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.

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 Network statistics of 2009

2009 has been a booming year for social network sites. Nielsen data show that SNS and blogs have become the 4th most popular online activity, ahead of email. The time spent on social network sites is growing 3 times the overall internet rate, accounting for almost 10 % of all internet time. TopTenReviews created a top ten of social network sites. Leader in this list is Facebook, followed by MySpace. Bebo completes the top three and is followed by Friendster, hi5, Orkut, Perfspot, Yahoo! 360, Zorpis and Netlog. The sites were compared on a couple of criteria, such as profiles, security, networking features and legitimate friend focus.

TechCrunch examined the social network sites in terms of users. Again we see that Facebook finishes first. According to TechCrunch however, this distribution does not take into account the real value of the social networks. Users in high-value online advertising markets are worth more than those in low-value advertising markets. Therefore TechCrunch measured the value of social network sites in terms of users and advertising. In 2008 MySpace exceeded Facebook, but this year we see Facebook fighting back. Today this popular SNS is worth $10 billion, while MySpace is only worth $6.5 billion. Bebo ($1.8 billion), Twitter ($1.7 billion) and LinkedIn ($0.8 billion) completed the top three. TechCrunch also calculated that Facebook accounts for 37% of all social networking value points. This means that if Facebook is worth $10 billion dollars, the value of the entire social network industry is $27.1 billion.

Since we are creating a social network site called DinnerDate, we can deduce some conclusions from these statistics. The criteria picked by TopTenReviews seem like a good starting point when choosing our priorities. Focus has to be on the profile, security and networking features. Furthermore, we also see that a lot of money can be made in the social network industry.

So, the goal for us at DinnerDate for 2010 is to take over a small piece of the social network pie by attracting a lot of users and advertisers.