Not directly related to social networking, but I ran across a great speech given by Steve Jobs to a Stanford graduating class on finding meaning in life and overcoming challenges. I highly, highly recommend listening to his speech if you’re looking for any kind of inspiration.

Inspiring quotes:

“And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And with any great relationship, it just keeps getting better and better as the years go on. So keep looking – don’t settle.”

“If you live each day as if it was your last – some day you’ll most certainly be right.” “…if today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today? – and whenever the answer has been ‘no’ for too many days in a row, then I know I need to change something… Remembering that you are going to die, is the best way I know, to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You are already naked – there is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Tags: Apple, Other by Tim McKillican
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Google Press Center: News Announcement

As is normal in the social networking space, an announcement with massive implications has snuck up on us overnight, and seeing as mainstream media has not the sense nor foresight to understand its implications, the big news drifts innocently along the formal news stream of the day.

Google Friend Connect, simply, allows any site to implement users, friend lists and third-party applications using Google’s OpenSocial. So let’s say you made a great Facebook Application, and want to spread the idea: whip it into a full blown web page, implement Google OpenSocial’s FriendConnect, and now you’ve got completely control over your destiny AND a full-sized web site to boot.

While it will take a long time, my preliminary analysis is that Google will continue to improve support for FriendConnect, and continue to woo bigger and bigger companies and websites to use it, and over the course of the next few years, it will be an important part of any site that desires to be ‘connected’.

That said, Facebook just recently moved forward with their own similarly named Facebook Connect, which allows any site on the web to provide its users with a simply “Connect to Facebook” button, which will then port in all of FB’s friend and user information, and allow for the use of applications.

What’s the conclusion here? These two companies are going to war over the areas outside Facebook’s walled garden, and the next year is going to be absolutely critical to determine whether people truly value the amount of photos, friend connections and wall posts they’ve already put into their Facebook. Because Google’s FriendConnect is going to operate as most Google products do: silently. You’ll use a feature here or there, then maybe sign up one time (if you’re not already), and one day you’ll realize all your friends are on there as well, and one guy will throw up a photo on there, and a rush will occur, where everyone heads over to make their second important Social account…

Just like when MySpacians migrated to FB.

Only time will tell.

Tags: Applications, Facebook, Google, MySpace, Social Network by Neil
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