AOL has released a beta version of their new social networking site, AIM Pages, a little earlier then expected. I had the opportunity to take some time and check it out. AIM has used an AJAX heavy user interface, with a drag and drop modular method. The site is very clean and in my opinion very easy to use. Your friends list pre-populates from your AIM buddy list, but only when they also create a profile. I like the modular system. It lets people include what they want, where they want on their profile. However there have been bugs reported when using Firefox. It also has the potential for...

This is the second part in a two part series in which I am exploring the past, present, and future of social networking. The first part is posted here. This post will venture into what I believe to be the future of social networking. Period Four – Social Networking Goes Mobile I believe that we have started to transition into this phase but aren’t fully there yet. Early adopters, such as Dodgeball.com, have pioneered the way into the mobile social networking scene. Facebook and Myspace have also recently added mobile features to...

Michael Arrington over at Techcrunch has some screenshots of the soon to be released AIM pages. Like I said before, I think AOL will attract a good amount of users by leveraging their massive Instant Messanger user base. But from the new screenshots it doesn’t look like there is anything new and unique in their social networking model. My question is, what in the world took AOL so long to come up with AIM pages? With the IM platform they should of implemented this a year ago. [tags]Social Networking, AOL, Aim Pages, Techcrunch, Brian Balfour[/tags] Related Posts: AIM Pages Sets May 16...

Online social networking has evolved immensely over the past 5 years. This first part in a 2 part series is meant to explore the past of social networking and where we are today. In my second part that I will post tomorrow, I will discuss what I believe is the future of social networking. While most of this information will be old news to you it is meant to set up my post for tomorrow. Period One – Anyone and Everyone Most people agree that the first large site deemed “social networking” was Friendster. Friendster made the “friend...

AOL has set a launch date for their new social networking site called AIM Pages. As you could expect the heart of the service will be its Instant Messaging service. While I think AOL will have a ton of leverage in gaining users due to their dominance in the IM market I’m not sure that they will have a unique enough take on social networking to compete with the big boys. I guess we will find out on May 16th. [tags]Social Networking, AOL, AIM, AIM Pages, Brian Balfour[/tags]

Social Networking site Bebo has reportedly made big gains on giant MySpace.com in the UK (via Mashable). The Guardian reports: “Bebo ranked third most popular among all UK internet searches for the month to April 29, compared with MySpace, which ranked just 24th, according to figures from Hitwise UK…Bebo is closing the gap rapidly. In the eight weeks to April 29, Bebo’s share of visits rose 45% compared with 29% for MySpace.” This probably isn’t news to MySpace as they recently announced that they were establishing an office in London to concentrate on building...

I ran across a post on Steve Rubel’s blog, Micro Persuasion, talking about a new social networking startup named Palopia. Palopia founded by a group of USC business students, states on their website: “Palopia is a social networking portal made by real students for real students with real lives. It’s not just about profiles and comments anymore. We’ve spent long days and nights figuring out what needs to be better to make our online lives easier, more rewarding, and more enjoyable. We built our network from the ground up–understanding what our...

Hello everyone. My name is Brian Balfour and I am a 23 year old entrepreneur. To read about my history please visit the about section of this site, or you can read my entrepreneurship blog at http://www.brianbalfour.com. Social Degree is aimed to be a blog about the extremely hot sector of online social networking. Ever since my first startup, Celestine Inc., I have taken special attention to the social networking scene. One of my first ever projects was a social networking site aimed towards college students. At that time MySpace and Facebook weren’t even alive. Now with...