Chatting taken to the next level

Thé new online hype is Chatroulette. If you know your way around the net, you definitely must’ve heard of it. The chat website was launched only a couple of months ago and already featured on popular talk shows like Good Morning, America and Newsnight. In six months’ time, Chatroulette.com was able to tempt about 1.5 million people to check it out. Talk about a big bang, or buzz, or whatever fancy words there are to describe gigantic website hits.

The funny thing about Chatroulette is that more and more surfers are using the concept to push the boundaries of connecting online. Although a lot of the users apparently feel the need to simply expose their genitals to total strangers (or other even less appetizing body parts) , you could come across something special if you’re patient. A great example is the concert singer-songwriter Ben Folds gave recently. The artist played – in front of his audience – improvised songs to the users he connected with on Chatroulette. This resulted in some very funny moments.



Could this be a new trend? I certainly hope so! It definitely takes communicating via the net to the next level. However, let’s not forget that the website is all about simple fun and meeting new people. It should not be taken over by a bunch of ‘wannabe celebrities’ that hope to acquire a new status of fame by showing off their talents. Nevertheless, I’d never say no to a free online serenade from a handsome and talented musician. Who can hook me up?

Sources:
http://mashable.com/2010/03/21/ben-folds-chatroulette/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatroulette

The business investors of the future

What if internet users, normal everyday people like you and me, become the business investors of the future: Would that lead to ultimate chaos or the ultimate opportunity to get your talents out there? Tenpages.com decided to take the leap and test the theory.



On tenpages.com aspiring authors can post ten pages of their manuscripts online. Users then decide whether or not they want to read more of the story. If they do, they can invest some money in the excerpt or more precisely, they buy shares (worth €5 per share). If two thousand shares are sold, the manuscript will be published by a partner of the website. Clever, no? By letting the users do the decision making, tenpages.com lowers the risk of failure and they give the users exactly what they want. It is a win-win for every party involved.

This total integration of business, client and user is the perfect example of what I believe to be the future of the net. You may have heard of it already: Web 3.0, does it ring a bell? Although the term is getting increasingly more known, companies are still mainly focusing on the reigning trend of Web 2.0. I believe however, that we should hop on the 3.0 train and reap the benefits of total integration.

Sources:
http://www.tenpages.com/

Time spent on SNS surges globally

The Nielsen Company has discovered that the global average time spent per person on social networking sites has increased tremendously: nearly five and half hours per month nowadays (February 2010 data), which is a rise of more than two hours in comparison with last year. In arriving at that conclusion, Nielsen measured social network usage per person across ten countries, and compared that to data from the same time last year.

If we take a look at specific countries, it seems like Italy tops the charts with social network time per person just under six and a half hours per month (6:27:53). Australia is the runner-up (6:25:21). The United States takes the credit for having the largest unique social networking audience, but only ranks third in usage with the average person spending just over six hours (6:02:34) on social networks.

Another remarkable conclusion is that Facebook, with its 400 million members, accounts for the majority of the time spent on SNS. In other words, we can declare Facebook to be the absolute number-one social network destination worldwide, with a score of nearly six hours (5:52:00) per person with the average user logging in more than 19 times per month. This means that the time spent on Facebook is almost five hours longer than the time spent on MySpace (0:59:33), which is the second closest social network in terms of time spent on site per person.

Source:
http://mashable.com/2010/03/19/global-social-media-usage/

Having trust issues?

Building a social network site that builds the bridge from virtual social contact to real-life social contact has one major issue: trust. If you don’t get the users to trust other users, or more importantly the service you’re offering, you can kiss your dear internet company goodbye. But where to start building that necessary trust?

Well, I’ve found an interesting introduction on a book called Trust Agents, written by the Web 2.0 gurus Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. They state that companies should profile themselves on the net as a ‘trust agent’. The keyword to reach that status is personal approach: the company should spontaneously and sincerely try to help their clients. It’s almost like becoming one of your clients’ best virtual friends.

I believe this is actually the most effective approach we could implement to make our users forget their trust issues. The article ‘The Science of Building Trust With Social Media’ on mashable.com backs up Brogan and Julien’s point. That article claims videos are more efficient to reach your users and to solve crises like for example a clear lack of user trust.

In short: first point on the agenda is hiring someone the camera loves, because he or she will function as our very own ‘trust generator’.

Sources:

http://www.molblog.nl/bericht/hoe-trust-agents-reputaties-maken-en-breken/

http://mashable.com/2010/02/24/social-media-trust/

The success of apology

Apologizing is one of the important social codes of behaviour. After having made some kind of mistake, an apology can make some damage undone to the harmed person. It acknowledges that the wronged person has every right to feel wronged. On the other hand, it can also relieve the person who has to apologize.

Communication specialists tend to agree that offering apologies is a good technique when confronted with a major crisis. Recent examples show that it has become a quite popular strategy: Tiger Woods’ mediatised press conference and the extensive excuses by the CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, have been seen all over the world.

This recent culture of apologizing is part of new communication strategies. Both customers and shareholders have to be satisfied. Public excuses are the perfect opportunity to get past troubles and start again with a clean slate.

The success of apologies could at some point be compromised by its popularity: it could seem to become an easy and theatrical way out. The apology itself does not really change anything, it basically is just communicating that you’re sorry. The most important thing should be a real change in behaviour.

Sources:
De Standaard
www.psychologytoday.com

Social Media Activism promoted at Oscars

The omnipresence of social media has been proven once again at the 82th Academy Awards. One of the men responsible for The Cove, the 2010 Oscar winner for Best Documentary, used the Academy Awards stage to promote a web and mobile-based activism. The film describes the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park in Japan from an anti-dolphin hunting campaigner’s point of view. During the accepting speech, Ric O’Barry held up a small black board with the words “Text DOLPHIN to 44144” on it.

Viewers who followed the sign’s instructions were subscribed to text updates and plugged into the larger social media campaign for the film’s cause. The campaign is rooted in a Takepart.com page that links to several ways people can get involved, including a letter-writing campaign and a Facebook Cause application page with more than 500.000 supporters. The latter has also been used to organize live-streaming Q&A events with Ric O’Barry.

Activist O’Barry has made a clever use of social media in order to reach people who had never heard about the movie before, and to inform them about the slaughter of dolphins. It seems like text messages and the web increasingly pay a significant part in activism lately: the American Red Cross, for example, ran a very successful text message donation campaign for relief efforts in Haiti, while Twitter was used by protesters in Iran to make voices heard and to organize events. The film itself has caused a major uproar, but the impact of the social media campaign of The Cove cannot be measured just yet. Nevertheless, this example illustrates how social media can function as an important weapon for activists.

Source:
http://mashable.com/2010/03/08/the-cove-movie-oscars/

Popularity of sharing

The popularity of social networking sites is undeniable. Part of this (r)evolution is reflected in the increasing trend of sharing. On the internet, property is slowly becoming a relative concept. The success of online platforms like social networking sites goes along with this evolution.


The trend is most obvious in the music industry. Via free peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, BearShare and many others, songs have become a kind of common property. iTunes is starting to legalise downloading, but there is still a long way to go. Younger generations do not consider their behaviour as ’stealing’: the internet has become a place where almost everything is available to everyone.

So how exactly do SNS’es fit in? Networking sites are the ideal way to share our lives with others. Via tweets and status updates on Facebook people are constantly sharing their photos, opinions and innermost thoughts. And if you do not take part in this kind of exhibitionistic behaviour, you will be dragged into it at some point.

The only way to take some control, is to be present on the internet and try to shape the perception yourself, instead of letting it just happen.

Source:
http://www.nxt.be/pers/KW50-028-032.pdf

Social media ROI

The social media revolution is a fact. Not to participate is to miss the point entirely, especially as a business. According to Socialnomics, over 300.000 companies are present on Facebook. Those engaged in social media are said to pass their competitors in both revenues and profits. Investing in marketing through social media is a lot cheaper and above all, a lot more profitable. Dell sold $ 3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter. Ford invested 25% of marketing spending in social media and as a result, they were the only US car company that did not need a government loan. This Youtube video features more impressive numbers on the ROI of social media:

Our own social network site will hopefully be able to benefit from these numbers. A large part of our revenues should stem from advertisments. 71 % of companies plan to increase their investment in social media by an increase of 40 % because of the low cost marketing and the traction. If we can reach even a small number of these companies, DinnerDate should thrive.

Internet running for Nobel Peace Prize

The Internet is nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, that is what you call a surprise! For the last time I checked, the Internet was still an abstract medium and not a human being. But ignoring the doubts about whether or not one can nominate something so impersonal, I can follow the stream of thought behind the nomination: Internet did bring more connections to life than Graham ‘telephone inventor’ Bell could ever imagine.

The Italian version of Wired Magazine started the Internet for Peace Campaign. They launched a website and tried spreading out a fancy video. Yet, I am not impressed. After three months of online streaming, the YouTube video has been watched 25 592 times (view count 5PM February 21, 2010) and the website counts 5 677 members. That is not what you call an immediate success in terms of viral campaigning. However, the Net did make it to the shortlist of nominees and will compete against a Russian Human Rights group and a Chinese dissident.

But let us ignore the losing score I mentioned and enjoy the pretty video. (Yes, I am impressed by the visuals.)



I wonder: what if the campaign slowly grows on people and the Net does win the Nobel Peace Prize? It simply proves to me that we are in the right sector, the profit garden of our generation. And there is more: DinnerDate uses the need of the Web 2.0 generation to connect online and take it to the next level. And that is exactly what the Internet for Peace Manifesto tries to promote:

Digital culture has laid the foundations for a new kind of society.
And this society is advancing dialogue, debate and consensus through communication.
Because democracy has always flourished where there is openness, acceptance, discussion and participation. And contact with others has always been the most effective antidote against hatred and conflict.

That is what I call ‘spreading the love’!

Sources:
http://www.internetforpeace.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrwQGBsuIh4
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/internet-for-peace-nobel
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2010/02/02/internet_among_nobel_peace_prize_nominees

Privacy Flaw in Google Buzz

The ninth of February, Google has launched Google Buzz, a product due to which the world’s number one search engine becomes an important player on the social media field. It provides a new way to communicate within Gmail and offers services similar to those of Twitter. The core philosophies behind Google Buzz are wanting to share experiences and wanting to share them in real time. Basically, it is a social status feature, with public and private settings for different posts. If you reply at somebody, a buzz is sent towards an individual’s inbox. To make sure that you do not miss any comment or post, there is a system to send you an e-mail whenever there are new updates. The e-mail shows the Buzz you have created and all comments and images that are associated with it. The system can also be used on various mobile phones.

Unfortunately, a huge privacy flaw has been discovered by Nicolas Carson of Silicon Valley Insider. When you first go into Google Buzz, you are automatically set up with followers and people to follow. The problem is that these people are made public to anyone who takes a look at your profile. In other words, who you email and chat with most, is exposed to the public. This can have serious consequences. One possible scenario is that a wife discovers that her husband communicates quite often with his ex. Yet, the good news is that the problem can be easily fixed by, for example, shutting off auto-following or making follower lists private by default as soon as possible.

Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-google-buzz-has-a-huge-privacy-flaw-2010-2

SNS for Business

Like any much-discussed phenomenon, social networking sites have to deal with their own set of prejudices. I would like to counter two of them: generally, one tends to think that SNS are mainly meant to entertain teenagers and twenty-somethings. Next to that, many people believe that social network sites are counterproductive when it comes to doing business. Employers are distracted from exercising their job, they get fired because of an unfortunate Facebook status, .... However, SNS can also stimulate enterprises. Today, there is a whole new range of websites that render endless business networking opportunities for professionals. They provide advice, offer various business tools and help entrepreneurs to find investors or new employees.

LinkedIn is probably the most popular and well-known social network site for businesses. It helps people to use mutual acquaintances to open doors that might otherwise be closed. Another example is Ryze, a SNS specifically for entrepreneurs. Very targeted forums are its strength. And have you ever heard from JumpUp? This is an entirely free website that offers resources such as a calculator that helps you predict the possible cash flow of your business. And last but not least, there is Go Big Network, a community of start ups that tries to match businesses with investors.

For more information, check out the following video from ABC News:

SNS: trend or revolution?

Media have discussed the future of social network sites abundantly in 2009. The word 'trend' pops up in almost every article and the end of SNS has also been reported multiple times. But are SNS really only a trend? Will they eventually dissolve and be replaced by a new fad? If this is the case, is it still useful to come up with a new type of SNS? Socialnomics believe it is. Impressive data about social media have been collected, which resulted into an interesting Youtube video worth watching:

The numbers mentioned leave no doubt that social media are not about to die. In fact, they can be seen as a revolution. Social media have changed the way we live and work and will continue to do so. This means that we at DinnerDate can sleep soundly. Creating a new SNS is definitely not a waste of our time. It could even turn out to be a great success. Fingers crossed!

Social Networking Sites over their peak?

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Netlog are very popular with marketeers and investors. Their importance is reflected in the way these sites are treated by other media, e.g. tweets of famous people are regarded as reliable sources with news value. Provocative Facebook groups can cause a real controversy.

Nevertheless, a few cracks are showing up. For example, the user numbers of Twitter are not rising anymore. Twitter has been a hype so far, but it could become a victim of its own success. The expectations may have been too high, which might lead to a huge disappointment.

MySpace, Xanga and Frienster are examples of how the success of a Social Networking Site can fade away. In theory, the same could happen to Facebook and Twitter. However, Twitter does not need to worry yet as the statistics are still in its favour: its users are nowadays more active than ever.

Sources:

http://www.newser.com/story/79312/twitter-may-have-peaked.html http://www.appscout.com/2010/01/twitter_a_victim_of_its_own_su.php