Although it's only been a little more than three years since Yahoo! acquired MyBlogLog, the company behind the once-popular visitor tracker for blogs and Web sites, on the Web, it's practically an eternity. It's well known that internal politics and bad management of the acquisition pretty much squeezed the life out of the product and the company's founders quickly scattered to bigger and better things. But the desire to bring visitors and blogs together never left the mind of Eric Marcoullier, who learned from the MyBlogLog flameout, and today, unveiled a new visitor tracking service - with some fun gaming elements, called OneTrueFan. I've been using it for weeks, and as you can imagine, like any other conquest that involves competition and hours of sitting in front of a computer monitor, I'm hooked, and in many cases, I'm "winning"... proving myself to be the One True Fan of a Web site (or at least the one who has clicked through more pages than anybody else).

The idea of OneTrueFan is pretty simple. To participate, you install a browser extension (for Chrome, Firefox or Safari) and a browser bar will track your Web visits. Each time you go to a new domain or subdomain, you get 10 points. For each visit to a subsequent new page, you get an additional point. So, for example, if you visit six different pages, you have 15 total points. Once you reach 20 points on a domain, you are a fan. If you have more points than any other fan, you are the One True Fan.


Being the OneTrueFan (or OTF) of an obscure domain isn't anything to brag about, for sure. But there's no question, in my mind, that popular Web properties that see regular daily visits are going to see serious competition between people who are visiting frequently and sharing content from those pages. Sharing content from One True Fan to Facebook, Twitter, Delicious or other properties is an additional 5 points. Already, in the alpha period, I have seen people battle daily at owning the title of OTF for specific Web sites - and if you want, you can get an e-mail notification if you either take the title from somebody, or lose it yourself. And each time you start a new browser session, the OneTrueFan bar will alert you that a transfer has taken place.


As with Foursquare and other social gaming services, the immediate benefits of a product like OneTrueFan are not perfectly clear. I don't get any monetary reward for being the OTF of both Twitter and Facebook at the same time (as I have it now), and all sites are equal, so you don't get any more points for being OTF of Google than you do by being OTF of my blog (sorry, I've got that one too). But OTF starts immediately with badges and leaderboards, showing the top visitors to any domain, the history of any user, including sites won and lost, their top friends (by total points), how many sites they are fans of, and how many OTF titles they hold.


For people permanently on the Web, like myself or Brad Feld, one can capture multiple site titles a day, and lifetime scores are already well above 20,000. That may be an unfair advantage to those who browse more casually, or use RSS readers to pull content from different sites.

So you might be wondering about privacy? Will OneTrueFan give away your addiction to fantasy football, anime, or pornography? That's up to you. You can hide any particular visit, or block any domain from OneTrueFan, and the bar will no longer track your visits to that site. And if you're worried that OneTrueFan is tracking your Web site history in the first place, well, that's just what it does, so if you don't like it, don't use it.

One good thing about OneTrueFan, in addition to the amusing gameplay, and learning what other people visit the same sites you do, is that you don't need yet another login and you don't have to recreate your social graph. OTF taps into your Twitter account and connects you automatically to your friends on that network - saving you a tedious chore of finding people as much as you are finding new content.

I have been using the site for several weeks, and admit I check in on the stats to see how people are doing and what they are sharing and viewing. They unveiled officially today at TC Disrupt, predictably being compared to Foursquare. But this is one location based app that you can use without ever having to leave your house.

You can find OneTrueFan at http://www.onetruefan.com.

      

Sometimes, it seems the phenomenal success and user growth seen by Facebook and Twitter in the last few years has boxed in what we accept as a bonafide social network - as we early adopters and tech press absorb potential challengers like chum and digest them quickly, mocking their attempts as feeble, and their traction as futile. For some, Facebook and Twitter, despite their faults, are the end all and be all - and it matters not if other products have more features or innovation, because in the end, he with the numbers wins, and it seems they've got all the numbers.

In the meantime, recent comments from CEO Eric Schmidt of Google to social layers being part of whatever the company has planned for what's largely been dubbed as Google Me have people saying a thin layer of social spread like a veneer over the company's many products just won't be enough to challenge a behemoth like Facebook - yet we see social elements being added to just about everything, from our e-mail clients to our music players, our photo editors and our video games.

The world is going social, whether it's little bit by little bit or in an all-in gamble to change the world. It's simply a matter of perception as to what is a feature and what is a network, and if users are willing to give the old college try to networks that aren't from Palo Alto and San Francisco proper.

Just take a look at Apple's Ping, within iTunes. Is that a network, or a social layer grafted on an existing service? What about Spotify Social? Is that the same thing as Ping, or is that simply a service that integrated with Facebook - not a network on its own? Does a social network require a unique user name and password and its own social graph to be a network?

What about Google Buzz? Is that a social network, or a social layer inside of Gmail? And if that's a network, certainly one must consider the social elements of Google Reader as a layer and not a new network on its own, right?

And just where does this leave other innovative social services (that's a safe word), including Amplify, Cliqset, Quora, GetGlue, Plancast? Boxee? Is Foursquare a social network? And let's not forget the classics that have been here for a while, even if you're not talking about them... like MySpace. LinkedIn. FriendFeed. Orkut. The list could go on for a while.

As I mentioned in a somewhat off the cuff "timeline of new social networks not named Facebook or Twitter" post I put on Buzz earlier this month, it seems our rush to judgment rapidly dismisses any challengers to the throne. All we are doing, in many cases, is signing up, following the same old folks, kicking the tires, and then walking away. But services, if they are any good, aren't about the first week or first month of services, and not about the first 10,000 customers. They continue to build. While many were quick to judge Google Buzz and Apple Ping, usually not in the best of light, both services have added many features since their debut and both see strong engagement from a loyal core of users - even if not in the hundreds of millions. (If they did, trust me, they would tell us)

Additionally, it is interesting to see how the services themselves perceive their place in the world - if they are networks, layers, or features.

From the Google Buzz announcement in February, they said:

"If you think about it, there's always been a big social network underlying Gmail. Buzz brings this network to the surface by automatically setting you up to follow the people you email and chat with the most."

So it sounds like, to Google, Gmail is the social network, and Buzz is the presentation of that network. Note this is not how they presented social features in Google Reader, when they added comments in March 2009 or when they added friend management in August of 2008. Neither blog post even mentioned the word social. So the ability to make friends, to add likes and comments, that was not a new network, but instead new features on an existing service - albeit one that integrates very well with Buzz, which came afterward.

In contrast, Apple Ping describes itself directly as "A Social Network for Music", while just last week, Twitter says it is not a social network at all, but instead a media company.

In May, I said to make a choice to your mobile phone platform, you should look to the core. For Blackberry, that's e-mail, for Apple it is iTunes, and for Google, it is the Internet. Not surprisingly, the latter pair's social networking aspirations are starting there. Apple has shoehorned a social layer into iTunes and called it a social network, much like Google did with Buzz and Gmail. Both companies are rallying users to spend more time in their assumed strengths. It makes good sense. Now, with the thought of Google adding social elements to everything, be it through layers, or widgets... or something, you can see the idea. Share everything. Like things. Link things. Facebook wants to own the "like-o-sphere" and capture what pages you like everywhere on the Web. Why would Google want them to have that alone? Of course they wouldn't.

The tech rumor mill is seemingly in wait and see mode over what they hope would be a full-on assault against Facebook from Google. Is it because they want an alternative to Facebook, and would literally leave the site for something else? I doubt it. I think it is as much because they want to see a fight. They want to cover a fight, and to declare somebody the winner and somebody a loser. It's clear, at least to me, most people aren't even spending the time to establish serious use on secondary platforms - platforms with elements similar to Facebook and Twitter that offer sharing and connections and liking and discussion - like Amplify, who wants to break through the 140 character barrier to have real communications, or like Cliqset, who wants to enable discussions to flow in and out of the network, no matter the origin, or still again, like Cinchcast, which is the easiest way to make a social network around audio podcasts on the go.

There's a like button in my iTunes now. I didn't ask for it. I don't even use iTunes much any more, now that I'm addicted to Spotify. There's a like button in my Google Reader. There are like buttons in my Facebook and my FriendFeed, and my LinkedIn too. These are social elements to existing networks. But think about who could turn this all upside down - the operating system guys and the browser guys. Guess what? They're one and the same now. Google has an OS and a browser. Apple has an OS and a browser. Microsoft has an OS and a browser. Only Firefox seems a little out of luck. Why wouldn't Google or Apple find a way to make the browser social, through a social layer, and make the entire Web their oyster? You wouldn't even have to make one more login with yet one more password to remember.

Let's not get too caught up on what's a network and what's not... what's a layer and what's not.... what's a feature and what's not. The real question is if the big guys are going to deliver tools that bring us real tangible benefits, or if there will ever be a small challenger that gets our attention so strongly that we really take the time to use it and get it right. For now, I think the alternatives to Facebook and Twitter are in the small niches. They are in Fabulis for the gay community, in SportsBlogNation for the jocks and fans, and in Reddit or Digg or Slashdot or Hacker News for the nerds.

Being social doesn't have to be in a network. It's everywhere. It is already a feature, layered into all we do.

At the end of 2009, Mobile Roadie made a big splash at Le Web for the company's do it yourself iPhone application builder. The app, for about $500, could create a customized application for individuals, and has seen strong traction in the entertainment space for artists including Taylor Swift and Madonna. It's also the platform used for iPhone apps featuring Chris Brogan and Brian Solis. I even paid for one, but haven't taken the time to build it out. But today, I tried a cheaper alternative (up front, if not in the long run) that already has a mobile URL for me, with many of the same features. The new platform is called iSites.

iSites bills itself as being able to design once and publish on multiple mobile platforms - meaning you can get published on both the iTunes Store and the Android Market. The "Instant App" feature requires no approval from Apple and is $10 a month afterward, while official apps on both platforms run at $50 a month - with the option to monetize with AdMob, if you are interested.


   The iSites App Splash Page and Recent Updates

Like MobileRoadie, iSites (not to be confused with iSight cameras) prompts you to enter a number of public RSS feeds aligned with your blog, your photos, your tweets or your YouTube videos, and to label them in your app. You can create a custom splash page, and in the space of less than an hour, you can have a customized URL to point people to all your updates.



   iSites Categories And Recent Blog Posts

For example, mine is at louisgray.isites.us, which looks a lot better on an iPod Touch or iPhone - and in weeks will support iPad as well. The system autodetects the mobile browser, and prompts visitors to add the Web app to their home screen. It works - and does so almost immediately - even if it is not flashy, giving you an option to keep friends, family and fans updated on all your activities with a single app.

Picking Feeds to Add to iSites

I spoke with Raju Sagiraju, the cofounder of iSites, on Thursday, who explained that the company gets around the rigorous app store process thanks to the creation of an HTML 5 capable Web app. He said, in contrast to Mobile Roadie's focus on musicians, iSites is focused on newspaper sites, bloggers and others looking for vanity apps in the consumer space.

The team is seven people large, based in Mountain View and just raised $1 million to get off the ground.

As they grow, if you can't get enough Louis Gray from here, you can grab my app at louisgray.isites.us. I'll be tweaking it over time to make it stronger. You can make your own app at iSites.us.

As we rely on our smartphones to perform more of the tasks we once trusted only to our PCs, we expect them to be fully capable - and are impatient when we run into limits that get in the way of us trying to accomplish something that should be simple. But limits are often in place, by hardware manufacturers, carriers and operating system developers, regardless of your preferred platform, that can slow you down. Luckily, smart coders are often ready with solutions that get around pesky manufacturer suggestions and vanilla installs to bring our smartphones to their full potential. This movement, most famously spurred on by iPhone jailbreakers on the Apple platform lives on in Android, helping technology n00bs like me give my phone root access without having to learn new computer languages.

While I very publicly switched away from iPhone to Android earlier this summer, the platform occasionally has its annoyances. They all do. One of the most glaring is how Android (even with 2.2) approaches screenshots. While on the iPhone, screenshots are simple, and two thumbpresses away, Android requires third party software, and the third party software requires the device to be rooted. In theory, it's all in the name of security, but it's a royal pain for a blogger who likes to show what apps I am actually using in articles that cover Android.

Root is also required for more advanced edits of the phone's default actions, such as getting out of the bloated HTC Sense UI and to stock Android.

I had previously solved this shortly after getting my HTC EVO at Google I/O, but a subsequent over the air (OTA) update from HTC wiped out my root access, and left me with Sense again (and no screenshots)... for months. Phooey.

But a team led by Matt Mastracci of DotSpots (@mmastrac) has released a simple tool called Unrevoked, which works for Mac, Linux and Windows, and makes rooting your device - forever - a snap. Just go to http://unrevoked.com/, choose your Android phone model, download the software, and follow the simple instructions.

Unrevoked, as the team reminds us on their site on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), says they want to "make it legally possible for people like us to reverse engineer and run code on products that we own". That's been a big sore spot for those jailbreaking the iPhone, and rings true again for those who hear about the openness of Android, only to find similar limits in place.


    
My EVO, on 2.2, is Rooted via Unrevoked

As you can expect, the Unrevoked team is in something of a tug of war, looking to stay ahead of the device makers and their future OTA updates. But if you watch their Twitter account (@unrevoked) you can see guidance on how to keep the upgrades from the carrier and handset developers, but maintain the opportunity to keep the phone fully rooted and fully capable. Even if you don't have a CS degree (and I don't), you can run Unrevoked. Find it at http://unrevoked.com/.