I admit that I don’t exactly have the best track record with my phones. Well, up until last month I’d been using the same phone for the past 2 years until I managed to break 3 phones in as many weeks and amazingly only one of which happened when drunk! On paper it would seem as if we could write down a very simple equation: “iphone + adam = recipe for disaster” but even with that very likely possibility in mind, the iPhone has sliding menus. It’s pretty much calling out my name!!! I do want to make a somewhat educated purchase though so I’ve decided to do some research online because the last time I went to do find out more about something from a sales rep, I came away with a membership to a gym!

On the iPhone page on O2.ie, they describe and give an outline of what they call the “O2 Experience Plus” tariff.

Regarding data, they say that it’s 99c per day for data usage (1c per KB up to a max charge of 99c). If I so much as breathe on the 3G network, I’ll be pretty much up to the maximum charge. Do O2 offer any data plans similar to Three’s offering? The apparent “stealth” charge of €30 a month doesn’t really appeal to me.

In the way of texts, the tariff boasts free texts and calls to the O2 Network if I top up by €20 per month. The only problem there is that myself and everyone else I knew on O2 jumped off that ship years a go when the other operators introduced great offers while O2 continued to do nothing but screw us as if we were 12 year old virgins. So this tariff is pretty much useless to me given it’s 13c to send texts to other networks and I’m pretty sure that’s more expensive than it was to send texts back when I was on this sorry excuse for a network a whole two years a go and it’s also 5 times dearer than what I’m currently paying!

Now if I navigate outside of the iPhone subsection of the O2 site, I can see information about the O2 Experience More plan which offers Free texts to all Irish networks if I top up by €20 or more per month. Now they mention nothing about this tariff on the iPhone subsection, is this because it isn’t available for iPhone customers or because they don’t really want to us advertise this superior tariff to us gullible and naive interested buyers? Or perhaps the folks at O2 don’t know their arse from their elbow when it comes to designing informative and usable websites?

They also mention nothing about Text Bundles in the iPhone subsection. I’d hope they’re available but working on the assumption that they aren’t and based off a realistic guess that I’d send 600 texts a month, I’d be liable to spend €78 on texts alone every month. I’ll take a conservative approach with phone calls and say that I’d spend 3 minutes talking every day which adds up to €27 a month. This is all on top of the €30 I’d be charged for data usage and all of a sudden I see I’m paying €135 a month which is over 4 times what I’m currently paying on Three with my INQ1.

If I include the cost of buying the phone itself, it works out as costing €2190 over a twelve month period to use the phone without restricting myself. Yet despite this ****ing astronomical cost, the iPhone’s beautiful interface and massive array of apps still appeal to me but then again I just can’t get that 4 figure cost out of my head and it’s there that this entire journey grinds to a halt.

I’m a student and simply can’t justify spending that much money in a year on anything other than alcohol. Am I a mile off with my estimates or am I on the right track? Does Bill Pay offer any notable benefits over Speakeasy other than the lower cost of the phone? Finally, given that I’m currently on Three, is there any possibility of unlocking an iPhone and being able to use it on Three without features being crippled?

F’kin iPhone!

Last week I absolutely butchered my phone. What started out as a small problem with the slider, ended in lots of bits and pieces after all attempts to fix it had failed quite miserably. Perhaps I subconsciously broke it on purpose because I had been eying up Three’s latest addition to the mobile market, the INQ1, for quite some time.

I was going to write a rather lengthy review of it. But put simply, there’s no need to write a review about a phone which has already picked up numerous awards and won over the hearts and souls of anyone who has been brave enough to take a leap of fate with a companies very first phone to the market! It really is that damn good!

Three have made a big deal out of the Facebook integration. It’s hard to fault it really, as it allows one touch access to all the functions of the fastest growing social network. There is one thing better than “one touch access” though and that’s “no touch access”! And through the INQs handy widget feature, this is possible.

As it stands, there’s no widgets available for download on the INQ. At least not in Ireland anyway. We can add up to 3 RSS feeds to be included on the Home screen though, and this is where we’re given the opportunity to add a Facebook related widget. Facebook might not advertise their RSS feeds very well, but they are there, at least in some sections of their site. By adding them, we can have up to the minute (well, up the hour) updates about our friends statuses and our own notifications. It all sounds good, doesn’t it? Now lets find those feeds.

First we’ll add find the “Notifications” feed. This feed lets you know of any changes to your profile, such as new friend requests, new profile comments and application related messages. To find it, go to the Notifications page. You won’t be able to access it unless you’re logged in, so make sure you are before clicking! Once we’re there, you’ll see a heading in one of the sidebars called “Subscribe to Notifications”. Right click the link that’s directly below this and copy the address and paste it somewhere where you can see it later (a Word or Notepad document for example)

Now we have to find the Status Updates feed. Click on the “Friends” link at the top of the page which will bring you to the Status Updates page. Look for the header “Subscribe” and once again right click the link that’s directly below this and copy the address and paste it to the same place as you did the first feed. You now have everything to need to start feeding this all this data onto your phone.

There are two ways you can proceed from here. You can either follow this guide which will show you how to set up two seperate widgets that will update every hour, or you can be inventive and use what’s known as a feed merging service such as Yahoo! Pipes. The advantage of using a feed mixer is that you’ll only have one feed for all notifications and status updates which will free up space on the screen. The disadvantage is that many of websites that provide these services go down often meaning you’ll be finding yourself constantly looking for alternatives. Yahoo! Pipes is probably the most reliable of them all, but it’s not the most user friendly piece of kit and would take twice the length of this guide to explain properly!

Anyway, we’ll carry on. Assuming you have the addresses of the two feeds pasted into a window somewhere, we can now add the feeds to the phone. Hit the “Menu” button of the phone and scroll to “Feeds”. Hit “options” and select “Add a feed”. In the screen that appears, manually enter in the Feed address, making sure you don’t make any mistakes. Once the feed is added, update it when prompted. Now we’ll set it to update every hour. Go into “Options” once again and select “Auto Update”. Select “Once an Hour” from the options. This ensures that the feed is kept as up to date as possible. To add the other feed, simply repeat the steps of creating a new feed and entering it’s address.

Once both feeds are added, go back into the main menu and select “Tools”. From here we select “manage widgets”. Mark the boxes “RSS Widget 1″ and “RSS Widget 2″ (if you intend on adding both feeds) and hit “Done”. Go back into the Home screen (this is the desktop of the phone) and select the newly added widgets that are prompting you to “Add a Feed”. Select one of the feeds from the list and click done. If you want to add the second feed, simply select the other widget and add the remaining feed to it.

If everything has worked properly, you’ll now find yourself with 2 widgets on the Home screen, both relating to Facebook. One of them lists your friends 10 most recent status changes (eg: Adam is tired), while the other one is solely for notifications (eg: Adam has wrote on your wall). They’ll both be set to update every hour which should be regularly enough to keep you informed of everything Facebook related – unless you’re completely addicted.

If you want a little bit more from them, then I’d recommend you check out Yahoo! Pipes to really have fun with the feeds! If you’re having any problems, leave me a comment and I’ll try help!

Just a little word of warning to finish this piece off. Unless you’re on a Data plan, you’ll probably be charged through the teeth for refreshing these feeds every hour. If ever there was a phone that needed a data package, this is it!

I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve been bitten by the Guitar Hero bug that’s caught hold of so many other people before me! While it’s mostly a party game to throw on when you have people around for beers and what not, some practice in your spare time doesn’t go astray! Let’s face it, none of us want to be that person who can’t even complete a song on Easy!

I was rocking out to Muse’s Knights of Cidonia, desperately trying to get my hand through what could well be considered a decent proposal for the “Finger Olympics”. All was going well, and I was really getting into it (banish all imagery of me alone and jumping up and down in my room from your minds please). All WAS going well until I experienced a sound that almost convinced me that I had just stood on the tails of a thousand cats!

I looked around… no cats. I looked back at the TV and the solo that I was well on my way to nailing had paused on my screen. And still there was the screeching! I assumed it was just one of your average system crashes so I put down the guitar for a moment and restarted the Xbox. Nothing. Nothing but a flashing beam of red light that is. I nearly didn’t want to have a closer look, afraid of what I was going to see. I suspect that I felt the same way a driver feels during those few seconds when they realise they’ve just hit a dog only my own experience was going to be far less gory to face – but just as painful!

Sure enough, 3 flashing red lights greeted me when I turned around the Xbox to have a look. I wasn’t quite sure what the 3 red lights meant exactly beyond the fairly obvious fact that it was fucked! Luckily for me, 360s have a three year warranty to cover this very problem. Unluckily for me, or perhaps appropriate for me, I’m cheap and bought the 360 second hand and now I didn’t know where I stood with it. An afternoon of calling Microsoft and Gamestop didn’t really appeal to me but I knew that I had to, otherwise I’d just leave it on the long finger – a solution that I’ve grown far too fond of despite realising that it’s not really a solution at all!

That was two months a go.

In the two months that my 360 has been “resting” beside my TV gathering dust, I’ve learnt that GameStop won’t accept any responsibility because it’s past their own warranty. Not having a receipt doesn’t really help my case either and Microsoft refuse to even acknowledge that there’s a problem as the 360 is registered in someone elses name and for all they know, is stolen! They won’t do anything unless I can send them a picture of me, the xbox and the receipt – together, like one happy and broken family! Now I couldn’t even tell you where my Birth Cert is, let alone a receipt for something I bought nearly 2 years a go. I could check my bank statements to see when I bought it and then go into GameStop and ask for a copy of the receipt for be printed out but I need to enter in a code from my own secure code card to access my statements. A secure code card? Sounds important. Also sounds like something I’d lose as soon I get it!

So to bring you up to speed (and to remind myself of the hoops I have to jump through), I have to ring AIB to ask for a new Code Card. Fast forward a week and I’ll hopefully be able to check my statements online and discover when exactly I bought it. I can then get a receipt from GameStop and then send off all the documentation to Microsoft who’ll probably take a week to respond with something like “too blurry, send again”. When I finally get the all clear from Microsoft, I can ask them to send me out a box. When that arrives, I put my expensive brick into it and send it off to Germany where some technician is going to blow some air into it and declare it as being as good as new. Some weeks later, the courier will arrive at my door with the resurrected xbox and all order will be restored!

In reading back over that, it all sounds like an awful lot of effort to go through. I’ll even speculate that the prolonged exposure to red tape and bureaucracy could make me violently ill! It’s only a 360 for Christ’s sake. On the one hand, I shouldn’t be worrying about it too much, but on the other, I shouldn’t have to jump through more hoops than there are at Crufts just to get a replacement!

Fuck it, I’ll just get a new one.

Problem solved.

Now have a song.

So, as you can probably notice, I’ve changed the design of my site slightly. It looks slightly better and it’s easier for me to create new “insightful” posts! Yeah, right! Anyway, the flipside to this new design is that now when I search for my name on Google, I’m nowhere to be seen! Previously, my Bebo page was the second entry for Adam Murphy listed on Google!

In trying to figure out why it disappeared, I noticed that the new design didn’t have my “Social” section with links to my profiles on various sites. It’s strange how my link from Adams Rants to my Bebo profile is what appears to have warranted such a high ranking for my Bebo page, yet Adams Rants doesn’t seem to be appearing in any of my searches for “Adam Murphy”.

I’m now a mission to become the highest ranked Adam Murphy on Google by practicing some search engine optimisation as well as purchasing a domain name “adam-murphy.info”. A little vain? Perhaps. But it’s always nice to have your name high up in the search engines!

I remember back in May when I was choosing a new phone provider, one of the companies that my friends were urging me to stay away from was the relative newcomer to the Irish market – Three. All over the net there were horror stories about poor customer support that only got worse after they outsourced their call centre to India. Apparently they didn’t want to even know about you after you bought your phone, let alone help you with any problems that you may be having and on the odd occasion where you did by chance get through to an agent who was willing to help, you found that you couldn’t understand them or be understood! Nevertheless, I opted to plunge for them, hoping that a) nothing would go wrong and b) if it did, their customer care could solve it! 3 months down the road, something did go wrong but I’m happy to say that my experience with 3 Support is a positive one…

I was impressed with almost every aspect of Three’s services. While their call tariffs were expensive, their texts were cheap and cheerful and I was saving a massive amount of money compared to my previous operator, O2. I was particularly fond of their “walled-garden” which offered tonnes of 3G services free of charge and I made certain to buy their data package addon which allowed me to access any website for as little as €5.99 per month! However, I did always feel that the term they dubbed their service – “Mobile Broadband” – was a little too generous as oftentimes pages would load up at a snails pace as their remote proxy struggled to process requests and oftentimes died just as you had managed to page you wanted!

I wasn’t really that bothered about it, because I didn’t really use it that much but it was when I was suddenly asked to reverify my age that I started to get a bit frustrated. Three require that all customers who wish to have access to “almost every website” must first go into a Three store with a passport so that their account can be verified. That’s fair enough but I verified my age in May and now it was asking me to do it again! It was around this time that I spotted this vast thread on Boards.ie which seemed to indicate that Three were now taking people off of their web proxy by request!

I sent Three customer care an email and within an hour I was contacted by a Three representative who apologised for the Age Verification issue and said that Tech support were provisioning measures that would mean that I wouldn’t have to verify my age again and also they were going to update my account so that I would no longer be using their proxy! The only downside to it was that I would have to wait up to 48 hours for these changes to take place but I suppose it was going to be worth it!

The next day I decided to check and see if I was off the godforsaken proxy and when I went to visit a site, it loaded instantly! I also went to download the GMail web app which was, like all other third party apps, blocked by Three. It worked! I then tried the Opera Mini mobile web browser and it worked flawlessly! Opera Mini really will change the way I can browse. It introduces a tonne of interesting and efficient features to help enhance my web browsing experience and I can see myself using it for a while to come!

So congratulations to Three for coming up trumps when the day that I had been dreading finally came and I had to contact you! Three have been taking a lot of slack lately regarding their mobile broadband service and their efforts to help people with issues but I can safely say that this was a reassuring experience for me and my approval rating for Three has never been as high!

Many moons a go, I quickly slapped together a quick guide describing how to download music from the Bebo bands music service. The article was criticised for being rather vague, and rightly so. So I have decided to update the guide and even include some step by step pictures to help you.

STEP 1
First you must navigate to a bands profile page. Tonnes of major label bands and unsigned artists are available to choose via the Music Tab on the Bebo header. For this example I’m using the Transformers Movie Soundtrack page.

STEP 2
Once you are on the Bands profile page, scroll down and you will see a box labelled “Songs”. Here you can look at what songs are available to listen to. If you wish, you can click the “play” button to preview the songs before you download them.

STEP 3
Now you must right click in any blank space on the page and click “View Page Source” (in Internet Explorer it’s labelled “View Source”)

This will open up a window full of text which is probably alien to you. In actual fact it’s a programming language called HTML which is the language in which all websites are created but we don’t really care about its lifestory, instead we simply want to find out where the songs are located within this code.

STEP 4

Press CTRL+F (i.e press CTRL and while it’s pushed down press “F”) and a search box should appear at the bottom of the screen as shown (in Internet Explorer it will appear in the middle of the screen). In this box we type in “.mp3″ (without the quotes) and we are then taken to the section of the code which contains the information about the location of the music.

STEP 5
Now that we know where the .mp3’s are, we simply copy the address of the music file by selecting the area of text shown below and copying and pasting it into the address bar at the top of our browser window.

After pasting it into the address bar, hit ENTER and a dialog box should come up asking you where you wish to save the song.

STEP 6
Now that you have the song that you want downloaded, you can quickly download the rest of the available songs by searching for .mp3 and clicking “Find Next” which will automatically find the next song.

I wish you all the best of luck and I hope this revised tutorial will help those who found my first attempt difficult to follow!

Many schools, colleges and workplaces have taken it upon themselves to block access to social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace, not to mention thousands of other “questionable” sites that they don’t want you looking at. Fortunately, there is a way around this and that is to use a proxy. To quickly explain how a proxy works, you type what website you want to look at and it downloads it to its server and then what it downloads is displayed on your screen, tricking any content filtering software into thinking that you’re looking at a non-blocked website! I have included a small utility which refers to an extensive list of these proxies when browsing. Enjoy!

A few months a go, I published a quick how-to guide about downloading music for free from the RadioBlogClub website. After trying many sites and various methods of downloading songs, I decided on RadioBlogClub because of its ease of use and more importantly its vast selection of songs which far surpassed the offering of any other sites that I came across. If you are after more popular songs, you’ll probably have an easier time by going to BlogDigger.com who have a powerful media search tool which allows you to uncover songs embedded in blog posts from around the world! But as I said, it’s only really useful for very popular songs.

Times were good for music downloaders for a couple of months until RadioBlogClub caught on to this exploitation and, as already mentioned, started encrypting the URLs to their songs. For months I haven’t been near the internet, so haven’t had an opportunity to tackle this but now that I’ve managed to find a spare 10 minutes, why don’t you join me as I once again explain How To Download Almost Any Song off The Internet For Free!

1. Visit The Site

CLICK HERE (opens in a new window)

2. Search

In the search box type the name of the band (or song) that you are looking for. In this case I’m searching for “Snow Patrol”, a band that I recommend each and every one of you check out .

3. Select the Song You Want

You are now presented with a list of songs available for that band. When you see the song that you like, click its blue play button to the left of it.

Look towards the right column and you’ll notice that something like the above has appeared.

4. Find The Song Code

In the grey box, there’s lots of “HTML” code. For those who are familiar with this guides previous outing, you’ll know that this is the part where you’re meant to select a particular bit of code. So select, like I have done in the picture, the bottom lines of the code beginning with “FlashVars”. Make sure that you select EVERYTHING after this and then continue.

5. Paste The Code Into AdamsRants Code Stripper

Check out My Code Stripper which will decrypt the music code. (opens in a new window)

Paste the code into the First box. Now you must butcher the code! Erase everything BEFORE the “http” and AFTER the “.rbs” and you’ll end up with something like this:
.
Now press the “DECRYPT” button which were convert the encrypted code into easily understood code like this:

6. Download

Now you can copy and paste the code into your address bar. Once you have done this, press enter and you will be asked to save it! You are almost there….

6. BUT WAIT!

After downloading the song, you may notice that Windows doesn’t know what to open it in, this is because the file ends in “.rbs” which isn’t recognised by Windows. However, this is only a basic ploy to stop people downloading the song because it’s actually a “.mp3″ which has been renamed to fool people! What you need to do is raname the file! Note: It’s been reported that unix based operating systems will automagically realise that it’s an mp3.

A “.rbs” file.

Right click the file and select “Rename”.

Change the file extension to “.mp3″.

VOILA!

Double click the file and it will now open in your preferred Media Player. It might seem a bit daunting to have to do this for every song, but you’ll soon get the hang of it!

A lot of people previously commented that this is a very longwinded system, but I’d have to disagree. After the first few songs, you’ll be able to download songs in no time at all once you get used to it which makes it perfect for situations where you’re asked to listen to a certain song by a friend but don’t fancy having to wade through the unreliable LimeWire or download the full album from BitTorrent.

Some people also commented on the sound quality which usually weighs in at 92kbps. The good news is that this means it takes seconds to download. The bad news is that audiophiles will be disappointed. This isn’t Dolby Surround Enhanced Audio that we’re downloading here. It’s slightly less than CD quality which, in my opinion, is perfect for phones or small MP3 Players with little space!

In the past, people tried to make some further addons to this hack such as an automated downloader. Once again people are welcome to make an any further additions to this exploit, but remember, if you’re leaving a comment, please leave some form of contact!

If you like what I’ve done, as a token of your appreciation, I’d be very grateful if you could find it within your hearts to feed me for a day by donating a euro or two

For about 6 months, this method worked. But RadioBlogClub figured out how to block us from downloading the music. I have yet to find another workaround!

A few months a go, I published a quick how-to guide about downloading music for free from the RadioBlogClub website. After trying many sites and various methods of downloading songs, I decided on RadioBlogClub because of its ease of use and more importantly its vast selection of songs which far surpassed the offering of any other sites that I came across. If you are after more popular songs, you’ll probably have an easier time by going to BlogDigger.com who have a powerful media search tool which allows you to uncover songs embedded in blog posts from around the world! But as I said, it’s only really useful for very popular songs.

Times were good for music downloaders for a couple of months until RadioBlogClub caught on to this exploitation and, as already mentioned, started encrypting the URLs to their songs. For months I haven’t been near the internet, so haven’t had an opportunity to tackle this but now that I’ve managed to find a spare 10 minutes, why don’t you join me as I once again explain How To Download Almost Any Song off The Internet For Free!

1. Visit The Site

CLICK HERE (opens in a new window)

2. Search

In the search box type the name of the band (or song) that you are looking for. In this case I’m searching for “Snow Patrol”, a band that I recommend each and every one of you check out .

3. Select the Song You Want

You are now presented with a list of songs available for that band. When you see the song that you like, click its blue play button to the left of it.

Look towards the right column and you’ll notice that something like the above has appeared.

4. Find The Song Code

In the grey box, there’s lots of “HTML” code. For those who are familiar with this guides previous outing, you’ll know that this is the part where you’re meant to select a particular bit of code. So select, like I have done in the picture, the bottom lines of the code beginning with “FlashVars”. Make sure that you select EVERYTHING after this and then continue.

5. Paste The Code Into AdamsRants Code Stripper

Check out My Code Stripper which will decrypt the music code.

Paste the code into the First box. Now you must butcher the code! Erase everything BEFORE the “http” and AFTER the “.rbs” and you’ll end up with something like this:
.
Now press the “DECRYPT” button which were convert the encrypted code into easily understood code like this:

6. Download

Now you can copy and paste the code into your address bar. Once you have done this, press enter and you will be asked to save it! You are almost there….

6. BUT WAIT!

After downloading the song, you may notice that Windows doesn’t know what to open it in, this is because the file ends in “.rbs” which isn’t recognised by Windows. However, this is only a basic ploy to stop people downloading the song because it’s actually a “.mp3″ which has been renamed to fool people! What you need to do is raname the file!

A “.rbs” file.

Right click the file and select “Rename”.

Change the file extension to “.mp3″.

VOILA!

Double click the file and it will now open in your preferred Media Player. It might seem a bit daunting to have to do this for every song, but you’ll soon get the hang of it!

A lot of people previously commented that this is a very longwinded system, but I’d have to disagree. After the first few songs, you’ll be able to download songs in no time at all once you get used to it which makes it perfect for situations where you’re asked to listen to a certain song by a friend but don’t fancy having to wade through the unreliable LimeWire or download the full album from BitTorrent.

Some people also commented on the sound quality which usually weighs in at 92kbps. The good news is that this means it takes seconds to download. The bad news is that audiophiles will be disappointed. This isn’t Dolby Surround Enhanced Audio that we’re downloading here. It’s slightly less than CD quality which, in my opinion, is perfect for phones or small MP3 Players with little space!

In the past, people tried to make some further addons to this hack such as an automated downloader. Once again people are welcome to make an any further additions to this exploit, but remember, if you’re leaving a comment, please leave some form of contact!

Yesterday I wrote about how Bebo had unleashed its greatest feature yet, Bebo Bands, which is enabling the infamous social networking phenomenon tackle the MySpace giant head on. But as it stands Bebo is currently on the verge of looking cluttered because its interface wasn’t designed to accomodate a full scale social networking site and instead was set up purely as a contact sharing site. This means that there are only so many features that Bebo can add to keep its userbase immersed and eventually users will bore of Bebo in search of the latest social networking site to arrive in town. What will this killer site be though? Well over the past while I’ve been tracking the progress of several up and coming sites which show a lot of promise as well as keeping an eye on the older social networking sites who are looking to reinvent themselves!

Now as you can imagine, it’s difficult to predict what the masses will want 6 months down the line but I reckon there will be an attempt to move away from the current trend of semi-static profiles whereby users enter in information manually and select a video manually. In essence, the future of social networking relies on a degree of automation. Picture this, you download an app which interacts with Winamp alá LastFM which then fetches your most played songs and fills in your favourite bands section and recommends other bands to listen to as well as suggesting other members profiles based on musical taste. I know that LastFM does this and does it very well, but a truly successful social-networking site would have to be much broader than this and not rely on nichés therefore appealing to the largest possible audience. Of course finding users with a similar taste in music to you would grow tiresome after a while and would also result in many false-positive matches being made. You need more diverse fields that can be compared with other users.

This is where I come onto the popular StumbleUpon plugin. Stumble Upon is a very, very promising plugin which is steadily growing in terms of popularity. Like LastFM, StumbleUpon also matches users based on tastes all integrated into a social networking frontend. In this case, the plugin comes in the form of a simple toolbar with several key buttons; “Stumble”, “Like” and “Dislike”. When setting up the plugin, you select what type of websites you like, ’sport’ and ‘movies’ for example. Whenever you click on ‘Stumble’ you will be directed to a site, based on your preferred categories, that someone else liked. After a while of ’stumbling’, the site builds up a profile of sites that you like and dislike and as stated earlier, matches you with other likeminded surfers. If something like this is implemented it opens almost endless possibilities with the ability to check out what sites your friends like being the first idea to spring to mind! Logging data of what sites people like and dislike would also be very useful for potential advertisers.

Advertising is one of the major obstacles that needs to be overcome when operating a social networking site. Advertisers are known to be hesitant to be associated with social networking sites where questionable content often arises which may harm a companies reputation. This means that it’s difficult to monetize these sites. If a feature akin to that provided by StumbleUpon was introduced to a social networking site, webmasters would no longer have to bombard users with ads and instead could simply deliver one ad which is chosen based on that particular members surfing history i.e if I like Sports sites then it could show me one ad relating to a sport which I’m known to like. This would be much more effective than the current systems in place on sites like Bebo which display ads based on popular keywords on the particular page you are viewing. This means that if I view someones profile on Bebo, I’m being delivered ads based on their profile whereas really I should be delivered ads based on my profile! It would result in a much higher CTR (Click Through Rate) and less intrusive ads for the members who are responsible for generating revenue for the website!

New social networking sites spring up almost everyday, some with new and totally out of this world ideas (eg: Zebo) while others just aim at improving on an already tried and tested formula (eg: hi5.com). I feel that the next successful social networking site will be one which strikes a balance between the two. People don’t want to see more MySpace clones but at the same time they don’t quite fancy the idea of having to familiarise themselves with something completely different to what they are used to and given the fierce competition in this sector of the internet, if a site fails to strike that all important balance, then it will almost certainly die off and be forgotten about.

Lets not forget about security though. The issue of security has been well highlighted throughout all forms of media and Bebo and MySpace are often the subject of sensational newspaper headlines or the topic of chat shows. The Bebo phenomenon even warranted an investigation by Primetime! Thanks to this media coverage, most sites have tightened up their security and now employ a dedicated team of moderators to monitor flagged content. Unfortunately, the internet is synonomous with anonymity which means that administrators will always be fighting an uphill battle especially when the intelligence of some members is questionable. Bebo has done an excellent job in making it’s members aware of the dangers of accepting people you do not know and any other large social networking site should aim to follow Bebo as an example. If a site should suceed in surpassing the standards set by Bebo then it will be well on it’s way to large scale domination!

The type of site that I have suggested above would be massive. It would undoubtedly be a massive drain on server resources having to maintain a massive database of popular music and websites – in realtime! One option would be to attempt to integrate the existing services into one site like Bebo has been doing with its Bebo TV option which is integrated with VideoEgg. It may be the quick solution and for now it seems to be working, but it’s main disadvantage is that it’s a closed format with little room for in-house development in the future which would hurt the site in the long-run!

So are there any existing sites which fit the bill? Well one site of particular interest is Orkut.com which is a Google-backed social networking site. It’s current policy is one that promotes organic growth. This means that you can’t sign up yourself, instead you must be invited by someone that is already a member. Given the infamous resources of Google, if they were to prioritize the development of the site, the sky would be the limit to what they could achieve! Until they open it to the general public though, Bebo and Myspace have nothing to worry about!

Lets not forget about Microsofts offering, MSN Spaces which is integrated into MSN Messenger and looks set to be integrated into the delectable looking Live.com. Given it’s current popularity with bloggers, MSN Spaces is not to be ruled out especially with the imminent official launch of Live.com – a Web2.0 portal.

TagWorld is a site that I actually feel sorry for. It’s features far surpass those offered by MySpace.com and lots of money has been spent on advertising its superior customization potential yet it fails to win over the audience of its competitors. I don’t think a reinvention is on the cards with its current owner owing to the fact that everything they’ve tried thusfar has been fruitless!

There are two new players to the social networking scene though and I’m happy to say that they do have the potential to be the future of social networking. GoingOn and PeopleAggregator both started out as one, however in December of 2005, the two creators split having come to two different conclusions as to how the site should operate. The basic ideas of the two sites are very similar. The sites in themselves are social networks where you can write blog posts, create groups, upload media and add friends, but they allow you to create your own social network within the site which offers users the chance to create their own Bebo like site. From what I can gather, the same username and password can be used throughout all of the created social networks. Cross-site compatibility is something which has astronomical potential. GoingOn.com is not open source, but is far more slicker than “PeepAgg”. Whether or not these two sites will indeed surpass Bebo.com and MySpace.com in the future is a tough one to call. PeepAgg and GoingOn have an interesting business model and plenty of new features as well as improving on existing social networking features which could just be what the people need.