No Banjo, you can't choose my friends.

A contact introduced me to Banjo the other day and I downloaded the app ASAP.  The UI and features look great and I'm already over the stalker/sketchiness factor of being able to see everyone checked-in around me whether they are using Foursquare, Quipster (My new favorite Twitter friend...even if they don't have a Droid app), Gowalla, Loopt, Google Latitude, Facebook Places, etc.  What I can't get over is the permissions I have to grant Banjo in order to link my Twitter account and fully utilize the app:

1. read tweets from your timeline...Standard
2. see who you follow, and follow new people...ok
3. update your profile...WTF?
4. post tweets for you...Standard

I don't always read the permissions when I download a new app but 2 and 3 stuck out as unusual compared to my other apps.  Why does Banjo need to follow new people but even stranger update my profile?  If the reason is to allow user edits through their interface than it should be explained in some form of privacy document or warning.  Am I paranoid in assuming that Banjo could start manipulating my account or is this a poor example of user education/outreach?  My guess is most people don't read the permissions and hopefully we can trust developers to enhance our social lives rather than hijack our social graphs.

Summary of The Business of Big Data Workshop

I just attended The Business of Big Data workshop which was organized by General Assembly in the Flatiron district of Manhattan.  * GA told me not to attend because the event had sold out but luckily they let it slide when I showed up at the beginning of the presentation (how could they turn away another $20?).  The presentation was by Ben Siscovick and Andrew Cove of IA Ventures which is a dedicated Big Data venture fund located in NYC.  Here is a summary of my notes from the event which was interrupted three times by a faulty smoke alarm:

Twiter Valuation Model re Marissa Campise's Blog Entry: "More Thoughts on Market Sizing"

This post was inspired by a comment on Marissa Campise's blog as it is my crude attempt at a valuation of Twitter given her projections of the revenue potential upon reaching full scale.  Unfortunately, it delayed (and shortened) my previous post on Google+ (expect comments on design flaws next week...need time to use the merchandise) but hopefully it will result in two posts this week.  Also, it could have been completed on Saturday but I haven't been able to find a reliable spreadsheet app which will allow editing formulas (any suggestions would be greatly appreciated) so I had to wait until boarding a NYC bound train in Rutland, VT before booting-up my pre-college D610 laptop.  Therefore this is almost my first entirely mobile blog entry as I used the Blogger and Google Docs apps on my Droid X (full disclosure: I'm a big Google fan if I ever write a Microsoft or Apple blog) for most of the work.  W/O further ado here is a link to my model and below is my assumptions/comments:

***Link to come as soon as I can get my computer on WIFI.  Google docs app failed me again.
Here is the link: http://bre.ad/04qao8

Google Plus...what?

Last week I found myself on the outside looking in at the Google+ frenzy that was their short lived beta test.  Now that I'm in (with everyone else)...I can understand the criticisms Google received for their failure to answer (ask) the right question.  I almost didn't write this blog because Semil Shah covered most of the points to be made about the addition of a new social network but it would be remiss not to include my commentary.

Where Google+ falls short is in its lack of integration with the existing social networks.  Taking their tools and blending them into a new network isn't enough of a value proposition for Google to kill Facebook.  What the ecosystem needs is an application or platform that makes sharing and consuming information across platforms more intuitive.  Google should have created a tool to make sense of the endless stream ("firehouse") of Comments, Likes, Tweets, Retweets, Shares, and now + 1s rather than creating another stream of information in a silo.  Until I can broadcast out of Google +, I'll continue loading Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and now Google+ whenever I launch Chrome.