Google turns whole web into social network December 9, 2008

Google turns whole web into social network

By: Vincent Maher

It was just a matter of time before Google started to leverage the massive base of Google accounts to connect everyone together. As usual, this new Google project is ambitious – instead of creating a new social network as a destination site, the new Friend Connect service takes the network to where the people already are – on blogs and websites.

Friend Connect (www.google.com/friendconnect) comes in the form of a sidebar for websites and blogs that has a powerful viral invitation tool for getting people to join and become part of a community that centres around the content of the site. Website creators and bloggers can invite new community members from a list of Gmail contacts or share the site inside other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace etc.

The genius of it is its simplicity – much like the paradigm-shift brought about by Google’s Adsense – Friend Connect explodes the notion of social networking completely and enables any website to be a component of a global social network.

How does it work? Website creators log in to FriendConnect using their Gmail accounts, download some code and put it on the site. Once this is done, there are several gadgets that can be embedded into the site to enhance the community aspect once people have joined your network:

• a wall gadget so people can post videos, comments and other bits of social lint onto your site;
• a review gadget so people can discuss how cool or lame you are depending on their mood, and,
• most importantly, an OpenSocial gadget that allows you to embed OpenSocial applications inside your site.

The scale of it is grand, like the Israelites toppling the walls of Jericho with their trumpets, or the rumble of elephants and infantry descending upon the Rhône.

Forget the social network as a walled garden, forget social networks as destination sites – FriendConnect turns the whole web into a social network.

Jeff Palumbo—

The great social network debate is unified profiles -vs- singular social networks. Googles friendconnect is a giant leap for the unified profile. Under the unified profile we will see profiles connected to one another in a more conventional life fashion with out or with little reprensentation of where the profile was created. Under the social network side we have a community for bikers, schools, charities, etc. as one community that you and your profile are a part of. This is a great method for many community types such as an independent private school, a church or a charity where belonging to that community means more than belonging to a website like bed bath and beyond.

This relates to many businesses. How can I leverage my social initivitave with in this great debate. If your company is seeking the relestate of the profile you need to be an application or widget. If you company seeks the verticle community you need your own social network. Which is better? They both serve their purpose and hold value to the respective business that uses them. The unified profile allows the profile owner to dictate the content on their profile. The community allows an enclosed colaboration between people under a percieved community.

Friendster Receives Patent on Compatibility Scoring of Online Social Network Users December 9, 2008

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec 09, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Friendster, Inc., a top 20 global website based on traffic and the #1 social network in Asia, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the social networking pioneer a new U.S. Patent, titled “Compatibility Scoring of Users in a Social Network” (U.S. Patent No. 7,451,161). Friendster has been granted four patents since July 2006, validating the company’s early and continuous innovation in online social networking.

Friendster’s latest patent, granted on November 11, 2008, describes a unique methodology used to calculate compatibility based on expressed interests between users of a social network. This includes scoring the compatibility between two members of a social network based on their interests and scoring the correlation between two interests for a given member of a social network.

“In just six years, social networking has become both an industry — since 8 of the top 20 largest websites in the world are social networks — and a critical platform for over half a billion Internet users globally to share, communicate, connect and be entertained with existing and new friends, family and colleagues,” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer of Friendster. “A core component of the evolution of social networks is the ability of the online ’social graph’ to represent our real social life. Understanding the common interests between people establishes common ground to build and enhance relationships.”

Prior to this most recent fourth patent, Friendster was granted three social networking patents in 2006 and 2007:

— In July 2006, Friendster was awarded its first U.S. patent describing how people are connected in the context of an online social network, titled “A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks” (U.S. Patent No. 7,069,308).

— Friendster was granted a second U.S. patent in October 2006, which discloses the process of enriching other users’ profiles with text, video, pictures and additional content, titled “Method of Inducing Content Uploads in a Social Network” (U.S. Patent No. 7,117,254).

— In March 2007, Friendster added another patent to its portfolio, titled “System and Method for Managing Connections in an Online Social Network” (U.S. Patent No. 7,188,153 B2), which describes a technology that allows members of a social network to manage their connections by, for example, adding friends; personalizing their network through arranging, ordering and classifying connections made in an online community; and managing these connections at will.

“Since launching the first social network in 2002, Friendster has continued to build and own a significant patent portfolio. Friendster’s four patents address many fundamentals of social networking — establishing connections, distributing and sharing content, managing connections over time and assessing compatibility between users. Friendster’s patent portfolio is one of several assets of the company. Friendster anticipates receiving more patents, and we will continue to focus on growing our large global business into an even larger one,” said Kimber.

Friendster Leads in Asia and is a Top 20 Global Website

Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia, with over 65 million registered users and over 50 million monthly unique visitors from Asia.* In Asia, Friendster has more monthly unique visitors than any other social network. Plus, Asia is the largest market of Internet users (Asia has 41% of the world’s Internet users while the U.S. has only 19%), and Asia is the fastest growing region in the world.** Friendster has a loyal and growing user base throughout Asia in the following top 10 countries for Friendster: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea.

Friendster is a top 20 global website in the world in terms of traffic, serving over 18 billion page views a month.** Friendster is 1st in “user engagement” among the top five global social networks, with users spending an average of 187 minutes per visitor per month on http://www.friendster.com.**

About Friendster

With more than 90 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. Online adults, 18 and up, choose Friendster to connect with friends, family, school, social groups, activities and interests. Friendster prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use, friendly and interactive environment where users can easily connect with anyone around the world via http://www.friendster.com or m.friendster.com from any Internet-ready mobile device. Friendster has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking, with more expected over the next several months. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG Ventures and individual investors. For more information, visit: http://www.friendster.com.

*Google Analytics and Friendster Internal Data, September 2008

**comScore Media Metrix, Asia Pacific and Worldwide Data, September 2008

SOURCE Friendster, Inc.

 http://www.friendster.com

Social Networking for Charity November 24, 2008

Young donors and volunteers, snubbing traditional appeals such as direct mail and phone calls, are satisfying their philanthropic urges on the Internet. They’re increasingly turning to blogs and social-networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, to spread the word about — and raise funds for — their favorite nonprofits and causes. They’re sending Web-based fund-raising pitches to their friends and families, encouraging them, in turn, to forward the appeals to their own contacts.

At the same time, a growing number of charities — ranging from start-ups to established names such as the Salvation Army — are launching profiles on popular social-networking sites, hoping that young people will link up to the pages. Some are also encouraging bloggers to mention the causes on their sites, raising thousands of dollars in small donations from readers.

Many of the nonprofits that have embraced social networking are themselves run by people in their 20s and 30s, who already spend a good portion of their lives online. Some of them also appeal to donors by offering them tangible results of their gifts by directly linking contributors with recipients.

Social-networking sites, for their part, are offering new tools to help attract nonprofits and contributors. In May, a social-action start-up called Project Agape launched a new program on Facebook called “Causes,” in which users can create online communities to advocate for various issues, charities and political candidates. Since then, the program has attracted more than 2.5 million Facebook users, raising some $300,000 for nonprofits and politicians, says Joe Green, 24, the project’s co-founder.

Social Media ad Spending decline, demands inproved results November 24, 2008

 The global financial crisis and drastically lower consumer spending, as indicated by Friday’s Commerce Department report of a 2.8% drop in October retail sales, has forced marketers to slash budgets and seek better performing alternatives.

The consumer spending recession is quickly “trickling-down” to cause a traditional media depression. Research from Jack Myers Media Business Reports indicates up to double-digit declines for newspapers, magazines, broadcast radio and television in 2008. And there appears to be no good news in sight, as sales are projected to decline further in each of these media sectors in 2009.

The future of marketing is results driven advertising. Pay-For-Performance models stand to dominate in down market trends.

Greenwood High School is a web 2.0 innovator… November 24, 2008

  A high school as an innovator. It has happened. GHS or Greenwood highschool has taken myspace into their own hands, by rolling out their own schools’ social network. This in my opinion is an innovation that every school, religous orginization and charity in the country should follow. With the small cost (under $100 usd) of starting and operating a social network on ning, kickapps or boonex there is a million resoans to do this.

Social netowrk brings a tremendious and relitivly simple system to bring like minded audiances together in a managable enviroment. With a social network people of your like minded group are able to share, communicate, colaborate, in a safe enviroment that you can eaisly manage and market to.

The GHS Social Network, http://greenwoodhs.ning.com continues to grow. Our site is less than 2 years old and has more GHS students, alumni and faculty than MySpace. At over 2,600 members we have groups for each class year so you can pass around reunion plans; we have many forums, ranging from Wines and Spirits to Movie and Restaurant reviews to Missing Classmate searches. Our groups include the GHS Memorial Group – a place to remember those who had passed on; our Prayer Circle for those who are sick or grieving and know the benefit of prayers from others; Parents of AD/HD group; our Southside Rebel and Northside Knight groups and many more.   You can post photos – we currently have over 20,000 posted by the members. There is live chat with your friends, a place to list member owned or run businesses; create your own blog and personal page and so much more. This site is for GHS alumni, current students, faculty and staff. It is family friendly – so your kids can look over your shoulder as you surf the site. It is run by a GHS alumni who verifies all members before they are approved and closely monitors the content to ensure that the site never has any offensive material on it.   Best of all – IT IS FREE. So come and join the 2600+ who are already here at: http://greenwoodhs.ning.com The original GHS alumni site! To learn more about how you can get a free social network started for your educational facility, church orginization or charity please call Jeff Palumbo at United Media Partners 734-652-1846.

Social Networking/Charity Mashups November 20, 2008

Cause-Related Marketing in the Newest Social Media

In the last quarter three charity/social networking mashups have crossed my desk, each with their own distinctive tang. All three are in beta, that is, they’re works in progress. All are for-profit endeavors. All could benefit from a little ‘network effect’ love.

The network effect aka Metcalf’s Law postulates that the value of a network is proportionate to the square of the number of users. That is, a network only starts demonstrating value after reaching the critical mass described by the equation.

In other words, each of these outfits has some selling to do.

uPlej. With an approach that could probably only come from Utah is uPlej, which owes its business model as much to multi-level marketing as it does to Facebook.

Here’s how it works: you sign up as a member of uPlej and designate a charity, create your own profile, alert your personal network to your new uPlej page and UPlej dings your credit card for $4.99 a month. Of that, $4 goes directly to the charity, and the remaining $0.99 goes to uPlej’s operations and fees for processing credit cards and the like.

What’s the appeal? Well if just 4 of your friends also join uPlej, then your designated charity could receive perhaps $85 a month (more or less)! Here’s how: “The charity calculator works on the premise that each of your ‘friends’ tells just 4 people each, who tell just 4 people, and so on through 3 degrees.

“For every person you tell that visits your user page and signs up, you receive $1.00 for the cause YOU have elected to support. For every person they tell that visits their user page and signs up, you also get $1.00 for your cause, and so on through 3 degrees. Everybody that you tell that joins your network is your first degree, everybody that joins the network of anybody on your first degree (anybody that they tell), becomes your second degree, and so on. This gives you the opportunity, for only your $4.99 monthly payment, to raise a significant amount of money for your cause every month—simply by connecting with other charitable individuals.”

As I write this, you can choose from uPlej’s universe of 150 charities, a number they’re working hard to increase. uPlej is not a charity, it’s a fundraising company that uses the power of a networked downline to raise money for charities.

Just Cause. Like uPlej, Just Cause is a for-profit entity as well. But they prefer to think of themselves as a ‘for-benefit’ company, ala Newman’s Own and Peacekeeper Cause-Metics. Just Cause bills itself as “social networking with a purpose.”

Causes, individuals, and companies can all set up accounts and start talking about what their doing to make the world better, mainly through blogs. You can create or join user groups, post events, seek volunteers, donors, supporters, etc.

There’s more than 150 blogs currently being posted on the Just Cause site and about 60 nonprofits. Just Cause also publishes a magazine by the same name, expects to sponsor community events. The magazine is distributed with participating ‘city magazines’ in Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago and elsewhere. Just Cause says that the glue that holds all the pieces together is its approach to telling ‘stories.’

Do Good Channel from good2gether. The Do Good Channel is a kind of localized charity directory that allows you to search charities by type, participation, opportunities. But what really sets it apart is that it can also generates income for participating charities and enables searches that connect current news with charitable missions.

Here’s how. good2gether gives an Internet ‘widget’ to local TV, radio and newspaper media outlets. When a story is posted about, say, the crisis in Darfur, the widget points to local nonprofit resources that are working on the problem. The widget displays information in a frame on the media outlet’s website, which it can sell. If the reader clicks on one of the nonprofit links, it connects to a Do Good page where they find a profile of the pertinent nonprofit(s).

The profile or elements of the profile can be emailed, sent to Facebook, added to your calendar, etc. The profile is free to the nonprofit and relatively easy to generate. Better, the charity can sell the sponsorship of the page which it splits 65:35 with good2gether, which operates Do Good. To participate in this part of the service, the charity has to agree to charge a minimum of $100 per sponsor and limit it to no more six sponsors.

good2gether launched the Do Good Channel in Boston this month and is scheduled to add several top 10 markets per month over the next few months, including San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.

There are elements of cause-related marketing in each of these approaches. uPlej enables a kind cause-related marketing for your personal brand, (although there’s no reason why a company couldn’t be a uPlej member too). Just Cause could certainly host a blog about your cause-related marketing campaign. The Do Good Channel in effect invites charities to connect to sponsors.

Social Networks Emerging as New Charity Fundraising Platforms November 20, 2008

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“We’ve seen social media can be used to bring people together for all sorts of reasons; I really hope we can bring people together to do good,” said Anthony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com, a social blog directory on the Internet, as he launched a social awareness campaign to benefit DonorsChoose.org on May 28.

“Even better, this is a chance to find common interests within BlogCatalog.com and across the Web,” he added.

The campaign asked directory members (bloggers) to write about DonorsChoose.org and raise funds for the non-profit organization. DonorsChoose.org is a non-profit Web site that brings teachers and donors together to fund specific student projects that range from “Magical Math Centers” to “Cooking Across the Curriculum”. Any individual can search teacher proposals and fund specific projects, which are tax deductible.

“Internet social networks from MySpace to Facebook are receiving a ton of media and Internet attention, but we have yet to see an online social community come together to raise funds for a good cause,” said Anthony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com. “We see this as an opportunity to empower and recognize bloggers to collectively focus their blogs for good.”  

Berkman’s idea is to challenge directory members to draw attention to and raise funds for this underserved non-profit organization. BlogCatalog.com has set a goal to raise at least $25,000 for DonorsChoose.org, which is a member of the Omidyar Network.

The Omidyar Network is a mission-based organization established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam (pictured above). Berkman said depending on the success of the challenge, BlogCatalog.com will develop a community service page to host and promote more blog events in the near future. All donations made to DonorsChoose.Org will credit the blogger.

Charity Badge: Using the Power of Social Networking for Good November 20, 2008

Yahoo has come up with a way to mix social networking with charities and non-profits. Called Yahoo! For Good, it has partnered with ‘charity aggregator’ Network for Good and launched a personalized Charity Badge – for people to put on their websites, social networks or email. To promote the initiative, Yahoo! will match the amount raised by the user who generates the largest number of individual donations from their personal social network (up to $50,000).

The Charity Badge works by allowing website owners or social network users to create and publish a personalized badge (essentially a widget). You can even put it on your email signature. With the badge you can set up a link to your favorite charity, so that family, friends and others in your social network can donate as well. Or you can simply copy the code for an existing badge, that someone else set up for a charity. Check out the top 10 badges to get an idea of how this works.

There are even some stats to back up the campaign:

“According to recent studies, consumers value the personal advice of friends, family and acquaintances 1.5 more times today than in the 1970s and twice as much as traditional media (1). A staggering 61 percent of people surveyed report giving to a charity because a personal connection has asked them to make a contribution (2).”
(1) Source: The Influentials
(2) Source: Harris Interactive

Rather than set up my own badge, I chose an existing badge for a worthy cause: Global Exchange. Here it is below and I’ve also added it to R/WW’s sidebar. If you feel like donating, click the orange ‘Donate’ button in the badge.

Power to the people: The new era of social network marketing November 20, 2008

The world of social networks is a daunting one for marketers. At last count, MySpace.com had over 300 million users, Facebook boasted over 62 million active accounts and business networks such as Plaxo and LinkedIn featured over 15 million profiles each.

Social networks hold huge opportunities for brands. The personal, interactive nature of social networks mean that brands have the chance to present themselves to users in their own, personal space – allowing for a more memorable, individual interaction.

Added to this, brands can leverage the natural endorsements given through groups and personal associations with brands, almost functioning as free market research into their specific consumer set.

But, how do you successfully leverage your brand within a social network?

1) Create a brand profile

Register your own brand group as the ‘official’ offering on the relevant network. You can then make access of related groups and communities, inviting them to join this sanctioned brand group.

2) Continuous communication

To ensure your community is constantly up-to-date and involved, make sure that relevant content is always available and a host of topics offered to allow users to personally interact with the brand.

3) Encourage collaboration

Run a contest to devise a new campaign slogan or solicit entries for the next advertising spot – it will enable users to interact on a new level, whilst providing cost-effective creative straight from your target consumers!

4) Register your own network

A very big idea but one that is sure to win you prosumer praise. Represent the interests of your consumers by starting a social network i.e. a fantasy league network for a sporting goods retailer.

The people formerly known as the audience have transformed. Blogs and social networks have become vital tools in the arsenal of marketers worldwide and any brand looking to promote and protect itself should seriously consider the influence these resources have on consumer purchasing behaviour.

The new era of prosumers is here and they’re brand-savvy, marketing-aware and prime for the taking. Ensure your brand harnesses the potential of these new ‘super-consumers’ before you are left behind, choking on the dust…

Mercedes Intros ‘Generation-Benz’ Social Network November 20, 2008

Mercedes-Benz USA wants an invited group of Gen Y netizens to open up about the brand. So it is running a social networking marketing program called Generation-Benz, intended to bring younger consumers into the brand while giving Mercedes insights about the 20-somethings. The site, at www.GenerationBenz.com, via Los Angeles-based firm Passenger, is an invitation-only forum by which the company will mine the Gen-Y attitudes, lifestyle and brand preferences. The company says that with the new program it hopes to get a new group of consumers into the brand and shape the brand for the future. Said Stephen Cannon, Mercedes-Benz U.S.A.’s VP/Marketing, in a release: “When our customers join the brand, they tend to stay. Our Generation-Benz community is a natural extension of our desire to broaden the Mercedes-Benz family, and establish a dialogue with future buyers to guide us with the design of our vehicles and direction of our brand.” The company wants feedback and perspectives on vehicles, brand positioning and sociocultural trends. The netizens will preview advertising and marketing campaigns, and engage in real-time discussions. Mercedes-Benz is the second automaker to conceive and execute such a program. Ex-sibling Chrysler this March launched a similar program, also via Passenger. Chrysler’s Customer Advisory Board comprised some 2,000 consumers. Justin Cooper, co-founder, chief marketing and innovation officer at Passenger, says the scope is similar for all of the firm’s clients. “With Mercedes, it’s how they apply it.” He says that the majority members of Mercedes’ site are actually non-owners of Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Cooper says that the firm has signed another automaker to create a similar program.