Anthropology: The Art of Building a Successful Social Site

"In anthropology it's very clear that the environment that you create influences people and how they behave", Spolsky explained. "People will come into the environment and behave according to what you built in certain subtle ways; ways that you probably didn't think about."

He points to the Scalinata della Trinita dei Monti, or the Spanish Steps to further his point. "They were built to be stairs," he said, "from the Spanish Embassy at the base, up to the Trinita dei Monti at the top." Instead, they've become the "living room" for backpackers in Rome. "Partially it has to do with the steps being the perfect comfortable height to sit on," he said, but also, they provide a fantastic view of the Piazza di Spagna at the bottom.

"This was completely non intentional," he explained. "Similarly, the user interface you create for your applications will influence how people behave."

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How to Listen for Opportunities on Twitter

You’ll note there are all different kinds of variations on how you can narrow your search, including:

• Specific words, phrases, hashtags (#gnomedex, for example).
• Locations and proximities.
• Time spans.
• From specific users.
• With happy or sad emoticons. :) :(
• With links.
  And more.

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Evolution of a Facebook-Killer

Plenty of people have been wondering about which company might come along and dethrone Facebook. What if the answer is so obvious that you wouldn't notice until all the pieces came together?

What if the answer is Google: Maker of Gmail, Picasa, YouTube, Blogger, Maps, Latitude, Docs, Calendar, Gtalk, and now Google Voice--some of the best-designed, well-connected apps on the Web. Unlike social Web's golden child Facebook--which released a flimsy API that ginned up some okay apps, and a whole lot of crappy ones--Google built its network from the bottom up.

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