Flipboard is an amazing piece of software that creates a personalised magazine of your social lifestyle. By this I mean that you are able to add your Facebook and Twitter account details and Flipboard automatically creates a magazine style format of the latest items from your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. It’s pretty difficult to explain as you really have to visualise Flipboard for yourself to truly understand what it does. The closest thing I’ve seen online is Paper.li which does a similar thing to Flipboard except Flipboard is way more interactive.

I now hardly use Facebook or Twitter as I can now open Flipboard once a day and consume all the best bits in my instantly updated magazine. Not only that but I can also comment directly and “like” something from within the application and the user experience is simply unbelievable.

Last night I decided to create a new section in Flipboard that just aggregated my own personal Twitter account and I have to admit I loved the results. To demonstrate what I’m talking about I thought that I’d share my Flipboard tweets of my recent US trip to New York and San Francisco. You’ll see the progress of my trip in a beautiful, visualised format which really adds context to my tweets. Let me know what you think of Flipboard once you’ve seen the screenshots below.

Today I stumbled across an amazing initiative called GivenGain which is run by a bunch of South Africans. Here’s a quick excerpt from their About page.

We call our service GivenGain because we believe that we are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse and keep.

GivenGain has an established reputation as a service provider to the non-profit sector. We provide a web-based platform to non-profit and support-based organizations with a complete electronic payment, donor management, online publishing, and communication solution.

We have offices in London (UK), Stellenbosch (South Africa), and further represented by partners across the world.

Why this site has interested me considerably is largely due to the fact that fund-raising online is a model that doesn’t really generate that much cash for the organisations in question. Well not in South Africa that is. Unlike other initiatives GivenGain is a model that appears to be working very successfully.

According to the site they’ve generated a total of $37,5 million donated by more than 32,000 individuals and this has directly benefited 1,626 projects. This is stagerring if you think about. It means that on average each individual donates $1,143 and each non-profit project receives $23,118. Granted this is an average and others have donated more/less while other projects have benefited more than others but it’s a massive average at that.

The team behind this initiative deserve to be commended. More often than not people in this industry only ever focus on the players who make the most noise but these giants in the online space are not only doing a whole lot more but making a success of it at the same time.

HelloTxt is a simple service that allows you to post a message directly to Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Facebook and Plaxo at the same time. Now one has to ask why anyone would need this functionality but I find myself in a situation where I have an account with all of these sites and posting messages to each one individually is not only a mission but also not happening.

Over time Twitter has become my medium of choice simply because it has the highest adoption rate in South Africa for micro-blogging platforms. Personally I prefer Pownce over all these services but there are almost no people using the service that I know.

The HelloTxt service works brilliantly and does what it claims to however the down side to it is that you can only post messages from the HelloTxt website. This is a major issue for me as I prefer to post messages via Instant Messaging and after doing some research I found that there is no way to integrate this service into an IM client.

In a random set of events I stumbled upon Twhirl, the micro-blogging application to rule them all. Twhirl is primarily a Twitter application that allows you to post to the site and the latest version also includes integration with Jaiku and Pownce.

The Twhirl desktop application uses Adobe’s Integrated Runtime (AIR) that enables a cross-platform experience that is gaining big traction with developers and users. One AIR application I use religiously is the Google Analytics Reporting Suite and I’m sure there are many more cool applications out there.

Twhirl features multiple Twitter accounts and once you’ve added one you’re presented with a super-cool interface with full Twitter functionality including; replies, direct messages, favourites and re-tweeting.

By clicking on the settings icon on your Twitter window you can change various settings including adding your usernames for Jaiku and Pownce.

What is really smart about this integration is that replies to Twitter users (i.e. @username) are not posted to either Pownce or Jaiku. As a user of all three services I quickly became aware that replying to someone with the @ symbol is a unique Twitter way of doing things and Pownce evangelists hate it when you try and reply to them in this fashion. This is sure to keep your Pownce buddies happy.

I’m loving Twhirl and I’ve finally found a micro-blogging application that works the way I want it to.

I took an in depth look at Social Media, Web 2.0 and the impact this has on PR agencies globally. There is an interesting case study I did on the Frito-Lay PR department and how they utilised the Social Media sphere to promote the Doritos chips brand among their core target market of 16-24 year olds. I also tried to look at what South African PR companies can do to further promote their clients’ brands in the Social Media sphere.

The presentation, without the sexy Keynote effects and video we included, is embedded below.

While Pownce has a very similar profile page to Twitter the overall structure seems more intuitive to me. There is a bio of who I am, better structured friends listing plus the added column of other social networking profiles that I belong to.

The site is still in Alpha stages so I’ll forgive them for only having a choice of four themes to select from.

One of the best tools I like about Pownce is the Social Network profiles. There is a selection of almost every social network site out there and you can setup all the ones you belong to. You also have the option of adding your Instant Messenger contact details as well as various websites that you own.

The net result of this is a Profile box which appears on your main profile page.

Website aside I think Pownce’s best value comes in the desktop application they’ve created. Instead of writing their own software Pownce decided to build their desktop application using Adobe’s Integrated Runtime (AIR) environment.

AIR is a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to use existing web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications for the desktop. The result is a really slick user interface that just works.

From the desktop application you can send messages, links, files (up to 10MB) and create events that can go to individual contacts, all friends or the public in general.

What has become clear through applications like this is that if Twitter is to survive it better start playing catchup as Pownce and Jaiku are hot on their heels.

While trying to combine MySpace (the individual page styling), Facebook (the simplicity of design and functionality) and Flickr (nifty AJAX effects) into one application I can see how it will provide some value for certain people however mashing up other people’s profiles might irritate a few discerning souls – me included.

One of the key elements missing from Mash is the ability to search for friends. The only way to find a friend is to either import your Gmail or Yahoo! contact list or invite individual friends to Mash and hope that they have a profile.

At the moment Mash invites happen by having one of your friends create a profile for you. Your friend can then add various items to your profile and when you accept the invitation your profile goes live in the Mash network and you get the following page.

At the bottom of your profile page is a styling box which allows you (and in case you didn’t get it before, anyone else) to style your profile page.

You can also add some applications to your profile but as you can see from the shot below there really is very little value in the applications available.

The only thing Yahoo! did right here is create some settings that you can change which controls who can edit and change your profile.

I don’t know, maybe I just don’t get this system but I really can’t see this becoming a threat to Facebook in any way. Possibly this is part of the reason why Yahoo! want to buy Facebook so badly?

Paul argues that

“Although Social Media is only just picking up steam here in South Africa, if you read the feeds on blogs and news sites in the United States and Europe it is fairly obvious that the whole thing is running out of steam.”

Now I’m not sure what news sites Paul is subscribed to but the ones I read tell the exact opposite but don’t take my word on it, let the evidence talk.

Robert Scoble, A-List blogger and Vice President of Media Development at PodTech.net, recently argued that social media sites Mahalo, TechMeme, and Facebook are going to kick Google’s butt in four years.

Michael Arrington, another A-Lister and owner of the popular Techcrunch blog, also linked to Scoble’s article and points out that

Scoble argues that the search results from sites such as Mahalo will appeal to more people due to their ability to be socially constructed as opposed to Google’s computer generated results.

While Arrington doesn’t necessarily agree with Scoble he’s also not disagreeing with Scoble’s thinking.

I’m pretty sure that while these are some good examples that Social Media is here to stay many will say that this only relates to the ever changing face of search and doesn’t really equate to any level of social networking or social media.

Silicon Valley start-up investor Esther Dyson appeared on the Charlie Rose show where she discussed her current projects in the technology space. During this interview she was asked if Facebook is the new Google and to that Dyson replied

“[It is] if you think Google is the next Microsoft.” So, is Google the new Microsoft? Dyson said, “It could well be.”

From my perspective I have to say that Social Media is changing the way we communicate on a global level. Search is becoming more relevant because of social media and will continue to do so for many years and social media sites are giving us a platform to communicate, share and evolve.

Paul goes on to claim that

All the new launches are reinventions of Social Media companies that have been around for years now or are simply new applications of existing tools. There is no real innovation in this space. Social Media has climaxed. It is all downhill from here.

Facebook’s recent emailing capabilities allow users to now replace traditional email communication and their Book Swap feature highlights how social media can relate to real-world practical uses so I’m just not sure about this statement either.

Is Social Media dead? I think not.

This map taken from the Business 2.0 website shows the locations of the 31 hottest startups outside of Silicon Valley. While highly concentrated around Europe you’ll notice that South Africa is featured all thanks to a small little site called Afrigator.

I’m chuffed and this post will tell you why.

2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

16. You will have at least one catastrophe every three months.

17. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced.

18. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You’d better.

19. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don’t need money, right?

20. People will think your idea sucks. They’re even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed.

21. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion. Thought your first love in High School was clingy? You can’t take out a restraining order on your startup.

22. Being an entrepreneur requires a healthy amount of ignorance. Note I did not say stupidity.

23. Your software sucks. So what. Everyone else’s does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup. Startups are no place for architecture astronauts.

24. You do have a public API, right?

25. Abject Terror. Overwhelming Joy. Monstrous Greed. Embrace and harness these emotions you must.

Source: It’s difficult to say where these all came from but I do know that Mark Fletcher, founder of Bloglines came up with at least the last 10.

Then interestingly enough tonight I got a request from her to join a group on Facebook which I diligently obliged to do but the really scary thing is about two hours later I got a friend request from Paul at Chilibean. After never using the system I suddenly get found by him and I had no choice but to mail him and ask how on earth he hooked up with me. Turns out it’s quite easy but a little freaky at that!

This has now in turn got me going and I’ve started to setup a small profile on Facebook. I’m even thinking about putting up some real pictures of me… but only time will tell. I’ve also been looking at Facebook in terms of its functionality and in principle it seems half decent.

The best thing I found is that you can setup an RSS feed from your site and it will publish your posts in Facebook which is super-cool!

In truth though I’ve really come to like MyBlogLog as a social networking tool but I can see for people who don’t have their own sites, such as my dear friend Lisa, Facebook is great to blog and keep in touch with the world.

On a side-note I managed to score a 1-year Pro subscription on MBL so I’m a really chuffed guy but unfortunately I can’t tell you how or why… sorry!

Anyway I digress – at some point though we have to draw the line with all these sites. When is enough actually enough? I barely have time to blog let alone keep up these social networks but maybe it’s a small price to pay for social fame. Thoughts anyone?