web 2.0

John Tolva let out a quick request the other week on twitter for a Flickr photostream timeline, it sounded like a quick hack was possible using Simile and the Flickr API; both of which I wanted to have a play with for investigative purposes. It turned out to be nice and straightforward, the Simile API from MIT is flexible and simple to use, so much so that I should really spend a bit more tweaking my Flickr timeline to make it look prettier, but hey this is just a quickie

A nice post on Social Networking sites over here at wisdump, it does however make some assumptions that largely the same groups of users float from one networking site to the next leaving the others behind for dead. This may be true in some cases, but it doesn’t take account of the increasingly large number of broadband connected always on users and the increasing uptake of web communication as the de facto way of keeping in touch. True there are a finite number of users, so super rapid growth can’t be sustained in the long term, however this doesnt also equate to an equally speedy up and leave mentality. I think we’re still way way off the peak of adoption in social networking sites, and there are countless scores more to emerge and challenge for a place among the frontrunners.

Facebook is going along the right route to stay ahead at the moment, their new portlet like application integration APIs mean they can function as an aggregator for data from other networking sites. This level of flexibility is whats needed to stay in the front runner position, I’m wondering if they’re now the first fully social networked enabled portal site ?