mileslennon

WooMe, the online network for fast, virtual introductions recently secured another sizable round of funding and is closing in on 100,000 users just a few months after its launch. The site offers a place to host or join back to back speed sessions with people, live in voice and video.

WooMe is very easy to use and gets right down to its business: making people introductions faster and easier. Access to rich profiles prior to discussions, a privilege competitor Speeddate does not grant, makes the selection process slightly less hit-or-miss. In addition, within sessions, users can list their interests or preferred discussion topic keywords so that other Wooers can instantaneously relate.

This feature certainly facilitates discussion and alleviates some of the awkwardness of speed dating. When thinking about first dates or introductions, one often conjures up the agonizing memories of nervously firing questions, desperately searching for common ground. WooMe displays that common ground just as the first word is uttered.

Furthermore, much like the Facebook application Define Me, Wooers can choose words to describe each other. These tags are used on personal profiles to build reputations. These basic networking tools provide a decent amount of metadata to make the process of meeting people more enjoyable and relevant.

As others have suggested, WooMe has the potential to expand beyond speed dating. Interviewing for all sorts of purposes seems to be the logical step toward advancing the service, but I’m not convinced that it is the right environment—at least not currently. When I began interviewing for jobs, I made sure to update my various social networking profiles accordingly, removing information I felt might be deemed inappropriate by company insiders.

Access to my profiles is permission based, but there was always that looming “But what if…?” If WooMe is to become a site for professional recruitment, access to profiles, defining characteristics and interests is going to have to be regulated because I don’t see an employer particularly appreciating an interest in “foreplay” or “kinky” as a defining characteristic. Or maybe he or she will, depending on the company—only kidding.

The point is, if WooMe is to become a trusted platform for meeting other professionals, it will have to address the issue of the service’s inherently casual nature. I doubt LinkedIn or Monster would be the success it is today if social or more personal information were readily available to users within the service.

But in the meantime, if you are into speed dating or other types of quick and casual conversations, give WooMe a spin.

A few days ago, it was announced that the Library of Congress initiated a pilot project to put the government archive’s copyright-free photos on Flickr. The project, aimed towards gaining “a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the library and users of the Library’s collections,” is launching small, putting up a mere 3,000 photos (they’ve got millions) to test the waters.

Although we are unsure of how effective the project will be, it is needless to say that a government institution’s movement to leverage Web 2.0 phenomena to increase the online presence and general availability of information is an important one. Not only is the concept of a central location for valuable visual content compelling, but even more intriguing is how this media could then be shared and mashed-up through the millions of distribution channels on the web.

The metadata associated with the photos’ numerous distribution points could lead to new paths and networks that could dramatically enhance the image search process.The idea of a sea of metadata attached to the LOC’s photos inevitably begs the following question: Could social metadata eventually become a more effective search and data organization tool than traditional metadata?

For those of you who have not heard the term before, metadata, put simply, is data that is used to manage other data. If you have ever been to the library to check out a particular book, you may have tried to search for it by call number, author, title or keyword; those search items are the metadata you used to search for the actual data (the book) you were looking for.

Standardized metadata was institutionalized to help us successfully find, but is it possible that the arguably less reliable but slightly more instinctual social metadata such as tags could drive us to the content we want (as well as other relevant content) faster? Will humans be more comfortable and successful searching, finding and viewing within a standard system or one that is generated by their peers?

These are questions that will hopefully be answered in the near future. Until then, donate some of your procrastination time to a good cause!

Miles Lennon is an entrepreneur and innovation enthusiast.

Despite early doubts of success, Zecco, the $0 commission trading platform and online investor community is thriving with 17,000 unique visitors every day and 95,000 members registered in the community. As long as your account balance exceeds $2,500, the free trading community gives you 10 free stock trades monthly ($4.50 for each additional) along with a slew of other benefits including low margin rates—for those of you whose middle name is leverage—and no minimum cash balances to open basic account or IRAs.

In addition to providing investors with a free, intuitive and comprehensive trading utility, Zecco gives users access to three crucial resources—namely, a community, quotes and research, and basic educational materials for noobs—to ensure smarter investment decisions. ZeccoShare, the company’s online community, is worth highlighting because it supports the popular business philosophy, “many are smarter than the few,” which seems to be influencing a number of startups in this space. Members of the community can join groups, communicate with fellow investors and debate investment strategies, all the while evaluating the sources of the information they receive from others by viewing their portfolio performances.

Fortunately, I had a chance to ask Tony Leach, ZeccoShare’s Product Manager, a few questions. When asked what type of investor is best suited for Zecco, he said, “Zecco is ideal for the self-directed investor – the kind that researches their own decisions and wants to use new tools like the ZeccoShare community to get an edge on the market.” Zecco lies at the intersection of a brokerage and a community of plentiful resources and thus “sets us apart from the competition.”

Part of Zecco’s plan for the future is to integrate with the broader online community and it appears they are heading in that direction. Zecco has implemented Motley Fool’s CAPS stock recommendation system, which produces ratings for stocks based the ratings of investors that take positions in them. Although the CAPS system has been somewhat controversial, it may for the time being give you a little edge to beat the market.

If you didn’t make the cut for Covestor because you aren’t “proven” and you’re looking for a more dynamic community with more resources than Cake, stop by Zecco and open an account (no minimum).

For those of you concerned that some of the time you spend on the web is a complete waste of time, you may now sleep at night. It turns out that the countless hours we devote to browsing the web and using web-hosted applications will benefit us in a new way—every minute we invest in using the internet will pay off in an increasingly relevant experience.

Programmers are leveraging APML (Attention Profiling Mark-Up Language) to allow users to share their “attention profile”—a compressed file of Attention Data such as browsing history, shared photos, blog posts, tweets, social bookmarks, and more—to reveal their ranked interests in order that they may receive more relevant information from content providers. Put simply, Attention Data tells content providers what we pay attention to the most so that they can align their efforts with our exact tastes.

Sounds brilliant? It is. Attention profiling has the potential to revolutionize an individual’s browsing experience. Currently, we are in an age of hyper-saturation in which searching for relevant content is a burdensome task. The APML standard will give you greater control over your Attention Data, allowing you to choose what is recorded in your attention profile—favorite websites, frequently used search terms, content you link to—and share it with your favorite websites and online services.

APML will provide marketers with a highly coveted wealth of information and users with a better web experience and control over their personal information in order to prevent exploitative data mining. The benefits are clear, which is why many new and existing sites, including many popular social media and networking sites that collect a magnitude of information, are on board. For a good example of how powerful it can be, check out Idiomag, the beautifully designed, highly interactive music magazine that shows you music news and media relevant to your favorite musicians.

Here’s a couple of links with more details about APML and other revolutionary open standards to appease the inner geek in you.

Miles Lennon is an entrepreneur and innovation enthusiast.