Microsoft to move into social bookmarking

According to Mashable, Microsoft will be moving into social bookmarking.

According to Microsoft Evangalist John Martin, the company is set to release a product called “Social Bookmarks” this week. The product sounds a whole lot like del.icio.us, and will initially be deployed on MSDN and TechNet, so look for it to be mostly hardcore techie bookmarks for now. Features include bookmarking (presumably via a bookmarklet), tagging, and a web-based account where your bookmarks are stored.

Social bookmarking as seen on sites such as Del.icio.us, Digg and Stumbleupon allow users to collect (or bookmark) their favourite sites online and share those bookmarks with their friends and others.

Google Street View Privacy Issues

In the Tensions between personal space and social space in mobile learning symposium John Cook mentioned Google Street View and mentioned privacy issues.

I heckled from the back about how not only are you viewable on Google Street View but your image may then make the rounds on social news sites such as Digg. As you can see from here there are quite a few Digg front page stories that focus on Google Street View. Remember that a Digg story with two thousand odd diggs, will generally generate about fifty to a hundred thousand page views!

Personally I think it is a real issue and can only get worse.

It reminds me of a novel I once read in which privacy disappears (not through the internet but by wormholes).

The Light of Other Days looks at how the invention of wormholes which allow you to view anywhere anytime impact on society.

‘Space is what keeps everything from being in the same place. Right?’ With these words Hiram Patterson, head of the giant media corporation OurWorld, launches the greatest communications revolution in history. With OurWorld’s development of wormhole technology, any point in space can be connected to any other, faster than the speed of light. Realtime television coverage is here: earthquakes and wars, murders and disasters can be watched, exactly as they occur, anywhere on the planet. Then WormCams are made to work across time as well as space. Humanity encounters itself in the light of other days. We witness the life of Jesus, go to the premiere of Hamlet, solve the enigmas that have baffled generations. Blood spilled centuries ago flows vividly once more - and no personal treachery or shame can be concealed. But when the world and everything in it becomes as transparent as glass and there are no more secrets, people find new ways to gain vengeance and commit crime, and Hiram Patterson finds new ways to keep his Machiavellian schemes secret.’