reiners
11.08.2008, 14:12
SOCIAL NETWORKING MEETS THE MAINSTREAM
Source: Susan Kuchinskas
[11 July 2008] – Consumers fast becoming regular users, but is business catching up? Business has gotten the message: Pay attention to social media, and begin to figure it out. The Social Networking Conference, held Thursday and Friday this week in San Francisco, aims to help them figure out how to do it. As usual, conference speakers emphasized authenticity, empowering users and creating a good experience for end-users. Mark Brooks, a consultant on Internet dating and social networking, and editor of Social Networking Watch, told the audience, "MySpace got the model really right. It allowed people to connect on their point of passion, empowered them to create absolutely horrible Web pages. They were crazy pages --but they were their pages." According to Brooks, advertising remains the biggest source of revenue for the industry. The $1 billion ad spend this year is expected to exceed $4 billion by 2011, Brooks said. "I think there's a lot of money in niche sites, where advertisers can find people with one strong interest," he said. The mobile social applications sector South Korea is the top user of social networking sites, with 66 percent of its citizens having used one; the United States is fifth in such usage, Brooks said. In the mobile world, the biggest action is still sending and receiving photos or videos, with 23 percent in the United States and 26 percent globally sharing their media this way. "We've hardly scratched the surface with mobile social networking, however," Brooks told the audience.
MySpace and Facebook are the fastest growing in terms of mobile traffic trends. MySpace expects half its traffic to be mobile in the future, thanks to its deals with 23 carriers in 13 countries to date. Businesses should take a strategic approach when moving into social media, according to Steve Ennen, director of business development for Neighborhood America, a provider of software as a service that lets companies build online and mobile social networks. "Understand not just the toolbox but the goals," he told the conference audience.
Defining success. Companies also need to define the metrics for success. "As a brand owner you can't control the message, but you can control the environment," he said. "Managing the community to facilitate the conversation is the best way." Ennis presented case histories of clients that have used its software. Scripps used it to create a community Web site called "Rate My Space" for HGTV.com. People could upload photos for others to rate and discuss. As people refined the tags, Scripps could create special channels for advertisers, such as offering bedding manufacturers placement on pages with content tagged "bedrooms." Within the first 15 weeks, it had more than 20,000 members. They created over 10 million page views per month, giving Scripps millions a month in ad revenue.
On June 15, Scripps used the content from the site as the basis for a new, eponymous TV show on HGTV itself. The site for the Men's Health Belly Off! challenge lets men upload photos of themselves and commit to losing weight. The magazine kicked it off with a cross-media ad campaign, and integrated some of its print content with the site.
Fat bellies. "It's a community based on, of all things, fat bellies," Ennis said. "It's a fascinating phenomenon." The comments are encouraging, showing that a strong community will police itself, he said. The 24,000 members have generated more than $500,000 in new ad revenue. At perhaps the other end of the spectrum, the United States Air Force is using social media extensively, despite some cultural barriers. The military must balance information dissemination and security issues, but it's working that out. For example, Air Force personnel use chat extensively via a PC-based application. Each person is allowed a limited amount of friends with whom to chat, and the application, developed by Roundarch, is secure. While the majority of social networking services don't make money -- or even generate revenue -- their evolution may mean new angles for vendors that can provide solid support. For example, Vindicia, a provider of integrated billing and fraud management services, had a booth at the show. Vindicia acts as the interface between Web publishers and backend payments clearing services, allowing publishers to take credit cards in payment for services such as subscriptions. Aside from protecting publishers and online merchants from outright credit card fraud, Vindicia can provide reports showing which users tend to create a negative environment for others. Because trust is important for social networking, Vindicia spokeswoman Jen Erale told InternetNews.com, monitoring what could be called social fraud can increase the strength of the network. When you hear old-school values like this applied to social networking, you know it's growing up.
http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3758331/Social+Networking+Meets+the+Mainstream.htm (http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3758331/Social+Networking+Meets+the+Mainstream.htm)
Source: Susan Kuchinskas
[11 July 2008] – Consumers fast becoming regular users, but is business catching up? Business has gotten the message: Pay attention to social media, and begin to figure it out. The Social Networking Conference, held Thursday and Friday this week in San Francisco, aims to help them figure out how to do it. As usual, conference speakers emphasized authenticity, empowering users and creating a good experience for end-users. Mark Brooks, a consultant on Internet dating and social networking, and editor of Social Networking Watch, told the audience, "MySpace got the model really right. It allowed people to connect on their point of passion, empowered them to create absolutely horrible Web pages. They were crazy pages --but they were their pages." According to Brooks, advertising remains the biggest source of revenue for the industry. The $1 billion ad spend this year is expected to exceed $4 billion by 2011, Brooks said. "I think there's a lot of money in niche sites, where advertisers can find people with one strong interest," he said. The mobile social applications sector South Korea is the top user of social networking sites, with 66 percent of its citizens having used one; the United States is fifth in such usage, Brooks said. In the mobile world, the biggest action is still sending and receiving photos or videos, with 23 percent in the United States and 26 percent globally sharing their media this way. "We've hardly scratched the surface with mobile social networking, however," Brooks told the audience.
MySpace and Facebook are the fastest growing in terms of mobile traffic trends. MySpace expects half its traffic to be mobile in the future, thanks to its deals with 23 carriers in 13 countries to date. Businesses should take a strategic approach when moving into social media, according to Steve Ennen, director of business development for Neighborhood America, a provider of software as a service that lets companies build online and mobile social networks. "Understand not just the toolbox but the goals," he told the conference audience.
Defining success. Companies also need to define the metrics for success. "As a brand owner you can't control the message, but you can control the environment," he said. "Managing the community to facilitate the conversation is the best way." Ennis presented case histories of clients that have used its software. Scripps used it to create a community Web site called "Rate My Space" for HGTV.com. People could upload photos for others to rate and discuss. As people refined the tags, Scripps could create special channels for advertisers, such as offering bedding manufacturers placement on pages with content tagged "bedrooms." Within the first 15 weeks, it had more than 20,000 members. They created over 10 million page views per month, giving Scripps millions a month in ad revenue.
On June 15, Scripps used the content from the site as the basis for a new, eponymous TV show on HGTV itself. The site for the Men's Health Belly Off! challenge lets men upload photos of themselves and commit to losing weight. The magazine kicked it off with a cross-media ad campaign, and integrated some of its print content with the site.
Fat bellies. "It's a community based on, of all things, fat bellies," Ennis said. "It's a fascinating phenomenon." The comments are encouraging, showing that a strong community will police itself, he said. The 24,000 members have generated more than $500,000 in new ad revenue. At perhaps the other end of the spectrum, the United States Air Force is using social media extensively, despite some cultural barriers. The military must balance information dissemination and security issues, but it's working that out. For example, Air Force personnel use chat extensively via a PC-based application. Each person is allowed a limited amount of friends with whom to chat, and the application, developed by Roundarch, is secure. While the majority of social networking services don't make money -- or even generate revenue -- their evolution may mean new angles for vendors that can provide solid support. For example, Vindicia, a provider of integrated billing and fraud management services, had a booth at the show. Vindicia acts as the interface between Web publishers and backend payments clearing services, allowing publishers to take credit cards in payment for services such as subscriptions. Aside from protecting publishers and online merchants from outright credit card fraud, Vindicia can provide reports showing which users tend to create a negative environment for others. Because trust is important for social networking, Vindicia spokeswoman Jen Erale told InternetNews.com, monitoring what could be called social fraud can increase the strength of the network. When you hear old-school values like this applied to social networking, you know it's growing up.
http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3758331/Social+Networking+Meets+the+Mainstream.htm (http://www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3758331/Social+Networking+Meets+the+Mainstream.htm)