I have to say that I’m very impressed at the efforts of Ning to build a community of network creators. Over the past year, the company seems to have done an about face from moving toward a centralized, Facebook style site to a truly decentralized, creator-driven technology model.

Most Ning sites seem to center around hobbies, music, or pop-stars. I’ve always seem Ning as an incredible technology for gathering niche professional communities and industries together… What do you think is the future of niche networks for professionals? Do you see them overtaking general social networking sites for business use? If I had to pick a future, I would actually opt for the proliferation of highly specialized (but well connected) sites that cater to very specific audiences.

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I work with a lot of social networking and social media sites, so my aggravations may perhaps be exacerbated by constant poking… but I have to say that I am sick to death of fake blog posts for SEO. Disclaimer, I’ve written them myself in the past and I’m sure I will in the future. But it seems more and more that almost ALL posts are for SEO. It seems like almost all blogs use an overly exacting rationing of links. Every link has a self-serving purpose and now the text itself is being shaped by the crowd sourced mathematics of the consumer web.

Where is it going to stop? Because it seems like the regular-consumer inputs on the web are increasingly relegated to no-follow walled gardens like Facebook… while the real thing (your own blog/content/domain) is still out of reach for most people. There have been little efforts to hand the real web to real people in a simple fashion. The pros are dominating the web and pushing out incredible loads of content, all of which is constructed methodically to influence the directionality of future web searches.

Chalk this up to a grumpy community-manager having a grumpy night. But I feel like a lot of attention is paid to email and comment spam and not to actual content spam. Let’s just say that the lint trap of the web may be getting full  - and this can lead to fire.

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The web in its current form is just TV on steroids for most people – unless you are pretty darn technical or just have a ton of time on your hands, it’s pretty hard to do things that should be simple by now. I can’t believe how hard it is to set up a blog (for example.) Getting a blog set up right seems to require an understanding of canonical URLs and Wordpress databases.  By now, there should be easier tools which still have some ability to scale into more professional sites.

The upside is that there is tremendous opportunity for improvement on the web – and that improvement will be founded on incremental simplification of existing services. If you are developing services, think simplicity. There ain’t much of it out there now.  Just sayin’.

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Linkedin has emerged from the innovations of Web 2.0 as the default destination for professional networking. Linkedin now boasts 50 million members and a highly valuable professional demographic. Their traffic and members have been growing well over the past year, but can Linkedin’s slow and steady growth compete against the Facebook and Twitter rockets?

Linkedin is now in a critical stage of their evolution. They have grown into one of the most important social networking sites. But they have not yet realized their ultimate vision, which I believe to be something of a desktop on the web for professionals around the world. Critical to their success is not only the usefulness

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I wish that everyone could experience negotiating an entrepreneurial endeavor. It’s unlike anything else in life.

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I’ve been thinking about the fundamental difference between building technology and using technology. There are such amazing technologies today that have functions out of the box that ten years ago would be unheard of with a million dollars of development. Some of my favorite services are Ning, the insta-social network site, Slinkset, the insta-social-news site, Wordpress, etc… It is absolutely incredible that for a miniscule fee or sometimes without any cost at all, you can build out multi-user, scalable websites with all kinds of customizations and configurations. But does this ease come with a cost?

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I’m experimenting with a cool new social news service from Slinkset.  junkKi.com is a service to deliver tech feeds and web news in format that allows people to vote for their favorite news item.  I wanted a single place to get all of the new social media, web, and domain headlines from around the web.  It’s kind of like a personal RSS reader made public.  We should expect a lot of these Slinkset sites to pop up, as the potential for this service is huge.  It can power help forums, news services, etc…  So if you’re into web trends and breaking Internet stories, check out junkKi.com and vote for your favorites.  You can also submit your tech news story or website.

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Domains are ideas.  Interesting ideas are addicting.  Do you find yourself thinking of new domain names all the time and wanting to register each and every one of them?  You might have a problem.  You might be a domain addict if:

• You have checked a domain name in the shower
• You have checked a domain name while driving
• You have checked a domain name while gardening
• You have checked a domain name while holding a baby
• You have checked a domain name while drinking at a bar
• You have checked a domain name while on the toilet
• You have checked a domain name while grocery shopping
• You have checked a domain name while working
• You have checked a domain name while meditating
• You have checked a domain name while eating breakfast
• You have checked a domain name while swimming
• You have checked a domain name while running
• You have checked a domain name while hiking

Get the point?  Just stop while you’re ahead.

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I realized today with a grin that I am using Microsoft as my search engine and Google for my email (always) and word processor (sometimes.) What a mixed up world! In 2011, I’ll probably be using Twitter to make phone calls and eBay to read the news.

The times they are a’changing. Google’s old clean search engine interface is now a hodge-podge of cloud computing web applications and personalized services. They are moving into an almost Yahoo-esque user experience. Microsoft’s Bing traffic won’t compete with Google in a real way, but it’s hard to argue that the actual technology isn’t competitive. The embedded video feature is cool, and the results for the casual surfer may actually be more directed and focused (although less comprehensive.) But of course Microsoft is also guilty of neglecting their core products. They have not given users a major reason to upgrade their office software in many years now. It won’t be too long before Google’s web-apps add enough features to make them enticing.

It just goes to show you that times change even for business monopolies. This may be due to a “grass is always greener” type effect on the web. We are enticed by the core copentence of the other company, even if it is more natural for us to stick to what we do best and continually improve and evolve.

Evolution is much more diffult however, within your own business. It is outsiders that always make radical change happen. It is nearly impossible to keep the fresh perspective on your own products that you came into your business with. It reminds me that we have to stop and look back over our shoulder often – both to see where we have come from and who is sneaking up behind us. Long term business evolution is possible, but it requires a clear head and honest eyes. With that, we can plan the web for 2011.

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I was talking with a friend of mine who operates his own business and he said, “What I loved talking to you about were your fears… That’s why I knew I work with you, we have some of the same fears.” I thought this was interesting and really true. It’s important to have the right fears.

If you’re doing anything entrepreneurial for your livelihood, you know fear. If your children starve, it’s probably because of something you’re doing or not doing. It’s not fear of an abstraction or someone else laying you off for some unknown reason. It’s you and it’s real. Picture two wires running along each other, work and life, never touching, wrapped in separate channels of plastic. For you the wires touch and spark in blind intervals – there is no real separation. Work is life.

Fear might make you get up and try to make some money to feed your kids, but there is a more important function. This is probably a good kind of fear, but there’s a kind of fear that makes you good. This is the kind of fear that makes you think about how others perceive you. For most entrepreneurs, your name is your biggest and only real asset. The best kind of fear makes you perfectly trustworthy, capable of making the right but hard decisions, considerate of everyone you meet, and in business for the long term. The best kind of fear makes your life better

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