Who needs InBox 2.0 when you can get Life 2.0?

by Mike Butcher on November 15, 2007

Yesterday Mike Arrington noted the stories that both Yahoo and Google are planning to build social networks around their email services. But so far the plans seem to lack a certain ambition. TechCrunch UK has the scoop today on a new stealth-mode app which aims to map any social network against your email, be it Facebook, OpenSocial or LinkedIn, Outlook or Gmail, thus pulling out key trends and useful data. Right now Socialistics, is a Facebook app by Techlightenment - best known for developing the witty Bob Dylan app - which was interesting enough to win them an hour’s audience with Tim O’Reilly. Socialistics is now being ported to work with other apps and social networks. A recent test version on a Gmail account I have seen, brings up a slider which allows you to visually morph the themes contained in your email over time, and creates tag clouds of people and key words. Click on a word like “important” and you get a tag cloud and a graph about people most associated with that word. But Techlightenment is prepping a version which will map ALL your interactions with your network, including IM and VOIP phone conversations. In theory there will be no privacy issues as this information is meant solely for personal consumption. Not bad.

CrunchBase Information

Techlightenment

Information provided by CrunchBase

Comments

Dan Ackerman Greenberg - November 15th, 2007 at 6:23 am PST

Very cool. Is there any sort of public version of Socialistics for Gmail, or is it just for their one demo account right now? I want to see it in action.

Christian Fenner - November 15th, 2007 at 7:27 am PST

Very interesting! If you want to see a video of Socialistics interviewing Tim O´Reilly on that exact matter - and other to be exct:-) check out http://snipurl.com/1tour @intruders.tv

Voices.com CEO - November 15th, 2007 at 8:26 am PST

Fake Steve,

Lighten up buddy. Didn’t you recently launch a campaign with the tag line “Welcome to the Social” to promote the Zune?

EH - November 15th, 2007 at 8:36 am PST

OK, hold on. Didn’t I read a story last month/six months ago/a year and a half ago about how kids these days tend not to use email in favor of IM and profile messages? Isn’t there another story about how Asians lean away from email because they do all their text comms on the phone? The email-as-socialnet story seems to me to be a step backwards, maybe GooHoo are desperate to remain relevant in this space and email is the only group of users they have that is large enough to advertise to and capitalize on. Step 2: Social network? I guess, but I think it will boil down to them figuring out ways of getting people to check their email more often (just like checking your profile!).

So this would be a very difficult transition for the users, so in a sense I can see how this would appear to lack ambition due to it being a tough nut to crack. I think they really only get one crack at this, lest they ruin the idea permanently, so lacking ambition may just be the appearance of “heads-down mode.”

Issac Kelly - November 15th, 2007 at 9:05 am PST

I see this as being a huge thing
EH: I think you’re right, getting SMS in on this would be huge for the 16-25 crowd, but most of us still use e-mail and IM if we do anything important with our tech.

Eric - November 15th, 2007 at 9:37 am PST

Good! I’ve been waiting for the 2.0 release of life for some time now. The 1.x release has been pretty buggy for me. It’s mostly been a lot of overhyped features that thusfar have underdelivered - here’s to hoping that 2.0 will be closer to what was originally promised.

Joey - November 15th, 2007 at 10:13 am PST

this WILL be huge

New Product Auditing Dept - November 15th, 2007 at 12:47 pm PST

Aren’t the social networks already tapping into your email contacts (i.e. network) with their address book uploads? The only thing missing is the frequency of contact data, which may not be that important…

EH - November 15th, 2007 at 4:05 pm PST

Isaac: I think what should happen is that the user’s profile is in their phone (or email client) and then they attach that profile to different social networks, like RSS in reverse.

Brian Pate - November 16th, 2007 at 9:03 am PST

And if you want the life20.com domain name, I’m going to be selling that.

Dan Ackerman Greenberg - November 15th, 2007 at 6:23 am PST

Very cool. Is there any sort of public version of Socialistics for Gmail, or is it just for their one demo account right now? I want to see it in action.

Christian Fenner - November 15th, 2007 at 7:27 am PST

Very interesting! If you want to see a video of Socialistics interviewing Tim O´Reilly on that exact matter - and other to be exct:-) check out http://snipurl.com/1tour @intruders.tv

Voices.com CEO - November 15th, 2007 at 8:26 am PST

Fake Steve,

Lighten up buddy. Didn’t you recently launch a campaign with the tag line “Welcome to the Social” to promote the Zune?

EH - November 15th, 2007 at 8:36 am PST

OK, hold on. Didn’t I read a story last month/six months ago/a year and a half ago about how kids these days tend not to use email in favor of IM and profile messages? Isn’t there another story about how Asians lean away from email because they do all their text comms on the phone? The email-as-socialnet story seems to me to be a step backwards, maybe GooHoo are desperate to remain relevant in this space and email is the only group of users they have that is large enough to advertise to and capitalize on. Step 2: Social network? I guess, but I think it will boil down to them figuring out ways of getting people to check their email more often (just like checking your profile!).

So this would be a very difficult transition for the users, so in a sense I can see how this would appear to lack ambition due to it being a tough nut to crack. I think they really only get one crack at this, lest they ruin the idea permanently, so lacking ambition may just be the appearance of “heads-down mode.”

Issac Kelly - November 15th, 2007 at 9:05 am PST

I see this as being a huge thing
EH: I think you’re right, getting SMS in on this would be huge for the 16-25 crowd, but most of us still use e-mail and IM if we do anything important with our tech.

Eric - November 15th, 2007 at 9:37 am PST

Good! I’ve been waiting for the 2.0 release of life for some time now. The 1.x release has been pretty buggy for me. It’s mostly been a lot of overhyped features that thusfar have underdelivered - here’s to hoping that 2.0 will be closer to what was originally promised.

Joey - November 15th, 2007 at 10:13 am PST

this WILL be huge

New Product Auditing Dept - November 15th, 2007 at 12:47 pm PST

Aren’t the social networks already tapping into your email contacts (i.e. network) with their address book uploads? The only thing missing is the frequency of contact data, which may not be that important…

EH - November 15th, 2007 at 4:05 pm PST

Isaac: I think what should happen is that the user’s profile is in their phone (or email client) and then they attach that profile to different social networks, like RSS in reverse.

Brian Pate - November 16th, 2007 at 9:03 am PST

And if you want the life20.com domain name, I’m going to be selling that.

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