Loladex is based in D.C. I can only hope for their success!

FriendFeed is on a tear. Tonight they announced the release of the FriendFeed API, opening up all the features and enabling developers to also publish to, not just read from FriendFeed. Want to let people know that a FriendFeed user posted a comment on your blog? Now you can post it as an activity on FriendFeed. Over the past month I have been highly critical of FriendFeed, arguing that the value is in the filtering but ultimately, at least you can track an infinite number of online activities now.

This is a direct strike at Facebook’s Beacon service which provides your friends with notifications of your online activities outside of Facebook. Rumors have previously surfaced that Facebook will be opening their newsfeed to activities outside of Facebook but as for now, the change hasn’t taken place yet. I have been complaining about FriendFeed for a long time now but they have been rolling out new features on a weekly basis recently.

Just yesterday I asked the readers if social networks would continue to exist 5 years from now. The readers said yes, while Charlene Li suggests they won’t and for the most part I agree with Charlene. While we still need a center for conversation that center is rapidly becoming Twitter for me. Also, FriendFeed fulfills all my stalking needs so what else could I possibly need?

I have to admit, if FriendFeed added filtering, there would theoretically be no need for Facebook or MySpace. That seems like a dangerous statement given that I am probably one of the largest Facebook evangelists but FriendFeed has accomplished something incredible in an extremely short period of time. Let’s see how Facebook responds to this. Do you think this could be the downfall of social networks as they exist today? Can FriendFeed take on Facebook?

Wow, the past few post I have written have generated some amazing traffic. People have been reading my post and talking amongst themselves. Nothing makes me feel better than knowing I have started a discussion to help people think about social media.

Recently a blog post I wrote about twitter sparked a discussion on The District of Corruption, an audio blog hosted by Geoff Livingston and Aaron Brazell that I love, about the tone that The Social Times writes in.

To be honest Geoff and Aaron were spot on when they said that I write with a certain level of indifference and I think I do it for the good of all who read this blog. I have been a PR professional for a few years now, and before that I was a sailor in the Untied States Navy.

If anything those two professions have taught me one thing, playing the devils advocate is a good thing. Having a moment of pause can mean the difference between failure and utter successes. I try to be as objective as possible to allow others to think before they leap.

While in the Navy I found that everyone quickly jumped on board to a good idea. One person has a spark and everyone falls inline. I was successful in the military, very successful, by offering my shipmates a second opinion; a chance to think before they swam. I was never objective to be out of line and I think my thoughts were appreciated.

While working in PR I have found that everyone thinks their idea or business venture is the greatest thing in the world. As a communications specialist I remind them to take a moment before they commit to anything, I offer an objective opinion.

For the last few months that is what I have done with this blog. Many of you have meet me in person at social events and as a professionals. I absolutely love the technology scene is Washington, DC and social media in general. I offer my opinions as an alternate opinion.

Too often I see professionals jumping the bandwagon because it is easy. I offer my opinions as a chance to see your world from the outside. Ask me about your business model, ask me about the great tool you have created; I will provide you with something you will not find anywhere else… The cold honest truth.

My opinion is here to help create a community and is as valuable as all of the yes men out there. We all serve our purpose and all are equally important. If everyone in the room says yes I feel it is my duty to offer a simple and concise no, just to get everyone talking.

I could be wrong, but I think offering an outside opinion is one of the most valuable services I can provide. I could be wrong, do any of you out there think I am being overly critical of social media?

I think this is a very exciting time for DC, the convergence of technology and people gives us a chance to not only cover but shape the future of media, social technology, and what services we might be using 5 years from now.

This morning I wrote about the new OpenSocial foundation. Unfortunately I missed out on the press call but there were definitely some key takeaways. Marshall Kirkpatrick provides a great writeup of the call. Two significant statements made was that Orkut will go live next week and that 200 million users will be reached by all the applications.

Who wasn’t present on the phone call? Facebook and Microsoft. These are the two remaining companies that have not joined OpenSocial. They are still holding out an ultimately are trying to battle the underdog who has gained significant momentum: OpenSocial. It’s hard to call any standard promoted by Google an “underdog” but technically there are less application install on their platform but more potential users.

So this leads me to question where all of this is going. One conclusion that I have is that these standards are much larger than the initial group of developers that were successful on Facebook. While we still see some of the leaders making a presence on MySpace, there a number of new players but strangely enough most of them are still the traditional players on the social web.

Conversely, much of what we are seeing is a battle taking place, much of which is being done through press releases and some of which is being done by developers. The social web is also getting a whole lot more complex. As Scot Kveton from the OpenID foundation said, “I think this is great - they are doing all o fthe right things with the non-assertion covenant but its another foundation. Its more work for companies to join, etc. So now you have openid, opensocial, oauth is going to have to do something, microformats, etc - this gets pretty complicated IMHO.”

Ultimately what we would like is for things to become a lot more simple but in the short-run it appears as though things will have to get a lot more complex before it gets easy. This is great for those helping companies navigate the social web though. There will be a lot more business headed towards consultants in this space over the coming months.

Whoa, that was a creative idea. I’m thinking to myself as I watch yet another person on YouTube come up with an entertaining and interesting idea. Everyday we view engaging content that takes time out of our day and helps us temporarily escape the harsh realities of this world (well at least harsh for some). While watching this engaging content we think to ourselves, “wow, I could do that!” This moment is critical to determining and justifying the following months and often years of our lives (at least for many entrepreneurs).

Justin.tv was one of these ideas for a number of people. They were the beginning of the recent wave of lifecasting services including Ustream.tv, Mogulus and a number of other video services. Overnight, the business plan that we believed was going to make us millionaires dissolves before our eyes as we see a new competitor enter the market with more funding, a better board and significant media coverage.

Everyday I have another person contact me with their “brilliant” idea that will make them fortunes. All they need is to launch their new free service that they will begin charging for 6-months down the road. Competition is harsh and without an extremely catchy idea or a serious team of advisors it will be practically impossible for most people to build something substantial.

Conversely, now is one of the few times in history where a few thousand dollars can get your product out the door and tested by the market. Today, Michael Learmonth posted about Mogulus and how their new revenue model is charging people. Brilliant! Charging people for a service is something that has apparently alluded many dreamers.

Rather than chasing after becoming the next Facebook or Google, it’s soooooooo much easier to start charging for your service. The funny thing is that charging for your service actually differentiates you from the rest of the pack on the social web. As I told one person today, you can charge for your service or go out and chase for investment money. The latter is a great idea if you are a good salesperson and well connected. For the rest, charge for your service!

Even if you are somehow able to talk an angel investor into writing you a check for $250k or even $1 million, not figuring out who your actual client is will kill your business. There are very few services that can run for free (or ad supported) and expecting yours to be that one is not a great idea. Then again many of my ideas are ad supported but hey, I’m one of the few that can make it, right?

Maybe I should rephrase my statement. If you don’t have a revenue model for your business, don’t bet your life on it. Figure out a way to make money while building your free service, otherwise you may just end up broke. Entrepreneurship is not about risking it all, it’s about taking smart risks. What do you think? Should startups charge for their services?

I am a Twitter lover, I often tweet about where I going, who I am meeting, and what I am doing. I enjoy the conversations I have and have made some very good friends I would have otherwise never meet.

A friend of mine and I were discussing the types of things we tweet about and he had mentioned he didn’t approve of the messages I twittered. He said my messages seemed childish and I should try to be more professional on twitter.

He continued to say how twitter should be used to increase one’s personal brand and foster professional relationships. I countered with twitter being a form of expression and more of a way to stay connected.

We bantered back and forth a few times and agreed we wouldn’t agree. The entire argument left a bad taste in my mouth. I began to see twitter in a new light and it honestly bothered me.

I have to agree with my friend that I do see a good deal of people only using twitter for personal exploitation. Which is fine, but how long will people use a service that only gives them watered down versions of the people they are trying to interact with.

Now, I do use twitter as a very personalized RSS feed, but I can get a service like that almost anywhere. I think the real value in twitter is making real connections, not being spoon feed happy tid bits of information from people around the world.

How do you use twitter? Are you a personal micro blogger like me or more of a human evangelist like my friend? Do you see a turning point in twitter like Facebook, where people are tired of getting spammed? Let me know.

D.C. based Mixx is releasing some new features today which empowers a few select “super mixers.” The goal of the new feature is to get breaking news onto the homepage fast rather than waiting for numerous votes to build up before the article ends up in the popular section. The way the service works, as Mike Arrington points out,

Once a story has been tagged by two Super Mixxers, the story goes to the home page under the Breaking News area. The story will continue to build up votes and move into the general Popular area of the page at that time. Others may drop off entirely.

This new feature is a strike against Digg which requires a significant number of diggs before hitting the homepage. Then again, a truly newsworthy story can build up a lot of buzz rather quickly on Digg, still reaching the homepage in a short amount of time. Mixx has been excellent at continuously rolling out new services but I’m a little bit hesitant about saying this new service is an excellent service.

My biggest concern is that favoritism may not be the best way to get a community built. Then again, rewarding members for being active is not such a bad idea. Additionally, just because their story is breaking news doesn’t ensure that the article will move to the popular section. Whether or not this is the best decision has yet to be decided by the Mixx community but Mixx has been quick to adapt so if the community doesn’t support it, I’m sure Mixx wouldn’t either.

After seeing Mixx at MashMeet DC a few weeks ago, I’ve realized the value in building sub-communities within the social news sites. Mixx is embracing that with their support of tags and this strategy will hopefully put them on top of other social news sites.