Social "Status" is the killer app

Everything seems to be coming together to make social "status" the next big thing on the web. Status has already taken off in various forms (IM, Facebook, Twitter, GPS), but the big picture is now coming into focus and it looks awesome. I wanted to talk about it here on the Browzmi blog because it's shaping our thinking about how we move forward.

I'm referring to "Status" as updates on what you are doing. By social status, I mean sharing what you are doing with your friends and others. (Some people may refer to status by another label - "presence.")

There are several types of status that can be shared. The most commonly used status is "online," which enables instant messaging. But now we have other status updates to share:

• Friend status: "Travis and Artem are now friends," which drove Facebook's growth.
  
• Activity status: "What are you doing now" like we share in Twitter.
  
• Surfing status: "Travis posted 3 new photos on Flickr." Or like Browzmi, where we share in real-time where you are surfing.
  
• Location status: GPS-enabled display of your physical location, which is now easier to share via your iPhone.

With the availability of these different status updates across multiple applications, we're seeing the growing popularity of "Status Aggregation," where you can see these updates from your friends from multiple sources and talk about them. The Facebook newsfeed defined this experience, but Friendfeed and others in the "lifestreaming" space are taking it across services.

What's really cool is that the distribution of Status updates is growing in scope across more services, meaning you can see what your friends are up to regardless of what app they are using.

And even cooler yet, the speed in which these Status updates can be shared across services is accelerating to a real-time experience, meaning that the moment your friend does something, you receive an update in real-time. We use XMPP to enable the events and chat in Browzmi, so we really like to see the efforts being made to facilitate and accelerate the flow of updates across services (see Gnip for example).

So if you combine cross-service distribution of Status updates with real-time sharing, I think you end up with the next generation IM conversation. Just like IM, this conversation is a real-time dialogue between friends online. Better than IM, this conversation is enriched with the context of social Status. Now we have so much more to talk about - because we can see our new friends, our current activity and where we're located, and where we're surfing and what we're doing online all in real-time; like we're there together.

This is the killer app I want.

New Browzmi friend-finder feature and other fill-ins live

We updated Browzmi with a few new features today. We now have a friend-finder page that allows you to search your email contacts for friends that are already Browzmi users. And the page allows you to search for users, add our Facebook app, and send out invites to join Browzmi. You can navigate to this page from the Friends tab and Surf with Friends widget.



In addition, if you are using the Browzmi Homebase Firefox extension, then you and others can see that in your profile as well as in your updates - indicated with the little house icon. Homebase allows you to surf anything in Browzmi, so it's good to let your friends know about it.



And we added in a new Explore More widget that shows the comment, rating and save updates shared by Browzmi users on the page you are visiting.



So more progress made! Still plugging away on IM network support and we have AIM working in dev :)

You can also now follow Browzmi in Twitter: http://twitter.com/browzmi

It's good to get some Browzmi discussion going

Yesterday morning I woke up and Louis Gray had published a review on Browzmi. (It's like Louis never sleeps and his family recently doubled with new twins) So I was very pleased and thankful that Louis took the time to write about us. Thank you Louis :)

As hoped, Louis' post prompted some good surfing and chat activity at Browzmi. But more importantly, it started a conversation with some threads on Friendfeed.

A good question has come up. How is Browzmi different from the various other offerings that try to enhance web browsing with some sort of "social layer" above the web? Per some requests on Friendfeed, I want to take a stab at addressing that question out in the open.

First, it's important to define the problem that Browzmi is trying to solve. We built Browzmi so that we could chat and surf the web with our friends instead of alone. With the ability to see each other's surfing location, we can now share, discover and experience content together in real-time (synchronous sharing experience vs asynchronous).

I no longer poke around the web by myself as I'm now pretty much "surfing" with other Browzmi users whenever I am online. By surfing I do not mean co-browsing - I am not being dragged along by another user. I'm hanging out online and choosing to chat and follow friends around the web. It's an experience very much like instant messaging. And like instant messaging, my participation in Browzmi is completely opt-in; I stay online in Browzmi just like I would in IM.

For example, I'm writing this post via Browzmi now, and I'm chatting with friends and listening to a Muxtape playlist that one of my friends is also listening to (in Browzmi) now. Here's a screenshot of me writing this..



Here's another example from the other day, when Marjean was kind enough to show me around Meez in Browzmi, which was cool because we could actually follow each other from room to room there. (that's Marjean and I inside the Meez room and also chatting in Browzmi).



So in what category does Browzmi reside? I want people to think of Browzmi like instant messaging - but with an additional level of "presence" added into the mix. Browzmi's buddy list not only shows that you are online to chat, but it also displays where you are surfing. In Browzmi, our surfing presence - relative to each other and our friends - provides a context for communication, and a means to experience stuff online together. So for categorization of our offering, I would like to place Browzmi in the same space as other synchronous, web-based communications apps such as Meebo.

People are right to say that the "social browsing" space has it's share of attempts to add a social layer above the web. We did not create Browzmi to be an annotation tool, as these products do not focus on presence and real-time interactions between friends (sticky notes as an example).

However, there are (and have been) many products in the social browsing space with a focus on surfing with friends and showing other people surfing online. While there have been unsuccesful attempts in this space, there are also cool companies with good ideas and active, growing communities. Just this week, Rocketon received some more press on their MMOG layer above the web, which looks like fun (and they are backed by DE Shaw, which is no slouch investor). This problem is compelling; everyone surfs the web alone today, so you are going to have attempts to solve it. At the end of the day, someone will deliver the implementation with the right characteristics to take off and build a business.

So how is Browzmi different from other offerings where you surf with friends and others online? I think our feature set and its use cases, which I have described a bit above are compelling (where you can IM and see where friends are located and choose to follow or not), but we also have some more fundamental differences:

• Browzmi is a web service. You do not need to download any software or browser add-on to use Browzmi. Our goal from the start has been to build Browzmi as an online app so that people could get started easily and access Browzmi from various devices (and so that we could be a part of the cloud - see below). I believe all other offerings are based on a client-side implementation. While we offer our Browzmi Homebase extension (currently available for Firefox 2 and 3), it is something a user may choose to install after discovering that they like Browzmi. I believe any type of download throttles adoption and limits the diversity of the possible user base. Our web-based position introduces challenges (such as website compatibility) that we will continue to overcome, but the benefits are obvious.
  

• Browzmi works with 2 people or many people. The core features of Browzmi - instant messaging and surfing together - do not require a critical mass of users to be successful. Browzmi is fun to use with just a single friend online with you (and when we finish our integration to the large chat networks, this value will be enhanced). Many social browsing products have focused on features that require some level of critical mass to deliver value to the user. As we've built Browzmi, we've had a very small community of active users - but we've been having fun anyway. Certainly, things become more fun when you can meet new people, but our value is not dependent upon mass.
  

• Browzmi's features are not bound by the chrome of a web browser. As a designer of features, I like that Browzmi is not part of the chrome of a web browser. Browzmi is not a browser sidebar or toolbar, and as a result, we have increased freedom to make Browzmi a part of the web service community. Everyone notices that Browzmi looks like a virtual web browser (and if you put it inside a dedicated browser app like Prism or Safari 4, Browzmi is a virtual web browser). Our independence from the browser chrome will hopefully allow us to provide a more compelling service over time, whereby we enable users to customize Browzmi with personalized widgets, themes and update actions. In addition, we complement our application UI with a website where we can provide profiles, aggregations and search results. If you are inside the chrome, then the browser is the platform. Since we're outside the chrome, the web is our platform.
  

• Our goal is to open Browzmi to integration and customization. Question: what is the last part of your online experience that is based on your desktop? - Well it's your web browser. What if your browser was somehow in the cloud and woven into the fabric of web services in which you participate? Browzmi can not operate without what I'll call a "host" (a client web browser), but we can provide a user interface for surfing that resides in the cloud and is connected to your friends, your services and your interests. This longer-term opportunity is in the back of our minds as we work on Browzmi 1.0 here. Accordingly, we want to engage in conversations on how to integrate Browzmi with other web services to push this vision along.
  

So this is getting rather long, but I did want to answer the question and keep the conversation going. Feel free to explore this more with me online in Browzmi.

Cheers!

Browzmi Homebase Extension for Firefox!

We're pleased to introduce Browzmi Homebase, a Firefox browser extension that connects the Browzmi web service to your desktop browser.

Get Browzmi Homebase

Our goal from the start has been to give everyone the ability to chat and surf together with friends from your browser without any downloads, and we did that. Browzmi is a web service enjoying its life in the cloud.

Now we're extending our offering with a browser add-on that maximizes Browzmi performance and usability. When you install Homebase, surfing in Browzmi performs the same as surfing in your browser and all of your favorite sites work perfectly. Homebase allows the pages you surf in Browzmi and the data associated with these pages (such as cookies) to bypass our servers and travel directly to you.

So now everyone can easily get started with Browzmi online and then add Homebase for the optimal social surfing setup.

In addition, you may have noticed our new "open site." We're happy to have that task completed! We're still working on making all your favorite IM networks available and we've made good progress on this front. Chat in Browzmi is now Jabber/XMPP based.

What's next for Browzmi

The picture above says it all. We're going to make it possible to chat with your friends across the major instant messaging networks and surf together in Browzmi. Web-based IM + Social Surfing = Live Web Fun.

We're also working on opening up the Browzmi website so everyone can see what's happening. These projects will keep us busy for the weeks ahead. If you have ideas or are a developer that would like to build some Browzmi widgets/add-ons, shoot us an email at browzmi@gmail.com.

Dude.. so what can Browzmi do?

90 Days

90 days after promising a major upgrade, we've deployed an entirely new version of Browzmi. The new release is a big step forward:



It's focused. Browzmi is a website for instant messaging + social surfing with your friends. That's what it does.

It's simple. You'll see a new clean and simple user interface. Everything has been redesigned based on the feedback we received during the last quarter of '07 with the goal of making Browzmi easy and fun to use.

It's connected. You can now chat and surf the web together with your facebook friends. When you and your Facebook friends install the Browzmi Facebook application, you will automatically be friends in Browzmi. The app includes a Browzmi buddy list so you can see online status and start Browzmi right from your Facebook profile.

So have fun with the new release! And chat and surf with you soon.