iosurf blog

IOSurf will be shutting down at the end of March 2010.

First off, I want to thank all the users, and all the inspirer’s that helped IOSurf become what it was.  Without IOSurf, I wouldn’t be an entrepreneur.  I never would have made my first dollar from something other than a job.  I never would have taken the other chances to make the business grow.

But, all good things come to an end.  And today, the decision was made, to stop IOSurf, and focus on the profitable sections of the business.

To any entrepreneur who’s started a project and had to stop working on it for whatever reason, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  It’s almost like losing a close friend.

I’m not sure how many people really even check this blog anymore, but since this will be the last post, I wanted to leave you a link from a commencement speech given by Steve Jobs in 2005.  It’s always been an inspiration to me. (Click Here.)

Good luck in your own adventures and shoot me an email over at io3o sometime.

I’ll leave you with his words.

Stay Hungry.  Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

How many sides are there to your personality?

If you’re like most people, then you are not a simple one dimensional character.  You have many different sides of you that you show to people at different times.  At the very least you have a public face that you show to people at school, work, or at parties.  You have a semi-private face that you show only to your closest friends and family.  You probably also have a completely secret face that you reserve just for yourself.

That’s why it’s no wonder that there are multiple social networking sites that people join each with a slightly different profile.  Maybe it’s MySpace for your high school friends, Facebook for you college friends, and Linked In for your professional image.  And then maybe a niche site that you found on Ning about your secret obsession with Brazillian Folk Music.

At IOSurf, we encourage you to create as many profiles as fits your personality.  Because with IOSurf surfing the web is now similar to being “seen in public”, it makes sense that you might have a profile that relates to your business interests, as well a profile for your artistic or athletic side, and finally a profile that you reserve just for those secret obsessions.

Just click on the “log out” button on the right hand side of the toolbar. Ceate a new profile.   Fill your profile with as much or as little information as you’d like to share with the rest of us about this side of your personality. Then “log in” with the new profile.  And you can change the profile at any time.

People are complex in their interests and tastes.  Your social web browsing experience should express your personality, not be a constraint on it.  So go ahead, create some extra profiles, and have fun surfing the web!

With the release of IOSurf 3.0, the dream of social web browsing is that much closer to reality.

Social Web Browsing, Browser Chat, virtual overlay, whatever you’d like to call it, the idea remains the same.  When you’re surfing the internet, you just want to be able to see the other people who are at that webpage as you and you can choose to talk to them or not.
It’s a simple idea, and one that’s been tried in a hundred different ways, usually with the same results because of one big problem.

It’s a social plugin, so where are all the people?

Most browser chat systems have been built on top of chat systems, using a synchronous method to determine if two people were at the same website.  This means that two people with the same plugin had to be at the exact same website at the exact same time to be able to see each other.

Although this meets the “talk” requirement of the idea, the problem is that the web is very big.  And on these plugins, at least initally, the user base is very small.  And getting 2 people to be at the exact same website at the exact same time, it’s an almost impossible task unless they called each other first and decided to “surf” together.

So, you end up with the same complaint across many browser chat plugins.

Where are all the people?

With the release of IOSurf 3.0, IOSurf has changed from a synchronous virtual presence system to an asychronous virtual presence system.

Now, with IOSurf 3.0, when you go to a website, you can see other people who have been there within the last 14 days, and you can “talk” to them if you’d like.  You can also click on the “Popular” button and see the websites that have been most visited or most commented.  In our initial signups, this has proved to be an invaluable change that really lets people see each other.

The fact that with even the small number of users on the new version that we’ve been able to see other users at different websites, proves that the idea is starting to become a reality.

It still needs some work, but the new asynchronous system is very promising.

Thanks to all the initial users, we’re on to something big.

Some of you might have seen the IOSurf animation that is on the new IOSurf homepage.

That’s the first animation of several that will be uploaded to YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, etc.  They’re just simple/ short animations that explain what IOSurf is and does.  If you’d like to see some of the other videos, just go to YouTube and search for “IOSurf”, you’ll see the other videos available.

Enjoy!

Hey everyone,

I’m not sure how many Flock users might be reading this blog, but I tested IOSurf with Flock, and it works great on that browser as well.

I think Flock is a natural link for IOSurf because both pieces of software are interested in the ideas of Social Web Browsing.  So downloading the IOSurf toolbar to be used within Flock just seems like a natural fit.

Welcome Flock users!

John

For those of you who don’t know yet, Me.dium, the leader in the virtual presence/social web browsing market, has changed it’s focus.

Me.dium launched in 2006 and quickly became the leader in the emerging technology of social web browsing/virtual presence. With brilliant marketing, clear blogging, and a beautifully designed interface, the company’s toolbar was being downloaded over 5,000 times per week last time I checked.

They were also focused on creating other social toolbars, and apparently one of them, their social search toolbar, had a very favorable response. So, to be competitive, they have switched focus from social web browsing to their social search engine, called oneriot.

Here are some really good posts where you can read more about it.

Here Me.dium redirects to oneriot.com and here OneRiot launces social search engine

Personally, I’d really like for them to come back/remain in the virtual presence market. That might sound counter intuitive for iosurf, but here’s why. As a small company, it was really beneficial that Me.dium was defining the market. Instead of having to try to explain to people what social web browsing is or what a virtual presence system is, I was starting to be able to say, yeah, it’s like Me.dium or weblin, we’re just a little different, and here’s how. It’s much easier to compete/differentiate in a market than to try and define a market.

I’d like to wish Me.dium/oneriot the best of luck as it changes focus from social web browsing to the social search engine market, I’m sure they’ll dominate it.

John

The version that was almost a year in the making is finally released!

IOSurf version 3.0 is a complete rewrite of the IOSurf social browsing plugin.  3.0 was redesigned from the ground up to bring a fully functioning virtual presence system to life.

Changes

• The sidebar has been removed and replaced completely with the toolbar. In version 2.0, the sidebar was constantly getting in the way of regular browsing and was detracting from the experience of using the web. IOSurf 3.0 is dramatically more useful.

• IOSurf is available for Firefox! This one had been in the works for a while. All of my friends on Macs and Linux were very upset at my choice to make IOSurf Internet Explorer only meaning Windows only. Well, IOSurf, starting with 3.0 is now a Firefox addon. The IE version will be available in the coming months, but I’d like to get the feature set a little more defined before building it.

• IOSurf has moved from a synchronous to an asynchronous History Cache. This is really big. One of the biggest problems that systems like IOSurf, Weezu, and Me.dium had is that it is just too difficult to get 2 people to be at the exact same website at the exact same time. I know, I watched users miss each other on google by one or two minutes, and that’s when I realized that for this social web browsing/virtual presence type of idea to work, it couldn’t be synchronous. So now, if you go to a website, it stores that website in your History Cache for 14 days. And anyone else who goes to the website within 14 days, can see that you were there, and shoot you a message.

• The History Cache is editable. One question I was asked was how do I know what websites people can see me at? Just click on the History button and you’ll see exactly where people can find you. Didn’t mean to go to “that sketchy” website, delete it. Don’t want people contacting you from “that lame” website, delete it. You have the power! Control people’s perception of you online.

• New Features. The Popular button, better comments, better profiles, etc. There are plenty of new features to play around with, let me know which are your favorite ones!

IOSurf 3.0 is a ground breaking attempt at an online virtual presence system. If you’ve been with us from the beginning or are hearing about us for the first time, now is the perfect time to join IOSurf.

Thanks to everyone who helped in the release of IOSurf 3.0!

John

I’d like to comment on something I read about on Virtual Presence.

That website, which I think has the most insight into what IOSurf and other social browsers are trying to accomplish, gave a great overview of what it expects to see in the “layered virtual world” space or “social web browsing” space or whatever we’d like to call it over the next 2 years.

If you haven’t read the article, click here.

Although I hope the large companies don’t enter the space for a little while because it would crush us smaller companies, as a user and a futurist, I am excited about what can be accomplished by using these virtual worlds.

So, I’d like to give you a vision of what I’d like to see in the virtual world/social browsing/layered world space in the next 2 years.

1. The web is the virtual world.  Instead of owning a virtual shop in a 3d world, just go to Amazon.com.  Instead of seeing who goes to the virtual forest, why not see who else likes to go to real forests in the US by going to nps.gov.  And instead of having to go to facebook.com, all your friends and people you don’t know can go with you to any webpage.

2. No overlays, or sidebars in the browser.  Although I think the overlays and sidebars look cool, I found myself constantly closing them when I was doing my normal surfing.

IOSurf 3.0 has removed the sidebar, and is now completely usable from the toolbar.

3.  This layered world should not be a game.  This virtual world is about meeting people on the web as easily as you would meet people in real life.  If you go to a coffee shop in the real world you meet coffee drinkers.  If you go to digg.com, you meet other techies.  It’s just that simple.

As not just a developer but also someone who believes in the future and technology, I’m incredibly excited to see what can be done with these virtual worlds.  The creation of a true virtual presence on the web is now the singular focus of IOSurf and what I hope to accomplish with IOSurf 3.0.

As part of the Version 3.0 rollout, IOSurf is going to be available for Firefox.

IOSurf originally was trying to position itself as the only plugin that was doing this browser chat kind of thing for Internet Explorer. Of course, that was 2 years ago, and since then Weezu came out, Me.dium came out, and I’m sure some other plugins I’m not aware of have come out for IE.

Since IOSurf 3.0 is a major rewrite and is getting back to the core of what social web browsing/browser chatting should be, it only made sense to make this new version available to Firefox users from the very beginning.

I’ll upload some screenshots as the release date gets closer.

3.0 is coming!

IOSurf 3.0 is coming.

This is what IOSurf was supposed to be. It just took 2 poor/basic versions to get to it.

I’m not going to write about how the features, functionality, etc. have changed until closer to the release date because I don’t want anyone copying them until it’s out, but I just wanted my readers and the current users of IOSurf to know, 3.0 is coming.

If you’re interested in Beta Testing 3.0, shoot me an email or a message on iosurf.

John