I would like to introduce MIXXMAKER.com, a new service from my company Project Opus.

Originally this was a simple prototype we made in July 2007 for a much larger project still in development, but when we played with it at the office we REALLY liked it as a separate product. So we decided to "tune it up" and explore making it a service.

It's pretty simple after you install the MIXX Maker application on Facebook:

1. You theme your MIXX by completing the sentence:

"I want music that..."

2. You then send a MIXX request to your friends with impeccable music taste.
3. They upload a song that suits the theme of your MIXX with a comment or two on why they are suggesting that song

Upload a song? Yes. Upload a song.
We had thought about providing URL linking or a search function to some free libraries, but when you want to suggest a song, chances are you have it on your hard drive, iPod or CD and you do not want to go hunting for it on the web. That's why you are suggesting the song after all isn't it? So, to make this possible MIXX Maker is tied presently only to Facebook. We use the friends API to legally (our lawyers said we were good) make digital MIXX Tapes (MIXXs) that you can share with your friends. We hope to add the service to other Social Networks with good friends APIs.

Hosting all the files and providing all that bandwidth is actually a costly enterprise to maintain. Our objectives is to explore ways to make money around this service assuming people like it and use it. So in the end for this product to be successful, people need to buy music or money needs to flow toward copyright holders. It's that simple, really.

To that end we have shown it to a number of major labels and industry partners. Everyone seems to like it. Most are taking a wait and see attitude. Though the good people at Nettwerk Music Group are giving it an endorsement right out of the gate, which we appreciate and they are setting us up with some interested parties to help monetize the service. Still, we are open to any and all introductions.

Please give Mixx Maker a try, and let us know what you think.

UPDATE (January 6):
We got some good coverage already (and we were hacked, too, but we're back up.)
Mashable: Get Your Lazy Friends to Make Mix Tapes For You
Tech Vibes: Project Opus Brings Back the “Mixx” Tape
Mathew Ingram: MixxMaker: Facebook meets the mix tape

We have been hitting some serious reliability issues with Facebook. Their app server is continually choked, which makes not only the app we are developing break, but all the other apps that I am using break. So this is kind of pissing me off both as a developer and as a customer.

With a valuation of $1 bazillion, you'd think they could throw some resources to at this issue. It's been horribly bad for the last 2 weeks.

This was a pretty big pisser today.

We were demonstrating our Facebook application, MIXX, Yesterday morning. All was fine. Today, we get an error on Facebook forcing users to upgrade their Flash version to view our application - even though it was developed for Flash 8! Even users who have Flash 9.28.00 are forced to upgrade to Flash 9.47.00 to view the application. I checked other 3rd party Facebook-Flash apps and got the same damn error for apps that worked just fine yesterday. As this error ONLY occurred on Facebook, the only assumption I can make is that Facebook is forcing an upgrade of Flash for their own purposes (Do you remember the MySpace changes to Flash to stop external linking from the Flash app.).

Not cool.

It clearly demonstrates the risks of developing an app dependent on a closed platform.

I found this post on Why Facebook Why now really surprising. Robert Scoble is a smart guy no question, but he appeared not to grasp what a social network is and that there can be many types. He compares LinkedIn to Facebook, as if belonging to one is mutually exclusive to belonging to another.

"I dropped off LinkedIn a year ago cause the expected useage model there is to have your friends do things for you. Pass along resumes, give references, etc. Because of my popularity I simply got too many requests to do those things. There is no such expectation on Facebook."

uhhh... that's the point of the LinkedIn network. I expect to get requests on LinkedIn to help my contacts with business. Also my contacts on LinkedIn range from very close business partners to loose connections that I met at a conference. My family and closest friends are not part of my LinkedIn contacts. Conversely, friends (new and old), family, and close business associates are on Facebook.

"I’ve been on Facebook for about a month and I’ve already gotten 2,452 friends."

uhhh... you have 2,452 friends! I'm a social guy, but you have to have a liberal definition of "friend" to have 2,452 people you call friends. Then I read:

I’ll add you to my friends’ list. Just request me to add you. Oh, did you know that once you’re my friend you can look around at all the people who are my friends? This makes getting access to interesting people very easy. If I get complaints about you, though, I’ll remove you as my friend, so don’t abuse this privilege. Thanks.

Ok so now I can be your friend for just reading your blog? This just sent me over the edge. Dude, how can we be friends if we have never had a dialog?

So... here is where I was writing a scathing rebuttal pointing out in detail the differences between LinkedIn and Facebook, and how by trying to use Facebook in the place of LinkedIn, Scoble was ruining Facebook! Then it donned on me. Robert's social life is probably completely tied to his work life and he is probably not alone. It makes sense that he would see very little separation in these networks.

I for one have been telling local indie bands to move to Facebook (from MySpace), because the "fan lists" they can generate there are much more valid and intimate. So, why wouldn't Robert want the same thing for his "fan list". Why not ask his readers to become friends. He can learn more about them and keep a more personal relationship with his readers. That's good business. Sign me up. I started out highly critical of his use of Facebook, but I now think Scoble has a point. I may also start using Facebook for my business contacts.

So what does this mean for LinkedIn?

LinkedIn has business relationship tools that I like to use. We have just been looking for a COO and got some great referrals from my LinkedIn network. I have been referred for business, and I have requested business introductions through the service. I suppose could have applied some of the tools in Facebook for this purpose, but the mechanisms are not as direct or as private as they are in LinkedIn. However, getting more personal information about my business contacts, which Scoble rightly points out is readily available on Facebook, would be highly useful.

So, LinkedIn should probably start developing a USEFUL Facebook application that leverages their tools. I would be so bold as to state that this is a much higher priority than developing their own API for 3rd parties.

(I still think Robert dropping off of LinkedIn because he was so popular that he received too many 'requests to do something' for his contacts is still misguided. The Tipping Point, or The Frog and Prince, would suggest that may not be a good networking decision.)

I woke up this AM and checked my e-mail to find the following from my friend Aaron Gladders of 2paths:

Dude - you got mentioned in gigaom!

Ok, in my world that's pretty cool. A-list bloggers rarely link to Q-list bloggers like myself. And they rarely say something so flattering that you actually blush. In his post on the continued commoditization of social networks, Om wrote:
There have been much smarter people than me who figured this out long before I did. One of them, David RD Gratton recently channeling Thomas Vanderwal, recently wrote Beyond communities of Interest, communities don’t exist.

Ok, his "smarter than me" compliment is over the top and undeserved, but I'm still pretty chuffed that he reads my blog or at least a post here or there.

Now that I know Om is reading my posts - I better milk it for all I can. So I pointed out in the comments to his post what really has got me thinking recently on this subject is Dave Winer's opinion regarding our present social network environment.
"What was centralized in the form of Facebook, Linked-in, even YouTube, is going to blow up and reconstitute itself. How exactly it will happen is something the historians can argue about 25 years from now. It hasn't happened yet."

I think the the niching of social networks into highly identifiable communities of interest is what is going to cause the implosion of our present social network landscape. Let me elaborate. You are still reading aren't you?

Communities of interest imply niched social networks
The achilles heel in large generalized social networks are smaller niched social networks that service specific communities of interest. If my dominant interest is music, I am going to want to hang out in a music community. If it is cars, a car community. (Groups are neat, but they are insufficient. I can explain why in another post if anyone cares.)

The niching of social networks into smaller well defined communities of interest is, in my opinion, the reason that Facebook released an 'open' API. With it they aim to bethe social network platform and stave off being nipped at the heels by thousands of little but focused social networks. Although it is uncertain how the API gambit will play out, my feeling is that these apps have proven to be little more than diversion-type widgets and any truly useful social tool may in fact wind up transferring users from Facebook to the niche social network that created the tool. Meta network plays like Ning and People Aggregator will only add to the niching of social networks, should they prove successful. They are not the end game in my opinion and I bet Dave Winer's opinion as well. They are also not guaranteed successes regardless of a $44 million funding by Ning.

We belong to many communities of interest and shift effortlessly amongst them
We belong to many many communities of interest:
Broadly, I follow music and I am interested in hearing new GOOD music. More specifically I am a rabid Pink Floyd fan. (One last tour with Waters and Gilmour for God Sake! PLEASE.)
I am also interested in dog obedience training. More specifically I am interested in Wheaton Terriers.
I am interested in Web and mobile development. More specifically social networking application development.

I will gravitate to these specific social networks. However, in regular life I move seamlessly among these interests and communities. In my Web community, I have people who are interested in discussing dog training or Wheatons in particular. We talk about Web development and we can slip right into talking about dogs in little more than a heart beat. I do not change dress. I do not change my seat. I don't meet them in another office. This reality of human interaction is what needs to be reflected in cyberspace. OpenID, attribution exchange, etc is not a solution to this problem.

Blowing up social networks
Ok so what does this world look like?
I don't know. (Yeah, that's a bit of a let down if you have read this far.)

But...

I think it looks a little like "Technorati" tags, (or at least what I thought they tried to do) and a little like usenet. Don't worry I don't mean it literally will look like usenet. And before anyone jumps on me, I say Technorati tags to distinguish them from how tags are generally used on del.icio.us, flickr, lastfm, etc, which are really used for personal categorization. Ok, the idea is still fuzzy in my head, but I think we will not log on or even need to register (e-mail, user name, password) to "most" communities we belong to in the future. We will identify our interest by simply saying so (tagging), and we will participate. What made Facebook so great? I could tag myself as Queen's University 1989 and presto I found all my classmates. (if we have anything to say to one another is another question) Is Facebook as a centralized service necessary for that functionality?