Facebook gets live:

Last night, Pete Bratach announced the addition of real-time notifications integrated into chat. As soon as an application sends a notification to a user, they will be immediately notified in the chat bar on their screen. This new addition has the potential to increase the conversion of users from notifications to application installs. I’m sure it will be a welcomed addition to developers.

Read on: Facebook Announces Real-time Notifications – The Unofficial Facebook Blog

(I’m standing behind the major of Bochum, Dr. Ottilie Scholz; left side)

Great analysis of the Facebook virtual goods market:

Each virtual community has different values and for a virtual goods to have value, it must reflect those values. In World of Warcraft, players value things that help them kill more monsters. The item’s core value is functional (it helps achieve a task). However, the color of the item is equally important because it signifies status. For instance, in WoW, orange armor is “legendary”. In Habbo Hotel, furniture is valuable because decorating your room, it the primary means of differentiating yourself, as well as the core single-player activity.

…

So what are the core values of the Facebook community? People in the know, will tell you that self-expression is a core value of the social network crowd. Great, but what values do they want to express?

Read on: Bret on Social Games: Virtual Goods and the Community values of Facebook

53 teams filed a business plan, 10 teams were invited to present their business idea, 6 were elected to the 4th place, two to the 3rd place, one to the 2nd and one to the 1st place at the senkrechtstarter business plan competition. No, we didn’t make it into the top 3 (a.k.a. top 4), but nevertheless, we are happy! Not because of the money, but because of the feedback. Thanks to the jury! And thanks to the organizer (= Bochum 2015 and the mayor of Bochum)! I hope more German cities like Bochum will organize a business plan competition. Btw: Bochum lost Nokia, but announced today that RIM (a.k.a. Blackberry) will open a research institute at Bochum. Gratulation!

Microsoft unveils the strategy behind FeedSync and the Sync Framework:

The new Live Mesh service that just launched as an invite only “technology preview” is Microsoft’s attempt to tie all of our data together. Live Mesh synchronizes data across multiple devices (currently just Windows computers, but theoretically it will extend to mobile and other devices in the future) as well as to a web desktop that exists in the cloud. It can sync data across devices used by a single users, as well as create shared spaces for multiple users. On the surface, Mesh is a lot like competing file sync services such as Dropbox, SugarSync (which we covered in January), and even Microsoft’s own FolderShare product. But what sets Live Mesh apart is its platform approach.

Read on: Live Mesh: First Look at Microsoft’s New Platform – ReadWriteWeb

Will Live Mesh become the Windows of the webtop (web desktop)?

I know I’m late (because I’m on a trip through Germany; next stop Bochum), but this is really important (to us and to most of our readers, I guess):

Google today made an announcement that could prove to be not only important to the evolution of OpenSocial and iGoogle, but also to the social networking sector itself. Google announced a new developer sandbox for iGoogle that includes support for their OpenSocial APIs. Essentially, Google is working toward turning their start page property into a social network, though they haven’t overtly said so. Google’s move makes this officially the start of a trend we’re seeing in start pages to get more social, and an idea we’ve been pushing at RWW for the past year.

Read on: Start Pages: The Next Social Networks – ReadWriteWeb

Michael Arrington is right – regrettably:

You haven’t arrived until your web application has a German clone, it seems. Web innovation in that country too often distills down to “copy/paste innovation.”

And now, Freundfeed, which doesn’t appear to be a joke. Not only is it a ripoff of the FriendFeed name, they also use the same logo. The service hasn’t launched yet, but I’m willing to make an educated guess and say that it will likely rip off the rest of FriendFeed, too.

Via German Startup Community Makes Us Proud Once Again: Freundefeed

Shopping becomes social – again (shopping always was a social activity, but not on the Internet):

Yesterday the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s patent application for “Enhancing Online Shopping Atmosphere.” The main improvement Apple sees, at least here, for online shopping is to make it a more social experience: “One drawback of online shopping is that the experience can feel sterile and isolating,” explains the application. “Customers in such an environment may be less likely to have positive feelings about the online shopping experience, may be less inclined to engage in the online equivalent of window shopping (e.g., will not linger in front of a display), and may ultimately spend less money than their counterparts who shop in physical stores.”

Read on: Virtual Worlds News: Apple’s Patent for a Shopping Virtual World

Facebook becomes a live entertainment network – also in Germany:

One of my German readers sent me a message earlier this morning notifying me that all German users now have access to Facebook chat. If you are into reading German feel free to check out his blog post. For those of us in the U.S. that aren’t fortunate to be in one of the existing networks with chat, we will have to resort to getting a sneak peak of Facebook chat.

Read on: Facebook Launches to All Germany, Not U.S. – The Unofficial Facebook Blog

My prediction: social networks become more and more like virtual worlds …

I guess it’s time to introduce myself. My name is Sebastian Schmitt, I am the CTO of our young company or as we say, the “Codeschnüffler” (engl. “code snooper”).

I’m currently writing my diploma thesis about the improvement of software testability by using design patterns. Within our company I am responsible for the development team as well as for the technical infrastructure. But of course I also do everything else necessary to ensure the success of our company. At the moment that’s concretely taking over the job of our future CFO like improving our financial planings and presenting our figures to investors and jurys.

As soon as we will get into the “hot phase” of the development of our “closed beta part”, you will see here some more posts from me.

Until then, hang in there!