Jason Banico launches The Blogging + Social Networking Hybrid from his current base in Silicon Valley.
He shares what’s happening: Funchain behind the scenes. His story:
Jason Banico has just recently announced a limited beta release of Funchain version 2, the new online
community that brings social networking features to blogging, and vice versa. It’s a totally revamped
engine that made use of lessons learned from the original Funchain, launched in 2004.While it’s true that social networks like Friendster, MySpace and Yahoo! 360 offer blogging, Funchain has a
more flexible blogging engine, with 100% Blogger-template compatibility, allowing for prettier looking blogs.
Now he could use something about danah boyd (yes, small letters) latest paper, Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace just a fad? – about MySpace’s fantastic popularity.
People were hanging out on Friendster before they hung out on MySpace. But hanging out on Friendster is like hanging out in a super clean police state where you can’t chew gum let alone goof around and you’re told exactly how to speak to others. Hanging out on MySpace is more like hanging out in a graffiti park with fellow goofballs while your favorite band is playing. That said, there are plenty of folks who don’t want to be hanging out in a graffiti park and they are not sticking around on MySpace as a result.
Is Web 2.0 the “super clean police state?”
Jason is looking at an international user base – not only Pinoy. One of danah’s observations on what could bring down MySpace:
International companies will be far better positioned to create new social technologies because they won’t have to abide by American laws even if American citizens use their technology (assuming the servers are hosted outside of the US). Unless, of course, we decide to block sites on a nation-wide basis.”
Jason shares his thoughts on emulating MySpace and Blogger. He even met Orkut Büyükkökten of Orkut.com – a Google product that seems to have been forgotten.
How do you think he can succeed in a crowded market?