13 websites that you might want to bookmark

Posted on August 14, 2008 by marc meyer

Sometimes I come across websites that seem to make sense for one reason or another. At least they did when I bookmarked them. Then I go back and wonder why. Some ring a bell at the time and others are downright headscratchers. Has that ever happened to you? They must have had some sort of real world relavance. Nevertheless, while trying to streamline the hundreds of blogs and sites that I have accumulated, I came across these.

CrunchBase is the free directory of technology companies, people, and investors that anyone can edit.

The tagline for Liferemix is “Great writing about great lives…”

Perhaps I should read more of what Steve Pavlina is pushing given these interesting times in our lives?

How can you not learn something from the Harvard Business Blogs?

I like the premise of Tech Cocktail ” to help amplify the technology signal in under served markets and have fun doing it.”

At The Consumerist, where the shopper bites back, you get your fair share of horror stories from the customers perspective.

Here’s a podcast audio player widget from personal life media

Here’s a a social microblogging service similar to Twitter when I was pissed at them, built on open source tools and open standards. Allows users to send text-based posts up to 140 characters …called Identi.ca

But then I found the love again with Twitter and was curious as to just how popular I was and Twittercounter does just that…

Roomatic is similar to Summize

PostSecret is so cool, the books are awsome and so is this site. We all have a post-secret, and if you think you don’t, you’re full of it.

Finding signal in the noise with the most popular stories over the last 8 hours on RSSmeme

and who doesn’t want to Get Slightly Famous?

OK, so there, this should get you through to the weekend. Who knows? If you had to share one bookmark or site of your own what would it be? Tell me, as my Indian programming counterparts used to say on a regular basis.

Visualizing Social Media Part 2

Posted on August 13, 2008 by marc meyer

I had such a good time with the visualization of what we all do, what we evangelize, what we learn and what we share on a day to day basis that it seemed like a good idea to show you a few more graphical representations of the space:

Here is Deborah Schultz’s version of the social media ecosytem

Then there is Fred Cavazza’s Social Media Landscape

Next is Deirdre Breakenridge I know its tough to see, but it was a huge file.

Or perhaps you can relate to this?

Although, I always like David Armano’s visuals.

Which ones make sense to you? What should be obvious is the interconnectivity of every diagram up there, with the exception of the web 2.0 diagram of all the social media apps currently out there. Where do you fit in? Where do you see yourself in any of these? Are you a watcher? A participator? Do you contribute?

7 Social Media Visual Representations

Posted on August 12, 2008 by marc meyer

I’m a visual person, so I want you to be too. With that being said, I think it’s interesting to look at the many different types of graphical examples of the social media space. The first graphic I want you to see comes from Lorna Li’s post on 6 Steps for Creating a Social Media Marketing Roadmap & Plan It’s interesting to note that her bubbles do not connect. They merely float around each other. Does that work for you?

The next is from Susan Scrupski’s post Circles of Expertise in 2.0 for Biz I like hers since they are interconnected, but I think that in some instances, that perhaps they should bleed over more.

Then we have Brian Soli’s Conversation Prism which is pretty cool since it doesn’t appear to have left out much. It reminds me of the NBC peacock though.

Next is Scoble’s Starfish Very accurate except for the sickly starfish. It looks more like a mutant glove.

Then there is my simple explanation of how the hot dog could be the center of the universe from a social networking standpoint. Chew on that, if you will. No comment on the public bathroom shade of blue I used.

And lastly, this one is pretty cool from Touchgraph Go there and type in “social media” to see a larger view.

Of course we could really dumb it down to a scrawled spiral and draw it on a napkin as well

Here’s one more submitted by one of my Twitter frinds, this one titled the new marketing ecosystem from Mullen Though it does look a bit like a Christmas ornament or some type of dangerous coral.

Which one works for you? or maybe there’s a better one? Flippant sarcasm aside, the point is that social media’s influence is far more reaching than anyone could have ever expected and the exciting news is that it’s only going to grow in depth and breadth.

The Conversation As Transaction

Posted on August 11, 2008 by marc meyer

I recently read a post titled The social media expert, Who is he? in which Jacob Morgan espoused on the question we all have been asking each other as of late and that is, just who is the social media expert? But an interesting thing happend while reading some of the responses to Jacob’s post, someone wrote that the conversation, or that the interaction on social networks, could end up being monetized or transactional.

I’m not sure how it went from talking about social media experts to dovetailing into monetizing social networks but it certainly gave me pause to ponder whether social networks could find that happy place and actually make money beyond relying on traffic and Ad dollars.

But herin I came up with some questions that not only do social media startups need to ask themselves, but even ourselves as users and readers and participators need to ask.

If you are the architect of a social media app or community, are your goals and aspirations purely altruisitc? Or do you want to make money? Your success does depend on the community, which of course is predicated on what? the quality of your apps? or the quality of your participants and the interaction of those individuals?

Its not the platform or is it?

The easier you make it for people to interact, then the better your chances are to succeed? Right? So then it is about the platform. See the catch-22? What comes first the people or the platform? or rather what drives or determines the success? The quality of the platform of the passion of the people? Or is it sales and marketing and $30 million in funding?

So this made me think that could the conversation, could a conversation be monetized? Could there be a conversational transaction? Monetizing the conversation. Putting a value on the conversation above and beyond it’s intrinsic value? Is that possible? would we go for it?

Robin Carey brings up a great point in her response to the above blog post in which she says:

I think there is a world of hurt out there around the notion of “monetization,” or “transaction” and social media. Personally, I think the hurt is misplaced. Let’s face it, people do need to get paid for their intellectual endeavors, whether that is for designing a great app or moderating a productive conversation. If you think of social media as an online, 24/7 conference, then if there is value to be had in that conference, then people are willing to pay for it. I would venture that relationships do have value, which can be monetized, but hopefully in a way that is acceptable to both parties (“transactions.”) The big change with social media is that these transactions and monetizations (if that is a word) take place in a more transparent and inter-active fashion.

So essentially what it may boil down to, is that social networks will no longer be free? Or perhaps you have to pay for your widgets, pay to communicate with your peers? Not likely. Which means this steers us right back to the value of the conversation, or the transactional value of the conversation. Yes it’s valuable but only between the people that it concerns. Above and beyond that it has zero value. And lets be honest, has anyone tried to attach value to a conversation? Beyond its personal value to you and I? I guess that means, for now, we’re back to relying on traffic and ad revenue. For now.

I guess the last question would be then: If Twitter started charging, would you use it?

Social Media Platform follow up

Posted on August 5, 2008 by marc meyer

I appreciate everyones comments and was made aware of a post by Jermiah Owyang from Forrester in which he compiled a pretty comprehensive list of white label or private label social networking platforms. Maybe this will help clarify things. I was looking at a very specific group of social media platform providers and not necessarily open source social media platforms or ready made solutions such as Ning. However, this does not mean that I am discounting the other players in the social media platform landscape.I just think that we need to segment them a little bit better since each offers a different spn and offering.

25 Enterprise Social Media Platforms/Companies To Be Aware Of

Posted on August 1, 2008 by marc meyer

Here is as comprehensive list of players in the space that I could compile. I selected them based on my own professional sense of what I thought was important in regards to what they brought to the table and for whom. Some are more platform based than others, but I thought all of them were very relevant to where we are as of today. They are not in any particular order:

KickApps

Sparta Social Networks

In conclusion, this list will expand and contract as conditions continue to evolve. Though some of the platforms/companies are not pure play, they all are contributing to the conversation, in what can only be construed as rhe dawning and evolution of a new digital phenomenon. Did I miss any in your opinion? What are your thoughts on the list? Are some better than others?

Why online communities fail

Posted on July 30, 2008 by marc meyer

“What we’ve got here is…failure to communicate.” — spoken by “The Captain”, the imperious prison warden played by Strother Martin in the movie, “Cool Hand Luke”

We talk about how great social nets are and all of the great things it has to offer but here is the flip side to that coin, why do online social communities fail? Where is the disconnect? Here are some opinions on the matter from the blogosphere.

Here is a post in which Eric Zeman says that up to this point mobile social networking has been a big fat failure. I’ve blogged about this in the past and have basically said that the 2 issues that will slow this rush down will be lack of real estate on the hand held device and browser speed of course. What do you think? where do you fall?

Social networking 2008 Friend or Failure, did this guy get it right? To a degree he did. Of course we have this little ditty from the Wall Street Journal on why communities fail. which we did not really need to read to know why they fail. It’s the community people, its the people, people. It’s not the cash. People make communities work. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t call them communities.

John Furrier has an interesting take as well, in which he says that users want value not cheerleaders but that still doesn’t prevent him from saying that Social Media – Corporate Blogging – Most Failing? It has to be social.

Are you starting to see a trend here? As many supporters and champions of how great social nets are, there are still areas in which some if not many see shortcomings and potential for improvement in the model. Here are a few more. This one coming from the auto industry: Social Media Networks in the automotive industry are fledgling and the dynamics created inside of them is atypical of what you see in other niches.

Here’s a post from last summer, titled, Traditional marketing failing on social networks. Yes that still seems to be true though I am seeing some marketing gains in regards to companies putting the right people in place to handle new social media intiatives. But not at any acceptable levels.

What all of this is, is people looking at communities and saying they are failing, or they failed and then they start pointing fingers. Or they just count the reasons why they failed. Or maybe they are the ones, who have never participated? Bottom line should be, how do you prevent community failure in an online social network?

Here is a response from FreshNetworks in response to the Wall Street Journal article in which they are essentially saying, Branded online communities that are set up and managed correctly don’t fail. And I have to agree with them.

Here’s more on why online communities fail In a world saturated with solicitations where people have less and less attention available, most communities fail because they bypassed a few important questions, like “what are we offering users?”, “what is differentiating us from other communities?”,

And of course the online community numbers that don’t add up

Why do online communities fail? The biggest reason for failure is relying on technology – whether it’s websites, forums, Web 2.0, social media, social networks or any of the buzzwords. Too many businesses spend massive amounts of money on the technology rather than the plans and processes and people that are what make up a community. To a certain degree the technology might not fit but it’s technology that drives the process, so we have to rely on it.

The customer collective on why communities fail: The first reason is that many companies who embark on community initiatives are putting their company or product at the center of the effort. As many pointed out, that is obviously WRONG – you need to put the community member at the center and make sure that there is some passion around the initiative. Put the customer at the center, but the customer needs to know why they are there.

Three Reasons Branded Online Communities Fail Would you launch a new product or service line without an experienced person to develop and manage it? Not usually, no. The same goes for online communities.

Or perhaps, why online communities fail, Community is about community and community leaders, folks don’t be seduced by eye candy!

Why Does Corporate Social Networking Fail? Dave Allen weighs in at Social Media Today. And so does Jerry Bowles with Online Business Communities – Who’s Winning? Who’s Losing

In conclusion let’s remember the thing that people who have the cash to set these up seem to forget or overlook. It’s all about the community, the managers, the brand champions, the word of mouth people who love the site, the users who genuinely love to connect with people, it’s people who love the brand and the company, the people who would do anything for the company for the brand. Its the friendships made. Its about companies listening. Those are your community. NOT the marketers, and the tech people that built it. It’s the people that matter that contribute, and it’s the contributors that matter who matter most. What part of that do you not understand?

After reading your fair share, where do you think the burden of an online communities success should fall?

10 social media blog posts to read this week

Posted on July 28, 2008 by marc meyer

Here’s a good midway point of the year article by Jim Tobin from Ignite Social Media on what the future of social media might bring. How many of these do you agree with? My 2 cents is that #4 will be more portable in regards to social media being more mobile rather than portable.

I haven’t had a chance to check these guys out Ecairn, but let me know if you do.

I’ve written about this in the past in regards to whether your online identity is alligned with your offline identity and Dan Thornton’s article takes it one step further. Check out his post, Is your online indentity in your control?

Richard at Dell has a nice compilation post from yesterday of things you should check out, not the least of which are The Blog Council, which I’m still on the fence with, and Feedly, which I have not checked out yet.

I love Mike Manuels’ post about measuring social media as well, since I sat in a bar last friday night and talked essentially about the same thing with Jason Breed from Neighborhood America. The bottom line and Mike’s post back it up. Very few companies have a clue about how to monitor their online engagements with social media as well as their online personas in general. You have to have a way to monitor your web traffic but then if and this is a big if, you are monitoring your social media interactions, what is the data that you are wanting to pull from it? What are your goals?

Read this post on Stowe Boyds blog, How we are made great and then lastly on Jason Falls blog, KatFrench has a great post on social media specialists chucking their backgrounds that basically asks the question, who’s running the ship for social media?

Does social media seduce us?

Posted on July 28, 2008 by marc meyer

So you meet someone. And there is something about that someone that enthralls you. Something that makes you want to spend hours with that person. Time becomes non-existent. Food-an afterthought. Your current friends and family wonder where you have been. Why? Because you have been, in this case, sucked into social networking and social media and it’s now become this mating dance of sorts.

So the questions, have you been seduced by social media? Does it seduce us? Sure It does. Admit it, you know you have been sucked in and seduced by its offerings of endless friendships and relationships with like minded people, its cool widgets, it’s offer of making things easier so you can connect with more people etc., etc. That’s right, Social media and the public are in love with each other right now. or better yet, are infatuated with each other. The result being, we, the users, are willing to to be fed whatever social media and it’s networks want to serve us right now. We’re willing to accept it because It’s fresh right now.

The relationship is fresh. We go out with each other and we have no complaints, or if we do, we overlook them for now. In fact, we tell others about our relationship with social media. We want others to see it, we want to share it. We want them to be a part of it.

Because Social Media is that bright shiny thing. That hot new boy toy. The smoking girl you met last week.

In fact social media can do no wrong right now because social media has a lot of siblings and a lot of connections and they all are very loving and friendly and willing to go out with you too. It’s like one big brothel!

The only thing you need to bring to the table is your personal information. All you have to give up is some tiny bits of personal information that should not take to long to give up and is really not that big a deal and you’ll be back doing your social media thing in no time etc etc. And based on the fact that it’s not that big a deal, you go ahead. And you forget it about it.

Problem is, the relationship may sour. or even already might be starting to sour. Most do, at least to the extent that 50% of all marriages fail. So why will this one be any different? You’re realizing that maybe it wasn’t as sexy and shiny and new as you thought. So now what?

You’ve just given yourself, all of yourself over to this relationship, and now it has soured. What do you do?

Hell it’s social media, just go join another one. Go find another social networking group. Think about it. A relationship ends, you mourn, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off and you go and find another relationship to jump into. But now you’re wizer, you know better, you’ve learned from all of the previous relationships and now you know exactly what you are looking for. The question is. Who will be in charge of this relationship? You, or the other? Who’s calling the shots? Assuming that both have learned from their previous relationships, here are 11 things that both parties should be aware before entering into any new social media, social networking union.

Your next relationship with social media will be better than the previous one because of a few factors. 1) You know what you’re looking for 2) The relationship is based more on trust and understanding of each other 3) The relationship involves even more communication 4) You are available for each other all the time 5) There will never be a betrayal 6) Self improvement will be mutual 7) It will be important to share with others 8) Mutual Respect will be necessary 9) We promise to be the person we are, and not the person we wished to be 10) Our privacy will always be our privacy 11) My data is mine and not yours and when I want it back, I mean it I want it back. Don’t make me jump through a bunch of bullshit hoops to get it back either!

So in answer to my question. Yes, social media does seduce us. It always will, but fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me.