We've started to (carefully) explore to what extent there might actually be value in the current crop of social networks. We were involved in earlier waves - from Ryze to the now defunct Soflow - with little to show for it, so we chose to sit out of Facebook and Twitter for a long time, mostly for signal-to-noise issues. Feverish hype or not, I think the jury is still out, but I admit there seems to be staying power here.

Anyway, today's weird FB discovery (in the sense that I just stumbled on it), or maybe it is telling, is the group named El Mar de Chile no Se Regala!!!! which loosely translated is this post's title (though I'm using my own bewildered punctuation). 3,169 members to support Chile's position in one of its territorial disputes with its neighbors! I wouldn't have thought people would create groups around rather arcane geopolitical issues, and that's before Facebook has even been localized. Peru's FB network is half as large as Chile's, which I guess reflects its smaller online population (broadband is expensive in Chile in PPP terms, but I think it's much worse in Peru). The El pisco es Chileno group seems more at home on FB, since the dispute between Chile and Peru over paternity for a regional drink is more of an informal joke of an issue to rant about over a pisco sour. Speaking of which, I like this cocktail but also highly recommend amaretto sour. How's that for a conclusion about world affairs seen through the lens of social networks?

Jon Udell has a good conversation (with very good audio quality) with Neil Giarratana, the president of a small web shop based off Keene, NH. This stroke very close to home (so to speak!) since our HQ is based in Vermont but we have people all over the place: Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Georgia, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, California, and myself down here in Chile. We have people who sometimes spend time in London or the Florida Keys or wherever and don't really skip a beat. Looking at Lucidus' blog, I see we go through the very same issues, from how much can you rely on Vonage or Skype, to making sure wherever your people are, they'd better investigate their broadband options.

It's interesting to see Giarratana has made his location choice in large part for family reasons, just like we did. From a practical perspective, there are many variables, but the bottom line is, where can you get good schools without paying an arm and a leg for real estate? The almost philosophical under-current is to define and pursue success and quality of life on your own terms, and go in big cities only when you want to enjoy what they offer without bearing with their noise, pollution, traffic, cost and crime on a daily basis.

As a business, this distributed MO has definitely its challenges, but I'm convinced we've been forced to develop a sense of focus and discipline whose lack is killing a majority of internet start-ups. For us, it's all about outcomes, from new features to better content to, most importantly, satisfied customers and increasing revenue and free cash flow. There's no water cooler and white board endless filler. Less banter, more writing. Not that we can't have fun though!

Web workers looking to spend some time or possibly relocate to Chile may want to check our entries on the fledgling Chile Wiki: internet access and VOIP. I bought the Draytek 2910g router I mentioned a couple months ago though I'm not using its dual wan capacity yet (will do once we have found our long term house rental), nor have I tested the ability to use a GPRS/EDGE modem, but I'm considering it (Almost $200 for a Samba 75 is holding me back). I'm now living in an area where a major earthquake is a distinct possibility, so more ways to be able to get and send information could literally be life saving. More mundanely, I'm just interested in being able to keep working normally even if one of my ISPs is down, one of my routers dies and so on. It's all about getting more redundancy while keeping cost and complexity under control.

Part of the whole expat and distributed team lifestyle is talking over the phone -- a lot. I'm having fun with VOIP, for instance making calls to the US for 2 cents a minute from my Chilean cell phone with Skype To Go. I'm researching options for maximum resilience and mobility, which may look something like this: