Facebook

Facebook me!

The Facebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools. Unlike Friends Reunited it aims to bring present student communities online together with features like party announcements, listing of current classmates for each course etc.

According to their website, they were launched to the public on 4th February 2004, but maybe not at their current address, as the Wayback Machine seems to suggest it was occupied by another company until the end of 2003.

It was initially limited to ‘elite’ American schools and I joined in May 2004 when it became popular among MIT alums. Since then, it has blossomed across the U.S. and (maybe after my recommendation and submission of lots of student/college information) now over here to major universities in the U.K., including Oxbridge.
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Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford 2005

Attended the Oxford Forum on Entrepreneurship and Innovation last night for the annual Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford jamboree. This year’s focus was Networks in the 21st Century and there were some impressive speakers and thoughts on business taking advantage of online social networks.

The theme running through the evening was that social networks were simply, like the internet itself, as Bob Young kept saying, a tool, and not an industry or VC-fundable idea. The power of these networks to develop communities, identities, and (something that has plagued the interweb since its populist foundations) trust was discussed. Case studies mentioned included, rather naturally, ebay’s feedback system and wikipedia, although, frankly, there wasn’t enough discussion of the weaknesses of social networks and collective work as typified by what goes on in those wikis. (Jane Fonda, anyone?)

Mirroring the Q&A with Alan Sugar last week, talk ultimately turned to Apple, and there were some interesting thoughts as to why, when they seem to try to totally ignore the social networks build around the company, they are so successful in developing this community of followers. I think the conclusion was that when you have as good a product designer as Steve Jobs, coupled with excellent marketing, a company can succeed no-matter how little attention it pays to social networking.

Other coverage: Michael S. Malone (abc)
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Hols

Off to Szczecin, Warsaw, and Berlin over New Year: strange places, I know, but that is part of the fun of cheap flights across Europe these days.

The popularity of Eastern Europe meant that practically destinations were already very expensive throughout the holiday period — hence the flight with ryanair to Szczecin, on the Baltic coast, after Christmas.

Travelzoo then presented us with a 75% discount and free upgrade at the Sheraton in Warsaw, an offer one could hardly refuse, so a 12 GBP train-ride there was called for.

Finally, we found our escape route from the East, as perhaps historically has been the case, out of Berlin, again with ryanair.

It was only difficult for us to avoid further complications: ferries from near Szczecin to Copenhagen and Sweden are extremely cheap, and easyjet were offering some cheap flights out of the former
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Marriage

On a day when we hear of another engagement between friends, I coincidentally came across this quote from Lupin Pooter in a Diary of a Nobody: To my mind a wedding’s a very poor play. There are only two parts in it –the bride and bridegroom. The bestman is only a walking gentleman. With the exception of a crying father and a snivelling mother, the rest are SUPERS who have to dress well and have to PAY for their insignificant parts in the shape of costly presents. (Nov 18)

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King’s Chapel Roof

Dr Good was kind enough to take a handful of physicists that visited MIT on the first year of the CMI UG exchange up onto the roof of King’s Chapel on a bright but frosty Monday morning. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy some wonderful views of Cambridge and the surrounding area, capturing this photo of Churchill’s Moeller Center in the distance beyond the Senate House flag and St. John’s.

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Game Changer: Alan Sugar

Sir Alan Sugar spoke at Said Business School last night as part of the Game Changer series arranged by Oxford Entrepreneurs. In a strangely organised affair, Sir Alan spoke about his inspirations, his dislike for management consultants, his early reticence for firing people (something he seems to have overcome in The Apprentice), and his views on everything from Sir Richard Branson (‘a great brand-manager, but no salesman’) to the success of the iPod.

Most gut-wrenching of all was that stupid ‘Bounce with it’ Flash movie that gets played at all OE events: it’s completely amateur and the swirling text with fuzzy banging soundtrack is not exactly the stylish dynamic image the committee like to portray.

GRADschool Windermere 4

Just returned from the excellent GRADschool run by CRAC at the Hydro Hotel, Windermere.

Four days of challenging tasks were made easier by the excellent tutors and facilitators and — most of all — the interesting, intelligent and entertaining PhD student attendees.

Memories of my experiences with the fabulous group W will probably, as the Poet once said,

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory —
…
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
[Life] itself shall slumber on.

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