MySpace has started limiting users’ access to 3rd party applications.

Revver. Imeem. Hoooka. All Banned. It appears MySpace wants to Monopolize the widget landscape.

Ironically, this seems vaguely reminiscent of the demise of Friendster. To recap the past, Friendster kicked off it’s biggest user (the now infamous Tila Tequila) for receiving too many friend requests.

MySpace (the rookie/underdog social network at the time) welcomed Tila into it’s social network with open arms. (Tila comments on this in an interview) Since then, MySpace has never enforced a quantity cap on ‘friends’ and everything went on to be hunky-dory.

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‘Friends First’ sound like a take-it-slow dating guide, but it’s really should be the MySpace marketer’s manta. Relationship building is the most effective way to reap results from your MySpace marketing. Kathy over at AttractionBiz.com seems to be giving her clients a fair representation of the strengths and limitations of MySpace marketing. Take a look at this snapshot of an actual MySpace user’s incoming friend requests (photo taken by tlianza). Every person pictured here is a spammer. This is an actual example of how SPAM is shaping the MySpace user experience. MySpace is a social site. It seems to be logical that a MySpace marketing plan should include strong social elements to be truly effective. Social elements seem to be a key element that these spammers don’t seem to understand… well that and respect. But I’ll lump respect & accountability in with all the other social skills that are required for sustainable interpersonal marketing.

Will MySpace last?

Could the overload of MySpace SPAM or their lack of an open API (like Facebook) increase the popularity of newer social networking sites?

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There are no longer any reasons why your site can’t have snazzy AJAX components throughout your website interface. HTMLi is now offering an open source AJAX framework that enables users to add simplified markup without needing to understand the inner workings of AJAX technology.

HTMLi can be applied to PHP, ASP, JAVA, and of course plain old HTML files. Some of the AJAX components that can added to your site are listed to the right. HTMLi also be used to create AJAX form elements. I haven’t actually used HTMLi, but it looks exciting. If you have any experience with HTMLi, please share your thoughts about it.

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Traditional MySpace Marketing will soon be dead. The MySpace communication channels are at a similar point that email was years ago, right as email spam was getting out of control. In fact, most current MySpace promotion is modeled after traditional email spamming tactics. This model is not sustainable and MySpace marketers must adopt a relationship-focused strategy to really extract the most value from MySpace marketing.

So many businesses & bands routinely send uninvited promotional messages to strangers (you know, those people on our “friends” list). The spam on MySpace that I’m referring to is message spam, comment spam, and bulletin spam. Most businesses/bands aren’t aware that their promotional tactics are essentially spam.

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Create your podcast using any phone. Listen to the most recent episode of any podcast through your phone.

So far podcasts have mainly been used to create content in a radio show format. A podcast usually refers to a 20-80 minute episode of audio content. The process of recording a podcast is an actual event itself. Since podcasting requires a certain setup of gear and know-how, most people don’t record podcasts that reflect micro-updates.

What if podcasts could be used similarly to a syndicated voice message sent to people who you have given the appropriate permissions to receive them?

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Why do we love Twitter? Ask Dave Winer and he’ll say (paraphrased) it forces people to create posts that *cut out the crap* and scream the *less is more* anthem. In other words 140 characters or less.

Why not apply this same lean-post principle to podcasts too? Enter the TwitterGram. Not quite a polished publicly-accessible web service, the conceptual TwitterGram is building increasing momentum.

You can contribute by linking your Twitter post to your own uploaded audio file (200K or less). More details on scripting.com.

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Great post on e-consultancy with additional contributions through user comments.

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Minic Rivera at the Blog Herald reported today on Six Apart’s new social media solutions that can be built on top of Movable Type 4. The enterprise solution can host a community of 1000s of blogs for a company or department.

I’ve yet to learn more about this. Does anyone have any information about how this solution would compare to a open source installation of the Elgg social networking platform. From what I have seen, the standard Elgg installation has a solid blogging platform built-in, and of course the open source code enables simple ways to extend its functionality.

I would love to hear any advantages of using a system such as Six Apart’s new social media solution over Elgg.

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New Booz Allen Hamilton study about online consumer behavior in the Middle East verifies what US companies should already know about social media & Web 2.0 in the US marketspace, but reveals its rising importance in the Middle East and globally.

Key findings of the study shouldn’t surprise anyone already wrapped up in the business logic needed to adapt to social media and the world of user-generated content, but should provide a wake-up call to businesses in the Middle East and other regions of the world that further behind the adoption curve.

Original Booz Allen study

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Jeremy Liew has compiled a list of apps/widgets created by top four multi-app companies on Facebook in the wake of Facebook’s F8 release. A huge market vacuum has opened up and multi-app companies seem to understand that widgets that gain mass adoption first usually hold a competitive advantage.

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