This has been another busy week. What's new, right? Well this time, it's been courtesy of some seriously social social media, both in terms of getting out of the house / office and truly connecting with others.

The more time I spend in this field, the more powerful I realize the effect of communities. You just can't underestimate them - nor can you manufacture them. If a client came to me with a request to build a community, my counsel would be that it's not a Field of Dreams scenario. Communities take time, attention and true dedication.

Before B2B, Before B2C, There was F2F
There were big doings over the weekend with PodCamp Boston 2. It was my first time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - meeting old friends, connecting with people with whom I had only known online previously, and meeting a whole raft of new and smart people - too many to list in this post, but people I'll be following.

• SMT: Hitting the blogs on a daily basis, commenting and otherwise propping up the echo chamber is good, but when's the last time you stepped out to meet some of your community face to face? You just can't beat it. But don't take my word for it - see how Mark Blevis sees the world.
  

The Announcement We've All Been Waiting For
Google finally released what it's doing with regard to social networking: an initiative called Open Social. It's a collaborative effort among some of the most well-known socnets, including Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle. This is meant to thrust Google into direct competition with the likes of MySpace and Facebook.

• SMT: As I understand it, this is huge, as it gives you a single place to create profiles and leave updates - kind of a master control center for your social networking efforts. Breaking down the walled garden approach of Facebook is going to get a lot of people interested - especially from the business side, since Salesforce & Oracle are involved. Stay tuned.
  

What Were You for Halloween?
When the kids go out trick-or-treating and you're left to guard the castle from the marauders, it can be pretty lonely. Just waiting for the multiple doorbell rings (or sounds of eggs splattering). This year, Twitter connected me with a whole network of other guys in the same situation.

• SMT: Twitter is really amazing when you know how to use it. I felt like I was sitting around the room chatting with friends. Great updates from @DougH, @cc_chapman, to name a couple. And one final one that just cracked me up.
  

Labels: Google, pcb2, podcampboston, social media, social media takeaways, Twitter

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At 11/02/2007 12:14 PM,  Greg Verdino said...

Hey Scott - Two points regarding OpenSocial.

(1) as of yesterday, MySpace is participating in the Google coalition as well, so it's basically Facebook against the world at this point. Interesting.

(2) A far as your SMT is concerned, that's what everyone *thought* Google was announcing and early reports even made it sound that way, but -- if I understand it correctly (I could be wrong) -- OpenSocial is actually just an open API that allows app developers to build once run everywhere (except Facebook), but doesn't actually alleviate the issue that guys like you and I have: creating and managing profiles on dozens of networks. I'd have preferred the latter, but money talks and since app developers represent money, they get the goodies. Either way, still big news -- although not much different from Gadgets or the kind of platform Clearspring already offers.

G

 

At 11/02/2007 1:34 PM,  Scott said...

Greg - thanks for the update on OpenSocial. It should be interesting to see how the whole mass migration from MySpace to Facebook is affected by this. Too soon to tell if it's the magic bullet.

And if we individuals can't benefit the same way app developers can, perhaps we can only hope - or we can influence - that some enterprising young developer(s) get some collective brainpower together to tackle this problem. It's becoming worse every day and in my mind, the company that addresses this very real problem will be able to command a premium.

 

Social Media Takeaways #4

This has been another busy week. What's new, right? Well this time, it's been courtesy of some seriously social social media, both in terms of getting out of the house / office and truly connecting with others.

The more time I spend in this field, the more powerful I realize the effect of communities. You just can't underestimate them - nor can you manufacture them. If a client came to me with a request to build a community, my counsel would be that it's not a Field of Dreams scenario. Communities take time, attention and true dedication.

Before B2B, Before B2C, There was F2F
There were big doings over the weekend with PodCamp Boston 2. It was my first time, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - meeting old friends, connecting with people with whom I had only known online previously, and meeting a whole raft of new and smart people - too many to list in this post, but people I'll be following.

• SMT: Hitting the blogs on a daily basis, commenting and otherwise propping up the echo chamber is good, but when's the last time you stepped out to meet some of your community face to face? You just can't beat it. But don't take my word for it - see how Mark Blevis sees the world.
  

The Announcement We've All Been Waiting For
Google finally released what it's doing with regard to social networking: an initiative called Open Social. It's a collaborative effort among some of the most well-known socnets, including Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle. This is meant to thrust Google into direct competition with the likes of MySpace and Facebook.

• SMT: As I understand it, this is huge, as it gives you a single place to create profiles and leave updates - kind of a master control center for your social networking efforts. Breaking down the walled garden approach of Facebook is going to get a lot of people interested - especially from the business side, since Salesforce & Oracle are involved. Stay tuned.
  

What Were You for Halloween?
When the kids go out trick-or-treating and you're left to guard the castle from the marauders, it can be pretty lonely. Just waiting for the multiple doorbell rings (or sounds of eggs splattering). This year, Twitter connected me with a whole network of other guys in the same situation.

• SMT: Twitter is really amazing when you know how to use it. I felt like I was sitting around the room chatting with friends. Great updates from @DougH, @cc_chapman, to name a couple. And one final one that just cracked me up.
  

Labels: Google, pcb2, podcampboston, social media, social media takeaways, Twitter

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