Socialight / blog+news

Fast Company notices that “Social mapping technology grows up a bit” and that Socialight is part of the next stage in its evolution.

If you’re a Rails or Java ninja who can work in our New York office, mail us now.

Review the job descriptions first…

• Ruby on Rails Engineer
• Mobile Java Engineer

…then, if you’re qualified, send an e-mail to jobs [at] socialight.com with your resume and one or two paragraphs describing why you rock.

Existing Socialight users get first dibs at the positions!

I’m excited to say we were featured in this bastion of business news, in a piece titled Social Networking by Cellphone (registration required). Jessica Vascellaro wrote up an overview of the mobile “friend-locator” market and tells readers how Socialight lets you keep up with friends.

I love hearing about the innovative ways people are using social software. Humans are, by nature, social beings so when we hook up special software to enhance our social proclivities, we can work together to do amazing things. While we’re here at Socialight using social software to connect messages and pictures to place, people to place, people to people, and sometimes even place to place, there are people out there using social software for all kinds of new stuff.

Recently, I listened to this podcast about an initiative out of New York Law School called The Peer to Patent Project aiming to fix the US patent office review process. Many consider the process broken since there are multi-year backlogs of applications pending review. As a result many patents that shouldn’t be granted are, and those that should usually take years to get through the process. Peer to Patent, which has financial backing from the likes of GE and IBM, seems like a brilliant use of social software. It also could have huge positive effects on innovation and business. Essentially, the project’s aim is to design and pilot an online system for peer review of patents with integrated social reputation, collaborative filtering, and information visualization tools.

At Socialight, we’re harnessing the power of social software, and using some of the same social tools, for another new application: location-based communication. Our goal is to give people a tool for learning and communicating about, and through, place. Social software makes this work since we inhabit the same spaces as many other people but often care more about what the people we trust, like our friends and people with common interests, have to say about those places. It helps us figure out what gets shown to different people in different places. Without the filter, you’d be inundated with lots of stuff, much of which likely uninteresting to you. On Socialight, especially on our mobile interfaces, we first show you the content that’s coming from the Contacts you’ve made and the Channels you’ve joined. We also use the feedback - like ratings and comments - that you add to Sticky Notes to help figure out what others might like to see. If you haven’t already signed up and invited some Contacts to join you, we hope you give it a whirl soon and explore. Then let us know what you think.

As an early holiday gift, we’ve launched an all-new version of Socialight!

During the past few months, we’ve explored the dreams we have for Socialight and the suggestions and comments you’ve made and have done a comprehensive overhaul that we’re quite excited about. Here’s a quick overview of some of the changes:

• a brand new logo and web site design, and even a new name for our place-based messages - Sticky Notes. StickyShadows, RIP. Word.
• more ways to access Socialight while mobile - new mobile web (WAP) and text messaging (SMS) interfaces let you find and create Sticky Notes anytime, anywhere. http://socialight.com/help/mobile
• more ways to connect with other people – message users directly, post on users’ pages and invite contacts through easy address book importing.
• enhance the networks and content you’ve already got by importing GeoRSS feeds from sites like Flickr to share content from specific places. If you have your own site like a blog or a MySpace page, you can also embed Socialight widgets right there.
• tools for publishers (even you!) to create opt-in channels. WCities and Movie Locations Guide are already programming Socialight channels, with many more coming soon.

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on anything, positive or negative. Don’t hesitate to reach out.

We hope you enjoy the upgrade!

We were covered by CNN today, in a story on the homepage as part of their Welcome to the Future series. Thanks to everyone who gave us the heads-up.

They say:

Socialight…works more like a tagging service. It lets users create virtual “sticky notes” wherever they are with their cell phone. If you’re at a music concert, for instance, you can create a note. Then if your friends approach your location, they’re notified on their phone. (A new version of Socialight is under development and the service will be unavailable until that version is launched.)

That new version is coming very soon, folks. I promise!

During NextFest, we were featured during an hour-long special about the festival that aired a bunch of times on the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. Gotta hand it to the Discovery Channel and the production crew from MHP. It’s a pretty sweet segment, and the guys being interviewed weren’t bad either…

If you haven’t noticed, we’ve turned off Socialight for a little bit. Sorry! We have a good reason, though. We’re preparing to unleash a whole new version on you guys when we turn back on in a couple of weeks. You’ll be rewarded for your patience with tons of new features, a whole new web site design, and several new ways to use Socialight while mobile.

During our little bit of down-time, last week we had the pleasure of taking part in WIRED NextFest here in New York City. It was awesome - like a super science fair. Thanks to everyone who visited us there last week. We had a great time meeting people, showing a preview of the new Socialight, and giving out Socialight stickers.

The Discovery Channel and the Science Channel have been airing a NextFest special and we’re featured prominently. The Socialight segment is up on YouTube if you want to check it out.

Stay tuned to this space and we’ll keep you updated.

If you’re in NYC this weekend - do yourself a favour and check out some of the speakers / panels at the annual Conflux psychogeography/art festival, organized by Christina Ray and her Glowlab crew. If you have no idea what we’re talking about - here’s what they say:

CONFLUX: the annual NYC festival for contemporary psychogeography where international artists, technologists, urban adventurers and the public put investigations of everyday city life into practice on the streets.

Socialight was unavailable for a little while we switched over to our new datacenter. We apologise for any slowness you may have experienced. We are back and better than ever! We’re also hard at work on a brand new version of Socialight with some delectable new features that you’re going to love. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I will say that the new Socialight will work on many more phones and will allow you to communicate in some very new ways with people near and far away.

Of course as a loyal early member of the service (and reader of this blog), you’ll be getting a heads-up from us about the new site before anybody else.

If you live in NYC or are looking for an excuse to take a trip, late September / early October is the perfect time to be here. This fall, along with the wonderful weather, New Yorkers can look forward to checking out some of the awesome exhibits at the WIRED NextFest. Check out the story in the magazine here.

Socialight will be featured in the Communications Pavilion, where you’ll be able to meet us and take things for a spin. If you can’t be here, you can still watch the festivities on The Discovery Channel’s NextFest special (29 September @ 9pm).
SPOILER WARNING: Contains scenes from Socialight HQ.

Backstage images from the Socialight shoot.