Friends:

In the spirit of the Holiday Season -  we have decided to open up a bunch of our research, presentations and select FindMeOn documents, as part of a new repository called Identity Research.

Identity Research is a way of giving the general public a 'behind the scenes' look at some of the innovations our team has made over the past few years.  When you have a moment, I personally invite you to learn more about the intersection of online networking, consumer marketing, and user privacy on the following link:

• http://findmeon.com/IdentityResearch

Here's what you can find on Identity Research:

• Lots of Information on Technology, Identity Theory, Behavioral Psychology and everyone's favorite application of online data: Advertising and Consumer Marketing
• A new series called "Social Mapping" where we analyze the Social Networks and "The Social Graph".
• A collection of Public Presentations from 2006 and 2007 that look-a-whole-lot-like what some multi-million and multi-billion dollar firms have recently started building.
• Research on the History of SNS systems- including an Open Source project from 1996 that could likely invalidate the hotly contested Friendster/SixDegrees patents as Prior Art.

Why start Identity Research?

When FindMeOn launched in August of 2006, the internet was a different place.

Our critics and alleged experts would say silly stuff like:

• Niche networks aren't a real viability, the large networks are the only thing that matters!
• The walls on large Social Networks will never come down!
• Users don't care about online privacy, or realms of friendship!
• There is no advertising/marketing value in Social Media - it has some of the worst advertising performance online!

In just-over-a-year, things have drastically changed:

• Niche networks are hotter than ever.
  • They're growing at an explosive rate as more people connect online, the barriers to operating a social network are drastically lowering, and people yearn for smaller communities of like-minded people.
• The walls of Social Networks aren't falling, they've fallen.
  • After we released the OpenSN collection of Open Social Networking protocols, Facebook launched their API, and Google followed with their OpenSocial initiative.
  • Users have demanded portability, networks don't have a choice.
• Users explicitly care about online privacy and friendship realms. A lot.
  • Stories of people losing their job because of Facebook, MySpace and Blog activity have become commonplace, and serve as a warning.  
  • The public is starting to become conscious of how their online and offline worlds interact, and starting to think before they click.
• The marketing potential of Social Media is no longer being questioned, it is being realized.
  • Facebook's social profiling is one of the best Social Network advertising systems, commanding CPMs on par with other publishers; 
  • MySpace's new HyperTargeting system has nearly doubled their advertising performance; 
  • Major brands are turning to whitelabel service providers to foster brand awareness.

It has been simply amazing to watch the market fall into place like this - each of our predictions has proven true, and FindMeOn's core-technologies and value-propositions have been fully validated.  

As a small startup we have been constantly overshadowed by high profile companies and pundits that re-implement or clone our services/technologies with PR blitzes larger than our operating budget.   Identity Research is a way to start sharing select developments with the general public, and showcase how far ahead of the pack we've been - and still are.  While our efforts on the consumer side have been limited by PR and increasing competition, our main focus has been on our institutional products and Intellectual Property portfolio -- both of which are stronger than ever.

As always, If you have any questions please be in touch.

Most Importantly

From the entire team @ FindMeOn , we hope you have a happy holiday season and a healthy new year.  

No emoticons can express our gratitude for your friendship and support over the years.

Best, 
  Jonathan Vanasco
  FindMeOn.com Founder
w. http://findmeon.com/user/jvanasco
e. jonathan@findmeon.com