The heavy lifting is underway for Biznik 2.0

sounds incredibly exciting, Dan. Way to go! Um, I frankly did not understand some of the terminology you used, but for simplicity's sake: how will this change affect us members? Will there be other-than-what-we-have benefits we can look forward to?

The Biznik concept seems to be a good one. I'd love to see how it can offer some of the same functionality as Linked-in, Jobster, Myspace, and everyone in between. I look forward to keeping an eye on things develop as time goes on.

Well, I study the bits and pieces of social networking sites to understand how features they have can be used in a different industries. Sure Myspace is great for teens with a crisis, but the framework and technology has good application in other industries.

To apply areas from all three-

Linked-In has some great strengths in introductions and social circles. Not only do you know who is in your circle, you can see who is growing a network, and it gives you a direct route of people who can introduce you. You can ask for recommendations, as well as give recommendations for specific jobs. Any of those features would be valuable for determining if you want to do business with an independant person.

Jobster allows you to build 'company bubbles' where you can see employees who worked at company X. Being self-employed, independent business types are always looking for a job (to us though, a job is our next customer). Applying the same concept to independent business, it would be great to have a 'project' that biznik members could be attached to (as most of us would idealy work together on bigger projects that require different skills). It also has a new tagging system that allows you to add keywords to your profile for easier finding, and lets you know about people who are similiarly tagged.

Myspace has some good user features in customization. It would be nice to offer some basic theme options in profiles, as well as having some of the music/video options they have. Presenting work in a variety of means is very stimulating (instead of video, perhaps powerpoint or PDF document files for potential partners and clients). They also have a good search engine for finding other profiles by keyword, demographic, zip code, school, and group.

Laughingly, I could go on about applying other tech ideas from some of these sites for days.

This may come out as a weekling after Barry's indepth analysis..but Dan make sure that we 'merge' continuus post into one if it's by the same person or give an option to edit insted of just reply. The reason I say this is because I just posted in my own post 'What's in a name....' and you will notice two continuus post by me, now if I was a spammer..lol (unless you do have some limit and I haven't read that yet)

Guys when are you flying to Tampa so I could meet too :( or fly me out there..(yeah right!)

ok cherio.

Just a little thing, Dan, and late to the party on this thread, but I'd really like to be able to add events to Google Calendar as well as iCal. Thanks!

As a non-Seattle based member I am excited to see how 2.0 will grow membership and networking in my part of the World. I hope I can make the bizjam next month.

Keep up the great thinking!